THE EFFECT OF GLOBALIZATION ON NIGERIA CULTURE

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationship of culture, people and economic activity. While culture on the other hand, is the recognition of good literature, enjoyment of good music, food and arts. According to Anthropologist Edward B. Taylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871.  Taylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society"(Taylor).

              Globalization has brought positive and negative effect. As an African I would say that globalization has more negative effect than positive on our culture. It has affected our language, the way we dress, respect for our elders and ultimately our environment. Irrespective of the above, there are some positive effect of globalization such as well-developed cities, sophisticated machineries and the ever changing/improving technologies

              According to World Council of churches “no culture is possible without a language. It is an important perquisites and therefore to kill the language is to kill culture”(World Council of Churches). I must say I far for Africa she is rapidly loosing its identity.  Nigeria is a good example. Without prejudice, Globalization is gradually killing our language as the younger generation find it hard to relate in their native dialect and as they put ; "it is obsolete /old school to communicate in that wired language" their native language. English, French, Spanish and Chinese is perceive as ultimate.

              I remember my mother would tell us of how rude we were. She would tell us of how when she was a child she’d ask her parent virtually everything and anything before she does them because of the fear and respect she has for her parent. Unlike, what we have in recent times were children tell their parents thing like "how dare you take my stuff" or "what do you mean i cant go out".  Children no longer sit around fireplace at night to listen to stories, as my mother would say. Stories, that promotes integrity, peace, unity, love, and values of respect. Rather they prefer watching late night movies or playing video game

              According to World council of churches “the youth prefer the western beats to the local artist. They also prefer hair styles, shoes and clothing of the western fashion scene”(World council of churches). Africans generally respect their bodies and believes that a woman who does otherwise has lost her self-respect or has no elderly person at home to caution her. We can see that because of globalization women walk almost naked and call it “fashion” Oh well!!!.

              Globalization has brought about great technologies, sophisticated machineries that make life easy ; the fact that i can do anything and everything from the comfort of my room is trilling "Especially going to school without even leaving the comfort of my house lol". But with this advancement comes problems. People are forced to live from hand to mouth because they use their salaries to buy these so called new invented machineries or items. The reason they do this is because nobody wants to be left behind. Everyone wants to go with “the flow”. Nobody wants to feel or be seen as outdated.

              The advancement in technology has not only damaged the physical environment with the emission a high percentage of carbon dioxide but it has also changed the temperature thereby causing Global Warming. Pollution, another product of globalization: our soil, water and air have been polluted and this causes genetic impact on individuals i.e when a gene is altered, it alters the physiology of that individual hence producing altered enzyme which ends up causing destructive diseases such as Alzheimer’s, brain dysfunction and all sort of scientific pronounced diseases we have. Even when globalization has been seen as good because it has prompted growth in developing countries, which has made humans life easier, its effect i will clearly states out weights the gain. My mother clearly stated that people lived long in those days than we have now. Days when everything was simple and organic.

              I therefore conclude that culture is a strong tool for human survival, it is constantly changing and can be easily lost because in recent times, it exists only in our minds.