THE AFRICAN CONNECTION
“Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre”
(Pliny the Elder: Historia Naturalis)
We can never disconnect the material published at this centre from the lives and experiences of a writer. As every writer comes from a long chain of ancestral input, his or her writing is never free from the environment.
South Africa is often called the Rainbow Nation. Although our society is rife with poverty and crime, we live in a place where inside and outside touch; where we and they, this and that all muddle together, and both reality and reflection dance to the rhythm of earthbound feet.
In Africa place carries the soul of a person. Personal identity is never severed from the earth, and always strongly bound to place. Secured by this solid grounding, African people communicate freely with rhythm and song, dancing spontaneously to the archetypal pulse of their bodies. Rhythm unifies vitality into an engulfing power and releases a communal flow of energy during healing, work and play.
Such vigorous enchantment, however, is never claimed for the individual ego. People interact freely without a constant need for measure and conclusion. The South African freedom activist, Steve Biko, once said that Africans communicate for the sake of communication. Personal exchange is inclusive instead of exclusive, and does not need to be defined within rigid boundaries. People are seen for whom they are, not in terms of their function or purpose. Deliberate competition is a rude lack of insight because egocentric rivalry would decrease one’s standing in the group and damage an inner sense of self-worth.
This ability to give a human face to all endeavours is Africa’s most valuable contribution to a new global civilisation. No society can be complete without all the ‘colours’ of humanity.
At the centre, we gladly incorporate this metaphor into our philosophy of health, believing that health and well-being demand a similar reverence for the different colours in the spectrum of our individual biological existence.