Secure culture, insure future

Secure culture, insure future

Given the rate at which the world is going amok with our cultural values, religious teachings and traditional safeguards being thrown overboard by the young and the old alike, perhaps nothing is more important to the sustenance of societies than cultural security.  This is because when one’s culture is lost, one’s soul is missing and one’s future is in peril.

Culture is the totality of a person’s essence, “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Functionally, based on the ideas of the late Prof. Ali Mazrui, culture serves as lenses of perception, spring of motivation, standard of judgement, basis of stratification, means of communication, basis of identity and tool for defining production and consumption while also influencing them. To insure and assure a people’s future, it is always crucial to secure their culture.

The term “cultural security” was first used in 1916 and it started to gain prominence beginning from 1930. Its usage peaked in 1944 before it began  to decline considerably from 1951. But beginning from 2000, it started to assume more relevance and steady increase in use again. Though securitising culture is all about safeguarding beliefs and traditions against corruption or even extinction, cultural security is viewed differently from one place to another.