Commercialisation of the Osun festival
An interesting piece on the Beeb's site about the (over)-commercialisation of the Osun festival. Here.
I guess this is the fate of all such things in such times: as the Yoruba spirit-world belief system slowly withdraws in the face of the imported fanatical faiths, money fills the vacuum. Perhaps all that will remain of the Osun festival in the future are remnants of a faith that was: the rest will be Rio and dancing girls...
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4 comments:
What future? I guess you have read "war of the Saints" by Jorge Amado
(formerly posted as anonymaus)
Hey Jeremy, you returned to this topic. I thought I'd missed my chance to comment on the last one.
There is an interesting account of what the whole thing is about. Here is the link
http://allafrica.com/stories/200809070046.html
It does mention here that traders had seized an opportunity to peddle their goods, be it food or even aso (cloth).
I have every confidence that our Yoruba brothers and sisters will prevent the further erosion of this festival. Their sense of self, pride in themselves and their culture is simply too strong.
Look at those of Yoruba extraction who were sold (into slavery), even in the New World (the Caribbean and South America namely Brazil and Cuba) they fiercely maintain their spiritual beliefs. Even non-Yoruba now practice the religion, ie non-Afro-Brazilians and non-Afro-Cubans).
I beg let's not be nativist.
It is lack of money not lack of faith that kills many cultural initiatives in Naija. Don't worry, there will always be enough faith to go around. What we need is some serious cultural/economic packaging and repositioning to take festivals in naija to the next level.
It's sad and pathetic that the fight against commercialisation of the groove is no longer as strong as when Susan Wenger was young enough to overlook it, and now the excuse is that she's old and there's no one to fight, so everyones just going to sit and watch as MTN yellow-fies the sculptures.
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