Soyinka tasks stakeholders on culture

Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka was at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) to deliver the school’s second Eminent Lecture. Speaking on the topic, ‘Culture At Risk,’ Prof. Soyinka said there is need to resuscitate African culture because it is the only way to steer the continent out of its current crises that is tearing it apart.

Stressing the importance of culture, Soyinka encouraged stakeholders to separate culture from religion, saying that the marriage of culture and religion has done more damage to our traditional belief.

“Religion has been practiced wrongly and most of the time when we try to marry culture and religion, culture seems to suffer,” he said.Citing different examples to support his claims, he called for mutual respect of the various ethnic groups’ cultures, saying it is a way of ending the tensions and violence in some region in the country and other parts of the African continent.

“But can culture really be separated from religion,” asked some students who felt that culture and religion may not be mutually exclusive. A student who simply gave his name as Victor stated that religion dictates which part of culture is good or bad. “Most religion” he said: “Will not support some cultural tenets. This brings us back to the argument on the bases for morality.”