"What if I told you that for many African societies, the concept of the future doesn't exist and that instead of time moving forwards, time actually moves backwards.
This was the work of John Mbiti, one of Kenya's and Africa's greatest philosophers. And in 1969, he wrote something that completely reimagines the way we think of African time.
Mbiti says, "Time is a two-dimensional phenomenon with a long past, vibrant present, and virtually no future."
Using Swahili words, he describes the two dimensions of time. The first one being sasa, the now, the recent past and the immediate future which can be experienced. The second dimension is zamani. Zamani is the vast endless past where all events eventually go on to live forever.
But the future? In African thought, it barely exists because time is made up of events. Time has to be experienced in order to be real.
So because we can't conceptualize events tied to the distant future because they haven't been experienced yet, then therefore the future cannot constitute part of time. And this is why according to Mbiti African languages (at least the East African Bantu languages that he studied) don't have a word to describe the distant future.
In African time according to Mbiti, events create time. Seasons, ceremonies, a conversation: those moments produce time, and people produce as much time as they need.
An example that Mbiti uses from the communities that he studied is that a year is measured based on four seasons. Two dry seasons, two wet seasons. So a year is only over when those four seasons have taken place. So a year could take 365 days, 390 days. It doesn't matter the number of days in a year. What matters is that the four seasons have taken place.
And this is in contrast to the Western view towards time where time is a commodity, something that can be spent, saved, wasted or lost.
And according to Mbiti, this is why if foreigners come to Africa and they see people uh sitting under a tree, they would remark that, okay this, why are these people wasting so much time? But in African thought that sitting under a tree, it's not wasting time. It's either waiting for time or producing time
For me, I think this western idea of time as a commodity is what drives this western obsession of 'progress', 'development' and some promised future. And this difference shapes everything from politics, economics to how we live our daily lives.
Because in African thought, the golden age isn't in the future. It's actually in the zamani. According to Mbiti, the future is only a shadow until it comes to the present and then it flows into the zamani. So in that way time moves backwards. We are not the ones who move forward into time.
So of course wrote Mbiti this from a theological point of view because he was trying to explain the nature of African religion. But my main takeaway from the parts of the book that I've read is that unlike western cultures and religions with end of the world myths, African time has no end.
Seasons, years, birth, marriage, death, it's all a cycle.
Asante kwa kutazama, tafakari hayo and I'll see you in the next video."
Clearly, colonialism, racism and white supremacy are why Africa and/or black people lag behind in terms of 'progress' and 'development'.
Comments:
Bartleby on X - "“We cannot conceptualize events in the future because they have not been experienced yet”
This explains so much"
EJ on X - "lindynap Its crazy because like. Squirrels do it."
