Our Narrative Through The Lenses of Culture | HILDA DOKUBO | TEDxDiobu
The speaker, a cultural expert, asserts that African culture is fundamentally rooted in storytelling—through songs, dances, and chants—and urges the audience to proactively reclaim and tell their own narratives rather than letting external biases, like those in cinema, define them. This need for self-representation is critical because colonially imposed narratives suppress the true history, values, and strength of African peoples. The strongest call is to take the "powerhouse that has put both radio, television and film in our palm" (social media) and use it to tell authentic, self-determined stories.
## Speakers & Context
- A cultural expert; filmmaker, actor, director, and producer.
- The speaker addresses the audience about the importance of African storytelling traditions versus colonial or modern media portrayals.
- The speaker notes the current reliance on social media to market products and determine artistic talent.
## Theses & Positions
- The culture and tradition of the speaker's people are embedded in songs, stories, dance steps, and poetry, which carry the history of the people.
- African storytelling is a collaborative process, exemplified by "Mama" relating a story and prompting communal singing.
- There is a crucial difference between a mere *walk* and a *match* (a confrontation), and between *war* and *victory*.
- The speaker's main argument is a call to action: to use modern media to tell the authentic story of the people, moving beyond colonial biases.
- African identity and strength are not defined by external representations (like cinema or social media).
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Wateride girl:** A personal descriptor related to the speaker's cultural origin/connection.
- **Storytelling:** Not merely recounting history, but an active transmission of identity, values, and communal memory.
- **Warrior's tactics:** Knowing how to confront an enemy and return home victorious, as opposed to merely fighting.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Cultural transmission:** Passing down history, values, and knowledge through communal art forms (songs, dances, chants).
- **Narrative Structure:** A complete story requires five stages: an Introduction, a Complication (conflict/trouble), a Climax, a need for Resolution, and finally, a Resolution (or sometimes, an Epilogue).
- **Collaborative Storytelling:** Storytelling is communal, requiring interaction, such as the story-teller prompting the audience to sing along to reinforce memory of roots and home.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Past:** History and culture were traditionally preserved through songs and dances.
- **Present:** The speaker observes the modern landscape dominated by media, including social media, which has transformed how stories are told, marketed, and judged.
- **Call to Action:** The need to begin telling stories *now*, rather than waiting for permission or an external authority.
## Named Entities
- **Dube:** A location mentioned in relation to the speaker's "wateride."
- **Kalabar extraction:** A term used to explain the speaker's cultural or ethnic lineage/identity.
- **Amayana:** A specific name that the speaker wishes to see written and understood correctly by the people.
- **Queen Kambasa, Bonnie, Akaso, and Wingi:** Figures whose stories the speaker calls for the community to tell.
## Numbers & Data
- No specific quantitative data points were provided.
## Examples & Cases
- **The Wateride Girl Story:** An illustrative, non-narrative sequence involving a boy running into a house, a girl with an antelope's head and a masquerade, and the search for "papa."
- **Historical Binary:** The tendency to view everything white as angelic and everything black as demonic.
- **Storytelling Process Example:** The speaker details the narrative arc (Introduction $\rightarrow$ Complication $\rightarrow$ Climax $\rightarrow$ Resolution).
- **Cultural Reminder:** The act of remembering "mama's roasted yam and palm oil and pepper and crawfish" through song is how "Mama wants you to remember home."
- **Media Comparison:** Contrasting the potential for *Nollywood* vs. being told the story only by Hollywood.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Social media:** Described as a "powerhouse" that has placed radio, television, and film in the palms of the people, demanding utilization for self-storytelling.
- **Filmmaking:** The speaker's profession; utilized to analyze scripts and media narratives.
- **Microphone/Chant:** The means used to facilitate collaborative, remembered story-telling.
## References Cited
- No formal citations of external works or papers were given, only references to cultural traditions and media forms.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Colonial Bias vs. Self-Definition:** The tension between adopting external, biased narratives (colonial bias, limiting names) versus defining one's own reality.
- **Oral vs. Written Transmission:** The traditional reliance on song/dance versus the modern need to ensure stories are preserved and told in the present day.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- Some suggest that the gods and goddesses of the people "cease to exist."
- The speaker counters this by asserting the ongoing respect for these deities and traditions, despite external doubt.
## Methodology
- **Ethnographic/Cultural Discourse:** Using performance, storytelling structures, and cultural memory techniques to argue a point about cultural preservation.
- **Rhetorical Address:** Directly addressing the audience's potential hesitation or misunderstanding ("You are very familiar with it. But listen to it.").
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The community must actively take ownership of its narratives using modern technological tools.
- The goal is to tell the "true story of who we are" to the world—a story of strength, trials, battles, and victories.
- The final rallying cry is a declaration of inherent strength: *"We are not weak."*
## Implications & Consequences
- The failure to reclaim narrative control means remaining trapped in the stories told by others, resulting in suppressed identity and diminished self-worth (as symbolized by the colonial bias affecting names).
- Successful narrative reclamation means asserting strength and agency on a global stage, rejecting the image of Africa as merely "broken woods."
## Verbatim Moments
- *"The African is a storyteller and I am going to tell you a story."*
- *"Write those stories now. Tell them to now."*
- *"BETWEEN WAR and victory. THAT WHEN THEY CALL YOU a warrior, it is not because you fight. It is because you know the tactics of confronting the enemy and returning home victorious."*
- *"I'm a Siri with four different designs representing four homes."*
- *"When will we become our own voices?"*
- *"Can we begin to tell their stories?"*
- *"Mama wants you to remember home and you remember mama's roasted yam and palm oil and pepper and crawfish."*
- *"Do we need to wait for Hollywood to tell the story of Nollywood?"*
- *"We are not weak. We're not those children with flies all over them that we see on social media. We're not those broken woods everywhere that they show as Africa."*
- *"Viva Nigeria. Viva to all of us."*