Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Why 'traditional' African Medicine?


by Amanda Gcabashe


To have dignity, you need an identity. This is a step we have missed when discussing this animal previously called traditional African medicine and traditional healers and health practitioners — the official label given to the African medical system. African healers want to engage on the world stage and yet we have no uniform identity or label under which we can fly our banner.

I postulate that there is no such thing as "traditional" African medicine or its variants.

The existence of the word "traditional" suggests there is a "modern" alternative against which the traditional is to be compared.

I postulate further that there is no such thing as an allopathic African medicine anywhere on the continent — or the world. Therefore how can the only medical system developed in Africa be called "traditional"?

Graduates from allopathic medical schools in SA need interpreters when they go to work within communities in SA , as medicine in SA is taught in only two of the 11 official languages — and not the languages of the indigenous peoples of SA.

The only system of medicine practised in Africa that was perfected by Africans for Africans and which today is taught in each of the indigenous languages of the African continent is this very thing called traditional African medicine, which from today I say is African medicine.

Henceforth I am not a traditional anything. I am an African doctor versed in the Zulu tradition of medicine from the people of the South. From today I do not use traditional anything. I use and practise African medicine as perfected by the Zulu of SA and refined with the technologies of the world.

We can now differentiate between African medicine as it is practised in Nigeria, in Cairo, in Kigali, in Harare, in Maputo and in Johannesburg. It is under each of these branches that there can be an individualised standard that is assimilated into the global standard for African medicine.

From today, I am not burdened by a "traditional" label which reduces my African science to a second-class citizen whenever anything medical is discussed. My teacher spoke to me in my mother tongue with its clicks and nuances, which make me understand illness in the way it has been understood by the healers of the bodies and minds of the ancient African kings and queens.

Amanda Gcabashe

African Doctor


http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=154529 (http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=154529)