Abstract

In this chapter, I purpose to demonstrate that pre-colonial Africa had a concept of dignity grounded in moral practice and thinking that formed the foundations of social justice as an everyday lived experience. The chapter will highlight how various African Indigenous groups maintained law and order while upholding social justice of all the participants. Using examples from diverse cultures, the chapter will demonstrate how African Indigenous communities used customary law to control its members through encouraging good behaviors and sanctioning negative behaviors. The chapter recognizes that Africa is not a homogeneous society or entity or even a series of isolated ethnic groups that are comparatively similar (Shorter, Concepts of social justice in traditional Africa. Pro Dialogo Bulletin, 12, 32–51, 1977; Onyeozili & Ebbe, 2012). On the contrary, Africa is/was socially and culturally fragmented with diverse human groups that have adapted to a myriad of physical, social, economic, and cultural environments. These adaptations have been made more intricate by lack of uniformity resulting from many different independent traditions and inventions from within and without and the impact of contact with other ethnic groups. This has led to a rich array of socio-cultural and political systems of languages, cultures, and religions. This attests to the extraordinary flexibility, absorbability, and civility of the Indigenous African societies who exchanged ideas and practices over wide areas with no need of great movements of peoples or conquests. The Indigenous cultures co-opted ideas on their own and integrated them to their own systems of thought and symbolism without coercion. Therefore, while there is no single concept of social justice that can be termed universally “African,” there are several different experiences that have a relatively wide currency. These experiences relate to different social levels—the family, community, and the political structure—and to the distinctive styles of life dictated by the various environments and cultural traditions. These are the experiences that we are going to collectively refer to as “African.”