Title: The Falsification of Afrocentricity and the Erosion of Traditional African Identity in the 21st Century

Jah-Xolani Radebe

In the 21st century, where identity politics and cultural revival movements gain global attention, the African continent finds itself facing a deep existential dilemma the falsification and commodification of Afrocentricity by individuals who neither embody its essence nor commit to the restoration of the African soul. Instead of leading cultural revival, they exploit ancestral symbols, languages, regalia, and rituals for personal fame, profit, and manipulation. What should have been the spiritual and intellectual awakening of Africa has been hijacked by charlatans, criminals, and cultural vultures individuals who posture as custodians of African tradition but contribute nothing meaningful to their communities.

Afrocentricity as Philosophy vs Afrocentricity as Performance

Afrocentricity, as theorized by scholars like Molefi Kete Asante, is a philosophical orientation that centers African people in their own narratives. It reclaims African agency from the margins of Eurocentric discourse. But today, Afrocentricity has been reduced to performance: men in leopard skins, women adorned with cowries and ankara, calling on ancestors they neither understand nor honor, while perpetuating the same systems of violence and greed they claim to oppose.

Many so-called Afrocentric influencers and spiritualists on social media wear the image of Africanity but operate like colonizers. They speak of "African law" yet exploit vulnerable people with fake rituals, fake initiations, and overpriced "ancestral" items. They invoke traditional authority to silence dissent, yet they cannot clean their own yards, educate a child, or feed the hungry in their neighborhoods. Their temples are Instagram accounts. Their ceremonies are cash-based frauds. They romanticize a past they do not live by and weaponize tradition as a tool of control not healing.

The Complexity of Tradition in a 21st Century Context

The 21st century is a world of global flows ideas, money, media, and ideologies move at lightning speed. In this complexity, many African youth search for identity in the ruins of colonial trauma and the failures of modern states. Afrocentricity, then, becomes a beacon of hope a return to roots, to dignity, to meaning. But this hope is frequently intercepted by opportunists who manipulate cultural symbols without any historical, spiritual, or communal grounding.

True African traditions were community-centered, spiritually grounded, and based on reciprocity, moral discipline, and ecological respect. In contrast, the 21st-century version peddled by pseudo-traditionalists is often authoritarian, individualistic, and monetized. It fails to respond to modern crises such as mental health, landlessness, urban poverty, youth unemployment with the wisdom African knowledge systems once held. Instead, it offers empty nostalgia.

The Fallacy of "African Law" in a Lawless Landscape

Many invoke "African law" to give legitimacy to their fraudulent activities. Yet where are these laws when women are raped and elders go hungry? Where are these laws when children are poisoned by mining waste, or land is stolen by elites with foreign interests? Traditional law, at its core, was restorative, rooted in consensus and balance. But in today's Africa, it is often invoked to justify patriarchal abuse, silence LGBTQ+ voices, and protect criminal networks disguised as royal families or spiritual leaders.

Traditional councils have been co-opted by politicians. Chiefs are often on state payrolls. Many cultural structures that should resist injustice have become rubber stamps for power. The "African law" being championed today is not law in service of the people it is spectacle. It is selectively remembered and selectively applied to benefit those in charge. It is rarely about justice or healing.

Toward Authentic Restoration, Not Romantic Deception

If Afrocentricity is to mean anything, it must begin with deep internal work reclaiming memory, language, spirituality, and ethics not as fashion but as foundation. It must mean rebuilding communities, healing the broken, protecting the land, educating the next generation. It must mean confronting colonial legacies, rejecting extractive capitalism, and refusing to imitate the violence of the oppressor in African clothes.

Afrocentricity is not for sale. It is not a costume. It is a way of being, rooted in collective survival, resistance, and renewal.

We must call out the cultural vultures who feed off our desperation and confusion. We must expose those who sell tradition without values, and spirituality without soul. We must stop mistaking loudness for leadership and ornaments for authenticity.

Africa needs a new generation of truth-tellers, healers, warriors, and builders not more scammers in kente cloth.

Conclusion:

The falsification of Afrocentricity is one of the greatest betrayals of our time. It replaces revolution with ritual, and justice with jargon. It silences real issues with the noise of performance. In this 21st century, we must demand more of ourselves, of our leaders, of our traditions. We must return not to the past, but to the principles that made African identity sacred, resilient, and dignified. Anything less is deception. Anything less is betrayal.