TOPIC TODAY: Are Your Children Tourists in Their Own history? Are you raising kids who can navigate Lagos, London Abuja, but get lost in their own father's village? Is your culture a "costume" you wear for festivals, or is it the soul of your home? The Big Question: When your children are adults, will they have a community to lean on, or just a digital profile to reference or to hide behind?
The Scene:
The group has gathered at Ola’s housetoday. In the living room, Ola’s kids are glued to a tablet, laughing at a YouTuber with a thick American accent. Outside, the usual noise of the neighbourhood - Lagos’ rhythmic chaos - continues, but inside, the air feels like a different continent.
Ola looks at his son and asks a question in his native tongue. The boy looks up, blinks, and replies in perfect, polished English: "Sorry, Dad, can you say that again?"
Elder Ephraim sighs, his hand resting on his cane. "You see, he said, "We are building beautiful houses, Ola, but we are raising strangers under the roof." Ofspring we are raising are turning out to be a community of sociocultural Aliens."
The Play Summary: The Thinning Social Cord:
A "Community Alien" is someone who looks like their ancestors but thinks, speaks, and dreams in a language and culture that is entirely foreign to their roots. In the rush toward globalisation and urbanisation, the "social cord" - that invisible line of language, village ties, way of doing things, and shared responsibility - is being stretched to its breaking point. When the home place, the village becomes a "tourist site" we visit once a year, even some parents live in with their children, yet the language becomes or turns into a "secret code" parents use so the kids won't understand, identity begins to vanish.
The Community Alien: When Roots Become Foreign Memories:
Play Characters:
• Ola: The "Globalised Parent"; worries his kids are losing their "village DNA."
• Jide: The "Modernist"; argues that a "hybrid identity" is necessary for survival in 2026.
• Jennifer (Psychologist):Explaining "Deculturation" and the pain of internal exile.
The group has gathered at Ola’s housetoday. In the living room, Ola’s kids are glued to a tablet, laughing at a YouTuber with a thick American accent. Outside, the usual noise of the neighbourhood - Lagos’ rhythmic chaos - continues, but inside, the air feels like a different continent.
Ola looks at his son and asks a question in his native tongue. The boy looks up, blinks, and replies in perfect, polished English: "Sorry, Dad, can you say that again?"
Elder Ephraim sighs, his hand resting on his cane. "You see, he said, "We are building beautiful houses, Ola, but we are raising strangers under the roof." Ofspring we are raising are turning out to be a community of sociocultural Aliens."
The Play Summary: The Thinning Social Cord:
A "Community Alien" is someone who looks like their ancestors but thinks, speaks, and dreams in a language and culture that is entirely foreign to their roots. In the rush toward globalisation and urbanisation, the "social cord" - that invisible line of language, village ties, way of doing things, and shared responsibility - is being stretched to its breaking point. When the home place, the village becomes a "tourist site" we visit once a year, even some parents live in with their children, yet the language becomes or turns into a "secret code" parents use so the kids won't understand, identity begins to vanish.
The Community Alien: When Roots Become Foreign Memories:
Play Characters:
• Ola: The "Globalised Parent"; worries his kids are losing their "village DNA."
• Jide: The "Modernist"; argues that a "hybrid identity" is necessary for survival in 2026.
• Jennifer (Psychologist):Explaining "Deculturation" and the pain of internal exile.
• Nne: The "Culture Bridge"; trying to find the balance between "here" and "there."
• Elder Ephraim: The "Sage"; reminding the group that culture is lived, not just remembered.
ELDER EPHRAIM:
Culture is not a museum piece you look at once in a while, a year at festivities in the village. It is the way you breathe. When you stop speaking the language to your children because you want them to "fit in" at the international school, you are cutting their roots.
JENNIFER:
This leads to Deculturation. These children grow up feeling like "aliens" everywhere. They aren't fully Western or wherever it is they live, and they aren't fully of their parents' background. They therefore live in a permanent state of "Internal Exile."
OLA:
But Jide, I want them to be global citizens! The world is interconnected.
JIDE:
There’s a difference between being a "Global Citizen" and being a "Community Alien." A global citizen has a home base from which to fly. An alien has no home to really call his or her own or to return to. We’ve turned ancestral "Home" into a place we only remember, make reference to or visit when a family member dies.
NNE:
It’s the "Myth of Return." We tell ourselves we’ll take them back to their roots "someday," but that "day" never truly comes. Meanwhile, the internet is socialising them more than we are.
The Identity Gap: Rooted vs. Alienated
ELDER EPHRAIM:
We must re-weave the cord. The "pasture" (the city or the foreign land) is for grazing, but the "kraal" (the home) is for sleeping.
JENNIFER:
We need to encourage Hybrid Identities. It’s okay if they love Marvel movies, but they should also be familiar with the stories of their grandparents. It’s about presence.
The Inquiry: Refusing The Metaphorical Exile:
The Group recognises that raising a child without roots is like building a skyscraper without a proper foundation - it looks good until the first storm hits.
• Language as a Marker: If the language dies in the home, the culture follows. Make the mother tongue a "living language" again.
• The Social Cord: Bring the "village" into where you live. Foster relationships with extended family that aren't just based on financial requests.
• Redefining Belonging: Use technology to connect with roots, not just to escape them. Virtual village meetings and language apps can bridge the gap.
• Elder Ephraim: The "Sage"; reminding the group that culture is lived, not just remembered.
ELDER EPHRAIM:
Culture is not a museum piece you look at once in a while, a year at festivities in the village. It is the way you breathe. When you stop speaking the language to your children because you want them to "fit in" at the international school, you are cutting their roots.
JENNIFER:
This leads to Deculturation. These children grow up feeling like "aliens" everywhere. They aren't fully Western or wherever it is they live, and they aren't fully of their parents' background. They therefore live in a permanent state of "Internal Exile."
OLA:
But Jide, I want them to be global citizens! The world is interconnected.
JIDE:
There’s a difference between being a "Global Citizen" and being a "Community Alien." A global citizen has a home base from which to fly. An alien has no home to really call his or her own or to return to. We’ve turned ancestral "Home" into a place we only remember, make reference to or visit when a family member dies.
NNE:
It’s the "Myth of Return." We tell ourselves we’ll take them back to their roots "someday," but that "day" never truly comes. Meanwhile, the internet is socialising them more than we are.
The Identity Gap: Rooted vs. Alienated
ELDER EPHRAIM:
We must re-weave the cord. The "pasture" (the city or the foreign land) is for grazing, but the "kraal" (the home) is for sleeping.
JENNIFER:
We need to encourage Hybrid Identities. It’s okay if they love Marvel movies, but they should also be familiar with the stories of their grandparents. It’s about presence.
The Inquiry: Refusing The Metaphorical Exile:
The Group recognises that raising a child without roots is like building a skyscraper without a proper foundation - it looks good until the first storm hits.
• Language as a Marker: If the language dies in the home, the culture follows. Make the mother tongue a "living language" again.
• The Social Cord: Bring the "village" into where you live. Foster relationships with extended family that aren't just based on financial requests.
• Redefining Belonging: Use technology to connect with roots, not just to escape them. Virtual village meetings and language apps can bridge the gap.
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