The immediate Past Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) of the Lagos State University (LASU), Nigeria, Professor Elias Olukorede WAHAB has likened cultural imperialism to ethnocide.
The Professor of Sociology stated this position while speaking as the Guest Speaker at the 62nd International Conference of Lewis and Clark University in Portland Oregon USA with a presentation titled: “Globalization, Commodification Marketization and Cultural Imperialism: Issues and Dimensions”.
He examined the treatise that globalisation is a major “soft power” in the reign of cultural imperialism constructing thesis on the premise of the assumptions and presuppositions of classical social theory.
He affirmed that globalisation has become a process of ethnocide by exterminating the very fabric of identity and personal life of African citizens and states.
The Don gave a series of actions and inactions that led to the erosion of African culture especially in the age of globalisation.
Wahab further asserted that “African society was brought into a modern world system when its dominating stratum was attracted, pressured, forced, cajoled and even bribed into accepting its traditional African system and values as inferior, outdated and mundane and shaping such system and values to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structure of the dominating centre of the system”.
Wahab, concluded that cultural imperialism is indeed ethnocide demeaning and derogatory to the proper growth and development of African society. The conference had participants from 18 countries spread across the world
