Customer Reviews

Kindezi: The Kongo Art of Babysitting

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I read the 2000 edition of this 1988 booklet. Kindezi is particularly a Bantu art of Babysitting. The term is Kongo/Kikongo and expresses the joy in taking this responsibility. It describes the art of touching, caring for, and protecting the child's life and the environment. It is a system of community and familiar babysitters and how to shape the kids. Children are not seen as "belonging" to any one parent, but being with both and the community at large. Kindezi isn't only about being good parents, but to care about life and understand humanely and spiritually the unshakable value of the human being. According to the authors women would have gained their freedom through Kindezi, enabling them to become the best economists.

Colonialism has largely broken down that system in various ways. It is time to strengthen and / or reintroducing Kindezi, the art of Babysitting.

This booklet provides valuable information on one of the working African systems of managing society, which in dire contradiction to the Western colonial system suffered a severe breakdown with all its consequences. As such it offers an important piece of the mosaic. The main problem of this booklet is its exclusive claim of problemsolving. According to the authors, the only reason, why Africa is starving (generalized expression from the book), is the breakdown of Kindezi. The degradation of African women would have the same single cause. Etc. As important as Kindezi is, it is hardly a quick-fix-for-all-and-everything.

There are also other / variated child care concepts in Africa. Read for example Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care. About the mainly colonial dismantling of matriarchy read for example Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society and The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. On the colonialists' schemes to downpress Africa, read for example Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. There are many other aspects, not all mentionable here.

Another criticism I have is the ill choice of metapher. "Cultural AIDS" versus "culturally healthy" and "cancer on the body of African intellectual ... growth". These are very Westernized metaphors, traceable to its worst times (e.g. Germany's). Even though it is correct that there were female warriors in Africa, they are hardly a prerequisite for functioning matriarchies, be they in Africa or elsewhere. To restore the military power of women as the booklet demands may be defeating the cause for a better world. How about dismantling the military power of men instead?

Last not least, this book offers very slim content. It features just 46 regular text pages including footnotes, several figures and a quite large font size. Some information doesn't need an 800+ page text book. Still I wouldn't have minded an elaboration and African examples leading to a multiple of page numbers than this booklet. Especially considering the price tag of several hundred Dollars, this work is available for in "acceptable" used condition at some times.