Ethnic identity can be harnessed to strengthen national identity — and this can foster a continental-based African identity
Ethnic consciousness in the African context mostly refers to a sense of acute awareness and attachment to one’s ethnic, linguistic, religious, tribal, clan and other forms of group identities. Such awareness can be short-lived or sustained, depending on various factors that trigger and intensify deep allegiance to one’s identity group.
The main purpose of nation-building projects is fostering a sense of an overarching national identity that transcends religious, regional, ethnic, tribal, clan, linguistic, racial and other forms of social divisions. While nation-building is concerned with promoting a broader form of nationality-based self-identification such as South African, Kenyan, Gambian, ethnic identity is concerned with narrower forms of group-based affiliations such as Venda , Shona , Amhara and Hausa .
We should acknowledge our collective, unifying nationality-based identity at the same time that we claim our ethnic identity. Our ethnic identity gives us a sense of belonging to a social group we are closely attached to and our allegiance to our broad national identity links us to members of other ethnicities in a political territory.
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