Software and Drum

The Nigerian poet, Gabriel Okpara in the 60s wrote
‘Piano and Drums’ on the theme of conflict between
modernity and traditional Africa. IT Edge herein
begins an exploration of the link between modern
software codes (indeed, the entire spectrum of IT) and
cultural symbols or tools of spiritual expressions in
traditional Africa. Also in the weeks ahead, IT Edge
is hosting an intellectually rewarding evening on Art
& IT in Lagos.


The spirit of the dead reads codes

What the drum says is as loaded in meaning as what the
software does among the ‘cult of code writers.’ By
SEGUN ORUAME

If Rufus Olatuegbe could take up his physical body
again, he would probably have joined the mass of
humanity that danced that night across the three
villages out of the 12 that have direct claim over his
lineage.

 

But the drums were telling him not to return, though
they regretted that he had gone. Now that he had joined the watchers of the homestead to watch over the living, he was being enjoined to enrich the place of the forefathers with the wisdom with which he had enriched earth.

No one spoke. Not one human word was uttered that
night. Only the drum spoke. And as the dancers
thronged further into the depth of the grove, the
drummer maintained the same beat. Now and then, he
changed the beat but only for split seconds. There was
regularity about this. He dared not altered the
rhythm. It was certain that he was sending codes that
only the spirits and the initiated would understand.

For the uninitiated, they might as well assume that
they have been asked to hack into XP when they don’t
even know what an OS means. Between the drum and a
software application, there is certainly a link. Drums
inherently carry codes that only the initiated could
decode. Those codes are drivers of specific norms that
bind traditional Africa together. Most often, they are
the intricate link between the dead and the living.
And they provide solutions from the place of the
ancestors to the abode of the living.

Applications are drivers of specific solutions. They
resolve problems in real-time within industrial,
corporate and other institutional settings. While
there is a graphical user interface (GUI) between the
solution and the user in any given setting, the codes
with which the solution are written remain the
proprietary right of the developer and a secret he/she
is unlikely to reveal.

Those that wrote the codes of the drum in African
traditional setting are no different from those
writing modern software codes. Between the drum and
the software, there is a mystery that only the
initiated would understand. When the codes are hacked
into, there is an inherent sense of sacrilege in the
act of the hacker. In modern setting, the hacker may
serve some time or pay fine. But in the traditional
setting, the penalty may be death. The gods would
visit vengeance with venom upon those who expose the
tongue of the ancestors.

The scene described in this story took place September
2004, in Otou, a small town of about 28,000 people in
Owan East, Edo State.

 More…..

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