Traditional African culture is examined in chapter 6 of The Eye is the lamp of the Body.  This is a theme that van der Walt has revisited a number of times.  Here he draws upon some African voices to examine some of the reasons for the poverty in Africa. Van der Walt writes not as outsider offering advice, but as an insider offering wisdom. African authors (such as Joseph Nyasani, George Kinoti and Peter Kimuyu, N. C. Dembetembe, Dia and Nyang ) are quoted at length to provide an objective view as possible. 

 

Van der Walt has done a great service for African development studies by drawing attention to these authors.  He concludes, rightly, that ‘Culture and development can only in theory (in abstraction) be separated, when we speak of culture and development. More correctly we should speak of development as (a part of) culture’ (p 184).