I think it's unfair to suggest 'the West' is obsessed with time in one way. There's a massive difference between the average German's approach to time (rigorously punctual), an Italian's (you will not get food or drink in public within 30 minutes) and rural Irish (everything happens slowly and goes on forever).
Not having spent much time with Africans, I'm sure there's a few Zim or Ghanaians who wouldn't be impressed with Amharic being taken as representative of the whole continent.
This is an interesting paper I recently read on linguistic relativity. Beware Sapir/Whorf.