The traditional religions of most Africans altered significantly as a result of colonial rule. Colonial rulers interfered with the African way of worship. Where the modes of worship conflicted with those of the colonialists, restrictions were placed on religious practice. African cultures were seen as primitive and were gradually impoverished through neglect and suppression by colonial hooligans.
As the Roman empire expanded into Africa, the conversion of Africans to follow a monotheistic faith such as Christianity started as far back as AD 300 under the rule of Constantine, the Roman emperor. Christianity was to become a dominant religion during the Roman empire, spreading across the North of Africa and the rest of Africa.
Polytheism, which was at the core of African faith, was beginning to be undermined by the spread of Christianity; Islam was also gaining traction and spreading in North Africa and Asia at an alarming rate. This made the Romans edgy as they saw the new religion about to displace them from their still tenuous position.
Many of those converted to Islam were not only those of indigenous beliefs but Christians. This gave rise to the crusades in AD 1096, a series of wars by Christians to win back “their” holy lands from Muslims; such crusades were brutal acts by greedy religious leaders of the West.
Later the Christian missionaries travelled through Africa, working tirelessly to replace, by hook or by crook, both indigenous beliefs and Islam with Christianity. They came to Africa armed with Bibles in one hand and lethal weapons in the other. Christianity thrived under colonialism and, together with Islam, became a dominant religion in Africa.
Colonialism succeeded not only in intruding the religious beliefs of Africans and replacing them with a foreign religion of Christianity, but also — as we very well know — both the politics and economics of Africans were hijacked and looted through colonial thuggery.
When Africa gained independence from colonial tyranny, it was political independence and as Africans we remained largely economically dependent on former colonial ruffians. Scores of years later that has not changed significantly. On the part of religion there has been no movement to liberate ourselves from undue foreign influences. Africans appear to have completely abandoned their indigenous religions, although to a limited to extent many practice certain cultural beliefs — these, however, play second fiddle to Christianity and Islam.
What defies logic is the choice of Africans to continue following Christianity in the modern day, when in fact Jews — who we would have expected to be Christians, since Jesus Christ was a Jew — largely follow Judaism. Of about seven million Jews in Israel, only just more than 2% are Christians. Why do Africans follow Christianity when a significant number of Jews themselves do not follow this religion nor see Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Messiah?
The rebirth of Africa has become even more urgent under growing recolonialisation of Africa under the false guise of globalisation. Africans need to reclaim their religion and culture, and discard many of those which were imposed on them, by embracing Afrocentricism as the essential element of the African renaissance as popularised by President Thabo Mbeki in recent times.
Mbeki remarked: “An essential and necessary element of the African renaissance is that we all must take it as our task to encourage she [Africa] who carries this leaden weight to rebel, to assert the principality of her humanity — the fact that she, in the first instance, is not a beast of burden, but a human and African being.
“An entire epoch in human history, the epoch of colonialism and white foreign rule, progressed to its ultimate historical burial grounds because, from Morocco and Algeria to Guinea Bissau and Senegal, from Ghana and Nigeria to Tanzania and Kenya, from the Congo and Angola to Zimbabwe and South Africa, the Africans dared to stand up to say the new must be born, whatever the sacrifice we have to make — Africa must be free!”
I know Islam didn’t colonise South Africa, for which South African blacks should be eternally grateful, because Islam is a far greater form of mind control,and sociological control. Your thoughts would be still stuck in an eighth century mindset with no way out.
You never limited your article only to South Africa, but you, like many other Africans seem to conveniently forget that Arabs, through Islam, were equally colonisers of Africa. Is Arab Islamic colonisation better than European Christian colonisation because Arabs are slightly darker skinned than Europeans. Look at AfricanIslamic countries today; very little freedom to think for yourself or question the leadership there.
Interesting because in South Africa, slaves were imported from Malaysia, and their Islamic religion along with it. Similarly, many Indian slaves were imported with their Hindu beliefs. That’s a bit of a spoke in the wheel right there, because the slaves here were allowed to practice their own religions.
Africa did have Christian missionaries who were a dime a dozen. Some of them were opposed to apartheid systems and many Christian schools were the only source of education to many black people. Read up on Gerhard Sekoto. In many cases, the notes of missionaries are the only records of African history there are.
What further makes it interesting is that Christianity is not a native European religion either, but since you blame Christianity on colonialism, you have to admit that Europe was also subjected to this Christian colonialism. Which means your logic dictates that Europeans were really victims of colonialism in this whole crusade business.
Furthermore, during apartheid this philosophy of to each volk its own was followed. The homelands had autonomy over their religion and their political matters, as long as they kept it in the homelands. It didn’t work too well then and I don’t think such an ‘us versus them’ mentality is serving anybody very well today. It’s ridiculous to find African solutions to African problems. It is better to be empirical and search for solutions until you find one that works, regardless of its origin.
As for religion in general, it is a personal matter. Nobody can force a religion onto you, that’s a myth. We have a separation of the church and the state now – an idea that is also imported with colonialism, but an idea that works. Let’s keep it that way.
The irony is that Christianity has been around in Africa (in the form of Coptic Christianity) for longer than it was ever around in Europe. And its roots in Africa are deeper, by several centurities, than Islam.
Sentletse,
You say in response to GS tha “I’m sure you very well know that pre-colonialisation black people were prohibited from acquiring any form of education.” Who prohibited them? So what are you whining about colonists for?
Selentse while I am with you in feeling GS Van Zyl has a problem it would be good of you did some research into the relationship between Greece and Egypt. Much of the fundamentals of Greek thought was born in open admiration of the Egyptians, an admiration that was fundamental to Greek culture and not just stolen in the form of a few books. The western culture derived from the Greeks was in turn derived from Africa. The most developed early expression of it in Africa was found in the Nile valley because of the annual floods and the food production that resulted.
@GS Van Zyl
Quote:”I do not say this to belittle Africans but please, I am sick and tired of constantly hearing about the evils of colonialism, the suppression of African culture. Africans also benefitted from contact with Europeans.”
I think africans are also tired of being reminded of how “stupid” and “incompetent” they are while the west STILL keeps all the tools, resources and means to self development and enfranchisement firmly out of their reach.
Until the ordinary african has more say over the choices about who his government is and what happens to his countries resources and the West cease making these decisions for the african, then we can start talking about not blaming the west.
Secondly I am pretty sure that the african must also be sick and tired of having to thank the white man for bringing modern technology to africa when we all know that the technology brought over was not intended to benefit the african and rather it was intended to make the westerners stay in african more comfortable and what was left behind after “independence” was largely inadequate to cater for the large numbers of dispossed and ill treated masses.
Thirdly why does the african have to thank the white man for all these technologies when we no that the ordinary white had no involvement in the design,development and building of these gizmos.
Why does the whites feel they are entitled to be thanked when we know that many of these inventors and discoverer’s like galileo etc had to do much of their work under much jeering and even oppression and persecution from the religeous and superstiteous societies of europe and secondly there is a lot being crdited to europe when we know that many developments occured else where. So if any african want to return his computer to the rightful owner/inventor then he/she can return part of it to the arabs, part to the chinese and maybe some of it to charles babbage.
for some strange reason africans have been taught/forced/brain-washed to thank the white man for all things good and beneficial and blame the black man, communist or muslims for all things bad. I think the world is now really getting tired of this mono-pro-whitey way of thinking and its long due for something more fresh and innovative.
Remember when how swart-gevaar doctrine was forced down my throat at school, church and in the army.
I am now sick and tired of it and I am pretty sure that every black on the receiving end of that stupid doctrine nust be equally sick and tired of it.
For years now the black man have been taught that he is incapable and need the direction and guidance of the white and that stupid indoctrination need to be stopped once and for all if africa is ever to see the light of day.
PS. the previous post was written in irritation and unfairly states GS van Zyl has a problem. Truth is I emphatically disagree with the duplicitous balance of what he wrote, meaning in all that his problem is intellectual not mental and it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two.
Again, Sentletse, do some research into Alexander the Great . His greatness lay not in the army he led and who they killed but in the way he appointed the leaders of the areas he conquered to administer the areas concerned. His conquest was anti-tribalist and prototypically international in character.
You may not then wish to call him a criminal. (Criminal if you want)
@MidaFo & Oosthuisen
I do not believe blacks are stupid and incompetent – truth is that there are blacks, many blacks, out there that are more intelligent and competent than me. If you read in one of my previous posts I also clearly state that Caucasians are in no way superior to any other race.
My main gripe is against Afrocentrism. I love history and do not like it being twisted in the way Sentlentse does to suit his views about Greeks, Egyptians and Africans.
As white South Africans we have to face history daily. Seen in current times our history in South Africa it has been that of the oppressor. Something that I am indeed not proud of. I own up to the fact, and I also support the ideas of affirmative action and BBBEE.
Sentlentse and his Afrocentrist friends however wants to revise history to empower blacks. They doing this by accusing Greeks, Romans and other Europeans of theft. That is not something I can accept.
@Pyrokinetix
You are right, I have a gap there, will fix it. Thanks for the information.
@Oosthuizen
Quote “For years now the black man have been taught that he is incapable and need the direction and guidance of the white and that stupid indoctrination need to be stopped once and for all if africa is ever to see the light of day.”
Should one race really be blamed for what another race believe about their identity? And besides, I cannot see how any race can indoctrinate another. People believe lies because their either want it to be true or fear it to be true.
I would like anybody to convince a Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Indian/Arab man that he is incapable because of his race.
“Pre-colonialisation black people were prohibited from acquiring any form of education”
It appears some readers here revel on insisting on any indication that a false step may have been made in discourse, without challenging the veracity of statements made through submission of facts.
By whom? Good question! Colonialism only became the order of the day in the late 1800s and continues to manifest itself today in one form or the other. Before Africa was colonised; there were Crusades which largely impacted the North of Africa; and subsequently the early Muslims spread their Islam by force, quickly conquering Arabia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Christianity also flourished during the Roman Empire and missionaries found their way in Africa. The continuing prevalence of Christianity an Islam in Africa undermined the indigenous cultures and beliefs; Africans unwillingly converted and submitted to the authority of these religious leaders who continued to preside over Africans and undermine their independence of thought.
By the late 1800s religion had already fertilised African soil for the seeds of Colonialism to sown!
Prior to the Crusades, there was this thing called Slavery, which already was an established institution when religious fundamentalists made their way into Africa. It’s not surprising that the Bible condones slavery; that those who subjected Africans to protracted subjugation used the Bible to advance their cause.
Are you suggesting there was no slavery in Europe or the rest of the world? The Greeks had slavery. The Romans depended heavily on slavery.
Both were polytheistic in nature, so I can’t see a reason to dismiss the notion that African societies did not make use of slavery themselves. In fact, there is evidence to support the notion that African societies made use of slavery. As you insist Egypt is African, then so slavery is African, as the Egyptians made use of slavery. The extent of which can be and should be debated, but nonetheless they did use it. Which begs the question why African slavery is just, and European or Arab slavery is unjust?
Medieval Europe depended on ‘slavery light’ (serfdom), in which people were literally born as subjects of their lord.
Some research indicates that even some native North American tribes were using slavery when they made contact with the Europeans.
To single out Africa is false. Furthermore, please enlighten us how the Christian missionaries, and to a lesser extent Arab slave traders would have ended up in much of the continent, before the era of colonisation.
The Sahara is a pretty decent natural barrier, for which the Romans and medieval Europeans had no way to cross. And the rainforests of Central Africa are not easy to cross either, especially without technological tools.
Half of the crusades did not even take off properly, or resulted in the sack of some European / Asia minor cities. Last time I checked my geography the sack of Constantinople did occur in Constantinople, modern day Turkish Istanbul. This caused a huge religious rift between orthodox and Roman Catholic christians.
It is true that Romans conquered Carthage (which was Semitic with origins in Phoenicia, which is not in Africa). It is true that the Romans subjugated Egypt, which was then a Hellenic kingdom.
By the time Christianity became the official (that is non-persecuted!) religion of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire was already doomed, and collapsing under its own weight. To suggest that Christianity was flourishing in a politically disintegrating empire, in which civil war was rife, whilst being overrun by various polytheistic “barbarians”, is stretching it.
It is true that Islam conquered much of North Africa in the 7th and 8th century AD. But pray tell me, how many ended up in DRC, in Tanzania, in Uganda, or even further south?
All you do is imply that African society was peaceful, tranquil and paradise on earth. Ask the Khoi and the San about the Zulus and you will get a different picture.
I think I understand your main point Sentletse, and this is a debate that has been missing in Africa for a long time.
What most of your detractors fail to recognise is that religious conversation was the final nail i the coffin when conquering foreign peoples. Taking their land is the first step, political subjugation the 2nd, and finally, colonising their minds and souls.
There has been a long history of Africans seeking to liberate themselves from having to pray to very Aryan looking white men and Gods with long flowing white beards. Rastafarianism is perhaps the most successful example. Although even that is still much maligned and held to be almost comical by mainstream religions.
Christianity in a sense broke the back of colonial resistance in Africa, and it’s about time that Africa heeded the words of Bob Marley (forgive my fumbling interpretation): Most people think that great god will come from above and make everything alright, but if you know what yours is worth, you will look for yours on earth.
Mallencolly
That link about Albinos being hunted for their body parts for muti is interesting. It has been suggested that the reason there are so few albinos in the older generation is that they were all killed. Also apparently there are Kenyan witchdoctors crossing into Tanzania to find albinos to kill for their body parts. Presumably their own are already dead.
Luddite, Sentletse and others
You are so funny! PLEASE learn some real history. Christianity and Islam took over from indigenous beliefs EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD not just in Africa. The Celts in Ireland and Scotland, the Druids in England, the worshippers of Thor and Woden in Scandinavia etc etc.
Prior to Christianity and Islam almost all beliefs had a strong element of superstition and belief in witchcraft, often also human sacrifice. Central Africa was practicing cannibalism in the 19th century. Muti murders could still be a remnant of that belief in cannibalism. Because there were no cures for illnesses like malaria, bilharzia, sleeping sickness, yellow fever etc deaths were regarded as the result of witchcraft. In parts of Africa they still are.
Sentletse – I have suggested before you read “Africa since 1900″. It is a factual book about the history of Africa. You really are making a fool of yourself. At least read C S van Zyl’s link “The History Place” by Mary Lefkowiz, the author of “Not Out Of Africa: How Afrocentrism became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History”. And by the way EVERYONE in the world practiced slavery. Christians were also enslaved – by the Muslims and the Barbary Pirates. Have you never seen “Ben Hur”?
Sbu
I listen to Mathole Motshekga every week on SAFM. He is doing exactly what Mary Lefkowitz wrote about – teaching “Myth as History”. When he talks about the historic books of Timbuktu that Mbeki is lovingly preserving, he is talking about books of the slave traders written in Arabic. Since when was Arabic an African language?
The indigeneous populations above the Sahara, which were brown not black, did have written records, but there were none in sub-Saharan black Africa.
And don’t forget this man is the former premier of Gauteng, a member of the ANC NEC and the official “myth maker” for “The African Renaissance”
This week, on Tuesday, he was speaking on the topic of:
“Patriarchy and the Under-Development of Women”
which was all a plot by the colonial powers and not African at all. (Tell that to King Goodwill). Some of the quotes of what he said:
“Foreign solutions to African problems”
“Colonial powers introduced patriarchy”
The highest in Heaven in Christianity is a man.
Women are not in heaven (in Christianity)
“Women as minors” is not African but comes from colonial law.
In African astrology the “female principle takes precedence over the male” eg Venus is named after a woman. Duh !- Venus is named after a women in Europe as well!
At the same time he was talking about African Queens and how important they were. We all know there were matriarchial lineages, like the rain queen.
Then in the SAME programme about women he says that African lineage passes through the “blue blood” of the royal family and CAN’T pass to a woman because the lineage would change! He sounded just like Seb on Isidingo! Totally contradicted his own theory!
Also obviously he has never heard of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and her position in the Christian Church.
And in all his attacks on Christianity he has NEVER said a word about Islam in Africa.
Jeff
Is not the Ethiopian Christian Church the oldest in Africa – and was not Emporer Haile Sellassie a Christian?
Pyrokinetix
The Mediteranean land above the Sahara were not peoples by blacks but by browns. DNA has proved it. Their civilisations may be part of the history of Africa, the continent, but not of Black Africa.
As the author quoted above says – you are losing your real history by trying to expropriate the history of others.
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in the Old Testament of Bible. The Jews wrote the Old Testament around 600BC when they were in captivity in Babylon. The Creation as described in the Book of Genesis is a subset of earlier creation stories (called “myths”) from the Babylonians and before them, the Sumerians.
Enuma Elish is the Baylonian creation myth, recovered by Henry Layard in 1849 in fragmentary form in the ruined library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876
When writing the Old Testament, the Jewish writers converted all plural forms of “God” into the singular, but slipped up in places, and some plural forms remain.
e.g. Genesis 1:26 ‘God said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” ‘
and Genesis 6:1 ‘..The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose”…’.
Among the more interesting creation myths is that of the Dogon, a primitive tribe of some 300 000 people living on the edge of the Sahara in Mali. They had no written language in ancient times, and passed on the creation myth orally, and there are slight variations of it among the Dogon.
In the late 1930s, four Dogon priests shared their most important secret tradition with two French anthropologists, Marcel Griaule and Germain Dieterlen after they had spent an apprenticeship of fifteen years living with the tribe. These were secret myths about the star Sirius, which is 8.6 light years from the Earth. The Dogon priests said that Sirius had a companion star that was invisible to the human eye. They also stated that the star moved in a 50-year elliptical orbit around Sirius, that it was small and incredibly heavy, and that it rotated on its axis. This was 40 years before the existence of Sirius B was confirmed with telescopic photography for the first time.
The Dogon incidentally have a 50 year calendar, based upon the 50 year rotation cycle of the white dwarf Sirius B around the star Sirius A.
Returning now to the title of this blog, I disagree that the rebirth of Africa means discarding foreign religions. (lets ignore for the moment the Muslim – Christian conflict that has caused untold deaths in Nigeria).
In fact, discarding Christianity and Islam will certainly lead many (in Africa and elsewhere) to research the origins of man, and many of those theories will upset many. (look up Annunaki, Enki and Enlil and you will know what I am referring to)
Sentletse,
Your comment on Christianity and slavery is simply uninformed. The Bible gives advice to Christian slaves – it does not condone slavery.
And please do some reading about the life story of William Wilberforce – it was his Christian conscience (and that of his circles of friends) that fought every vested interest of the day to halt the slave trade. Maybe get the DVD of “Amazing Grace”.
@Lyndall Beddy (again)
Please don’t presume to lecture me about history.
First: I don’t disagree with you about Islam and Christianity not only being spread in Africa. You seem to have missed my point – Religion is used as the final stage in the colonisation of people. Grab them by their souls and their feet will follow. As for Islam – it was more the spread of Arabian power as much as Christianity was used for teh spreading of European power, Catholicism for Spain and Portugal, Protestatism for Dutch and English. Wherever Livingston went, Rhodes was sure to follow.
Second: You say no Sub-Saharan African has written records before colonisation. So what about the Ashanti Kingdom, with diplomatic representation in Europe? And then you mention Haille Sellassie as a Christian but forget about the older Abyssian Empire with a written, an ancient, language (also with diplomatic missions in the Jerusalem).
And even that example, of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, was spread through conquest, it too was an implement of Empire.
@Mike Atkins
One needs to make a distinction between individual conscience and organised religion. The first real drive to free slaves from the avidly secular French Revolution (admitly they swayed to and fro about freeing all slaves) but the churches were largely quiet on the matter for a very long time.
I’m suprised how little mentioned has been made so far of the Catholic Church’s role in subjugation of Latin America.
The argument is not necessarily about “discarding foreign religions”, but rather recognising which aspects of those religions are being used to keep people oppressed and preveting them from getting “uppity”. Organised religions, by their very nature, are about limiting free will: you do good because god(s) make you/are in you, you do bad because the devil/evil is in you.
@Everybody
This is going nowhere –
Let rather ask the question what exactly Sentletse and his friends wants to reinstate after they discard Christianity, Islam and western culture on the African Continent.
Please explain to me why it will be good to take such a step and if it is feasible with globalization in mind.
Luddite
The Ashanti Kingdom only developed after being given weapons by the slave traders. In 1745 the “Askanti defeated the armoured cavalry of the Dagomba, who in any earlier period would have chased them mercilessly out of any open country they had dared to enter” pg 13 “Africa since 1800″
The slavers armed inferior tribes with weapons to defeat other tribes so that they would catch slaves for them.
I don’t regard Ethiopia as Sub Saharan (which means BELOW the Sahara, not next to it). Ethiopia is on the coast and was therefore never isolated from cultural influences (including early Christianity – WITHOUT attendant colonisation, I wish to point out). Ethiopia was the least colonised country of Africa – colonised very late by the Italians, and not for as long.
Livingston’s heart is buried in Central Africa – Rhodes never got anywhere near that part of the world. Livingston, by the way, was an explorer, not a missionary.
MidaFo
You obviously did not read C S Van Zyl’s link. Why not?
Oosthuisen
“Until the ordinary African has more say about who his government is and what happens to his resources”
How is it the fault of the West if African Leaders are despots who sell their resources to the Chinese and won’t allow democratic voices to their people?
Sehlaphi
“How did the missionaries arrive before the colonialism?”
Easy! The explorers of the 19th century, like Livingston, came back with harrowing tales of Africa. Mission societies sprung up to send Christians to Africa. Protestant missionaries often arrived long before the colonisers, and often firecely resisted them. I should know – I am descended from some of those missionaries and have family records to prove their resistance.
The exception was the Roman Catholic Church which was usually strongly linked to the state.
“The Sahara is a pretty decent ratural barrier”
For whom? Arab slave caravans crossed the Sahara from the 9th century with slaves for sale to the Meditteranean Arab states, which ran on slave labour. I should imagine, however, that the Sahara was a pretty strong barrier preventing slaves from escaping – how would they get home?
“The rainforests of Central Africa are not eary to cross either”
Here you are right. Not just the forests but also the Tsete fly prevented the Arab Slavers penetrating further South – and saved tha Africans of the South from slavery.
Oldfox
The information about the Dogon is fascinating. Can you provide a link or reference? I have heard, also, about some interesting predictions of other black tribes. I do wish people would study real African history.
@ Lyndall Beddy
Holy crap Lyndall! How about you insert enough random qualifications into your argument that you no longer make sense?
GS, you seem to suggest that what is “feasible with globalisation”, whatever that means, is that which is western. What is wrong with Africans practicing their own indigenous beliefs? The West has no problem flocking to UAE in spite of that country being Muslim. The West has accepted cultures and traditions of other countries like Japan and China; why do they continue undermining those of Africans? Practice what you want to practice, but let Africans too choose what is right for them; allow them the space to define for themselves what their religious practices are.
I do not know whose response will further enlighten the debate. Shembe, Lekganyane, Modise, Yousuf Estes or Professor John Mbiti. My father is a pastor of a traditional African Church. It is not orthodox or Eurocentric but it is Christian and has an understanding of its cultural setting. I dare say this topic needs somebody who understands religion and spiritualism.
@GSvanZyl: “…..what exactly Sentletse and his friends wants to reinstate………. Explain to me why it will be good to take such a step and if it is feasible with globalization in mind.”
The future is simple: an African equivalent of the Kruger National Park with real Africans in it, managed by scientists. Here and there some watering holes and feeding places. Culling certain species if they infringe too much on the plantation. Sticking some electronic devices in them to follow their migration path. Nature will do the rest: birth control by malaria and other natural causes. Draught, flooding and other natural phenomena are just there to restore the ecological balances. Tourists? What tourists. Don’t need money, don’t need tourists. Want to join? Only if you a DNA tested pure African.
@Lyndall:
Absolutely. Ethiopia was “Christened” in about 400 CE… and had a Judaic influence predating that by centuries.
I am also fully aware of Ethiopian Biblical prophecies which came to pass.
As for the premise of this thread: trollish flamebait… and I don’t particularly care to debate the issue.
Yet there is a place for traditional African wisdom, mythology and spirituality… and it intersects with many other superstitions^W cultural beliefs in some obscured consensual Truth. Just as we in (from) the West have beheld Universal Truth in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and Krishna, so too can we marry these paradoxes as the state of life on Earth.
Afro-centricism to the exclusion of all other cultural myths^W truths and wisdom is plain and ignorant folly.
One Love.
-jeff
MARK, I’m confused, how does your father’s church become African yet Christian?
Hi Lyndall
Yes, Coptic Church was in Africa a long time before European Christian missionaries came with their efforts “to save the heathens from eternal damnation”.
I don’t know about Haile Selassie. I have some vague notion that his name was Ras Tafari, hence Rasatfarians. But what I know about that is dangerous.
I get really sick of this whole victim mentality. Its about time that South Africans bothered to find out more about in other parts of the world and how people were exploited everywhere by those who happened to be powerful. Serfdom, the exploitation of coal miners, factory workers etc. during the industrial revolution in Europe. My father worked in a coal mine when he was 15 years old. Women working down coal mines while they were heavily pregnant and then having to take their little children down the mine when they went back to work. Todays coal mines are 5 star luxury compared to the backbreaking work before there was machinery entered the mines. Little or no compensation for those injured either.
@lyndal.
I’ve heard this Mathole Motshekga character on SAFM too. Did he get his doctorate from the Walt Disney University. I’e never heard such drivel spouted by someone who claims to have a Postgraduate degree in all my life. I think he just makes it up as he goes along; hence his ridiculous contradictions in the garbage that emanates from where is brain should be. He makes Julius Malema look like a candidate for Mensa.
Sentletse
Mark’s father’s church is African and Christian, the same way Celtic Ireland is now still Ireland but Christian, and the Brits are no longer Druids but still Brits!
No Christian or Western imperialist is stopping any African that I know of from practising any religion that he chooses. Please, tell me what is stopping you from pracising your indigenous religion. In fact from what I gather many Africans do just that. Talking to the ancestors is not part of Christianity as I understand Christianity. It would be just as efficacious as retaining Christianity .
Of course the same cannot be said for those living in Islamic countries in Africa. For them it could be downrighy dangerous.
“JUST DO IT” as the Nike advert says.
@Sentletse
I know nothing about African indigenous beliefs… That is why I am asking you to inform us about it.
What I am exactly asking is if it is possible to revert to a previous culture that existed hundreds of years ago and still function as part of the modern world. I am not saying it is not possible
If you look at Japanese culture for instance it still has some the Samurai values and value systems of lets say 500 years ago, but it has also been heavily influenced by western culture. Western culture has also been influenced by Eastern culture to a great extent. This was to the benefit of both.
Why do you have this narrow view of how africans should live in a closed society with your ideas of african norms and standards and religions?
Luddite
What FACTS do you want me to verify?
Sentletse
The trouble with “Africans practising their own indigeneous beliefs” is that no-one knows what they were, as they were not written down, nor was there one belief system. The little we do know shows that the different tribes had different beliefs.
Sol Plaatjies did try to record some of the culture before it died out, but he was already living in the 20th century. He said the Afrikaner belief that there was a homogeneous “African” culture was insulting. For instance one tribe quoted by him believed that cousins marrying or having sex were believed to be committing incest – and would be put to death if found doing it. In another tribe, also in Southern Africa, marriage by cousins was permitted. What could be more different than that?
Jeff
Mothole Motshekga is no joke. Educated people who hear him switch off mentally and think it funny. It is not funny at all. If you Google “Kara Heritage” you will find his pedigree. If I remember correctly he was educataed in the States – but there is a vast body of revisionary history in the States. READ the link posted by C S van Zyl above, which is on that topic. I have boxes of notes of what he has said since he started on the airwaves. It is NOT funny at all!
What he is promoting is revisionary history for the “African Renaissance”, which is very similar to the revisionary medical theories on AIDS promoted by Mbeki. I do wish more people would listen and help. He is on SAFM every Tuesday just after the 11 o’clock news (Used to be on Thursdays before).
A few of the many links/references/articles/books on the Dogon:
http://www.crystalinks.com/dogon.html
Various creation myths incl .Dogon
http://www.adelaidegrid.warp0.com/custom3.html
Ethnomathematics and Symbolic
Thought The Culture of the Dogon
http://www.emis.de/journals/ZDM/zdm992a4.pdf
The Science of the Dogon: Decoding the African Mystery Tradition
By Laird Scranton
ISBN-13: 978-1-59477-133-0
A look at the close resemblance between the creation and structure of matter in both Dogon mythology and modern science
• Reveals striking similarities between Dogon symbols and those used in both the Egyptian and Hebrew religions
• Demonstrates the parallels between Dogon mythical narratives and scientific concepts from atomic theory to quantum theory and string theory
Oldfox
Thanks. Those links look fascinating. I am going to print them out and read them properly – once I have bought some ink for my printer!
@Lyndall. Is that where he disappeared to. I had the radio on last Thurs and he wasn’t on. I thought maybe they had wised up to him. I hardly listen to SAFM anymore it is a disgrace to the English language and an insult to the intelligence.
To me Mugabe is serious, Bashir is serious. I know what you are saying about that idiot, but most black people I know who know him also don’t take him seriously. Which could be a problem because we have more and more f***wits talking dangerous nonsense in this country.
@Lyndall
It is totally absurd of you to think that Ethiopia is not part of Sub-Saharan Africa.
And Livingston was most definately a Missionary. He started out with a mission in the Cape and moved north from there, spreading the word
Luddite
Livingstone would have had to stay put on a mission station to preach and teach in order to spread the word, not travel the land on safari. Don’t be an idiot. He actually stayed with my great grandparents when he arrived in SA. He did qualify as a missionary and was probably funded by them – but what he did for the missionaries was explore the continent.
Lyndall
Because missionaries never explored.
Jeff
I have been listening to Mohole Motshekga for months, and months, and months, and months.
Today neither he nor any of his acolytes was on the air. Eureka! Do you think someone read Thoughtleader?
Luddite
I trained as a teacher and became a liquidator.
Livingstone trained as a missionary and became an explorer. You REALLY can’t do both jobs! One needs a settled environment!
@Lyndall
I doubt there’s many intelligent people left listening to SAFM. That Motshekga character must have been the last straw for many. Since then it seems to be one ANC politician or MEC some other acolyte flapping their lip about some government policy or other. It all became too boring for words.
Where are the John Perlmans, Tony Lankasters, etc. of yesteryear: announcers with wit, repartee and penetrating questions.
Even Eddie von Maltitz seemed to have given up in phoning in to explain how the USA airforce is controlling the weather in the Free State.
Jeff
Eddie phoned in today – on the After 8 debate on the Expropriation Bill. He is one of my favourites!
That is what I am missing so much. They are now towing the party line and the new presenter on Morning Live keeps giving his own opinion, which is OK on a commercial channel, but NOT on the public broadcaster.
As for the planes controlling the weather – it is possible you know. It has been done for generations – especially in the USA. It will also be done in China during the Olympics. The clouds get sprayed with chemicals to bring down the rain. Who says that the Free Sate farmers are NOT stealing Lesotho’s rain in just that way, and no-one is listening to Eddie because they think he is a nut?
Lyndall,
You still listening! Yes, I know about cloud-seeding. I just don’t understand why the USA would be interested in the weather over Eddie’s farm.
He certainly is a “character”. I wonder when he does any farming because he phones in to so many radio talk shows at all hours of the day and night.
That new presenter is another one I don’t like. I don’t hear it much now as I volunteer at a school in the mornings.
Jeff
Eddie is a honey! He rents his land – does not own it, but is one of the most productive farmers in the area, AND he tutors 500 black children.
No, the USA would not be involved – but if you listen carefully to what he says – he says that the FACTS are that planes appear before the rain comes down. Not the USA – but maybe Free State farmers? It is possible.
I LISTEN to everyone. Sometimes ‘pearls of wisdom” come from “the mouths of babes and sucklings” Excuse the mixed metaphor!
It seems like everyone responding lives in South Africa. I live in Malawi. I am an atheist convert from catholicism (there are millions of us) because I learnt whilst studying for the priesthood what a load of bunkum it all is. I have often wondered how my Malawian friends have become completely brainwashed. “Where do you pray?” is about as common a question as “Where do you come from?” Reaction to the answer “I don’t” is met by absolute disbelief. I tell them that the Christianity which they practice bears no resemblance to the original having come to them by way of Rome and Europe changing considerably on its journey and, besides, I prefer my politics raw not dressed up as something else. But I do understand where Sentlketse is coming from but not exactly where he is going. I have witnessed supplication in the village to the ancestors by the village chief and his people at the foot of a sacred tree. Its just like the Christians praying through their saints. The traditional belief here is in a creator not multiple gods. There is no devil but harm comes from the evil machinations of ones fellow human beings who have turned themselves into wicked animals or who fly on winnowing baskets by night etc etc etc. Christianity here has spawned a dangerous belief in ‘Satanism’ which seems to tie in with beliefs in withcraft. If you have not been brought up with it why seek to find something that you personally haven’t lost? My advice is to give it all up and just look on your fellow human beings with compassion. Follow the basic tenets of whatever religion you have been brought up in knowing that they are universal tenets that predate organised religion.
This is an awesome blog. But telling the truth about Africa and Africans sends racists and Imperialists into a tizzy. Yet thanks to the Internet the truth continues to come out. All people are brothers/family; all from Africa; Africa has been plundered and continues to be raped by powerful corporations (using the armies and might of the taxpayers from powerful countries, whose citizens blame Black immigrants and Africa for the world’s problems rather than blaming their own corporations and pimped-out politicians of all colors).
@Publius Truth
Africa and Africans are no damn different to just about any other peoples on Earth. Just about every nation you care to think about has been colonised, and plundered by others. Their cultures, religions destroyed, or partially destroyed. Christianity destroyed just about every European culture that it came into contact with. Africans are no exception. The lower classes and peasants in Europe were as much slaves to the barons and landed classes during feudal times as Africans were at a later date.
People with military, religious and economic power have always dominated history. It just came to Africa and Africans a little later than it did to Europeans.
If you think that African culture and traditions can match the march of globalisation, you are living in a fool’s paradise and Africa will be left even further behind. This has nothing to do with racism or imperialism, it’s just a fact of modernity and livning in the real world.
“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. I gave up religion and belief in god/s when I was 10 years old, when it became obvious to me, as I looked around me, that god/gods were either useless or downright evil characters. So I figured that there probably weren’t any such things. Worship whatever you want it won’t change a damn thing about how the world works.
Ref;Sarkozy comment.It is well understood that the ancient Egyptians were an “Explicit Black People” this is a fact attested to by many:
Gerald Massey, English writer and author of the book, Egypt the Light of the World, wrote, “The dignity is so ancient that the insignia of the Pharaoh evidently belonged to the time when Egyptians wore nothing but the girdle of the Negro.” (p 251)2
Sir Richard Francis Burton, a 19th century English explorer, writer and linguist in 1883 wrote to Gerald Massey, “You are quite right about the “AFRICAN” origin of the Egyptians. I have 100 human skulls to prove it.” 3
Scientist, R. T. Prittchett, states in his book The Natural History of Man, “In their complex and many of the complexions and in physical peculiarities the Egyptians were an “AFRICAN” race (p 124-125).4
The Ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 5th century B.C.E., saw the Egyptians face to face and described them as black-skinned with woolly hair.5
Anthropologist, Count Constatin de Volney (1727-1820),spoke about the race of the Egyptians that produced the Pharaohs. He later paid tribute to Herodotus’ discovery when he said:
The ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native born Africans.”What a subject for meditation, just think that the race of black men today our slaves and the objectof our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, science, and even speech
How dare Sakozy say that ‘black’ africans never made and impact on civilisations, the problem that africa has is AMNESIA we have no knowlege of where we have come from.Mr GS van Zyl may say the that according to history the egyptians were not black but people keep inmind that history is written by the concquerers not the conquered. as I mentioned earlier Africa has biblical roots too,
According to the Bible the ancient Egyptians were descended from Ham through the line of Mizraim. Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). The name “Mizraim” is the original name given for Egypt in the Hebrew Old Testament. Many Bibles will have a footnote next to the name “Mizraim” explaining that it means “Egypt.” The name “Egypt” itself actually comes to us from the Greeks who gave the Land that name (i.e. “Aegyptos” from the Greek). In addition to the name “Mizraim,” the ancient Egyptians also referred to their land as “Kemet” which means “Land of the Blacks.” Western historians, however, say that the word “Kemet” refers to the color of the soil of the land rather than its people. But, the word “Kemet” is actually an ethnically derived term being a derivative of the word “Khem” (Cham or Ham) which means “burnt” or “black.” Ham, who was one of the three sons of Noah and the direct ancestor of the Egyptians, was black.
The Bible, in the Old Testament, repeatedly refers to Egypt as the “Land of Ham” (i.e., Psalm 105:23, 27; 106:22). The ancient Egyptians in their writings used their word for “black” to describe themselves and not just the color of their soil. Ham was named “black one” by his father Noah from birth. In other words, Ham was born black. His being black had nothing to do with a curse. The so-called curse of Ham was actually on Ham’s son Canaan and not on Ham himself.9
Regarding the ancient Egyptians, there is also considerable historical evidence, aside from the Holy Bible, that they were of Black or Negro origin. Even today the true Egyptian is not to be found in the cities but in the country sides and farmlands of Egypt. Most of the Egyptians in the cities carry a mixed ancestry of European and Asian, but mostly Asian from the immigration and invasions of various people into Egypt throughout the centuries. Very few people realize that Cleopatra was of Greek origin because the Greeks once ruled Egypt and she was descended from one of those Greek rulers. The true Egyptian found in the countryside, however, has dark brown to black skin and very pronounced Negro features. This is particularly true the further south one travels in Egypt. It was from the south that the original pharaohs and the people of Egypt settled the land. The original rulers and builders of Egyptian civilization were Negro.
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