There is a silence about one thing that every Ghanaian Christian surely knows but does not want to make explicit: without the “white man” Ghanaians would be burning in hell alongside their pagan ancestors!
Probably every Ghanaian Christian believes the only way to God is through Jesus – doesn’t the bible say exactly that? They know all the Muslims, Hindus, traditionalists and all those other Jesus-denying religious people are never going to get to see God. Because of the “white man”, Ghanaian Christians are uniquely privileged amongst their brothers and sisters in Error.
We have a misconception that when the missionaries came to Africa, the ideas of Christianity were so powerful and so obviously right, that Africans immediately dumped their ‘stupid’ ideas and converted. The truth is somewhat different.
When the missionaries came, they found that Africans saw no need to swap religions. The Supreme Being and the demi-Gods they worshiped did the job; they manifested in their lives and helped them with their problems.
Leslie Probyn, who was the High Commissioner of Southern Nigeria described the problems facing the missionaries,
“…the Africans ‘are a very cautious race, and . . . will not accept new ideas merely because they were presented to him by a white man…’new ideas’ (including Christianity) are acceptable only when the Africans see that they are ‘obviously useful’.”
So the task was to make Christianity have an obvious practical use-value, and this is where the colonial state played its part.
The colonial state was able to offer useful things to converts, such as protection, preferential treatment, access to education and ultimately access to jobs within the colonial administration and all the privileges that came with that. Christianity became a ‘badge of honour’.
Without the colonial state, the missionaries may never have been able to convince Ghanaians and other Africans to become Christians.
Ghanaians traded temporal wealth – their natural resources – for everlasting life.
In this way colonialism was the path to redemption.
UPDATE 21/12/11
Obviously I’m following an argument to its absurd conclusion. I don’t really mean it. But I’ve just found this clip of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson who says “Thank God for Slavery” and he does mean it!
what you forget is that the gospel (as Christians believe it) wasn’t always passed down through force.
To lump all ghanaian christians into a group that would thank God for colonialism is insulting to those of us who are Christians and Ghanaian AND who believe that colonialism is at par with slavery as one of the most horrible things that happen in the history of mankind. It is ALSO fallacious to say colonialism would have been the ONLY way christianity could have been passed down. That is not true, because christianity as i’ve already said before was not always passed down like that. of course, colonialism is what happened, so it’s easy to sit back say it was the ONLY way.
Thanks for your Comments Lady Jayne and of course I was asking for trouble with this post!
Just to clarify a few points. I don’t think I’ve claimed that Christianity was passed through force. It was passed through persuasion.
At the end I say “without the colonial state the missionaries may never have been able…” acknowledging that we can’t really tell what would have happened without colonialism. However, missionaries have had and are having the same problem all over the world – non-Christian Tribes already have religions that work and do not see the point of converting. Colonialism in Africa was was the convincer. How do we reconcile something seen as ‘good’, with colonialism (bad)? That’s really the problem I wanted to explore rather than insulting anyone.
Of course the problem is exaggerated if you accept my biased view of Christianity in this article – which I and many of my Christian friends, don’t!
Hi Graham,
Bribery and threats of physical violence or death certainly worked very well in the past to coerce native peoples into losing their religion in favor of adopting christianity. Unfortunately for missionaries today, that would be looked down upon now….and you say that the promise of eternal life in heaven with Jesus isn’t quite enough for people to give up their native culture and belief systems that they’ve practiced for hundreds or even thousands of years? ‘Tis a shame these backward people don’t know what’s good for them. Yeah, that’s sarcasm.
Perhaps christians can take a lesson from the Muslims and offer up some after-life virgins to sweeten the pot?
Hi
I can see that this post will get a fair amount of comments from people, especially due to it’s emotive content – colonialism, religion and heritage! Just a thought from my point of view:
Christ supercedes culture and Empire. Therefore, Ghanians (and every other cultural group in the world) would be able to see for themselves the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit, regardless of how it was wrapped (i.e. Colonialism). It may be true that many people turn to Christ for what they can get from the deal, but that is true of Western believers also.
Undeniably, Christ was presented to the people of Africa via the missionaries. For all their faults, many missionaries dedicated their entire lives to share the good News of Jesus. Sadly, it sometimes got mixed in with politics, but again, not much has changed in 2010. Thankfully God is able to work in our lives despite our limitations and prejudices.
Blessings from South Africa
Delme Linscott
Hi Delme,
I really appreciate your thoughtful comments and also enjoy your website. Yes I will get into trouble with this one! Looking back it seems like ‘how many buttons can I press’!
I thought it was an interesting ‘problem’ that I’m interested to solicit opinions on as long as people can stay cool.
I guess the difference between Westerners and the early African Christians is the matter of choice. To some extent Africans were manipulated into a situation where they would not be able to move forwards without conversion. I actually don’t believe the missionaries were all bad – they must have been horrified at some of the things they witnessed. But there was a relationship with the colonial state which was possibly abused but was to the benefit of both the colonialists and the missionaries.
I am interested to discover how people would give up their belief for a strange new one, when their own beliefs were patently ‘true’. A document I’ve read on Nigeria and the missionaries influenced this post and changed its direction, suggesting a sort of coercive consent. This gave me one reason how conversion occurred but there may well be other ways this process happens. I suppose we could disagree with the methods but appreciate the outcome? I’m just not sure.
What a way to put it !
Yes, sorry about that Tetekai but this has been on my mind for a long time and I wanted to explore the juxtaposition of these two things. It is one question that my pan-African Christian friends have never wanted to discuss. Am just interested to explore this.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100915/tuk-terror-group-in-warning-to-criminal-45dbed5.html
you should read that post; especially, the first two paragraphs.
And I have told you about generalisation and lumping of Ghanaians before, haven’t I?
I think one can see the connection between colonialism (which is evil by all standards) and christian and islamic religions in Ghana and Africa. But there is no escape for you my friend because you gave too much power to those bastards who left their homes to disrupt a peoples culture and way of life.
And I fault you for your last statement too. If, as per your comments, convertion to christianity at the time was as a result of persuasion – more accurately, deception and subterfuge – how come Ghanaians at the time traded themselves and their lives for temporal wealth? There is more to the story. And the European thief should not have been here in the first place. But I like that quote.
There is undoubtedly a link between colonialism and religion but I am not sure that I would have phrased it as brutally. A common part of colonialism is the introduction of cultural aspects (e.g. social norms, work practices etc.) and institutions (e.g. church, education, bureaucracy, legal systems etc.) and so it is no surprise that those Ghanaians who were Christian (or smart enough to pretend) were more easily brought into the colonial systems.
Religion served a purpose for the colonial powers and vice versa. A nice symbiotic relationship don’t you think?
It is always interesting to see how the colonised population adopted and adapted the new ideas and systems introduced by the colonisers. I doubt any ideas were introduced and remained as planned without the influence of local people and practices. The same goes for religion where it is still possible to find syncretic religious systems which include Christian and local religious beliefs.
We should not forget that, not only were the local behaviours affected by colonialism, but the colonisers’ behaviours and cultures were also changed by their experiences. Of course, I doubt this change was to the same extent and it doesn’t forgive the negative actions of the colonial powers
Interesting point about the way the colonisers would also be effected by the population they were colonising. I like your point that ideas cannot be controlled – certainly the European Christian ideals were subverted as they blended with traditional religion.
The effects of colonialism past and present are visible all over Africa. Africans are torn away from their past, propelled into a universe fashioned from outside that suppresses their values, and dumbfounded by a cultural invasion that marginalises them.
Africa is the Mother of Humanity. Africa is the cradle of the first human civilisation and that for thousands of years…Africa was in the forefront of all world progress. The First Renaissance on this planet was the African Renaissance. Africa was “the first world” economically and technologically. Africans built the pyramids which even in this 21st century no one can reproduce.
The “Atlantic” Ocean was called the Ethiopian Sea as late as 1626 and the so-called “Indian” Ocean the Azanian Sea. Azanians stimulated trade with the East. The people of Azania whose country colonialists called “South Africa” through the British imperialist Union of South Africa Act 1909; mined gold and copper in Mapungubwe as early as the 9th century.
Africa has suffered the worst genocide and holocaust at the hands of the architects of slavery and colonialism. What is called “European Renaissance” was the worst darkness for Africa’s people. Armed with the technology of the gun and the compass it copied from China, Europe became a menace for Africa against her spears. So-called “civilised” Europe also claiming to be “Christian” came up with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. There was massive loss of African population and skills. Some historians have estimated that the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana) alone, lost 5OOO to 6OOO of its people to slavery every year for four hundred years.
Prof. Walter Rodney asks a pertinent question: “What would have been Britain’s level of development had millions of her people been put to work as slaves out of their country over a period of four centuries?”
As if slavery had not already done enough damage to Africa’s people, European leaders met in Germany from December 1884 to February 1885 at the imperialist Berlin Conference. The Belgian King Leopold stated the purpose of the Berlin Conference as “How we should divide among ourselves this magnificent African cake.”
Africa was thus plunged into another human tragedy. Through the Berlin Treaty of 26 February 1885, the European imperialists sliced Africa into “Portuguese Africa”, “British Africa”, “German Africa”, “Italian Africa,” “Spanish Africa”, “French Africa” and “Belgian Africa.” There was no Africa left for Africans except Ethiopia, encircled by paupers of land dispossessed people who were now the reservoir of cheap native labour for their dispossessors.
Somalia, a tiny African country, had the misfortune of becoming “British Somaliland”, “Italian Somaliland”, and “French Somaliland.” Colonial brutality on the colonised Africans knew no bounds. Here are a few examples of atrocities committed against Africans by colonialists. A British philosopher, Betrand Russell wrote about some of these colonial atrocities perpetrated by Belgium in the Congo in the name of “Western Christian Civilisation.” Russell wrote, “Each village was ordered by the authorities to collect and bring in a certain amount of rubber – as much as the men could bring in by neglecting all work for their own maintenance.
If they failed to bring the required amount, their women were taken away and kept as hostages…in the harems of colonial government employees. If this method failed…troops were sent to the village to spread terror, if necessary by killing some of the men…they were ordered to bring one right hand amputated from an African victim for every cartridge used.” (Introduction To African Civilisations, John G. Jackson 31O-311)
The result of these atrocities according to Sir H.H. Johnston was the reduction of the African population in the Congo from twenty million to nine million people in fifteen years.
The worst genocide also occurred in Namibia in 1904. Namibia was then a German colony. The Herero people resisted German colonialism. A well armed army under General Lothar von Trotha defeated the Hereros at the Battle of Waterberg. The German colonial aggressors drove these Africans from their land to the desert where there was no water. Seventy percent of the Herero population died of dehydration in that desert. In South Africa the Khoisan people were exterminated by colonialists after being hunted like animals and dispossessed of their land.
In 1830 the French occupied most of the coastal plains of modern day Algeria and gradually began to root their colonial occupation into local communities. Indigenous tribes supplied soldiers for auxiliary colonial troops called Harkis and the Jews were recruited as local officials. From 1845 rabbis from the French mainland were sent to local Jewish communities “to inculcate unconditional obedience to the laws, loyalty to France, and the obligation to defend it.” The French government granted Algerian Jews French citizenship in 1870, putting them on a par with the French colonists from the mainland.
During the 19th century most Jews in North Africa discarded local customs and clothing in favor of the French language, culture and dress. Their affiliation with French culture and power also brought Jews protection, as in Tunisia after 1855. After a legal dispute with the local Arab Prince about blasphemy, the French emperor Napoleon III intervened with a naval force in favor of the Jews. Jews were subsequently granted equal religious rights but more legal rights than locals: Jewish assessors were attached to criminal courts to provide input on the sentences incurred by Jews charged with crimes in order to safeguard a fair trial.
Jewish collusion with the French in the occupation of North Africa, ultimately encompassing Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, had also negative side-effects in regions which were not firmly in French control. In Morocco, which remained independent until the beginning of the 20th century, Jews were always targeted by the public when the French launched military campaigns against Morocco or other local powers defying French expansion. Jews were seen as traitors by the local population, which were deprived of the right to vote and were economically deprived in favor of French settlers and their Jewish henchmen.
In Algeria the number of French citizens reached 1.4 million in 1961 (13% of the total population), including 140,000 Jews (10% of all French citizens). Those settlers dominated public life in the big cities, enjoyed colonial privileges and were in control of the economy. Jews were often the middlemen between the French rulers and the local subjects, because they knew the country best. The local Muslim population resented French occupation, not in the least place by their display of cultural-religious power by erecting huge cathedrals and synagogues. The Algerian war of independence was an exceptionally brutal one with terrorism, torture and murder squads from both sides. It was been estimated that approximately 1,000,000 Algerians lost their lives in the struggle for independence.
The French in Algeria had the ruthless parachute general Massu and the OAS (Organisation de l’armée secret: Secret Army), which was ultimately suppressed by none other than De Gaulle. De Gaulle granted Algeria independence in 1962, which led to the exodus of French colonials (Pieds noirs: blackfeet) and their Jewish collaborators. In the newly founded Algerian republic, both Christians and Jews were excluded from Algerian citizenship in revenge for support for the French occupation.
Most Jews left Algeria for France but a substantial portion went to Israel, the post-colonial apartheid state in the Middle East. Israel was founded in 1948 by a Jewish settler-minority from Europe, which deposed the Arab majority by brutal expulsion. The remaining natives were politically disenfranchized and economically exploited, similar to the French occupation of Algeria. It was (and is) seen as an offspring of European colonial domination: for example, the Balfour Declaration of 1916 by the colonial power Britain, and the Israel’s siding with the colonial powers France and Great-Britain against Egypt during the Suez crisis in 1956.