Austin OretteWhile Africans opine about imperialism of the west and others, the least talked about and the most lethal of all the isms, is the imperialism of religion in African society.
We can criticize our tribes; we can criticize our politicians and politics but the moment we try to examine the role of religion in our backwardness we are considered pariahs. Soon or later a death decree or fatua is issued. Why is it so? What is so special about religion that cannot be criticized?
All over the world, religion has led to the death of many. Any comment on religion that is not in good light is considered blasphemy and the penalty is death. Why this and why Africans should kill each other because of foreign religions. How did these religions enter our society with so many disregards for the life of the African? I have thought about this and came to the conclusion that the fear that religions impose on its adherents in Africa is not only the fear of hell fire but also the fear of physical harm and social ostracism.
How did foreign religions become so powerful to supplant our cultures and assume primacy of place that we are willing to torture and fillet our neighbors because he does not agree with our concept of God? The two religions tearing Nigeria apart are Islam and Christianity. The homeland of these religions has no respect for the humanity of black people. These religions were the tools used to enslave black people and still use to this day to discriminate against black people in the Western and Islamic world.
The practitioners of Islam and Christianity in Africa will form a common cause to kill on behalf of the religion of these invaders. We see all these anomalies in these religions, but our people have been severely and thoroughly mentally enslaved that they are blind to these realities. They are blind to these abominations and continue to revere these foreign gods whose goodness is bestowed on Caucasians or Arabs only. They ravaged and desecrated Africa and the African people and we stupidly believe that their god that told them the African was inferior, and worthy of slavery is also our God. Until we abolish the imperialism of religion in Africa and Nigeria in particular, we are going nowhere with our so-called independence. The reason we cannot criticize these religions is a carryover from their homelands. When the religions were practiced by the villagers and so-called primitive people, it was okay to throw these primitive people into the lion’s den. When the kings adopted these religions for their political survival, it became sacrosanct to criticize these religions because doing so became equivalent to criticizing the king. The king was the church, and the church was the king. These religions became tools of conquest. The penalty for criticizing the king was death. This is how religion became sacrosanct. The king could do no wrong because the king was God. The adoption of any religion by the reigning monarch was the quickest way to spread any religion in early times. The Monarch is converted, and all his subjects are decreed to follow suit.
In Africa, attempts to convert kings were rebuffed and the king was overthrown, killed or exiled. The Western societies dug themselves out of this conundrum. They fought many wars, and Europe became scattered all over the World. A nation called America was born. America looked to the ills of Europe and distilled a blueprint of a society that is not beholden to religion. In America you are free to practice your religion, but the state cannot establish or practice a religion or impose any religion on you. Their constitution has stood them well and the old countries of Europe have gradually ceded their monarchies and religion to the personal realm. In fashioning the American constitution, the good Christians there still considered the African an inferior being that was only three fifths human. This is how far the western religion went in denigrating the African. Islam did worse. The only difference is that the Arab world has done so much to hide their brutality against the African. The Arab world is still under various monarchies and Islam is the religion of the Monarchs. Like their western counterparts, the Monarch is Islam, and any criticism of the king is the criticism of Islam. This is the reason why the crown prince of Saudi Arabia sent murderers to kill Khashoggi, who criticized him in Turkey. Since the King is Islam and Islam is the king, why has the Arab world not issued any decree that prohibits discrimination against Africans.
A stroll through any Arab city will tell the African he is not wanted. This is why I will prefer the west any day. They have made attempts to enact laws against discrimination. No such laws in the Arab world. In the Western world the people may be racist, but the system is being refined not to be. In the Islamic world, the people and their system are racist. It has been observed that during the hajj, punitive conditions are rolled out for those attending from black Africa. It is obvious that they only want the money. Don’t pay attention to the feigned nicety of their big cities.
As I observed earlier, in the Arab world, there is no difference between Islam and the state because the monarch is Islam. So, the concept of separation of the state and religion is still in the horizon (and the future when the church or the state will become so corrupted that people will cry and fight for reformation). It is already happening in Yemen. It is this system that is called Sharia that Muslims in Nigeria want to impose on Nigeria. They forget that Nigeria, unlike the Arab world, is a plural society.
Inspite of all these clear observations, Nigerians are at war with each other to prove the superiority of their imported religions. This is not a religion that originated in Africa. Why are we the ones to keep alive the religions that are dying in their homelands? The imperialism of religion has forced the African, who is a loving being to become the blood thirsty and bloodletting tool of western and Arab imperialism.
It is time we begin to jettison these foreign religions and rely on the culture that saw Africans through the travails of foreign invaders who introduced their gods to us without recognizing our humanity. Nobody should tell us about our divinity except us. Any explanation of our divinity by non-African (the so-called pastors and Imams) will always be fraudulent. This is why they don’t respect us. They cannot believe we worship their gods’ inspite of what they did to us in the name of their gods. Call it Christianity or Islam, they cannot talk more about God and love more than Orissa. This is a call for Africans to remove themselves from the worship of these foreign gods whose holy books were used to enslave the people of God that live in Africa. Until we take this drastic step, the African will always be a creature of pity and contempt. He will always be seen as a slave by the west and a kaffir by the Arabs.
Austin Orette, a Physician, Lives in Texas, USA
