In Africa, forget the State—separate Church and Family

A second wave of missionary-imperialism is underway across the continent, and this time—the crusaders aren’t dressed in the starched cotton shifts of Arab Islam or the flowing robes of Europoid Christianity.

Forget the stale-scented, grey-haired evangelists of old—no, our new preachers are clad in the fashionable denim of modern America, and many even spot the ubiquitous close-cropped hairstyle or cascading mops synonymous with the West’s young and progressive left.

They are perfumed, liberal and tolerant—in every sense, the spitting image of the long-awaited avant-garde vanguard of multicultural Europe; and they aren’t Bible thumping, they are Bible-dumping.

Attention all passengers—the Humanists have landed.

European Humanism has been making cautionary but incremental progress in the past in its African entry—careful perhaps not to make the same mistakes its Christian predecessors did.

So, as the last ebbs of the heady euphoria of immediate African Post-Independence die away, and more African governments are forced by bankruptcy, spiraling dysfunction and looming societal collapse to swallow their liberationist egos and return, bowl in hand, to their western masters for aid—the chronic missionary syndrome that afflicts Europe and her citizens has kicked-in, but only again.

Humanism is really nothing more than a reinvention of Europe’s Christian impulse to convert (or in this case de-convert) the African to a way of life that closely mirrors that of Europe and her satellites—America, Australia, New Zealand etc.

The ideas may be different, even antithetical—for Humanists have identified organized religion, especially the Christianity introduced to our fathers by their fathers—as Africa’s greatest problem today. It is in this spirit that they are applying themselves, quite liberally for sure, to denouncing the theologians, and attempting to substitute their social relevance to the continent.

In this latter undertaking, Humanism has hit upon what is perhaps its cleverest strategy. Rather than content themselves with mere verbal assaults on their opponents—as have the atheists, to their eternal frustration—humanists have chosen the more result-yielding route. We should say, the more tried and tested route.

The strategy is quite simple really—identify a people’s most pressing somatic and physiological needs, and contrive to solve them, however nominally. 

So—build schools, some clinics, and a few new houses for your first few converts—clear demonstrations of ‘capacity’ in a society like ours where privation abounds. Also, remember to identify a few bright-eyed, intelligent and ambitious young people among the natives, who’ve been locked out of existing structures of indigenous privilege—whom you accordingly train to become your cockatoos.

Do not tire in reminding them that without you (or your philosophy), they’d be at the lowest step of the social ladder. To drive your point home, take these young men in a great big iron-bird to your country, to behold how ‘progressive’ the mother society is, so that when they return home after a week or so—a combination of awe and appetite for the new privilege binds them in unwavering loyalty to you and your movement.

This is precisely the way the priesthood works—be it Catholic, Anglican, ‘Traditional African’ or Humanist.

In short, these ‘social interventions’ are aimed at giving privilege to the converts of the new ‘philosophy’—privilege which those who remain unconverted need but are unable to access (readily) through existing social and political systems. These are then used as evidence of how your faith (or your humanity) can move you to do kind and generous feats.

Religion has used it to gain the upper hand over its competition (usually rival religion) for centuries in any new society it has entered—and I bet the humanist ideologues of present day see no liability in employing the same tactics to their advantage.

Rather than joining those they can’t beat as the old adage counsels, they’ve decided to steal from those they can’t beat in order to build their armory and food stocks—a notoriously religious tactic, in its own right!

And when I say steal, I mean it as literally as it can get—because what Humanism is appropriating from religion is not just the methods of gaining footholds in a new society through (seeming) material philanthropy. Historically, European humanism is also a natural profiteer from two almost purely Christian phenomena on that continent.

The first is the creation of the contemporary centralized European state or ‘nation’—which more often than not was a territory forged together by a Christian monarch under whose Biblically-warranted puritanism and greed any constituent separatist sub-nations were mercilessly crushed.

The second phenomenon is that of the scientific and industrial revolutions in Europe which were fed and nourished by the looting and pillaging done by Christian expeditioners in Africa. And to do that, these expeditioners needed to make Africa religious—both to proverbially soften us up, but also to salvage their own conscience through the myth of manifest destiny.

In a nutshell—without European Christianity, there would have been no colonization of Africa, and without Africa’s colonization and subsequent plunder, there would have been no rapid material accumulation in Europe necessary for the secularization of that society. Basically, without Christianity, there would be no Humanists today.

My guess is that Europe, without Roman Christianity, would still be clutched in the talons of her own provincial superstitions and mythologies—Saxon, Normand, Viking or otherwise. And these primitive white nations would have amassed neither the capacity (scientific industry) nor the motive (Christian expansionism) to subjugate the rest of mankind.

A few things can be said in Humanism’s favor though—for one, they don’t do good to gain God’s approval or avoid going to hell. Like all human goodness—they act largely on a natural kindness that they at least, unlike their piety-drunk countrymen, are candid enough to acknowledge doesn’t sprout from some divine instruction.

But while the charity of European Humanists within European society may have a lot going for it, the attempt to transfer their operations to Africa is nothing short of a renewed (albeit revised) cultural imperialism.

Western Europe is becoming increasingly secular, and because of the success registered by the irreligious movement there, the temptation is to, as all well-meaning do-gooders are liable to, cast their gaze further afield and behold helpless Africans chocking on the stranglehold of Christian-tinted superstition and Islam-inspired conservatism.

They want to play savior. The children of Europe—who are direct beneficiaries of Africa’s Christian-led European imperialism—want to rescue Africa from the clutches of the Christianity introduced by their own fathers.

It is horror-stricken and righteous European Christians that ended the evil Transatlantic slave trade, remember?

It is brave Northern Abolitionists that went to war with their Southern kin—bled and died on the American Civil War battlefields—who eventually set the slaves free, don’t you recall?

The world is full of ironies, indeed.

***

When therefore I was invited (as part of an anonymous ‘general’ public) to attend a Humanist-organized conference in Kampala later today, I was less than enthused to learn that the meeting’s objective was to discuss How Church and State could be separated in Africa. I nearly laughed.

There is a curious way modern developmental language has been crafted to totalize the experiences of the world—disparate and highly localized though these may be.

Talk about the ‘State’ in Europe (and her satellites) and you have something to speak of. Engage in the same attempt over (some parts of) Asia and you just may have the beginnings of a point. But apply the same definitions to our beloved Africa and you may as well liken Donald Trump to a carrot-haired pumpkin.

The state in Africa is a sham—it is more often than not merely a gang of men (I mean the male ones) who conspire to lengthen their ever-tenuous hold onto extractive superstructures whose only two objectives are the maximization of tax extraction from a terrified and hapless population, and the monopolization of gun possession in their respective territories.

To say therefore that your objective is to separate ‘Church and State’ in Africa is to mock yourself and the society you claim to be interested in helping. It is to transplant indiscriminately the language and social-concepts of the West into a community that has no use for either—and has suffered a great deal from both in the past.

Even the Church—as defined in European terms—may not be comparable in the minds of the African masses to its Western counterpart, which has had the head-start of centuries of evolution and adaptation to the needs and demands of the European people among whom it is operative.

The Church in Africa was introduced as a tool for conquest, and in many ways still is. To quote Steve Biko—‘‘Whereas Christianity had gone through rigorous cultural adaptation from ancient Judea through Rome, through London Brussels and Lisbon; somehow when it landed in [Africa], it was made to look fairly rigid. It became the central point of a culture which brought with it new clothing and customs … and the people amongst whom Christianity was spread had to cast away their indigenous ways, which were all described as pagan and barbaric.’’

This attempt was not entirely successful though, so that the African Church became not merely a ‘European Church in Africa’—as was the missionary objective— but it became something that was not so much a Church (in the classical sense of the word) as it is an undefinable and description-defeating clustering of clueless people through whom sub-ethnic and narrow tribal interests could be expressed, helpfully sanctioned by Scripture.

It is not hard to find Anglican prelates in Africa who consort as freely with their rival faiths as they do with rogue elements in government. The concept of ecumenical-ism is indeed only alive and well in (black) Africa, because unlike in Europe where we have bona fide ‘‘Catholic countries’’ and ‘‘Anglican states’’—what we have here is a postcolonial hodgepodge of priests and congregants who will join any religion (or non-religion) as long as it shows signs of granting them audience with the day’s president or meeting their immediate existential needs.

It was quite common in Amin’s Uganda during the turbulent 70s to hear of former Catholic priests going by their newly acquired names of Mustafa and Abdul—merely to curry favor with the new Leader and his cronies. Today’s Uganda has become a similar playground for the Evangelical faith.

Faith in this part of the world is hardly ever a matter of conviction, as opposed to one of pressing daily survival.

I would like to argue therefore that if we are to have a debate about individual freedoms and self-actualization in Africa, then we need to look askance at both these Eurocentric ideas of ‘‘Church’’ and ‘‘State’’—which have time and again proven themselves to be as inorganic as they are un-adaptive to our people’s needs.

The only functional and truly organic social institution in Africa, thus, is the family—it is the one with the capacity to enforce loyalty, and either reward or punish individuals for falling in and out of its favor.

In fact, one may even be forgiven for arguing that the ‘‘State’’ in Africa is really the take-over of government machinery by a single family. Until that family is trounced by another and sent packing, everyone else must find a way of defining themselves relative to the ruling family; and either suffer or savor the outcomes of this new proximity matrix.

The family in Africa therefore has and holds the real power—both literally, as illustrated above, and obscurely through its far-reaching control over the individual.

It is the family that begets the child, educates and medicates them, celebrates their life, and buries them. It is family connections that find jobs for graduates and accept or reject potential spouses. It is the family that chooses which ‘‘Church’’ one will belong to.

Essentially, individuals in Africa* rise or fall on the strength of their families. By wielding such compulsive power over the citizen—the family is the real custodian of public interest.

Therefore, if anything is to be done about ridding Africa’s institutions of the overbearing influence of superstition and religious dogma—let the focus be on freeing the family. 

After-all, the State here is only as good as the family in charge of it!

©Surumani_Manzi

*[In saying Africa, I am of course aware that many trends are shared across our continental landscape, but this essay will apply in context mostly to ‘‘Christian’’ Africa south of the Sahara—my own experience with Arab North Africa not being reliably informed.]