God is Still White, the Devil is Still Black

Sympathy for the Devil: Fear and Truth in the Imagery of Christianity

29 March 2013

“Where is the black-man’s paradise…?” – song by Morgan Heritage

I have just watched with very little surprise how a new series called The Bible, currently airing in the United States of Amerikkka is making waves at the Box-Office. The journalists were attempting to ascertain how such a laborious and classical theme is still gaining so many fans while there has been a steep decrease of church goers in western society. What made me sit down to write this however, was not the matter of whether the west is losing its religious zeal, but how religion is still an instrument of power and intolerance.

What outrages me is how the character of the Devil is portrayed by a menacing Black person while the Saviour of mankind still remains lily white, blue eyed and victimised. While this is not a surprise, it is disappointing to find that in this new century, when every serious historian acknowledges that ancient Israel or the areas around Jerusalem were populated by people of mixed ethnicity, we still find black evil incarnate and white innocence incarnated. There is so much that one can lament about this type of imagery, but suffice to say that in a world revolving around the supremacy of whiteness, black people have no say, the more Christian they are the more pious and unobtrusive: proper sheep following their hypocritical shepherds.

In most places around the world, religion is at the heart of many national conflicts. The paradox of this is glaring. For example, the very word Islam means Peace, but even a superficial look at the countries wherein Islam is the state religion there is massive amounts of corruption, violence and censorship. Religious freedom does not equal religious tolerance at all.

Christianity prides itself on the ‘Love thy neighbour’ rhetoric and it is supposed to be the epitome of charity and  compassion, yet history shows us that so much human suffering has been ‘blessed’ by apologetics, Popes, Bishops and even lay preachers have been at the heart of hideous crimes against humanity. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the chemical warfare perpetuated by Fascists in Afrika are just one example. 

Perhaps one should find a balanced view, to discover the goodness among the various or at least the most populous religions. Surely there must be a whole lot of positive attributes to Christianity, but for me, I do not see how it helps Afrikan people to determine their own destinies and see the divine within themselves.

 I would really love to simply ignore the whole business of religion since there are so many contradictions, especially since it is a subject teeming with the intangible; what the faithful call ‘the substance of things not seen and the evidence of things hoped for.”

But how can one ignore the continued demonization of the black human being. In fact this character casting works as part of the whole white supremacist project, which Black people support willingly and without any pang of embarrassment.

Most of them are still subconsciously convinced of the godliness and intellectual superiority of the white master, the silky hair of the Barbie doll and the divinely ordained whiteness of his God. Black is emptiness and devoid of any virtues until it is touched by the enlightening light of white civilization. This is a well-planned reality.

It is the year 2013, a time wherein so much has happened to prove to people globally that there should be equality of opportunity and respect for all human rights. Yet women are under severe attack from all fronts, black women are the most long-suffering victims of human (read: white male) recklessness.

Blackness today is not synonymous to humanity despite our forever claiming to be the possessors of Ubuntu/Humaneness. The reality of most black peoples lives is a bleak and hellish one. Our stories are still being told by our conquerors. Many European and Eurocentric researchers, academics and even scientists still view Afrikans as nothing more than an intriguing subject, a spectacle and a charity case.

Even one of the researchers I have quoted, who proves step by step and using Biblical evidence that Jesus and his ancestors were of Horite (worshippers of the sun god Horus)/North and West Afrikan origin is a European woman, still sounds like she is speaking about a scientific project instead of groups of humans. She does tremendous anthropological work on the Afrikanness of many if not all Old Testament figures, the founders of the kingdom of Judah and Israel. The only issue I hold against her is that her narrative has an apologetic Christian bias. But who listens to such stuff?

According to the modern and faithful believer, racial identity does not matter, because as the apostle Paul writes, your race does not matter as long as you have been ‘bought by the blood of Christ’. But then Jesus himself is known to have held his own ancestors in reverence. Yet we are supposed to treat them like demons?

How-long must we endure such insults and for what nefarious reasons have we been subjected to this fraud? As far as I know, our earlier ancestors were coerced into accepting this religion by the missionaries and evangelists who did not spare the rod on them. There is a well-known saying that when the white man came the native had the land and the European had the bible and the gun, today the white man has the land and the black native has the book, yet no significant gun-power. This is painfully true and it is something that most devoted Christians of colour do not want to acknowledge as they deem it simplistic and the talk of hard-hearted trouble-makers.

Many scholars have wrestled with this problem, but the reality is that most Christians, especially the ones who claim to be born again, do not read much of Afrikan literature and those who do, choose only the books that condone or pat them on the back as civilised. Anything that questions the status quo is seen as ‘of the devil.’ And since the devil is depicted as a Black person, it goes without saying that blackness is synonymous with temptation, opposition and evil.

How then shall we redeem the image of the earth’s most wretched group of people? There is a need to do this and sweeping identity politics away will not help anyone. We must act now and decisively since we are the ones we have been waiting for. Yet many battles and revolutions organised and executed by some of the most outstanding intellectuals and writers whose aim was to depict black Afrikans in a positive light. The proliferation of the Christian doctrine along white supremacists lines and negative depictions of Black people continued and as this popular film indicates, it is still being perpetuated.

Many of those who would lay the foundation of the first and second aspects of the

Tradition, (the tradition of speaking and writing as independent minded Afrikans) pan-Africanism and the antiquity of African civilization and thought, were simultaneously influenced by the revolution in Haiti and European/American thought,

particularly as it was propagated through Christianity.

 According to Rosalind Cobb Wiggins, prior to the 1730s most Africans in America were not Christians. It was not until the “Great Awakening” of the 1740s that not only European Americans but Africans held in various forms of bondage (certainly so-called “free” Africans during these times were in such a state of precariousness that such a term would hardly apply) came fully into the church.16

 In fact, after 1776 the unified states began passing legislation that used taxation as a means to enforce the teaching of Christianity.17 (Still Speaking: An Intellectual History of Dr John Henrik Clarke)

So how can an enforced religion become the salvation of humanity? How can it give people the tools to liberate themselves from various forms of mental chains? I say that it cannot. This is the reason why I would rather be persecuted as ‘confused’, heathen or heretic rather than join in on the festivities of Easter holidays and Christmas cheer. All these are imposed upon me by the dominant and predominantly white male institution called the church and its God is a blue eyed white male who does not resemble any of my ancestors nor my father of mother. Yet my mother is totally devoted to this super-elevated human being, all based on the unquestionable ‘rightness’ of what they call the Word of God, which to them means The Bible.

We need a resolution,a new heavens and a new earth, or else a new humanity devoid of religion. Let is tell our own stories before our real identity forever perishes in the narratives of others.

 

Menzi Maseko (c)

 

The End Of Politics

How to Deal With Unrepentant Thieves

“The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a bomb is to annihilate a peoples belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them want to identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle.” – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in his Introduction to Decolonizing the Mind (1986)

South Afrikan society is under a double or triple threat of dilemmas. There is the massive backlog of scarcely delivered electoral promises: everything from the ‘stolen’ or ill begotten land, to regular delivery of basic services and guaranteeing that the resources of the land are adequately distributed; there is the matter of social cohesion, a project that cannot be realised while there is so much wealth disparity and general psycho-social division. Well the leading government easily and affectively blame apartheid and even neo-colonialism for most of the above. But then there is the matter of power, or to put it strictly, the sharing and proper exercise of political and economic power.

While South Afrika boasts the ‘best’ constitution where everyone’s rights are guaranteed by law, the reality is that there is increasing violation of this constitution by the very ones that are meant to uphold it. The thing that confuses many people is this very naïve assumption that a ‘black government’ is guaranteed to deliver in everything that it promises. Nothing could be more suicidal that to give a person power and then expect them to share it fairly with you. But this is exactly what a lot of Southern Afrikans have done and the political elites, the business over-class and all those who blindly aspire to emulate them are laughing all the way to the bank and some are even helping themselves with large hectares of lucrative land.

We basically are living at a very volatile time and we have allowed ourselves to be ruled by a thievery corporation. What Ngugi said in 1986, is nightmarishly prophetic and even though he may have been focussed on the East Afrikan or Kenyan problem, it is quite clear that both the intellectuals, civil society and even the political class have learned nothing since then. Our people appear to have no appetite for common sense and we seem to have a pathological aversion for actual Revolution. That word again. Ever-since it re-appeared on our TV screens it seems to have been patented and repackaged by AlJazeera, CNN and all the other major broadcasters and media houses. For better or for worse, Revolutionary zeal has been placed on the spotlight since the so called Arab Spring. But the nature of peoples struggles appear to have stayed the same. There is not much clarity of analysis or an ideological campus among ‘strike leaders’ and community based organisations ( if they really and truly exist).

While ‘service delivery’ protests, police brutality are vehemently condemned by sections of our communities, the real culprits and the source of the problems is ignored. But there is hope. A show on the embattled RSA state television channel SABC2 called The Big Debate seems a huge step in the right direction. By placing politician, opinion makers and other people in power in the same room with civil society, the public and of course a global audience, it allows for some direct ‘commentary’ and the much needed transparency. But even though the show is in its infancy, I have noticed that so many people are planted by their respective organisations in the audience in order to drive their own agenda’s.

It is obvious that there is so much work to be done. There is severe cultural erosion that is taking place in Africa and the blame cannot all be laid at the feet of governments. What is important to consider is that we all have a responsibility to develop a distinctly pan-Afrikanist democracy here, beginning in Southern Afrika. Yet to even speak of pan-Afrikanism is seen as counter revolutionary among die hard ANC members. There was even a specific state of the nation address where the state President Jacob Zuma made fun of the name Azania by rubbishing it as a dream of an ‘imaginary country’. He has even been charged with not understanding the basic principles of democracy by categorically stating that what the majority party says or does or says is irrefutable since they are the majority. Clearly that was a kindergarten understanding of what the democracy they claim to uphold really is.

This is not another criticism of a single person and his party, it is rather an indictment on how we the citizens of a Southern Afrikan country have capitulated to state dictatorship and mediocrity. We appear to not have a clue how to mobilize ourselves effectively towards co-creating a better country for ourselves and coming generations.

There is a painfully accurate poetry-song by the infamous Last Poets; it’s called ‘Niggers Is Scared Of Revolution’; nothing could be truer and yet nothing can be more ironic. We as a Afrikan people have had so many revolutionary leaders during and before colonialism, and even now in the neo-colonial setting we can count many truly intelligent and transformative speakers, motivators and revolutionary writers, but their impact hardly seems to trickle down to the ones who suffer most from today’s imperialism.

While poor and mostly black people are continually under siege from what is increasingly becoming a police state, from economic uncertainty and global chaos, there are those in power who still feel the need to screw around with blatantly reckless promises and destructive policy decisions.

At a time like this, even a peace loving Rastaman such as myself finds himself fraternising with communists, socialists and even anarchists, all in pursuit of the right formula to ending this unrighteous world. Civil disobedience is a well-known revolutionary tactic, yet the recent socio-political realities in Egypt and other volatile areas clearly shows that neither violence nor change of heads of state is still no guarantee to state repression. Freedom remains just as elusive as it was yesterday. To make it even worse, the technological implements that are supposed to help us become more aware, more secure and communicative are the very instruments used by governments to ensure that every conceivable city is a policed state. Yes BIG Brother is watching us via our chosen tools, the Internet is being used for Cold War era types of spy-wars. No one is safe.