Religion and the Politics of Ethnic Identity in Bahia, Brazil

1. Introduction

1 Introduction Is a holy war raging in Brazil? By many accounts, evangelical Christians and practitioners of African-derived Candomblé are engaged in a battle for Brazilian souls. While I was living in Brazil between 2000 and 2002, for example, several reports of evangelical Christians attacking Candomblé terreiros (temples) circulated in the news. For some Afro-Brazilians, however, these attacks are more than just religious antagonisms. Many Candomblé practitioners equate evangelical attacks on their terreiros with racism. In fact, the symbolic connection between African-derived religion and Afro-Brazilian identity is close enough that images of Candomblé are often featured prominently in antiracist campaigns in Brazil. “Without Candomblé, there would be no black movement !” exclaimed a practitioner who lives in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia. Candomblé is deeply rooted in Bahia, and for my friend and many others like her, African-derived religion and the struggle against racism are intimately linked. Yet in my time in Brazil, and contrary to much of what I had read about the topic, I found that the relationship between religion and racial consciousness is more complicated than a simple dichotomy between Candomblé antiracist activists and the evangelical race traitors. Later in our interview, for example, the Candomblé practitioner I quoted above admitted that none of the other members of her terreiro were involved with antiracist politics. Furthermore, while I was in Brazil I worked closely with evangelical Christians in Bahia who are passionately devoted to the struggle against racism. In fact, my research suggested that in general, involvement with one or another religious group was not significantly associated with more or less concern about racism. Nevertheless , Candomblé remains a potent emblem of racial consciousness. This book explores this puzzle by examining the role of religion in the politics of AfroBrazilian identity. The anthropological fieldwork upon which this book is based took place 2 Chapter 1 in the northeastern state of Bahia, known for its rich Afro-Brazilian traditions and as a center of racial consciousness in Brazil. Activists in Bahia today are confronting racism and racial inequalities that until recently many Brazilians refused to acknowledge. Many groups engaging these problems are religious, and ethnic affirmation based in African-derived religion is at the heart of the antiracism movement in Bahia. Christian organizations, however, vary widely in their views about such affirmations of Afro-Brazilian culture. An estimated 15 percent of Brazil’s population is Protestant, about two-thirds of which are Pentecostals, the fastest growing religious group in Brazil today (Freston 1994). While most Brazilians still identify themselves as Catholic, many people are at the same time involved with African-derived religions such as Candomblé. My fieldwork centered on the capital of Bahia, Salvador, considered “the Rome of Afro-Brazilian religion,” and on a smaller town in the interior of Bahia called Cachoeira, widely known for its deeply rooted AfroBrazilian traditions. For many Bahians involved with the antiracism movement, activism goes hand in hand with affirming one’s ethnic identity through the practice of Candombl é. While some groups in the Catholic Church encourage such cultural affirmations, involvement with Candomblé is forbidden for the growing number of Pentecostal Christians in Brazil. In fact, only a small percentage of Brazilians report being involved with Candomblé (Prandi 1995). Yet many of the images publicized by cultural organizations, international tourist agencies, and the media suggest a single, uncontested way of being “Afro-Brazilian” based in traditional Afro-Brazilian culture. Bahian communities are in fact divided largely along religious lines on questions of Afro-Brazilian identity. Accordingly, J. Lorand Matory (2005, 81) argues that Afro-Brazilian identity politics provides a counterpoint to the emphasis on homogeneity in discussions of the construction of national and ethnic “imagined communities” (Anderson 1983). In other words, Afro-Brazilian identity is based on multiple and overlapping imagined communities that are themselves based on different religions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Candomblé) and national identities (Brazilian, Jejê, Nâgo, etc.). In fact, Protestant, Catholic, and Candomblé organizations assign radically different meanings to traditional Afro-Brazilian symbols and practices. This book explores the ways Bahians of African descent engage these religious meanings as they construct their identities and how these identities articulate with discourses about anti-racism and Afro-Brazilian culture. In the following pages I advance three main arguments about the relationship between religion, Afro-Brazilian ethnicity, and identity politics in Bahia. Introduction 3 First, as I have already indicated, I stress the...