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11: African Traditional Religions
- Baylor University Press
- Chapter
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217 Liberation according to the “Bumuntu Paradigm” of ancestral Religions To those who subscribe to the economic, political, and civilizational orthodoxies of our time, African liberation theology may seem obnoxious, fallacious, or even blasphemous. And yet for the masses of Africans crushed by poverty, genocide, dictatorship, neocolonialism , economic exploitation, political oppression, and racism, much of the current “world order” is blasphemous. Over the last five centuries , African interaction with the outside world transformed the continent into a melting pot of different religious, moral, cultural, economic , political, and philosophical structures and worldviews which bequeathed to the people a “cross of humiliation and marginalization” amidst an ambivalent progress of modernity. Indeed, in the global context of geopolitics and market economy, Africa has remained since the fifteenth century poor, weak, and a battlefield of competing powers of domination and domestication. At the same time it remains a continent of resilience and resistance par excellence, the land of Chaka zulu, “Jeanne d’arc du Congo,” patriceLumumba,KwameNkrumah,NelsonMandela,DesmondTutu, or Wangari Maathai. In other words, Africa is a privileged locus of liberation theology. This chapter will articulate the basic tenets of such a liberation theology as it developed for centuries under the guidance of ancestral spirituality which has continued to work in new religions, 11 aFRICan tRaDItIonaLReLIGIons —Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha [3.231.55.243] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:41 GMT) 218 — Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha be it Islam or Christianity. In so doing we shall address the question of “what Africa needs to be liberated from, and how.” Traditional Africa referred to oppression with the concept of witchcraft (butshi, ndoki, buloji) which includes evil heart (mucima mubi), evil eye (diso dibi), poisonous tongue or evil speech (ludimi lubi), and greed (mwino). oppression is thus viewed as that which diminishes the vital force, brings about death, destroys life, destroys peace and harmony, creates chaos, anxiety, and insecurity, and hinders human flourishing. It is the opposite of a harmonious mode of existence. As a “pursuit of unhappiness,” oppression takes a myriad of forms. But for the sake of brevity, we can identify ten major categories of local and global forms of oppression which affect ten major dimensions of African existence: First and foremost we find cultural and racial oppression, which constitute the justification of other forms of oppression, notably economic, political, and religious oppression. To these types of oppression, we shall add gender oppression, biological oppression or “bioterrorism,” environmental oppression, and artistic and aesthetic oppression. These forms of oppression are often grounded in the tenth category of epistemic violence or intellectual oppression which includes scientific, philosophical, and theological terrorism. Such intellectual oppression serves to rationalize oppression and to belittle African creative capacity and contribution to world civilization and thus world spiritual and moral values. In so doing it turns dehumanization into humanism and forms of oppression into pacification and liberation. on the local level, oppression can be summarized into “seven deadly sins” which include the abusive use of divination (mwavi); tribalism ; patriarchy, polygamy, and female circumcision; dictatorship; the manipulation of taboos and dietary regulations; the abusive use of the ideology of “divine kingship”; and moral vices in general (more notably greed, selfishness, envy, and libido dominandi). As for foreign forces of oppression, we could identify “ten plagues” that accompany the process of globalization since its inception: 1) “pauperisme anthropologique,” 2) racism, 3) economic terrorism and “beggar thy neighbor” trade policies, 4) political terrorism, 5) military terrorism and arms trade folly, 6) cultural and linguistic terrorism, 7) religious, spiritual, and theological terrorism, 8) ecoterrorism, 9) bioterrorism, 10) sexual terrorism. A thorough analysis of such a catalog of oppression is beyond the scope of a succinct chapter such as this. We shall African Traditional Religions — 219 therefore limit ourselves to highlighting a few major categories of oppression in the local and global context. We shall proceed in two major steps. first, in order to clarify our locus theologicus, we will articulate the basic beliefs of African traditional religions that constitute the foundation of traditional African liberation theology. here we will focus on two basic notions, Shakapanga (the supreme creator or God) and Bumuntu (the concept of a virtuous person). The notion of God as creator points to that of an ultimate judge of oppressive behaviors and an ultimate source of legitimacy for liberation struggle and resistance to oppressive rulers. The notion of genuine personhood (Bumuntu) establishes the sacredness of human dignity and thus delegitimizes oppression. Second we will analyze local and foreign or global forces...