the romanticization of this so called uniform "afrikan"
thought. That shit didn't exist now or in the past.
There were STATES (countries) that held a dominant sway over
what various ethnolinguistic groups did in there trade
with each other, but this whole unilateral "Afrikan"
thought thing is bogus.

This is definitely something I want to talk about. Just because it touches a huge aspect of who I am and who I come from. I am mainly going to be responding to uta, solarus, konnex (habari gani bro. Vipi?) and allah’s post.

a) First of all, I consider myself to be an african, whichever way you spell it, I come from africa and at my core being I believe that I share certain beliefs with millions of other africans from all over the continent. We spend so much time arguing semantics: what is an african way of thinking? Who are these africans we talk about, what did they call themselves millions of years ago. Why do we ignore the different african tribes that exist and the different cultures and try and lump them as one. Are we trying to disunify? The reason I say that there is this unique, something that we can attribute to the people of africa is that we share so many common beliefs, that only we share: our ideas of ancestry, the after life and the spirit world, how we explain so many phenomena in terms of the spirits and our relationship with them, our creation stories, so similar in so many aspects, our ideas of initiation and rites of passage (what other group of people hold elaborate month long ceremonies (like we do) to celebrate the passage of youth into adulthood?). marriage being a community and not a personal affair, our ideas of family and the hierarchy involved/our society is/was structured upon. Examples like this, to me at least, mean that we share a common heritage that binds as as the people of africa. For all those that feel that I am being simplistic I affirm that yes I am aware that we have different cultures, speak thousands of languages, look and act different in a whole lot of other ways but at the core being we are africans and we have a way of looking at things, whichever tribe we associate with that is familiar. Allah, that to me is what I mean when I say africa. Everything else is… I don’t even know what it is. I mean every discussion we have here, its like despite of what it might be, this is the place we want to stop and expede all this energy and emotion defining the word africa and its usage or misuse? I think you know what this post is trying to get at. Let’s at least, in part answer the question posed.

b) I am gonna speak about christianity because I don’t know too much about islam. I think we can agree that christianity came to africa as an imposed religion. It wasn;t assimilation. The reason the missionaries came is to save our souls from our african selves. To do that, we had to rid ourselves of the barbaric, or uncivilized or whatever it was they were calling it, cultures and become, “christians.”. I think koigi wa wamwere touches on this in his autobiographical book, I refuse to die, where he is talking about his grandmother describing how the christian god was supposed to replace Ngai, and western civilisation, african culture. Konnex talks about worshipping in his language etc etc, but it sounds like the religion is divorced from the people;s culture. Its this Sunday obligation we have but is in no way, linked, assimilated into the kikuyu culture.

If you read the role of religion in what uta is referring to as traditional african society, it played a central role. It was used to explain any and every aspect of the people’s daily lives. I feel that the reason christianity does not do that, for most africans is that it is a separate entity. A personal example, my mother. Church going, belives in ‘modern medicine and the rest of that spuel but if anything ever goes wrong, she feels sick and the doctor says they don’t know what it is, or she has a spell of bad luck etc etc, her last resolve is to go to a medicine man (mganga) to find out what/who is bringing this bad luck. This gives her the assurance she needs, not the church. My grandfather, modern medicine says he has alzheimer’s, (and its probably true) my family and I tend to believe different because our beliefs are different. And this stems from our cultural heritage, or whatever you can call it, it has no christian equivalent/expression. In fact the last thing we are thinking about is what would jesus do, or say and I certainly are not talking to my pastor about it.

We didn’t go to church to seek answers, we sought our tradition/history. If christianity was an assimilated expression much like ‘african’ religion was, then we would seek the christian god/ beliefs. This I believe is true for a lot of africans. You have a society where christianity condemns such practices, and yet christians still practise them. Why is that? my personal answer is because christianity is still viewed as ‘other’ it is not yet an assimilated african concept. Now there are religious movements going that direction. Konnex, the Legio Maria. Christian in its superficial nature, but african in its expression.

And we forget that its only been a few years (maybe 50 at the most), that africans started owning the way they worship. Before then you go to catholic church and mass is the same way its said at the vatican. This peculiar one hour that is supposed to bring us salvation, to something called heaven. With no mention of our ancestors. Its only now that you have discourse that tries to link the catholic to the traditional. I think its too early to say that christianity is now an aesthetic part of african culture. Its only now in the process of assimilation.

i think when uta and solarus talk about christianity as being detrimental to african culture they mean the fact that it is supposed to replace african culture. that was the way the missionaries planned it. that is why christianity condemns, not complements african culture. seriously, think about it. why do i have to separate certain aspects of myself and beliefs from the churche's? especially if its not because i know this is something foreign that is supposed to replace my traditional god? why is it okay for my sister to be whatever religion she wants to be except when it proves to go against cultural beliefs,unless, that religion is viewes as something separate from tradition, i.e. not a part of my 'african' way of thinking? i dont know what syncretism means. i dont know if it means something practiced along with something else, or it means something that is practiced and becomes a part of this something else. the question to ask is, does christianity do this?

Anyway. That’s my entirely too long two cents.


>This question is being posed really to Utamaroho and Solarus
>but anyone who knows the Afrikan way of thinking/living can
>also add in. When you guys look at Afrikan people and
>culture within Afrika, I've noticed that you tend to
>seperate elements like Islam and Christianity particularly
>as "non-Afrikan" and you paint them as detrimental to
>original Afrikan culture. To a large extent I see where you
>are coming from and I agree with you on certain things.
>However, my question about the Afrikan discourse is I'm
>wondering if its not a little revisionist in its picture of
>Afrika. It reminds me a lot of Hindu revivalism/nationalism
>in India. The Hindu nationalists tend to portray what the
>see as "non-Hindus" (Muslims, Christians, etc.) as
>detrimental to Hinduism. They however disregard the fact
>that both these religions have been syncretised highly
>within the Hindu culture of India. They seem to be missing
>the reality of the situation that Hindus and Muslims and
>Christians have been living with very similar at times
>cultural background. From my understanding of Afrika, there
>has also been a high syncretisation of Islam and
>Christianity within Afrikan culture. You can prove me wrong
>but this is from what I know.
>Don't you think going to visit Afrika would be important in
>actually seeing the Afrikan way of life rather than just
>reading theories about it? And if you have been to
>Afrika(Solarus) how has that affected your viewpoint about
>Afrikan discourse?