Our modern understanding of African world spirituality needs to be revisited. It is untrue to pretend that we reside in the same mystical space as our ancestors did. They inhabited a place of deep spirituality and of connectedness with the natural and supernatural worlds. Every day's challenges were attributed to the wrath or lack of satisfaction of a god, and appeasement alone was the remedy, often at a high cost of life or liquor. Many Diasporans today find shame in remembering those practices which bear the authenticity seal of our traditions past.
The modern agony over the so-called uncivilised and primitive world view that gives rise to obscure and malevolent practices of retribution and vengeance, in truth a truly bloody scene, reveals a psychological disposition to reject self as other and undeserving of respect and regard for its differential attributes and qualities. In fact the Supreme God Olodumare of the Yoruba Pantheon is but one example of a diligent and sensual god who brings misery on his creation purely out of absent-mindedness and negligence, not malevolence per se, unless to conquer a mortal maiden, or at least so goes the oral tradition. And that in itself is the attack made on the authenticity of practices not registered or written anywhere and claimed to be part of folklore. How are countries like South Africa, Namibia, Australia (and the aborigines) determine what authentic religious practices need to be protected or exempted from the fist of the law when they are integral to cultural integrity and sacred practice?
The cosmogony of the Akan people of West Africa's Gold Coast, today's Ghana, demonstrates the generosity of a world order where gods and goddesses are genuinely interested in the lives, pains and challenges of humans. They coexist, co-habit and share the same fate as mortals in those stories, becoming vulnerable through love, jealousy, envy and ambition. These are gods made in the measure of humans, they truly are our partners in the destiny of time. Is our modern understanding of god and deity to be informed by the post-colonial emergence of African religiosity in the Black world, both on the continent of Africa and the diaspora?
The legacy of slavery has initiated some very novel philosophical insight into human existence. Afrikans, bearing the tremendous burden of systematic oppression, have been privy to certain revelations of spirituality. This has been facilitated by the persistence of an Afrikan cosmogonical insight even as Afrika's unfortunate children crossed the abyss of the Middle Passage.
For example, the Haitian Revolution was preluded by a Vodun ceremony (led by Boukman) which aided their handy defeat of the French Empire. This would have been altered form but not distinct from the ancestral African ritualism. Perhaps the most recent significant development in resistance theology in the Black diaspora is that of RAstafari, a world view that celebrates the often unmentioned Ancient Christian traditions in Ethiopia and resists the racist precepts of Eurocentric ideals. From these instances, it is easy to see that the Afrikan's resilience in the face of overwhelming obstacles has been founded on indigenous Afrikan spirituality and philosophy that we thought we had lost. Therefore, since Afrikan religiosity has in many ways enabled our liberation from the chains of oppression, it is clear that we must further understand and appreciate this indelibly etched aspect of our collective psychology.
For no people is distinct from its origin.
....(to be continued)....
One Love
Dread Team
