“A narrative can be powerful beyond belief even though it be totally lacking in historical truth. That is the power of deliberate lies presented as eternal truth, the sort of fiction Plato called a great and necessary lie.” “The European story of Christian salvation in Africa, like the Arab story of Muslim salvation for Africans, is such a Platonic lie. It has worked wonders on the bemused, to the profit of violent invaders. Christian catechists across Africa used it, over and again. They preached it from makeshift pulpits that in a generation, thanks to donations from poor but generous converts, became magnificent altars. They wrote it into simple missionary manuals that hard-pressed schoolteachers gratefully used as teaching materials. Occasionally, an energetic catechist turned the narrative of African savagery meeting European salvation into a dramatic play, or a cantata [song], to be performed by children of Christianized families at church and school festivals.” Ayi Kwei Armah “Resolutionaries” Page 374
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:01:51 +0000
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