“In defense of their power, the colonial administrations ensured that all African nationalist movements, whether radical modernist or neotraditional, were crushed, defused or co-opted. Even religious nationalism was feared. Because a syncretist religious movement, Bwiti, which erupted in postwar Gabon, was seen as a possible beginning of black nationalist assertion, because Bwiti was viewed by European missionaries as a threat to the spreading of their version of the true religion, the Bwiti were crushed. A missionary had reported: ‘Bwiti is spreading more and more in this region… I have had their hut at Aderayo destroyed, also that of Nkein, but once I leave they build it again and even more beautifully than before.’ “The administration sent troops to help the missionaries triumph. Bwiti chapels were sought out deep in the forests, raided and burned to the ground. The movement subsequently declined. The church may claim that, in attacking the Bwiti and calling in the troops of the colonial administration to strike out and complete the destruction it had started, it was merely trying to save as many African souls as it could for the Euro-Christian heaven. Still the fact remains that here, as elsewhere, and especially at the beginning of the colonial era, the church was an arm of colonial destruction of African organizations and movements.” Chinweizu “The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite” Page 128
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 22:55:30 +0000
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