The hearts, minds of the black folk
Sincetimeimmemorial,religionandformaleducationhavebeenusedtocapturetheheartsandminds oftheconqueredandrenderthemgovernableandmanageablebyEmpire,writesCetshwayoMabhena
The conquest of the planet by a province of the world, the EuroAmerican province, could not be achieved by sword and gun powder alone. To punish, subdue or destroy the body of the conquered does not fully consolidate and secure Empire. For that reason, Empire has had to complement military and physical might with tools and equipments of persuasion to capture and domesticate the hearts and minds of the conquered. In the classic Souls of Black Folk, of 1903, E. W. Dubois illustrates the sociology and even psychology of conquest as it impacted on the hearts and minds of African Americans in and outside the slave plantations of America.
Since time immemorial, religion and formal education have been used to capture the hearts and minds of the conquered and render them governable and manageable by Empire.
Besides the mesmerising promise of heaven that religion offers and the bewitching promise of modernity and enlightenment that education offers, both religion and education have been politically mobilised and deployed by Empire for purposes of ideological indoctrination, the control of hearts and minds. Both religion and education use fear and guilt to manipulate and control the minds and hearts of the condemned.
The guilt of being a sinner and the fear of damnation, burning and roasting in hell, drives human beings to religion. The guilt of being ignorant and the fear of darkness forces people to seek education and knowledge.
In church people enter to save their souls while at school they traffic in to recover their minds, and the two ideological and highly spiritual institutions are entered with great fear and guilt. In church one is declared a sinner before judgement while in school one is pronounced ignorant before examinations.
The Great Biblical Debate Saul the persecutor of Christians became Paul the defender of the Christ by conversion. Paul never accompanied the Christ in flesh. In all his preaching and teachings, in Ephesians 2:8, 2:9 and the Chapter Three and Chapter Four of the book of Romans for instance, Paul taught that people were saved by the grace of God and their faith in him. A human being can do nothing to be saved; salvation is an undeserved gift from God. No human being can boast of having worked hard to deserve salvation.
A close study of the biography of Paul and the magnitude of his sins against the Christ and crimes against humanity explains why he was excited about grace and salvation by faith; he was one genocidal fellow who could not have been saved by any of his works.
Diametrically opposed to Paul’s gospel was James, the brother of Jesus the Christ. In the teaching of James, for instance in James 2:24, people were to be saved not by faith alone but also their works and labours in service. James having worked so much and risked a lot, even lost a lot in service to the Christ was not so happy with Mafikizolos like Paul smuggling themselves into salvation by easy faith and free grace.
Since the times of Paul and James, there have been two major interpretations of the road to paradise. The road of faith and grace and the road of labours for salvation, the colonised and the enslaved blacks of the world were not offered the option of salvation by grace and faith, the easy road, but they had to work for their salvation as gentiles and natives.
In the colonies and slave plantations the white Christian preachers emphasised that blacks were the dark children of Ham, sinners who needed to work every minute and to listen to the white man in order to earn salvation. At Sunday School young black minds and hearts were told harrowing stories of an angry God up the sky who will hand them over to the devil if they did not repent the sins that they were born with. The devil was portrayed as a dark and ugly monster with horns and a huge fork for frying and roasting black bodies in hell.
The Christian religion came to the colonies and the plantations as a punitive religion and God himself was represented as a bad tempered old man, cruel and unforgiving. Education in the colonies and the plantations was also presented as punishment for ignorance, the slave and the native had to be educated or be damned. Up to this day education and religion are suffered, endured rather than enjoyed by black folk in the world. Black people have to do strange, bizarre and grotesque rituals and rites in order to feel on the way to salvation.
Examinations in the schools and the university are suffered as vetting processes as if it’s selection of those who are to go to hell from those that are bound for heaven. One only needs to listen to the gospel songs of the black folk, be they Negroe spirituals in the plantations or worship songs in the churches, the underlying theme is always: Inzima lindlela ilameva, iyahlaba, guqa uthandaze! The road to heaven is littered with thorns.
Almost all gospel songs of the black people tend to have a funeral air and vibe around them. In typical black churches God is presented as a monster to be appeased and not a generous father that is full of gifts.
This religion of fear and guilt served colonialism and slavery well by frightening the hearts and minds of the conquered to submission. Preachers and teachers appeared to their audiences and congregations as judges and magistrates, prosecutors and interrogators. It is easily for that reason that today; black prophets and pastors, in competition for followers in the spiritual market and religious commerce have to come up with ever new preaching and healing methods that have included feeding snakes to converts and spraying insecticides on the faithful. Nature and Religions of the Natives Before conquest, religions and spiritualities of the natives were almost always spiritual engagements with nature. The Supreme Being was understood to be in nature and its elements. Rain making, hunting, healing, farming, reproduction and war were activities of survival that were imbricated in the religious.
The natural and spiritual realm was invoked and summoned for its provisions and nourishment to the living. The fertility of the land, that of animals and even of human beings were understood to be connected and part of the continuity of life and happiness.
The evil that modernity and the Christianity of the labours that was given to the conquered, not that of grace that the conquerors reserved for themselves, was summarised in the person of the Devil and his works. The religions of the natives had evil spirits, wandering spirits and angry spirits that were understood to torment those that did not make peace with nature and did not follow its rules.
The colonisation of religion has been its capture by some powerful human beings for their own uses for power and profit.
Once religion is taken away from the kindness of God and the peace of nature and surrendered to the market forces and to politics, strange things are abound.
Everytime religious activities seem to demonstrate the power of the pastor or that of the prophet or the sangoma, not the glory of God and the peace of nature, the faithful must know that industrialisation and the commerce of faith and the spirits are at large. Once education is reduced to a product to be sold and bought by those that can afford it not a public good that must enable engagement with nature and life, populations must be sure that capitalism made its commoditising ethic at play.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena is Zimbabwean academic based in South Africa: mailto:decoloniality2016@gmail. com