Other invaders found penetration easy under the banners of religion. Full advantage was taken of the fact that Africans are a very religious people. First came the Crescent flag of the Prophet. The Islamic advance was three-pronged: proselytizing missions claiming one brotherhood; widespread intermarriages and concubinage with African women, due to the Muslim system of polygamy; and forceful conversions at sword point. The Cross of Jesus Christ followed the Muslim Crescent. The cloak of Christianity was a most convenient hiding place for those who had other designs. Hence, the drive to convert. Conversion here meant far more than conversion to Christianity. As in the case of Islam, it meant change into the white mans image, his ideas and value system. The real object of worship turned out to be neither Jesus nor his Father, God, but Western man and Western civilization. Christian brotherhood? Well, eh, yes! In principle. Or, to be practical, you Blacks can have all the Christian brotherhood you desire - among yourselves. Apartheid was Africa-wide under colonialism, and not a peculiarity of the South African system as so many are led to think. But what happened in the process of converting the Blacks to Islam and Christianity was the supreme triumph of the white world over the black. Millions of Africans became non-Africans. Africans who were neither Muslims nor Christians were classed as pagans and therefore required to disavow their whole culture and to regard practically all African institutions as backward or savage. The Blacks in their own right became non-persons, members of a race of nobodies, so hopeless that self-realization as personalities, even in a subordinate status, cold only be achieved by becoming Muslims or Christians. Indeed, in order to destroy completely not only their African heritage, but also their very African identity psychologically, they were forced to change their names to Arabic and Christian names. Henceforth, if these Black Emils, Johns, Muhammads, Samuels, and Abdullahs happened to achieve greatness in some field, the assumptions would be that it was Caucasian achievement, unless a special effort was made to identify the race of the persons in question. Blacks at home in Africa and Blacks scattered over the world borne the names of their enslavers and oppressors, the ultimate in self-effacement that promoted a self-hatred which made pride in the race difficult. That these psychological shackles still handicap not only the rebirth of modern African states, but also Blacks everywhere, should be obvious to all.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 20:55:11 +0000
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