Remembering my late father, Pa Ngong, on this
#FathersDay
. It's been 23 years since he joined the ancestors, but I still miss him. He taught me to value people more than things.
I want to be on my best behavior today but I'm not sure how this is going to go when I keep hearing these Fox journalists saying that Morocco is from the Arab world. I am providing a map of Africa for reference 👇
I just want to clarify that Morocco qualified to play the world cup as an African not an Arab country. Morocco may be Arab but in this world cup it is representing Africa not the "Arab world" no matter what people in Morocco or the "Arab World" may think.
Germany colonized Cameroon, removed people from their lands and created plantations. Then went to Namibia and committed genocide. There is no way Germany is remotely qualified to tell anyone how to respond to oppression.
Just the fact that there’s a thing called China-Africa, Israel-Africa, or United States-Africa relations shows how profoundly rapacious and corrupt international relations is. How can a country have relations with a continent? I’m waiting for Nigeria-Europe relations.
*Being and Nothingness* was published in 1943. It was 722 pages and weighed 1 kilogram. The weight helped the sale of the book because it was "used as weight measure at home when the normal brass weights had been confiscated" by the Nazis who occupied France at the time.
Your periodic reminder that Rwanda is a dictatorship. If you want to sanitize it because there are clean streets in Kigali and an NBA arena there, that's your choice. Paul Kagame is a ruthless dictator and people live in fear in the country.
Rest in peace
@annerwigara
(in the middle). Your father was cruelly assassinated, later your elder sister Diane Rwigara entered Rwandan politics and declared to contest for presidential election; unfortunately she was put in prison by criminal dictator Kagame for trying to
Thierry Henry is on fire on this UEFA pregame show on the issue of racism in European football. He says European football is still very racist and they should be asking white people about it, not Black people.
"The eye is useless when the mind is closed," he says.
Professor Paulin Hountondji, a Beninois philosopher, has argued that much knowledge about Africa, produced by both Africans and non-Africans, is aimed at non-African audiences.
For whom are we producing knowledge about Africa?
@Egwonyang66
What I said here does not depend on what Moroccans consider themselves to be. Identity in Morocco is just as complex as in Cameroon and other places. What I said is based on the map and FIFA groups.
I'm sitting here watching Europe and the United States causing crises in Africa and then being called upon as mediators to settle the crises - like the arsonist being called upon to put off the fire
That an African church chooses to cut ties with a European church because of LGBTQI issues shows a profound sense of moral confusion. I know of no harm LGBTQI people have caused Africans. But the church has been so fixated on them you might think they're causing Africa's woes. /1
This is to my late father, Pa Ngong, on
#FathersDay
. He taught me to value people more than things. In the village, they called him “Government by People.” An illiterate himself, he valued education. I still miss him, almost 20 years after he passed.
Reading the history of religions in Africa, you see that much of what is called "indigenous" religions are not indigenous at all. Africans often borrowed ideas, gods, rituals, etc from neighboring societies. Christianity and Islam are not the only religions Africans have borrowed
I first encountered the work of Prof. Wiredu through his classic in African philosophy. He significantly shaped how I think about African religions and cultures. Rest well Prof.
Here's an image of the Congolese prophet and healer Simon Kimbangu (1887-1951). He's founder of what has come to be called the Kimbanguist Church which now has branches all over the world. The church's vision is for the unity of all Africa, beginning with abolishing...
Before Ian Taylor passed away recently, he wrote this little, beautiful book in which he argued that a foundational issue with contemporary African politics is the the problem of (lack of) development. Other issues, such as ethnic conflicts, are symptoms of this basic problem.
@Floodguys
I don't deny that brother. I just state that Morocco is representing Africa in this world cup. That's why Morocco is in the world cup in the first place.
@southerniraqii
You're right. But in this world cup Morocco qualified as an African team. Morocco is only in this world cup because of Africa not Arab. Let's not confuse things.
Can someone help me understand the circumstances under which Mayotte (on the map) would be called a French island? Why would France be there deporting Africans? Is this witchcraft or what?
"Biden, we don't want your war."
Thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets of Paris to denounce the US's proxy war in Ukraine and demand the withdrawal of France from the US-led NATO bloc.
If you teach a course on religion and literature, religion and politics, theology and politics, world Christianity, etc., please consider using my upcoming book. It will be released in August, perhaps sooner. Pre-order it here:
Apropos of that lady who said Africans worship trees, let me just leave this here once again. It is brief and best introduction to African spirituality. You won't find worship in it because African spirituality does not center around the worship of anything.
"Dem call the place United Nations...
Wetin united inside United Nations?
Who & who unite for United Nations?...
Dis "united" United Nations
One veto vote is equal to 92...or more, or more..."
~Fela Kuti, "Beast of No Nation"
So the good people of the St. Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology commissioned me to provide a piece on "Theology in Africa." Been working on it for about 2 years. It is your FREE avenue to get an overview of African theology. Assign it in your classes.
There are issues I have with Prof. Olúfemi Táíwò's book that I am addressing elsewhere. Whatever problem we have with his arguments, however, we must acknowledge that he does not treat decolonization simply as a theory.
So I saw this fighting book on Twitter and thought it was written by
@OlufemiOTaiwo
. I had underestimated the importance of the O but I do not regret it. As I began reading the book I noticed that to understand it I needed to read a previous book. /1
Like other cultures around the world, African cultures have developed through borrowing - borrowing from internal and external sources. Our problem today is that many of us have come to believe the western lie about cultural purity. No culture is pure.
This just shows how performative some of these Africanization schemes are. He wears African clothing, enjoins African names, and challenges Christianity, but steals his people's wealth and stashes them in the west. Fake Africanization.
Thread- La chanson qui a fait trembler le VATICAN ( video)
Au début des années 70 au Congo, le président MOBUTU prône l’abandon de la culture occidentale et le retour à la culture africaine profonde, il développe l’idéologie de la « zaïrianisation » et « l’authenticité ».
So the late Gambian historian who taught at Yale University, Prof. Lamin Sanneh, wrote this little book exactly 20 years ago in 2003. It talks about how Christians, mostly outside the western world, think about and practice Christianity.
Walter Rodney says in this lecture that the products Africa trades in internationally are products that have been assigned to Africa not products Africans chose to trade in. The minerals, cocao, coffee, cotton, etc., have all been assigned not chosen.
Walter Rodney - Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean 🌍🌎
- NYC🗽 (circa 1970s)
So much of it sounds so familiar and prophetic.
This man was brilliant and hilarious.
"Any chair, dean, or provost who doubts the significance of research from Africa will find in this book reason to change."
OR
Why your department needs an Africanist.
This thread is about the obnoxious anti-LGBTQ+ bill currently being rammed through the Ghanaian parliament with the support of many Christians and their leaders. I want to think this debacle through the lens of a famous document from South Africa, the Kairos Document (1985). /1
Churches in Africa have a million reasons to cut ties with churches in Europe but LGBTQI issues are not among them. The continued Europen exploitation of many African countries, the treatment of African migrants in Europe like trash, are among some of the reasons.../2
African countries should not be owing European countries, the US, the World Bank, or the IMF a single penny. All that money they call loans have only been interest on slavery and colonialism. They still owe us, big time!
People, look at where Senghor's Eucharist is ranked! Thanks so much to those who already pre-ordered. If you're still considering to pre-order, please go here:
The irony of African history is that, at least since the middle ages, everyone has come there in search of wealth, yet everyone says Africa is poor. It is one of the greatest historical sleight of hand.
"Decolonisation is sometimes in danger of just becoming about “Oh, how terrible the oppressors are” but the thing is that none of us are really free of being complicit in oppressive systems."
@PriyamvadaGopal
For the first in our series of interviews, Editor-in-Chief
@rosarahimi
talked to the ever-eloquent Professor
@PriyamvadaGopal
– about academia, personal politics, public intellectuals, and what it means to be decolonising in our current political moment
People who migrate the most intercontinentally are Europeans and Americans. Africans hardly migrate outside the continent. You wouldn't know that, though, if you watch the news.
"At the heart of the book is a close analysis of Oduyoye’s theological thought, exploring her unique approach to four issues: the doctrine of God, Christology, theological anthropology, and ecclesiology."
African Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are the largest recent African immigrant churches in the United States - and perhaps Canada - and they pitch their tent with the American religious right on many issues. It is quite an interesting story.
"Colonial subjects have actually never seen the free speech side of empire. Empire was all about censorship and sedition laws, and presented itself from the very beginning of its bureaucratic presence as an anti-free speech entity."
@PriyamvadaGopal
The attempted cancelling of
@PriyamvadaGopal
teaches us one thing: Free speech’s transformation into a reductionist binary has allowed it to be used convincingly by those who wish to destroy it, and to silence those who need it the most.
White missionaries came to Africa and condemned our ancestors while building huge monuments to worship theirs both in Africa and in Europe. It is 2023 and African Christians are still preaching that that ancestors are evil. How foolish can that be?
So you want to study the "religion" of an African people. Let's take the Douala of Cameroon. Guess the languages in which you need to be competent? Douala, French, German. You need to be competent in French and German to study the Douala.
How do you decolonize that?
It is quite something for kids in the United States to discover that the US is an empire only when they get to college. Which means that if your education ends in high school, you will not know that the US is an empire. That is the very definition of empire education.
I think the number of dead Africans in the Atlantic Ocean should be alarming to everyone. I'm not sure why it is not far more scandalous than it currently is. Too many restless spirits that need to be brought home.
My article that reads the famous debate between James Cone and John Mbiti as having wider implications for the study of African diaspora religions in Africa has been published by the good people of
@JAfricanaRelig
. It is behind pay wall 🧱
@BernieSanders
Bernie sees better what many progressives do not see - that in politics small gains may add up to something important. Perhaps that's why he's a politician.
This Christmas I want to remember a silenced voice in Cameroon. He is Cameroon's Fela. His name is Lapiro de Mbanga. He spoke truth about Cameroon. Google him. Learn about him. We must continue what he started so that his suffering and death would not be in vain.
Just say "Ndebele inspired jewelry." Never say "Ndebele tribe." That's a racist construct and a Twitter handle that says its "African Hub" should know that.
Professor Paulin Hountondji, a Beninois philosopher, has argued that much knowledge about Africa, produced by both Africans and non-Africans, is aimed at non-African audiences.
For whom are we producing knowledge about Africa?
...African churches may cut ties with churches in Europe. The fixation on LGBTQI issues is such a moral diversion that prevents the church from addressing issues that depress most people. Churches in many African countries, including Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya...
People with the same identity do in fact exploit each other and identity is not sufficient ground for solidarity. African ruling elite, like ruling elite elsewhere, would like you to think that identity is sufficient. What we need to be focusing on is the issue of development...
For 4 years now, I've been working on my next book "Senghor's Eucharist," which examines the political theological vision of Senghor’s poetry collection "Black Hosts." Today I wrote the conclusion of the last chapter - almost 70,000 words! The work is not done, though.
...are in cahoots with the state in exploiting the people. While they focus on LGBTQI issues to project a false sense of moral clarity, millions troop into these same churches to pray for Visas to Europe and the United States. These churches should be ashamed of themselves.
@EllieMRoberts
Endnotes sucks. Thanks for saying it. Footnotes are the only appropriate way to cite sources. And don't get me started with the parenthetical thing.
Beautiful, but there's no Ghanaian traditional marriage, just like there is no Nigerian or Cameroonian traditional marriage. These are countries with varied ethnic groups that do not all have the same practices.
The Ghanaian traditional marriage takes place at the bride's home, gifts are presented to all sections of her family as a sign of respect and honor for the bride and her family. “Akonta sikan” is given to the male siblings to express gratitude for their unending support and love.
He understands decolonization as getting rid of all western cultural, political, and economic influences. This is what he argues against and I'm afraid he's right. One example he uses is the entanglement of Yoruba music. How do you decolonize that?
Today, 08/15/2023, is publication date of my book, Senghor's Eucharist. If you have not already ordered a copy, please do so if you're able. I look forward to what you have to say after reading it.
I am thankful for the Cameroonians, Anglophones and Francophones, who are standing up against the senseless killings and abjection in Anglophone Cameroon.
#EndAnglophoneCrisis
My book, Senghor's Eucharist, will be published tomorrow, 08/15/2023. I'm retweeting some of the pieces I wrote about it. Here's the first one, for those who did not see it.
@CNN
The criticism of these Democrats for wearing the kente is wrong. There is no single use for kente. Politicians are not prohibited from wearing it. They may be pandering for votes but which politician doesn’t?
One week to publication day and my book Senghor's Eucharist is a thing out in the world. You can still assign it in your courses. You may order it here:
I remember when I went to the University of Yaounde. I majored in education. Went to my first class and it was called "Psychologie de l'enfant." Coming fresh from Limbe I didn't understand a single thing. Went and changed my major to English. You can't teach English in French.
This is an astounding new book on majority world theology with an excellent lineup of established and emerging scholars. I'm pleased to have contributed a chapter on African liberation theology in the book.
@wipfandstock
Amilca Cabral says it was easier to defeat colonialism than it would be to defeat neo-colonialism. For him, there was a united front against colonialism, but there isn't one against neo-colonialism because the ruling elite are in bed with the imperialists.
I guess what we say about the book should begin with what we mean by decolonization. That is where every discussion of decolonization should begin. What is decolonization to you? I'm currently reviewing Prof. Falola's book on decolonization and he defines it differently.
...not whether we come from the same ethnic group or religion. The question we need to be asking is "what has the ruling elite done for us lately?" not whether the person is Yoruba or Igbo, Anglophone or Francophone. These are deceptive categories.
Many of the wars fought in Africa are actually not African wars. They're proxy Euro-American wars fought with Euro-American money and weapons to promote Euro-American interests. The African part of the wars is the killers, the dead bodies, and the people driven from their homes.
I cannot stop thinking that people who have harmed Africans the most have been either Christians or Muslims, yet followers of these religions keep telling Africans that these are religions of salvation and civilization. But they have a lot of explaining to do.