Colonization and Christianity in Zimbabwe
Colonization of a land, of a people, brings with it many losses that are
difficult, perhaps impossible, to rediscover when the nation finds
freedom again. The colonization of certain countries, particularly
African countries, has proved to be a disruption of traditional culture
and an imposition of Western beliefs and values on longstanding
indigenous customs and rituals. When cultures are disrupted, altered,
and redefined, people lose a sense of the way life used to be. The
longer an oppressive force succeeds at dislocating traditional culture
from the people, the further away people feel from their history and
ancestry. As more and more generations are taught the new ways brought
by the colonizers rather than their traditional roots, they fail to
question their education and beliefs. Western ways which become so
effectively integrated into indigenous cultures eventually become social
and cultural norms, surviving the freedom struggle and persevering even
after the colonizing forces have left.
Colonization leaves many cultural legacies, changes in the indigenous
lifestyle that perpetuate after a nation's liberation. In post-colonial
Africa, the greatest, most overt legacy left by white settlers is
religion. While Christian missionaries have been traveling and preaching
their faith throughout the millennium, the upsurge of colonialism
throughout Africa during the nineteenth century expanded Christian
missionary work across the continent. With white domination of the
African continent, the Christian faith took hold as the governing and
superior theology. While countries have gained freedom from their
oppressors, Christianity often remains as a central principle of African
faith with any traditional spirituality existing peripherally.
Based on Zimbabwean literature and art, as well as on my own personal
experience living in the country, I will argue that the incorporation of
Christian missionary work into colonization and the widespread success
of converting African people to Christianity has significant, long-term
implications for post-colonial countries. The shift from traditional
religion to Western religions is a way in which the colonial mentality
perpetuates despite the nation's independence. The survival of
Christianity in post-colonial countries signifies a loss of tradition
and culture and a recognition and acceptance by native people of the
superiority of Western faith. Here, I will explore the way in which
religion and spirituality are depicted in post-colonial art and
literature. I will assess the similarities and differences between
missionary work and colonization. Lastly, I will evaluate contemporary
theories on the role of Christianity in post-colonial Africa and its
future function in African culture.
One of the important roles of post-colonial literature is to depict such
legacies and to evaluate its essential function in post-colonial
culture. In contemporary Zimbabwean literature, two novels stand out in
their commentaries about the influences of Western religions on African
spirituality, culture, and tradition. Yvonne Vera's Nehanda and TsiTsi
Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions exemplify the way in which missionary
work and Western religion factor into colonization as an integral part
of establishing superiority over another people. Vera's novel, set
during the first Chimurenga war in the late nineteenth century,
recreates the story of Nehanda, a warrior woman whose strong connection
to the ancestral spirits helps her to lead her village people in a
revolt against the oppressive colonial forces. These attempts for
revolution, fail, however, as the white strangers ultimately suppress
the native people and capture Nehanda and Kaguvi, their links to the
spiritual world. While the novel does not explicitly portray the
indigenous people's adoption of Christianity, it does allude to several
important consequences of missionary work and colonization.
Before, however, one can assess these consequences, it is necessary to
notice the way in which Vera depicts traditional religion and
spirituality in Zimbabwe. Throughout this book, the ancestral spirits
and the spirit mediums possess very real and significant influence over
the people. The entire novel is characterized by Nehanda's messages from
the spirits, rituals performed to appease the spirits, and the power
the spirits hold in the life of the individual and the village.
"The dead are not dead. They are always around us, protecting us. There
is no living person who is stronger than the departed. When the whole
village prays together, they pray to the ancestral mudzimu of their
clan. When we pray to mhondoro for rain, we are praying to the guardian
that unites the whole clan. This is one of the strongest spirits of the
land" (Vera, Nehanda, p.27).
As illustrated by this passage, Vera emphasizes the strength that
traditional religion once held over the Zimbabwean people. Faith, here,
implies a belief that the ancestors control fate and that praying to the
ancestral spirits represents a way to look for guidance, knowledge, and
the answers to life's questions.
As the story unfolds, Vera depicts the struggle of the people and the
spirits against a more powerful colonial force. The struggle for freedom
from these strangers is not only illustrated by the scenes of war and
destruction, but also by the invasion of Christian missionary work into
traditional African life. In one of the final scenes of the novel, a
missionary priest approaches Kaguvi with a bible and the word of a
Christian God. Throughout their exchange, Kaguvi grows increasingly
confused by the strange God of whom the priest speaks and the eternal
word of the bible. The priest attempts to assert his superiority and
convince Kaguvi of a Christian God by claiming,
"Your god is an evil god[ch65533]I am here to save you from the eternal flames."
The arrogance of the priest is shocking. He has painted some pictures of
suffering and of hell, but to Kaguvi it all sounds unconvincing. The
priest does not bear the aspect of a man who would lie. For Kaguvi, the
evidence of a man's worth is also in his face. A man can lie with words,
but his body will betray him. It is hard for him to believe that the
priest is entirely foolish. There is certainly a tenderness in his
smile, and real concern in his voice.
"I know that there is life after death[ch65533]But that life is as a
spirit, to help protect those who are living." But the priest insists on
an afterlife in which men will rise from their graves in their former
bodies." (Vera, Nehanda , p. 106)
This passage is extremely telling of missionary work and its interaction
with native Zimbabwean people. Foremost, through this exchange, Vera
illustrates the incompatibility of traditional religion and the new
Christian religion. An inherent difference between the two faiths lies
in their beliefs about the afterlife, the role of the deceased spirit,
the existence of heaven, and how many gods exist. One sees here that the
two approaches to spirituality are fundamentally different. Hence this
exchange becomes symbolic of the struggle between the two in Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, the exchange between Kaguvi and the priest represents very
early successes in converting indigenous people to Christianity. While,
on one hand, Vera points out Kaguvi's confusion of this new religion, as
well as the incompatibility of both belief systems, she also
illustrates the loss of traditional faith Kaguvi suffers in his dialogue
with the priest. The strong conviction and concern of the priest
appeals to Kaguvi and in this time of desperation, when the villages
have been burned and their attempt to fight off the colonists has
failed, he finds his faith shifting away from his traditional system.
The prophetic cloud in the sky has burst for Kaguvi, and there is
nothing strong enough left to shelter his dreams. His ancient spirit,
which he now sees as something separate from himself, weighs sorrowfully
on him. It is as though they bow live in separate ages of time, himself
in the present, his spirit descending further into the past. They move,
in both directions of time, and they will not find each other. Before
today, Kaguvi has ridden of the back of the spirit. Now, he can only see
short distances to his right and to his left, backwards and forwards.
(Vera, Nehanda, p.107)
In this scene, Vera very vividly portrays Kaguvi's separation from his
"ancient spirit" and, while not directly asserting any sort of religious
conversion of Kaguvi's part, she implies a gradual disassociation from
the traditional spirituality. The fact that this separation directly
follows the priest's attempts to convince Kaguvi of a Western God, as
well as the various indications of Kaguvi's willingness to believe the
priest, implies that the subsequent disconnection from the ancestral
spirit is very interconnected with the missionary work.
What could Vera be trying to say through these passages? For a story
which is so centered on ancestral spirits and traditional religion to
end by depicting a widening gap between the person and the spirit
insinuates that Vera is trying to make a statement about the shift from
indigenous religion to a foreign, Western religion. Vera could be making
two points. One possibility is that through her story, she is
demonstrating the combined role that colonization and missionary work
play. Although missionaries are often depicted in literature as having
more concern than the colonizers for the indigenous people, their role
during the colonial era nonetheless encompassed the control of a people,
their education, and their ability to resist political and cultural
domination.
Vera may also be alluding here to the future of traditional religion in
Zimbabwe. With Kaguvi's separation from his spirit as he moves into the
future and the spirit's descent further into the past, Vera foreshadows
an eventual departure of the ancestral spirits from contemporary
Zimbabwean religion. The fact that this book, written more than a decade
after the nation's independence, comments so strongly on both
traditional and Western religion implies that the book also has
contemporary significance. The story of Nehanda seems to mark the
beginning of a religious transition in Zimbabwe.
References
Maureen Grundy, Class of 2000, English 119, Brown University, 1999
Part 2 of "Religion and the Legacy of Colonialism in Contemporary Zimbabwe"
Bourdillon, M.F.C. Where Are the Ancestors? Changing Culture in Zimbabwe . (Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications) 1993.
Dangarembga, TsiTsi. Nervous Conditions (Seattle: Seal Press) 1988.
Vera, Yvonne. Nehanda (Toronto: TSAR Publications) 1994.
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Assata Shakur
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