Assessing dialogue
by Professor Wande Abimbola*, 7 June 2005
Embargoed against delivery
Over the past 25 years, the major religions of the world have been concerned
with dialogue amongst themselves. The Christian missions both Catholic and
Protestants have been in the forefront of this idea, and the Vatican even
saddled a Cardinal with their relationship with other faiths. In the
following short pages, I intend to assess the impact of inter-religious
dialogue on the world religions, especially as far as the African continent
is concerned, and to make proposals and suggestions for the future.
Before I go any further, let me introduce myself to my audience. My name is
Wande Abimbola. I am a Nigerian Professor who has taught African languages,
literatures, religions and thought systems in various Nigerian Universities
over the past forty years. I have also taught the same subjects at several
United States Universities - including Amherst College, Massachusetts,
Harvard and Boston Universities, to mention only a few.
I am a practitioner of an African indigenous religion - the religion of the
Yorùbá people, which is a religion of West Africa practiced also in several
countries of the African Diaspora, including Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and
Tobago (where the Yorùbá Religion was raised to the status of an official
religion by an Act of Parliament in 1981).
I am also a High Priest of Yorùbá Religion, having been initiated as a
Babalawo in 1971. A babalawo is at the same time a diviner, a story teller,
a counselor, and a medicine man. In 1981, I was installed by all the
Babalawos of West Africa as Awise Agbaye (Spokesperson of Ifá and Yorùbá
Religion in the World). I am not a Christian, and I am not a Muslim. I am
one of the millions of Yorùbá people who have decided that rather than
convert to Christianity or Islam, we will pitch our tent with the religion
of our ancestors.
In June 1981, I founded a World Congress of Yorùbá Religion which has become
very popular and successful. Three congresses have been held in Africa; one
in the United States; one in Trinidad and Tobago; and two in Brazil. The
next congress, which is the 9th in the series, is coming up in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, from the 1st to the 6th of August 2005. You are all
cordially invited to the Rio Congress.
The dialogues which the Christian missions have staged so far have been
half-hearted and insincere. To start with, the dialogues have been held only
with Islam and Judaism for the most part. Sometimes, these dialogues have
included the Buddhist and the Hindu religions, and some other religions of
the Far East. But rarely have these dialogues included the primal religions
of the world such as the indigenous religions of Africa and the Americas.
When African indigenous religions are included at all, they are often
represented by Christian evangelists masquerading as scholars or
practitioners of so-called traditional African religions (ATR). These past
dialogues can be likened to an attempt by a person who wants to hold
consultations with members of his household, but who deliberately neglects
some members of that household either because he does not like them, or
perhaps because he wished they were dead or lost. Needless to say, that
person deceives himself but no other.
It is pertinent, at this juncture, to speculate as to why inter-religious
dialogues have often excluded the indigenous religions of Africa and the
African Diaspora. One reason is that the Christian missions do not accept
the indigenous religions of Africa as religions in the first instance. As a
matter of fact, the Christian missionaries have for so many centuries
laboured to wipe out these religions from the face of the earth. Some
western evangelists and scholars characterize African indigenous religions
as animist or pagan. As far as the Christian missionaries are concerned,
there are only two religions in Africa, viz. Christianity and Islam.
There is another school of thought in the Christian faith who calls the
indigenous religions of Africa Traditional African Religions (ATR) probably
to be able to label them as primitive or archaic. Such scholars and
evangelists also claim that the population of Africa is 50% Christian, 45%
Muslim, and only 5% or less ATR. The possible inference is that as Africa
becomes more christianized or westernized or islamized or arabized, the
remaining 5% belonging to ATR will disappear.
The real truth, however, is that the overwhelming majority of Africans are
still very much involved in the indigenous religions and way of life of
their ancestors, even though some of them may go to church on Sundays or
they may go to Jumat prayers on Fridays. I ask the question, what strange
logic permits the Christians to count people who go to church as Christians,
and the Muslims to count those who go to Jumat prayers as Muslims, but does
not permit me to count the same people as practitioners of my own Yorùbá
Religion, even though the same persons come to me to perform divinations and
sacrifices many more days every month and every year? When we bring out the
ancestor masquerades of egungun, or when we celebrate the annual Osun
festival in Osogbo, or the Ogun festival in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, from where do
the hundreds of thousands who attend these festivals come? Are they not the
same people who attended the churches last Sunday, or who attended the Jumat
prayers last Friday?
It is not a secret that many Africans practice Christianity and Islam at the
same time as the practice indigenous religions of Africa. What the Christian
and Islamic evangelists need to know is that in spite of billions of dollars
spent to make African convert to Christianity and Islam, in actual fact,
there are really very few wholehearted and complete conversions to
Christianity and Islam in Africa. For many Africans, to be a christian is
like belonging to a modern club to which some of their friends and family
belong, and which they too need to frequent to fulfill certain societal
requirements. If you do not believe the above, I invite you to listen to a
famous song of Yorùbá Christians which goes as follows:
A wa o soro ile wa o,
A wa o soro ile wa o.
Esin kan o pe ....
O yee,
Esin kan o pe,
Ka wa ma soro.
A wa o soro ile wa o.
Eni to ba fe,
Ko ki wa.
Eeyan ti o si fe,
Ko yan wa lodi!
A wa o soro ile wa o.
(We are going to worship our ancestral religions.
We are going to worship our ancestral religions.
No religion can say ...
O yes,
No religion can say,
That we should not worship our ancestral gods.
Anyone who likes,
Can continue greet us.
Anyone who dislikes,
May greet us no more!
We will worship the gods of our ancestors.)
It is therefore unrealistic and probably a mark of self delusion for any one
to think that the practitioners of the indigenous religions of Africa are so
small in number that they are on the verge of extinction, and as a result,
there is no need to dialogue with them.
Perhaps, part of the problem is that the leaders of the indigenous African
religions are not so easy for westerners to identify, since many of them do
not speak European languages, and since their places of worship are not so
easily identifiable like the big churches and mosques which can be seen
everywhere in Africa today. For most indigenous Africans, religious worship
is such a personal thing that it does not necessarily have to take place in
a temple. In Yorùbá land for example, temples and shrines of the divinities
are very few, and when thieves started to steal our icons, most people moved
their own images into the innermost areas of their homes. As a matter of
fact, a person's handbag, the pocket of his clothes, the necklaces or
bracelets that he wears, or the insignia of his office which he carries, may
well be all that he needs to worship his divinities at any given time.
Apart from those African who people who practice the three religions as
mentioned above, in Yorùbá land there is still a hard core of millions of
people who are neither Christian nor Muslim and who live totally according
to the tenets of the indigenous beliefs of their ancestors. It may be true
that all parts of Africa are like that, but it is certainly also true that
the population of the practitioners of the indigenous of Africa is not 5% of
the total population of Africa.
I would like to propose the following suggestions for the future of
inter-religious dialogue. For dialogue to be real, sincere, and worthy of
the time and resources put into it, it must fulfill the following
conditions:
Dialogue must be all-inclusive and all-embracing. The indigenous religions
of the world, including the indigenous religions of Africa and the Americas
must be included. No religion practiced in any remote corner of our planet
must be left out.
All religions must be accepted to the table on an equal basis, and we must
do away with derogatory terms such as ATR, animism or paganism, when we
refer to the primal religions of the world.
The destruction of shrines, temples, icons, images, and places of worship of
the indigenous religions of Africa and the rest of the world must stop
forthwith.
The World Council of Churches must issue a proclamation to all its members
worldwide stating that they must have an attitude of tolerance for the way
of life and religions of their neighbours; just as Jesus Christ said in the
Holy Bible that his followers must love their neighbours as themselves.
Jesus did not say love your neighbours as yourself only if they are
christian, or only if they practice your religion.
We on our own part, as practitioners of the ways of our ancestors, will
continue to have an attitude of tolerance, love, and respect for all the
religions of the world, in spite of the fact that we are mindful of the
persecutions which we have suffered, and are still suffering in the hands of
our Christian and Islamic brothers, who had in the past enslaved and
colonized us for centuries. We believe that love, rather than hatred,
respect and humility, rather than arrogance, are the virtues which will
endure. These virtues together with honesty are the values which we are
inculcating in words and deeds to our own children.
Our religion is not based on a hierarchical order of wealthy leaders or
institutions. We prefer that the religion remains simple and respectful of
all, including the animals, vegetation and all the other creatures and
objects of nature without which we humans cannot survive on this planet.
In spite of the non-proselytizing nature of our religion, it is one of the
fastest growing religions of the world today. We are powerless today, but
if, by the special grace of Olódùmarè (our High Divinity), and Ifá (the
all-knowing divinity of knowledge and wisdom), we become powerful tomorrow,
we will forever live by the same values.
Dialogue. Yes. Dialogue. Dialogue between the religions of humankind to
solve pressing problems of the world. To compare notes, take a common stand,
and have a powerful voice for the religious communities of the world.
Dialogue to empower women, and provide the best education, and the best
environment for the children and young people of the world. Dialogue, to
eradicate hunger, thirst and needless suffering in the world. Dialogue to
end wars, terrorism, greed, hatred, religious conflict, ethnic cleansing and
racial bigotry. But dialogue on an equal basis, in an atmosphere of respect,
and equality. If dialogue can be staged on these terms, INCLUDE US. If not,
LEAVE US OUT. But we love you nevertheless, and we will continue to remember
all of you in our daily prayers.
* Dr Wande ABIMBOLA PhD is a chief of African religion from Nigeria who
occupies the position of Awise Awo Ni Agbaye ("spokesperson and ambassador
for the Ifá and Yorùbá religion and culture in the world"). Dr Abimbola is a
special adviser to the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on
cultural affairs and traditional matters
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