CHRISTIANITY, POVERTY, IGNORANCE AND DESPAIR IN AFRICA: FIVE STORIES
By Betty Wamalwa Muragori
 

Part 3

Story Five: Europe and the Dark Ages
Many Africans talk of feeling betrayed when they first discover the emptiness of churches in Europe. The history of the Church in Europe is clearly not without bloodshed. Whilst I was doing research for this essay I found some information, which sounds, well, so African. It is a description of what Europe was like during the Dark Ages. Life was very hard for the vast majority of Europeans during this era. Very few people could read or write and even worse nobody expected conditions to improve. The people then did a very African thing, they turned to the only hope they could see, their strong belief in Christianity, and the hope that life in heaven would be better than life on earth.

The other thing that I found familiar was that Europe was gripped by the same terror of God that we have here in Africa today. This terror fostered by Christianity was instrumental in making sure that poverty, ignorance and despair were the norm amongst the general populace during Europe’s Dark Ages. The early Church in Europe was implicated in this by denouncing learning and destroying libraries and universities across Europe.

The state of medicine at the time is a good example and reads like something out of some of the darker corners of Africa today. I am reminded of the current President of the Gambia who allegedly cures HIV/AIDs amongst his citizens in the afternoon after a long morning spent governing his nation. It is said that in Europe when a Christian fell ill, his only hope of recovery depended upon the touching of some "holy relic" carried about by the monks, for which a substantial fee was asked. What were these healing relics? Strange indeed. Things like a finger of the Holy Ghost; the snout of a seraph (which is apparently an enormous heavenly dragon that swallowed up sinners on judgment day?); one of the fingernails of a cherub; one of the ribs of the Word made Flesh; some rays of the Star which led the Wise Men to the cradle of the Holy Infant; a phial containing the sweat of St. Michael which exuded during his fight with the Devil.

Conclusion
These five stories show how similar Africa and Europe have been at different times. For both continents, progress that had been made was unmade. Both reverted to a time during which they became divorced from their own history and could no longer access the developments that had been made. Indeed this progress was expressly lost when it was labeled evil and satanic by the political and religious establishment, which was one and the same. During this time Europe too could not recognize itself. Africa does this sound familiar?

But there is scope for a new dawn for Africa. Europe began to experience great change by about 1450. Within one hundred years, Columbus had sailed to America, literacy spread, scientists made great discoveries, and artists created work that still inspires today. Historians call the next period of European history the "Renaissance," or the "rebirth."

But this Renaissance was only possible once Europeans had a paradigm shift which allowed them to pry themselves free from the religious and political establishment which had controlled what they could think, dream and whom they could be, for several hundred years. This shift manifested itself first in the liberation of the mind; the establishment of a critical spirit and spread of independence of reason. These three then made possible the spread of literacy; explosion of artistic expression; growth in the importance of science and scientific discoveries and exploration of other parts of the world. The interesting thing is that the Renaissance started with the efforts of one country, Italy and of one man Petrarch. There is a quote that I love about the important thing that happened during the Renaissance, “Eyes turned from Heaven Back to earth”

It is clear that the “state of the mind” is what actually makes possible a specific state of external world. This is the good news because a “state of mind” doesn’t actually cost very much in cash terms. Yet it means that Africans have to free themselves from their current mind-set, which is calibrated to recreate poverty, ignorance and despair. And here lies the challenge. For we are now faced with the toughest choice imaginable, turning our eyes back to earth and back into our lives. Even more difficult is that we will need to give up our not so secret love affair with the helplessness that is a by-product of lives long lived in the shadows of poverty, ignorance and despair. For this transformation to become possible, Africans will have to let go of our prevailing ideas of God and our relationship with God. I leave you with two questions “What if you knew that God is love and that you were always his beloved no matter what? What would that make possible for your life? Here is a poem to help in your inquiry.

Homage to a Broken Heart
A convulsion of enticing tenderness
In an instant All the injuries of the Entire black race, that ever existed, weigh down
Shoulders now wide and broad, sagging
Striding becomes care worn
Crumbling defeat coursing in the space of a wink,
Replaced now by sweet beguiling soreness, tempting in its slow seduction
The pain lingers like clear smoke,
Deeply I inhale,
That poison ache wraps itself slowly around my vital organs,
The heart becomes the last resting place,
A loving home of bitter joy
Soon the seduction is complete,
Next time, words don’t sting as much,
And I think I’m fine!

A fresh new instance elicits only a menace of wilting
The now familiar beat, is never shaken free
Less engaging,
There is no waking!

II
This is the mild version!
There is another cataclysm,
More extreme,
This time All the grievances of those swarthy faced, not-yet-born are featured,
As well.
And then, what is to happen to them illumined in a glint before my blinking eyes,
I am griped in a spasm of ecstasy so intense, I double over,
Confusing pain for bliss,
I am not ready for what comes,
Total humiliation and crushing defeat!
The sting, beguiling, saccharine sweet,
I give in and flounder, swimming in its grip.
And now I call it home!

III
Nurtured over centuries by fierce indignation and righteous pride,
Somehow whatever the circumstances we are always last,
Not of our making but from the efficient exploitation of others.
I am the definition,
Perpetual fatality,
A casualty of man’s cruelty to man,
A symbol of eternal waste,

Don’t shine light on my despair,
I wear my agony with mocking conceit.
In the shadow of the black race as eternal prey,
Aged injuries fight for nobility.
It is this right to be a victim,
The design of torment as honour that I have died for!
Not for any other cause,
Until now.

By Betty Wamalwa Muragori
 

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