Nigeria,
These poor, defenceless, impressionable, gullible children, so easily manipulated, hypnotised, have to be helped! Out of the predicament which we see and which they and maybe the adults around them do not see as dangerous, they may even believe that the children are merely precocious, advanced souls, spiritually gifted. In case x is asking y, " Whose responsibility is it?" the answer is, because they are children, it's everybody's responsibility
A few weeks before the brethren subjected me to a full immersion baptism in the Umuahia River, regular as clockwork I used to be woken up just before dawn by a loud voice - a guy who would be passing by my window and shouting at the top of his voice, "I am the everlasting!", "I am the life!" "I am the bread!" " I am the vine!"
I thought that it must be a mad man – possibly with matted hair going around like this every morning and waking me up from my beauty sleep. This disturbance would be followed a few minutes later by Marvin Gaye waking up the whole neighbourhood with "Sexual Healing", or Bob Marley's "Lively up yourself" or "So Jah seh", on my neighbour's Silver Sound System turned up to the highest possible decibels so that you would listen to his music whether you wanted to hear it or not. And who be me to go and tell my neighbour in Nigeria, to please lower the volume? He might tell me, "You have a problem" , the same as saying, " You want or are looking for palaver"
I did summon enough courage to accost this guy who was promoting himself as "the Everlasting". One morning, I was patiently waiting for him to be going past my window and to my surprise my anger turned to understanding and admiration. Here was a young man who was not mad and as he explained to me, he was out doing his " morning call" that is preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what I had heard him shouting was him quoting - in inverted commas - some of the famous I am statements attributed to Jesus. That was the beginning of my introduction to fanatical Igbo Pentecostalism which has penetrated below the surface and taken root on the fertile grounds of Chineke culture (no offence meant) a strong belief in the forces of nature, the unseen and the supernatural .
I remember that shortly before I left Nigeria Brother Titus Akanabu (now Bishop Titus Akanabu) visited me in Bakana and there he prayed on me for a good half an hour - his hands on my head and beads of his sweat dropping on my head and face as he implored the Holy Spirit and asked me to relax my lips - but try as he did, my lips would not cooperate and to this day I have never "spoken in tongues" - had earlier on, on occasion spontaneously recited unfamiliar shlokas of Sanskrit verses – like automated writing and spoken Pali but not nonsense tongues .I consulted Professor Carl Suneson about the Sanskrit verses (he was blind at the time) Prashant Lal was my Sanskrit teacher.
By the time kids in that video attain early adulthood they will be Pentecostal preachers with their tongues on fire. Right now they have already got to where they are through lots of environmental support and inspiration from the adult world – who knows, when they grow up, maybe, they too would like to go on Pilgrimage like Goodluck Jonathan to pray and maybe do some baptising on the Banks of the Jordan River and even become successful pastors preaching the prosperity gospel – or become a successful part of the worldwide Full Business Gospel community. Who be you to object to gospel prosperity?
Should the authorities intervene ?
On Thursday the 10th of this month I'll be attending a lecture on mindfulness to be given by Åsa Nilsonne . My immediate reaction to this alarming video of the children doing their "talking in tongues" is that they need de-programming as quickly as possible - before it becomes a contagious social epidemic. The tragedy is that when some children in Nigeria and other parts of Africa are induced to act in very similar ways in non-Christian contexts, such children ( and adults too) are accused of witchcraft and summarily dealt with most viciously, sometimes executed…
Yesterday, I discussed Pius Adesanmi's No Testimonies in Official Forms Please! with Hon. Ogbeni Kadiri. In my view, Pentecostalism is so much an integral part of some people's identity and personality that naturally this personality is extended into all their other fields of human endeavour. In former days application letters seeking employment could begin thusly:
"Dear Sir,
May the Almighty bless you and your family" –
The presumption being which employer would have the heart to treat such an applicant indifferently?
I also think that in this day and age of the Boko Haram, students – even Muslim students want to distance themselves by absolving themselves of any taint of Islamic type affiliation as a cautionary measure - so there's always plenty of Christian type credentials as a preface to examination answers – subtle argumentum ad misericordiam in disguise using " the blood of Jesus" as a holy subterfuge , primarily to soften/ condition the heart of the examiner and to win his or her sympathy that he or she who is being examined is a God-fearing Christian , far removed from any kind of terrorism – especially if the student believes that the examiner 's heart is amenable to some compassionate influence and that holy words and sentiments from the Bible could promote the quality of mercy in the examiner as in "blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy"– especially if it is anticipated that the examiner is a disciple of Jesus - such a one would not be cruelly disposed to a fellow traveller, a fellow brother-in-Christ. A good question: What if the examiner is a close disciple of Jesus' brother, the Prophet of Islam ( S.A.W.) ?
Times are hard. It felt good at the shul this morning and I intend to resume attending all Sabbath services even if I have to travel by tube….
Many thanks to all the friends who sent condolences.
Cornelius
On Saturday, 5 March 2016 19:40:54 UTC+1, okeyiheduru wrote:
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment