Religion and the burden of social engineering

There’s an image being African suggests to the rest of the world. Being African suggests an imagery of conspiratorial hypocrisy breathed into us by our ancestral fathers. Yes! Our ancestral fathers! Our ancestral fathers were guilty of the felonious sins our generations and successors would always live to regret. They indoctrinated our shallow faculty, leaving us stranded in the conjecture of fictitious myths, metaphysics and fable of a non-existing world. They told us about a non-created entity whose hyperactive creativity and inexhaustible calligraphy work fine-tuned us from a filthy erosion of thickened water into the finest expression we are today. We were told the non-created entity was metaphysical in features, morphologically amorphous and domiciled in those usual than-the-eyes-meet enclaves. The descriptions seemed unending and not without the usual embellished falsehood typical of African narratives. In the midst of the ravaging conjecture peddled by our ancestral fathers, there came a terrifying addict in the form of religion.

Religion stormed in with much finesse, having swept through the Mediterranean shores to this far distant Africa. It bribed the people through their weakened conscience and presented a new god with more condescending personalities.   Unnaturally swept in this beatific deceit, Africans started playing the Donald, crumbling into rubrics the superhero figure of the ‘old god’ they once revered to their bone marrow. They withdrew all genuflections abided his status as the ‘positivist’ uncommanded non-created entity that dishes out his dictates unchallenged. ‎The ‘new god’ freaked out the brains of Africans leaving them enmeshed in the wretched unfold of a destructive intoxication.

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In the eyes of Africans, the ‘new god’ became an eligible bride of lusting bachelors. She was the talk of the town; with her mesmerising beauties unnecessarily over-hyped, creating an influx of disastrous temptations to those who are swept off by such fascinating fantasies. The ‘old god’ couldn’t have enjoyed such veneration. For a typical African, the ‘new god’ has attained such peak of sainthood that it becomes very impossible to affiliate him with human characteristics. To him, the ‘new god’ is the handler and controller of unseen destinies and factors that influence the existence of those—men and non living— he created in his imaginary wisdom. The ‘new god’ however remains a non-procreating entity that possess no reproductive tendencies of his creatures. The ‘new god’ assumes creation in two folds. He creates both the beautiful and the ugly; the good and the bad. He has metaphysical powers and gifted parts to his creatures in his rare benevolence. He’s responsible for manoeuvring the destinies of men the way he so wishes. He could bury some in extreme poverty and give some others wealth without any effort from their end. Some live longer than life in his pristine wisdom, some die painfully in their cradles.

The same god is attributed to failure, poverty, unfulfilled promises and health challenges ravaging the Continent.  He is seen as a miraculous supremacist who has key to all doors—those ones locking our glory as a promising set of nations. Thus, almost all Africans throng one religious house to another seeking what is not hidden anywhere. They turn our religious institutions a haven of sort where instant miracles could happen, when we indeed fail to call for hygiene in our moral life. What a misplaced priority! Some Africans relish success which comes with ‘Abracadabra’ undertones. They want to peregrinate through the realm of success without settling for hard work, patience and resilience. They believe firmly in religion as a solution to their problem. They run to church; storm the mosque but fail to plan. And when they fail; they blame their god! So who is deceiving who, God or Africans?

Ali Smart writes in from Rivers.