Liberia, the disturbing understanding of Christianity
I spend a year in Liberia in 2001 and I must say that human sacrifices were common things :eek: but noot accepted.
The population was against but, as described into Stephen Ellis book, it's the main counter power there. Liberia central State has been fighting against it basically since it's creation.
What is really disturbing in Liberia is that the symbolism into Christian religion has been used to legitimate canibal practices.
But I would also add this
1) it always has been a limited thing.
2) According too Ellis, Taylor deregulated the practice t make it common, accessible t all. And that's what sunked Liberia in a place that even the devil forgot (cf Liberians).
3) Population is against it and the deregulatioon of it has been one of the core reasons Liberia peace has been achieved through an in depth societal change: they elected a women!
A personnal interpretation
Quote:
marct:
I have to wonder why he did it. At a pure, gut level, guess - and please correct me if you know better! - I suspect he thought it was about on par with teenagers fooling around with Satanic rituals.
Do not forget that Liberia has a very particular history. It's the only African country colonized by Black people (may be Sierra Leone also).
What I did observe there was: the natives, the original people of Liberia, dreaming of America (more gangsta rap than anything else but still America). And the Congos, the descendants of slaves imported to Liberia as Freemen, dreaming of a savage Africa (like in Tarzan I would say).
So you have 2 groups who built their representation of the opponent culture on that imaginary model made of Hollywood movies and cheap pulps.
Personally, I believe that Taylor (he is a "Congo" educated in US) just wanted to be "African" and terrorizes his adversaries. He also completely felt into the wired Christian interpretation of cannibalism and the magic force that eating hearts, sex and leaver of his adversaries would give him.
But he also destroyed purposely sacred lands, exposed the ritual masks… I really believe that he was in a total American dream of savage Africa.
Jee, I spend a couple days
brushing up on some languages and I see all of this!
All of this talk of Christianity and cannibalism got me thinking. Have any of you ever read Smith's Jesus the Magician? For those not familiar, Smith's thesis was that Jesus was a black mage/con man/necromancer who studied in Egypt and picked up some bitchin' tattoos while he was there. All of his 'miracles' were not acts of God, but rather produced by Satan. The cult grew after his death and turned into what we have today. The book made a big splash in the day, but now it's read for entertainment, as a warning to undergrads of how not to do textual reconstruction, or as a Gospel among some of the tinfoil hat crowd.
Lagrange, I'm very interested in what you said about Taylor trying to be "African" and how such an identity was constructed using Hollywood/American stereotypes. For a long while, anything associated with African religion was thought to be one huge Satanic cult- witch doctors, cannibals- the whole 9 yards. I wonder how much of that mixed with some remnants of some gnostic groups that practiced such rituals is going on?