Panafa Blog

Falush Mura arrive at Ben Gurion airport, 19.01.10 (Photo: Brian Hendler, Jewish Agency)
Many of those who have been allowed to enter already have relatives in Israel (Photo: Brian Hendler, Jewish Agency)

Israel has restarted an immigration scheme for Ethiopians of Jewish descent after halting it for more than a year.

Eighty-one new immigrants arrived on a flight from Ethiopia to Tel Aviv early on Tuesday morning.

It is the first flight since August 2008, when Israel said it planned to end the immigration scheme.

The Falash Mura community converted to Christianity under pressure in the 19th Century. Some 8,000 still in Ethiopia want to emigrate to Israel.

The scheme was halted in 2008 after the arrival of the last of some 20,000 people the Israeli government agreed to allow entry in 2003.

But campaigners have continued to press for those still waiting – many in poor conditions in transit camps – to be allowed into Israel.

Ethiopian Jews being airlifted to Israel
Many Jews were airlifted to Israel in 1991

Israeli officials have been checking their cases individually, a process which has proven difficult in the past because of histories of intermarriage with Ethiopia’s Christian majority, and a lack of records.

The Jewish Agency, which facilitates the immigration, said the 81 were the first of 600 people who had already been determined to be eligible to come to Israel.

It said it expects another 2,000 people to be allowed to come to Israel within the next year.

Ethiopia’s last remaining Jewish community, the Falash Mura trace their roots to the biblical King Solomon.

But they are not eligible to enter Israel under the Law of Return, which guarantees a place in the country for every Jew, because they have largely been unable to prove they are Jewish.

Ethiopian Jews who kept their faith throughout centuries of adversity were flown to Israel by the thousands in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The last mass immigration was in 1991, when Israel organised a dramatic airlift of 15,000 people who had fled fighting at the end of Ethiopia’s civil war.

Correspondents say Ethiopian immigrants remain one of the poorest sections of Israeli society.

Israel receives ‘last Ethiopians’

The Falash Mura have had trouble proving their Jewish origins

Israel says it has carried out its last major airlift of Ethiopian Jews, ending a 30-year immigration scheme that has seen some 100,000 move there.

The Jewish Agency, which manages immigration to Israel, said the 65 flown from Addis Ababa were the last eligible under a quota imposed in 2003.

But campaigners said thousands more Ethiopians of Jewish descent, known as the Falash Mura, should be admitted.

The Falash Mura were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th Century.

Ethiopia’s last remaining Jewish community, the Falash Mura trace their roots to the biblical King Solomon.

But they are not eligible to enter Israel under the Law of Return, which guarantees a place in the country for every Jew, because they have largely been unable to prove they are Jewish.

Ethiopian Jews who kept their faith throughout centuries of adversity were flown to Israel by the thousands in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The last mass immigration was in 1991, when Israel organised a dramatic airlift of 15,000 people who had fled fighting at the end of Ethiopia’s civil war.

Correspondents say Ethiopian immigrants remain one of the poorest sections of Israeli society.

Immigrant workers board a bus to be evacuated from Rosarno
There were reportedly cheers as the workers left

Italian authorities have evacuated hundreds of migrants from a southern town and brought in extra police after violent protests broke out.

Some 320 African migrants, many of whom work as fruit-pickers in Calabria, were taken by bus to an emergency centre.

Extra police were deployed after two days of riots, during which 37 people were injured and cars were set alight.

The violence broke out after two migrants were shot at with pellet guns by a group of local youths.

‘Difficult situation’

Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni prompted a storm of criticism from the leftist opposition by suggesting that the violence was the result of not addressing the issue of illegal workers in the country.

A migrant worker exits the silo where he lives
Many of the migrant workers live in desperate conditions

“There’s a difficult situation in Rosarno, like in other places, because for years illegal immigration – which feeds criminal activities – has been tolerated and nothing effective has ever been done about it,” he said according to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

Opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani said: “Maroni is passing the buck … We have to go to the root of the problem: mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism.”

Some 320 African migrants – mainly from Ghana and Nigeria – were taken by bus from the southern town of Rosarno to a reception centre at Crotone, some 170km (105 miles) away.

Local residents applauded as the eight buses carrying the migrant workers left the town, AFP reports.

Police said reinforcements had been called in at intersections and squares in the town to keep order on Saturday.

Many of the migrants, most of whom work as fruit-pickers in the region’s citrus farms, live in difficult conditions – camped in abandoned factories and buildings with no running water or electricity, and paid as little as 20 euros ($30) per day.

Le calme revient à Rosarno qui se vide de ses immigrés

Lefigaro.fr avec AFP

Le dernier bilan des violences depuis jeudi est de 67 blessés
Le dernier bilan des violences depuis jeudi est de 67 blessés Crédits photo : AP
Environ 700 étrangers ont quitté samedi la ville italienne, où une «chasse à l’homme» contre les immigrés a fait 67 blessés cette semaine. L’immigré est un être humain à respecter», a lancé dimanche le pape.

Environ 700 étrangers ont déjà quitté samedi la ville de Rosarno après des violences, notamment une «chasse à l’homme» contre des immigrés, qui ont fait 67 blessés dans cette localité de Calabre (sud de l’Italie), tandis que 200 autres se préparent au départ.C’est ce qu’a expliqué le préfet de police Mario Morcone, tout en précisant que «la situation revient lentement à la normale».

Signes du retour au calme, les barricades érigées par la population ont été levées, l’occupation de la mairie par des habitants a pris fin et les magasins ont ouvert dans la matinée.

Rosarno a été le théâtre jeudi de violentes manifestations d’immigrés protestant contre des agressions dont certains d’entre eux avaient été la cible : elles avaient été marquées par des heurts avec la police, et suivies, le lendemain, d’exactions de la population à leur encontre.

Pour faire face à ces tensions, le chef de la police italienne Antonio Manganelli avait annoncé dès vendredi soir l’envoi d’un «important contingent de policiers» en renfort, plus de 200 selon la presse.

Manifestation à Rome

Le dernier bilan des violences à Rosarno et dans ses environs depuis jeudi est de 67 blessés, à savoir 31 étrangers, 19 policiers et 17 habitants italiens de cette petite ville de 15.000 âmes. La majorité n’ont subi que des contusions ou des blessures légères. Mais six immigrés sont encore hospitalisés, parmi lesquels deux grièvement blessés vendredi soir à coups de barres de fer.

Samedi après-midi une manifestation de soutien aux immigrés s’est déroulée à Rome, non loin du siège du ministère de l’Intérieur. Elle a donné lieu à des échauffourées entre policiers, dont un a été légèrement blessé par un jet de pierres. Au cours de cette manifestation, les immigrés présents ont demandé la démission du ministre de l’Intérieur Roberto Maroni.

La mafia montrée du doigt

Selon la presse, au moins 4.000 immigrés sont employés – en général illégalement – chaque année à Rosarno pendant deux mois pour cueillir clémentines et mandarines.

Le Haut commissariat de l’ONU pour les réfugiés et le principal syndicat italien, la Cgil, ont dénoncé leurs «conditions de vie inhumaines : cabanes insalubres, sans eau, sans hygiène» et des «salaires de misère» (25 euros par jour).

Le rôle de la mafia a également été montré du doigt. «La mafia qui contrôle le territoire, exploite les immigrés avec cynisme et une détermination impitoyable. Les cerveaux criminels savent que les immigrés clandestins ne peuvent même pas tenter de se rebeller car ils sont privés de documents d’identité et donc de la protection de l’Etat», a déclaré à La Stampa don Luigi Ciotti, un prêtre ayant fondé l’association antimafia Libera.

Le pape Benoît XVI a assuré dimanche au cours de la prière dominicale de l’Angélus que «l’immigré est un être humain à respecter».

La misère des ouvriers agricoles immigrés de Rosarno

ROSARNO (Italie) | Dans l’usine désaffectée, des matelas à même le sol entre piles de chaussures et vêtements sales. Quelques plaques électriques raccordées à des installations précaires. La majorité des immigrés de Rosarno, victimes ces derniers jours d’une chasse à l’homme, vivent là.

Vue de l’intérieur d’une usine désaffectée utilisés par des immigrants pour se loger le 9 janvier 2010 à Rosarno
© AFP | Vue de l’intérieur d’une usine désaffectée utilisés par des immigrants pour se loger le 9 janvier 2010 à Rosarno

AFP | 10.01.2010 | 13:08

L’usine est située en dehors de Rosarno, une petite ville de 15.000 habitants en Calabre (sud de l’Italie). Ceux qui ont trouvé refuge dans un des anciens bâtiments, entre tuyaux, machines et réservoirs sur lesquels ils étendent leur linge, ont de la chance. Ils disposent de huit toilettes chimiques et trois douches pour environ 1.000 personnes.

Les autres ont pris possession d’un entrepôt dans lequel ils ont installé des petites tentes pour tenter de se protéger du froid, les températures atteignant 0°C en hiver.

Les plus mal lotis à Rosarno s’entassent dans d’anciens silos, “jusqu’à 13 personnes, dans le noir et sans chauffage”, raconte Alessandra Tramontane de Médecins sans frontières (MSF) en Italie. D’autres encore sont dispersés dans de vieilles maisons de campagne dans les alentours.

A l’image des immigrés de Rosarno, ils sont des milliers, essentiellement africains, à travailler dans des conditions misérables, au rythme des saisons, comme ouvriers agricoles dans le sud de l’Italie.

“Nous dénonçons l’extrême précarité de ces travailleurs agricoles depuis plusieurs années”, souligne Mme Tramontane. MSF apporte depuis 2003 son soutien aux immigrés à Rosarno, en distribuant des produits sanitaires, des draps, des couvertures et du savon.

“Nous ne rencontrons que la brutalité”, affirme Francis, un Ghanéen de 25 ans. “La situation est mauvaise et elle se dégrade de plus en plus”, ajoute-t-il. Après les violents affrontements entre les habitants de Rosarno, les immigrés et la police ces derniers jours au cours desquels 67 personnes ont été blessées dont 31 immigrés, Francis a décidé de partir pour Naples.

Pourtant, rien ne l’y attend. Pas de travail, pas de logement en vue. “J’y serai toujours mieux qu’ici”, dit-il.

“Beaucoup d’entre eux sont atteints de problèmes respiratoires et ostéo-musculaires à cause de leurs conditions de vie insalubres et des nombreuses heures de travail”, souligne la représentante de MSF.

“Comme il fait froid, ils font du feu à l’intérieur. Des maladies sont transmises par l’eau et la nourriture et le contact permanent avec les désherbants chimiques entraîne des affections de la peau”, poursuit-elle.

Le rythme saisonnier de ces ouvriers agricoles qui passent d’une région à l’autre selon les besoins, sans domicile fixe ni contrats de travail, les épuise également.

Pourtant certains ont fait le choix de rester à Rosarno même s’ils craignent pour leur vie après les émeutes.

“Ils ont peur. A Rosarno, ils ne se sentent plus en sécurité mais ils sont nombreux à ne pas avoir reçu leur paie. Or, cet argent, ils en ont un besoin désespéré”, explique Laura Boldrini, porte-parole du Haut commissariat pour les réfugiés en Italie.

La crise économique qui n’a pas épargné la Calabre, une des régions les plus pauvres d’Italie, a davantage fragilisé ces travailleurs migrants. Du fait de la baisse des prix des agrumes, nombre de propriétaires ont décidé qu’il n’était plus rentable de les faire récolter, même pour 20 à 25 euros par journée de travail, le salaire standard d’un immigré africain.

Selon l’organisation humanitaire Caritas, les travailleurs immigrés en situation régulière en Italie sont environ deux millions et représentent quelque 10% du PIB

Italie : le racisme explose

italie.1263117437.jpg
Des travailleurs immigrés face à la police pendant une manifestation à Rosarno en Calabre, le 8 Janvier (AFP)

Un calme précaire régnait samedi 9 janvier 2010 à Rosarno en Calabre du Sud. Les violences raciales depuis jeudi ont fait, selon un dernier bilan, 68 blessés. Vendredi, une véritable « chasse à l’homme » a été lancée contre les migrants par la population locale, au cours de laquelle plusieurs étrangers ont été blessés. Près de mille d’entre eux auraient déjà quitté les lieux, évacués vers des centres d’accueil à plus de 100 km de la ville, note Anne Le Nir, la correspondante de RFI en Italie.

“Nous sommes venus pour travailler et, maintenant, on nous tire dessus”, explique Francis, un Ghanéen de 25 ans, à Anne-Sophie Legge de l’AFP , peu avant de partir de son logement de fortune dans une usine désaffectée vers Naples, sans les 200 euros que son employeur lui doit. “Nous avons peur, il n’y a plus rien pour nous ici”, dit Ali, la trentaine, prêt à s’embarquer sur une navette avec quelques affaires dans une petite valise. Son employeur lui doit 500 euros. Son salaire: 20 à 25 euros par jour pour 12 à 14 heures de travail.

Au moins 4000 migrants sont employés, en général illégalement, chaque année à Rosarno pendant deux mois pour cueillir des fruits. Lire à ce sujet ce reportage de l’AFP : “La misère des ouvriers agricoles immigrés de Rosarno” publié par La Tribune de Genève .

Le climat de haine raciste ne cesse de s’amplifier en Italie. “La situation se dégrade. Tous les jours, un noir se fait tabasser. On ne peut pas continuer comme ça”, explique à Ann-Sophie Legge, Gian Antonio Stella, journaliste spécialisé dans les mouvements de droite et auteur du livre “Nègres, tapettes, youpins & co. L’éternelle guerre contre l’autre”, paru début décembre (“Negri, froci, giudei & Co. – L’eterna guerra contro l’altro”).
Parmi les derniers exemples relevés, la nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre: un Ethiopien tabassé à Florence, parce que son amie protestait contre des jets de pétards, et un Egyptien frappé aux cris de “pédé de merde”, selon l’organisation Arcigay. Ou encore ces annonces immobilières qui stipulent “Pas d’animaux, pas d’étrangers”.
Quelques jours plus tôt, c’était le “Noël blanc” organisé par un maire de la Ligue du Nord, parti anti-immigrés membre de la coalition de droite au pouvoir, qui défrayait la chronique. L’opération visait à recenser les étrangers de Coccaglio (3.000 habitants) et à dénoncer les clandestins en préfecture.
Des responsables de la Ligue du Nord ont également proposé de réserver des wagons de train ou des prestations sociales aux Italiens.balotelli.1263120736.jpeg

Régulièrement, le footballeur italien d’origine ghanéenne, Mario Balotelli, 20 ans, attaquant surdoué de l’Inter de Milan, se fait insulter et huer sur les stades italiens. Cris de singes et chants racistes accompagnent ses dribbles. Mais, toujours le joueur a voulu garder son sang-froid et ne pas répondre. Sauf mercredi dernier, en déplacement à Vérone. Excédé, Mario Balotelli avait insulté les supporters du Chievo Verone qui, eux, n’ont pas été punis. Car c’est Mario Batoletti qui a été sanctionné d’une amende de 7.000 euros par la fédération italienne de football ! (Metro )

“La Ligue est décidée à exploiter le sentiment d’insécurité vis-à-vis de l’immigration”, commente Sergio Romano, éditorialiste du quotidien Corriere della Sera. “Comme (le Premier ministre) Silvio Berlusconi a besoin du soutien de la Ligue, elle peut dire tout ce qu’elle veut”. Le chef de la Ligue, Umberto Bossi a qualifié les noirs de “Bingo Bongo” à plusieurs reprises”, relève M. Stella, en rappelant ce film de 1982 où Adriano Celentano incarne un homme-singe.

C’est à ce point que la direction du Ku Klux Klan imagine de créer une succursale en Italie, un pays qu’elle trouve “génial” en raison de son racisme… (Aglio e Cipolla ) Lire aussi La Repubblica .

An ignored chapter of history tells of a time when kings from deep in Africa conquered ancient Egypt.
By Robert Draper
National Geographic Contributing Writer
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

In the year 730 B.C., a man by the name of Piye decided the only way to save Egypt from itself was to invade it. Things would get bloody before the salvation came.

“Harness the best steeds of your stable,” he ordered his commanders. The magnificent civilization that had built the great pyramids had lost its way, torn apart by petty warlords. For two decades Piye had ruled over his own kingdom in Nubia, a swath of Africa located mostly in present-day Sudan. But he considered himself the true ruler of Egypt as well, the rightful heir to the spiritual traditions practiced by pharaohs such as Ramses II and Thutmose III. Since Piye had probably never actually visited Lower Egypt, some did not take his boast seriously. Now Piye would witness the subjugation of decadent Egypt firsthand—“I shall let Lower Egypt taste the taste of my fingers,” he would later write.

North on the Nile River his soldiers sailed. At Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they disembarked. Believing there was a proper way to wage holy wars, Piye instructed his soldiers to purify themselves before combat by bathing in the Nile, dressing themselves in fine linen, and sprinkling their bodies with water from the temple at Karnak, a site holy to the ram-headed sun god Amun, whom Piye identified as his own personal deity. Piye himself feasted and offered sacrifices to Amun. Thus sanctified, the commander and his men commenced to do battle with every army in their path.

By the end of a yearlong campaign, every leader in Egypt had capitulated—including the powerful delta warlord Tefnakht, who sent a messenger to tell Piye, “Be gracious! I cannot see your face in the days of shame; I cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.” In exchange for their lives, the vanquished urged Piye to worship at their temples, pocket their finest jewels, and claim their best horses. He obliged them. And then, with his vassals trembling before him, the newly anointed Lord of the Two Lands did something extraordinary: He loaded up his army and his war booty, and sailed southward to his home in Nubia, never to return to Egypt again.

When Piye died at the end of his 35-year reign in 715 B.C., his subjects honored his wishes by burying him in an Egyptian-style pyramid, with four of his beloved horses nearby. He was the first pharaoh to receive such entombment in more than 500 years. A pity, then, that the great Nubian who accomplished these feats is literally faceless to us. Images of Piye on the elaborate granite slabs, or stelae, memorializing his conquest of Egypt have long since been chiseled away. On a relief in the temple at the Nubian capital of Napata, only Piye’s legs remain. We are left with a single physical detail of the man—namely, that his skin was dark.

Piye was the first of the so-called black pharaohs—a series of Nubian kings who ruled over all of Egypt for three-quarters of a century as that country’s 25th dynasty. Through inscriptions carved on stelae by both the Nubians and their enemies, it is possible to map out these rulers’ vast footprint on the continent. The black pharaohs reunified a tattered Egypt and filled its landscape with glorious monuments, creating an empire that stretched from the southern border at present-day Khartoum all the way north to the Mediterranean Sea. They stood up to the bloodthirsty Assyrians, perhaps saving Jerusalem in the process.

Until recently, theirs was a chapter of history that largely went untold. Only in the past four decades have archaeologists resurrected their story—and come to recognize that the black pharaohs didn’t appear out of nowhere. They sprang from a robust African civilization that had flourished on the southern banks of the Nile for 2,500 years, going back at least as far as the first Egyptian dynasty.

Today Sudan’s pyramids—greater in number than all of Egypt’s—are haunting spectacles in the Nubian Desert. It is possible to wander among them unharassed, even alone, a world away from Sudan’s genocide and refugee crisis in Darfur or the aftermath of civil war in the south. While hundreds of miles north, at Cairo or Luxor, curiosity seekers arrive by the busload to jostle and crane for views of the Egyptian wonders, Sudan’s seldom-visited pyramids at El Kurru, Nuri, and Meroë stand serenely amid an arid landscape that scarcely hints of the thriving culture of ancient Nubia.

Now our understanding of this civilization is once again threatened with obscurity. The Sudanese government is building a hydroelectric dam along the Nile, 600 miles upstream from the Aswan High Dam, which Egypt constructed in the 1960s, consigning much of lower Nubia to the bottom of Lake Nasser (called Lake Nubia in Sudan). By 2009, the massive Merowe Dam should be complete, and a 106-mile-long lake will flood the terrain abutting the Nile’s Fourth Cataract, or rapid, including thousands of unexplored sites. For the past nine years, archaeologists have flocked to the region, furiously digging before another repository of Nubian history goes the way of Atlantis.

The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’ skin, to uncharitable effect.

Explorers who arrived at the central stretch of the Nile River excitedly reported the discovery of elegant temples and pyramids—the ruins of an ancient civilization called Kush. Some, like the Italian doctor Giuseppe Ferlini—who lopped off the top of at least one Nubian pyramid, inspiring others to do the same—hoped to find treasure beneath. The Prussian archaeologist Richard Lepsius had more studious intentions, but he ended up doing damage of his own by concluding that the Kushites surely “belonged to the Caucasian race.”

Even famed Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner—whose discoveries between 1916 and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over Egypt—besmirched his own findings by insisting that black Africans could not possibly have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders, including Piye, were light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the primitive Africans. That their moment of greatness was so fleeting, he suggested, must be a consequence of the same leaders intermarrying with the “negroid elements.”

For decades, many historians flip-flopped: Either the Kushite pharaohs were actually “white,” or they were bumblers, their civilization a derivative offshoot of true Egyptian culture. In their 1942 history, When Egypt Ruled the East, highly regarded Egyptologists Keith Seele and George Steindorff summarized the Nubian pharaonic dynasty and Piye’s triumphs in all of three sentences—the last one reading: “But his dominion was not for long.”

The neglect of Nubian history reflected not only the bigoted worldview of the times, but also a cult-like fascination with Egypt’s achievements—and a complete ignorance of Africa’s past. “The first time I came to Sudan,” recalls Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet, “people said: ‘You’re mad! There’s no history there! It’s all in
Egypt!’ ”

That was a mere 44 years ago. Artifacts uncovered during the archaeological salvage campaigns as the waters rose at Aswan in the 1960s began changing that view. In 2003, Charles Bonnet’s decades of digging near the Nile’s Third Cataract at the abandoned settlement of Kerma gained international recognition with the discovery of seven large stone statues of Nubian pharaohs. Well before then, however, Bonnet’s labors had revealed an older, densely occupied urban center that commanded rich fields and extensive herds, and had long profited from trade in gold, ebony, and ivory. “It was a kingdom completely free of Egypt and original, with its own construction and burial customs,” Bonnet says. This powerful dynasty rose just as Egypt’s Middle Kingdom declined around 1785 B.C. By 1500 B.C. the Nubian empire stretched between the Second and Fifth Cataracts.

Revisiting that golden age in the African desert does little to advance the case of Afrocentric Egyptologists, who argue that all ancient Egyptians, from King Tut to Cleopatra, were black Africans. Nonetheless, the saga of the Nubians proves that a civilization from deep in Africa not only thrived but briefly dominated in ancient times, intermingling and sometimes intermarrying with their Egyptian neighbors to the north. (King Tut’s own grandmother, the 18th-dynasty Queen Tiye, is claimed by some to be of Nubian heritage.)

The Egyptians didn’t like having such a powerful neighbor to the south, especially since they depended on Nubia’s gold mines to bankroll their dominance of western Asia. So the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty (1539-1292 B.C.) sent armies to conquer Nubia and built garrisons along the Nile. They installed Nubian chiefs as administrators and schooled the children of favored Nubians at Thebes. Subjugated, the elite Nubians began to embrace the cultural and spiritual customs of Egypt—venerating Egyptian gods, particularly Amun, using the Egyptian language, adopting Egyptian burial styles and, later, pyramid building. The Nubians were arguably the first people to be struck by “Egyptomania.”

Egyptologists of the latter 19th and early 20th centuries would interpret this as a sign of weakness. But they had it wrong: The Nubians had a gift for reading the geopolitical tea leaves. By the eighth century B.C., Egypt was riven by factions, the north ruled by Libyan chiefs who put on the trappings of pharaonic traditions to gain legitimacy. Once firmly in power, they toned down the theocratic devotion to Amun, and the priests at Karnak feared a godless outcome. Who was in a position to return Egypt to its former state of might and sanctity?

The Egyptian priests looked south and found their answer—a people who, without setting foot inside Egypt, had preserved Egypt’s spiritual traditions. As archaeologist Timothy Kendall of Northeastern University puts it, the Nubians “had become more Catholic than the pope.”

Under Nubian rule, Egypt became Egypt again. When Piye died in 715 B.C., his brother Shabaka solidified the 25th dynasty by taking up residence in the Egyptian capital of Memphis. Like his brother, Shabaka wed himself to the old pharaonic ways, adopting the throne name of the 6th-dynasty ruler Pepi II, just as Piye had claimed the old throne name of Thutmose III. Rather than execute his foes, Shabaka put them to work building dikes to seal off Egyptian villages from Nile floods.

Shabaka lavished Thebes and the Temple of Luxor with building projects. At Karnak he erected a pink granite statue depicting himself wearing the Kushite crown of the double uraeus—the two cobras signifying his legitimacy as Lord of the Two Lands. Through architecture as well as military might, Shabaka signaled to Egypt that the Nubians were here to stay.

To the east, the Assyrians were fast building their own empire. In 701 B.C., when they marched into Judah in present-day Israel, the Nubians decided to act. At the city of Eltekeh, the two armies met. And although the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib, would brag lustily that he “inflicted defeat upon them,” a young Nubian prince, perhaps 20, son of the great pharaoh Piye, managed to survive. That the Assyrians, whose tastes ran to wholesale slaughter, failed to kill the prince suggests their victory was anything but total.

In any event, when the Assyrians left town and massed against the gates of Jerusalem, that city’s embattled leader, Hezekiah, hoped his Egyptian allies would come to the rescue. The Assyrians issued a taunting reply, immortalized in the Old Testament’s Book of II Kings: “Thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed [of] Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.”

Then, according to the Scriptures and other accounts, a miracle occurred: The Assyrian army retreated. Were they struck by a plague? Or, as Henry Aubin’s provocative book, The Rescue of Jerusalem, suggests, was it actually the alarming news that the aforementioned Nubian prince was advancing on Jerusalem? All we know for sure is that Sennacherib abandoned the siege and galloped back in disgrace to his kingdom, where he was murdered 18 years later, apparently by his own sons.

The deliverance of Jerusalem is not just another of ancient history’s sidelights, Aubin asserts, but one of its pivotal events. It allowed Hebrew society and Judaism to strengthen for another crucial century—by which time the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar could banish the Hebrew people but not obliterate them or their faith. From Judaism, of course, would spring Christianity and Islam. Jerusalem would come to be recast, in all three major monotheistic religions, as a city of a godly significance.

It has been easy to overlook, amid these towering historical events, the dark-skinned figure at the edge of the landscape—the survivor of Eltekeh, the hard-charging prince later referred to by the Assyrians as “the one accursed by all the great gods”: Piye’s son Taharqa.

So sweeping was Taharqa’s influence on Egypt that even his enemies could not eradicate his imprint. During his rule, to travel down the Nile from Napata to Thebes was to navigate a panorama of architectural wonderment. All over Egypt, he built monuments with busts, statues, and cartouches bearing his image or name, many of which now sit in museums around the world. He is depicted as a supplicant to gods, or in the protective presence of the ram deity Amun, or as a sphinx himself, or in a warrior’s posture. Most statues were defaced by his rivals. His nose is often broken off, to foreclose him returning from the dead. Shattered as well is the uraeus on his forehead, to repudiate his claim as Lord of the Two Lands. But in each remaining image, the serene self-certainty in his eyes remains for all to see.

His father, Piye, had returned the true pharaonic customs to Egypt. His uncle Shabaka had established a Nubian presence in Memphis and Thebes. But their ambitions paled before those of the 31-year-old military commander who received the crown in Memphis in 690 B.C. and presided over the combined empires of Egypt and Nubia for the next 26 years.

Taharqa had ascended at a favorable moment for the 25th dynasty. The delta warlords had been laid low. The Assyrians, after failing to best him at Jerusalem, wanted no part of the Nubian ruler. Egypt was his and his alone. The gods granted him prosperity to go with the peace. During his sixth year on the throne, the Nile swelled from rains, inundating the valleys and yielding a spectacular harvest of grain without sweeping away any villages. As Taharqa would record in four separate stelae, the high waters even exterminated all rats and snakes. Clearly the revered Amun was smiling on his chosen one.

Taharqa did not intend to sit on his profits. He believed in spending his political capital. Thus he launched the most audacious building campaign of any pharaoh since the New Kingdom (around 1500 B.C.), when Egypt had been in a period of expansion. Inevitably the two holy capitals of Thebes and Napata received the bulk of Taharqa’s attention. Standing today amid the hallowed clutter of the Karnak temple complex near Thebes is a lone 62-foot-high column. That pillar had been one of ten, forming a gigantic kiosk that the Nubian pharaoh added to the Temple of Amun. He also constructed a number of chapels around the temple and erected massive statues of himself and of his beloved mother, Abar. Without defacing a single preexisting monument, Taharqa made Thebes his.

He did the same hundreds of miles upriver, in the Nubian city of Napata. Its holy mountain Jebel Barkal—known for its striking rock-face pinnacle that calls to mind a phallic symbol of fertility—had captivated even the Egyptian pharaohs of the New Kingdom, who believed the site to be the birthplace of Amun. Seeking to present himself as heir to the New Kingdom pharaohs, Taharqa erected two temples, set into the base of the mountain, honoring the goddess consorts of Amun. On Jebel Barkal’s pinnacle—partially covered in gold leaf to bedazzle wayfarers—the black pharaoh ordered his name inscribed.

Around the 15th year of his rule, amid the grandiosity of his empire-building, a touch of hubris was perhaps overtaking the Nubian ruler. “Taharqa had a very strong army and was one of the main international powers of this period,” says Charles Bonnet. “I think he thought he was the king of the world. He became a bit of a megalomaniac.”

The timber merchants along the coast of Lebanon had been feeding Taharqa’s architectural appetite with a steady supply of juniper and cedar. When the Assyrian king Esarhaddon sought to clamp down on this trade artery, Taharqa sent troops to the southern Levant to support a revolt against the Assyrian. Esarhaddon quashed the move and retaliated by crossing into Egypt in 674 B.C. But Taharqa’s army beat back its foes.

The victory clearly went to the Nubian’s head. Rebel states along the Mediterranean shared his giddiness and entered into an alliance against Esarhaddon. In 671 B.C. the Assyrians marched with their camels into the Sinai desert to quell the rebellion. Success was instant; now it was Esarhaddon who brimmed with bloodlust. He directed his troops toward the Nile Delta.

Taharqa and his army squared off against the Assyrians. For 15 days they fought pitched battles—“very bloody,” by Esarhaddon’s grudging admission. But the Nubians were pushed back all the way to Memphis. Wounded five times, Taharqa escaped with his life and abandoned Memphis. In typical Assyrian fashion, Esarhaddon slaughtered the villagers and “erected piles of their heads.” Then, as the Assyrian would later write, “His queen, his harem, Ushankhuru his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried off to Assyria. The root of Kush I tore up out of Egypt.” To commemorate Taharqa’s humiliation, Esarhaddon commissioned a stela showing Taharqa’s son, Ushankhuru, kneeling before the Assyrian with a rope tied around his neck.

As it happened, Taharqa outlasted the victor. In 669 B.C. Esarhaddon died en route to Egypt, after learning that the Nubian had managed to retake Memphis. Under a new king, the Assyrians once again assaulted the city, this time with an army swollen with captured rebel troops. Taharqa stood no chance. He fled south to Napata and never saw Egypt again.

A measure of Taharqa’s status in Nubia is that he remained in power after being routed twice from Memphis. How he spent his final years is a mystery—with the exception of one final innovative act. Like his father, Piye, Taharqa chose to be buried in a pyramid. But he eschewed the royal cemetery at El Kurru, where all previous Kushite pharaohs had been laid to rest. Instead, he chose a site at Nuri, on the opposite bank of the Nile. Perhaps, as archaeologist Timothy Kendall has theorized, Taharqa selected the location because, from the vista of Jebel Barkal, his pyramid precisely aligns with the sunrise on ancient Egypt’s New Year’s Day, linking him in perpetuity with the Egyptian concept of rebirth.

Just as likely, the Nubian’s motive will remain obscure, like his people’s history.
Robert Draper is the author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. He recently wrote for National Geographic about 21st-century cowboys. Kenneth Garrett shot the August 2007 National Geographic feature on the Maya civilization.

With its subsidiaries Brussels Airlines and Swiss Air, Lufthansa competition KLM-Air France
© Sipa

Lufthansa, British Airways, Emirates Airlines and South African companies are expanding their réseauau detriment of the Franco-Dutch.

Not the African sky has aroused much envy. One of the few air spaces to be resilient to the crisis, but also offers growth prospects most interesting in the coming years (6% per year, against 3.6% for Europe and 2.7 % for the United States), became the scene of fierce competition among Western majors. Carriers who use all strategies to gain market share abroad, particularly in Africa.

After having reigned in the skies of the continent, the Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM is facing the rise of rivals Germany, the UK or U.S.. Mid-November, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which groups together Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines and Swiss Air, has announced its building in Africa, specifically in West Africa and Central Africa through enhanced synergy between its three companies . It is this ambition which has also prompted its acquisition last summer, the Belgian airline SN Brussels Airlines, for some 250 million dollars. In total, the German group is now operational on a thirty destinations in Africa, either as Air France-KLM. If it has an edge in terms of frequency, Lufthansa should catch up next year. The German even considered to offer flights to Africa from Paris, via Frankfurt, Zurich and Brussels. “We want to offer our passengers out of the France an African network offering more choice and flexibility,” says Nicolas Sutter, spokesman for Lufthansa.

Merger with Iberia

Besides the German, British Airways, already present in twenty destinations in Africa, has signed with Spain’s Iberia (seven African destinations) a merger agreement in which the UK is in the majority up to 55%. This alliance, which gives rise to the third largest European carrier by passenger numbers, it will count as one of the tenors who operate in the African sky.

What worry Air France-KLM, which takes a little over 14% of its turnover in Africa. “Of course we fear losing market share with all these comparisons. But we intend to preserve and even improve, “explains Etienne Rachou, general manager Africa and Middle East of the Franco-Dutch. But the task is very arduous. Especially that Air France-KLM would also defend his leadership in responding to companies from the Middle East, including Emirates Airlines, which is also developing on the continent. It opened in October, in addition to its links with Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, a service of Luanda (Angola) and in November signed an agreement of strategic partnership, technical and trade with Senegal Airlines, new company to start operations in 2010.

Winning back customers

And that’s not all, complete Etienne Rachou, “the African carriers like Royal Air Morocco, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, Afriqiyah … are becoming more aggressive on the North-South routes they offer from Paris via their respective hubs.

Faced with this ever-growing competition, including placing the group on his seniority and his “knowledge” of the market. “It is the product,” says Etienne Rachou, who will make the difference. “Starting next year, Air France-KLM plans to offer all its flights on his concept” Comfort Economy “economy class that offers improved comfort and space travel. Objective: To attract customers who have deserted the business and first class company. Since February 2010, Air France-KLM will be the first to fly the very widebody Airbus A380 in Africa, between Paris and Johannesburg, which it wishes to make a key destination. But again, Air France-KLM will have to reckon with competition from Lufthansa, which also complement its African fleet with the A380 from next summer. The destinations will be announced in early 2010.

Air France-KLM, un leadership contesté

Avec ses filiales Brussels Airlines et Swiss Air, Lufthansa concurrence Air France-KLMAvec ses filiales Brussels Airlines et Swiss Air, Lufthansa concurrence Air France-KLM
© Sipa

Lufthansa, British Airways, Emirates Airlines et des compagnies africaines étendent leurs réseauau détriment du groupe franco-néerlandais.

Jamais le ciel africain n’a suscité autant de convoitises. L’un des rares espaces aériens à bien résister à la crise, mais aussi celui qui offre les perspectives de croissance les plus intéressantes au cours des prochaines années (6 % par an, contre 3,6 % pour l’Europe et 2,7 % pour les États-Unis), est devenu le théâtre d’une concurrence féroce entre les grandes compagnies occidentales. Des transporteurs qui usent de toutes les stratégies pour gagner des parts de marché à l’international, notamment en Afrique.

Après avoir régné dans le ciel du continent, le groupe franco-néerlandais Air France-KLM doit faire face à la montée en puissance de ses rivaux allemands, britanniques ou encore américains. Mi-novembre, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, qui regroupe en son sein Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines et Swiss Air, a annoncé son renforcement en Afrique, précisément en Afrique de l’Ouest et en Afrique centrale, grâce à une synergie plus accrue entre ses trois compagnies. C’est cette ambition qui a d’ailleurs motivé son acquisition, l’été dernier, de la compagnie belge Brussels Airlines, pour quelque 250 millions de dollars. Au total, le groupe allemand est désormais opérationnel sur une trentaine de destinations en Afrique, soit autant qu’Air France-KLM. Si ce dernier dispose d’une longueur d’avance en termes de fréquences, Lufthansa devrait rattraper ce retard dès l’an prochain. L’Allemand envisage même de proposer des vols vers l’Afrique au départ de Paris, en passant par Francfort, Zurich ou Bruxelles. « Nous voulons offrir à nos passagers au départ de la France un réseau africain proposant encore plus de choix et de flexibilité », affirme Nicolas Sutter, porte-parole de Lufthansa.

Fusion avec Iberia

Outre le groupe allemand, British Airways, déjà présent sur une ­vingtaine de destinations en Afrique, vient de conclure avec l’espagnol Iberia (sept destinations africaines) un accord de fusion dans lequel le britannique est majoritaire à hauteur de 55 %. Cette alliance, qui donne naissance au ­troisième plus grand transporteur européen en nombre de passagers, comptera elle aussi parmi les ténors qui opéreront dans le ciel africain.

De quoi inquiéter Air France-KLM, qui tire un peu plus de 14 % de son ­chiffre d’affaires en Afrique. « Bien sûr que nous pouvons craindre de ­perdre des parts de marché avec tous ces rapprochements. Mais nous comptons les préserver et même les améliorer », explique Étienne Rachou, le directeur général Afrique et Moyen-Orient du groupe franco-néerlandais. Mais la tâche sera très ardue. D’autant plus qu’Air France-KLM devrait également défendre son leadership face aux compagnies venant du Moyen-Orient, notamment Emirates Airlines, qui se développe aussi sur le continent. Elle a ouvert en octobre, en plus de ses liaisons avec la Côte d’Ivoire, le Ghana et le Nigeria, une desserte de Luanda (Angola) et a signé en ­novembre un accord de partenariat stratégique, technique et commercial avec Sénégal Airlines, la nouvelle compagnie qui doit démarrer ses activités en 2010.

Reconquérir les clients

Et ce n’est pas tout, complète Étienne Rachou, « les transporteurs africains comme Royal Air Maroc, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, Afriqiyah… sont de plus en plus agressifs sur les liaisons Nord-Sud, qu’ils proposent au départ de Paris via leurs hubs respectifs ».

Face à cette concurrence sans cesse grandissante, le groupe mise notamment sur son ancienneté et sa « bonne connaissance » du marché. « C’est le produit, affirme Étienne Rachou, qui fera la différence. » Dès l’année prochaine, Air France-KLM envisage de proposer sur tous ses vols son concept « Economy Comfort », la classe ­économique améliorée qui offre plus de confort et d’espace aux voyageurs. Objectif : attirer les clients qui ont déserté les classes affaires et première de la compagnie. Dès février 2010, Air France-KLM sera la première à faire voler le très gros-porteur A380 d’Airbus en Afrique, entre Paris et Johannesburg, dont elle souhaite faire une destination clé. Mais là aussi, Air France-KLM devra compter avec la concurrence de Lufthansa, qui complétera elle aussi sa flotte africaine par l’A380 à partir de l’été prochain. Les destinations desservies seront connues début 2010.

Air France-KLM, ein Wettstreit um die Führungsrolle

Mit ihren Tochtergesellschaften Brussels Airlines und Swiss Air, Lufthansa Wettbewerb KLM-Air France
© Sipa

Lufthansa, British Airways, Emirates Airlines und südafrikanischen Firmen bauen ihre réseauau Nachteil des französisch-niederländisch.

Nicht der afrikanischen Himmel hat viel Neid hervorgerufen. Einer der wenigen Lufträume werden widerstandsfähiger gegen die Krise, sondern bietet auch die interessantesten Wachstumsperspektiven in den kommenden Jahren (6% pro Jahr, gegenüber 3,6% für Europa und 2,7 % für die Vereinigten Staaten), wurde der Schauplatz des harten Wettbewerbs unter den westlichen Majors. Träger, die alle Strategien nutzen, um Marktanteile im Ausland zu sammeln, insbesondere in Afrika.

Nachdem herrschte in den Himmel des Kontinents, ist die französisch-niederländische Air France-KLM mit Blick auf den Anstieg des Rivalen Deutschland, Großbritannien oder den USA. Mitte November, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, die Gruppen zusammen Lufthansa hat Brussels Airlines und Swiss Air, ihre Gebäude in Afrika, speziell in West-Afrika und Zentral-Afrika bekannt, durch eine größere Synergie zwischen den drei Unternehmen . Es ist dieses Bestreben, die auch die Akquisition im vergangenen Sommer dazu aufgefordert hat, die belgische Fluggesellschaft SN Brussels Airlines, für rund 250 Millionen Dollar. Insgesamt ist die deutsche Gruppe nun in Betrieb auf einem dreißig Destinationen in Afrika, entweder als Air France-KLM. Wenn es eine Kante hat in Bezug auf Frequenz, sollte Lufthansa fangen im nächsten Jahr. Die deutsche als auch für Flüge von Paris nach Afrika zu bieten, über Frankfurt, Zürich und Brüssel. “Wir wollen unseren Fahrgästen aus dem Frankreich eine afrikanische Netzwerk bietet mehr Auswahl und Flexibilität”, sagt Nicolas Sutter, Sprecher der Lufthansa.

Fusion mit Iberia

Neben dem deutschen hat British Airways, die bereits in zwanzig Destinationen in Afrika, mit Iberia in Spanien (sieben Destinationen in Afrika) einen Fusionsvertrag in das Vereinigte Königreich ist in den meisten bis zu 55% abgeschlossen. Diese Allianz, die zu der drittgrößte europäische Fluggesellschaft durch die Zahl der Fluggäste gibt, zählt als einer der Tenöre, die in den afrikanischen Himmel zu betreiben.

Was Sorgen Air France-KLM, die ein wenig mehr als 14% ihres Umsatzes in Afrika stattfindet. “Natürlich haben wir Angst vor Verlust von Marktanteilen bei all diesen Vergleichen. Aber wollen wir erhalten und sogar zu verbessern “, erklärt Etienne Rachou, General Manager Afrika und Mittlerer Osten der französisch-niederländisch. Aber die Aufgabe ist sehr anstrengend. Vor allem, dass Air France-KLM wäre auch zu verteidigen seiner Führung bei der Reaktion auf Unternehmen aus dem Nahen Osten, einschließlich der Emirates Airlines, die auch die Entwicklung auf dem Kontinent. Es wurde im Oktober zusätzlich zu seiner Verbindungen mit der Republik Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana und Nigeria, ein Service von Luanda (Angola) und im November eine Vereinbarung unterzeichnet, der strategischen Partnerschaft, Technik und Handel mit Senegal Airlines, neue Unternehmen den Betrieb beginnt 2010.

Winning Kunden zurückgewinnen

Und das ist nicht alles, komplett Etienne Rachou “, die afrikanische Carrier wie Royal Air Marokko, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, Afriqiyah … werden immer aggressiver auf der Nord-Süd-Routen bieten sie aus Paris über ihre jeweiligen Hubs.

Angesichts dieser ständig wachsenden Wettbewerb, ua durch die Gruppe seines Dienstalters und sein “Wissen” des Marktes. “Es ist das Produkt ist”, sagt Etienne Rachou, die den Unterschied machen wird. “Ab dem nächsten Jahr will Air France-KLM auf allen Flügen über seinen Begriff” Komfort Economy “Economy-Class-Komfort, dass verbesserte Angebote bieten und Raumfahrt. Ziel: Gewinnung von Kunden, die Business und First Class Unternehmen verlassen zu haben. Seit Februar 2010, Air France-KLM werden die ersten bis zum Großraum-Airbus A380 in Afrika zu fliegen, zwischen Paris und Johannesburg, in dem es sich an ein zentrales Ziel zu machen. Aber noch einmal, Air France-KLM muss mit Konkurrenz von Lufthansa, auch als Ergänzung zu ihren afrikanischen Flotte mit der A380 ab dem kommenden Sommer zu rechnen. Die Ziele werden Anfang 2010 bekannt gegeben.

Jeune Afrique.com
N°2555-2556
27 déc. 2009 au 9 janv. 2010
Et voilà 
« Jeune Afrique »!
Sénégal
31/12/2009 11:41:49 | par Tshitenge Lubabu M.K.

L’antagonisme qui oppose l’égyptologue Cheikh Anta Diop au chef de l’Etat Léopold Sédar Senghor est révélateur des tensions qui traversent la société sénégalaise lors des premières années d’indépendance.

Le 9 janvier 1960, l’égyptologue Cheikh Anta Diop soutient à la Sorbonne une thèse dans laquelle il compare les systèmes politiques et sociaux de l’Europe et de l’Afrique, de l’Antiquité à la formation des États modernes. Le jury lui attribue la mention honorable. En clair, cela signifie qu’il ne sera jamais professeur à l’université. Et il rentre au Sénégal où Léopold Sédar Senghor, son ennemi intime, est président.

“Destruction de la vraie culture africaine”

Tout oppose les deux hommes. Senghor parle de négritude alors que Diop prône la renaissance africaine à partir de l’héritage de l’Égypte pharaonique et la promotion des langues négro-africaines. Il traite Senghor et ses amis d’« écrivains africains de langue étrangère ». Et doute que leurs écrits soient la « base d’une culture africaine ».

Quand Senghor affirme que « l’émotion est nègre, la raison hellène », Diop dénonce « l’aliénation » de « nègres d’une haute intellectualité […] qui cherchent à codifier ces idées nazies d’une prétendue dualité du Nègre sensible et émotif, créateur d’art, et du Blanc fait surtout de rationalité ». Selon lui, Senghor se sert de la négritude « pour procéder à la destruction de la vraie culture africaine ». Et il s’assigne une mission : « Combattre l’inculture qu’entraîne la désinformation servie dans un pédantisme nourri et entretenu par le chef même de l’exécutif, un certain Léopold Sédar Senghor. »

Attaques politiques et… syntaxiques!

Senghor, qui qualifie cet antagonisme d’« opposition crypto-personnelle », le lui rend bien. Il lui ferme les portes de l’université et le confine à un poste de chercheur au sein d’un laboratoire de l’Institut fondamental de l’Afrique noire (Ifan). Sur le plan politique, il recrute les militants du Bloc des masses sénégalaises (BMS), le premier parti de Cheikh Anta Diop, qui se désintègre, et dissout également son deuxième parti, le Front national sénégalais (FNS).

Lorsque l’égyptologue fonde le Rassemblement national démocratique (RND), il ne reçoit pas l’agrément parce que « sans aucune identification aux courants politiques autorisés ». Senghor attaque Diop sur le plan syntaxique en suspendant la parution du journal Siggi, créé par ce dernier. Il affirme que le mot wolof siggi s’écrit avec un seul « g » et exige la correction de la faute. Mais Diop préfère changer de titre. Il en sera ainsi jusqu’au départ de Senghor du pouvoir, en 1980.

Par Tshitenge Lubabu M.K.

Friday 8 January 2010 / by Prince Ofori-Atta
Among the first leading IT companies to have invested in Africa, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is convinced that to benefit from the continent’s full potential the Brain Drain phenomenon that characterises slow development has to be tackled in a manner that guarantees sustainable development. HP’s African Brain Gain Initiative (BGI), in conjunction with UNESCO, aims to ensure that African brains remain in Africa or work closer to home. The BGI seeks to consolidate professional collaboration between universities, researchers, professors, teachers, students, etc, both home and abroad, via a virtual network known as the grid and cloud computer technique. The BGI is one of many initiatives undertaken by HP on the African continent. Interview with Rainer Koch, Hewlett-Packard Managing Director for Africa.

Afrik.com: What prompted HP to embark on the Brain Gain Initiative?
Rainer Koch: The Brain Gain Initiative dates back to 2003 when we did a lot of business in eastern Europe. What we realised at that point in time was that a lot of local talent, especially from the universities, had moved out of the country. So basically, we did not have the right environment to get the right people to work with us. It also meant that having the right talent for sustainable development would be a challenge. That is when we created the Brain Gain Initiative with UNESCO, in order to coordinate our efforts to deal with the Brain Drain phenomenon.

Afrik.com: What are the objectives of the Brain Gain Initiative?
Rainer Koch: The programme’s main objective is to invest in local universities selected with the help of local ministries of education. We link those universities we facilitate in that process with universities abroad via our grid and cloud computer techniques. Those universities abroad also usually have teachers from the Diaspora. The programme seeks to benefit local universities by ensuring that their professors, lecturers and teachers have the right technical environment and also that they have the same kind of access to knowledge basis as is the case in other parts of the world. This does not only keep them motivated to stay in their countries, but also ensures that lecturers and professors are locally available, while students get the right education.

Afrik.com: But this Initiative has not been confined to Eastern Europe…
Rainer Koch: Indeed, in 2007-2008, we extended the project to Africa. We now have five universities connected to the grid and we will have 15 additional universities in 2010. In 2011, we plan with UNESCO and other partners to extend this programme to other universities across the continent.

Afrik.com: Will the scientists or products from the Brain Gain Initiative project really remain in Africa?
Rainer Koch: It is a question that is always difficult to answer, but if you look at patterns from other emerging countries like India, some thirty years back, when they got interested in the IT sector, the same question would have been asked. But today, India is a knowledge community and a recognised international IT centre. For sure, in Africa we will not able to prevent scientists from leaving, but the conditions for research and development is getting better. As far as HP, as a hi-tech company, is concerned, I can assure you that whenever we have a job opening on the continent, for an engineer or a manager, we get a lot of applications from Africans in the Diaspora wanting to go back to work in Africa… There are jobs available on the continent now. Africa might lose one or two scientists now and then, but conditions are getting better and better. I believe that the long-term trend is positive in that effect.

Afrik.com: Is Cloud technology, which is an essential tool in the initiative, not an issue for a continent that still faces serious challenges in what concerns affordability and access to both computers and the Internet?
Rainer Koch: Cloud technology is a tool to access foreign development networks. For example in Algeria, we are connecting universities to help develop a network for renewable energy… So cloud technology is not a topic on its own, it’s a tool to connect to other universities, to other research networks. In what concerns affordability, today’s computer prices are experiencing a free-fall. Prices will adjust with time. I do not think at all that the price of a computer is a limiting factor anymore. In fact, the limiting factor is the infrastructure and availability of network, as the real wager comes with getting connected to the Internet. Affordable network bandwidth makes all the difference. To use a PC, one needs some basic education. The bottleneck today is not in the cost of the pc anymore but rather in limiting factors in terms of network availability, connectivity, and education initiatives.

Afrik.com: Talking about education intiatives, many have expressed environmental concerns over the reckless disposal of computers on the continent…
Rainer Koch: We are aware of the fact that some companies misused Africa as a dumping ground for old computer equipment. HP does not support this attitude at all. We have initiatives where we invest in the recycling of old computers, thereby creating new jobs in that area. We educate companies or local initiatives on how to recycle old and broken down computers in the right way and how to make money from selling usable spare parts from those computers.

Afrik.com: Employment opportunities?
Rainer Koch: What is more important here is that we have also been creating jobs that are not linked only to the sales of IT equipment, but also linked to export services. In North Africa, we have outsourcing facilities that basically serve customers outside Africa, in Europe for example. This initiative creates export opportunities for African countries, more particularly service export, which is what outsourcing is all about. This is the exciting thing about Africa nowadays. The continent is seeing itself as a base for offshore activities, like India was in previous times.

Afrik.com:: On the subject of adapting your product to the African market, what investments are you making in this area?
Rainer Koch: We might consider adapting our product portfolio to the local market in terms of the look and feel aspect… it is something we have been working on for sometime now but no final decisions have been made yet. In terms of investments or creating products in Africa, HP as an international company traditionally pays particular attention to emerging markets, and Africa is currently the fastest growing region in the world as far as HP is concerned. We have special growth initiatives now to have even more investments in Africa. Being the first IT company to be present on the continent, we have offices in basically the whole of north Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and of course South Africa. We also plan to open ten new subsidiaries in the near future.

By Audrey Brown
Focus on Africa Magazine

A jubilant man in the crowd holds a newspaper aloft announcing Mandela’s release from custody
Audrey Brown’s memories of the day Nelson Mandela was released are still vivid

Nothing prepared me for the exhilaration that would begin bubbling through my blood, and explode into my soul, on 11 February, 1990.

Just a week earlier South Africa’s last white president, FW de Klerk, had announced to the world that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela would walk free from jail.

At the time, I was a cub reporter for the crusading anti-apartheid newspaper Vrye Weekblad. And I was breaking up with my long-term boyfriend and consolidating a relationship with someone else.

But my love-life took a back seat as one of the most exciting events in my personal and professional life began to unfold.

It may sound lofty now – but this political event was personal.

Everything my family and comrades had held to be true – that we would defeat apartheid, that all the authentic leaders of the people of South Africa would be freed and that our true aspirations would finally be realised – was about to come true.

“We marched through the streets of Johannesburg, taunting the police with our victory chants. They chased us and beat us up.”

I laughed with delirious joy because everything was suddenly possible, just like we knew it was when – as singing children – we threw stones at the staggering giant that was apartheid.

I cried because so many of my friends and family had died trying to make this happen, waiting for it to happen.

I so wished that my maternal grandfather was alive to witness the day.

My paternal grandfather had gone into exile in the 1950s and this meant we would finally meet him – and the aunt, uncles and cousins we did not know.

My father and his siblings would see their father again after 31 years.

My grandmother would be reunited with the man who had left her with their four children to go into exile.

I would find out what had happened to my friends who had disappeared across the borders, to go and fight to bring this day closer.

My family – and my country – would be whole again.

We marched through the streets of Johannesburg, taunting the police with our victory chants. They chased us and beat us up.

The old beast tried hard to put the joyous genie of victory back into the bottle of repression.

One of my colleagues – a white Afrikaner – ended up with a bloodied face, dazed from a policeman’s club – on the cover of the magazine Index on Censorship.

But nothing felt like pain and nothing felt like work that week as we started putting together a special edition of our newspaper.

And then it was Sunday.

Nelson Mandela walks free from prison holding his fist aloft in the Black Power salute
Mandela raises his fist as he walks free from prison in 1991

With a new boyfriend and old friends – and a towering joy – I sat in front of the television, waiting to see the man whose release was key to ending the political crisis in South Africa.

I know it sounds a bit silly but it did feel a bit like waiting to see the bride’s dress at an important wedding; or waiting to see a beloved and long-awaited newborn baby for the first time.

We did not know what he would look like or what he would be like.

In a way we did not care, because the very fact of his release represented the sum total of our achievement. Apartheid was finally defeated.

It had stumbled under the words of disgust and condemnation from the whole world, and the sacrifice of millions inside and outside South Africa.

Mr Mandela’s release was proof that it had finally fallen. We had won.

Nothing could be better than this. I was thinking all those things as I waited to see him.

The world had stopped to watch with us and everyone was subjected to the same stolid commentary from the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s anchorman.

Then the moustached presenter – so typical of the old South Africa – said: “There he is now…” or words to that effect; and a tall, upright man in a suit walked slowly out into the sunshine, holding his beautiful wife’s hand and raising the other in a black power salute.

That is when the very centre of my soul suddenly flamed and melted into a burnished joy that has flared and faded over time as South Africa went through, and continues to suffer, a painful rebirth.

As I think of that day now, I feel that molten-core flame again and I know that – whatever happens to my country and my continent – it will never really be extinguished.

Audrey Brown is a presenter at the BBC World Service

This article appears in the January – March 2010 edition of BBC Focus on Africa Magazine.

A string of attacks by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in and around Mali has hurt the tourism mecca of Timbuktu. The popular Mali Festival au Desert was moved closer to the city yesterday for safety.

Concertgoers attend last year’s Festival au Desert in Essakane, Mali. Fears of an attack by Al Qaeda militants have moved this year’s music festival to the outskirts of Timbuktu.

By Scott Baldauf Staff Writer / January 8, 2010
Timbuktu, Mali

In a normal December, the streets of Timbuktu are crawling with Western tourists. They take tours of the local libraries full of 12th-century manuscripts, ride camels into the desert to spend the night under the stars, and in early January, attend the Festival au Desert, a kind of Saharan Woodstock, where Tuareg and Malian guitarists trade blues riffs that would bring a smile to the face of John Lee Hooker.

But this past December was no normal one. A series of kidnappings of Western tourists and aid workers – claimed by a group calling itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – has prompted most Western embassies in Bamako to urge Western tourists to stay away from northern Mali this year.

Typical is this recent warden message sent out by the US embassy. The US embassy in Bamako, “continues to recommend against all travel to the north of the country due to kidnapping threats against Westerners,” a recent message said. “U.S. citizens are specifically reminded that the restricted areas include Essakane, site of the popular ‘Festival au Desert’ musical event…”

The festival, which opened Thursday, was moved from its usual expansive Saharan desert locale of Essakane to the outskirts of Timbuktu for safety concerns. But that hasn’t eased all fears. France issued a warning on Wednesday advising its citizens not to attend – to the consternation of Mali, which says it has ensured the festival’s safety, according to the BBC.

The embassy warnings in general related to tourism, coming from the British, French, American, and even Swiss embassies, have been persistent, and effective, essentially leaving Timbuktu – one of the most remote, exotic, and historically preserved corners of the earth – virtually empty, hammering a region that depends on the winter tourism season for its very survival.

“You know that the Bronx is more dangerous than Timbuktu,” says Manny Ansar, the head organizer for the Festival au Desert who is based in Timbuktu. “My problem is that I can’t say there is no Al Qaeda in northern Mali, because Al Qaeda is everywhere. They do their attacks in London, in New York City, in India, in Spain, but nobody says don’t go to Madrid or London because of Al Qaeda. Why only to us?”

“We are one of the most popular events in Africa, but we are struggling, because it is difficult to succeed when the biggest customers – America and Britain – are telling their citizens ‘don’t go’,” he sighs. “We will lose 60 to 70 percent of the people who would like to come. But we will be here. The festival will go on.”

String of attacks around Timbuktu

Locals say the threat of Al Qaeda in northern Mali is overstated, but there have been a worrying string of attacks against Westerners in all the countries around Mali, and in Mali itself. Al Qaeda in the Maghreb has taken credit for the following ones:

• In December 2008, the kidnapping of two Canadian nationals working for the United Nations in Niger.

• The kidnapping of four European tourists along the Mali-Niger border, in which one British hostage was killed in June 2009.

• The murder of a US citizen in Mauritania in June 2009

• The suicide-bombing of the French Embassy in Mauritania on Aug. 8, 2009

• In November, the kidnapping of four Spanish aid workers in Mauritania, and the kidnapping of a French citizen living in the Malian city of Menaka, some about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Timbuktu. Al Qaeda has taken credit for both of these recent kidnappings.

Local people in Timbuktu say the embassy warnings are an overreaction to the problem – most of which occur far from the Timbuktu region – and that the warnings have effectively killed the tourist season this year.

“I have a hotel with 16 rooms, but right now I have only two or three of them filled,” says Alhous Ag Tajoli, a hotelier in Timbuktu. “In a normal year, I am crazy right now, on the phone, making bookings, but this year, I have no one. It’s a catastrophe.”

Mohamed Alhassane, another tour operator in Timbuktu, said: “Last year, during the Festival, I had 700 tourists booked in hotels. Two years ago, we had 400 tourists booked. This year, because the Americans say, ‘Don’t come,’ no one has come.”

Secretary: ‘We are the victims of misinformation’

Tuareg nomads have always come to the Timbuktu region for trading, and they have always gathered at Essakane – about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of here – to trade goods, and camels, and stories of their travels. The Festival au Desert, started in 2001, six years after a major Tuareg rebellion, brings together musicians from the Tuareg region who carry on ancient traditions of story telling. When Timbuktu was at the height of its power and influence, it was a center for trading in salt and gold and slaves, and the music one hears at the Festival carries with it the DNA of a music that Americans call the blues.

Mali’s tourism industry, and its politicians, are not taking the problem lying down. Early in December, they held a splashy extravaganza at a Timbuktu hotel to open the tourist season, with top local and national musicians giving a taste of things to come at the Festival au Desert. At a press conference, Manny Ansar and a panel of Malian leaders promised to combat Mali’s sudden image problem.

“A few years ago, we were victims of a drought and famine,” says Nana Haidara, Mali’s secretary for food security. “Now we are the victims of misinformation and exaggeration. Nobody will come to our rescue. We must help ourselves first.”

While Western tourists have been canceling their Festival plans this year in droves, few Western artists have, and a number of top Malian musicians – including guitarist Vieux Farka Toure, son of the late world-music sensation Ali Farka Toure – have made a point to say they will continue to perform at the Festival, no matter what.

“I am from Timbuktu. I was born here. I know the people here, and I don’t believe we have Al Qaeda here,” says Thiale Arby, a top Malian singer. “For me the Festival is very important. It is good for people to come here in the middle of the desert and to meet people from all different countries. This is a city that has always welcomed everybody, no matter what religion or nation, and that is never going to change.”

Of course, the kind of tourist that comes to Mali – an incredibly poor country rich in history and the arts – is also the sort of tourist who tends to have a high tolerance for discomfort and danger, and there are a few tourists in Timbuktu who have come despite, or perhaps because of, the warnings.

“That’s actually why I’m here,” says Martijn Munneke, a young backpacker from Erm, Netherlands. “Maybe I’m naive, but I want to see the world. When the swine flu struck Mexico, that is when I bought a ticket to go to Mexico. I figured it’s a good time to go to Chichen Itza when there are no tourists there.”

Anupama Sud, a photography student from San Francisco, working on a photojournalism project, says she had read all about the travel warnings, but decided to come to Mali nonetheless. “It’s the final frontier. When you think of Timbuktu, you think of the end of the world. I feel safe here. People from the Third World would rather feed a guest first, which is totally different from what you get in the West.”

Christianity first arrived in North Africa, in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. The Christian communities in North Africa were among the earliest in the world. Legend has it that Christianity was brought from Jerusalem to Alexandria on the Egyptian coast by Mark, one of the four evangelists, in 60 AD. This was around the same time or possibly before Christianity spread to Northern Europe.

Once in North Africa, Christianity spread slowly West from Alexandria and East to Ethiopia. Through North Africa, Christianity was embraced as the religion of dissent against the expanding Roman Empire. In the 4th century AD the Ethiopian King Ezana made Christianity the kingdom’s official religion. In 312 Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

In the 7th century Christianity retreated under the advance of Islam. But it remained the chosen religion of the Ethiopian Empire and persisted in pockets in North Africa.

In the 15th century Christianity came to Sub-Saharan Africa with the arrival of the Portuguese. In the South of the continent the Dutch founded the beginnings of the Dutch Reform Church in 1652.

In the interior of the continent most people continued to practice their own religions undisturbed until the 19th century. At that time, Christian missions to Africa increased, driven by an antislavery crusade and the interest of Europeans in colonising Africa. However, where people had already converted to Islam, Christianity had little success.

Christianity was an agent of great change in Africa. It destabilised the status quo, bringing new opportunities to some, and undermining the power of others. With the Christian missions came education, literacy and hope for the disadvantaged. However, the spread of Christianity paved the way for commercial speculators, and, in its original rigid European form, denied people pride in their culture and ceremonies.

Listen to The Coming Of Christianity, the sixth programme in the BBC landmark radio series The Story of Africa, presented by Hugh Quarshie

North Africa was an early cradle of Christianity. Indeed Christianity’s links with Africa started nearly two thousand years ago, just weeks after the birth of Jesus when according to the bible, the holy family fled the wrath of King Herod.

“An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying: ‘Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ‘Out of Egypt I called my Son.”
St Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 3, verses 13-15.

Listen to St Mathew’s Gospel, Chapter 3, Verse 13-15

Christianity spread to North Africa less than 150 years after the death of Christ. Christian beliefs were introduced by missionaries from Jerusalem and spread among the Jews of Alexandria, on the Egyptian Coast, some time in first century AD or second century. There, the new faith was adopted by the Greek community from the Jews. Christianity spread west, and was taken up across North Africa. It reached as far as modern-day Morocco, where it was enthusiastically embraced by the Berber people. It is quite possible that Christianity came to Africa before it came to Britain and other regions in Northern Europe.

CHRISTIANITY AS DISSENT

Under the Greeks and during the early years of Roman rule, Egyptians had worshipped their traditional gods as they had during the time of the Pharaohs. Some historians believe that there were elements within such traditional religion that made people receptive to the Christian message.

“Consider how the pharaoh Akhenaton more than one thousand years before Christianity taught and preached how there was one creator for the universe. Look at the statues in ancient Egypt…there is the sign of the cross which was engraved upon it. It was called the ankh – the sign of life, of life after death.

Even the idea of the trinity…in Memphis there was the trinity of Isis, Osiris and Horus, all combined into one. So many of the teachings of Christianity were not foreign at all.”
Fouad Megially, former Assistant Professor at the universities of Alexandria and Cairo.

Listen to a Coptic mass, recorded at the eleventh century Church of St Mary in Cairo, also known as the Hanging Church

The branch of Christianity that developed in Egypt was named after the language spoken by the mass of the Egyptian population – Coptic. Two thousand years later it is still used in Church liturgy.

The early Christian fathers in Egypt developed a strong monastic tradition. There were hundreds of monasteries throughout the country as well as cells and caves occupied by hermits. An anonymous fourth century writer observed:

“There is no town or village in Egypt that is not surrounded by hermitages as if by walls and the people depend on their prayers as if on God himself, through them the world is kept going.”

Christianity was embraced as the religion of dissent and opposition to oppressive Roman rule. It was also, under the teaching of the theologian Origen, a religion emphasising wisdom and physical hardship. Martyrdom became a feature of Christian communities.

One of the earliest documented martyrs was Perpetua, a twenty-year-old wife and mother born in Carthage near Tunis. In 203 AD, she was sentenced to death for her beliefs and her refusal to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods.

“We walked up to the prisoner’s dock. All the others when questioned admitted their guilt. Then, when it came to my turn, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the step, and said: ‘Perform the sacrifice – have pity on your baby!’

Hilarianus the governor…. said to me: ‘Have pity on your father’s grey head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the Emperors’.

‘I will not’ I retorted.
‘Are you a Christian?’ said Hilarianus.
And I said: ‘Yes, I am’…
Then Hilarianus passed sentence on all of us; we were condemned to the beasts, and we returned to prison in high spirits.”
Perpetua’s account of her last days, taken from Acts of the Christian Martyrs.

Listen to a BBC dramatisation of the martyrdom of Perpetua

From the early fourth century, under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, the attacks became more widespread and violent. Churches were destroyed, bibles burned, and Christians faced imprisonment, torture and death.

DIVISIONS WITHIN CHRISTIANITY
Persecution of the Christians ceased in 312, when the Roman Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire. By now, different forms of Christian belief were beginning to emerge and diverse groups of worshippers were beginning to congregate. The most long lasting split over doctrine centred on the nature of God and developed in 451. The Church in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), from where the Roman Empire was now administered, held to the idea that God was both human – in the form of Jesus – and divine. In contradiction to this, the church in North Africa said God was one indivisible unity and wholly divine. This Monophysite belief became the central tenet of the Church in North Africa, which subsequently became known as the Coptic Church.

DONATISM
In the Western regions of North Africa, a more militant, rigid form of Christianity grew up. It was unforgiving of those who collaborated with Roman persecutors. This form of Christianity was known as Donatism and it became identified by the newly Christianised Byzantine authorities as a heresy and equated with dissent and rebellion. It was outlawed by St Augustine of Hippo in his capacity as Bishop of Hippo (in modern Algeria). When Islam came to North Africa in 639, Christian communities were weakened by these divisions and so were less able to resist conversion to the new faith.

Ethiopia & Nubia
AKSUM
The Ethiopian branch of Christianity first emerged in the kingdom of Aksum in the northern corner of the Ethiopian highlands. The person who introduced Christianity to Aksum is said to be Fremnatos – known as Frumentius in Europe, later a saint. He is variously described as a trader, philosopher and theologian.

The story goes he was on his way to India when he was kidnapped in Aksum. He obviously made a good impression, because he ended up being the tutor to the future King Ezana. The King adopted Christianity as the official religion in 333 AD. Fremnatos was rewarded for this by being consecrated Bishop of Aksum at a ceremony in Alexandria. When the Aksum dynasty collapsed the Ethiopian centre of power moved south and east, taking the Christian tradition with it.

QUEEN OF SHEBA
The most popular story connected to the region is the ancient account of the Queen of Sheba. As told in the Old Testament, she travelled from Aksum to Jerusalem to meet the famed King Solomon (King of the Israelites) in Jerusalem.

Click here to listen to a dramatisation of the story of the Queen of Sheba’s seduction by King Solomon

“And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones; and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.”
1 Kings, 10, v.1-2, Old Testament.

Although there is no evidence that the Queen of Sheba did come from Aksum, it has become part of the Ethiopian church’s central tenets.

“The Ethiopians say she travelled from Aksum across the Red Sea…and visited Solomon there. It was said they had romantic relations and she had a son…and she came back and he was born to the north of Aksum.

When he was old enough, she sent him back to his father to get his blessing and his father blessed him and sent him back to Ethiopia…and this son established a new dynasty…the Solomonic dynasty. The name of the son was Menelik I…

Like all legends they serve the question of establishing an identity, very strong identity. I myself believe this is a post Christian legend…it developed only after the Ethiopians started to have direct contact with the books of the Bible, from about the middle of the 6th Century…

And then it became a very important constitutional device and an act of faith. I cannot publicly speak against it in front of the patriarch of the orthodox church, for example, because then he would say, you are no longer an Orthodox Christian.

In the days of Emperor Haile Selassie you couldn’t speak against the tradition because it would be treasonable to talk against it.”
Professor Tadesse Tamrat, Professor of History, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Tesfay Berhane offers a guided tour of Axum and the Queen of Sheba’s Palace

Listen to a mass, recorded at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Axum

SPREAD OF ISLAM
In the 5th and 6th centuries the scriptures were translated into Ge’ez. The ancient forerunner of the Ethiopian language Amharic. With the spread of Islam in the 7th century the Ethiopian Church fell into something of a decline, although there was a revival in the 13th century. In 1621 the Ethiopian Emperor Susenyos became Catholic. With his abdication however, links with Rome were abandoned and Jesuit priests were banned.

Although autonomous in its rulings, the Ethiopian church remained connected to the Coptic Church until the mid-20th century.

THE NUBIA
Christianity spread South from the North of Egypt to Nubia (modern day Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan) some two hundred years after the collapse of the powerful Nile Valley kingdom of Meroe in the 4th century AD. It was brought by traders from Egypt and by travelers from Aksum.

Archaeological remains suggest that Christianity was a religion of the poor people to begin with and only later became popular with the elite. A missionary who came to Nubia from Constantinople found everybody well versed in Christian doctrine in 580. Initially the Nubian Church developed under the control of the Egyptian Coptic church. When Islam swept through the North of the continent in the 7th century, the Nubian rulers sought help from the Christian Emperor in Constantinople.

The Arab forces did their best to conquer Nubia but were forced back by the skills of the Nubian archers.

“One day they arrayed themselves against us and were desirous to carry on the conflict with the sword. But they were too quick for us and shot their arrows, putting out our eyes. The eyes they put out numbered 150. We at last thought the best thing to do with such a people was to make peace.”
The Arabic writer al-Baladhuri.

The Arabs agreed a peace treaty with the Nubians, which allowed the Nubian kingdoms to flourish as a Christian state for 700 years. The two northern kingdoms, Nobadia and Makuria merged into one – Dongola. Dongola entered something of a golden age; the bible was translated from Greek into Nubian and beautiful churches were built throughout the Nile Valley.

The Church in Nubia finally yielded to Islamic conversion in the 14th century and the massive Cathedral in Dongola was converted into a mosque in 1317.

While the Nubian church dissolved, with only a few architectural remnants to recall its former glory, the Ethiopian Church not only persisted but acquired great significance outside the Horn of Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The ancient nature of the church, combined with the Ethiopian defeat of the Italians in 1896, gave hope and inspiration to the anti-colonial movement in South Africa, and the Gold Coast, as well as to African-Americans suffering from prejudice and segregation.

Early Missionaries

THE KONGO
In 1490 the first missionaries came to Sub-Saharan Africa at the request of King Nzinga of Kongo (also known as the Manikongo). They came with craftsmen who rebuilt the Manikongo’s capital in stone at Mbanza Kongo (in the North of modern Angola), and baptised the King. King Nzinga’s son Afonso (born Nzinga Mbemba) was sent to Portugal to study and amazed the catholic hierarchy with his intelligence and intense piety.

“It seems to me from the way he speaks as though he is not a man but rather an angel, sent by the Lord into this kingdom to convert it; for I assure that is he who instructs us, and that he knows better than we do the Prophets and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the lives of the saints and all the things concerning out Holy Mother the Church…For he devotes himself entirely to study, so that it often happens that he falls asleep over his books, and often he forgets to eat and drink in talking of the things of Our Lord.”
The Franciscan missionary, Rui d’Aguiar, writing to King Manuel of Portugal about the piety of the Mani Kongo, King Afonso of the Kongo, 25th May 1516.

Afonso’s son, Henrique, subsequently became the first black African bishop in the Catholic church. But the kingdom of the Kongo was ruined by the slave trade, which caused a massive drain on manpower.

THE SOYO
The Soyo people were initially junior partners in an alliance with the Manikongo, but this changed in the 17th century. The Soyo traded with the Dutch from whom they bought firearms in exchange for slaves, ivory and copper. The Soyo eventually usurped the Manikongo and laid waste Sao Salvador, the Kongo seat of power. The Soyo set up their capital in Mbanza Soyo (now modern Porto Rico on Zaire river in northern Angola). By 1665 the Kongo empire had largely disintegrated.

THE SOYO ELITE
Capuchin missionaries from Portugal established themselves as crucial intermediaries between the Soyo and Europe. They were helped by eight or ten interpreters, many related to the ruler, bound by a vow of secrecy and governed by many rules. The interpreters were a privileged group and did not pay tax or do military service. Their job was to translate during confession, prepare the altar and teach. By the late 17th century the ruler of Soyo was attending mass three times a week, carried in a hammock, wearing a cross of solid gold.

However, there was conflict between the Capuchins and the Soyo over the issue of monogamous marriage and traditional religious practices. The Capuchins did not want the Soyo to sell baptised slaves to the English or other non-Catholic traders. They insisted that baptised slaves could only be sold to the Portuguese.

POSSESSION
At the beginning of the 18th century there was an attempt to revive the fortunes of the Kongo empire. In 1704, Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, a young Kongolese woman, born to a noble Catholic family, claimed to be possessed by the spirit of St. Anthony. Inspired by this visitation she set about fighting to reestablish the preeminence of the old Kongo empire. She led a crusade of a thousand followers to Sao Salvador in 1704. Two years later she was burnt at the stake for heresy.

Christianity persisted in the region, although it evolved in its own way, specific to the area. Missionaries who turned up in the 19th century, expecting to convert the local population, found people practising their own Africanised form of Christianity. All Souls Day had merged with the veneration of ancestors (a fusion repeated in many other parts of Africa), and the Virgin Mary had become something of a fertility symbol.

In the rest of Africa, Christianity made little headway in the 18th century. Rulers in West Africa were mildly interested at first, seeing Christianity as something to add on to their own religions. But they grew hostile when told they had to make a choice: it was either Christianity or traditional religion. South Africa was the site of greater Christian missionary activity. The Moravian Brethren (closely linked to the Lutherans) of Eastern Europe, established a mission in 1737. In 1799 the London Missionary Society (LMS) followed suit.

19th Century White Missionaries

At the beginning of the 19th century, very few people in Africa were practising Christians, apart from Ethiopians, Coptic Egyptians and people living in the remnants of the Kongolese Empire (modern Congo Brazzaville and western DR Congo).

In the 1800’s, Catholic missionary expeditions were launched with new vigour to the West, in Senegal and Gabon. Protestant missionaries took up work in Sierra Leone in 1804. The missionaries represented a big spectrum of denominations or churches: Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, many of them in competition and conflict with each other.

The abolition of slave owning in 1807 and slave trading in 1834 throughout the British Empire proved to be two important turning points. Outlawing the slave trade and converting freed slaves became a powerful motive for setting up European Christian missions. Human compassion in Europe for the plight of slaves meant that money could be raised to fund the considerable expenses of setting up a mission.

The Protestants spread the Christian gospel through the slaves who were liberated from slaving ships along the West Coast after 1834. The application of Christian doctrine was much stricter than it had been in previous centuries. The success of Christian missionary programmes can be linked to the education they offered. Many people in Africa wanted education; and missionaries taught people to read, in order that they might understand the word of God.

RESCUED FROM SLAVERY
The missionary traveler David Livingstone (1813-1873) believed that the slave trade could only be suppressed by a combination of Christianity and trade. He travelled extensively from east to west in southern Africa dedicated to bringing Christianity to all, but never staying very long anywhere. He was most successful among the Tswana people (in modern Botswana), even though conversion to Christianity upset the status quo of this community.

Neither Livingstone nor other missionaries had much impact on the slave trading which went on between the interior and the East coast. They failed to convert any significant numbers of Muslims to Christianity. Livingstone’s well-intentioned call for colonisation as an antidote to the horrors of slavery, paved the way for a host of missionaries and speculators to follow in his footsteps and cause immense hardship for the people of southern Africa.

DEDICATION AND DECEIT
Many European missionaries worked extremely hard running their missions, risking their lives and good health in the process. They varied enormously in their ability to contribute to the quality of life of those they lived with. Some remained dedicated but contemptuous of those they claimed to be converting. Others developed deep affection and respect for those they worked with and made a long lasting impression.

The Scottish factory worker, Mary Slessor was one such missionary. She spent over 40 years in southern Nigeria, in Calabar. She learnt the local language and lived a life of total simplicity. She dealt head-on with some of the customs of the region, such as throwing twins into the bush to die, and negotiated an end to this. Today she is still revered and loved as a local figure.

Listen to a description of Mary Slessor’s missionary life and work

Among the least admirable missionaries in history is reckoned to be the Reverend Helm of the Christian Missionary Society (CMS) who deliberately mistranslated a document drawn up between King Lobengula of the Ndebele and the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes. This resulted in King Lobengula giving away all his land to speculators, thinking he had only signed away a limited mining concession. He was one of the rulers of southern Africa who had consistently refused to convert to Christianity.

Another runner up for the title of villainous missionary is the Catholic priest, Friar Anthonio Barroso, who persuaded the illiterate Dom Pedro V, King of the Congo to sign a note in 1884. He believed it was a thank you letter for a gold-backed chair; in fact it was an oath of loyalty and submission to the King of Portugal.

Portuguese missionaries in Angola and Mozambique in the late 19th century and 20th century were renowned and feared for their willingness to work hand in glove with the Portuguese colonial authorities. As a result of this alliance between church and state, Protestant missions proved very popular and many of Angola and Mozambique’s leading nationalists were educated in Protestant missionary schools.

TWO STAGES IN THE CONVERSION OF CHIEF SECHELE OF THE BAKWAIN
LITERACY & OBESITY
“As soon as he had an opportunity of learning, he set himself to read with such close application, that from being comparatively thin, the effect of having been fond of the chase, he became quite corpulent from want of exercise.

Mr. Oswell gave him his first lesson in figures, and he acquired the alphabet on the first day of my residence at Chonuane.

He was by no means an ordinary specimen of the people, for I never went into the town but I was pressed to hear him read some chapters of the Bible. Isaiah was a great favourite with him; and he was wont to use the same phrase nearly which the professor of Greek at Glasgow, Sir D.K. Sandford, once used respecting the Apostle Paul, when reading his speeches in the Acts: ‘He was a fine fellow, that Paul!’”
BAPTISM & DIVISION
“Seeing several of the old men actually in tears during the service, I asked them afterwards the cause of their weeping; they were crying to see their father, as the Scotch remark over a case of suicide, ’so far left to himself.’ They seemed to think that I had thrown the glamour over him, and that he had become mine.

Here commenced an opposition, which we had not previously experienced. All the friends of the divorced wives became the opponents of our religion. The attendance at school and church diminished to very few besides the chief’s own family.”
Description of Chief Sechele of the Bakwain or Bakuena, a group within the Bechuana people (of modern Botswana) taken from Missionary Travels and Research in South Africa by David Livingstone, 1857.

19th Century Black Missionaries

At the beginning of the 19th century very few people in Africa were practising Christians apart from Ethiopians, Coptic Egyptians and people living in the remnants of the Kongolese Empire (modern Congo Brazzaville and western DR Congo).

The abolition of slave owning in 1807 and slave trading in 1834, throughout the British Empire proved to be two important turning points. Outlawing the slave trade and converting freed slaves became a powerful motive for setting up European Christian missions. Human compassion in Europe for the plight of slaves meant that money could be raised to fund the considerable expenses of setting up a mission.

FREED SLAVE COLONIES
Sierra Leone and Liberia, both colonies set up by freed slaves, became important centres of Christian practice in West Africa by the 1830’s. The freed slaves who arrived in these colonies, who came from America, were already Christians when they arrived. Liberia’s first President J. R. Roberts was a man of Christian piety as well as enterprise.

“…The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. He works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform, though it seems hard at this time, God does all things well for them that love and fear him.

You cannot tell what cause he had thought proper to remove your husband from this world of bustle and confusion, for his part, he is gone to the realms above, he is gone to Abraham’s bosom and expects to meet you there.”
Joseph Roberts’ letter to Mrs. Colson, the widow of his great friend and business partner, Mr. Colson, on the occasion of that man’s death in 1836.

THE FIRST AFRICAN BISHOP
Christian missionaries knew that if Christianity was to flourish, Africans would have to be ordained. Samuel Ajayi Crowther was one of the most famous African representatives of a European church (in this case the Anglican Church).

He was the first African Bishop in the Anglican church. And he was a formidably able man. He had been taken as a slave around 1822, but the slave ship in which he was held was intercepted and he was taken to Freetown. He was educated and baptised and sent to London for further instruction. He kept his own name Ajayi, but also took the name Crowther from a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS).

He was commissioned by the CMS to set up the Niger Mission; the first expedition to do so resulted in the death of a third of the party, all of which Crowther carefully documented in his journal. He supervised the setting up of a mission in Badagry, and later Abeokuta, (both in the south west of Nigeria), steering a difficult path between rulers in the region, some hostile to Christianity, some of whom were in conflict with each other. He later met Queen Victoria and read the Lord’s prayer to her in the Nigerian language of Yoruba, which she described as soft and melodious. His missionary work expanded outside Yorubaland in south west Nigeria, founding a mission station in Onitsha, in the East of the territory.

He published many works including the first written grammar of the Yoruba language and first Nupe grammar. In 1864, against considerable opposition from jealous fellow missionary Henry Townsend (another Niger Mission missionary), Crowther was made Bishop of ‘Western Equatorial Africa’ beyond the Queen’s Dominions.

A generation after Samuel Crowther, another formidable African churchman emerged in Nigeria: the Anglican priest, the Reverend J. J. Ransome Kuti. He carried out his ministry in defiance of the traditional priests with total confidence, as vividly described by Wole Soyinka in his autobiography Ake.

“… Rev J.J. was away on one of his many mission tours. He travelled a lot, on foot and on bicycle, keeping in touch with all the branches of his diocese and spreading the Word of God. There was frequent opposition but nothing deterred him.

One frightening experience occurred in one of the villages in Ijebu. He had been warned not to preach on that particular day, which was the day for an egungun outing, but he persisted and held a service. The egungun procession passed while the service was in progress and using his ancestral voice, called on the preacher to stop at once, disperse his people and come out to pay obeisance. Rev J.J. ignored him.

The egungun then left, taking his followers with him but, on passing the main door, he tapped on it with his wand three times. Hardly had the last member of his procession left the church premises then the building collapsed. The walls simply fell down and the roof disintegrated.

Miraculously however, the walls fell outwards – anywhere but on the congregation itself. Rev J.J. calmed the worshippers, paused in his preaching to render a thanksgiving prayer, then continued his sermon…”

PERSECUTION
In East Africa, Christianity was carefully considered by the Kabaka Mutesa, who started out favouring Islam but turned to Christianity in old age. His son Kabaka Mwanga was at first favourably disposed towards Christians, but under pressure from factional intrigue among his chiefs he constantly changed his mind about religion. He ordered the murder of Anglican Bishop Hannington, who was on his way to see him, and had a number of Christian pages murdered – the pages are sometimes referred to as ‘readers’ because they learnt to read when they became Christian. He was ousted from office for some years by his own chiefs, later reinstalled and finally sent into exile by the British.

PROTESTANTS & CATHOLICS IN BUGANDA
“…Mwanga (Kabaka or King of Buganda in exile) sent us a written proposal, saying, ‘I wish to return to my throne,’ we invited him and he ran away from the Catholics and returned to us and we restored him to the throne.

Further we assigned to all the Catholics a district of Uganda, viz. Budu, and there they lived apart. We told them, ‘we do not wish to mix with the Catholics again.’

At the present time we Protestants have possessed ourselves of a very large district and all the islands; and now the Mohammedans (Muslims) are applying to us to assign them a district, where they may settle and cease fighting with us: but the terms are not yet finally agreed upon…”
Letter from Anglican missionary, Henry Wright Duta Kitakule, to a missionary in Zanzibar, April 1892.

BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES
The line between Christian and African religious practice was not always very clearcut. In West Africa, a broad spectrum of religious beliefs emerged – traditional beliefs, Islam and Christianity flourishing side by side, sometimes in the same family. Nigerian politician, Chief Awolowo Obafemi, recounts the religious beliefs of his parents in the early 1900’s. Of his mother he says,

“After her marriage to my father, even though she attended church regularly with my father and discharged all her financial obligations as well as rendering voluntary services to the church, she remained unbaptised, and a mere proselyte at the gate.

It was a condition precedent to the consent to her marriage with father, stipulated by her parents, that she should not be baptised, and admitted to the Christian fold. Her mother worshipped the river god (Oluweri, i.e. Owner and Ruler of the Rivers).

When she gave birth to my mother, she had dedicated her to this god of the rivers, and she was not going to break her vow under any circumstances. Though mother, after her marriage, learnt to read in the vernacular and was, thereafter, able to read the Bible, the Prayer Book, and to sing hymns, and though she continued to attend church after father’s death, it was some years after her own mother’s death that I succeeded in getting her to break her mother’s vow to the river god, and become a baptised Christian.”

The first African Catholics Bishops were not appointed until 1939 – Joseph Kiwanuka in Uganda and Joseph Faye in Senegal. Elsewhere African missionaries were appointed by the Presbyterian Church in Cameroun in 1896. Many people went to study in America and came back to preach the word of God. Often, like John Chilembwe, branching out on returning home to set up an independent African church.

Contrasts And Parallels

TENSIONS
Christianity was taken up enthusiastically by large numbers of people from the 1880’s in West, South and parts of East Africa. But many missionaries who came from Europe from the 1800’s onwards were disapproving of how Africans worshipped. They demanded monogamy where polygamy was central to the health and wealth of the community; they disapproved of some traditional dress, and dances. They wanted all the objects or animals which people worshipped, destroyed.

There were also tensions between missionaries and Africans when they converted to Christianity. It was not long before African Christians wanted to worship without any European intermediaries, and, to the distress of many missionaries, in their own style.

PARALLELS
There were aspects of Christianity which were quite familiar to people coming across it for the first time: the idea of a supreme power; the idea of the material world – this world; and another world – the spiritual world; and the idea of revelation and prophesy, through dreams and through visions. These were all present to a greater or lesser extent in traditional religions. Redemption through Christ’s sacrifice had its echo in sacrificial rites of traditional religions.

Missionaries had, from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, been tolerant of African religious practices merging with Christianity. So for a time, polygamy was not considered adultery but assigned the lesser sin of concubinage. In Europe the same thing had happened: European pagan practices had been adapted to Christian ones when Christianity first spread in Europe.

African Churches

RACE, CUSTOM AND CHRISTIANITY
In the colonial administration, the senior positions of power were held by Europeans. This racial divide was not so easy to justify in the church. What was attractive about Christianity, and Islam for that matter, was that these religions offered something to everyone; they did not only serve the rich, the powerful, or those of a certain race or from a certain region, clan or people. In practice, however, the prejudices of Europeans led to double standards.

NIGERIA
In Nigeria, in Lagos, in the 1930’s one of the churches was reserved for Europeans only. The only Nigerian allowed in was the composer, musician and organ scholar Fela Sowande. For obliging the Europeans by playing the organ there, on several occasions he incurred criticism from fellow Nigerians. The Sowande family were typical of the Christian educated elite in Lagos; they put up with these racial slights because they had their eyes set on prizes further afield. Fela ended up composing music for the BBC and his brother became a London based barrister.

Listen to Tunje Sowande describing a religious Sunday

THE GOLD COAST
In the neighbouring Gold Coast, Akans expelled from the Methodist Church reacted by setting up their own church with its own heavenly language, Musama Christo Disco or the Army of the Cross of Christ. The Akan lay preacher and composer Ephraim Amu broke with Methodist convention when he was refused ordination because he wore African cloth in church. AMU, who died a few years ago in his nineties, also composed music and lyrics for many hymns, as well as the national anthem.

Listen to composer Ephraim Amu speaking about the creation of hymns

SOUTHERN AFRICA
In southern Africa, the increasingly segregated Dutch Reform Church and the growing exclusion of Africans from social and political life, led to a huge number of churches springing up, many of them going under the name of Ethiopian (a tribute to Ethiopia’s ancient church).

Among these Ethiopian churches was Nehemiah Tile’s founded in 1882 and Mangena M. Mokone’s Tembu National Church established in 1892. The other important Christian movement was the Watchtower Movement, a precursor of the Jehovah Witnesses. Their followers believed in the end of the colonial rule and the end of the world. They were prominent from the late 19th century onwards in Nyasaland (modern Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia).

The assertion of African identity was a driving force in many churches, for example, The Church of Christ for the Union of the Bantu and Protection of the Bantu Customs. The African-American Christianity also had great weight in southern Africa, the main church being the African Methodist Episcopal (AME). It was very influential in Zimbabwe, and South Africa, as well as Liberia and Sierra Leone. Local churches continue to flourish and be founded today; in times of war or famine their role becomes particularly important.

THE HOLY SPIRIT
In East Africa a number of churches sprung up. After the First World War, Ruben Spartas Mukasa, formerly with the King’s African Rifle, formed a church for ‘the redemption of all Africa’.

In Kenya the concept of the Holy Spirit played a big role. Speaking in tongues was a regular feature of the services of the Holy Ghost Church, Dimi ya Roho, founded in 1927 and the Joroho Church, founded in 1932.

The Watu wa Mngu (People of God) were a Gikuyu religious group founded between the World Wars. Their mode of praying inspired the title of Jomo Kenyatta’s social and anthropological book, Facing Mount Kenya.

“Their prayers are a mixture of Gikuyu religion and Christian; in these they add something entirely new to both religions. They perform their religious duties standing in a picturesque manner.

In their prayer to Mwene-Nyaga (God) they hold up their arms to the sky facing Mount Kenya; and in this position they recite their prayers, and in doing so they imitate the cries of wild beasts of prey, such as lion and leopard, and at the same time they tremble violently.

The trembling, they say, is the sign of the Holy Ghost, Roho Motheru, entering in them. While thus possessed with the spirits, they are transformed from ordinary beings and are in communion with Mwene-Nyaga…

Some of their shrines were closed down by the Government, on the assumption that they were used for secret meetings of a political character…It was also stated that very offensive and unedifying attacks were made, in the name of Christ, on the Christian neighbouring missionaries.”
Taken from Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta.

In Tanzania the African National Church of Tanganyika was founded in the 1930’s. One of its attractions was that it tolerated polygamy.

PERSECUTION IN CONGO
In the Congo, the church had a strong anti-colonial strand. Along with the Eglise des Noirs (Church of the Blacks) was Simon Kimbangu’s EJCSK (Eglise de Jesus sur la Terre par le Prophete Simon Kimbangu), or Church of Jesus on Earth through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu. The latter was founded in 1921 and its followers refused to pay taxes and witheld their labour. Simon Kimbangu died in prison in 1951, but his church spread in the Congo and Oubangui-Chari (modern Central African Republic).

A CHURCH FOR AFRICA
“We must seek to bring into the Native Church the Chiefs and other men of influence. Do not expect of them the perfection, which a narrow philanthropy exacts. Consider the conditions under which Europe received the Gospel.

Had the hard conditions now imposed upon African Chiefs been required of European sovereigns and chiefs, Christianity might never have been permanently established on the West of the Bosphorus.

The first Christian Emperor, Constantine, was half a pagan to the end. He erected in his new capital, Constantinople, a statue of himself. At the base of this statue, it is said, he placed a fragment of what he believed to be the true Cross.

In the same place he deposited the Paladium, the cherished relic of Pagan Rome, which Aeneas was said to have rescued from the flames of Troy, and which Constantine himself stealthily removed to his new capital. This was his fetish, brought over from heathenism.”
Liberian thinker and writer, Edward W. Blyden. Excerpt from Proposals for a West Africa Church.

INDEX

Forces For Change

LITERACY
The promise of literacy is what made Christianity very attractive to many people. Most of sub-Saharan Africa had no form of writing until the arrival of Europeans.

There were however a number of different scripts in the north of the continent. Ethiopia developed its own script for religious purposes in the 5th century.

Arabic script came to sub-Saharan Africa some time in the 11th century. Nobody knows the origin of the Vey script which was used on the border of Sierra Leone and Liberia. It was translated in the late 19th century by a member of the Church Missionary Society.
SACRED WORDS IN NIGERIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH

“For de first time, noting been be – only de Lawd He be. An’ de Lawd, He done go work hard for make dis ting dey call um Earth.

For six days de lawd He work an He done make all ting – everyting He go put for Earth. Plenty beef, plenty cassava, plenty banana, plenty yam, plenty guinea-corn, plenty mango, plenty groundnut – everyting.

An for de wata He put plenty fish, an for de air, He put plenty kinda bird. An’ after six days de Lawd He done go sleep an’ when He sleep, plenty palaver start for dis place day call ‘um Heaven.”
From The Book of Genesis in Pidgin English. Quoted by H. W. Bolden in The Times, London, October 2001.

Christianity Timeline

29, 30 or 33 - Crucifixion of Jesus
100 – 2nd Century - Christianity comes to Alexandria from Jerusalem
180 – 12 Christians executed for beliefs in Carthage
181 – In Carthage Perpetua refuses renounce Christianity and is sent to the lions
182 – Emperor Diocletian launches great persecution against Christianity
4th Century - Collapse of Meroe kingdom
5th-7th Century - Scriptures translated into Ge’ez in Ethiopia
311 – Donatist split
312 – Constantine makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire
333 – Ethiopian King Ezana makes Christianity official religion
451 – Schism (divide) with Rome on nature of God, marks the beginning of separate Coptic Church I in North Africa (taking Monophysite line, i.e. Jesus is not human as well as the son of God)
6th Century - Christianity comes to Nubia
639 – Islam comes to North Africa, displacing Christianity on a large scale
1317 – Nubia turns Muslim; Dongola cathedral converted to Mosque
1490 – First missionaries come to Kongo from Portugal
1621 – With the abdication of Emperor Susenyos, the Ethiopian Church is restored as the official church, after a period of Catholicism
1652 – Dutch settle in the Cape; beginning of Dutch Reformed Church
1706 – Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia becomes Catholic; Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, of Kongo, is burnt at stake having claimed to be possessed by spirit of St. Anthony
1737 – Moravian Brethren set up in South Africa
1799 – London Missionary Society (LMS) set up in South Africa
1804 – Protestant mission in Sierra Leone
1807 – British declare abolition of slave trade
1839 – Pope Gregory XVI issues Papal Bull condemning slavery
1840 – David Livingstone arrives in Africa
1865 – Samuel Ajayi Crowther became first black Anglican Bishop in Nigeria
1868 – White Fathers Mission Society established by Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers. Dedicated to mission work in Africa
1882 – Nehemiah Tile’s Ethiopian church founded in South Africa
1892 – Mangena M. Mokone’s Tembu National Church founded in South Africa
1886 – Execution of Christian pages in court of Buganda by Kabaka Mwanga
1921 – Simon Kimbangu founds EJCSK (Eglise de Jesus sur la Terre par le Prophete Simon Kimangu) or Church of Jesus on Earth through the Prophet Simon Kimangu
1927 – Dimi Ya Roho (Holy Ghost Church) founded in Kenya
1939 – 1st African Catholic Bishops: Joseph Kiwanuka of Buganda, and Joseph Faye of Senegal
1960 – Dutch Reformed Church expelled from the World Council of Churches

FURTHER READING

Journal of an Expedition up the Niger and Tsadda Rivers undertaken by MacGregor Laird in 1854. By Samuel A. Crowther. International Specialized Book Service, December 1970.

Facing Mount Kenya. By Jomo Kenyatta. Random House, June 1962.

Ake: The Years of Childhood. By Wole Soyinka. Vintage Books, November 1989.

Awo, The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Cambridge University Press.

UNESCO General History of Africa 1880-1935. Edited by A. Adu Boahen. University California Press, June 1993.

The Colonial Moment in Africa. Edited by Andrew Roberts. Cambridge University Press, November 1990.

Staying Power. By Peter Fry. Pluto Classic

Black Spokesman, Selected Published Writings of Edward Wilmot Blyden. Edited by Hollis R. Lynch. Cass.

Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa. Edited by T. O. Ranger and J. Weller. London.

Christianity in Tropical Africa. Edited by C. G. Baeta. London.

The Black church in Britain

It’s a blistering cold Saturday evening in December, yet the Croydon Seventh Day Adventist Church in south London is filled with members attending a ‘praise and worship’ session.

The congregation is made up of mostly Caribbean nationals and Britons of Caribbean heritage. And, for them, the occasion is as much about family and community as it is about devotion.

In fact, throughout the year, regular weekly worship is an important part of life for Caribbean people.

Bishop Aldred: immigrants were not welcome in traditional churches

And when they began migrating to the UK in the late 1940s, they brought with them their culture, beliefs and their religion.

One of them was Joe Aldred, who is now Bishop of the Church of God of Prophecy, the third largest Black Pentecostal church in Britain.

Bishop Aldred recalls that his first impression of England was of a place that was “not particularly welcoming”.

“Maybe if there was one nugget of welcome, it was my church. Because the Church of God of Prophecy that I belonged to in Jamaica, I was able to come to England and to attend another branch so at least that was familiar,” he said.

Shock

Familiar, yes, but not all immigrants were embraced by their churches in the UK.

“I think that the fact that people coming here largely had their own brand of Christianity made it relatively easy.

“But for many of them when they first came, not finding a church of their own … people would go along to whatever church was close by,” Bishop Aldred told BBC Caribbean.

The majority of the first wave of immigrants already belonged to the traditional Anglican, Catholic, Methodist or Baptist churches. However, it wasn’t long before they discovered that that did not guarantee automatic membership in their new homes.

“I think they were the ones who got the biggest shock. Because coming as a card-carrying member of say the Baptist church….only to be told ’sorry but we’d rather you didn’t come here’, would have been and was a major shock for people,” Bishop Aldred said.

Some turned a deaf ear to the rejection while others left their respective churches. Still there was a third group who decided to turn to other denominations.

And this, Bishop Aldred says, was one of the factors contributing to the proliferation of Black-led churches.

According to him, today there are up to 5,000 such congregations in the UK.

“A lot of people who are pastors didn’t come to England to be pastors, they didn’t come to be religious leaders. They came to make some money and go back home.

“But they found a prayer meeting started in their house and turned into a church. And they who were part of the prayer meeting became the leaders,” he said.

Challenges

But despite its growth over the last six decades years, the Black church has been facing some challenges.

Mr Billet says the church was a major influence in his life

David Billet, whose parents are Jamaican, is an elder (leader) at the Croydon Seventh Day Adentist Church.

He says for him, the combination of church, family life and community, was a major influence in his life.

However, he acknowledged that churches today may be failing their congregations, when it comes to dealing with various social ills.

“I really feel that they have let us down in that those in positions of authority within the church have often fallen prey to the very evils of society which they have preached against and the concept of hypocrisy which people shun away from,” he told BBC Caribbean.

While he believes that concepts of morality should be valued, he said: “I don’t think we should be surprised when mere human beings fall short.”

Christian unity

Bishop Joe Aldred points to a lack of Christian unity as another challenge.

“The Black church in this country is extremely diverse. Some would say it’s not just diverse, it’s fragmented. There are so many churches and we’re multiplying day by day.

“One of the challenges is how can we pool together so that we can tackle the big issues that we face, for example the education of black children, mental health, and the criminal justice system.” he said.

He believes that a lack of representation of minority groups in parliament is also hindering progress.

“These churches should be able to band together and push some people further up the ladder so they can represent our interest when they get into parliament,” he noted.

Bishop Aldred said he would also like Black churches build better relations with members of the mainstream, traditional denominations across the country.

Listen again to the Christmas Day special on the Black church