Prof PLO Lumumba on Decolonization of Religion, Culture and Economy

[Applause] let me start by recognizing our host in bonnie radeby [Applause] let me also recognize that we are assembled here on the occasion of the sixth memorial lecture of slavic steve nbiza and let me recognize your majesty the good doctor my very good friends who have had occasion to speak before me and those who are present in this assembly to listen to us in your absence our speeches would mean little if not nothing let me say how glad i am to be present here to talk about a subject that is as topical as it is

evergreen the topic of decolonization of african culture to include africa's religion and africa's economy i remember so very distinctly several years ago when a young african stood up on the sixth day of march in 1957 on the occasion when his country regained independence a country then known as gold coast which was then renamed ghana and he said on that day that the independence of ghana meant nothing if africa was not free the question that we ask is whether africa is indeed free beyond the flags that we made for ourselves one year later that young man

stood up again in accra ghana in the presence of the freedom fighters of the african countries which were still under the colonial york and reminded his audience that africans had to free themselves two years later in casablanca morocco that young man stood again and reminded his audience of the significance of freedom three years later on the 24th day of may in 1963 that young man stood again in the presence of 32 head state heads of states and governments of african countries that had regained their independence on that day he reminded his audience that their independence

newly acquired would mean nothing if they were not united that their independence would mean nothing if they did not decolonize their minds that their independence would mean nothing if they did not act with a sense of urgency to liberate africa he reminded his audience on that day that while in 1958 he had said sikhi first the political kingdom and the rest will be given unto you there was a sense of urgency in regaining our independence in all its dimensions his audience listened to him not and as i speak to you today our continent is not

at ease our continent is not at ease spiritually our continent is not at ease economically our continent is not at ease in our health our continent it no is not at ease in our education we live in a continent which has great prospects but is now in monumental difficulties and that is why it is legitimate to engage in an inquiry such as this we have been victimized many times and those who spoke before me had the occasion to narrate to you how we were enslaved and commodified by the arabs the arab colonization project was a

project not only of islamization but also a project of arabization and when the arabs were done with us the european tribes came if it was not the portuguese it was the dutch if it was not the dutch it was the italians if it was not the italians it was the french if it was not the french it was the germans if it was not the germans it was the english you are victimized that is our history and when slavery had lost its luster some from within the ranks pretended that they were abolishing slavery they introduced

yet another thing the thing called colonization they came into our continent and claimed that they had discovered us they came and while we were here they discovered the cape of good hope they discovered as they claimed while we were here they came and pretended to discover all lakes and all rivers that is how they came while we were here they came and pretended that we had no history but let us assess history if only to demonstrate to ourselves that the african continent is the cradle of human civilization you know when europeans who are still living

in caves the dragon in mali had already recognized the stars when the europeans were still eating raw meat the africans had discovered fire the africans were the pioneers and even if you look at all religions and their creation and i'm a keen reader of the bible and the bible records and the god said let us create man in our own image and that he took soil and formed man out of it the last time i checked soil was brown or black not white [Applause] and i can confirm that i checked this morning the soil is

still black the soil is still brown and if therefore anybody is created in the image of god it is we who are of the black race islam also says the same thing and you know africa has been abused when you look at the maps that are drawn by european cartographers africa is smaller than the united states of america and yet is larger almost as large as asia they minimize us at all times even the thing they call the middle east what is middle about it how can it be that israel is not part of africa

but madagascar is a part of africa when we assembled here to talk about decolonization of the mind we must remind ourselves of our history the pyramids who are made here in africa it still defies architecture and engineering is the africans who made them the walls of benin which are four times longer than the chinese great wall while here in africa the temples of lalibella which were dug out in ethiopia out of the soil were made here in africa the great walls of monomatapa in zimbabwe are made here in africa and when you go to the

warriors of the world the monies or the amazons of dahomey were found in present-day benin king zinger of dembanda of the batamba was here in angola africa is the cradle of human civilization you know as a young man i read a ghana's jody graft's play muntu in which he says in part some things we know and some things we do not know but this one we know the rhodomen comma created the world and that of the man command is god and that god is neither christian nor muslim all these things because god is a spirit

and if he is a spirit he cannot be all those things your own desmond pillow tutu writes in a book god is not a christian and he is not even for those of us who are of the christian faith christ was not a christian christianity is a post-christ religion and you can see that god has been appropriated by civilization and over the years they have been whitening god when god was in the middle east even christ was in the middle east he was not as white as he is now presented to us they took christ

to greek to the greeks they made him white and they made him speak greek when they were tired with him they took him to rome and they made him speak latin and when they had tied with it they created a religion that they called the roman catholic church god was not a catholic and is not a catholic when they were tied with him they took him to england to allow king henry viii to marry and they named the church the church of england and made the queen and the monarch the head of that church god

is not an anglican and when they were tired they took him to scotland and they made him a presbyterian and when they were tired they made god a methodist and when they were tired they took him to germany and they made him a lutheran and when they were tired they went to the united states and they made him an episcopalian god is not all those things the god that i worship is worshiped in truth and in spirit and let me tell you throughout the ages ask yourself a few fundamental questions despite the fact that they

have done everything to erase africans from the face of this earth even in their own history they acknowledge that all their great men came to africa why why and what did they come to do to africa socrates was in africa and when he came to africa he met arun mila of the yoruba tribe who was a greater philosopher than him pythagoras was in africa what did they come to do to africa you pay homage where knowledge resides moses was in africa and was born in africa what did he come to do in africa you pay

homage where knowledge is mohammed was in africa why do you come to africa you pay homage where knowledge is christ or yeshua was in africa why did he come to africa you pay homage where knowledge is the lord krishna of the hindus was in africa why did he come to africa he came to pay homage where knowledge is this is the cradle of human civilization but we have been so beaten over the years we have been so abused over the years they enslaved us because they feared us they colonized us because they feared us they

now have a new project the neocolonial project and i'm told that the neoconol project is a twin of another child called colonization their mother is imperialism and imperialism never changes its character it only changes the masks that it wears we must be wary of it it is said when they came here and abused christianity they told us to close our eyes in prayer and when we opened our eyes the land had disappeared that is who they are they are not our friends i can still hear through the vicissitudes of time your own robert mongaliso book

was saying there is only one race in the world the human race but the wives have forgotten that the arabs have forgotten that the chinese have forgotten that it is only we who have we africans who know that there is only one race the human race it is our duty to remind them that that is indeed the divine instruction because the god that i worship cannot be bottled in little religions the god that i worship cannot be contained in little books the god that i worship is imminent and omnipresent [Applause] he is resident in our

minds and in our hearts and in our very veins it is only we were africans who know him in truth and in order to appreciate him we must understand him differently we must understand him in spirit you know [Music] and i look at the world and i look at it often and when i look at africa and i look at her often when i think of africa and i think of her often and when i imagine her and i imagine about her often i say with the famous sudanese poet alpha tourio africa why had thou

not realized thy potential and the reason is simple they came here and did something to our mind and to our spirituality many men have tried to understand what they did to us and not refer to all of them but i refer to a dramatization which some of you will be familiar with the african-american alex haley produced a film called roots and in roots he dramatizes the life of a young man uprooted from jufre village in what is now known as the grambia kunta kinte and they take kunta kinte to the united states of america and

when they take kunta kinte to the united states of america the first thing that they do to him is to beat him up that he may change his name so that kunta kinte is beaten out of him and they introduced a new being called tobi that is what they do to us they beat our africanus out of us and when we are all empty they fill us with something that is alien and then we begin to think like them we begin to think that our hair is not good enough so that our women must buy

wigs from dead women in asia [Applause] so that our women must reject their skin they bleach it that they may become whiter so that our women can remove their eyebrows and eyelashes so that our women can paint their lips red they do that to us so that our women can stop eating that they may become slender they do that to us and they do that to us because they know that our women are the fountain of life and that when they change our women we men who are weak will be changed we must stop that

we are created in god's image you know john garang di mabuer in sudan one once asked the arabs why do you want to arabize us why do you want to islamize us this god who created us nowhere fulani full food was he stupid if he is all wise is he not a god of diversity who wants to be celebrated in different and diverse ways [Applause] we must not accept we must in the nature of things change ourselves you know just this morning i was reading the latest work of a great african achillem member from the

dark knight essays in decolonization and he says that the only place that we must start decolonizing is the mind because the mind is the standard of the man i was thinking about the writings of my own countrymen googie was young decolonizing the mind all battles are fought in the mind rene descartes was right because knowledge is universal kogito ego i think so i am so we must think because once our minds are changed then our spirituality is energized and once our spirituality is energized then we exercise the ghost of low self-esteem and once we exercise

the ghost of low self-esteem then we begin to discover our potential then our economies begin to grow then we mine our gold and improve them you know how can it be that africa is the richest continent on the earth and our gold is mined by the beers how can it be that africa is the richest continent in the world and our diamond is produced in south africa and botswana and namibia and in sierra leone in liberia but the prize is determined in antwerp in belgium how can it be how can it be that africa produces

cocoa in togo in cote d'ivoire and in ghana and chocolate is then made in switzerland and in belgium who have not even a bush of cocoa how can it be that tea is produ is produced in ethiopia and in uganda and in kenya and when he is taken to the united kingdom they now call it english tea how can it be how can it be how can it be how can it be that culture is mined in the democratic republic of congo but not a single african country makes a mobile phone how can it be

how can it be it can only be because we have allowed our minds to be captured it can only be because we have allowed ourselves to be spiritually confused it is can only be because we have allowed ourselves to be slaves of others and the god that we worship knowing that we are confused has turned his head on the other side so that when we pray and fast he does not listen or if he listens he does not care he is waiting for us to realize ourselves so that we can worship in truth [Applause] and

you know this is intergenerational the pains that are being visited upon this generation are out of the sins that were committed by the other generation it is a time to repent so that we who have transgressed may say that we have repented because the future now does not lie in us the future lies in the young ones shinoahe cheby was right these are the young suckers that will grow when the old banana dies these are the very shame upon whose shoulder africa shall rise your duty and my duty is to plant the tree in the

knowledge that one generation plants a tree another generation waters the tree another generation prunes the tree another generation enjoys its shade that is our duty [Applause] so this morning we are not here to say new things we are only here to remind ourselves that in the beginning there was god and that that god created the man and that man i i suspect was an african and that that man could not have been anything else but an african why i suspect so because all creations say that man came from the earth and as i said the

earth is either black or brown so in the beginning there was an african and in the beginning there was a spirit into which that mold was made alive and that spirit was god and i suspect that that god gave us intelligence and i suspect that that god created africa where it is in the very middle because the very middle the very center is the fulcrum and that is why i suspect africa is where it is enjoying not too much cold enjoying not too much sun it is in the middle it is indeed life measures that

it should be measured and that is why i suspect in his divine wisdom he put all the minerals in africa if it is not gold it is coltan if it is not cult and its iron ore if it is not iron or it is copper and it does not stop there when he was distributing rivers and lakes he ensured that africa had the best of lakes the best of rivers and he did not stop there he ensured that we are surrounded with the best of oceans if it is not the atlantic it is the indian

we should be called the african i do not know why they call it the indian ocean but that is their conspiracy then there is the mediterranean they also call it another name and he did not stop there once you are done that it ensured that this is a continent that has men and women who are so forgiving so generous this is the only continent that has welcomed all civilizations we started with the arabs they abused us then came the portuguese we welcomed them they abused us then the dutch came we welcomed them they abused us

then the italians came we welcome them they abuse us then the germans came we welcome them they abuse us then the french came we welcome them they abuse us then the english came we welcome them and they abuse us then the indians came we welcomed them and they abused us then the lebanese came we welcomed them they abused us now the chinese are coming we are welcoming them and they are abusing us we must stop this and we can only stop this through self-realization and that is why when i can i conclude i must conclude

by making reference to a great african anti-check the up of senegal who writing in his book the human the african origin of humankind method reality says this is a problem that can only be solved through aggression and i'm telling us this is the time now for africa to rise africa will be great africa must degrade and it will only be great if we choose to spiritually decolonize our minds our hearts and culture because it is only then that africa will be a great continent god bless you [Applause] so [Applause]