Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Wherever Africans are, there is their religion: they carry it to the fields where they are sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop. Land for Africans is spirituality. When an African child is born, the umbilical chord is buried in the kraal, a ritual that connects her/him to her/his ancestors. Land connects her/him to the extended family and cloud of witnesses that form her/his corporeal identity. It is her/his being, dignity, food and spirituality, amongst other things. When Africans lost this most essential value, they lost their being and dignity, and became empty shells who constantly revolt against anything including creation in an attempt to breathe. Global warming, deforestation and the disharmony between people and creation are a problem for an African. They became a hungry nation that is prone to exploitation by the colonisers and in turn became exploiters of the environment that used to bring them harmony. Their children became subject to a dysfunctional upbringing of fragmented homes through policies of separate development and restrictive urbanisation that dismantled the fabric and vitality of black homes and community. The loss of land which is the rupture of the umbilical chords, the demonising of ancestors and African religion, is truly a spiritual cry, a cry for life that inspires a womanist in the quest for the liberation of black humanity.