Believe in God and Be Happy
“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” There are 800 buses running across the United Kingdom carrying this slogan. The campaign is part of an anti-religion movement. They managed to raise £140,000 (Rs.1 Crore) for this campaign.
The slogan is an expression of an exaggerated humanism that believes that the way, perhaps the only way, of liberating humankind is by killing God. My faith tells me that God is not an insecure Being that I must rush to protect. There are others who do believe that God needs to be protected. They may even justify killing human beings in the name of God. These abhorring attempts by fundamentalists actually backfire. They prompt the opposite pendulum effect in anti-religion movements, equally fanatic, as seen in the bus slogans. In fact, the fundraising for this campaign began as a direct reaction to Christian bus-adverts […]
Reading Room
Reading Room
Letter from London 1: Western Attitudes
Getting Things Right
A knock at the door of our residence. A woman makes a request, “Please contribute £2 for the care of abandoned pets.”
I want to rush back to my room, fish two precious pounds out of my school bag and give it to her. And add, “Could you please donate £1, with which I can feed a whole family, for a whole day and more, in a village called Mtakuja in Tanzania!” But I would seem too impolite!
A prayer moment in our church. The theme: Caring for Creation… or something like that! A melodious song with an accompanying PowerPoint of beautiful meadows and flowers. Perhaps there were also some photos downloaded from the website of National Geographic. The PowerPoint was followed by a scripture reading, a psalm, sharing…
I heard them say (perhaps they didn’t say, but I heard them that way!), “Destroy all the forests, throw some concrete and […]
Indian Missionaries in Africa
Missionaries from India Karibuni Africa!
The other day I met Neema. She is a Tanzanian, and a candidate for a congregation of sisters who hail from South India and who have now some convents in Tanzania. She wears the churidar, speaks English with a strong Indian accent and shakes her head like a doll as she gives her assent. Whose fault is it? Is it the 18 year old Neema’s, who agreed to be Indianized, or is it that of those holy nuns who refused to be indigenized?
I heard from a fellow Indian missionary that in a convent in Tanzania, the local cook speaks very well one of the languages of South India. In fact I was told that on the one hand, the sisters are proud of their feat, on the other hand they regret that they are not able to speak any secret among themselves at table anymore. I […]
Weary Feet & Hopeful Eyes
What it means to be young in South Sudan Today?
February 2005. Under one of those mighty mango trees that dot the plains of South Sudan I sat. Waiting for a mango to fall. No one is allowed to pluck mangoes from the tree; you may only pick the mangoes that fall. No, I was waiting for the boys who were working at the nearby construction site to come back after their long lunch break. I wanted to pick a conversation with one or two of them, or if they did not know English, at least to say Cibaak! – that’s the local greeting. I have noticed that the boys of Rumbek relate to strangers very easily. So, language is no problem.
Then came my friend James Malouk. This was our second day of conversation. He wore a broad smile as usual. The Dinkas value white teeth, I came to learn. Most […]
An African Epistemology
The Multiplicity of Truth :
An inquiry into African Epistemology
In this brief article I would like to reflect on how the African people look at truth. (I am grateful to my friend Babu Ayindo. A conversation with him has been the real confirmation of my own postulations. Some of the examples used here are his too.) The concept of truth is based on a metaphysics – a way of interpreting reality. Thirdly, it has its implications on ethics.
I would like to speak of these three aspects in the following theses:
1: A ‘Yes’ may mean a ‘No’.
2: The different aspects of reality are not contradictory but only complementary.
3: That is good which simply preserves relationships.
I noticed that in stating these theses I had to be extra careful to state them without absolutizing them – in the African way. Therefore, I notice that English being a non-African language has its limitation in expressing […]