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- Convenor:
-
Ali Yiğit
(Kirklareli University)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Ali Yiğit
(Kirklareli University)
- Location:
- B1 0.08
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel handles the role of Christian missionaries in the colonization and civilization of Nigeria and Cameroon in late 19th and early 20th centuries. The selected literary works of Achebe and Beti are analyzed with a particular focus on the paradoxical images that the missionaries displayed.
Long Abstract:
The panel deals with the colonization process of Africa uncovering the critical role of Christian missionaries who are observed to have displayed paradoxical attitudes towards the natives of Africa in both colonization and their civilizing mission. While serving their benefit by offering education and health services to them, on the other hand, missionaries are seen to help colonizers directly or indirectly progress deep into the heart of Africa.
Chinua Achebe and Mongo Beti are the selected authors to be considered who shed light on this characteristic of missionaries. Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart by Achebe and Poor Christ of Bomba and King Lazarus by Beti enlighten our way in dissolving the close relationship between Christianity, Civilization and Colonization. This panel aims to go deep into the core of the concepts of colonization, conversion and civilization and offers alternative ways in understanding today Africa's persistent problems.
Key words: Colonization, missionaries, civilization.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
Ngugi's novel The River Between is a source to understand how the missionary work caused division and struggles among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Ngugi recreates the scenario from the point of view of a Kikuyu teacher that must deal with the two sides of the river, the western and the traditional.
Paper long abstract:
Released in 1965, the first novel published by the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938-), The River Between, is the story about a teacher called Waiyaki that must deal with the Kikuyu characteristics of his traditional life, Western civilization features and Christian religion that sweeps through the hinterlands of a Kenyan region. This situation causes a division among the Kikuyu population between the traditionalists and the Christians. This novel is influenced from real debate and clash that happened in the Colony of Kenya between 1920 and 1930 when converted Kikuyu rejected the authority of European missionaries that were trying to ban the tradition of circumcision performed by the Kikuyu people. Thiong'o recreates this scenario and discuss the division this caused over individuals that walked among institutions and ideas introduced by the colonial British rule, its missionaries and the cultural values of the Kikuyu people. This book provides us a valuable source to understand how literature deals with the history of missions and missionaries effects over the Kikuyu community in Kenya.
Paper short abstract:
In 1902, Europeans arrived in the Bamum kingdom. A problem arises for King Njoya: the legitimization of his power in face of his people and the Europeans. He invents a writing, to which missionaries participate, creating a place where royal, colonial and religious power combine.
Paper long abstract:
After a civil war in 1896, King Njoya reigns alone on his people. After this event, and because he discovers the importance of writing, he decides to invent his own. This presentation has for issues to show how Njoya create the bamum writing and its importance in the colonization. Indeed, in 1902, Europeans came in the kingdom and he had to reign with them. I will discuss about the fact that the colonisation, first by Germans, is also religious: The Basel Mission arrived and Njoya accepted them, being friend with the pastor Göhring. He helps him on his writing and in 1910, the king finishes the final phase. After that, he begins to write the history of his people. Translated and publish in 1953, analysis of its book permit to understand how the king consider the « white », colonizer, and how he accepts the colonization. Then, it's important to show how a beginning of a literature take place with the creation of schools in which we can learn the writing and the creation of a printing house without the help of the Europeans. It will then be time to conclude on the post-first world war: French colonization is more present, in disagreement with the king. Njoya gradually loses his power, until he is exiled, the kingdom abolished, and the writing forbidden. A bitter end that is found in his book, notably with the use of "white", which allows us to understand the relationship between power, religion and colonization.