Who You Believe In Affects How You View Oppression | Dr. Marimba Ani

[00:00:00]And Christianity was used by Europeans to deify their culture.

[00:00:07]Okay? To Well, we know that it was used to support the imperialism, colonialism, enslavement, and so forth. All right? So that when we get involved in that without that kind of understanding, what we are doing is supporting that system and deifying somebody else's culture.

[00:00:27]Now, the question of the collective What happens um in ancestor communion in terms of of the the African expression of that and practice of that?

[00:00:38]Um is that there are there are like levels. It gets deeper and deeper.

[00:00:44]And when when someone first um passes from the physical stage and into the spiritual, um they are remembered uh how they looked, they're remembered by name, um and they will be elders there to keep that that uh memory alive.

[00:01:04]Okay?

[00:01:05]Now, even then, keeping that memory alive is used to bring everybody together who was connected through that person.

[00:01:16]Um but then after What happens after hundreds of years?

[00:01:22]That memory may be forgotten on a personal level.

[00:01:26]So that that spirit no longer has a personal identity.

[00:01:30]But that doesn't mean that that spirit is dead.

[00:01:35]It's never totally dead as long as the group remembers who they are.

[00:01:42]Because what happens is that your identity as a person, as a single being, merges into the identity of the group.

[00:01:51]And you are then remembered as the group remembers who who are, as the group remembers their traditions, as the group says, "We are going to consciously be African."

[00:02:04]We're going to consciously be, you know, who we are.

[00:02:08]Now, that has tremendous implications.

[00:02:10]That means that that's how we keep our ancestors alive is by remembering who we are.

[00:02:15]So, if we attempt to be European, then what are we doing?

[00:02:21]We're killing our ancestors.

[00:02:24]That's very, very serious.

[00:02:26]Both spiritually and politically. Now, if we kill our ancestors, in terms of the African conception, we also kill ourselves.

[00:02:35]We kill ourselves, um, spiritually, culturally, as a people.

[00:02:41]>> Now, what is the relationship between the African dead and the creator?

[00:02:54]>> Okay.

[00:02:55]>> Okay, good. Good question.

[00:02:56]>> Okay.

[00:02:57]>> What I do is, and it's and it's hard for me to do any of this without a board, cuz I'm always drawing pictures. But, try to picture, um, concentric circles.

[00:03:07]That always helps me.

[00:03:09]Picture the the the most the largest one as being what I call the creative principle.

[00:03:17]The source of being.

[00:03:19]The source of truth and meaning.

[00:03:21]Okay?

[00:03:23]Now, you might have another word for that. And it doesn't matter what word people use, okay? Some people want to say, "Do you believe in God?" And then I want to ask them, "Well, what do you mean by that?" You know? But, we might have an African term, Olodumare, Amma, Nyame, Onyame, and so forth. But, the concept is the whole, the universe.

[00:03:45]>> as you say that, it reminds me that some people think that there is something magical about just the word the English word God.

[00:03:57]Have Have you seen that uh where, you know, um as if other people around the world don't have different names.

[00:04:04]>> Exactly.

[00:04:05]>> Uh-huh.

[00:04:05]>> Exactly. Um But, you see that's why we have to um we're going to have to do the hard work of reconceptualizing and analyzing and understanding how words symbols, structures, institutions are used to enslave our minds. Because that's one of the ways it happens. We get intimidated. Somebody says, "Do you believe in God?" We must say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely." We don't ask them you know, "Whose God?" or "What are you talking about?" We just somehow feel that in order of for us to validate ourselves as human being then oh yeah, we have to say yes.

[00:04:50]But, it's the concept that's behind that that's important.

[00:04:54]And all people have had concepts, you see that that were meaningful.

[00:04:59]They may not have spelled it G O D and they may not have used a capital G. That's another thing.

[00:05:07]How do they write our gods, so-called gods?

[00:05:10]They have a little g.

[00:05:12]What does that mean?

[00:05:14]>> What does that mean?

[00:05:14]>> have a big G, ours got a little g, and right away in your mind because of how symbols affect us, we say we're lesser than. There's something wrong with us.

[00:05:26]And then they start talking about polytheism.

[00:05:29]And how that's backward and so forth.

[00:05:31]>> Polytheism, the belief in {quote} many gods.

[00:05:33]>> Right. And how monotheism is supposed to be superior to us. That's a whole 'nother issue.

[00:05:39]>> Belief in one god.

[00:05:40]>> Right. But, now you ask the question about how the ancestors relate to this creative force. Well, the process of life is moving towards the whole.

[00:05:51]That is moving towards the one. You get closer and closer to that. As you get closer to that, you get more spiritual.

[00:05:57]You get wiser.

[00:05:58]>> big circle.

[00:05:59]>> Yes, to the big circle. Then there are the little ones, you see, or the smaller ones. The ancestors might be one. The orisha would be one.

[00:06:08]Um then we the community comes. We come.

[00:06:11]The the so-called living community, physically living. Uh the elders.

[00:06:16]You see. And then then we are the adults and then the children. These are all links to that whole. We're all part of the whole.

[00:06:25]But each is a link to it. Each helps us to understand ourselves more as a part of that whole. And all that means is getting closer to truth.

[00:06:34]>> One of the greatest mistakes we make is believing that religion is simply a private matter between an individual and God.

[00:06:42]Dr. Marimba Ani challenges us to think much deeper than that. She argues that every religion is also a political and cultural institution because every religion teaches people who they are, where they belong, and what civilization they should identify with. According to Dr. Ani, religion is never neutral. It always reflects and reinforces the values of the people who created it.

[00:07:08]That's why she says we must ask an uncomfortable but necessary question.

[00:07:14]Who gave you your religion and what did they gain by giving it to you?

[00:07:19]Dr. Ani explains that throughout history, Christianity was used by European empires not only to spread faith, but to justify conquest, colonialism, and slavery.

[00:07:31]She argues that when African people adopted Christianity without understanding the political history surrounding it, many unknowingly embraced the cultural values of another civilization. Her point is not simply about theology. It is about identity. If religion teaches you whose history is sacred, whose symbols are holy, and whose culture is the standard of civilization, then religion inevitably shapes how you see yourself and your own people.

[00:08:01]She then turns our attention to one of the most profound ideas of African philosophy, the role of the ancestors.

[00:08:08]Dr. Ani explains that even after individual names are forgotten over generations, the ancestors remain alive through the collective memory of the people. They continue to live wherever a community remembers its history, preserves its traditions, and consciously identifies with its culture.

[00:08:27]But if a people abandon their identity and attempt to become someone else culturally, they don't simply lose traditions. They sever their connection to generations of wisdom and sacrifice.

[00:08:38]In her view, forgetting who you are spiritually is inseparable from forgetting who you are politically.

[00:08:44]>> Ancestors are our link to that source.

[00:08:48]Because they have become closer to it.

[00:08:56]>> [music] >> TV Good evening and welcome to For the People and the second part of our conversation with anthropologist Dr. Dona Richards, author of Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora.

[00:09:21]Now, let me try this one on you.

[00:09:26]Starting off by saying the proof is in the pudding.

[00:09:30]When you look at the African before the European Africa before the and Africans before the European.

[00:09:41]And how they related to each other, how they lived with each other.

[00:09:48]And look at how under traditional African religion, or what we today call traditional African religion, and look at the European world.

[00:09:58]>> Mhm.

[00:09:59]>> And how they related to each other.

[00:10:06]What would you say in terms of a qualitative difference in terms of in so far as what the African traditional religion produced versus what the European religion produced?

[00:10:24]>> Okay. Suppose we focus on the definition of power.

[00:10:32]For the African, power is a power to do, power to activate, to interact, to be energized, to make things happen.

[00:10:46]And that's what African religion is all about, African spirituality. Is It is about opening yourself up so that you can be energized by forces and balancing forces or energies which which would decrease your life force, okay?

[00:11:09]European religion is based on a conception of power as control.

[00:11:18]Power as power over other.

[00:11:22]Therefore, the religion becomes very political.

[00:11:26]That put Africans at a disadvantage when the two came into confrontation with each other.

[00:11:34]In that we never used our religion politically.

[00:11:39]But Europeans always did.

[00:11:42]So that they used it to conquer.

[00:11:45]And as you say the proof is in the pudding.

[00:11:48]It worked for them.

[00:11:50]To conquer, to enslave.

[00:11:53]And our religion is about spirituality.

[00:11:56]It was indeed about love.

[00:11:58]>> Mhm.

[00:11:58]>> Not hypocritically about love. You see?

[00:12:01]>> so Africans weren't going around trying to convert other people.

[00:12:05]>> Never.

[00:12:06]>> Uh-huh.

[00:12:06]>> And in fact, if you even have an African group, one group um that um controlled another group or or that there was any aggression against another group, very often that group who ended up doing the the the controlling politically would take on the religion of of the other group. In other words, they would emerge uh even of well culturally obviously they would be because they would be so close.

[00:12:34]>> Mhm. Mhm.

[00:12:35]>> Um but it seems that in one sense we were totally unprepared for the phenomenon of the European.

[00:12:46]>> Are we prepared today?

[00:12:48]>> No.

[00:12:49]>> Mhm.

[00:12:50]>> I mean I don't I don't believe we are. I believe we can be.

[00:12:54]And and um that certainly there are there are many of us who are. But but as a people there is still that um Well, there's a term that that that I use but but let me use the term ethos.

[00:13:09]Where there's a deep kind of of humanism.

[00:13:13]Um among African people which gets in the way of recognizing those who are enemies to your people. Those who would oppress you.

[00:13:24]You see? Whereas the European even in terms of his worldview, um he he is created almost thinking in political terms. And by political terms, I mean where you have a a group and you identify with that group and you see all other groups as the enemy.

[00:13:45]As as what you're threatened by and therefore you have to be aggressive toward. Um that is in the culture, that you're trained for that.

[00:13:54]Uh you're trained to think politically.

[00:13:57]Whereas we aren't. You know, uh Diop, Cheikh Anta Diop, our our great great African scholar, talked about the xenophobia, which he says was endemic to the Aryan cultures of of northern Europe.

[00:14:15]Xenophobia meaning that fear >> Mhm.

[00:14:18]>> of strangers or the fear of what is different. So the difference becomes threatening. For the African, there was almost the opposite. There was always the welcoming in of a stranger.

[00:14:30]I mean, the African said, "Well, this poor person is far away from home.

[00:14:35]Um they couldn't want to be here long.

[00:14:38]They must be going back cuz who would want to be away from home?

[00:14:42]So while he's here, you know, let's let's feed him and and just, you know, give him hospitality and so forth." Now, by the time the African realized what that stranger was about, it was too late.

[00:14:59]Cuz the stranger had had come together with other strangers and started to build forts.

[00:15:05]>> And did not want to be home.

[00:15:07]>> didn't want to be home because they needed what was there. Their home didn't have anything.

[00:15:13]So they needed what was, you know, what was in Africa.

[00:15:16]>> You have talked and written about spirituality, African spirituality.

[00:15:22]What are some of the rituals that you engage in on a day-to-day basis? And I know that we've talked about this before, the fact that this is a very personal kind of thing, but we need models today.

[00:15:41]And if we don't present them, the people won't have anything to base anything on.

[00:15:50]>> Um You know, I think in part that um this what I call cultural science, which is the reconstruction um of of African culture.

[00:16:04]>> Which is what we have to do.

[00:16:05]>> Right.

[00:16:07]Uh not as it was necessarily in a in another time, but using the the paradigm, so to speak, or using the basic principles.

[00:16:18]You know, using the meaning taking the meaning and reconstructing here and now.

[00:16:24]So that we can have a source of strength. And I think in that sense that there are many things that most of us are engaged in now that um you could think of as rituals that are African, that help to give you strength. But we just haven't been taught to think of it in that way.

[00:16:43]Um My daughter and I engage in um the remembering of ancestors who are close to us.

[00:16:56]Um and having a very close relationship with them.

[00:17:01]And being sure to thank them for the good things that are in our lives.

[00:17:08]Um and you can find your own ways of doing that. If you want to formalize it, if you have special times during the day to do it.

[00:17:17]If you have special times when you want to come together with other people who um are moving in the same direction as you are, who want to do that, then uh you have to be creative. You see, we're in a very special time in history for us as a people where we're in the process of creation and recreation. So, we have to take those paradigms, those models, and recreate them to to fit um our circumstance now.

[00:17:46]Um when we come together for family gatherings, there has to be a time when you talk about uh those who have come before us and remember that it's because of their strength and because of their sacrifice and because of their vision that we're able to be here now as strong as we are. We defied everything that that the European thought would happen, you know, to us um thinking that we would be a totally destroyed people, but that hasn't happened. And it hasn't happened because of the strength of spirit. And that strength of spirit comes when we are uh thankful for those who have come before us. So, you find ways of doing that, of saying that, of not taking it for granted.

[00:18:32]>> Mhm. Now, how how do you do that?

[00:18:34]I know you didn't want you didn't want that question, right?

[00:18:37]>> Uh [laughter] I I refer to um libation. I think that's something that that all of our people need to be doing. And as we do this, we we pour uh water or some uh liquid.

[00:18:52]Um >> Which symbolizes?

[00:18:54]>> It symbolizes um that when you come together to eat or when you reap a harvest, always you have to give the first fruits. You have to give the first of what you have to the eldest, and the eldest are the ancestors, because the ancestors are still part of our family. It also symbolizes that we are giving thanks and that we're giving something back. So, it also symbolizes reciprocity.

[00:19:24]Because they have given us, so we in turn give them.

[00:19:28]Um Kwanzaa, by the way, is something which um I engage in personally, my family engages in, and our community as a whole engages in.

[00:19:38]Kwanzaa is a celebration um which is like a first fruits. It is giving the first fruits of the harvest to the ancestors.

[00:19:47]But at see at the same time, it is a time when we are re- reaffirming who we are as an African people, and we are rededicating ourselves to the victorious struggle for liberation.

[00:20:00]>> Dr. Ani also offers a fascinating explanation of the African concept of the creator.

[00:20:07]Rather than imagining God as a distant individual sitting somewhere above the universe, African philosophy sees the creator as the ultimate source of life, truth, and existence itself. Humanity, the ancestors, nature, and the spiritual world are all connected to the same source. The ancestors serve as a bridge between the living and the creator because they have continued to grow spiritually beyond physical life.

[00:20:32]She challenges us not to become attached to words like God, but to understand the deeper concepts behind them. Different civilizations may use different names, but what truly matters is the worldview those concepts represent.

[00:20:46]Perhaps the most striking comparison Dr. Ani makes is between African and European definitions of power.

[00:20:52]She argues that traditional African spirituality views power as the ability to create, nurture, strengthen life, and maintain harmony within the community.

[00:21:02]European civilization, on the other hand, often define power as domination, conquest, and control over others. She believes this difference helps explain why Europeans use religion as a political weapon to build empires, while African societies generally emphasize cooperation, hospitality, and communal responsibility.

[00:21:21]Tragically, those same qualities of openness often left African societies vulnerable to exploitation by people whose worldview operated according to very different assumptions.

[00:21:33]Finally, Dr. Ani reminds us that reclaiming African spirituality is not about recreating the past exactly as it once existed. It's about rebuilding a cultural foundation for today.

[00:21:45]Practices such as honoring ancestors, pouring libations, gathering with family, celebrating Kwanzaa, and expressing gratitude are not simply rituals. They are acts of remembrance that reconnect people with their history and reinforce their identity. More importantly, she argues that spirituality and politics cannot be separated. Every symbol we honor, every image we pray before, and every tradition we embrace communicates something about who we believe we are.

[00:22:14]Whether one ultimately agrees with all of Dr. Ani's conclusions or not, her challenge deserves careful consideration.

[00:22:22]She asks us to examine not only what we believe, but why we believe it, where those beliefs come from, and whose interest they have historically served.

[00:22:30]Those are difficult questions, but they are also questions that every people seeking to understand themselves should be willing to ask.