Page 213 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense
P. 213

198                 Marleen de Witte

       order to bring them back to their supposed religious roots. This alienated
       public is first of all national, but it ultimately includes all (alienated)
       “Afrikans” in the world, both in Africa and elsewhere, especially in the
       Americas. But Afrikania’s global public also includes non-Africans, whom
       Afrikania wishes to educate about ATR in order to change global preju-
       dice. In Afrikania’s terms, the goal is to teach “the rest of mankind” that
       “the religion of Afrika” is not “fetish,” “voodoo,” or “black magic,” but a
       “developed and positive world religion.” The call here is not to return to a
       cultural heritage, but to respect African religion as equal to any other reli-
       gion. Finally, Afrikania addresses traditional religious practitioners in
       Ghana and encourages them to be proud of their religion and bring it out
       into the open. But this aim may clash with the message that “our religion
       is not fetish or voodoo,” as traditional religious practitioners often employ
       exactly those terms to talk about their gods (Rosenthal 1998, 1). Afrikania
       also calls on them to join the movement and stand strongly united in an
       increasingly hostile religious climate. With such differentiated publics that
       are addressed with different, sometimes conflicting messages, it is not sur-
       prising that the membership Afrikania attracts is also very diffuse.
         Afrikania claims that all traditional religious practitioners are auto-
       matically Afrikania members, but this is of course highly contested.
       Although membership seems to be fast growing in the rural areas, the
       question is what Afrikania membership entails. Certainly, Afrikania
       membership is not exclusive as membership of a Christian church usu-
       ally is. Afrikania members from a traditional religious background con-
       tinue to have their spiritual loyalty to a particular shrine and serve a
       particular god or gods. Afrikania membership is very loosely defined and
       less elaborate than in the ICGC. In fact, anyone interested can register as
       a member. While for the ICGC the difficulty of forming a religious com-
       munity lies mainly in the mass character of the church, for Afrikania,
       with a membership of only about 150 people in Accra, this difficulty is
       caused by the variety of backgrounds and interests of its members. In the
       past the membership of the Accra branch was formed predominantly by
       ex-Christian, middle-aged men, whose interest in traditional religion
       was first of all intellectual and political (Boogaard 1993), but at present

       there are many more women, children, and youth. Some share the mili-
       tant approach to ATR of the older and leading Afrikanians and have
       joined the movement out of a combination of a political awareness of
       Africanness and a personal search for an African religious identity.
       Others are driven by a personal affinity with traditional healing, an
       intellectual interest nurtured in school, or certain spiritual experiences or
       problems that they expect to be addressed by Afrikania. Also, while in
       the past there was not a single shrine priest or priestess among the Accra
   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218