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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