Why Does Religion Have A Stranglehold on Blackfolk?
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Whether in Africa or in the diaspora, Black folks are united in their wholehearted embrace of Christianity and Islam. Isn’t this the very worst kind of Stockholm syndrome known to man?
It’s Sunday morning. In churches across the Africa, Europe, North and South America, be they Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal, one thing is absolutely certain; there will be hundreds of millions of Blackfolk, worshiping, dancing, singing and giving their hard earned money to some profoundly corrupt and morally bankrupt bloke, claiming to speak on God’s behalf.
Why is this the case and how did we get to this point?
For those who know so little of history, it is worth telling that it was the Catholic Church, which issued Laws and Charters for colonialism and the violent attacks which were carried out on non-Europeans. It provided the perfect pretext of White supremacy for the Western Europeans to murder, pillage, rape and endlessly exploit Africans and rationalized these actions, provided taxes and tributes were paid to the church.
Until the Protestant Reformation which took place in the 16th century, the Catholic movement was the preeminent and predominant power in Europe for centuries. And it grossly abused, consolidated and employed its power for convenient despotism. Specifically, Pope Alexander VI, issued his papal bull in 1493, which contained the doctrine of discovery, which provided the spiritual, legal and political cover for Christians, who were exclusively Europeans to lay siege to land, anywhere in the world, not inhabited by Christians and to use any means necessary to establish their control as the inheritors of God’s universal bounties. Specific charters to monarchs were derived from this doctrine, as well as other biblical teachings and edicts.
The points raised in the previous paragraph helped provide the impetus for the Portuguese monarch to authorize the likes of Bartolomeu Dias, Diogo Cao, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Pedro Alvarez Cabral to commence their trips to Africa, which culminated in the first slave ship landing in Brazil in 1526.
The business of slavery made serious money for the Catholic Church and Portugal and the pope issued a charter for Spain to explore the new world…
