Bur­ton Sanker­al­li

I wish to draw to the at­ten­tion of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty a dis­turb­ing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a friend who was ef­fec­tive­ly per­se­cut­ed for her re­li­gious be­lief.

She is an ini­ti­at­ed priest­ess of the Or­isha faith. Re­cent­ly, she moved in­to a apart­ment and was hos­tile­ly treat­ed by a land­la­dy who said she did not want any "obeah woman" in her place. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, when sa­cred re­li­gious items were not placed to the land­la­dy's sat­is­fac­tion, even be­fore my friend could re­lo­cate them, her elec­tric­i­ty was cut.

Even­tu­al­ly, she was evict­ed and her prop­er­ty thrown on­to the street. In the process they were dam­aged by bailiffs who were them­selves mak­ing deroga­to­ry re­marks about the re­li­gion. Cer­tain items al­so went miss­ing.

As dis­turb­ing and rep­re­hen­si­ble as this episode is it is not an aber­ra­tion. It is not mere­ly a case of one dis­turbed in­di­vid­ual with her racist is­sues. The Or­isha faith, as in­deed all forms of African re­li­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, is still stig­ma­tised as be­ing evil, with devo­tees la­belled as "dev­il wor­ship­pers."

Many cit­i­zens draw deeply from the wells of racist re­li­gious ide­olo­gies. This of course has deep his­tor­i­cal roots go­ing back to the colo­nial ex­pe­ri­ence, at which time some African re­li­gious tra­di­tions were out­lawed.

It is dis­turb­ing that this stig­ma­tis­ing, if not ef­fec­tive per­se­cu­tion of Or­isha devo­tees is be­ing per­pet­u­at­ed in si­lence. So what is the na­ture of this re­li­gious prac­tice? It is a tra­di­tion of African re­li­gious spir­i­tu­al­i­ty–a cel­e­bra­tion of life. Such a life-af­firm­ing spir­it has sus­tained African and Caribbean peo­ple as a whole through a hor­ren­dous his­to­ry of vi­o­lence. It is a spir­i­tu­al force ev­i­dent to­day in our peo­ple cel­e­bra­to­ry at­ti­tude to liv­ing, most spec­tac­u­lar­ly seen in our Car­ni­val.

It is al­so true that the overt man­i­fes­ta­tions of such spir­i­tu­al­i­ty were sin­gled out for par­tic­u­lar at­tack. It was lit­er­al­ly de­monised by a racist colo­nial or­der and its ad­her­ents made in­to ob­jects of ridicule and shame.

Forms of African re­li­gion were legal­ly sanc­tioned this in­clud­ed the ban­ning of the drum. Per­haps most bla­tant was the spe­cif­ic out­law­ing of the Shouter Faith. It is trag­ic that the un­der­ly­ing racist at­ti­tudes that have de­fined our his­to­ry per­sist. Trag­ic, but not sur­pris­ing, as the colo­nial na­ture of our so­ci­ety re­mains in­tact.

Giv­en this racist his­to­ry, it is not sur­pris­ing there is such pro­found ig­no­rance con­cern­ing Or­isha. Yet, this is a tra­di­tion that teach­es re­spect and rev­er­ence for na­ture. The Or­isha deities are as­pects of na­ture and the nat­ur­al el­e­ments.

Or­isha teach­es

In a time when the en­tire plan­et is fac­ing the dire con­se­quences of dis­re­spect­ing the earth that is our Moth­er, the tra­di­tion teach­es us a great deal. In a time when those with po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic pow­er in our own coun­try, in­clud­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal man­ag­ing au­thor­i­ties that should know bet­ter, are busy rap­ing and plun­der­ing our land­scape, the Or­isha tra­di­tion teach­es us that we must live in har­mo­ny and bal­ance with na­ture or reap the whirl­wind.

In a time when crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is be­com­ing the norm at all lev­els in our so­ci­ety the re­li­gion of­fers our peo­ple the key to liv­ing as such a com­mu­ni­ty de­fined by jus­tice, peace and love.

I be­lieve it is high time the si­lence be bro­ken. It is time we open­ly con­front the neg­a­tive stereo­types about African re­li­gious ex­pres­sion.

I call on mem­bers of the Or­isha faith as well as our sis­ters and broth­ers of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty and, in­deed, all right-think­ing cit­i­zens to let their voic­es be heard.

It ap­pears we have been labour­ing un­der the false as­sump­tion that ours is a "tol­er­ant" so­ci­ety when in­deed as a peo­ple we have not re­al­ly come to terms with our re­al dif­fer­ences. This is sim­i­lar to the false no­tion that we are an es­sen­tial­ly "peace­ful" peo­ple. Has any­one checked the crime rate late­ly?

There are deeply sup­pressed con­flicts that still need to be ad­dressed. We are in a time when all such false as­sump­tions, or as David Rud­der would put it "love­ly lies," will be ex­posed. The is­sue of re­li­gious big­otry along with the many oth­er so­cial is­sues fac­ing us ought to lead us to ask our­selves whether this is the kind of so­ci­ety we want live in.