Black spiritual counter hegemony

written by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo

For sometime now I have been undergoing both spiritual and religious decolonisation process against both the established religious and spiritual hegemony,....
in that process it became clear to me that there is a need for black people to adopt a counter-hegemonic "antagonistic spiritual consciousness" against the established religious hegemony. ..
.........

........ but in that adoption, it seems more appropriate at least based on how I view it, to have an agnostic position as the end goal because these matters can often lead to an unproductive chaos if caution is not taken or if a "believer absolutism" mentality is adopted as seen in certain sectors of black Christians of the self righteousness type, who openly declares that "Jesus is the only way and nothing else"... this is the sort of religious arrogance we need to avoid in order to maintain peace and be tolerant to each other ...... .

))))))))again, the agnostic position should be central((((((((

I found the following words by some researcher quite helpful:

"The decolonization of Africa, of which the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa is a recent example, led to a greater recognition of the wide variety of religions practising on its soil.

When confronted with this plurality, and the corresponding plurality of claims to truth or credibility, believers usually resort to either absolutism or relativism. The absolutist evaluates the religious other in view of criteria which violate the self-understanding of the latter. The religious other is thus being colonized by a hegemony (i.e. an enforced homogeneity) of norms and values.

In an attempt to transcend this hegemonic colonization, the relativist, on the other hand, simply surrenders the evaluation of beliefs and practices to subjective arbitrariness". . . . unquote

therefore as Africans, we can no longer allow the absolutist believer to evaluate our African religions and spiritual matters in accordance with the criteria that violates our own self-understanding, we cannot allow it! . .

because that in turn perpetuates hegemonic colonization of the African religion and spirituality as highlighted above. ..