The project “Africa’s contribution to the religious and spiritual heritage of the world” was born as a consequence of a failed attempt to bring together in formal dialogue Christians and members of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé at the time of the CWME-conference in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil 1996. This failure made me reflect on the religious and spiritual vitality of Africa, not only in Africa itself but all over the world, in the Diaspora of Africa.

African religiosity has no sacred books. It is found primarily in oral sources, in stories, myths, proverbs, prayers, ritual incantations, songs, names of people and places, and the knowledge of religious personages. It has no written sources on which its authority may be based. And yet it is very much alive, it is lived, it is experienced, and it is integrated and present not only in African Traditional Religions but deep inside Christianity and in Islam. The missionary enterprise failed in trying to keep the African religious and spiritual experience at bay.

The religious and spiritual experience of Africa is present also in the various African Diaspora manifestations, be they Christian or Muslim or syncretistic manifestations. The commemoration of the "discovery" of America alerted the world to the stories of oppression and subjugation told by indigenous peoples and Africans brought to the Americas as slaves. These stories included memories of forced conversion to Christianity and the repression of indigenous religious traditions. The stories revealed, however, that the religious traditions of the former slaves from Africa, in spite of such oppression, lived on and were vital elements in the life of Africans in the Diaspora, whether in Brazil, in the Caribbean or in the USA. The heritage from Africa was differently preserved and remoulded. In some places undoubtedly part and parcel of Christianity in others the religions of Africa are found in symbiosis with certain Christian beliefs, and in some cases African spirituality is consciously separated from any connection with Christianity. Wherever and however it appears, there is a creative vitality in the spirituality of African American churches and in the different Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean religions.

The long-standing cooperation between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) and the Office on Interreligious Relations (IRRD) furthered a discussion on the possibility of a common project on Africa and religion. The then President of PCID, Cardinal Arinze, himself from Nigeria, strongly supported the idea to throw light upon the continued vitality of the religious heritage of Africa in religious traditions in various parts of the world. Such a project would hopefully also lead to a greater understanding between Christians and people of other faiths and open new avenues for interaction and co-operation between peoples of different faiths or religious traditions.

The project would be one way whereby the PCID and the IRRD acknowledged the contributions of the continent and its peoples to enrich the spiritual heritage of humanity. The project should recognise the sacrifices made by millions of Africans to keep their religious tradition despite years of untold physical and moral oppression. Through this project the PCID and the IRRD should celebrate the gift of Africa to the rest of the world.

There were some milestones on the way to be recognised. The Vatican and the WCC had addressed Africa in various programmes, some of them more related to interreligious relations and dialogue.

Following a consultation on traditional religions, the former WCC sub-unit on dialogue with people of living faiths (DFI) published a booklet entitled "Towards a dialogue between Christians and traditionalists in Africa" (22-28 September, 1986, Mindolo, Zambia). This document signalled the beginning of a concerted effort on the part of the WCC to promote study and dialogue with the people of African traditional religious and cultural background.

During the 1998 Assembly in Harare, the WCC rededicated itself to "the African dream and agenda for the 21st century". It declared: “we are proud in seeing a vision of the journey of hope of African churches for the development of the continent for the 21st century…. we are determined to work out this vision that promises life with dignity for the African people".

The Africa plenary in the Harare Assembly reported: “it is important that the emphasis should be positive, leaving behind the notes of fatalism, despair and helplessness which tend to characterise some attitudes and responses. There are clear signs within Africa, alongside the vibrant Christian faith and spiritual vitality, of the emergence of a new spirit of patriotism, a sense of pride in identity (ubuntu) and a desire to construct a different image of the continent. In responding to all that we have heard, we wish therefore to celebrate the heritage and culture of Africa…”

The PCID published studies on African traditional religion and called for «pastoral attention to African traditional religion». In 1984 Pope John Paul II convoked a special synod of bishops to discuss various issues that touch Africa. The synod encouraged more profound studies in African traditions, culture, and religion.

Both PCID and IRRD noted the growing desire to return to their roots by people of African origin. Interest in the indigenous religions of Africa is a reality. While growth in the number of Christians and Muslims on the continent has been steady, more indigenous “churches” and new religious movements are springing up in Africa and beyond to respond to genuine African expressions. And even when followers of African traditional religion convert to Christianity or other religions, they take with them some of the elements of their old religion and culture, which they consider to be "noble", "beautiful" and representing the highest values of human expression in relation to God or the Supreme Being.

PCID and IRRD agreed to work together to pay homage to Africa. In doing this, they chose to explore their area of competence — religion, wanting to highlight and let the world appreciate the contributions of the continent and its peoples (including those in the Diaspora) to the religious and spiritual heritage of the world. The project sought to provide space for various aspects of African religiosity and culture as a constructive and resourceful contribution to our world of religious plurality.

The word contribution is important particularly when addressing the reality of Africa. Media and institutions focusing on the continent of Africa, do so not from the point of view of its positive achievements, but mainly from its problems. News reports, articles, consultations and other fora mention wars and the refugee crisis, poverty, terrorism, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics and have little if any space for any particular contributions. The image of Africa is mostly totally negative. There are hardly any contributions acknowledged, at least not in any significant way.

To be honest, the WCC Focus on Africa is not very different. Of the three areas mentioned at the Assembly in Harare, “war and conflict (including governance, micro disarmament, children and women in armed situations), economic justice, including globalisation, and debt (from the perspective of human rights and human dignity) and spirituality and ethical values that enhance life with dignity”, the latter has to my knowledge not been particularly present in the available documentation. The focus seems to be on economic catastrophes, wars, and by policies designed outside the continent, on violence in structural and systemic forms as well as on the silent, and the slow and painful death inflicted by HIV/AIDS as a no less devastating form of violence.

This is not to say that we should avoid the issue of poverty, war and HIV/AIDS. But the question is of course how we focus and if we through our focus fail to see the intrinsic potential of Africa. At least from the side of IRRD, the project of IRRD and PCID wanted to pick up on and focus the attention on some of the statements from Focus on Africa as spelled out in Harare. In order not to fall prey to hopelessness, there should be, it was said, a concerted effort to “re-imagine society” through dialogue between people of different faiths. There was a mention of the need for “moral leadership”, where people of different faiths would have a specific role to play. “An African renaissance” is needed, where “the people of Africa can rediscover their soul”. “An African renaissance is therefore a journey of self-rediscovery, and restoration of Africans' own self-esteem.” “A focus on spirituality” is needed “as the foundation of just, peaceful and environmentally sustainable communities.”

PCID and IRRD wanted therefore to make available a forum that not only gave visibility to problems in Africa but even more to the many and deeply spiritual contributions of Africa provided by the manifold expressions of the Christian faith, Islam, African traditional religion on the continent and in the Diaspora. By so doing, the organisers wanted to enable the voice and experience of Africa to be heard in the religious and interreligious discourse in a world looking for sustainable values to provide moral fibre for society.

The project held its first meeting in Enugu, Nigeria (January 2001) and the second in Dakar, Senegal (December 2002), the former setting the objectives for the project, the latter deliberating on the significance of the African Person. The final consultation was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia September 13-17, 2004. It was opened by H.H. Abune Paulos, the Patriarch of Ethiopia, Archbishop of Axum and Echegue of the See of St. Teklehaimanot. He embraced positively the consultation as an important event contributing to making the world a better world and underlined that Africa should see herself as contributing to life values and spirituality. The name Ethiopia meaning “the black skinned people”, he said, was fitting. All the participants should feel at home in Ethiopia.

Prof. John Mbiti had been with the project from the beginning and was asked to give the keynote address in the meeting in Addis. He did so in an address entitled “Little by little the moon becomes full - In Search of Family Values (and Anti-Values) in African Proverbs”. African proverbs provided the focus of his presentation on the family. Proverbs, he said “are the deposits of wisdom, experiences, ethics, reflection, spirituality and hope of society, they are well positioned to unlatch the windows that facilitate” entering into “the world of African values and understanding of the family”. Participants were encouraged to respond to his keynote address, which had been sent to participants several months before the consultation. In this way, we could harvest reactions, reflections continuing in different directions and echoing the various religious traditions present. Among the 40 participants from 10 different countries (Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and from the Diaspora Brazil, Iraq, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the USA), there were Christians, Muslims, followers of African traditional religions and spirituality, followers of Candomblé and Orixas and Santeria.

There were many expectations. Nana Kobina Nketsia V, an African spiritual chief from Ghana hoped that the consultation would free African Traditional Religion from the way it had been misinterpreted, that space would be given to that which had been denigrated by the West and Christianity, e.g. the role of ancestors in African tradition. There were expectations that there would be possibilities to distil together such values that could heal the family in crisis in the midst of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. There were expectations that a meeting gathering people from such diverse religions and cultures but under the unifying thrust of Africa would enable participants to affirm Africanness with joy, responsibility and hope. Daisy Stephens, a Jamaican participant, living in the UK said that she needed to “come back” to Africa in order to get her priorities right. In the UK, she would be able to give a talk about the significance of 1066 but she needed something that would help her identifying as an African Caribbean. Her participation was a spiritual journey. Maria de Lourdes Siqueira, a “mother” in the hierarchy of Candomblé in Brazil expressed the same. Maria singing the theologies of Afro-Brazilian religions, thanked God for allowing her to come to Africa. She was coming home at last. African Muslims and Christians recognised in African Traditional Religion a corrective to Muslim and Christian exclusivism. African Traditional Religion did not define away anyone and did not condemn any religious tradition.

An eye-opener and the most moving part of the consultation was the struggle of an Iraqi woman of African descent to join the consultation in Addis. I had read about her in Washington Post in early January 2004. Thawra Yousif belongs to a community in Basra, whose existence is the legacy of slavery throughout the Middle East, one thousand years old. Arab traders brought Africans across the Indian Ocean from present-day Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere in East Africa to Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Turkey and other parts of the Middle East. Though centuries have passed since the first Africans, called Zanj, arrived in Iraq, some African traditions still persist. Thawra Yousif is a doctoral candidate in theatre and acting at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts and is now writing her dissertation about healing ceremonies through dramatic performances in her community.

Finding Thawra Yousif was not easy. Hans von Sponeck, the former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, went out of his way to locate Thawra Yousif. After many months, I received an email. She would do anything to participate in the consultation. And she did. She tried to go from Basra to Kuwait and from there on a flight to Addis. The Kuwaiti authorities prevented her transit. She went the dangerous way to the Jordanian border and was turned back by the Jordanian border control. In an email she told me that she would try via Damascus. And finally her persistence paid off. As she entered the room, the participants in the consultation stood up and applauded her. Her presence, her stories about the Zanj in Iraq, how they sang and lived their daily trials, surviving through thinking of Africa, came to incarnate the very meaning of the consultation: Africa as the continent bringing together its children from all over the world, people, who have never forgotten Africa, who have always longed back, people who now together could celebrate being together. This togetherness gave the consultation a powerful spiritual community dimension, which went beyond most of the consultations I have organised so far. A feeling of belonging in spite of the diversity of various cultures, religions, and geographical locations grew stronger and stronger.

The consultation and workshop brought together representatives of Christianity in Africa, representatives of Islam, followers of African traditional religion as well as representatives of some of the various religious communities of Africa in Diaspora. The theme, “The Family as a source of values and spirituality”, sought to reflect on and respond to the following questions:

Are there values (deriving from your ethnic group; religious affiliation; celebrations; attitude to supreme being, spirits, ancestors, etc.), which you would consider particular to Africa or which express an affinity with an African heritage? While some of these values may not be exclusively African, could one highlight or point to a particular African dimension?

Is there anything from African traditional religion, culture, customs, etc. that helped and is still helping you in your life as a Christian or Muslim or follower of other religious traditions?

Is there in your opinion anything in African traditional religion, culture, customs, etc. that was particularly instrumental in preparing Africans to absorb/survive the trauma of "transplantation" in distant lands of the Americas?

Is there anything from African traditional religion, culture, customs, etc., that helped and is still helping people in adapting to new cultures and customs of other continents (especially Europe, America and Asia), where people from Africa live today?

Our world needs sustainable values to further life together, in peace, in justice, in human dignity. What is in your opinion the unique contribution of Africa and the African heritage, when you look upon it from your particular religious tradition?

Discussions spanned continents and the depths of spirituality and religious traditions in relation to family and sustainable values. LaVerne McCain from the US presented the view of African-Americans. When the peoples of Africa were displaced through slavery, they lost their roots and land and the wisdom of their languages. They lost the blood-family relation. A new family was born, based upon the Kingdom of God. The black churches were designed to replace the loss of family roots. The Negro spirituals became sources of wisdom for the African-American in order survive alienation, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land”?

The role of the family, the search for relevant values brought participants to scrutinise the patriarchal society. What caused society to become patriarchal? Is it the influence of Christianity and Islam? Re-imaging the family, one needs to take care not to universalise, since family is different in different parts of Africa. There are many and varied forms/models of the African family, ranging from the clan to the family of God. However, there is an African world-view, which sees the ancestors as an integral part of the African family. The appropriation of the ancestors as part of family is intrinsic to any discourse on African family values, e.g. the security of Afro-Brazilians is in knowing that their ancestors are Africans, persons born free in Africa; they were not born slaves.

The discussion addressed the prevailing crisis of sexuality in the African family. This crisis is occasioned by the loss of traditional education on a healthy sexual life that was given during initiation. HIV/AIDS is therefore devastating the African family amidst the churches and other religious traditions’ inability to instruct and help young people live a responsible sexual life. Sexuality is an integral part of religious life and there is a need to integrate a healthy sexuality into our religious lives.

One group report raised the question of identity, which loomed large in the discussions. The names of the participants do not necessarily label any Africanness; some are Biblical, some Quranic and European. Around the table there were Africans, descendants of those taken into slavery and those who returned after having been socialised in “slave cultures”. There were those who left the African coast and never reached any other continent and were returned to the West coast of Africa unable to tell from where they had been stolen. There are Africans who never left the continent. Others came into contact with European and Arabic countries and are no longer in possession of their native tongue. What is the identity of these different uprooted people bound together only in their common claim to the continent named Africa?

Another group discussed the contribution of Africa to the discussion on sustainable values and suggested that religious tolerance, respect for diversity and plurality without trying to impose oneself on the other is a strength fostered by African Traditional Religion. It is a non-proselytising religion, which co-exists with other religions without aggression.

A visit to the African Union was one concluding component of the consultation. We were privileged by the participation in the consultation of one of the commissioners, Grace Kalimugogo and her colleague Laban U. Masimba. The organisers were complimented for the initiative to bring Africa together over religious, cultural and geographical boundaries. Such an initiative helped in creating an important backbone for an African commitment to address together issues in Africa and the world. It underlined religions together in fostering an African identity.

There was, as in every consultation, a wish expressed that this project does not end with the consultation in Addis but continues focusing on specific issues. A caucus of African women brought forth the idea of a women’s meeting in Ghana, where Africa and the Diaspora could address issues of common concern.

The immediate plans are now to harvest the material from the three consultations and with the help of a professional editor publish a book on the experiences of discussing across many faiths the contribution of Africa to the religious and spiritual heritage of the world.

The Yoruba word ‘aşe’ featured quite often in the consultation. It is a strong word expressing agreement and commitment; it is a strong Amen meaning ‘let it be’. This word was particularly meaningful as it was brought up by Maria de Lourdes Siqueira from Brazil, where the word is used in rituals and ceremonies. It is one of the vital words that the Afro-Brazilians have conserved from their roots. As soon as Maria mentioned it, it was at once recognised by the Yoruba and other West African participants with great joy and a sense of belonging and solidarity. In a short litany composed during the consult-ation it figured in the following words

“We affirm that Africa has contributed, is contributing and will continue to contribute to human values” - AŞE
“From Africa will come the importance of community, solidarity in the context of the global family” - AŞE
“We affirm as we always have that God will continue to bless Africa” - AŞE

It is appropriate to end this report in the same vein: AŞE – Let it be.

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