Traditional African Colonialism

According to Edusa-Eyison these European missionaries did not respect the people’s culture as “everything Africa was primitive, pagan, fetish, and heathen in the eyes of Europe.” Hence, Africans were told that in order to become Christians they must renounce their cultural practices and accept that of the Europeans (this was a sort of package deal). On Ndigbo axis, Nwosu affirms that “the missionaries adopted a negative attitude that was tantamount to condemnation of disproval of traditional Igbo society.” The adverse effect of this teaching is that it made people develop inferiority complexes concerning their cultural identity. This is because they now believe that in order to be a Christian, one must jettison his/her culture since they

One will have to say that they were Westernizing more than Christianizing and they might have done this consciously or unconsciously but the fact is that they identified European culture with Christianity. It is obvious from the fruits of their works that they imposed Western culture on the African people and their culture, resulting in their denial of their cultural heritage. For some of these early missionaries a bit of “white man’s” civilization will be good to the “heathen” Africans; so they went ahead to caricature the people’s cultures and traditions, presenting theirs as superior. Onyeoma affirms that “some missionaries were not actually presenting Christ but rather the superiority of their culture and

Differences in civilization are not necessarily repellent. They may attract and stimulate. The periods of greatest progress have often followed on the contact of two different civilizations and their mutually stimulating effect. Foreign customs frequently fascinate and are eagerly imitated. But while Igbo are often ready like any other African ethnic group to borrow foreign ideas ad foreign fashions, they do this only of their own free choice. They are at other times resolute to resist any change in their inherited customs and familiar ways such as traditional burial rite in Awka versus the Catholic Church. The same believe is applicable to the other denominations. The difference between peoples in denominations, traditions, customs, social conversions, and consequently in habits of thought and feeling, are so great that the surprising thing is not that they should give rise to difficulties in inter/intra–denominational intercourse and understanding, but rather that these difficulties should in so many instances be overcome (Oldham, 1924). There is, to being with, the barrier of denominational language, which seldom completely surmounted. For instance, the Catholics in Igbo land will greet, “Otito diri Jesu” Glory be to Jesu Christi). And the response will be, “Na ndu ebighi-ebe=Life eternality”. To the Anglicans, it is, “ Tonu Chineke-Praise God”. The