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Tradition and Change in Africa: Religion as an Agent of Development in Tribal Societies
| Article
# : |
10691 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1986 |
9,782 Words |
| Author
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Harold W. Turner
Harold W. Turner is the director of the Study Center for New
Religious Movements in Primal Societies at Selly Oak Colleges
of Birmingham University, U.K. Originally presented as a
conference paper, this article was published in God and Global
Justice: Religion & Poverty in an Unequal World by Paragon
House Publishers (1985), and is reprinted by permission. |
It is not possible to think of the relationship between rich and poor nations without thinking of modernization and development among the peoples of the Third world. To avoid oversimplification or the equation of development with Westernization it might be better to speak of "social transformation in the spirit of modernity" for "traditional societies" as they are drawn into the mainstream of history where humanity is rapidly "coming of age" in terms of human capacities and responsibilities.
However we may speak of these issues, we know there is a large element of social, economic, political and technical change involved, and also that the high hopes of the last two decades have come to little. Great changes are occurring, but they are seldom those we have planned, and the world development processes stand revealed as bankrupt both of ideas and of power to solve the issues that grow sharper between rich and poor nations.
Western economic-growth models and local indigenized socialist models are equally ineffective, apart from some relatively minor successes. The poor become poorer and the rich become richer, and now even the privileged groups see their spin-offs and benefits threatened as civilian governments give way to military dictatorships, followed by a succession of military coups. The World Bank predicts that by 1990 some 70 percent of Africans will be living in what is defined as "absolute poverty," a situation paralleled in much of the rest of the Third World.
If we try to place the development issue, and all that goes with it, in the context of religion, the problem, if anything, would seem to be increased. To link religions with development is to draw attention to the obstacles these great system present through their own conservatism, their deep roots, fixed traditions, and institutional inertia.
Although roots, traditions, and conservation are essential in religions, what is an asset in this context readily operates as an obstacle when it comes to development in a spirit of modernity. And there is the further and deeper question of whether or not the worldview found in each major religious system is capable of supporting the views of nature, man, time, history, and society that seem integral to modern development.
We may examine this further by looking at what might be accepted as a more favorable example--black Africa, which is rapidly becoming the second great cultural-geographical area in the whole history of
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