Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
3 February 2009
opinion
President Muammar Gaddafi whose public statements have had the potential of worsening the delicate Muslim-Christian relations in Africa was on Monday elected chairman of the African Union (AU).
The Libyan leader replaces Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete in the one-year-term position that is held on a rotational basis by a head of state from Africa's four regions. His pet subject is greater African unity.
"I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa," Gaddafi said in his inaugural speech, but admitted that African leaders were "not near to a settlement" on the issue.
Gaddafi, on his 40th year in power, has for the past decade pushed the unity agenda, but without sensitivity to the continent's religious reality. Christianity and Islam are Africa's main religions.
The man who has previously dismissed the Bible as a forgery and Christianity as a religion not meant for Africans will for the next year be the spokesman for a continent where religious tensions have sometimes erupted into violent confrontations.
On the other hand, Christian minorities, especially in North Africa, do not enjoy freedom of worship and continue to suffer official discrimination.
In the past two years, Gaddafi has used celebrations to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohammed to disparage Christianity. Last year while visiting Uganda, he delivered a tirade against the Bible, dismissing it as a forgery.
"The Bible we have now is not the one that was revealed to Issa [Jesus], and the Old Testament is not the one that was revealed to Musa. Mohammed is mentioned in both (original versions), but in the Torah and Bible we have now, there is no mention of him," he said.
"It means that it (Bible) has been forged. Prophet Mohammed was sent to mankind. Allah wanted mankind to have one religion. The Koran that we have is the only book that was sent by Allah."
In 2007, the Libyan leader said it was a mistake to believe that Jesus had been crucified and killed. "It is not correct to say that. Another man resembling Jesus was crucified in his place," Gaddafi told a mass prayer meeting in Niger to mark the birth of Prophet Mohammed.
Christianity, he added, was not a universal faith alongside Islam. "There are serious mistakes - among them the one saying that Jesus came as a messenger for other people other than the sons of Israel," he said.
"Christianity is not a faith for people in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other people who are not sons of Israel have nothing to do with that religion."
"All those believers who do not follow Islam are losers," Gaddafi said. "We are here to correct the mistakes in the light of the teachings of the Koran."
The Libyan leader seized power in a military coup d'état in 1969, deposing the monarchy and imposing socialism and Islamic orthodoxy on the country.
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" .. He and many African leaders antagonise America and the EU! The very states that are meant to help us be more organised socially, ... "
Dear clever HYENA THAT WOULD URINATE UPWIND TO SCATTER THE HERD DOWNWIND:
The evil propagandist would blame his victim for the victimization. [The clever ones would blame Iraqis for having the crude oil on their territory - which resulted in the USA-UK invasion of their country and the slaughter and dislocation of millions.]
It seems as if it is the west that antagonizes Africa and its people:
1) Consider the imposiion of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe and the resultant deaths of its people from starvation and opportunistic diseases. Who is the aggressor and who is the victim in this case? WOuld you indict the west at the west's ICC for these crimes against humanity? How about the frequent travel advisories used as a coercive tool by western countries which render millions in captive countries like Kenya unemployed and starving - until the countries capitulate? Identify the aggressor and victim in this case also.
2) There are foreign military bases in most of African countries. There is a major foreign military base just off the coast of Africa at Diego Garcia that stocks nuclear weapons. Do you know if are African bases in USA or EU countries?
3) Each day, over 1,000 kids are shipped out of resource-rich Nigerian ports into sex slavery in USA and EU countries. Are any kids shipped off the USA-EU coasts into sex slavery in Africa? WOuld you consider such slavery vto be a crime against humanity - on the same level as "terrorism"? If so, why isn't the USA and EU as well as their UN UNICEF and ICC not concerned? Could it be that the one-way sex slavery pleases these barbarous christian whites of the hideous legacy of slavery?
[I suspect that those foreign countries would show a lot more vicious interest in the issue of "human trafficking into sex-slavery" if Africans shipped white kids into sex slavery in Africa. And I suspect that it would be declared "terrorism" whereby the culprits and their accomplices would be raped, tortured and/or slaughtered while in the act or on suspicion alone.]
4) Are the African NGOs (funded by African governments and affiliated supremacist individuals) which operate in western countries with the aim of disrupting the social fabric - the bedrock of their civilization - in the western lands oif USA and Eu countries? ----
"MEANT"?
"meant" by whom? Could that be the white man's (christian) god that tells the white man so?
Or is you, the endangered white man of the (resource poor) west, hallucinating (as usual) that he is more worthy than the black man?
Junior, you have a problem. You don't seem to know much. Check your history of the world and you will find that the Africans had thriving organized thriving civilizations and kingdoms on the African savanna long before the white cave dwellers effectively organized themselves to live in communities.
And you may find out that the white man was also trying to establish his supremacy in the east. But the Asians - like the Africans - kicked the plundering, murderous creep out. And Vietnam paid a brutal price for ousting whites from their countries. China paid a price too. So did India. Now Vietnam, the fastest growing economy in the south east Asia, has done well without the white man's control. So has China and India. And until Africa sheds its debilitating burden, the white man, there will be no progress - only wars and extermination by whites, the world's well known exterminators of humans.
And time is not on the side of the African Child.
The west - especially Europe - would not have attained, nor would they maintain, their civilization and "way of life as they know it" without Africa's mineral and human resources as well as Africa's markets.
-----
Has the west been any good to Africa and the Africans?
And of course the whites are welcome to move out of Africa any moment - if Africa is so much bother. In fact Africa wishes that they would. And have been wishing thus for centuries - ever since the plundering, murderous whites landed on Mother Africa's coast - and defiled it.
Chokora, You are a disillusioned little creep living in a cacoon! Such is your outdated, rusty knowledge of world issues, such is your dangerously low self-esteem and confidence and such is your "Zimbabwe is Mine" ranting. The Far East, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Asia in general have not developed independent of the West. Check your facts. China comes to the west to ask to work together for the common good. China has got huge Western investments. You dont like the West but you like the Chinese. You damn hypocrite! Investment , reall money is coming from the West; EU and America into China and China then can afford those handouts to you fool! Open your eyes! These problems have been there in the past, White, Chinese, Americans and Iraqis etc, etc have all experienced victimisation, persecution, killing and torture from their own leaders; check your history mate. We are striving for a world of equality of all races where these atrocities should stop and this should be the objective of the UN and related bodies and you are actually the "Hyena that urinate upwind to scatter the herd downwind"! You dont want a one world, you dont want a common humanity, you support people like Mugabe who wants to carve out a brutal empire screened from the world to do what he chooses with his own people. SAD! really. Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans were not the only people colonised, they were not the only people persecuted under colonial rule. Why is your wound more painful than mine, why is it never healing? Think mate think! Mandela has given a good example and you know it? Dont carry out an arguement as an academic excercise you are misleading the people. Africa is suffering because of people like you who have found it hard to forgive! Continue that mentality and you are propagating more suffering for Africans. This World is more entertwined than you think!
This is the usual stinking laundry list of excuses. Africa for the last 50 years has had self-governments. But what have they done with it ? Worse than the white colonialists. It is past the time of using white colonialism/slavery to excuse brutal corrupt dictatorships run by sponsored criminals sub-imperialists.
For example Mugabe inherited Zimbabwe, strong and vibrant. But what has he done with it ? He has run it to the ground complaining that white people are responsible for it. It is a child-like slave mentality of blaming the white colonial master.
I see some Africans are suffering from an inferiority complex because a "whiteman" as they seem to lionize him to be is only a figutive in your own inferior mind because the reality couldn't be further from the truth.
It is now time for Africa to get their act together - like the Asians did - instead of trolling inferiority complexed theories to explain away and excuse worthless corrupt dictatorship that serve nobody but selfish and backward interests.
Gaddafi is a failed megalomaniac. What happened to his pet project of bombing aeroplanes in flight ? What happened to his nuclear ambitions ? Why did he dismantle his nukes' infrastructure ? What about his pet project of panArabism ?
Africa doesn't need to go back to the discarded methods of social organization of yesteryear kingdoms, when there are modern tools. India is a successful modern democracy even if there are more Indians - with multiple religions and castes, ethnicities - than all Africans combined.
The beast of fear is inside the minds of some of Africans, and they need to stop listening to intellectually bankrupt socalled leaders aka pretend panAfricanists like Muammar, Mubaraka, Museveni, and Mugabe. And institutionalized and corrupt religions are irrelevant as they are only used to divide and conquer and subgugate the weak.
It realy is quite simple, a lot of people just do things for themselves. Only when people start doing things for each other for the common good is when you go forward. Africa and other places on this planet act like a kindergarten fight. It's his fault, no it's his , it's your's, no it's yours, boo hoo hoo. I'm telling my mummy on you. Time to grow up and act like adults and get on with life. Jesus said, by this , should all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another. Start doing things for each other and it is better all for the common good. not many realise it , but Karl Marx, his father was a reverend in the church. He thougth, this stuff is good ,but I want to be in charge, so let me write God out of the Bible and I will call it communism. ( To commune together) Why in the church do people have Holy Communion? Answers please.
I totally agree with you Zimpatriot, it goes to show that gaddafi is very scared to having to jump up and down saying that the bible is wrong and fake. One way to heavan and thats through Jesus Christ. Christ said ," I am the way , the thrueth and the life, no man shall come unto the father except through me". The muslims may not realise it but Abraham is the father of many nations and it was his sons who started fueding to create the biggest family fued the world has ever known. I personally prefer to follow a God of Love than war. the Torah is actually the first five books of the Bible. The Muslims actually recognise Jesus aswell, but they recognise Jesus as their prophit of healing. jesus came for the Healing of the nations. Col Gaddaffi should do his history and read his Koran to understand a bit more. With him stating that jesus did not exist is actually taking away from the teachings of the Koran as well. Selmon Rushdie did something along these lines and there was a fatwa against him. Blaspheme the Koran well need I say more, will the Muslims want to wage a war of Jihad against him. The west will say no because they want Gaddaffi's oil.
would you rather have a pro-catholic as AU chair?
why?
See all comments (16).
I see this as a golden opportunity for African Christians to follow the teachings of Jesus to practise love for enemies. God's message to mankind is simple - love one another. Anyone who teaches anything else is a false prophet who needs sympathy and love.