How Free Communities Developed a Praxis for Freedom
Quilombo dos Palmares, the touchstone quilombo by which all other Brazilian quilombos have been measured, was home to Candomblé adherents. Voodoo was present amongst the Haitian revolutionary forces led by Toussaint Louverture and free maroon communities in Louisiana. Santeria and other African-based, syncretic religions flourished amongst Cimarron communities in Cuba and South and Central American countries. The presence of these religions amongst free communities and revolutionary forces composed of ex-enslaved Africans provide a recurring motif. Had they served as pacifying forces, reaffirming slavery, colonialism, historical materialism, class division and any other ideology that secured the position of, and prevented resistance against, the dominant class, there would not have been such fervent opposition to their practice. There wouldn’t have been a need to fuse the religious worship with Catholicism. Contrarily, African-based syncretic religions provided a divine basis for life and a collective and individual endorsement for freedom and justice amongst marginalized groups.
“Quando se reconhece o outro como alguém, um além da totalidade, é possível uma “práxis de libertação” (…) a liberdade de quem vive oprimido na totalidade. Essa práxis é essencialmente anti-fetichista, porquanto nega a falsa divindade da totalidade no serviço ao pobre.” [When another human is recognized as someone outside of the totalitarian state, it is possible to experience a liberation praxis (…) liberty for the person who has been subjugated by totalitarian forces. This praxis is essentially anti-fetish, it negates service to the poor by false divinities within the system (translated from Liberdade e Libertação na Ética de Dussel)] (AMES, 1992: 39).
“African-based syncretic religions provided a divine basis for life and a collective and individual endorsement for freedom and justice amongst marginalized groups.”
Candomblé is influenced by animist beliefs. Universal power and spirituality are equally distributed amongst all living things, innate objects, nature, natural phenomena and the cosmos. Unlike the material-religious history of the Americas, the need to know why, what, when and how,” wasn’t conditioned to special interests (i.e. economic, political, and geopolitical influence) that benefitted elite, dominant society. It’s not a religious doctrine supportive of anthropocentric impulses that result in the subjugation of nature to exalt human virtue and superiority. In fact, Candomblé devotees have a cyclic, egalitarian view of the divine, universal power that emanates in all things. Placing this religious expression within the historical context of colonialism in the Americas identifies it as being a praxis for liberation. A society founded upon institutionalized oppression, unabated pillaging and materialism was at stake. Catholicism provided religious justification for those individuals who profited from the pain and toils of such a society. However, Candomblé, along with Santeria, Voodoo, and other African-based syncretic religions, provided ancestral religious worldviews that unified and empowered the victims of societies stratified along socioeconomic and racial lines. It offered ways of resistance to dogmas sustaining legalized injustice.
Julian Cola has a BA (cum laude) in Portuguese from the University of New Mexico. He’s been awarded a CELPE-Bras Certificate (Brazilian Ministry of Education) and a FLAS Fellowship (US Department of Education). He can be contacted at mjuliancola(at)gmail.com.
Article Appeared @http://www.blackagendareport.com/candomble_black_resistance