Ideology and Religion in Francophone Novels from Africa

Ideology and Religion in Francophone Novels from Africa 

(Cave Hill International Philosophy Symposium, 13 November 2014) 

   

I choose to discuss the topic from three novels produced by African writers from different horizons. I will use Mudimbe’s Entre les eaux (1975) translated as Between Tides in 1991, Boris Boubacar Diop’s Les tambours de la mémoire (1990) and Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah n’est pas obligé (2000). Pierre Landu, the protagonist of Between Tides is a former catholic priest who in an effort to fight capitalism and exploitation of the poor by the rich joins a Marxist-Leninist guerilla which preaches a proletarian Revolution. In Les tambours de la mémoire, Fadel Sarr, the son of billionaire, is inspired by the dream of peace and justice to join Queen Johanna Simentho in the Kingdom of Wissombo. Ahmadou Kourouma presents us an Ivorian twelve years old child, Birahima, who is involved in the wars that invade Liberia and Sierra Leone. What unites the three novels is the fact that they are all about religion. These novels all show the incapacity of religions, be it Christian belief or Islamic action to create a nation of peace, justice and work for all. Beyond the ontological question of how to live in a world of harmony and understanding among peoples of different descents rises the reality of ideology, dream and war as means to achieve human fulfillment.

My paper seeks to philosophically question the impact of religion over the consciousness of human being as an impulsive force to overcome inequality and build a better world. The provocative title chosen by Kourouma, stating that Allah is not obliged to be just, shows the limits of religion in the construction of a nation. That a priest quits his Christian belief to embrace revolutionary thesis and radically reorient his life posits the question about the essence of religious and political behavior. The final aim of this paper is to critically identify the raisons d’être of ideology and religion in the building process of a human being and a nation. Published by a Congolese, a Senegalese and an Ivorian, the novels reflect at three historical moments of Africa the political situations of Africa recently hit by the Arab Spring, Boko Aram, Al Shabab or LRA of John Koni. The paper constitutes a start of a wider reflection on African leadership, “Africa and Religions”, relation between ideology and nation building.

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