This is another topic which borders on my professional life, because I am able to speak about these things because of business relationships. However, I am also able to build business relationships because of personal conversations. I thought it might be a good example to contribute and demonstrate the kinds of layers of conversations I do have with people I know quite well across borders and cultures. This backdrop might help create a more complex understanding of the textures to my worldview and writing.
This weekend I spent a few days discussing many different aspects of culture, past and present, with a man from Ghana, who has a background in hospital administration in Ghana, and is studying policy with a focus on anti-curruption. Last summer I dated for several weeks a man from Burkino Faso, and the connection we had was based on shared belief and faith values. Though he tried to control me and ultimately the relationship did not progress, he shared with me the inspiration their country leader who tried to stand up to the normal corruption which is seen too often in African countries, and it was a great proof of concept for what might be possible to replicate, though the corruption structure targeted that individual who stepped down to make himself the target rather than undo the inspiration and belief the people of the country gained. In the fall, I went out with a man from Venezuela who was not a nice person, but told me about the minister who put $7 billion into a Swiss bank account, in disbelief for the stage of hoarding one had to reach not to stop and determine that an amount less than $1b would have sufficed.
In my recent writing and reading journey, connecting with a man from Ghana came at an additionally interesting time, because of the recent expoloration in similarities of mythology between west africa and pre-islamic Arabia. In addition, I have had professional conversations about difficulties working with governments in African countries not having sustainable infrastructure project development practices. This has been in existence for the duration of my professional development, so for this purposes of this post, I will stick more to the personal discussions than the professional ones. Since I delve into origins of religious thought and philosophy, and comparative religious expression across cultures, this was also of interest for me to bring up recent explorations.
For example, last weekend, I was talking to my native East German friend who has interesting thoughts about the change in attitudes of people in this region under Communism. My ex boyfriend a few years ago, who is East German, had explained to me many of the economic issues at stake, already. My current friend is supposedly reading my first draft, though I have had no feedback. I was considering writing a poem in the book in the style of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. It was interesting to me when my friend said he was listening to Arabic and Israeli music. I have some artists I could send him a track or two I think he might find interesting in their themes. Then I went on to tell him, also, about the interesting pre-Islamic mythology in recent books I had read. Specifically, the City of Brass trilogy, and how the elemental dieties crossed over with Roseanne Brown's recent Song of Wraiths and Ruins exploration of Western African mythology. My German friend found my exploration of these topics fascinating, wondering how I would think about East German whether it was post-Christian. In my theological influencer circles, this phrase is tossed around a lot about Europe, in general, though I find the lense coming from a rejection of American Evangelicalism problematic. My own recent discussions with East Germans about the religious philosophy research going into my book has been met rather enthusiastically. Having discussed religious attitudes with Germans for 20 years, these were actually the most productive conversations and enthusiastic interest I have ever had, and really a stark contrast, but that is rather a tangent from the direction and points I wanted to pursue here.
Corruption and religious evolution in African and Arabic cultures was really more the topic which I found of interest this weekend. We obviously spent some time discussing the dynamics of systematic corruption, and factors that influence this in Ghana. It does become a bit circular, when it ties into the lack of stable infrastructure, which is not produced because of corruption at the project development stages, and around and around we go. I asked one question directly which I had been considering while he talked about his experiences developing successulf and sustainable practices at his hospital and in healthcare supply chain. Which was why the kings of ancient African kingdoms sold their own people into slavery. His point of view was that it was the same perspective over centuries, that is now demonstrated in the feckless selling off of the resources in Africa - why should selling the people of Africa be viewed any differently? Rather than a perspective to consider that working together and putting the group interests ahead of individual gain and hoarding of wealth might make everyone more wealthy than just a priviledged few. Perhaps that is a question for the influence and dispersion of those philosophies into Africa.
One interesting thought he had was about how the influence of Christian thought had not been helpful in building these cultural outlooks. He talked about the cultural influences of Muslim, Christian, and traditional belief systems, and this is where the cross over with my writing journey overlapped. I had previously asked him about the day-born system, and he said he was Monday born, but only knew what that meant for him, not universally. He talked about the traditional belief systems in elemental dieties, which are expressed in the new world as voodooism, being one of imminent consequences and accountability - both to the divine, as well as the people who held those beliefs. He said in the traditional belief system, if a leader was not honest with the people he served, the people would curse him with the curse of the dieties who would come for vengance. In contrast, the christian belief system had taught people that God was patient to judge, and that seeking vengance was wrong, and culturally dealing with these issues, this enabled the leaders to hide and get away with more corruption than might happen within a framework of their own native cultural beliefs.
None of these topics are things I am writing about. In my research, I have explored the influential change from a world of these mythologies which were introduced to a different philosophy about a single, benevolent divine, who did not seek to punish or inflict wrath or evil onto people, which needed to be appeased through sacrifice. These are the philosophies East Germans have wanted to engage in discussing with such enthusiasm. However, also engaging in these discussions in East Germany, where belief in the divine or something unseeable, is not prominent in the culture, I have fought to see something native evolve, and rejection of 2000 years of convoluded theology super imposed on the culture. Those are the dynamics I observe if Christian teachings and theology were super imposed rather than planted in a native culture to evolve and develop organically. Those are observations which influence how I might develop the ideas in my own writing.
If we are currently examining the problematic ways which publishing as well as white authors do not represent the stories of other cultures well, and we want to discuss ways which that can be improved, I enjoyed the TED talk of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie about part of that involves telling more than a single story about those cultures.
When my story became so diverse, representing the fabric of people and friendships in my life, I wanted my writing, as a white author to represent an empowered story about these cultures because certainly we want their stories to be empowered themselves, but also because so many write voices write into the single story, and I have the ability not to.
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