Worldview, Challenge of Contextualization and Church Planting in West Africa

Part 3
West African Worldviews

D. Tuche

Published in www.GlobalMissiology.org “Contextualization” January 2009
(Editor’s note: this is the 3^rd of a 4-part series on worldview in West Africa)

I had argued strongly in a previous work that West Africans are culturally different from African Americans, and therefore require a different missiological approach in regard to presenting the gospel to those that have migrated to the United States and other parts of North America.¹ In this article, I wish to share some the West African worldviews in general which most of their immigrants to the United States and Canada share in common.

Complementary Dualism

Complementary dualism, according to Kalu Ogbaa, is defined as the “belief that opposite beings, including humans, complement each other in order to become whole and effective.”² Ogbaa, writing about the Igbo, states that this complementary dualism underscores the Igbo constant reference to elu na ala (the sky and the earth), nwoke na nwanyi (man and woman), and udu miri na okochi (wet and dry season). Moreover, the Igbo world is generally categorized into two parts—physical and metaphysical, which comprise the three levels: the spirit world, which consists of the spiritual beings and the living dead ancestors (Ala mmuo); the living people on Earth (elu uwa), or the physical world; and the unborn babies in the womb (akpa nnwa).³

¹ For more on West African immigrants’ relationship with African Americans see Emetuche, Okwudiri Damian. “An Analysis of Worldviews of West African Immigrants to Greater Cincinnati and their Missiological Implications.” Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville KY, 2007.

² Kalu Ogbaa, Igbo (New York: Rosen, 1995), 14.

³ Ibid.

Other scholars, especially in the West, refer to the same system of thought as “animism,” a term made popular by Edward B. Tylor in his book, Religion in Primitive Culture, but has been rejected by most African writers. E. Bolaji Idowu is one of these scholars. He argues that, while it is true that there are some animistic practices and beliefs in African traditional religions, animism by its nature is not peculiar to Africans alone.⁴

John Mbiti is another African scholar who rejects the designation of African traditional religions as animism. He contends that the term “animism,” as used by Tylor in 1871, has evolutionary meaning, which has been discredited and must be abandoned.⁵ The evolutionary idea, to which Mbiti refers, places the African traditional religions at the bottom of the supposed line of religious evolution, while Judaism, Christianity, and Islam occupy the top because of their monotheistic beliefs.⁶ The term “animism” nonetheless never ceased; rather, it is more in use today among evangelical scholars like David Hesselgrave and Gailyn Van Rheenen. Van Rheenen defines animism as the

belief that personal spiritual beings and impersonal spiritual forces have power over human affairs and, consequently, that human beings must discover what beings and forces are influencing them in order to determine future action and, frequently, to manipulate their power.⁷

Even if one disagrees with the animistic terminology, the characteristics in Van Rheenen’s definition need to be noted because they best describe West African complementary dualism. (1) It is a system of belief that assumes that the unseen world relates to—and interacts with—the seen world. The divine and the human, secular and sacred, spiritual and impersonal forces all participate in and shape the happenings of the seen world. (2) These beings may include God, gods, ancestors, ghosts, angels, and demons, and how they are relate to—and interact with—one another. (3) The essence of animism is power. The struggle is to control the affairs and destiny of those living in the physical realm of life, and the power can be used either

⁴ E Bolaji Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition (London: SCM Press, 1973), 134

⁵ John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1969), 6-10.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Gailyn Van Rheenen, Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 20.

for good or ill. (4) Most animists live in fear and seek to understand the forces influencing them and, by the means of sacrifice, to appease or manipulate those forces for their benefit.⁸

In their book, Understanding Folk Religion, Paul Hiebert, Daniel Shaw, and Tite Tiénou generally agreed with Van Rheenen in the assessment of an animistic worldview. However, they note that folk religion or animism is “particularistic in nature,” meaning the practice differs from one place or one group to another. Furthermore, the authors argue that folk religionists are primarily concerned with existential questions, which have to do with the here and now. Moreover, many of their practices and information are transmitted orally. They are “highly immediate, personal, and relational. Words are spoken in the context of specific relationships, and they die as soon as they have been said.”⁹

In another work, Paul Hiebert calls this complementary dualism an organic worldview system. The world is seen in terms of “living beings in relationship to one another. Like humans and animals, objects may initiate actions and respond to the actions of others. They may be thought to have feelings, thoughts, and wills of their own.”¹⁰ In West African understanding, the universe is perceived “as a multidimensional entity inhabited by hierarchical cadres of spiritual beings and forces. The earth is seen as an arena where those spiritual beings and forces interact with people for either good or ill, depending upon the circumstances.”¹¹

Therefore, in the West African cosmos, “There is the world of man peopled by all created beings and things, both animate and inanimate. The spirit world is the abode of the creator, the deities, the disembodied and malignant spirits, and the ancestral spirits. It is also the future abode of the living after their death.”¹² Furthermore, in the West African thought pattern, for example

⁸ Ibid., 21-23

⁹ Paul Hiebert, R. Daniel Shaw, and Tite Tienou, Understanding Folk Religion: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 83-86.

¹⁰ Paul Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker,1994), 195.

¹¹ Osadolar Imasogie, Guidelines for Theology in Africa (Ibadan, Nigeria: University Press,1986), 66.

¹² Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria, 11.

among the Igbo, “the world as a natural order which inexorably goes on its ordained way according to a ‘master plan’ is foreign to Igbo conceptions.”¹³

The world to the West Africans “is a dynamic one-a world of moving equilibrium. It is an equilibrium that is constantly threatened, and sometimes actually disturbed by natural and social calamities,” and sometimes occasioned by cosmic forces.¹⁴ These forces are to be controlled or manipulated for the purpose of humanity. Sacrifice, the practice of divination, and ancestral worship are some of the West African means of manipulating the cosmic forces, maintaining equilibrium, and keeping at bay the malignant spirits that threaten the world.¹⁵

West Africans do not only strive for equilibrium or balance, but everything is contractual in character. One has to bargain and negotiate to obtain what he or she needs. In this negotiation, it should be remembered that “there is always the fear that the terms of the contract might not be fully honored by either party: the spirits often change their mind as do men. Each tries to get the better part of the other, a source of uncertainty”¹⁶ among African social relations. For instance,

among the Igbo, the world is a marketplace, and it is subject to bargaining. Both the spiritual and the physical worlds are “peopled with interested individuals and groups and much buying and selling go on in each.”¹⁷ Moreover, the motivating factor is gain, the making of profit, Uchendu declared.

Consequently, in view of this complementary dualism, even West African believers of the Christian and Muslim faiths have been affected and influenced in the practice of their confessions. For instance, Fatou Sow observed that Islamic and Christian practices have been mingled with traditional practices in Senegal. For instance, “Good luck charms are made from soaked paper inscribed with Koranic chapters.”¹⁸

¹³ Ibid., 12.

¹⁴ Ibid., 12-13.

¹⁵ Ibid., 13. See also John Anenechukwu Umeh, After God Is Dibia: Igbo Cosmology, Healing,Divination, and Sacred Science In Nigeria, vol. 1 (London: Karnak, 1999).

¹⁶ Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria, 14.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Fatou Sow, “Fundamentalisms, Globalization, and Women’s Human Rights in Senegal,”Gender and Development 11, no. 1 (May 2003): 70.

Furthermore, Sow argues, “Whether they are popular or not, they are never considered fetishist or pagan. It does not matter to the people who practice this behavior what traditional healers or priests think of it. To the majority of believers . . . these practices represent a call to the spirit world, to enlist the ancestors’ protection.”¹⁹

Gailyn Van Rheenen confirms these practices to be true among people with animistic worldviews. He insists:

Animists assume that the seen world is related to the unseen world. An interaction exists between the divine and the human, the sacred and the profane, the holy and the secular. The influences of God, gods, spirits, and ancestors affect the living. Humans are thought to be controlled by spiritual forces, whether they are ancestors or ghosts, gods or spirits, witchcraft or sorcery, and curses or the evil eye. They in turn seek to appease the powers through sacrifices and libations, to access power to cope with evil through ritual, and to protect themselves through charms and amulets.²⁰

Van Rheenen’s assertion is accurate among some of the West African immigrants in the United States. For instance, it is common practice among the immigrant Senegalese to send money home to request special prayers, charms, and amulets, which they believe will help protect them or prosper their businesses. The pictures of Senegalese Islamic holy men, especially the Mouride brotherhood, adorn all the restaurants, stores, and boutiques in Cincinnati and other cities, symbolizing their commitment and attachment to their ancestral spiritual powers.

Communalism

The term communalism is derived from the word “communal,” that which is shared, commonly, or collectively owned. The etymological root is French, which in itself is derived from the Latin words, communalis, communis, meaning that which is related to one or more communes, or community. Its main characteristics are: (1) collective ownership; (2) reciprocal use of property (participated in, shared, or used in common by members of a group or community); (3) relating to, or based on, racial or cultural groups in collective ownership.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Gailyn Van Rheenen, “Defining an Animistic Worldview” paper presented at thesymposium, “Distinctively Christian, Distinctly Mongolian,” in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 11 March 2003;[on-line]; accessed 15 April 2005;availablefromhttp://www.missiology.com/mongolianlectures /Animisticworldview.htm; /; Internet.

6 Furthermore, loyalty is often based on a sociopolitical grouping affiliated with religious or ethnic groups.²¹

Concerning pre-colonial West Africa, Adongo Aidan Avugma writes:

The predominant principle of social relations was that of the family and kinship associated with communalism. Among the Gur social groups in the Upper East Region of Ghana, for example, every member of the society had their position defined in terms of their relationship with their mother's or father's family. Leadership was based on religious ties to the Tindana, or custodian of the land, who ran the affairs of the people with a committee of elders chosen from all the families and clans of the territory. This committee administered land, the major means of production not as its personal property, but as the property of all the people in Gurum-Tinga (Gur land) who had the right to till it. Hunting, fishing and grazing grounds for animals were organized in a similar manner. No one starved whilst others stuffed themselves with food and threw the excess away or sold it for profit. The basic economic law was that of providing the members of

society with the necessary means of subsistence through communal ownership of the means of production. The absence of private property in the means of production, of the division into classes and the exploitation of man by man excluded the need for a state. Production was essentially of use values; and there was no alienation of the producer from his means of production.²²

With the passage of time, West Africans philosophically developed a communal worldview, in which “individuals may become successful or distinguished in their activities or occupations, but their success is measured by how much others benefit from it.”²³ Even in postcolonial Africa, the sense of community is still a major theme in the African worldview. Laurenti Magesa notes,

The African view of the universe contains the following major themes: the sacrality of life, respect for the spiritual and mystical nature of creation, and especially of the human person; the sense of family, community, solidarity and

participation; and an emphasis on fecundity and sharing in life, friendship, healing and hospitality.²⁴

The community is considered as an individual, and, [like the] “individual, is not made up of only flesh and blood; it is a complete and self-sufficient whole, animated by diffused life. In a way,

²¹ Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary , S.V. “Communal,” “Communalism,” [on-line]; accessed 16 April 2006; available from http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va =communalism; Internet.

²² Adongo Aidan Avugma, “State and Class in Pre-colonial West Africa” [on-line]; accessed 5 February 2007; available from http://www.worldsocialism.org/ spgb/may99/afromarx.html; Internet.

²³ Ogbaa, Igbo, 26.

²⁴ Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Maryknoll, NY:Orbis, 1997), 52-

the group, like the individual, is the microcosm of the universe. The whole universe subsists, so to speak, in it.”²⁵

The West African collectivistic worldview in this sense is better understood when placed in a synthetic culture profile. Gert Jan Hofstede, Paul B. Pedersen, and Geert Hofstede in the book, Exploring Culture: Exercises, Stories, and Synthetic Cultures, explored the concept of synthetic culture. It should, however, be noted that synthetic culture by its nature is an extreme manifestation of a single value and, therefore, an oversimplification of a complex cultural matrix.

As the authors argue, synthetic cultures do not exist in the real world, but “the tendencies they demonstrate do exist.”²⁶ Generally, synthetic cultures can be classified into five categories: (1) Identity; extreme individualism stands in contrast with extreme collectivism. (2) Hierarchy; a context in which extreme large power distance is at odds with lower power distance. (3) Gender; in this context, extreme masculinity is set in opposition with extreme femininity; (4) Truth; the ideas of certainty and tolerance are in contrast. In addition, (5) Virtue; issues are judged either in long-term benefits or short term benefits. Each of these synthetic cultures has issues with which it is obsessed.²⁷

For example, while individualistic cultures value personal freedom, in collective cultures, group harmony is the most cherished value. In hierarchical cultures, respect for status is the core value, while in nonhierarchical culture, it is equality between peoples that matters most. In masculine cultures, winning is the highest goal, while in feminine-dominated cultures, caring for the weak is of the uppermost importance. In truth cultures, to be certain—knowing the facts—is the goal of all inquiries, while on the contrary, in tolerant relational cultures, relationship is the most valued virtue. In long term cultures, long-term benefits are more important but, in short-term cultures, emphasis is placed on quick results or on instant gratifications.²⁸

²⁵ Ibid., 60.

²⁶ Gert Jan Hofstede, Paul B. Pedersen, and Geert Hofstede, Exploring Culture: Exercises,Stories, and Synthetic Cultures (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural, 2002), 91.

²⁷ Ibid., 91-92.

²⁸ Ibid., 91-113.

From the foregoing synthetic culture profile, West Africa falls within collectivistic and hierarchal cultural categories. An example of collectivity can be identified in the concept of teranga, the concept of openness and sharing all things together. The core value of collectivity will be group harmony, and the core distinction will be ingroup and outgroup. Group harmony is often played out in the building of consensus. LaNette W. Thompson captures this notion in these words:

Typical African leadership is interesting. In Western thought, we see a leader as Moses, innovative, leading the people to a new land. The leader tries the new thing first, and teaches the others to use it. Not so, here. A good chief is one who gives his people what they want or already have. If there is a problem, the elders will sit in a circle and politely discuss the issue, even if sometimes heatedly,

giving opinions, telling stories. The chief will be silent. He may ask a question to guide the discussion. When everyone has finished speaking, if the chief feels a

consensus has been reached, he will put into words the consensus of the group— saying it is his decision. The people go away happy. It’s kind of like group therapy. If there is not a consensus or the consensus is not in the best interest of the group or tempers are too heated, the chief says he must take some time to think about the issue, and call another meeting. In this way, the chief is not questioned and he always saves face.²⁹

Here are the seven key elements in a collectivistic worldview:

1. Members of one’s ingroup (organization, extended family) are very close, whereas other outgroup people are very distant.

2. Harmony should be maintained and direct confrontation avoided.

3. Relationships are more important than the task at hand. Much time is spent on greeting and farewell rituals.

4. Laws, rights, and opinions differ by group.

5. Trespassing leads to shame and loss of face for the entire ingroup.

6. The relationship between employer and employee is perceived in moral terms, like family link.

7. Spoken communication uses imprecise style. Discreet non-verbal clues, such as tone and pauses, are crucial. The speaker adapts to the listener.³⁰

From this perspective, life is shared, and relationships are tighter and have an element of moral obligation. Collective cultures are also event-oriented, which demands that “an activity be completed regardless of the length of time required, and emphasizes unscheduled participation

²⁹ LaNette W. Thompson, “Thoughts on African leadership,” seminar on African leadership_worldview_LWT_March05. Thompson is a missionary among the Jula people of West Africa and writes often about their worldviews. Some of her works can be accessed on-line at http://www.newwway.org/strategy_network; Internet.

³⁰ Hofstede, Pedersen, and Hofstede, Exploring Culture, 96.

rather than carefully structured activities.”³¹ This can be recognized in the Senegalese megal celebration and Igbo New Yam Festival, or even in West African-oriented churches. In the megal celebration, people were present from 9:00 A. M until 10:00 P.M. Amazingly, everybody was relaxed and nobody was in a hurry to go. In the West African stores, shoppers spend time exchanging greetings and inquiring about one another’s’ welfare. Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers observed,

For event-oriented people it is more important to complete the activity than to

observe arbitrary constraints of time. Baseball is one activity in American culture which still follows event-oriented rules. A ball game has no fixed time limit, but

will continue through as many extra innings as necessary. Church services among some ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, Korean) also operate on an event-oriented schedule. They rarely begin on time and frequently last for two, three, or more hours. Event orientation produces a “let come what may” outlook unbound by schedules. Event-oriented persons will often be late to time-structured meetings

because the event in which they are previously engaged is not completed on time. For them, meetings begin when the last person arrives and end when the last person leaves. Participation and completion are more central goals. For event-oriented people, playing the game is indeed more important than winning. They also differ in their style of managing problems or crises. Whereas time-oriented people will quickly grow weary of discussion and call for a vote, event-oriented people will exhaustively consider a problem, hearing all issues and deliberating until they reach unanimous agreement.³²

In regard to hierarchical culture, the seven key elements according to synthetic culture profile would include:

1. Might makes right; power is good.

2. Power, status, and privileges go together.

3. Less powerful people are dependent on those who are more powerful.

4. Centralization is popular.

5. Subordinates and children expect direction. They do not speak without being asked.

6. The ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat or “good father.”

7. Style of speech is formal and acknowledges hierarchal positions.³³

Furthermore, in hierarchical cultures, words with positive connotations may include: respect, father (as a title), master, servant, older brother, younger brother, wisdom, favor, protect,

³¹ Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: Incarnational Modelfor Personal Relationships (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 39.

³² Ibid., 42-42.

³³ Hofstede, Pedersen, and Hofstede, Exploring Culture, 98.

in obedience, orders, and pleasing. On the contrary, words with negative connotations may include: rights, complaint, negotiation, fairness, objection, question, and criticism.³⁴

Evidence from West African cultural rites suggests that their worldview is not only communal (as has been demonstrated) but, when triangulated with the synthetic culture profile, their worldview also leans toward hierarchical culture. For an example, in many of the old traditional institutions—like the Oyo Empire, and the Benin Kingdom, the Mali and Songhai empires—successions is based on blood. The law of inheritance even today is either matrilineal for the Akan group, or patrilineal for the rest of the West African people.

With the exception of the Igbos, a person is respected based on one’s class, status, and family. Respect is accorded to father, mother, or the person in authority. Many of the West African cultures abhor questioning people in authority. In the political arenas, presidents are often fated as kings and wish to rule for life. Even in retirement, a woman is solely respected on the basis of her ability to reproduce children.

Caroline H. Bledsoe states,

Having sacrificed her youth for children, a woman faces one question with increasing intensity: When can she retire from child bearing? That is, when can she stop bearing children and begin to replete physically? Again, there is no age

boundary. All depends on how she has conducted her life. If she has succeeded in converting her youth to blessings through her reproductive labors, she should

have earned a secure place to spend her elderhood and earned the right to begin a wholly new phase of life, a permanent rest, from those to whom she brought life: her children and her husband’s family. In fact, she should be surrounded by people eager to take care of her. Irrespective of her age in years or menopausal status, she should be allowed to retire, and the beneficiaries of her reproductive struggles should hasten to replace her (joosayo, replacement) with someone younger.³⁵

Materialism

The term “materialism,” from the philosophical perspective, refers to the notion that “whatever exists is either matter, or entirely dependent on matter for its existence.”³⁶ However,

³⁴ Ibid., 98-99.

³⁵ Caroline H. Bledsoe, Contingent Lives: Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa (Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 2002), 261.

³⁶ “Materialism,” in A Dictionary of Philosophy, rev. 2nd ed., ed. Anthony Flew (New York:St.Martin’s Griffin, 1979), 222.

philosophers disagree on the precise meaning and status of matter. Some of the questions philosophers debate in respect to matter include:

Is matter to be regarded simply as that which is extended both in space and time (so that rainbows and shadows are examples of matter as well as trees and stones)? Or if not, what further properties are essential to it? Is there a relevant distinction to be drawn here between existence or occurrence and being, or reality? And how exactly are the space and time in which matter extends, the forces moving it, and the consciousness perceiving it, dependent on it?³⁷

While not attempting to answer the questions raised, it should be noted that the questions by themselves render the concept of materialism an ambitious one. But, generally, materialistic philosophers deny the existence of “non-extended,” “thinking substance,” or mind, and the reality of spirits, angels, or deities in most traditional senses other than what they positively assert.³⁸ One of the early philosophers to articulate what became known as materialism was Epicurus (341-270 BC), who lived in the city of Athens.

Dennis P. Hollinger argues that Epicurus

was a materialist who believed that all knowledge comes from the senses, which portray the world as it really is. He did not deny the existence of the gods, but he believed they had nothing to do with realities of everyday life. From this framework he concluded that in regard to morals we naturally pursue personal pleasure and therein is goodness.³⁹

Personal pleasure became the highest good and ultimate objective of life. but it should never be an unbridled pleasure. “Rather, for Epicurus, hedonism (the pleasure principle) must always be pursued through self-restraint, moderation, and detachment.”⁴⁰

Other Western philosophers who developed various kinds of materialism as a philosophical idea—in spite of religious oppositions—are Galileo, through his new physics, in the seventeenth century, and later Newton and Hobbs. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Marxist thinkers attempted to replace such “mechanistic materialism”—and resolve some of its difficulties by their “dialectical materialism.” They considered matter, not as something static on

³⁷ Ibid. There may be other relevant philosophical questions, but they and their possible answers are beyond the scope of this article.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Dennis P. Hollinger, Choosing the Good: Christian Ethics in a Complex World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 29.

which development has to be imposed ab extra, but as containing within its own nature those tensions or contradictions that provide the motive, and the force, for change.⁴¹

Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher and economist, expanded materialism as an economic concept. He argues,

Self-interest (not selfishness) was the highest good in economics because the world was structured in such a way that from it everyone would benefit. In economics, ‘we are led by an invisible hand to promote an end which has no part of his [a human being’s] interest. . . . By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of society more effectively than he really intends to promote it I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good’.⁴²

Smith became known as “the father of modern capitalism.” However, it is in Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, that excessive capitalism in a materialistic worldview is illustrated. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand contends that it is the rational independent mind that empowers the world. The protagonist of the book, John Galt, lived a materialistic lifestyle as the only way life is meant to be lived.⁴³

West African materialism follows the pattern in Atlas Shrugged—not in rejection of fascism, socialism, and communism, or even the philosophical debate of the existence of God. The reason, as has been demonstrated, is that West Africans believe in a complementary dualism that recognizes spiritual beings who are ever-present and interact with the living. But West African materialism is about the best of life regardless of the cost, and living a capitalist, laissez-faire lifestyle. The number of immigrants seeking greener pastures demonstrates this materialistic worldview. An observant journalist in New York reports, “Perhaps 30,000 French-speaking Africans have settled in New York since 1990, the majority arriving from Senegal.”⁴⁴ These Senegalese immigrants, encouraged by the teachings of their spiritual leaders, the

⁴¹ “Materialism,” in A Dictionary of Philosophy, 223.

⁴² Hollinger, Choosing the Good: Christian Ethics in a Complex World, 29-30. See also Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006); and idem, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library Classics, 2000).

⁴³ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Plume, 1999).

⁴⁴ Joel Millman, “Profiting from One’s Prayers” [on-line]; accessed 7 February 2005; availablefrom http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1702/Millman/Millman.html; Internet.

Mourides, now control almost all street commerce in Dakar. When Dakar became saturated, they moved to Europe. However, “In the mid-1980s, with France tightening immigration from its former colonies, Mourides targeted New York.”⁴⁵

Joel Millman states that this “new migration has both enriched the marabouts and liberated their disciples.”⁴⁶ It is fundamentally this desire for material gain that has brought many Senegalese from Dakar to New York, Ohio, and other parts of the United States. In the course of this research, a good number of West Africans noted that it was when they began to have problems with the security and immigration officials in New York, Houston, and other cities that they started moving inland to Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Louisville, among other places.

For many of the immigrants, their reason for coming to the United States is to make money and be able to establish something back in West Africa. For this reason, some who are married (mainly Senegalese and Ghanaians), like Omar Thiowe, prefer sending their children back home to Africa partly to enable their parents to have time for more work and money, and partly for cultural reasons.⁴⁷ The immigrants also wish to train their children to be in their home culture. Some of those interviewed never want their children in the United States until they are about eighteen years old. It is uncommon for Senegalese children to live with their families in the United States.

Those within the age bracket of six to eighteen years of age are most likely born in the United States; they may have come for a brief vacation; or the parents do not have the money to send them back to Africa. Alternatively, they would have a grandmother or a nanny from West Africa living with them. The young ones usually are sent back home to learn the language, culture, and religion of their parents before returning to the United States for college. Concerning the root of materialism in West Africa, it is often suggested that the simple African lifestyle was corrupted by the introduction of colonialism and materialism by the West. While there may be

⁴⁵ Ibid., 4.

⁴⁶ Ibid.

⁴⁷ Omar Thiowe, interview by author, 27 February 2005, in Louisville, Kentucky.

some element of truth in the charge, some West African cultures promote materialism. For example, the Igbo culture encourages high competitiveness and material successes.

Tony Momoh, a former Nigerian minister, buttressed this Igbo worldview when he wrote in an article in 2003, “The Igbo are the most mobile people in Nigeria driven by a desire to make it, come rain or come shine. And making it is defined a hundred percent in material terms.”⁴⁸ In addition, Momoh observed, “Many would do anything to make it, and the making it has meaning more in how much money you have, and how loudly you can tell people that you have it.”⁴⁹ In one word, the Igbo world is materialistic; success is measured in material possessions; and Igbos will crown the achiever with an honorary chieftaincy.⁵⁰

What Momoh said of the Igbos is now true of all West African people. It is materialistic desire that has brought civil conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Lone, and Cote d’Ivoire, among other places in West Africa. When President Obasanjo of Nigeria was elected to power in 1999, Nigeria was considered one of the most corrupt nations of the world. In the year 2000, Eniwoke Ibagere penned these words,

The anti-corruption group Transparency International last year (1999) rated Nigeria as the 27th most corrupt country in the world. Even patriotic Nigerians will tell you their country should have been among the top 10. Corruption and cronyism have long haunted Nigeria. The society is an emblem of crass materialism, the leaders famous for financial excesses, and the public service a symbol of graft.⁵¹

Concerning the immigrants: unfortunately, while many West Africans are industrious, innovative, hard-working, and family-oriented, a few criminal elements—motivated by unquenchable materialism—have been implicated in financial scams. The Cable News Network (CNN) and American Broadcasting Company (ABC) have both aired documentaries on West African immigrant criminal gangs in general, and Nigerians in particular. These criminal gangs,

⁴⁸ Tony Momoh, “Threat to Igbo Solidarity” [on-line]; accessed 17 April 2004; available fromhttp://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/tarticles/threat_to_igbo_

solidarity.htm; Internet, 1.

^{49 Ibid.}

^{50 Ogbaa, Igbo,
22-26. See Richard N. Henderson, The King in Every Man (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1972), 245-64. See
also G. T. Basden, Niger Ibos (London: Butler
& Tanner, 1938), 130-46.}

^{51 Eniwoke Ibagere, “Corruption: Obasanjo's
Toughest Challenge,” BBC World News [online]; accessed 12 February 2007; available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/766035.stm; Internet.}