By Dipo Ola

2003 December

I have asserted in the past, and again assert that the average African is not by any means liberal in inclination. On the contrary, the average african is fiercely pro-family, pro-faith, pro-personal responsibility and pro-values, on the whole. This is today being illustrated by the Anglican Church of Nigeria, which has recently cut ties with the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada, over that Church’s decision to endorse same sex unions within the Church. With a membership of 17.5 million adherents within Nigeria, the Nigerian Anglican Church constitutes the largest Anglican Church in the world, and their actions constitute a clear rejection of the Diocese of New Westminster’s decision in Vancouver, Canada, to pervert and disregard the Bible’s clear stand against homosexuality. Furthermore, the Archbishop of Nigeria has threatened that the Nigerian Anglican church will break ties with the the Diocese of Oxford in England, if the recent appointment of Jeffrey John, an openly Gay bishop, by the Bishop of Oxford was not rescinded

It is ironic that the Anglican Church of Nigeria is doing this at the very same time that the Canadian Prime Minister is endorsing and backing same sex marriages, and promising to push them at all levels into Canadian society. Yet, even as the Prime Minister seeks to promote homosexual marriages, considered an abomination by the overwhelming majority of Africans who consider themselves Christian, the Africans and black people within Canada, continue to support Mr. Chretien and the liberals at every juncture, praising him as a man they trust and their best hope within government. Do I exaggerate? Hardly.

I would know.

I’m African also, and I constantly hear expressions of distress among Africans, at the social direction the liberals are taking the country, but yet, these same people turn around and vote for the liberals. They lament the erosion of parental discipline, prayer in schools, and the climate of ’do what feels good’ that the liberals are promoting, but then they turn a round and vote for that same party that is opposed to their very core values.

The other day, I was in intense conversation on this very topic, and one of my African friends told me that ’we are in a dilemma about this issue, because even though our values are in complete conflict with most of the values of the liberals/democrats, it is unthinkable to vote for the conservatives/republicans, because ’they are not for us.’ My response to that now, is that I personally am not in any dilemma about the liberals or the republicans, and the only dilemma I am in is how to define this emotive, visceral feeling that we black people seem to have, that Republicans or conservatives are ’not for us’ even though their values mostly mirror ours, and liberals/democrats are our friends, even though their values are in stark opposition to ours. THAT is my dilemma. I personally consider myself to have been brainwashed at one point, by the liberal media, the politicized liberal black groups, and the politically correct sense within North America, that there is something dirty about the word ’conservative.’ But luckily, I freed myself from that state of intellectual torpor. A very good liberally-inclined friend of mine, once snickered at my professed favourable feelings for the Canadian right, because as she said: ’they wouldn’t even recognize you as a human being.’

My response then and now, is that I am not going to deny my values or principles, simply because I might not be regarded highly by a SEGMENT of the people who share SOME of my values and principles. Every party and political group has extremists. Whether the Canadian Right or the Republican party has extreme blocs within, which disdain black people or not, has NOTHING to do with the question of whether I believe in the words/doctrine of the Bible or not. I believe and think for myself, not according to what my professed allies do or say or think. If we as Africans believe in certain values, then we should uphold those values, whether we like our political allies or not, and whether the climate is friendly for our views or not. At least we are not getting thrown to the lions, beheaded or crucified like the early Christians.  Nonetheless, most of us professed Christian Africans choose political correctness mingled with cowardice, over principle. Winston Churchill said : ’Evil triumphs when good men keep silent’, and that certainly applies here.

In the more blatantly political realm, this issue rears its head with respect to the Average African who has lived in North America long enough to learn that the politically correct trend within African circles is to bash conservatives, and particularly in this day and age, bash and deride somebody like President George Bush as public enemy no 1. A fellow Nigerian friend of mine who travelled to Nigeria recently was amazed at the incredible level of support and enthusiasm that average non-Muslim Nigerians (who number over 50 million) have for President George Bush and his policies as a whole. He came back confused, wondering what was ’wrong with them.’ I told him bluntly that the only thing wrong with them was that they were seeing clearly, not through the configured lens of North American/European political correctness. They like Mr. Bush’s pro-family, pro-Christian, pro-personal responsibility, pro-capitalist agenda, and they are unaware of the subtle North American nuances which dictate that Mr. Bush is a ’bad guy.’ With respect to Mr. Bush’s security/anti-terrorism agenda, Nigerians and other Africans (still living on the African continent) have been butchered and oppressed in their own countries (i.e. in Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritania, Sudan to mention a few) enough by radical Islam to understand what the U.S. is going through now, and feel a sense of empathy for Mr. Bush and his country. It is as simple as that.

With respect to the age-old excuse of ‘changing times’ and ‘moving with the times’, one of the core precepts enunciated throughout the Bible is the fact that God is unchanging, and immutable. God does not care about political correctness or changing times. If anyone finds the idea of an unchanging,  principled, absolute God so alien to him, then perhaps it is time for that person to stop calling himself a Christian, rather than go by that name, while scorning the core values of that faith. Likewise, If the average African continues to ignore or avoid his core values simply to ’belong’ or to stay in tune with his political ’allies’, then soon, he will find that he will have no values at all. And at that point, it will be difficult to call himself an African or a Christian, and then the issue of values or principles or faith or even perhaps existence, will be moot.

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