How Western Anti-Racism Harms Africa and How We Can Do Better

To suggest that opposition to racism could be problematic might seem outrageous in times where more and more attention is given not just to the problem of blatant hate-speech but also to persisting structural inequalities to the detriment of people of colour. At best it could be seen as breaking a taboo; at the worst as trying to defend one’s “fragile” white identity in an increasingly race-aware, globalising world. Harries, though, a white, British theologian with a strong leaning towards ethnolinguistics, while commending the intentions of antiracism, offers a passionate yet sober critique of contemporary anti-racism’s presuppositions and implementation. His main concern is with what he regards as anti-racism’s detrimental impact on African societies. Having gained insights into African ways of life by intimately sharing life in rural parts of Africa for the last three decades while exclusively using local languages, he addresses what he perceives to be a fundamental flaw in today’s anti-racism: its close entanglement with Western secularism. Why, if his analysis proves to be pertinent, should this be problematic? Harries’ provocative answer in this collection of ten essays is thatWestern anti-racism defeats itself and risks undermining the very idea of equality by inadvertently contributing to the perpetuation of white/ Western superiority. The problem, he writes, is that anti-racism is rooted in a secular worldview – although “that which is distinct from religion” (8) is a notion that arose on the back of a long tradition of Christianity and can hardly be found outside of ‘the West’. Striving for cultural diversity while assuming equality thus means expecting people to function in secular systems while ignoring the ‘religious’ foundations of people’s ways of life in the majority world. This, according to the author, “conceals and delegitimises non-Western culture” while perpetuating “the supremacy of the West” (172-173). Harries’ critique is therefore not of opposition to racism per se. Rather, it points out anti-racism’s inherent secular norm which, in his view, ends up keeping African people in dependency on what is foreign. This he sees playing out e.g. in a reliance on little-contextualised education offered in colonial languages, and development initiatives propped up by significant funding from the West. Harries’ intention with this book is to reconsider the central role of Christianity in bringing about prosperity and freedom in the West (echoing Tom Holland’s or Vishal Mangalwadi’s theses) while denouncing the assumption that these achievements could become universal on a secular basis. He does so by drawing heavily on René Girard: envy (which Harries equals to ‘witchcraft’ in Africa) is identified as a key-inhibitor to progress before retracing how the practice of scapegoating as a result of envy was overcome in the West, allowing inter-human conflict to be contained and truthfulness to be valued. This transformation of society is regarded as central in shaping Western civilisation which, despite current criticism for racism, bigotry and (neo-)colonialism remains extremely attractive for people around the globe. While not denying racist policies and practices in Africa’s history with the West and the church, they are not given explicit attention here. The focus is solely on the supposedly