Gramscian Analysis of the Role of Religion in Politics. Case Studies in Domination, Accommodation, and Resistance in Africa and Europe

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Pages:324
ISBN:0-7734-3754-1
978-0-7734-3754-8
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Gramscian theory is examined as an interpretive grid in examining the use of Christianity by European colonizers to facilitate their oppression of Africans on the continent and in diaspora. The work clarifies how the western powers utilized their religion in North America, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya to justify their exploitation of Blacks and how many Africans, as Christian converts, assisted them to accomplish their imperialist goals. In addition, this research explains how other Blacks, in these same locations, interpreted their own religious tradition or revised western Christianity to form liberatory ideologies that legitimated their struggle for freedom and inspired their communities to oppose subordination.

Reviews

“Simms offers a post-modern approach to understanding of the dynamic and complex tug between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic worldviews. He constructs Gramscian philosophy within a transnational framework as a paradigm for unraveling the dynamics of colonial hegemony in multiple locations, and more significantly, for illuminating the role of religion in stabilizing the kind of “colonial” mindset that Albert Memmi, Frantz Fanon and others have analyzed.” – Prof. Tunde Adeleke, Iowa State University

“The work of Simms breaks new ground in articulating what constitutes the settler-dominated form of colonialism—the immigration of many permanent settlers from their country of origin to a respective colony inhabited by an indigenous people. The work further projects examination of a state-dominated form of colonialism to explain how western governments colonized the greater part of Africa and Asia without the assistance of large numbers of permanent settlers.” – Prof. Ronald Dorris, Xavier University

Table of Contents

Foreword by Tunde Adeleke
Acknowledgments
Introduction - Religion as an Instrument of Domination and Liberation: A Multiple-Case Study
The Age of Colonialism
The Research Method
The Literature Review
The Earlier Publication of this Research
The Presentation of the Argument
1. Antonio Gramsci: the Man, his Politics, and his Conception Religion
The Life and Ideological Production of Antonio Gramsci (1 891-1937)
The Social Theory of Gramsci
The Sociology of Religion of Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci: The Italian Communist, The Marxist Theorist, and the Revolutionary Ideologue
2. The Politics of Religion in Plantation Society
The Hegemonic Influence of White Christianity
The Accommodationistic and Counter-hegemonic Influence of Black Christianity
A Gramscian Analysis
The Politics of Religion in Antebellum America Replicates and Informs Gramsci
3. Black Theology: A Weapon in the Struggle for Freedom
Apartheid: A Hegemonic Culture of Oppression
The Principles of Apartheid
The Propagation of Apartheid
Black Theology: A Counter-hegemonic Ideology of Liberation
A Gramscian Analysis
The Politics of Religion in South Africa Replicates And Informs Gramsci
4. “I Am a Non-Denominational Christian and a Marxist Socialist”
European Missions: A Hegemonic Force in the Educational And Political Culture of the Gold Coast (1800-1951)
The Influence of Christianity on the Production and And Propagation of Gold Coast Accommodationism
A Gramscian Analysis
The Politics of Gold Coast Religion Replicates and Informs Gramscian Theory
5. We Shall Utilize Propaganda in our Fight”
The Colonization and Liberation History of Kenya (1888-1963)
The Ideological History of Kenya (1888-1963)
A Gramscian Analysis The Politics of Religion in Colonial East Africa Replicates And Informs Gramsci
6. A Gramscian Analysis of the African and European Politico-religious Struggle
The European Christian Tradition of Domination
The African Christian Tradition of Accommodation
The African Religious Tradition of Resistance
The European Tradition of Domination and the African Tradition of Accommodation and Resistance
The Expansion of Gramscian Theory
Bibliography
Index

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