African Musical Symbolism In Contemporary Perspective - Saoas.org

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the centuries much of it has become associated with religious
oppression, the crusades, the persecution of pagans and heretics,
the subjugation of women and as an accessory to the African
slave-trade, colonialism and cultural imperialism. 400 Moreover,
Christianity denigrated the physical and earthly as sinful, which
is why it banned dance from worship after it became official
Roman religion in the fourth century AD. It was also this
lopsided other-worldliness that led the church establishment to
first persecute science, then ignore it, and finally be ignored by
it. Which is why for so for many people in our scientific age
institutional Christianity is unable to provide a way out of the
materialist dead-end that we now find ourselves.
In fact there can be no single answer to this problem, as resynthesis
in a relativistic age has to come from many sources:
science, the arts, philosophy and history. Then there are the
environmental and peace movements with their modern
mandalas of the earthly globe and the circular anti-war
“lollipop” sign. Religions old and new are also needed, including
Christian explorations into communalism, syncretism,
existentialism, Liberation Theology, a female priesthood and the
Ecumenical Movement. An African contribution to this Christian
renewal is the recent re-introduction of full dance back into
church worship after a gap of fifteen hundred years.
To these re-integrative trends we must add the roots music
of Africa and its Black Diaspora that are helping connect and coordinate
the artistic hands, the scientific head, the spiritual heart
and the earthly feet in a harmony that will be crucial for this
new Millennium.
400 A thoughtful book on the growth of modern racism in Europe is Martin Bernal’s
1987 book Black Athena.