Africa’s Religious Misunderstanding of Palestine and Israel.

By Takura Zhangazha*

The much referred to Middle East has multiple and diverse meaning(s) for many Africans.   The majority of these meanings are religious ones.  Given our historical interaction with the slave trade,  pre-colonial trade routes, colonialism and neo-colonialism, these ‘meanings’ of that geographical place that straddles what is referred to as the Arabian Peninsula are in the contemporary mainly religious.  Stretching from North Africa, past Palestine, Israel and through to Iraq as Africans we have been influenced either by Christian, Muslim or Judaic faiths and social practices. 

Hence almost every year we have thousands of Africans making annual pilgrimages to what they consider holy sites in various religious capitals of that region.  Be it in Jerusalem, Mecca or elsewhere within the ambit of their preferred religiosity.

So as Africans and given our general propensity to religion, we also sort of have what I consider an awkward sense of belonging to this region.  Moreso where we recall various colonialisms and their creative plays on what should be considered the ‘promised land’. 

What we do not discuss as much, beyond faith, is the fact of the geo-political global dynamics behind the wars that we are witnessing in this ‘promised land’ region.

Pastors, Rabbis, Imams, Priests generally tend to leave Africa South of the Sahara to go and give libation at ancient walls and monuments on our behalf but rarely tell us about the fact that the contemporary conflicts in the region are essentially non-religious.

Instead they are historically man-made and follow a string of colonialist contestations over land and natural resources.  Be it over gas, oil as well as falsely constructed assumptions of religious superiority. 

But a bit of background to my argumentation may be necessary.

In what is a fairly complicated history we, as Africans, began to interact with Middle East issues politically during the First World War as recruited soldiers from mainly British and French African colonies. 

We however had limited interaction with this where and when our racially limited access to global affairs through the Syke-Pikot agreement of 1916 made us only know after the event. Religiously so via missionaries of various faiths. 

This was when the then global superpowers including Russia assigned each other territories in the Middle East.   

We however had no direct role in the establishment of the initial parameters of what was to become a Jewish state that we now call Israel.  

That was the Balfour Declaration wherein, as is historically now known, the British foreign secretary of the same name in principle agreed with a British Jewish community leader named Rothschild to establish a future Jewish homeland in a then independent Palestine.  This was in 1917. 

The pattern of Africa’s non-political but religious involvement in what remains a colonialist exercise did not change much after the Second World war.  Or when the state of Israel was established and its subsequent Western backed wars against Egypt and its allies.  Especially where we consider the Nakba (the first ‘Catastrophe’) of Palestinians in 1948.  The second Nakba was to happen in 1967.   

However, by that time we were too engrossed in coming into a new liberatory consciousness of fighting for our own African independence to have a full comprehension of what was happening in the Middle East.

Mainly because a majority of African countries were in full flight fighting against colonialism and repression.  

Despite this we began to understand the Middle East and North Africa struggles against occupation better.  In some cases almost as how they were similar to our own.  So we became allies of the Palestinian peoples in and many of our liberated African countries hosted the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

With the recent 2024 International Criminal Court (ICC) case against Israel as led by South Africa and as supported by many African, including Zimbabwe and other global south countries since the recent war and alleged genocide against Palestinians, it appears we have remained true to this historical and liberation narrative.

Despite this a majority of us as Africans have an unfortunate misunderstanding of how to balance our religiosity with historical fact.   

Try for example telling a die hard Christian that Israel is not a ‘chosen’ nation and see their vituperative response.  Or that Jerusalem is only biblically referred to as a ‘city on the hill’ but in reality it is a city that was historically diverse until the first Nakba and the animosity that comes with the current displacement and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. 

Or alternatively tell a Muslim brother/sister that there was never an historical argument between either the Muslim or Christian faiths until colonial and post/neo-colonial geo-politics got involved. 

Again arguments will revolve around religiosity that dehumanizes either faiths and creates generational animosity that will probably see no end in our lifetimes.  Even as far away in Zimbabwe as if we are geographically or even culturally from the Middle East. 

But these are debates that are increasingly emotional.  Either based on the rise of a newfound false religiosity that embraces materialism on earth and in heaven as the reason why to read the Bible or Koran in its literal sense.  Or on the basis of manufacturing some sort of African consent to a conflict that is historically distant to who we are apart from, again, the interface between our religious contemporary beliefs and their often ignored repressive religious historical colonialism. 

The historical reality of African and Palestine is that we can only act in solidarity with the latter.  It is an historically necessary objectivity.  Despite our own complicated religiosity and how it affects our everyday lives and future generations.

The violence and genocide we are witnessing in Palestine and of late the bombings in Lebanon is not of our African making.  But we have to know where its racist origins are from and what it means to the peoples of those regions.   Or how it has over a long period morphed into a false religious war between what were previously amicable religions in more recent global history. Including why the United States of America and the European Union still support the callous and inhumane actions of Israel in the region. With or without religion. 

Now we are at the brink of wars that will not only have religious overtones for many a pious African but more of a global impact that may regrettably signify the beginning of a Third World War.  One with nuclear implications.  All I know is that Africa needs to remain aware of the fact these are not directly our wars or conflicts.  But we have to understand that they mean more than they portend on television and social media. Solidarity remains key with all the oppressed and occupied people of the world. As we were once oppressed and occupied. Religion and all.   

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)