Albert Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. He considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become “fishers of men” but also as a small recompense for the historic guilt of European colonizers.
Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries the colonized people have suffered at the hands of Europeans? If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the races of other colours, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible.
And if Schweitzer were still alive, what would he say about this new kind of colonialism driven by pseudo ideologies of liberation in the military invasion of states, the decimation of ethnic minorities, in the rampant exploitation of the trafficking of those who, for reasons of justice, seek other places to give a better future for themselves and loved ones, even if this journey of pure illusion ends in death! Schweitzer was a man of the Gospel, and the Sermon on the Mount was the basis of his spiritual harmony. He surpassed the dictates of his analytical intellect and opened his soul to an intuitive experience. He lived and fulfilled his mission, redeeming himself, helping to redeem other souls.
In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate the rest of his life working as a doctor in Africa, he said:
“Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the “civilized men” care.
Oh, this “noble” culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of a different colour or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights...
I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic “gifts”, and everything else we have done... We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all...
If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, French, Spanish, Portuguese Gods, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be “Christian”—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states are blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.
And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night...”
And today, in the dawn of the 21st century, in the middle of a pandemic that plagues humanity in the year 2020, almost nothing has changed in the scenario of the exploitation of the former colonialist states, the potentate of power and capital, about those who work the most and least have the right to decide their words.
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