“Questioning Religion: The Urgent Call for Mental Emancipation and Decolonial Practice”

About a year ago, I announced online that I will be writing an academic article on this beautiful, thought-provoking, and groundbreaking song “E Si’ L Pavle Vini” (2014)/ (“What if He Doesn’t Want to Come”) by the talented Haitian rasta artist Tiga Jean Baptiste. I also added another song to my analysis, “Guede/Gede” (2004) by the famous Haitian band Rasin Bwa Kayiman. I am pleased to inform you that I have written the article and submitted it to one of my favorite academic journals on religion, theology, and cultural criticism.

In my essay, I offer an exegetical reading of the rhetorical (postcolonial) language and (decolonial) message of the two songs that are written or sung within the framework of a postcolonial critique of imperial and neo-colonial Christianity. In both songs, the artists make counterclaims toward missionary Christianity and call upon the Haitian people to reject its colonized form and reclaim their ancestral traditions. I examine the songs from four different and complementary lenses: political theology, liberation theology, postcolonial criticism, and decolonial framework. At the end of the essay, I make some recommendations to both Christian and Vodou practitioners to engage in healthy interreligious dialogue and education that will contribute to greater religious tolerance and understanding toward the common good in society.

Both songs address the cultural alienation and enslavement of the Haitian people brought by European colonization and imperial Western Christianity, supported by American imperialism. The songs call for the decolonization and emancipation of the Haitian mind and to reject both the colonized version of Christianity and for the Haitian people to embrace the Haitian cultural identity rooted in the practices of African ancestral retentions in Haiti and Haitian Vodou.

I shall hear from the editor maybe in two to three months if the article has been accepted for publication. I will keep you posted during the reviewing process. While both of us are waiting to hear from the reviewers, let us enjoy together this beautiful lyric: “E Si’ L Pavle Vini”

Happy listening!.