THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARY SLESSOR

A lecture about a Missionary was always going to be an intriguing prospect for an audience during Black History Month with Nigerians as well as locals who are more than a little versed in the dynamics and intricacies of the topic than the average member of the public.Today , the Missionary project is accepted as something subject to re-evaluation as Heather Sharkey states "Historians still debate the nature of their impact and question their relation to the system of European colonialism in the continent.".

As Steven Bevan writes Ambiguity is the word best describing the individuals and organisations concerned.

"On the one hand, Dr Bevans acknowledges the past errors of missionaries being

in the role of serving colonialism, and on the other hand, the future risk associated with

transnational corporations and globalization. He writes, “The modern missionary era was

in many ways the ‘religious arm’ of

colonialism, whether Portuguese and Spanish

colonialism in the sixteenth Century, or British, French, German, Belgian or American

colonialism in the nineteenth. This was not all bad — oftentimes missionaries were

heroic defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples...We find ourselves today, however,

in another equally ambiguous context...the phenomenon of globalization poses a threat

that is in many ways much more dangerous than the old colonial order. Particularly, in

the economic realm, global corporations are ruthless in their search for profits and

expansion, and while many are benefiting, the poor of the world are becoming poorer

and more desperate.

It therefore becomes a matter of opinion , "ambiguous" opinion , whether Mary Slessor was a heroic defender of the rights of indigenous Peoples as many would convincingly argue she was and provide ample evidence to back their reasoning  or a servant in the role of colonialism , part of an ideological and cultural wing allied to the political and military and amply support that view of her mission with as much convincing evidence.

This STV Documentary entitled "One More River" gives a Humanitarian account of her work , though with major credits going to The Presbyterian Church of Nigeria and HRH The King of Calaber  it does give it a gushing hagiography feel with the omissions speaking as loudly as the content of the story.



And , once again , in favour of the story of a robust and brave heroine who deserves our admiration we have one of the few dedicated scholars Heather Sharkey giving a view on the positive aspects and enhancements of the role of Woman Missionaries  "According to Sharkey, some observers believe that the missionaries did great good in Africa, providing crucial social services such as education and health care that would have otherwise not been available to the Africans. Sharkey said that, in societies that were traditionally male-dominated, female missionaries provided women in Africa with health care knowledge and basic education".

In the Lecture below Heather Sharkey gives a detailed historical and cultural perspective to the Presbyterian Missionary project in Africa , though it concerns mainly Egypt it does give an overview of the whole Continental approach by the very Slave owning congregations of the US which Frederick Douglass railed against in the "send the money back" campaigns when the newly established Scottish Free Church was sending fund-raising delegations to the US to set up their newly established Scottish mission which would in the future send Mary Slessor to Africa some 25 years later.As we have seen Fredericks main complaint against the US churches was  "Dr. Chalmers, the eloquent Scotch divine, having been appealed to by the members of the Free Church of Scotland, on the subject of receiving contributions from churches in the slave states of America, to say whether religious fellowship could consistently be extended to slaveholders churches, the Doctor repudiates the spirit that would narrow the sphere of Christian union, and says, that the refusal of such fellowship would be 'most unjustifiable.'"



Discussion of the Scottish connection comes at the 6min40sec mark , the lecture deals with the emphasis on education ,but also reflects on the disconcerting generally accepted views that indigenous Christians were backward which were rife at the time thus creating a paternalistic culture beholden to the view that a white presence had to be maintained , hence why charges of cultural colonialism being wedded to commercial and political exploitation with the ever-present beyond the horizon military back-up any indigenous resistance are given , pardon the pun , ample ammunition to ctitics of the project.

Another example of the too cosy relationship with the Missionaries and Colonial power is to be found on some worrying generalisations found in this article.

 "At last arrangements were made which would free Mary Slessor to go farther inland, to the sorrow of all the Okoyong. She set her sights on the Aro, a tribe which was the terror of Calabar. She had met several of their chiefs when they visited Ekenge. Deep in their territory was a famous shrine which attracted many pilgrims from other tribes. Few returned home: the Aro took their offerings, killed them or sold them into slavery. The shrine's fame ensured a steady supply of victims until the British authorities determined on a military expedition to pacify the country and end the murders.
          Just then, Mary had planned to visit the Aro. By a mischance which she saw as a providence, she missed the launch; when she hailed the next, on the following day, she found the British commander on board. He treated her with great respect and when they landed at the Aro's principal town, she bareheaded in her shapeless dress and he in his immaculate uniform and sun helmet, he was most impressed that her Aro friends crowded round to greet her.
          It was the Aro who gave her the title by which she became known throughout the West Coast of Africa: Eka kpukpro Owo, 'Mother of All The Peoples'. As the British built roads and opened the country, little Mary Slessor, with her laughter and her prayers and her hot temper, had more influence than any government officer. Once she spent an entire furlough, with the reluctant permission of her home committee, in travelling deeper inland on her own responsibility, teaching and using her medicine chest, and opening the way for the less adventurous to follow."

And so we have the military and missionaries going of on campaigns together to dark lands that have to be rescued from themselves.Establishing a concept of Pax Britannica being a vital evolutionary progressive step with , in this case, the missionary taking the lead role in the advance and the business of Governing the Natives.

There is also a confusion , deliberate or otherwise, about just how trepidatious and hostile Mary Slessors journey to the interior actually was.It seems the mission was undertaken as a response to the local tribal chief embracing Christianity and was a court to court invitation from one tribal chieftain to another whose court she was operating in.The journey would have been part of a chieftain entourage ensuring protection and also enjoying the full patronage of the authority of the tribal court of the recipient chief.She could have stayed within the Royal Household of the local overlord if she chose , even staying away on her own would still have involved all the local subject people being answerable to his authority if any harm came to her.

Her care for the educational and medical welfare for the Woman and Children in her charge is beyond doubt , there are several living examples today of the offspring of forefathers she personally intervened to save from a cruel end due to local practices , to that end no one can doubt a massive debt owed to her selfless compassion and endeavour.Though the practice of Twins being abandoned or put to death may not have been as widespread or endemic as has been suggested , whatever the case the concern and efforts by Mary Slessor as to its eradication are to be fully commended.

This should not , however, be allowed to be a justification for an argument based on the civilising savages doctrine, as has been during her day  and , tather sadly, the present time for the domination of foreign lands on the pretext of teaching them Humane ways of operating.A usual occurrence in a transaction that involves cultural domination , interence in local affairs and regional resources and minerals somehow finding their way into our possession for a trifling price which leaves the territory the poorer in the long run.

More ambiguous is Mary Slessor being appointed as the first Woman Magistrate when colonial expansion increased with the protectorate status of the region , the Crown conveniently taking over the "comey subsidy" collection from the local tribal chieftains.It is odd that the Colonial Powers had no problem giving a Missionary a role of authority , and that a Missionary had no problem taking up the role thus giving the Colonial project a "humanitarian" flavour to replace an initial commercial exploitation thus passing from a commercial "trade"into a civilising mission as soon as the financial benefits diminished , allowing colonialism to get a new makeover and longevity to continue the process of domination in a subtler softpower outreach, but with always the threat of over the horizon military enforcement backup being available if the locals resisted either commercial or missionary control.

But today,  a crassly unambiguous lapse with threatens to tarnish the reutation and image of the memory of Mary Slessor we have , at best, the very lax judgement of The Mary Slessor Foundation.
If you go by the notion one judges the character of someone by the company they keep then the list of supporters given in the foundations website should give any right-minded person serious grounds for concern.Among them we have 3 Oil companies including Shell whose track-record in Nigeria is nothing short of the most appalling abuse of Human Rights and deliberate encouragement of rampant violence against environmental grassroots campaigners as it is possible to imagine.They include charges of arming tribes to fight one another and being party to the process that ended in the execution of leading Human rights campaigner Ken saro-Wiwa

"In the 1990s tensions arose between the native Ogoni people of the Niger Delta and Shell. The concerns of the locals were that very little of the money earned from oil on their land was getting to the people who live there, and the environmental damages caused by the recurring sabotage of pipelines operated by Shell.^[3] In 1993 the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) organized large protests against Shell and the government, often occupying the company production facilities. Shell withdrew its operations from the Ogoni areas. The Nigerian government raided their villages and arrested some of the protest leaders. Some of these arrested protesters, Ken Saro-Wiwa being the most prominent, were later executed, against widespread international opposition from the Commonwealth of Nations and human rights organisations.^[4]
Shell maintained that it asked the Nigerian government for clemency towards those found guilty but that its request was refused. A 2001 Greenpeace report claimed that "two witnesses that accused them later admitted that Shell and the military had bribed them with promises of money and jobs at Shell. Shell admitted having given money to the Nigerian military...".^[5] Shell denied these accusations and claimed that MOSOP was an extortionary movement that advocated violence and secession.^[6]
In December 2003, Shell Nigeria acknowledged that the conflict in the Niger Delta makes it difficult to operate safely and with integrity and that "we sometimes feed conflict by the way we award contracts, gain access to land, and deal with community representatives",^[7] and that it intends to improve on its practices.^[8] In 2009, Shell offered to settle the Ken Saro-Wiwa case with US$15.5 million while denying any wrongdoings and calling the settlement a humanitarian gesture. According to the New York Times and the journalist Michael D. Goldhaber the settlement came days before the start of a trial in New York that was expected to reveal extensive details of Shell's and MOSOP's activities in the Niger Delta.^[6][9]"

And according to this article Shell 

"Secret internal documents from Shell show that in the immediate aftermath of the execution of the Nigerian activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, the oil company adopted a PR strategy of cosying up to BBC editors and singling out non-government organisations it hoped to ''sway''."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/revealed-shells-pr-tricks-in-nigeria-20101112-17r8a.html#ixzz2jUj3bRNp

If the Mary Slessor Foundation do not want to tarnish her memory for good , and allow those who question her too cosy for comfort relationship to colonialism to be proved right then the Mary Slessor Foundation must reconsider fundamentally those they keep company with , especially if some of those listed as supporters amount to the financial colonisers of the World Today.