Introduction

Summary

The process of Frenchification that started with de Bélinay and du Bouchet was implemented through specific policies. These combined the twofold objectives of evangelism and social development. Part II of this book argues that social progress was considered a form of evangelism in the Chad Mission. The Jesuits, drawing from their old traditions in the field of education, applied different strategies among the Muslim populations and ethno-religionists. It explores how the combination of social development and Frenchification helped to advance the political and ecclesiastical agenda of Africanisation.

The Jesuit mission also faced the cultural and political challenge of Chad's Cultural Revolution, which the Jesuits addressed by drawing from their traditional mission strategy of accommodation. In Chad a Church was established in its own right, with its own bishops, seminaries, and schools, while remaining independent from neighbouring Cameroon and Ubangi. Africanness took the form of grassroots evangelism and was led, in this initial stage, by Jesuit Brothers, who also launched the first inculturation project and raised the prospect of African Jesuit vocations. Ultimately, the creation of ecclesiastical Chad and its French ties set up the foundations of the modern Chad state as an ally of France and a stabilising force in a region at the crossroads of competing global ideologies and religions.

In the early stages of the mission, before independence had been achieved, Chadian Muslims asserted their African identity by rejecting Western education, which they considered to be contrary to their beliefs and irrelevant for their already-established Muslim political elite. The Jesuits developed a vast educational project for Chad's Muslim populations which was designed to convert moderate Muslims while pushing back against Pan-Arabism, which was seen in France as a direct threat to French interests in the region.

For the ethno-religionists of southern Chad who converted to Christianity, the political outcome of the Jesuits’ vast educational project was paradoxical. Christian political leadership at independence was the result of a Western education. This education favoured their being auxiliaries in the colonial administration, and then leaders of independent Chad. Yet, unlike other Christian missions in Africa, whose educational initiatives led to the birth of African Christian nationalism, Jesuit education in southern Chad simply came too late to create an infrastructure that could foster nationalism among Catholics.