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The Power of Money: Politics, Occult Forces, and Pentecostalism in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Birgit Meyer
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Abstract:

In the wake of the last democratic elections in Ghana, which took place in December 1996, the electoral commission published and distributed a poster that depicted a voter who was approached by both the Devil and an angel. While the former told the man to sell his vote for money, the latter made it clear that his vote was his voice, thereby insinuating that selling his vote would boil down to selling himself to the “powers of darkness.” The paper seeks to explain how Christianity, especially the pentecostal variant highly popular in southern Ghana, came to cast political discourse in religious terms. On the basis of the examination of a popular Ghanaian movie about a chief who indulges in ritual murder in order to generate wealth and power, it is shown that in Ghana a public debate is going on about the (im) morality of power. In this debate, rumors about the occult sources of power and wealth form the flip side of politicians' claims of being linked with the divine. In distinction to established mission churches, pentecostalism takes such rumors about the threat of sorcery as seriously as the aim to turn Ghana into a Christian country. Presenting themselves as the sole members of society able to contain sorcery, pentecostalists claim to have the power to reveal the occult sources of those in power and subsequently to purify politics and politicians from occult traces and draw them closer to God.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Pendant les dernières élections démocratiques au Ghana en décembre 1996, la commision électorale publia et distribua un poster avec l'image d'un électeur abordé a la fois par le Diable et par un ange. Alors que le diable disait à l'homme de vendre son vote, l'ange lui disait clairement que son vote était sa voix, suggérant ainsi que vendre son vote équivaudrait à se vendre aux “forces du mal”. Nos visons ici, à expliquer comment le Christianisme, notamment dans sa version pentecostale très populaire au sud du Ghana, est en venu à exprimer le discours politique en termes religieux. Partant de l'exemple d'un film sur un chef qui s'adonne au meurtre rituel afin de produire richesse et pouvoir, nous montrons qu'au Ghana il y a un débat sur l'(im)moralité du pouvoir. Dans ce débat, des rumeurs sur les origines occultes du pouvoir et de la richesse constituent le revers de la médaille des déclarations de politiciens qui disent être liés au divin. Ce qui la distingue des autres églises établies, c'est que l'église pentecostale prend ces menaces de sorcellerie aussi sérieusement que son propre désir de transformer le Ghana en un pays chrétien. En se présentant comme la seule institution sociale en mesure de contrôler la sorcellerie, les adeptes du pentecostalisme déclarent qu'ils ont le pouvoir de révéler les sources occultes de ceux qui sont au pouvoir pour purifier la politique et les politiciens de l'occulte et les rapprocher de Dieu.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 1998 , pp. 15 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1998

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