Benin born Grammy winning recording artist Angelique Kidjo has spoken to CNN’s Christiane Amanpore about her dismay about homophobia and religious intolerance across the African continent – saying it wasn’t how she was raised.
Benin born Grammy winning singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo has condemned homophobia and religious intolerance in Africa as tools of control in an interview with CNN – saying that’s not how she was brought up to think.
‘The homosexual issue has been brought up front by the religious groups in Africa but we have had homosexuals for centuries in Africa and nobody talked about it [like this],’ Kidjo told CNN’s Christiane Amanpore.
‘What baffles me and what makes me angry is when people in the name of God, in the name of religion stir hate. To what kind of God are you praying? It’s not mine.
‘Who are we to judge? Especially when you have a bible in your hand and you're telling somebody because he’s homosexual he’s a pedophile and that you have to kill him. What does it make you? You’re not praying to God – you are praying evil. Period.’
Kidjo said that growing sectarian violence in Africa showed how people were being divided in order to control them.
‘It’s the same thing with Catholics against Muslims. We have been living together forever. Why now? It’s not about God, its about power. That’s it – that’s the simple truth,’ Kidjo said.
‘God becomes a brand – I know that. A lot of people make a lot of money and here you have churches that have billions of dollars and they can care less about the poor people that come to their church – that is another discussion we can have another time.
‘But faith has nothing to do with violence and I refuse to be put in the position where somebody would tell me, “Well, you [have to] hate those people because they are so and so, that religion is this and this.”’
Kidjo said that she had grown up in a mixed-faith community in Benin and everyone got along regardless of their different beliefs.
‘I grew up in a household – in front of my house there was a mosque, you have Protestants in my street, you have Animists,’ Kidjo said.
‘I grew up with all different kinds of religion and always, my mom will always say, “faith is a good thing as long as it doesn’t stir hate and is not used as a power to undermine people’s ability to choose.” Your free will is your birth gift. I never forget Father Desmond Tutu saying that God has given us a free will and vowing to himself never to interfere [in others free will].’
via alabamau2
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