The Nation 2.0 discussion

Things fall apart, yes, boring, but short. Thankfully.
I'm not religious, but I enjoyed seeing the good side of Christianity. It is said that we humans need motivation, something that helps makes sense of everything.

I see religion as a rough guideline, a few good rules that we can follow to make ourselves better people. Some people believe in god, I don't. I think Christianity is okay, after you kick out all the misguided self-serving idiots. Such as Mr. Browns successor, Reverend James Smith. This hate filled human being, all he wants is somebody to blame for the worlds injustices, he will never achieve peace through religion.

Thoughts?

I actually read this in high school. I am at college now in the US. I think they were trying to teach us about colonialism and the clash of cultures, but not by directly dealing with the Middle East. I don't think we got it then, or maybe I was just too busy working on my English and trying to get a good grade. I had to read the wikipedia summary to remember what exactly happened. And I reacted with shock to some of the details in there. I had forgotten about the end, and I got chills when I read it. I was surprised.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. It wasn't until the part of the book where the white men came that I started to get interested.

As far as your take on the sides of Christianity portrayed in the book, Rafael, I had the opposite opinion. I felt that aside from Mr. Brown, every other Christian was showing the negative side of Christianity, not just Reverend Smith. Especially when it came down to the imprisonment of the men of the village after Enoch "killed" one of the ancestors. The villagers would not have gone on their rampage if Enoch had been given up for justice, and, despite the fact that no one was killed in the rampage, the village leaders were imprisoned and beaten, without trial. In fact, the Commissioner lied in order to capture the village leaders, telling the leaders they were going to get to share their side of the story.

What I took away from this novel is that the Christians were more barbaric than the "Primitive" peoples they were trying to convert.

Good point, I did not even consider the other Christians. I was viewing Christianity in this book as an idea, where everybody was welcome, and violence prohibited, not encouraged.

I think the Commissioner was acting from a very Roman standpoint, bringing "civilization" to a foreign land, by any and all means. Christianity(the word of "god"), is so very often used to mask personal agenda.

The domestic violence in Okonkwo's household really repulsed me. He used violence and fear to mask all signs of weakness, and this seemed to be perpetuated by his religion/culture. I simply cannot deem any side less barbaric than the other.

While I agree that some violence was perpetuated by their culture, not all of it was. In fact, at one point in the book, a sort of council got together to hear the case about the woman who had left her husband because he was beating her. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I do remember he was given the choice of giving up his wife back to her family, or stopping the violence against her, and paying her family a fine, in order for her to still be his wife. This case made me think that Okonkwo's excessive use of violence was an oddity, not the rule. Not only that, but the author did explain that Okonkwo was over-compensating to completely distance himself from the type of person his father was.

From what I remember, beating your wife was not prohibited, you just couldn't beat her too much. And we do not know the politics behind the decision to fine the abusive husband. What if the tables were turned? Would the tribes act fairly from a place of power? This subject is just so damn complex, we cannot say with certainty that one is better than the other. I guess it boils down to human nature, and the hope that one day we can become a peaceful race. Sounds pretty damned far fetched right now.