African Traditional Religion, Social Justice, and Human Rights

Abstract

The gap between the ancient and the modern world notwithstanding, the constituents of social justice and human rights are found in African past, and this informs Africans’ critical perspective and appreciation of their evolution as social constructs in the nineteenth century as well as their attendant political significance. While African theologians and African humanists divide on the African Traditional Religion (ATR) being the basis of African ethics, the disparate positions of radical and moderate African communitarians further expand and contribute to scholarly arguments on the relationship between religion and ethics as well as faith and reason. The debates nevertheless, there are lucid indices that the struggle, promotion, and management of ideas of individual rights are recognized within African communalists’ ideology and structure in the enforcement of social justice based on their ethics. By exploring scholarly works through critical approach, it is apparent that social justice and respect for human rights which hinge on ATR and African moral system still found strong acceptability to try several cases of injustice, moral and financial corruptions, violent conflicts, and crimes in some African communities. The chapter therefore concludes that ATR is a significant missing link between social justice with respect to human rights and their enforcements in modern Africa.