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August 18, 2008

Arrogance is our speciality

“Are there any white people who are arrogant?” asked Pierre. He stood up from hoeing John’s field, grimacing with the discomfort in his back.

“Hah!” I said. “We white people are the experts at arrogance!”

“But I’ve never seen a proud white person,” Pierre insisted. “You are here helping us work in the field. I’ve never seen an Arab come to help the Muslims work their fields.”

“Ah,” said Jean-Marc, “but we are proud of working in the field!”

“It’s true,” I agreed. “There are white people who will come here to Africa, and work 10 minutes in the field. They will take film of their 10 minutes, and use it to show people back at home how humble they are, how they suffered, and boast about how hard they worked to help the poor Africans.”

Pierre laughed.

“What is more,” I said, “they will want to preach, even though they never do any evangelism at home. Though they know nothing of suffering for Christ, and they live lives of comfortable half-heartedness, they think that because they are rich and white and have lots of Christian books, they can teach you what it means to be a follower of Christ. They will do a 2-week “mission”, often living in comfortable hotels, and just coming out of their air-conditioning to preach for a few hours, and have their photo taken holding a little African baby. They will return home and boast humbly about how they preached to the poor Africans, and talk about how wretched your lives are, and how blessed we are to be American or British or French.”

“Arrogance is our speciality.”

“May God have mercy on us.”

Posted by Keith at August 18, 2008 12:41 PM