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African Power West African Mediums Catering to Surinamese Clients in the Netherlands

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African Power West African Mediums Catering to Surinamese Clients in the Netherlands African Diaspora 9 (2016) 39–60 brill.com/afdi African Power West African Mediums Catering to Surinamese Clients in the Netherlands Amber Gemmeke* University of Bayreuth, Germany [email protected] Abstract This paper explores how West African migrants’ movements impacts their religious imagery and that of those they encounter in the diaspora. It specifically addresses how, through the circulation of objects, rituals, and themselves, West Africans and Black Dutchmen of Surinamese descent link, in a Dutch urban setting, spiritual empower- ing and protection to the African soil. West African ‘mediums’ offer services such as divination and amulet making since about twenty years in the Netherlands. Dutch- Surinamese clients form a large part of their clientele, soliciting a connection to Afri- can, ancestral spiritual power, a power which West African mediums enforce through the use of herbs imported from West Africa and by rituals, such as animal sacrifices and libations, arranged for in West Africa. This paper explores how West Africans and Dutchmen of Surinamese descent, through a remarkable mix of repertoires alluding to notions of Africa, Sufi Islam, Winti, and Western divination, creatively reinvent a shared understanding of ‘African power’. Keywords Black Caribbeans – Sufi Islam – Winti – marabout – diaspora – ritual * I thank Prof. dr. Tinde van Andel, Dr. Karel Arnaut, Dr. Linda van de Kamp and two anony- mous reviewers for their valuable suggestions for this article. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/18725465-00901004 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:46PM via free access 40 gemmeke Résumé Cette contribution explore l’impact des mouvements migratoires des Africains occi- dentaux sur leur imagerie religieux et celui de ceux qu’ils rencontrent dans la diaspora. Cette contribution adresse spécifiquement la question comment, à travers la circula- tion des objets, des rituels, et eux-mêmes, les Africains occidentaux et les Néerlandais noirs d’origine surinamais relient la protection et la force spirituelle du sol africain dans un milieu urbain hollandais. Les «médiums» d’Afrique de l’Ouest offrent des ser- vices tels que la divination et la fabrication d’amulettes depuis une vingtaine d’années aux Pays-Bas. Les clients néerlandais-surinamiens forment une grande partie de leur clientèle, sollicitant une connexion au pouvoir spirituel ancestral africain, un pou- voir que les milieux ouest-africains imposent grâce à l’utilisation d’herbes importées d’Afrique de l’Ouest et par des rituels tels que des sacrifices d’animaux et des libations en Afrique de l’Ouest. Cette contribution étudie la réinvention creative des Africains de l’Ouest et des Néerlandais d’origine surinamais, à travers une amalgame remarquable des notions d’Afrique, de Soufi Islam, de Winti et de la divination occidentale, une compréhension partagée du «pouvoir africain». Mots-clés Noirs des Caraïbes – Soufi Islam – Winti – marabout – diaspora – rituel Introduction In the Netherlands, West Africans ‘mediums’, as they most often call them- selves, advertise their services broadly in urban areas where, predominately, migrants live.1 They distribute advertisements in mailboxes and on the street, in local newspapers, and in magazines specifically targeted at Surinamese and Antilleans such as Pleasure, a free entertainment and lifestyle magazine. The following advertisement, for example, was distributed in November 2013 in the Rotterdam area of Crooswijk: 1 Since ‘medium’ is the term my informants used mostly I will employ the term throughout this chapter, rather than ‘healer’ or ‘marabout’,terms more often used in, respectively, English- and French-language settings. African Diaspora 9 (2016) 39–60 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:46PM via free access african power 41 figure 1 “No life without problems, no problems without solution … Mr. Faïsale. I introduce myself: A real African, international, very efficiently working medium. I offer help with: the return of your loved one, your career, your exam, chance at happiness, sexual potency, infertility, bad spirits, even with hopeless cases and all other occult dealings. If you come you will be happy! A small advertisement is read as well … As you see. Result 100% guaranteed.”2 Dutch media makers frequently used these advertisements to contact these mediums under the pretext of being clients, ‘unmasking’ West African medi- ums, sometimes by means of hidden cameras, as charlatans. Dutch media generally portray clients of these mediums as being naive, unstable, and super- stitious (Gemmeke 2011; Kuczynski 2002). ‘African magic’ is thus portrayed as inferior otherness. As such, it reproduces binary oppositions of science-magic, traditional-modern, superstitious-secular, and African-European, part of the legitimation of Europe colonising Africa (Meyer & Pels 2013). The simplis- tic oppositions of occult, irrational African thinking and transparent, ratio- nal Western thinking – often implicit and therefore all the more basic – are omnipresent in today’s Western press, with Western press capitalizing on sen- sational stories of Africans ‘magic’ (Geschiere 2003: 159).3 2 Faïsale is a Muslim given name frequently used in francophone West Africa, especially in Benin. 3 In line with the pioneering work of Tambiah (1990) and Asad (2003), I regard ‘magic’ and religion to be socially and culturally influenced orientations to reality constructed by the context in which they operate. For specifically the West African context, Mommersteeg adopted the term ‘magical-religious’ (1996). Other terms have been used as well, such as notably by Soares who has employed the term ‘esoteric sciences’ in the West African context; “a convenient way to discuss […] various practices […] as there appears to be no universally African Diaspora 9 (2016) 39–60 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:46PM via free access 42 gemmeke Wether or not West African mediums deliberately try to con their clients remains outside the scope of this paper. Skepticism, fear or suspicion of char- latanism, is inherent to a clients’ visit to a West African medium. Regardless this scepticism, or specifically because of it, clients visit West African medi- ums specifically for their promise to offer ‘African’ spiritual powers.4 Far from being inferior or traditional, religious ideas, symbolisms, and practices con- cerning West African magical-religious power is re-configured in the settings of transcontinental relations with their local embeddedness, and thus essen- tially modern and urban (cf. Hüwelmeier & Krause 2009). West African mediums are active in a number of European urban areas, dis- tributing the exact same advertisements as the one above (in local languages) in cities such as Paris, Bruxelles, London, and Lisbon. The presence of West African mediums in the Netherlands is, however, interesting for two reasons: firstly, an absence of both a colonial history with and a geographical proxim- ity to West Africa, and secondly, the relation between West Africans and Black Dutchmen of Surinamese descent. In the Netherlands, West Africans mediums and their Dutch-Surinamese clients share not only socio-geographical areas (migrant filled outskirts of urban centers or low-cost rundown inner city areas) but alsoWest Africa as a reference point and source of ancestral spiritual power. Both groups, often facing precarious livelihoods due to illegality, financial hard- ship, or other socio-economic problems, and marginalized in Dutch society as a whole, refer to ‘Africa’ as a source of identity, power, and authenticity, wherein notions of the powerful and healing properties of the West African soil play and important role (see also Abranches 2014: 266; Saraiva 2008: 262). These notions are reinforced by the use of herbs imported from West Africa and Suri- name in potions and amulets, by animal sacrifices and libations arranged for in West Africa, and by incantations and spirits sent from the Netherlands to Africa and the Caribbean as well as from Africa to the Netherlands and the Caribbean. In this way, the transatlantic slave trade and European colonial rule accepted local or regional term that covers all of the kinds of knowledges and practices that can be included under this rubric” (2005: 127). See also Brenner’s excellent analysis of geomancy in an Islamic, African context (Brenner 1985: 78–98). In Senegal, to name one regional example, terms often used are the French maraboutage and the Wolof liguee (work). In this chapter I use the encompassing terms ‘magical’ and ‘magical-religious’. In this respect, I follow both Kuczynski (2012) and Van Andel et al. (2013), describing West African and Surinamese practices in Europe respectively. 4 Part of this skepticism is fed by the fear that the medium has in fact great powers, but uses them in malicious ways to abuse the client’s vulnerability. Scepticism and faith work, here, in tandem (cf. Taussig 2003, Kirsch 2004). African Diaspora 9 (2016) 39–60 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 09:33:46PM via free access african power 43 resulted in the travelling of religious ideas, practices and symbols from Africa to the Caribbean, from the Caribbean and Africa to Europe, and within Europe between Europeans of Caribbean descent and Africans. West African mediums are, although most share a Muslim orientation, a highly diverse set of religious practitioners. What is more, West African medi- ums and their clients have quite divergent religious backgrounds, namely, Sufi Islam and Winti – ‘an Afroamerican
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