NATURALEZA JURÍDICA DE LA LIBERTAD DE EMPRESA
2.2. LA LIBERTAD DE EMPRESA COMO UN DERECHO CONSTITUCIONAL DERECHO CONSTITUCIONAL
Expatriate missionaries include many missionaries who came at different times and from different western backgrounds. Some of the missionaries came before and after both the First and Second World Wars48. As will be discussed in this section, both World Wars had significant roles to play with regard to expatriate missionary activities in Northwest
can read Mutembei (1993:72-76), Niwagila (1991:83-100), Kabigumila (2005:54-63), and Karne ya Injili katika Dayosisi Magharibi na Dayosisi ya Karagwe (2010:5-9) for more detail.
47Some years later after their encounter with Christianity in Uganda, the British missionaries baptized some of these Haya converts at Kashenye in 1901, Zakaria Ikate in 1904, Abraham Mpandakyaro and Abraham Kibira in 1917 (see Karne ya injili 2010:5). Kajerero, who became a famous indigenous church leader in Buhaya, was baptized in 1906 by Protestant missionaries even though he had a first encounter with Roman Catholic missionaries before which did not greatly impact his life spiritually, although he learned to read and write in a Roman Catholic missionary school (Niwagila 1991:90-91).
48The First World War was from 1914-1918 and Second World War was from 1939-1945 (read Rweyemamu 2005:28).
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Tanzania during the early start of missionary Christianity among the Haya. This section discusses some of these missionaries and the time they came to Buhaya49.
Lutheran Missionaries
Lutheran missionaries were among the early Protestant expatriate missionaries that were involved in converting the indigenous Haya in Northwest Tanzania. Ernest Johansen is known as the first missionary from Bethel Mission, a mission society that was based in Germany, to arrive in Buhaya. He arrived at Bukoba in the year 1907. The German administrator did not allow him to start a Protestant mission station in Buhaya because Roman Catholics had already started mission work in that area (Kabigumila 2005:53).
This refusal, however, as Kahakwa (2010:76) puts it, was related to political matters as the German administration preferred the Roman Catholic mission, hence a popular phrase in those days was “to be a true friend of Germans you have to be a Catholic.” It is further indicated that Germans were against the establishment of a Protestant mission under the Church Mission Society (CMS) which was under the British influence in Buhaya because they feared that this mission would try to contact the CMS in Buganda and through this contact, promote British influence in the District which was under German rule (Kahakwa 2010:75-76).
It was not until 20th June, 1910 when Ernest Johansen was officially allowed by the German administration to start the mission work at Kashura Hill in Bukoba50. It should also be pointed out that earlier before his arrival in Buhaya, he made contact with some groups of Christian converts in the area who had already been baptized and confirmed in Uganda by the Church Mission Society (CMS). Johansen found these groups had already started to organize themselves into a believing community. These provided a good ground for the foreign missionaries to start the mission work in the area. Historians, however, agree that religious activities undertaken by the early Haya converts which took place between 14 to 20 years before the arrival of Johansen is regarded as the actual
49 Buhaya refers to an area occupied by the Haya. Buhaya in this case is used interchangeably with Hayalanda.
50 Bukoba is both a town and a name of a district within Kagera government administrative region where the Haya people mostly reside.
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establishment of the Protestant Church in the area (Kahakwa 2010:76, Mutembei 1993:77 and Niwagila 1991:75-76).
Niwagila points out that, German missionaries under the Bethel Mission Society understood “their presence as their duty to help the poor Africans know and worship the right God” (1991:108). This indicates their negative attitude towards the Haya Traditional Religion and their worship of Luhanga (God) whom they worshipped in their native religion before the arrival of the missionaries.
Based on this understanding, the goals that were set by their home society were (Niwagila 1991:109-110):
1. To preach the Gospel of Christ to the “pagans” in the German East African Colony.
2. To take spiritual care of Germans who lived and worked in this part of the world.
3. To provide medical care to the natives and Germans in the colony areas.
4. To start Christian schools for the natives.
Anglican Missionaries
Anglican missionaries are among the early Protestant missionaries who worked in Northwest Tanzania. These worked among the Haya in two different periods. As pointed out earlier, it is important to remember that the Lutheran Church in Northwest Tanzania started as Anglican under the influence of the CMS. When Lutheran Bethel missionaries started their mission in Bukoba in 1910 they organized indigenous Haya Christians who were already baptized by Anglican missionaries in Uganda. Before that time, Anglican mission that was based in Uganda was responsible for taking care of Haya Christians spiritually (Mutembei 1993:89).
Nonetheless, during the First World War the Germans lost so the Lutheran missionaries who were present in Bukoba were forced to return back home. This opened the door for the coming of the Anglican missionaries from Uganda for the second time following the
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request of the indigenous Haya Christians who were left without foreign missionaries (Niwagila 1991:106). Haya Christians under the leadership of Pastor Andrea Kajerero appealed the CMS missionaries in Uganda to come to Bukoba. Through this appeal, the CMS synod in Uganda sent R.H. Leakey, Athanasio Namuyenga and Shedulaka Kibuka to come to support the Evangelical Church in Buhaya and these really played a big role in making the Church in Buhaya grow (Niwagila 1991:155).
Canon Leakey became an inspector and overseer of the mission work in Buhaya. The missionaries stayed in Buhaya until when the bishop in charge of CMS in Uganda, Bishop Wills, withdrew his missionaries from Bukoba due to the scarcity of missionaries in Uganda following the growth and expansion of the church in the country (Niwagila 1991:165).
Methodist/Wesleyan Missionaries
Methodists/Wesleyans commenced their mission enterprise in Northwest Tanzania, when Bishop Wills withdrew his missionaries from Buhaya. Bishop Wills asked the Methodists from South Africa, who by then were looking for a mission field in East Africa, to take over the work in Buhaya (Niwagila 1991:165). Niwagila states that their work of evangelizing combined Gospel, education and healing ministry. They believed that the healing of the soul should go hand in hand with the healing of the body (Niwagila 1991:172-173, Mutembei 1993:93-95).
The Methodist missionaries in Buhaya, however, did not stay long as they met opposition from the indigenous Christians due to reasons related to administration, theological controversy, and diverse ecclesiological perceptions between missionaries and the indigenous people. These reasons that are discussed in length by Niwagila (1991:173-177), are summarized below as follows:
1. The decision to invite them was dictated by the Anglican missionaries without involvement of the indigenous leadership.
2. Their theology did not measure up to the existing knowledge of the indigenous Christians.
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3. During Baptism the Methodist missionaries required the indigenous people to promise that they would hold fast not only to Christ, but also to the church of John Wesley. The Haya, however, did not like to be identified with the name of any person apart from Christ.
4. The Haya indigenous Christians and leadership were not satisfied with the way the Methodists handled the sacredness of the church building, for example, smoking, and showing movies in the church building and premises are some of the things which were unacceptable to the Haya Christians.
5. Permitting those under church discipline to partake of Holy Communion was not in line with their understanding of the theology of church discipline (cf. Karne ya Injili 2010:18-20).
Due to these controversies after the World War, the indigenous church leaders called back the German missionaries to continue the work they started earlier in 1910 (Karne ya Injili 2010:22-23, Niwagila 1991:176-183). This invitation was a clear indication that Haya Christians were comfortable with German missionaries and that the fate of their church was in their own hands and not in the hands of the missionaries.
Swedish Missionaries
The Second World War unfortunately again led to internment of the German missionaries.
For this reason almost all missionaries in Bukoba were removed, hence the younger church in Buhaya under the German Mission Society was named “orphaned missions”
(Niwagila 1991:263-265) 51. As a result of this German internment, the Augustan Mission had to take over the German mission work.
The Augustan mission asked the Church of Sweden Mission (CSM) to send Swedish missionaries who were already working in some African countries. This lead Dr. Bengt
51 The term “orphan” was perceived to have a derogatory connotation. It was hence critically opposed by indigenous Haya Christians. See Niwagila (1991:265-266).
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Sundkler52 and Gustav Bernander to volunteer to go to Tanganyika (Tanzania) to take responsibility (Niwagila 1991:275). The presence of these two missionaries from Sweden made it necessary for other Swedish missionaries to come to support the mission work in the areas of medicine and education (Karne ya Injili: 2010: 38, Niwagila 1991:277). Dr.
Sundkler later became the first Bishop of the “Evangelical Church of Buhaya” which later turned into “Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania Northwestern Diocese.”
It is important to conclude that missionary Christianity in Buhaya, as we have indicated, commenced with indigenous missionaries through contact with Uganda but was influenced by western missionaries who, despite their different backgrounds, shared almost the same worldview. Their worldview definitely informed their mission approach and conversion methods to the indigenous Haya.
To be able to understand the reasons that precipitated their conversion methods, one needs to go back to their religio-cultural background. The following section deals with the missionaries‟ background as a context for our understanding of the reasons for their conversion methods in the process of Christianizing Northwest Tanzania.