Jesus should look more Palestinian and less European to stop symbolizing the supremacy of the white man.
As a child, I attended Christian schools. These institutions taught students well. Teachers were tough but cared. I remember one Mrs. Lobo constantly trying to get me to study. Both she and my mother were frequently upset because I would bunk class and run off to play. Once I left an exam halfway through because I was bored. Both Mrs. Lobo and my mother were deeply distressed. On one occasion, I caused Mrs. Lobo even more pain.
During the morning assembly in church, we were told Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Back in class, I asked Mrs. Lobo where in the world was Bethlehem. She answered Palestine. In those days, photos of Yasser Arafat, the chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), often appeared in Indian newspapers. My father must have pointed out Arafat’s photo to me and mentioned where he was from. So, I blurted: “Excuse me ma’am, why is Jesus white? Why doesn’t he look like Yasser Arafat?” Suffice to say, Mrs. Lobo couldn’t answer the question.
Cross Carrying Conquistadors
On the first day of 2015, I couldn’t help observe that the highest read article on the website of The Economist was “On the Trail of Hernán Cortés.” The correspondent had traced Cortés’ journey of five centuries ago and written a splendid account of the conquistador. As expected from a publication born at the height of the British Empire, it tells a triumphant tale:
“This is where one of the great military expeditions of history began: Hernán Cortés’s march in 1519-20 from the Gulf of Mexico to Tenochtitlán, seat of the Aztec empire. Historians liken it to Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. Its protagonist, a cunning 34-year-old with almost no experience of war, led about 500 men and just over a dozen horses into territories whose bloodthirsty warriors hugely outnumbered his own. He exploited seething tribal rivalries to conquer a civilisation—albeit with the help of gunpowder, smallpox and his wily Indian lover. At times he used mischief; at times cruelty. He had an eye for his place in history—as well as for the ladies. His soldiers did not just subjugate the people they conquered. From the very start they bred with the Indians too, creating a mixed race through mestizaje, with a common language and religion that defines Mexico today.”
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Conquest has defined human history, but what is most interesting in The Economist article is the story about the episode when Cortés was gifted eight noblewomen as slaves. He was only willing to accept the gift if the fat ruler became Christian first. Genghis Khan plundered, pillaged, raped and slaughtered, but he didn’t have the arrogance to save people’s souls. He wasn’t sanctimonious like the white men from Europe who went out to conquer foreign lands for gold and God.
I was born in Vasco da Gama, a port town named after the Portuguese explorer who sailed to India in 1498. He is glorified as an epic hero in Os Lusíadas, the Portuguese classic, and there is a church named after him in Kochi. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that he murdered for pleasure and once burnt 400 Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca. Even women were not spared. Their efforts to offer their gold and jewels didn’t work. Even when they held up their babies and begged for mercy, good old Vasco wasn’t moved. He wanted to find Christians in India and destroy Islam.
The churches in Latin America and Goa were built by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Christianity was imposed through the barrel of the gun, though missionaries played a significant role. Both the Spaniards and the Portuguese set out to persecute not only other religions, but also non-Catholic Christians. Today, the people who were colonized have largely lost their native cultures, myths and identities. Most significantly, in former Spanish and Portuguese dominions, Jesus is almost invariably white.
Muscular Christianity, Mission Civilisatrice and All That Jazz
The British and French were not as interested in saving souls as the Spanish and the Portuguese. Yet they saw themselves as civilized Christian nations. Popularized by the barrister T.C. Sandars, “Muscular Christianity” is the idea of tough men of God going out to civilize the natives that held sway in Victorian England. The image of “the Englishman going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other” was popularized by J.G. Cotton Minchin. British public schools, which are really private schools for the well bred, were infused with this ideal. Cotton Minchin wasn’t far off when writing: “If asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire.”
The French idea of mission civilisatrice was infused with the idea of the superiority of Christianity. Conversion to Christianity wasn’t essential as under Spaniards or the Portuguese, but was preferable. Along with European dress and the French language, it was the hallmark of civilization. Needless to say, both the British and the French built churches where Jesus was white.
During my lectures, I often ask Africans from the Anglo-French colonies whether Jesus is white. A devout Nigerian student in Berkeley, whom I taught last year, confessed to be troubled by this fact. He told me: “It is what Jesus stands for that matters; not his color.” I quipped: “Then what is the problem in Jesus being black?” Like Mrs. Lobo, he couldn’t answer.
Yes, Jesus Should Look Like Yasser Arafat
For Christians, Jesus is supposed to be the son of God. If he is white, does that mean God is white? Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greedy gay genius, painted a resplendent old white man creating a dashingly handsome young white man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Any Catholic who sees the image cannot but be influenced by the fact that God and Adam are white men. Needless to say, so is Jesus. To steal the words of Cecil Rhodes, the great robber-turned-philanthropist of the 19th century, white men have won the first prize in life’s lottery.
Religion at its best provides a repository of tradition, a locus for community and a crucible for spirituality. Christianity is no exception. There have been countless pious Christians such as Mrs. Lobo who have been outstanding human beings with a profound spirit of service. The New Testament idea of turning the other cheek is certainly a noble one. The historical Jesus was a Galilean Jew born in modern day Palestine. Finally, in 2015, he should start to look Palestinian.
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
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Simon Lee
May 27, 2015
Jesus should be brown.
Wellington Pereira Carneiro
January 12, 2015
Let's not be silly and naive. Jesus is depicted white in ancient churches and paintings because middle age Europeans simply did not know how Jesus looked like and they used the only image of what they knew. A white man.
Sami Faltas
January 11, 2015
If images of Jesus are to reflect the man who lived in Palestine 2000 years ago, then probably he should look like a Levantine. But this raises the question what the purpose of these images is. In Cameroon, it struck me that all images of Jesus depicted him as a white man, often with blonde hair and blue eyes. He did not look like a Cameroonian at all, whereas in Ethiopian churches, he usually looks like a local man. Then I found an unusual church with paintings that made Jesus look like a Cameroonian, and I asked a Cameroonian friend what he thought of them. He smiled and said: "They're nice. But they're not Jesus." Clearly, he had grown accustomed to thinking of Jesus as a northern European. If images of Jesus are supposed to make people feel close to him, if he is to look like the Son of Man (as he called himself), that is to say a human being like you or me, then it seems best that he should look like you or me. Consequently, he will look different in Cameroon, in Ethiopia, in the Philippines, in Peru and in Australia.
Subhro Prokas Mukherjee
January 9, 2015
A fantastic piece but I heard this argument first when Denzel Washington was talking to a priest while playing the role of Malcolm X. :-)
Roger
January 10, 2015
Yes, I wonder if this was plagiarized from the movie :-). This article is SO derivative and just silly.
Roger
January 9, 2015
Drake: I very much like your comments. In 2015, how can anyone really take religion seriously at all? It's mostly just a tool used by idiots to justify inflicting harm on "non-believers" (those of other traditions and so on) while now and then invoked by the members of the various "flocks" to support some good deeds here and there. Singh's article doesn't talk about this essential issue at all. You're right. It's mostly just some silly boasting and elitist nonsense.
Drake
January 8, 2015
Stupid article. Where does one start? Apart from the 'look how smart I am and how smart I was at a boy when I showed up my teacher' aspect of it, your point here isn't about why Jesus is portrayed as white in many European depictions, your target is the conquistadores of old who did terrible things in the name of Christianity. When you say 'stop making Jesus white' or 'he should look Palestinian', who exactly are you talking to? You seem to think there is some conspiracy that the church is trying to foist on its gullible flock that Jesus is white, but I don't know a single person who believes that. There are lots of Renaissance-Victorian age images of Jesus looking pretty European done by European artists, but there are also Jewish looking Jesuses, there are black Jesuses etc etc etc. Everybody knows Jesus was a Jew from what is now Palestine. So when you say: in 2015, he should look like a Jew, who on earth is that directed at? There is no one officially-sanctioned picture of Jesus, there are just millions of different ones representing a number of different ethnicities. What an idiotic article, sorry to say. I shuddered when I read the sentence "In my lectures...". You have a chip on your shoulder about this from your upbringing obviously.
john
January 7, 2015
Viracocha was described as "a man of medium height, white and dressed in a white robe like an alb secured round the waist, and that he carried a staff and a book in his hands." The old texts all agree that children of God[s] were fair skinned. Even Noah was white, with blue eyes, and it was extremely unusual. Pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, these were the most obvious indicators of bloodlines that were traced to the God[s]. Read your history and your Holy texts, you will see. Fear not, the mathematics support the idea that today the color of your skin does not preclude you from having the genes of such wonderful ancestors, in fact, the opposite. All modern humans must have some genetic heritage from those which the God[s] left among us by now, assuming they bred at all. We are all Descendants of them, to a greater or lesser degree, perhaps, but color is no discriminator by now.
Seana Fenner (Odinia)
January 11, 2015
@John. That is an interesting comment. As Odinists (the native European religion), we believe that we are descended from our Gods. They are our ancestors. I would disagree that other races are related to or descended from our Gods though. Genetically, we are profoundly different.
Sangeetha
January 6, 2015
I say, if he is a virgin born (not out of Man and Woman) then he is neither Palestinian nor European. Neither white nor black. It is left to your imagination.
Roger
January 6, 2015
That is a very good point and was not addressed by Singh. Still, Jesus (like Mohamed) is most likely a fiction.
Alfred Gerteiny
January 7, 2015
Good, intelligent comment that, nevertheless, does not diminish the soundness of the article.
Jasmine
January 7, 2015
It seems that Singh does draw attention to this issue, though perhaps from an opposing standpoint. His argument lies in the fact that Jesus is (unfortunately and unnecessarily) most often depicted as a white man by white men, which leaves little to the imagination.