Chapter 702: East Africa’s “Political Assets”

"In 1886, under the heavy blows of the Religious and Cultural Administration, 57 illegal missionary organizations were destroyed, more than 4,000 illegal doctrinal texts were destroyed, and 23 people from seven foreign illegal forces were arrested. Overall, the country has achieved remarkable results in safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of religions, maintaining social stability, and further consolidating social ideological stability." John Mendel, director of the Religious and Cultural Administration, reported on last year's work report.

“The people are ignorant and easily misled by those with ulterior motives, but we cannot simply erase the ideological sustenance of religious culture on the grassroots people. Therefore, it is crucial to deal with religious ideas in a harmless manner. We must support anything that complies with the law and basic social moral values ​​and the East African idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism. All others are targets of attack,” Ernst emphasized.

East Africa has a long history of suppressing religious forces, but according to the official statement of East Africa, it is naturally to crack down on "cults" and illegal religious organizations.

However, religion has a stubborn vitality, just like leeks, which grow again after being cut, so it needs to be severely cracked down every once in a while.

"The education department has repeatedly stressed that no one is allowed to reach out to East Africa's 'future'. Anyone under the age of 17 is not allowed to accept religious interference. This is an important foundation for religious freedom in East Africa. At the same time, East African children must be given correct thoughts and moral concepts so that they can distinguish right from wrong."

East Africa is already feudal and conservative enough, so it naturally will not allow messy ideas to "poison" the young people in East Africa. This is also an important task in promoting compulsory education.

"So far, there are 1,308 churches and 143 Taoist temples built across the country."

You heard it right. East Africa has opened up the cultural heritage of Taoism. This has prevented the emergence of a single dominant religion in East Africa. After all, having only one religion is unsafe. What if it were to lead to a power struggle between the Pope and the monarchy like in medieval Europe? This is a means of differentiation and checks and balances.

For example, in ancient times, the Far Eastern Empire formed a state of balance of power among Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The same is true in East Africa today, with Catholicism, Protestantism and Taoism forming a three-way balance of power.

However, the difference in treatment between the two is quite obvious, and there is a huge difference in quantity, which plays an important role in stabilizing people's hearts.

Of course, no matter what religion it is, its teaching materials are defined and written by the East African authorities.

These official religions are strictly restricted to certain areas and cannot actively preach to their followers, so they can only recruit believers through their own means.

At the same time, the development of East African religions tends towards the integration of religious monarchy, which is mainly learned from Japan. The existence of the Japanese Emperor is closely linked to the spiritual beliefs of the entire Japanese nation.

This "advanced" way of thinking, which is of great significance in consolidating the royal authority, is naturally worthy of learning from the Hexingen royal family, but it is not as "crazy" and overt as that of Japan.

This kind of unorthodox practice is closely related to the ruling foundation of the Hexingen royal family. After all, this era does not pay much attention to "materialistic" thinking.

"In short, secularization is the trend of the times, but even in the tide of secularization, there are always people who need spiritual sustenance. We cannot deny the existence of such spiritual sustenance. The government needs more specious concepts to maintain social stability."

Not giving some people an outlet to vent their thoughts can easily lead to extreme behavior. Of course, blindly controlling the mind can also easily lead to extreme behavior. Therefore, the ruling class must strike a balance between the two and keep the entire East African folk beliefs within a reasonable range.

John Mendel: "In recent years, we have found that the infiltration of external religious forces into East Africa has intensified. In the decade before 1880, there were only three such cases, but in 1886 alone we found thirteen cases involving seven religious organizations. These activities were mainly carried out in coastal open cities."

At present, East Africa is definitely a blue ocean for many religious forces, because the religions in East Africa are actually puppets supported by the Hechingen royal family and the East African government, and are decoupled from the mainstream religious forces in the world.

This naturally aroused dissatisfaction among certain forces, but it is impossible to force East Africa to open its doors unless violent means are used to destroy the strong national defense that East Africa has built up over the past decades.

Since hard tactics didn't work, they naturally had to use soft means. The mainstream model was to develop agent believers through open coastal cities. However, they encountered the formidable East African Religious and Cultural Administration. The two sides had fought many times, both openly and covertly, and ultimately the East African official organization won.

"We must crack down severely on these foreign forces, especially Judaism, Arabism, and the Roman Catholic Church. This is not the Middle Ages. The rise of nation-states is an inevitable trend. The only way for us in East Africa is to achieve national integration and eliminate internal differences so that we can better concentrate our strength to compete with other countries," said Ernst.

The reason why Ernst emphasized these three is that they are the most unlikely fundamentalisms to be integrated. In fact, they are even older than the feudal autocracy in East Africa and have remained conservative from the slave society to the modern times.

Of course, from the perspective of the past, Arabism has changed, but this change was collectively erased by Western society, and Arab regions with no way to industrialize have turned to retroism.

Of course, this matter is not the responsibility of East Africa now. The world order group represented by Britain and France is the dominant force. There is no conflict between East Africa and France, but it is very different with Britain.

However, with the stability of East African countries, it is currently impossible for external forces to overturn any traces of the existence of East African countries. They can cause the fall of East African regimes or the division of countries. However, the cultural system established in East Africa over the past decades can no longer be overturned. This is one of the reasons why East Africa is becoming more and more open to the international community.

To put it simply, no matter how messed up East Africa is, the residue left behind will have the flavor of East Africa. As long as the subsequent East Africans are not exterminated, there will be people thinking about restoring this huge empire.

This is the same as how the first emperor of the Far Eastern Empire completed the unification and reshaped the spirit of the Chinese nation. Just like now the development level of the entire East African country is not high, but it has squeezed into the ranks of powers by relying on its size.

There are many flaws in the shaping of the East African nation, but overall it has been completed. The follow-up is nothing more than repairing these flaws. After thorough running-in, East Africa will be completely mature.

In fact, East Africa has completed the construction of "Spiritual Rome". East Africa has established a huge empire unprecedented in African history. Even if it is divided into pieces in the future, there will be a situation like Europe where Roman orthodoxy is everywhere, and people will seek the "political and cultural heritage" left by the East African Empire.

In the struggle for hegemony between Germany and France, Tsarist Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and Greece all had their own "Roman" plans, because Rome was an unprecedented large empire in European history, and the establishment and expansion of East Africa was a replica of ancient Rome.

Unless a country emerges to unify the entire African continent, the historical achievements made by East Africa on the African continent will never be surpassed in the future.

This is also the political influence that East Africa has achieved unconsciously, and the African political and cultural hegemony that has been gradually established since the Hechingen royal family landed in East Africa.

(End of this chapter)