In the special issue of the Journal of Afroasiatic Languages, History and Culture, volume 9, number 2, we published Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes’ in-depth critique of Belcher and Kleiner’s Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros. This article is a modified version of the foreword which I wrote to Yirga’s review.
Belcher and Kleiner’s book is a translation of the 17th century Ge’ez hagiography of Ethiopian Saint Wälättä Petros. Unfortunately, the book is full of misinterpretations and distortions. Belcher and Kleiner have sought to rewrite African spiritual history in a degrading lens that draws on racial stereotypes.
In order for readers unfamiliar with the Ethiopian context to understand the extent to which Belcher and Kleiner have distorted the facts, Yirga provides compelling insights into Wälättä Petros’ life and the uniquely African form of monasticism that ruled her life.
He then examines the key findings in Belcher and Kleiner’s work, showing how errors of translation as well as deliberate and false insertions and misinterpretation have taken this important African saint out of her spiritual context.
Wälättä Petros is represented as a violent, diseased nun who lusts after her own female followers while finding heterosexual sex so disgusting that she wishes to “kill” heterosexuals. Belcher employs negative stereotypes about Africans, women and LGBT people in her invention of this Ethiopian saint as seemingly unable to control her emotional, lustful and savage nature.
As Yirga’s thorough review shows, Belcher in her subsequent works continues on distortion and misinformation of one of the ancient forms of African Christianity and the monastic life. She tried to portray monasteries as places where people with same sex desire hide.
On the contrary to Belcher’s claim Ethiopian Orthodox Church monasteries are places where monks and nuns—considered dead to this world—lead the strictest form of spiritual life. Just to give a glimpse of this, I will quote Yirga on the first two phases of the three rigorous spiritual paths that people who join the monastery need to pass through (Yirga, p. 144 ff.).
The first phase which will last from three to seven or in some occasions more years is a testing period where “the novice demonstrates their spiritual dedication through long hours of hard work, eating only once a day, helping older monks and nuns, and serving the community” (Yirga, p. 141). As Yirga describes the second phase is a transition to become a monk or nun.
The person closes their ears and eyes and swears in the name of God saying […] “[t]his world is dead to me and I am dead to this world”. The person is placed in a grave or coffin and is tied with [...] a robe normally used to tie a dead body. A funeral rite is then performed as if he or she is dead […] In “dying”, nuns and monks forsake life as we know it, including relationships, family, comfort, and pleasure. Celibacy and humility are the cornerstones of monastic life” (Ibid., p. 142).
Yirga’s article also details problems with Belcher’s methodology, particularly around how she has handled spiritual material, photographed nuns, and ignored local experts. The latter is a concerning issue, as Belcher states in her preface how she willfully ignores local experts on crucial points who did not support her analysis except one who is an ex-monk who left the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (Belcher and Kliener, 2015, p. xxx) most likely for another sect.
For Belcher this person “had the scholarly background necessary to read the anecdote with skill but also the distance to read it openly” (Ibid.). Unlike Belcher’s claim this kind of informant cannot be considered to provide genuine interpretation for the same reason that she mentioned.
It is obvious in human psychology that an apostate often describes his/her former religion in a negative manner to justify her/his disaffiliation. Besides, one cannot be sure whether this lone local informant of Belcher is factual.
The misinterpretation and errors found in the translation may be understandable as the main author of the book, Belcher, lacks knowledge of the source language as she professed. Her co-author does not seem to have the requisite knowledge to take such an important task either. We all make mistakes, and minor errors in translation are of course understandable.
However, Belcher and Kleiner’s work goes beyond simple errors and “innocent” misinterpretations. As Yirga’s thorough review exposes the translation has been distorted in order to fit Belcher’s claims, with words inserted or misinterpreted to twist the meaning. At times, Belcher’s analysis does not appear to have support from her own English translation and she continues ignoring the local experts’ interpretations and advice (see appendix 2, for instance).
Yirga also shows how the essentialization and insertion of ethnic identities into the text have worrying implications for how we understand African history.
Belcher has received criticism in the past for her interpretation of this holy text, though not to the same academic rigor as appears in Yirga’s article. Her previous method for deflecting criticism has been to hide behind the LGBT rights movement.
This is not out of any attempt to stand with LGBT people; rather, it is used as a way to label Africans who criticize her as homophobic and antithetical to progress. As readers of this article will see from the detailed review in this issue, this is not about LGBT issues. It is about bad scholarship.
Yirga’s detailed review is beneficiary not only to adherent of Ethiopian Orthodox church and African people in general who have had their history distorted but also to academics as a whole who expect truth and honesty in academic publications. As anyone who has even a basic knowledge of Ge‘ez can tell, Belcher and Kleiner’s book does not meet even a minimum standard of truthfulness and honesty expected in such publications. It is a miscarriage of scholarship disguised under an academic work.
Girma A. Demeke
