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Newsletter Second Edition — March 2015 of the Africa Issue Highlights Research Letter from the National Intelligence Research and Research Fellowships Initiative University President...... 2 at the National Intelligence Symposium Articles...... 3 University’s Center for Strategic Center for Strategic Intelligence Research...... 35 Intelligence Research Data Corner ...... 26 Africa Research Initiative Report...... 37 CSIR Director Islam in Africa Research Centers...... 27 Regional Expertise and Culture Michael Petersen, PhD Select Scholars who Work on Islam Program, Africa Report...... 39 Michael.petersen@ in Africa...... 28 dodiis.mil, John T . Hughes Library Selected Michael.b.petersen@coe. ic.gov, Bibliography...... 32 (202) 231-5004 Africa Research Initiative ARI Chief Researcher Kris Inman, PhD KRISTIE.Inman2@ dodiis.mil, By Ms. Theresa Whelan, National Intelligence Officer Kristie.Inman2@dodiis. for Africa ic.gov, As we approach the halfway point in the second decade of Symposium (202) 231-5488 the 21st century, the African continent continues to dem- ARI Research Assistant onstrate that it is one of the most dynamic regions on the Islam in Africa Phuong Hoang globe—economically, politically, militarily, and socially . It Phuong.hoang@ remains a study in extremely stark contrasts, with some of Contributions from: dodiis.mil, the highest economic growth rates in the world co-existing Phuong.D.Hoang@coe. with the greatest levels of poverty . Similarly, it boasts Dr. Felicitas Becker ic.gov, greater potential than ever before as a source of natural Dr. Liazzat J.K. Bonate (202) 231-6536 resources that could be leveraged to benefit people on the continent, yet governance limitations, in both management Dr. Kristin Doughty The views expressed in this paper are and span of control, have left the majority of Africans still those of the editor and contributors Dr. Ashley E. Leinweber and do not reflect the official policy living without power and/or easy access to water . Some or position of the United States longstanding civil wars and insurgent conflicts have finally Dr. Sebastian Elischer Government, the Department of been resolved, but new and potentially even more destabi- Defense, or any of its components. Dr. Alice Kang lizing security threats have emerged as technology enables non-state actors—rebels, terrorists, and criminals alike—to Dr. Audra Grant LLIGENC TE E N U pose serious challenges to the integrity and authority of I N I L V A E today’s African states . Although the African independence
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Letter from the President The National Intelligence University: The Center of Academic Life for the Intelligence Community By Dr. David R. Ellison, Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.), President, National Intelligence University
This is an exciting time for the National Intelligence University (NIU), as it begins its second half-century with deep roots and a bright future . Established in 1962, the institution has grown in stature and impact over the years, with a mission, curriculum, and student body that have evolved to meet the increasingly complex challenges to the national security of the United States . Building on more than 50 years of experience delivering rigorous academic programs, NIU today provides career profes- sionals with a rigorous and collaborative joint-learning environment to develop critical thinking and analytical skills, con- duct research on real-world problems, and build trust and mutual understanding that will last a lifetime . Its three degree programs—the Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence, the Master of Science and Technology Intelligence, and the Bachelor of Science in Intelligence—are augmented by a growing number of graduate certificates on specialized topics . In addition to the main campus in Washington, DC, NIU now boasts five academic centers, including the Southern Academic Center in Tampa, Florida, and the European Academic Center at RAF Molesworth in the United Kingdom . The student body has grown to include more than 700 current students from across the U .S . intelligence and national security communities, taught by 149 highly qualified full- and part-time faculty members . I invite you to explore the National Intelligence University website (www .ni-u .edu) . You will find a broad and rigorous curriculum, as well as a growing research program focused on some of the toughest national security challenges . One of the most exciting developments in recent years has been the expansion of NIU contributions to the literature of intelligence and scholarly research conducted by the Center for Strategic Intelligence Research (CSIR) . The newslet- ter you are reading now is one of the results of that expansion . It grows out of NIU’s new Africa Research Initiative, an effort to harness NIU’s research capabilities by both conducting research on security issues related to sub-Saharan Africa and reaching out to academic expertise for support with difficult analytic challenges on the continent . This combination of research conducted on behalf of the Intelligence Community with outreach to academia successfully leverages the strengths of both by bringing in important scholarly voices to official discussions on global security . The research featured in this newsletter also resonates well in the classroom . It exposes students to cutting-edge work conducted by top-flight scholars in academia and the Intelligence Community . Ultimately, research like this will inform policy and analysis, as NIU’s students go on to serve the United States in a wide variety of positions in the military and civilian agencies . In addition, NIU takes very seriously its mission of contributing its own scholarly research on key regions and issues . NIU faculty members produce, publish, and present a broad and diverse array of research, including work on Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, cyber issues, and science and technology . Much of the research NIU pro- duces has made a positive contribution to intelligence, national security, and policymaking circles . My vision for NIU is to serve as the center of academic life for the Intelligence Community . In this position, it can encourage, develop, and promote the natural analytic ties between academia and the Intelligence Community . In my experience, IC personnel derive great benefit from the tremendous subject matter expertise found in academia, and promoting ties between the two is in the best interests of the nation as a whole . NIU therefore serves many purposes . It provides a first-class education to U.S . Intelligence Community personnel, fosters and encourages top-flight research on national and global security issues, and forges connections to academia by reaching out to universities around the country and the world . This is indeed an exciting time for the university . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 3
Symposium Articles Islam in Africa Radical Rhetoric and Real-Life Pragmatism in East African Islam, by Dr . Felicitas Becker...... 3 Between Da’wa and Development: Three Transnational Islamic Nongovernmental Organizations in Mozambique, 1980–2010, by Dr . Liazzat J .K . Bonate ...... 7 Stories of Resistance: Muslims in the Rwandan Genocide, by Dr . Kristin Doughty...... 11 Islam in Congo: A Minority’s Journey from Colonial Repression to Post-conflict Organization, by Dr . Ashley E . Leinweber ...... 14 The Management of Salafi Activity in Africa: African State Strategies and their Consequences in the Sahel, by Dr . Sebastian Elischer ...... 17 The Politics of Women’s Rights in Muslim Countries: An Illustration from Niger, by Dr . Alice Kang...... 20 Evolving Sufi Organizations in North Africa, by Dr . Audra Grant...... 23
Radical Rhetoric and Real-Life rhetoric is far more widespread than the commitment Pragmatism in East African Islam to violent action . There are strong countervailing forces to violent radicalization in East Africa . Unfortunately, By Dr. Felicitas Becker, University Lecturer in African there is no good way of distinguishing armchair radicals History, Cambridge University, [email protected] from actual ones, and kneejerk reactions against the for- mer would be unhelpful . Compared to the drawn-out battle with Al-Shabaab occurring in the Horn of Africa, violent Islamic radi- The Westgate Mall attack was not the first terror attack in calism is much less active in East Africa (defined here the region . East Africa was put on the map as a theater of as Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) . But the attack on Islamist terrorism by the 1998 U .S . Embassy bombings the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013 in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi . The attacks killed over highlighted the threat of the region getting caught up in 200 people, the vast majority of them Kenyans with no Al-Shabaab’s vortex of violence . Nonetheless, while the connection to the embassy, and first brought Osama Bin possibility of an increase in violent religious conflict is Laden and Al-Qaeda to the attention of a wider Western real, there is reason to think violence will remain limited . public . In 2010, Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the bombing of a bar in Kampala, Uganda, that killed The position of Islamists and the likelihood of their over 70 patrons watching a televised World Cup soccer turning violent must be assessed separately, in politi- game . Evidently, international Islamist terrorism is able cal context, for each country in the region . Moreover, to use East Africa as a staging ground . But this is hardly the salience of radical, at times jihadist, rhetoric in East surprising, as major terrorist attacks have occurred even Africa should not be taken too readily as a predictor in European countries with small Muslim minorities and of events . For reasons of culture and politics, radical no chance of major Muslim-Christian confrontations . 4 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Grassroots Muslin Communities: In Tanzania, Muslims make up a higher percentage of A Different Picture the population; their leaders would argue that they are in the majority . Hard information on this point is unob- The activities of these international networks, then, tell tainable, but they are certainly at least a third of the us little about the state of grassroots Muslim communi- population . Except on the Zanzibar Islands, their ethnic ties in East Africa . If we consider those, a different and affiliations are less important than in Kenya . Over the very diverse picture emerges . South Asian Shia minori- last decade, the presence of Salafi reformists in Tanzania, ties coexist with predominantly Shafiite African Mus- which caused a good deal of disquiet among Muslims lims, some of whom are affiliated with Sufi orders, and and Christians since the 1980s, has lost its novelty value . all of them live side by side with no less diverse Christian Overall, the incidence of communal violence has actually communities 1. All governments in the region combine declined relative to a peak around the year 2000, though official secularism and commitment to freedom of wor- 2013 saw a new spike with unrest around a rumored des- ship with strong support for organized religion and its ecration of the Quran . role in civil society 2. As Muslims are keenly aware, the upper levels of administration and politics are domi- The exception to the relatively calm picture is the Zanzibar nated by Christians . Nevertheless, in this multi-religious archipelago, where the uamsho (awakening) movement setting, coexistence, not conflict, is the default 3. of Muslim preachers has inherited the mantle of political opposition from the Islamist Civic United Front party, The region’s historical Muslim heartland, on the Swahili which has been co-opted into the government . Here, the coast, is divided between a Kenyan north and a Tanza- distinction between “real” Zanzibaris and recent immi- nian south . Islamic political mobilization proceeded grants has taken on great political importance . Separat- separately in the two countries, reflecting the different ists demand the dissolution of the union between the concerns and methods of the two political systems . In islands and the mainland and portray the islands’ Islamic Kenya, Muslims remain concentrated on the coast, in the identity as under threat from mainland influence . Pro- Somali northeast, and in enclaves scattered across rural tests regularly turn violent, and government repression districts and the capital . While Muslim activists claim is heavy handed, with election manipulation, large-scale up to 30 percent of the population, other observers put arrests, “disappearances,” and disregard for the judicial the numbers between 10 and 20 percent . In keeping with process taking place . the high degree of politicization of ethnic identities in Kenya, Muslims are closely identified with certain ethnic In Uganda, Muslims lack both the numerical strength groups, above all Somali and Swahili, both of which have they have in Tanzania (they form about 12 percent of the produced separatist movements in the past . population) and the deep historical and cultural roots they have on the Swahili coast . Sidelined since their defeat The separatist movement of the coast had petered out in a religious civil war in the late 19th century, they are after independence in 1963, and Muslim discontent only only marginally represented in government and higher took political shape again in the 1990s as the Islamic Party education . Association with the discredited regime of Idi of Kenya . After some communal violence, this party fell Amin and the strong influence of American evangelicals prey to a mixture of official repression and internal disor- in the country marginalize them further . In recent years, ganization . Since then, Muslim discontent has flared up occasional violent confrontations have often focused on in occasional violence, especially around elections, and conversion from Islam to Christianity . mostly in the main coastal city, Mombasa . That city was also the site of operations of radical clerics in the recent One factor that unites Muslim radicals across the region past, the best known of whom, Aboud Rogo, was assas- is a narrative of Muslim victimhood . Given the very real sinated in 2012 . In keeping with the violent undercurrent connections between Christianization and the kind of in Kenya’s political culture, such targeted assassinations formal education that facilitates access to higher admin- and the street violence that typically follows them have istrative jobs—and the consequent dominance of Chris- become regular events in the last few years . tians in this sphere—Muslims’ sense of disadvantage is in some ways well founded . In a context of widespread, ARI Newsletter, March 2015 5
persistent poverty, access to government resources and education 5. Former Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi influence constitutes a significant privilege . Moreover, contrived to make an elaborate ideology out of nyayoism the association between Christianity and colonialism (nyayo being “footprints” in Swahili), insisting that he enables them to think of Islam as the historical and more would follow in the footprints of his deceased predeces- authentically African religion . The most elaborate nar- sor Jomo Kenyatta . rative of victimhood focuses on Zanzibar, where people with no historical links to its former Omani elite now This kind of hyperbolic speech is not meant to be fol- identify with the bitterness over this elite’s dispossession lowed to the letter; its usefulness lies partly in its vague- in the 1964 revolution and the subsequent unification ness . Sometimes rhetorical consensus is built around with mainland Tanzania 4. commitments that the participants know will not be kept, as the anthropologist Angelique Haugerud has described Interpreting Radical Rhetoric for the anti-beer-brewing campaigns at the beginning of Moi’s presidency 6. Islamist rhetoric partakes in this Potential sources of Christian-Muslim conflict, then, are political culture, where assertive claims can be used to get not hard to find . Muslim preachers, whose sermons are heard, claim public space, and assert loyalties, rather than traded across the region by DVD and audio tape and to prescribe action . For outside observers, it can be hard made available online in major urban centers, appear to to tell whether this kind of speech will be acted upon . confirm the problem . They are vocal about the disadvan- tages Muslims face, their lack of political scope, and the Generational Conflict unwelcome interference by governments, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations in Adding to the difficulty of assessing radical rhetoric their community affairs . Occasionally, they appear to is the political salience of generational conflict in East defend jihad, and typically they defend a deeply patri- Africa . It encourages a form of youth radicalism that archal vision of society based on the application of their is ultimately self-limiting . Elaborate age-grade systems understanding of Sharia law . characterize particularly the pastoralist (nomadic and cattle-keeping) societies of East Africa . But for agricul- But outside observers must be careful to consider how tural societies, too, younger men’s desperation to acquire these preachers’ claims are actually understood, used, the wherewithal to establish themselves as elders (heads and lived by their audiences, and how they inform, or fail of large households with large fields) has been shown to to inform, their listeners’ actions . There are at least three have fed the Mau Mau violent anti-colonial activism in reasons why it would be a mistake to take these preach- Kenya .7 Similarly, in the mid-2000s, I found young Mus- ers too literally . One of them is East Africa’s tradition of lim radicals, lacking land and opportunity to establish hyperbolic political speech . Another is the connection themselves as household heads, praising the example between this radical rhetoric and generational conflict, of an early companion of the Prophet who killed his and a third is the listeners’ pragmatic resignation to liv- own father in battle 8. This did not imply that they were ing in an imperfect world . getting ready to murder their parents; it was a way to demonstratively reject paternal authority . Speech Traditions As with many radical causes, for a significant number First, colorful and at times threatening political rhetoric of adherents, Islamic radicalism is a “phase” that they has been a feature of politics in the region since before will outgrow as they find other ways to make lives for independence . Even Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, known for themselves . Nevertheless, it is possible that one or two his relatively low-key, didactic style, described his nation of the perhaps three dozen young radicals that I heard as being “at war” for progress against poverty, ignorance, discussing the example of the Prophet’s follower have and illness . During preparations for independence, a since taken further steps into the world of Islamist ter- sheikh on the Kenyan coast warned his co-religionists, ror . Even the most astute observer is unlikely to have only half-jokingly, that they risked being enslaved and predicted who those one or two would be . This makes sold by Christians if they did not catch up in formal preventative action extremely difficult . 6 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Beliefs Tempered by Pragmatism the latest in a long line of grand political projects that East Africans have encountered since the mid-20th cen- The third point is perhaps the most important and the tury . Nationalism and socialism, planned or market-led most complicated . It is possible to hold certain views development, and revivalist Christianity have all offered quite genuinely but nevertheless not seek to live them . their own versions of a shining future 10. None of them Moreover, this is not just hypocrisy; it is based on the has quite come to pass, and skepticism of promises of recognition that “this is just not the world we live in ”. For societal transformation has become deeply entrenched . example, in Dar es Salaam, two young women worked as Some observers make much of Africans’ tendency to housemaids in middle-class households and at the same reason religiously about political problems, but they are time strongly endorsed the views of a cleric who insists as likely to reason soberly and quite realistically 11. that women should not work outside their own homes . They were typical rural-urban migrants, very poor and Some, particularly among the young, will reject others’ subject to the long hours, harsh discipline, and low pay resignation to the imperfections of human society, and that characterize domestic employment . they are the ones most likely to turn violent . But it would take very accomplished and very cynical demagoguery These women gave no indication that holding these jobs to make inter-religious tension win out against the part- weighed on their conscience . The reason they worked, as dogged, part-enlightened pragmatism that helps most they put it, was ugumu wa maisha, “the hardship of life ”. people survive . The potential for this to happen is great- Given their families’ economic needs, they simply had est in the Zanzibar archipelago, where Islamism mixes no alternative . To them, their favorite cleric’s inveigh- with separatism and cultural nationalism . Here, the tiny ing against women’s work was less about a prohibition Christian minority would be bound to suffer, but the than it was about the prospect of not having to work . It main line of conflict runs between pro-independence evoked the hope for a different, easier life without imply- and “unionist” Muslims . ing that such a life was actually possible . Similarly, when Muslim preachers invoke the ideal of a perfectly Islamic Notes society, with all the differential rights and strictures such a society would entail for different creeds and genders, 1 There is no one comprehensive study on contempo- most listeners will take them as utopian . The world the rary East African Islam . For Kenya, see Arye Oded, preachers depict, then, is something to be striven toward Islam and Politics in Kenya (Boulder, CO, and London: within the limits of the listeners’ possibilities rather than Lynne Rienner, 2000); for Uganda, see Arye Oded, to be realized to the letter . (It should also be noted that Islam in Uganda (London: Transaction Publishers, the preachers’ views themselves are very diverse, with the 1974); for Tanzania, see August Nimtz, Islam and majority opposed to violent action and many relatively Politics in East Africa: The Sufi Orders in Tanzania moderate on issues such as women’s rights .) (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), and Felicitas Becker, Becoming Muslim in Mainland Two factors in particular encourage this pragmatic Tanzania, 1890–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, approach to grand religio-political projects . The first is 2008) . On Christianity, see Thomas Spear and Isariah the networked, interdependent character of social life . Kimambo, East African Expressions of Christianity Ordinary East Africans depend heavily on family, neigh- (Oxford: James Currey, 1999) . borhood, and personal networks to smooth over a myriad 2 of smaller and larger economic shocks . These networks On Tanzania, see David Westerlund, Ujamaa na dini often cut across religious boundaries and always demand (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1980), and Frider a great deal of tolerance . Family and other close relation- Ludwig, Church and State in Tanzania (Leiden: Brill, ships sometimes fall far short of cherished ideals yet have 1999) . On Kenya, see Galia Sabar, Church, State and to be handled with great tact and patience . Difficult com- Society in Kenya: From Mediation to Opposition, 1963– promises are routine in these contexts .9 1993 (London: Frank Cass, 2002) . On the region as a whole, see Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle, The second factor is the listeners’ experience with the eds ., Religion and Politics in East Africa: The Period since obsolescence of political utopias . Islamic utopias are but Independence (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995) . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 7
3 On Muslim views of their place in the political system, Between Da’wa and Development: see Roman Loimeier, “Perceptions of Marginalisation,” Three Transnational Islamic in Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa, ed . Benjamin Soares and Rene Otayek (London: Palgrave, 2007) . On Nongovernmental Organizations in Muslim-Christian coexistence, see Bruce Heilman and Mozambique, 1980–2010 Paul Kaiser, “Religion, Identity and Politics in Tanzania,” By Dr. Liazzat J.K. Bonate, Assistant Professor, History Third World Quarterly 230 (2002): 691–709 . of Africa, Seoul National University, liazbonate@snu. ac.kr 4 On this revolution and the violence that accompanied it, see Jonathon Glassman, War of Words, War of Stones: The expansion and influence of transnational Islamic Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Mozambique (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011) . On the since the end of the civil war in 1992 have been consider- sense of dispossession, see Loimeier, “Perceptions of able . The three most influential such NGOs in Mozam- Marginalisation,” and Roman Loimeier, Between Social bique between the 1980s and 2010 have been the Muslim Skills and Marketable Skills: The Politics of Islamic World League (ar-Rabita al-Alami al-Islami, known as Education in 20th Century Zanzibar (Leiden: Brill, 2009) . Rabita in Mozambique), Africa Muslim Agency (AMA, 5 Kai Kresse, Philosophising in Mombasa (Edinburgh: Lajnat Muslimi Ifriqyia), and the World Islamic Call Edinburgh University Press, 2007) . Society (WICS, Al-Da’wa al Islamiyya) . 6 Angelique Haugerud, The Culture of Politics in Mod- Launching of the NGOs ern Kenya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Mozambique experienced a widespread surge of civil 1995) . society organizations in the 1990s, prompted by the 1987 7 Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley: introduction of the International Monetary Fund/World Conflict in Kenya and Africa, 2 vols . (Oxford: James Bank–sponsored Structural Adjustment Program (known Currey, 1993) . locally as the Economic Recovery Program) to tackle economic decline, the end of civil war in 1992, and espe- 8 Felicitas Becker, “Rural Islamism during the ‘War on cially the first democratic general elections in 1994, when Terror’: A Tanzanian Case Study,” African Affairs 105 the Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front) government (2006): 583–603 . declared development as its political mainstay .1 Although 9 On survival in urban Dar es Salaam during structural a few NGOs, such as World Vision International (1983), adjustment, see Aili Mari Tripp, Changing the Rules: Oxfam International (1984), Medecines Sans Frontieres The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal (1984), and Care International (1986), arrived during the Economy in Tanzania (Berkeley: University of Califor- civil war (1976–1992) to address the refugees’ situation nia Press, 1997) . and other war-related crises, the number of NGOs in the country in the early 1990s soared to 200 . On the surface, 10 From among a sizable literature, see especially Derek the rise of the Islamic NGOs in Mozambique, as in the Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival rest of Africa, seems to have happened in tandem with (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), and that of other civil society organizations, which emerged Susan Geiger, TANU Women (Portsmouth, NH: Heine- in response to the poor performance of the post-colonial mann, 1997) . state and the generalized economic stagnation of the 2 11 On African views of politics as intrinsically religious, continent in the 1980s . While this point might be con- see Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power sidered correct to some extent, the three NGOs analyzed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) . here reveal that the political context and the objectives of the Mozambican government were instrumental for the emergence of Rabita, while AMA and WICS surfaced as a result of inter-Muslim competition in the country . At the same time, Rabita appeared before any Christian, and probably any secular, NGO did . 8 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
In 1980, the Saudi-based Rabita began negotiating opposed Mangira’s religio-ideological outlook quickly with the Frelimo government for ways to facilitate the unveiled and registered their own organization, the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina) for Mozam- Islamic Sunni Congress of Mozambique . The Frelimo, bican Muslims 3. At the time, the government was still under severe pressure to divert Muslims from support- pursuing a socialist economic model that banned asso- ing the Renamo by letting them perform the hajj, was not ciations and thus did not allow any form of civil society, interested in meddling in inter-Muslim squabbling . By including NGOs . In addition, the government actively the time Mangira went to register his organization, the persecuted all forms of religiosity, be they institutional, government had already introduced the Islamic Sunni personal, or communal, since its adoption of the official Congress of Mozambique as the official national Islamic Marxist-Leninist ideology in 1977 . The Frelimo’s major organization to Rabita, which began organizing the hajj concern in 1980 was the raging civil war spearheaded by through the Islamic Congress . the Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance) move- ment . The belief that northern Mozambican Muslims While Mangira’s Islamic Council eventually became a were channeling their discontent with the government mouthpiece of Islamism in Mozambique and a central- to Muslim countries, which in turn were aiding resur- ized top-down organization disseminating funds from gent opposition groups such as Renamo, precipitated the center in Maputo to the peripheries of the coun- Frelimo’s dealings with Rabita . But in order to accom- try, the Congress agglomerated a group of associations modate Rabita’s concerns, the Frelimo government had and confraternities, such as Sufi orders and the Indian to tackle three problems: there was no nationwide Mus- Sunni association called Comunidade Moametana, each lim organization through which to channel funds for the of which led a quasi-autonomous legal and financial hajj, the official policy was still anti-religious, and there existence (though traditionally the Indian Comunidade were no legal instruments dealing with religious bodies, offered some material support to African Sufi breth- let alone NGOs . ren) . Mangira apparently felt let down and subsequently embarked upon a competition with the congress for The Frelimo began by launching a national Islamic the patronage of the Frelimo party as well as of the umbrella organization . In January 1981, the state officials international Islamic organizations . In response to the and a group of Maputo imams inaugurated the Islamic Congress’s alleged association with Rabita, the Council Council of Mozambique and elected Abubacar Ismael secured a visit of the Secretary General of the AMA of “Mangira,” of Indian ancestry, as its co-coordinator Kuwait in July 1984, which paved the way for a very inti- (and later its national secretary) 4. A decisive point in his mate and long-term cooperation between the AMA and favor was his background as a graduate of the Islamic the Council .5 University of Medina . Local Muslims dubbed Mangira a Wahhabi and viewed him as someone who pursued Escalating the rivalry further, the Congress in 1984 “purification” of local Islam through conflicts with Sufis, established relationships with the Islamic World Fed- whom he consistently called “ignoramuses” and propo- eration, World Muslim Congress, and Muslim World nents of bid’a (abominable religious innovations) . He Relief, while the Council began collaborating with the unsuccessfully sought to collaborate with the colonial Southern African Islamic Youth Conference and the regime but managed to win over the post-independence Islamic Development Bank in 1985 and with Al-Azhar state officials . and WICS in 1986 6. It is surprising that WICS was close to the Islamist-oriented Council, despite Muammar As a way of overcoming the other two problems, the Fre- Qaddafi’s purported abhorrence of Islamism and sympa- limo radically changed its policy toward religion in 1982 thy to Sufism . It disbursed funds to the Islamic Council and let religious organizations operate freely as long as to support the hajj and gave scholarships to study at its they were registered with the newly established Depart- Tripoli-based Kuliyat al-Da’wa college throughout the ment for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Justice . late 1980s up until 1993, when its activities in Mozam- The expectation was that Mangira’s government-backed bique were stalled due to United Nations sanctions Islamic Council would be registered with the Depart- against Libya, according to the NGO’s officers inter- ment for Religious Affairs . However, Muslims who viewed in 2009 . WICS reopened its office in Maputo in ARI Newsletter, March 2015 9
1999 following Qaddafi’s turn to Africa, when he pro- center of this type of violence to the point that many claimed the death of his pan-Arabism and the beginning families were split because of their differences . Another of his wider involvement in the continent, the move he public manifestation of the conflict has been the “Moon linked to his particular brand of pan-Africanism 7. This Issue,” regarding the exact time to start and end fasting resulted in the rapprochement between the Mozambican (during the month of Ramadan) . While the Islamists government and Libya . normally begin fasting after the radio or TV announce- ment from Mecca, Sufis uphold the more traditional way Da’wa and Development of following the movement of the moon .
All three NGOs considered here emerged primarily as After the end of the civil war in 1992, both Rabita and da’wa (Islamic proselytizing) missionary societies that AMA focused more on humanitarian actions that were aimed at explaining principles and teachings of Islam coordinated with the Mozambican government, although and addressing the welfare of Muslims . Islamic chari- the old da’wa campaigns also continued . The main rea- table work is generally considered a form of da’wa “and son for this transformation was the economic liberaliza- part of [a] broader struggle to achieve more Islamic tion and the Structural Adjustment, but the emergence (and therefore more just) society ”. 8 The ideological out- of both secular and Christian NGOs that became promi- looks of both Rabita and AMA are close to Islamism . nent and often efficient in emergency relief operations, As Egbert Harmsen puts it, “In the more conservative humanitarian aid, and development projects was also a Islamist view . . a . truly pious life leads to social harmony . factor . Along with their developmentalist agenda, some Islam stands for what is good, hence working for better Christian NGOs undertook proselytization in rural and social environment is often perceived first and foremost economically disadvantaged communities, including in Islamic terms ”. 9 the historically Muslim ones, which alarmed Muslims . In 1993, Rabita stopped collaborating directly with Until 1993, Rabita had an office with only one person, AMA (allegedly because of its corruption) and with the the country representative in Mozambique, and worked Congress (because of its reliance on Sufis) but continued through both the Council and the Congress as well as a close relationship with the Islamic Council . The same the AMA by organizing and financing the hajj, building year, Rabita signed an agreement with the Mozambican mosques and madrasas, distributing free copies of the state on emergency relief assistance, whereby the NGO Qur’an and other Islamic literature, and training Muslim was to donate money and goods—including food and teachers, leaders, imams, and legal experts, who were sanitation, medical-surgical instruments, seeds, water also sent for education in Islamic institutions, universi- supply equipment, and medicine—in emergency and ties, and advanced seminaries in Saudi Arabia . In 1986, natural disaster situations 11. The other donated goods the Indian Comunidade Maometana left the Congress were to be distributed to commercial establishments and became a separate organization oriented toward to be sold in order to generate funds . The Mozambican Indian Sufi centers and South Africa . Although the Con- government offered tax exemptions and took responsi- gress continued receiving financial support from Rabita, bility for organizing the distribution of the donations its economic base was considerably weakened . and for coordinating the relief operations . Meanwhile, the Council and AMA grew ever closer, and AMA’s aid and relief efforts to local populations were in some parts of Mozambique, they were perceived as small-scale until the late 1990s, when the organization one and the same organization 10. The predominance of decided that the scope of da’wa should be more compre- Islamism in these two organizations aggravated internal hensive and include development projects to raise the conflicts among Muslims that had been latent since the standard of living of Africans in general and Muslims in colonial period . The ideological discord between Sufis particular . In 1999, the NGO changed its name to Direct and the Islamists often ended in physical violence, police Aid International to highlight its focus on humanitarian intervention, and imprisonment of the protagonists relief efforts, and in Mozambique it signed an agreement of the conflicts . Funerals and related rituals of ziyara with the government to coordinate related activities . (pilgrimage) and dhikr (ritual prayer) were often at the 10 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
WICS had similar da’wa visions and activities as Rabita proficiency in Islamic religious teachings, and most of and AMA, despite also disseminating the idiosyncratic the people who have a university degree in Islamic stud- thoughts of Colonel Qaddafi (in particular his Green ies in Mozambique are graduates of Saudi universities, Book) and sending students to study in the Society’s col- although there are a small number of graduates of Libyan, lege in Tripoli . In the late 2000s, although the Green Book Sudanese, and Egyptian Islamic establishments as well . and other examples of Qaddafi’s works were still present Third, from the Islamic perspective, it is an act of char- in the library of the NGO, the stress was on learning the ity to hire these graduates because even they have few Qur’an and the Arabic language . Because of its association job opportunities in a country in which Islamic religious with the Islamic Council, WICS in Mozambique was anti- education is not widely sought or that does not have a Sufi and generally pro-Salafist . Its local office was staffed great job market, as Muslims make up only 18 percent of with graduates of the Saudi universities, whom the NGO the total population . And finally, the Islamists share the left to define the contents of their proselytizing message . emancipatory and developmentalist view of Islam that is an underlying principle of all three transnational Islamic In 2010, the developmental work of all three NGOs NGOs discussed here . As Bjørn Olav Utvik argues: revolved around charitable works for the poor and vul- nerable, which they coordinated with the government of The Islamist interpretation of the social message Mozambique and United Nations agencies . To sum up of Islam is conducive to economic development, their activities, all three built houses for the poor, opened and reminiscent of the Protestant ethics that Max wells, supported at least one association of people liv- Weber saw as propitious to capitalist development of ing with HIV/AIDS and one orphanage, gave a monthly European guiding principle . . . . Mainstream Islamists stipend for schooling and basic needs to orphaned chil- are pro-modern stressing the need for economic and 12 dren, provided sewing classes for poor women, built technological development. schools, classrooms, and clinics, and contributed to gov- ernment emergency relief operations during disasters . At Notes the request of Muslims, all three NGOs built mosques 1 Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots? and madrasas, offered classes on Islam and the Arabic (London: James Currey, 1991); International Monetary language, distributed free Islamic literature (especially Fund, “Republic of Mozambique: Enhanced Structural the Qur’an), sponsored children and youth at schools Adjustment Facility Policy Framework Paper for April and universities both abroad and in country, and offered 1999–March 2002,” available at
5 Archives of the Department for Religious Affairs, the Stories of Resistance: Muslims in the Ministry of Justice of Mozambique, Maputo, Conselho Rwandan Genocide Islâmico de Moçambique, “Visita do Secretário Geral de Africa Muslims Committee de Kuwait,” no . 123/SG/84, By Dr. Kristin Doughty, Assistant Professor of Maputo, July 30, 1984 . Anthropology, University of Rochester, Kristen. [email protected] 6 Archives of the Department for Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Justice of Mozambique, Maputo, “Sintese de On an afternoon in November 2002, I met with nearly 50 Encontro o Ministro da Justiça e Elementos do Con- Rwandan men and women in a mosque on the edge of gresso Islâmico,” Maputo, September 9, 1984; “Conselho Lake Mugesera in Rwanda’s Eastern Province . Over sev- Islâmico estabeleceu relações com a Southern African eral hours, they described to me and my colleague how Islamic Youth Conference da África do Sul,” 60/SG/85; the genocide had unfolded there 8 years earlier and told “Conselho Islâmico fez contactos com o Banco Islâmico us about the acts of heroism at the mosque that punctu- de Desenvolvimento,” August 3, 1985, 522/DAR .MJ/985; ated the horrific violence . This conversation was part of “Conselho Islâmico de Moçambique tornou-se benefi- 2 weeks of interviews we conducted in Rwanda on behalf ciente de todas as despesas de hajj pagas pela Jamiya of the Collaborative for Development Action (now called al-Da’wa Islamiyya al-Alamiya de Libya,” 142/SG/1986, the CDA Collaborative Learning Projects) . Our work Maputo, July 28, 1986; “Conselho Islâmico obteve was part of the Steps toward Conflict Prevention Project, bolsas atraves da sua congenere de Cairo, Egipto, para which gathered case studies from around the world to a Universidade al-Azhar,” 66/SG/86, April 15, 1986; comparatively analyze how people in the midst of con- “Conselho Islâmico assinou acordos com Jamiyyar flicts find strategies to avoid or resist violence . During al-Da’wa e a Universidade de Al-Azhar,” 111/SG/86, our research in Rwanda, we sought to learn more about June 11, 1986 . a widespread perception that Muslims, who represent approximately 10 percent of the population, had played 7 Asteris Hulaius, “Qadhafi’s Comeback: Libya and a disproportionately small role during the genocide . We Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s,” African Affairs no . conducted 20 individual interviews and 4 group inter- 100 (2001): 5–25; Hussein Solomon and Gerrie Swart, views (of 30, 45, 50, and 14 people each) in areas across “Libya’s Foreign Policy in Flux,” African Affairs no . 104/ Rwanda . The interviews were conducted in Kinyarwanda 416 (2005): 469–492 . and French, in people’s homes, offices, and mosques . We 8 Martin van Bruinessen, “Islamic Development and spoke with men and women, religious leaders, and con- Islamic Charities,” ISIM Review 20 (Autumn 2007): 5 . gregants, including both Muslims and non-Muslims . 9 Egbert Harmsen, “Between Empowerment and Our case study has since been published, along with the Paternalism,” ISIM Review 20 (Autumn 2007): 11 . other case examples and cross-cutting analysis by Mary Anderson and Marshall Wallace, in Opting Out of War: 10 Liazzat J . K . Bonate, “L’Agence des musulmans Strategies to Prevent Violent Conflict (Lynne Rienner d’Afrique . Les transformations de l’islam à Pemba au Press, 2012) . The book analyzes strategies through which Mozambique,” Afrique Contemporaine no . 231 (2009): 13 communities were able to exempt themselves from 63–80 . participating in surrounding violence, and develops a 11 Acordo Geral de Cooperação para a Ajuda de generalized approach for inventing strategies to prevent Emergência entre o Governo da República de Moçam- conflict . Anderson and Wallace note, for example, the bique e a Liga Mundial Islâmica, No . 01/MCOOP/ importance of communities anticipating conflict, main- 0987/1993 . taining services and internal order, and engaging with armed groups . Here, I revisit the stories people told us 12 Bjørn Olav Utvik, “Development as Divinely in describing the actions of Muslims in Rwanda during Imposed Duty,” ISIM Review 20 (Autumn 2007): 16–17 . the genocide . I present these narratives as a deliberate counterpoint to contemporary framings in much of the Western imagination that conflate Islam with violence . These stories, however brief, serve as powerful examples 12 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
where Islam is allied with saving lives, creating inclusive outside . The group which was based at Kibagabaga solidarity, and eschewing political violence . mosque used to organize rescue operation[s] for their Tutsi neighbors who were attacked by Interahamwe mili- The story of the Rwandan genocide is by now well known . tia from outside, and brought them to join the mosque When President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane was shot group . The mosque group, for example, managed to res- down on April 6, 1994, the government responded with cue one girl of their Tutsi neighbor and his cow which an immediate and carefully orchestrated effort to eradi- was going to be butchered . cate the Tutsi population, along with any of its political opposition, the final step in a desperate attempt to main- “Then came members of the Presidential Guards . They tain political and economic power . The Rwandan Patri- obliged the mosque group to divide itself into Hutus and otic Front (RPF), which had come to an uneasy truce Tutsis . A man called Hamza was leading the resistance with the government in late 1993 after 3 years of civil war, and manning the main gate . He boldly resisted the idea broke their ceasefire and took up arms to stop the geno- of separation between Hutus and Tutsis . The Presidential cide . For several months, normal life was suspended, and Guards pleaded with the Hutus telling them they have violence and fear reigned . Militias and civilians attacked nothing to fear . Hamza refused . They sent a bullet in his with guns and traditional weapons, killing people indi- forehead and started to shoot randomly in the crowd . vidually and en masse where they sought safety in People died there and those who escaped ran away in schools and churches . Hundreds of thousands of people different directions . Even after the mosque attack in took to the roads on foot in hopes of escaping the chaos, Kibagabaga, Muslims continued to protect and take care as the RPF and government forces battled for control of for Tutsis . Even today one can find people who survived the country . Approximately 800,000 people were killed thanks to this kind organization ”. 1 over just a few months . The social fabric was shredded . In Rwamagana, they told us: “Rwamagana Muslims tried The stories people told us in November 2002 were con- to protect their quarter, and non-Muslims who managed sistent with the now-extensive archive and literature to take refuge there survived . At Rwamagana, there were (films, books, poems, autobiographies, and trial tran- actions to fight killings . People attacked and destroyed scripts) about people’s experiences during the genocide, the residence of an Interahamwe militia who tried to in terms of how periods of horror were punctuated by introduce killings in Rwamagana . Once, militiamen moments of humanity . What we want to emphasize in came to kill people in Rwamagana’s Islamic quarter and the following excerpts is how, for many people, Muslim Muslims who were not even of the same ethnic group sacred spaces and forms of identity were crucial to how nor of the same religion as the targeted people organized they found the courage to resist . a defense to protect them . Someone called Ndahiro and his family, for example, were protected by a Mus- In Kibagabaga, they told us: “Kibagabaga Muslims of all lim resistance group, and his children who were about ethnic groups refused any kind of division and remained to be thrown in a toilet were rescued . The councilor of united . Then Muslims and targeted non-Muslims gath- Rwikubo sector in Rwamagana launched an appeal to his ered in the mosque compound under the Muslims’ population that he wanted to see Tutsi bodies all over the leadership . When the Interahamwe [Hutu paramilitary place, and Muslims living in that sector organized burial organization] militia tried to grab Tutsis, every time all ceremonies for banana trunks, and told him that they the people there shouted for them to go away, telling had well accomplished the task ”. 2 them as one voice that there was no Tutsi, no Hutu, and that they were all the same, simply human beings . Every In Mabare, they told us: “When the killings began, Mabare time that the Interahamwe came, the group strongly Muslims fought them in the spirit of protecting mankind; resisted . People who managed to escape from different some of them even lost their lives there and their mosque churches also came and joined the mosque group . was destroyed . The Councilor of Mabare Sector helped the brave Muslims such as Saidi Ndangiza who died as a “Kibagabaga Hutus used to go looking for food for their hero sacrificing himself for others . When Mugesera Com- protected Tutsis who were not allowed to go or appear mune residents started killing Tutsi throwing them in ARI Newsletter, March 2015 13
Mugesera Lake, a group of Mabare Muslims immediately of people who self-identified as Muslims and who drew took their pirogue and went to pick those not yet dead out on that religious identity and doctrine to shape social of water . They even took Mugesera men’s pirogues using behavior during the genocide . Further research could them in that rescue operation and a strong quarrel arouse delve more deeply into the robustness and constraints of between the two opposite hills . There were many brave collective solidarity among Muslims in Rwanda . people who were convinced that they should not allow people to be killed . Second, some have argued that these stories have to be understood as similar to acts of courage by others who “Many Tutsis at risk came to Mabare because we were were not Muslim and that therefore the role of Islam is able to protect them, but we still asked ourselves, why negligible . Indeed, there are prevalent stories of people were people heading to the mosque and not to the who risked their lives to save people during the genocide, churches? We used to gather all the provisions of food whether highlighted at genocide memorials or remarked at the mosque . Some ran away and betrayed the group, upon in gacaca testimony, and those are equally impor- telling to the opponents what kind of arms the group had tant to publicize and celebrate . I do not suggest that the and then serious gun attacks began . The members of the acts of resistance above were uniquely possible through resistance group who survived continued to rescue dying Muslim forms of social solidarity . At the same time, it people and when they recovered normal life they were is important to consider that while across the country, directed to safer places . Sensitization for peace contin- churches were sites of massacres, mosques seem not to ued among the group members appealing them to leave have been to the same degree . This is likely connected aside killing ideology ”. 3 to the historically marginalized position of Muslims as a group in Rwanda, which perhaps meant that the con- Why these Muslims chose to resist and protect others can flicting parties did not see them as a threat, which in be analyzed in many complex ways, which hinge in part turn perhaps created more space for action, even though on what it means to be “Muslim” and what the “Muslim eventually, as the examples show, the Presidential Guard community” is and was, especially under conditions of arrived with overwhelming force . disaggregation associated with violence . Without con- clusively addressing those questions here, it is impor- Ultimately, I offer these empirical examples as a counter- tant to note that people repeatedly told us that “we, as narrative to the broader global discourse that often con- Muslims, said that Muslims have no ethnic identity ”. This flates Islam with violence, while naming acts of kindness demonstrates that many Muslims found ways to draw on or humanitarianism as “Christian” or “Western ”. By exten- a form of collective identity and moral belonging that sion, this trend overlooks ways in which people mobilize circumvented and even negated the violence, and fur- precisely the discourse of “being Muslim” to justify acts of ther, they found ways to proactively promote that defini- humanity, at tremendous risks to themselves . We need tion of belonging to others . only look at current media preoccupations in the United States—with Ebola in West Africa and ISIS in the Middle Two key counter-arguments surface repeatedly in rela- East—and the portrayal of Muslims and Africans within tion to these narratives . First, some argue that Muslims them to recognize the value of underscoring examples in have indeed been accused and convicted before Rwanda’s which African people who self-identified as Muslims nationwide genocide trials called gacaca . Indeed, dur- demonstrated caring, humanity, courage, and resistance ing a year I spent conducting ethnographic research on amidst some of the 20th century’s worst violence . Rwanda’s gacaca process, there were a handful of trials against people who self-identified as Muslims, some of Notes which resulted in convictions . Rwandan Muslims them- selves recognize this, of course . As many explained to me 1 Interview with author, November 2002 . in 2002, “As we all know, as the Rwandans say, ‘every fam- 2 Ibid . ily has a deviant child’ .” 4 That individuals with some level 3 of Muslim identification participated in killings does not Ibid . negate the importance of the courageous acts of resistance 4 Ibid . 14 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Islam in Congo: A Minority’s Journey Congolese Muslims embraced the Qadiriyya Sufi order . from Colonial Repression to Post- In response to this new religious mobilization, the colo- nial government blocked Muslim foreigners from enter- conflict Organization ing the colony, destroyed several mosques, and forcibly By Dr. Ashley E. Leinweber, Assistant Professor relocated prominent Muslim leaders to distant locations . of Political Science, Missouri State University, However, this stopgap measure by the colonial regime [email protected] may have had the unintended consequence of spreading Islam to new regions of the colony . The Muslim minority of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) experienced intense repression and Colonial education was the domain in which the mem- marginalization during the Belgian colonial period bers of the Muslim community felt the most intense (1885–1960), resulting in a detachment from the state repression . In the Belgian Congo, most education was and politics that carried over even after Congolese inde- provided by Christian (primarily Catholic) missionaries, pendence . Surprisingly, since the end of the two Congo creating conditions for the harassment and expulsion of wars in 2002, the Muslim minority has become increas- Muslim children . Harassment included forced conver- ingly active in civic life through membership in various sion, beatings, and being forced to eat pork and drink associations and even the provision of social services . In water during Ramadan . In reaction to this, most Mus- particular, there has been a concerted effort to establish lim parents kept their children from attending colonial Islamic public schools throughout the country . This con- schools, fearing their conversion to Christianity . As a temporary increased involvement represents a signifi- result, generations of Muslims did not receive an edu- cant break from the minority’s historical experiences . cation or learn to speak the colonial French language . Those who did stay in school were only able to do so by Colonial Repression converting to Christianity; in fact, in order to attend sec- ondary school, a formal Christian baptism was required . The population of the DRC is over 75 million, of which 50 percent are Catholic, 35 percent Protestant, 5 percent The situation of the Muslim minority finally began to Kimbanguist, and 5–10 percent Muslim . Islam arrived improve when Congo gained independence from Bel- in eastern Congo in the pre-colonial period (circa 1860) gium in 1960 . The 1964 constitution espoused religious as Swahili-Arab traders from the east African coast freedom, and in March of that year a national Muslim penetrated the interior as far as present-day Maniema conference was convened in Maniema Province . Despite Province . They did not have religious conversion as their these signs of progress, some concluded in the early main goal; rather, they were interested in the vast amount independence period that “Islam . . . remains as quiescent of ivory and slaves that could be obtained in Congo . and isolated as it had been during the colonial period ”. 1 However, some local communities began to emulate the Given the community’s colonial experiences, it was foreigners, and many adopted the new religion . remarkable that Islam survived at all in Congo, but it was able to do so because it “responded to the hostility of the In the early 1890s, the Belgian colonial forces conquered state by indifference and withdrawal ”. 2 The limited schol- the Swahili-Arabs, expelling them from Congo . The arly work on Islam in Congo prior to 1970 was followed new colonial regime was hostile toward the Muslim by decades of silence on the topic . However, my work community when it appeared active, fearing that the provides evidence of concerted efforts by the Muslim minority could lead a rebellion . In response, the com- minority to organize and engage with the Congolese munity maintained a low profile so as to avoid reprisals state and broader society in the post-conflict period . from the administration . However, the growing Mus- lim community increased its proselytizing mission in Post-War Muslim Mobilization the 1920s, in part due to increased interaction with the outside Muslim world, particularly the Mulidi move- After gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the ment from Tanzania . Qur’anic schools were formed, country (known then as Zaire) was a dictatorship led by men went abroad for Islamic instruction, and most President Mobutu Sese Seko from 1965 to 1997 . Mobutu’s ARI Newsletter, March 2015 15
hold on power was slipping in the post–Cold War 1990s has the most substantial Muslim community outside of after unconditional U .S . support for its anti-communist Maniema, estimated between 10 and 30 percent of the ally waned, and Zaire’s neighbors were increasingly frus- population . The Congolese capital Kinshasa contains trated by Mobutu’s support for rebel factions that threat- a substantial Muslim community and is headquar- ened their governments . Therefore, Rwanda, Uganda, ters to the national Muslim organization, the Commu- Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe formed a coalition nauté Islamique en République Démocratique du Congo to oust Mobutu and backed the rebel movement led by (COMICO) . Laurent Kabila . In what is known as the First Congo War (1996–1997), the rebels successfully marched across the A plethora of local, regional, national, and international country and into the capital in May 1997 . organizations are helping to rebuild Congo by support- ing orphans or those handicapped by war, reintegrating Laurent Kabila promptly proclaimed himself presi- former combatants into society, and caring for victims of dent of the country, which he renamed the Democratic sexual violence . Many of these organizations are religious Republic of Congo, but he proved to be no better at lead- groups . Despite Islam’s quiescence in earlier periods, ing the country than Mobutu had been . Internal and today one finds a vibrant and organized Muslim com- external rebel movements sprang up to compete for con- munity with associations that focus on a wide variety of trol of the state, thus sparking the Second Congo War tasks, both spiritual and community service–oriented . (1998–2002), also known as “Africa’s World War ”. The “civil war” raged on with the country divided into three COMICO, the primary organization of Congolese Mus- semi-autonomous territories: the west led by President lims, began in 1972 at the insistence of President Mobutu Kabila with external assistance, the east controlled by the as a way of co-opting an important segment of society . Congolese Rally for Democracy rebels and Rwanda, and Muslim women’s associations affiliated with COMICO portions of the north controlled by the Movement for the have been established recently, including Comité Natio- Liberation of Congo rebels supported by Uganda . The nale Feminine de COMICO and its affiliate at the pro- parties to the war signed the Lusaka Agreement in Zam- vincial level, Comité Provinciale Feminine . Many other bia in 1999, and the following year the United Nations national and provincial Muslim women’s associations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the were active during the wars and remain vibrant in the Congo peacekeeping mission was authorized . Laurent post-conflict period . The Union des Femmes Musulmanes Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and was replaced by his du Congo has provincial affiliates, and the Kisangani son Joseph Kabila, who then participated in a political branch was responsible for a wartime Therapeutic Nutri- transition process . The DRC’s first democratic elections tional Center . After the wars,Fondation Zam-Zam was in over 50 years were held in July 2006 and lauded by established; the Maniema branch runs a private Islamic the international community, who hailed them as a huge primary school, providing free education to orphans victory and the end of the conflict . Nonetheless, the and offering afternoon literacy courses for women . In security situation has remained precarious, particularly Maniema Province, the Collectif des Femmes Musulmanes in the eastern provinces . pour le Développement du Maniema is a compilation of 18 Muslim women’s groups focused on development . The eastern Maniema Province, where the majority of Congolese Muslims reside, has a population of around Other Muslim associations focus on activities such as 1 8. million . Kindu, the ethnically and religiously diverse providing healthcare and promoting human rights . Ami provincial capital, has a population of about 250,000, Santé is a healthcare association for Kindu residents of of which Muslims constitute approximately 25 percent . any religious background . The Bureau Islamique pour Kasongo is the second largest city in the Maniema Prov- la Défense des Droits Humaines, which has a very active ince and the historical birthplace of Islam in Congo, with provincial office in Kindu and an affiliate in Kasongo, is Muslims comprising 70 to 80 percent of the population . a Muslim human rights organization . The U .S . National There are also smaller Muslim populations in all other Endowment for Democracy has helped fund their activ- Congolese provinces . Kisangani, the third largest city in ities promoting democracy and women’s issues . This Congo located in the northeastern Orientale Province, list of active Muslim associations is hardly all-inclusive, 16 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
but these should be sufficient to highlight the fact that national curriculum . Muslim public primary schools the Congolese Muslim community is no longer margin- teach two 30-minute religion classes each week . The alized on the sidelines of society . This is even more appar- religious instruction received by primary school students ent when looking at the role of the Muslim minority in is not rigorous, and the majority of Muslim pupils attend the provision of education in the post-conflict period . Qur’anic schools to augment their Islamic education . These schools are identical to those run by other reli- Islamic Public Schools gious groups and the Congolese state, with the excep- tion of the content of religion classes . State schools, for The Congolese education system is comprised of public their part, give instruction in “civic and moral education” schools run by both the government and religious orga- twice a week . nizations . In fact, faith-based organizations run schools attended by three-quarters of all primary school chil- Conclusion dren, and 64 percent of secondary schools are religiously 3 run . Religious public schools have formal agreements The Congolese Muslim minority has made remarkable with the Congolese state stipulating that the state will strides from the era of colonial repression and necessary pay salaries, set the national curriculum, and monitor quiescence to an active post-conflict role in flourish- schools through its inspection bureaucracy, while reli- ing associations and the provision of public education . gious communities provide the daily management of Arguments have been made that this has been possible their facilities . for two primary reasons 6. The first is that a history of intense internal conflicts within the Muslim community Christian schools have been active in Congo since the (reminiscent of other Sufi-Reformist conflicts on the colonial era, but Muslims signed an agreement with the continent) made mobilization for collective action virtu- Mobutu regime in 1979 to begin operating Islamic pub- ally impossible . However, this impasse has largely been lic schools . Prior to 2002, there were very few schools overcome in the post-conflict period, when a reform- sponsored by the Muslim community, but this has oriented leadership with a clear development agenda greatly changed since the end of the wars . The Maniema emerged . The second reason stems from the post-conflict Province, where the majority of Congolese Muslims opportunity enabling a partnership between the Muslim reside, provides the clearest picture of Muslim mobiliza- minority and the weak Congolese state to provide edu- tion in public education . The number of Islamic primary cation following the existing hybrid model . Overall, not schools more than doubled, from 29 to 76, between the only has Islam in Congo survived decades of repression academic years 2003–2004 and 2008–2009 . The same and marginalization, but also the contemporary Muslim trend can be seen with secondary schools during this minority has begun to thrive . time period, where the number increased from 19 to 42 . By academic year 2011–2012, the numbers had again escalated to 132 primary and 86 secondary schools 4. Notes This trend is not limited to the Maniema Province but 1 reflects a national phenomenon: there were 368 primary Crawford Young, “Chronique Bibliographique: and 142 secondary Islamic schools in the country in Materials for the Study of Islam in the Congo,” Cahiers academic year 2005–2006, but by 2008–2009, the Economiques et Sociaux 4, no . 4 (1966): 461–464 . Muslim community was running about 500 primary 2 Crawford Young, “The Congo,” in Islam in Africa, and 300 secondary institutions . By 2013, that number ed . James Kritzeck and William H . Lewis (New York: had increased by another 200 institutions nationwide .5 Van Nostrand-Reinhold Company, 1969) . These Islamic schools are not madrasas, but public insti- 3 Kristof Titeca and Tom De Herdt, “Real Governance tutions that are open to all children, not only to Muslim Beyond the ‘Failed State’: Negotiating Education in the students . For example, in Maniema about 50 percent of Democratic Republic of Congo,” African Affairs 110, children in these schools are Muslim, and many teach- no . 439 (2011): 213–231; United States Department of ers are also non-Muslim . Each religious public school State, “Democratic Republic of Congo 2012 Interna- has the right to teach religion courses along with the tional Religious Freedom Report,” 2012 . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 17
4 2003–2004 statistics from République Démocratique therefore fear that Islamic violence might become even du Congo Ministère du Plan, “Monographie de la more widespread across the African continent and that Province du Maniema,” Kinshasa, 2004 . 2008–2009 the deployment of Western military aid is a question statistics gathered from Division Provincial of when rather than if . What is often overlooked, how- d’Enseignement Primaire, Secondaire, et Professionelle, ever, is the fact that Salafi activity can take many forms . Kindu, DRC, February 2009 . 2011–2012 statistics Historically, Salafi clerics have urged their followers to gathered from the same office in June 2013 . abstain from political activity and to confine their activi- 5 Interview with National Coordinator of Islamic ties to peaceful missionary activities (purist Salafism) . In schools, Kinshasa, DRC, June 18, 2009; 2013 statistics other instances, Salafis engage with the political system from interview with National Coordinator of Islamic (political Salafism) . Finally, there are cases where Salafis 4 schools, Kinshasa, July 23, 2013 . engage in violent activities (jihadi Salafism) . Unfor- tunately, policymakers and commentators rarely pay 6 Ashley E . Leinweber, “The Muslim Minority of the attention to countries where Salafi communities coex- Democratic Republic of Congo: From Historic Margin- ist peacefully with other Muslim communities (Sufis) as alization and Internal Division to Collective Action,” well as with representatives of the secular nation state . Cahiers d’Etudes africaines LII, no . 206–207 (2012): Little is also known about how African governments are 517–544; Ashley E . Leinweber, “From Devastation to dealing with the potential challenge of growing Salafi Mobilization: The Muslim Community’s Involvement in congregations .5 Social Welfare in Post-Conflict DRC,” Review of African Political Economy 40, no . 135 (2013): 98–115 . Which strain of Salafism (purist/political/jihadi) has come to dominate in a variety of African countries? The Management of Salafi Activity in Do African states influence the emergence and the Africa: African State Strategies and consolidation of any of the three strains, particularly their Consequences in the Sahel by regulating the access of Salafi communities to their countries’ religious landscape (defined here as access of By Dr. Sebastian Elischer, Assistant Professor of fundamentalist Muslim communities to Friday prayer Comparative Politics, Leuphana University Lüneburg mosques, which represent the central institution for (as of fall 2015 assistant professor at the University of religious practice in Muslim societies)? Scholars work- Florida/Gainesville), [email protected] ing on Middle Eastern countries have long acknowl- Salafism in Africa edged the importance of state control over mosques as one way of directing Islamic activism in a peaceful and In recent years, policymakers have devoted increasing apolitical direction 6. attention to the rise of violent Salafi groups across Africa . Nigeria and Mali are two prominent cases in point . In Examining the Diversity of Salafism Nigeria, the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram in the Sahel has conducted terrorist attacks against thousands of innocent civilians for many years 1. In 2012, Mali’s north The Salafi communities in the Sahel countries of Niger was overrun by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and and Mali display different trajectories despite sharing its local offshoots, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad important similarities . Both border Algeria and Libya in West Africa and the Defenders of the Islamic Faith and are thus in close proximity of transnational jihadi (Ansar Dine) . Despite the military intervention of the influence . They participate in the American-led Pan French government in early 2013 and the stationing of Sahel Initiative and are equally subjected to Western/ United Nations troops thereafter, Mali’s north remains a American military presence . In the last two and a half violent theater of conflict 2. decades, they have experienced a turbulent political and economic trajectory; unemployment among young The spread of the Salafi ideology is not confined to any males is very high, and their population growth rates world region, yet in Africa, Salafism currently is the fast- among the highest in the world . Both exhibit a low est growing branch of Islam 3. Many security analysts degree of state capacity (stateness) and porous borders . 18 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
In short, Niger and Mali display characteristics that are found a cleric was acting in breach of the basic principle commonly referred to as key explanatory factors for the of the state-sanctioned version of Islam, it banned the emergence of jihadi violence 7. cleric from all mosques . By integrating the AIN into the administrative structure of the autocratic secular state at Scholars working on the Middle East increasingly refer all government levels, the government created a close- to a typology (purist/political/jihadi) when examining knit network of religious supervision . Until the political the nature of Salafi activity 8. Purists are defined here as liberalization process of the early 1990s, Salafi congrega- Salafi communities who deliberately stay away from the tions had no legal access to Niger’s religious sphere . political game and who abstain from violence . Purists engage in educational and missionary activities . Political Gaining access to Niger’s territory remained a difficult Salafis are groups who engage with the important politi- enterprise even after the political liberalization pro- cal actors of a country on a regular basis . They either cesses of the early 1990s . Muslim associations intending throw their collective support behind an already existing to build mosques have to register with the ministry of political party or form a political party of their own 9. the interior . The registration of associations under for- Jihadi Salafis wish to transform secular society by vio- eign leadership is generally prohibited . Numerous Paki- lent means . stani-, Iranian-, and Egyptian-led applicants had their applications denied . In order to receive legal recognition In both Niger and Mali, Salafi communities have cho- from the state, every applicant association has to pro- sen different modes of engagement with their social and vide a reference from the AIN . As a result, only Salafi political environment . The case of Mali shows that Salaf- associations under national leadership who commit ism can manifest itself differently in the same country 10. themselves to respect the apolitical and peaceful nature A comparative examination of the historical evolution of of Nigerien Islam can legalize their status . These proce- the interaction between Salafism and the state in Niger dures notwithstanding, the 1990s saw local incidences and Mali shows how different regulatory frameworks of violence between Salafi and Sufi representatives and affect the formation of a dominant strain of Salafism . a growing politicization of religious officially registered religious actors . Niger and Mali: Different State Strategies and Their Consequences By the early 2000s, it had become obvious that the state had lost its previous capacity to regulate religious activ- Throughout most of its history and as an indepen- ity . The Nigerien state reacted to these developments by dent state, the Republic of Niger has dedicated serious dissolving Salafi associations involved in the clashes of attention to the question of who gains access to its reli- the 1990s . The state also created a new religious super- gious landscape . Following the military coup of Seyni visory body, the Conceil Islamique du Niger (CIN; the Kountché in 1974, the Nigerien state began propagat- Islamic Council of Niger), whose mandate is almost ing a national version of Islam . Accordingly, “Nigerien identical to that of the AIN prior to the 1990s . Niger is Islam” derived its legitimacy from local interpretations thus a case where the state has undertaken serious steps of the Koran (Sufi Islam) and refrained from political or to regulate Salafi activity . As a result, purism has emerged violent activity . In response to the growing infiltration of as the dominant mode of Salafi engagement . Niger’s religious sphere by Libya, the Kountché regime established the Association Islamique du Niger (AIN; the In stark contrast to Niger, the Malian state never made Islamic Association of Niger), a state-led organization any serious attempt to regulate access to its religious dedicated to the promotion of Sufi Islam across Niger’s sphere . After independence, both Salafi and Sufi congre- territory . Under the supervision of the AIN, religious gations spread across the country . In 1980, the Malian practices became a heavily regulated affair . In order to state created the Association Malienne pour l’Unité et le be eligible to preach in a Friday prayer mosque, Muslim Progrès de l’Islam (AMUPI; Malien Association for Unity clerics had to undergo several religious tests and receive and Progress of Islam) . One of the (unofficial) goals of a prayer license . The AIN was in charge of design- this association was to mediate between Salafi and Sufi ing these tests and allocating these licenses . If the AIN clerics . AMUPI neither promoted a national version of ARI Newsletter, March 2015 19
Islam, nor had the mandate or the organizational capac- Security analysts advocate closer military cooperation ity to supervise the religious conduct of its clerics . With between states that are vulnerable to Salafi agitation financial and personnel support from Saudi Arabia, and their Western counterparts . In the Sahel region, the AMUPI’s Salafi wing soon occupied the most influential United States of America and France have been particu- positions inside the organization . larly active in this regard . So far, it seems fair to say that this strategy has been successful . Yet military engagement After the onset of political liberalization, the Malian more often than not represents a reaction to crises that state continued to refrain from regulating the religious have already escalated . In other words, military engage- sphere . In 2002, the government encouraged the forma- ment might be successful, but it always occurs after the tion of the Haut Conseil Islamique (HCI; High Islamic outbreak of violent Islamic activity . Evidence from Iraq Council) . However, just as its predecessor, the HCI con- and Afghanistan suggests that long-term Western mili- stitutes a mere coordination body uniting representa- tary engagement always brings with it the possibility of tives of different Islamic tendencies . The registration the further radicalization of Islamic communities . of new Muslim associations and their mosques occurs without any meaningful scrutiny of these associations by Ideally, policies designed to counter violent Salafi activity the state . Over the course of the last two decades, this should have a strong civilian and preventive component . has led to an unchecked influx of radical preachers from The creation of institutional supervisory mechanisms the Middle East and Pakistan into Mali’s north . There is for religious conduct and greater involvement of Afri- strong evidence linking these groups to the emergence can states in running their religious affairs could be an of Ansar Dine and the 2012 security crisis 11. Simultane- integral part of such an approach . The presence of a ously, political Salafi clerics have begun to dominate the regulatory framework governing access to Niger’s reli- HCI . Under its Salafi leadership, the HCI has emerged as gious sphere in conjunction with the willingness of the one of Mali’s most powerful political lobby groups . Salafi Nigerien government to counter the potential threat clerics across the country supported Ibrahim Keita as the of Salafi violence ensured that Niger did not follow the 2013 presidential candidate and did not shy away from same tragic trajectory of neighboring Mali or Nigeria . encouraging his election during Friday prayer sessions . The donor community should try and raise awareness In addition, Salafi clerics managed to occupy very influ- among Muslim recipient nations about the lessons ential positions in numerous state bodies, such as the learned from countries such as Niger or other African electoral management board or the newly formed minis- or Middle Eastern countries where religious supervisory try of religious affairs . Mali is thus a case where the state bodies have long been in existence . This could be a first failed to regulate access to its religious sphere, which has step in a broader strategy of preventing the spread of resulted in the spread of jihadi Salafism in the country’s violent interpretations of the Salafi creed . north and political Salafism in the country’s south . Notes Implications for Future Policymaking 1 Council on Foreign Relations, “Nigeria Security The effects of violent Islamic movements are visible Tracker,” available at
5 The empirical evidence in this article is based on my The Politics of Women’s Rights in field research, the goal of which is to trace the histori- Muslim Countries: An Illustration cal trajectory of Salafi communities between indepen- dence and today on the basis of archival research, the from Niger collection of primary documents, and interviews with By Dr. Alice Kang, Assistant Professor of Political state representatives as well as with religious clerics . Science and Ethnic Studies, University of Nebraska- The German Gerda Henkel Foundation has provided Lincoln, [email protected] me with the funds to conduct field research in Mali; field research in Niger was financed as part of other Women’s rights in the family, to political representa- research projects I conducted in Niger over the course tion, and to reproductive health have been the subject of the last 4 years . of intense debate in predominantly Muslim countries . In some cases, governments have adopted reforms to 6 Quintan Wiktorowicz, The Management of Islamic make it easier for women to obtain a divorce, affirmative Activism: Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and State action laws to increase the number of women in politics, Power in Jordan (New York: State University of New and legislation to improve women’s access to contracep- York Press, 2001) . tion . In other cases, governments have remained quiet 7 Michael Mazarr, Unmodern Men in the Modern or seemingly unwilling to adopt women’s rights reform . World: Radical Islam, Terrorism, and the War on Modernity (United Kingdom: Cambridge University What factors influence the passage of women’s rights Press, 2007); Mohammed Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: policies in Muslim-majority countries? This essay exam- Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World ines the influence of three central players at the national (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003) . level, arguing that the balance of power among them affects the adoption of women’s rights reforms .1 Interna- 8 Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement;” tional actors and the global context, while also part of Joas Wagemakers, “‘Seceders’ and ‘Postponers’? the story, operate at the margins of the political process, An Analysis of the ‘Khawarij’ and ‘Murij’a Labels in to paraphrase political scientist Joel Barkan 2. These Polemical Debates Between Quietists and Jihadi-Salafis,” arguments are germane to democracies and democratiz- in Contextualizing Jihadi Thought, ed . Jeevan Deol and ing countries, but they may be used to understand wom- Zaheer Kazmi (New York: Columbia University Press, en’s rights politics in authoritarian countries as well . The 2011), 145–164 . argument is used to make sense of the lack of family law 9 For an example of this operationalization, see Khalil reform in Niger . al-Anani and Maszlee Malik, “Pious Way to Politics: The Rise of Political Salafism in Post-Mubarak Egypt,” Women’s Activists Digest of Middle East Studies 22, no . 1 (2013): 57–73 . Women’s activists are a key player in women’s rights 10 See also Alex Thurston, “Towards an Islamic Repub- policymaking . When I refer to women’s activists, I mean lic of Mali?” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 37, no . 2 women in civil society (for example, members of wom- (2013): 45–66 . en’s associations) as well as women inside the state (for 11 For just one example, see International Crisis Group, example, female ministers, bureaucrats, judges, and Mali: Security, Dialogue and Meaningful Reform parliamentarians) . Women’s rights reforms are more (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2013) . likely to be adopted in predominantly Muslim countries when women’s activists in and outside the state mobilize for them .
One main way that women in and outside the state help make women’s rights reform possible is by injecting new issues into public debate . The importance of this work cannot be underestimated . In the absence of women’s ARI Newsletter, March 2015 21
activism, practices that discriminate against women In many democracies, entities other than the president remain relegated to the so-called private realm or are have the power to modify and reject proposed laws . Theo- seen as part of the “natural order” or “culture ”. retically, the national parliament is a veto player, an actor whose approval is required to change the status quo 4. In Another main way women’s activists help advance reform contexts where parliaments have such powers, the back- is by presenting policy proposals as politically legiti- ing of the president, though important, is not always suf- mate . To use a term developed by Michael Schatzberg, ficient for the adoption of women’s rights policy . women’s activists are more likely to advance reform if they can construct the proposed change as “thinkable ”. 3 Focusing on parliament as a veto player is somewhat of To help make reform thinkable, women’s activists draw an unusual analytic move to make . Previously, schol- on national symbols, invoke publicly accepted values, ars of African politics expected parliaments to play a and enact rituals with emotional pull . minimal role in policymaking . This is because African parliaments typically follow British or French models Despite several decades of research on women’s activ- in which the parliament’s primary function is to debate, ism, however, relatively little is known about the resis- question, and affirm government-directed policy . The tance that women’s activists encounter in their efforts to locus of policymaking lies in the ministries, not in par- improve women’s lives through state channels . liament . “Instead, the action is elsewhere,” as two ana- lysts of Senegal’s National Assembly write, in providing Conservative Activists constituency services and seeking out donor fund- ing to help advance their districts’ economic develop- Conservative activists, defined as activists who seek to ment .5 Thus, while I do not want to overstate the power promote so-called traditional values, may also influence of parliament in making women’s rights reforms, I do the passage of women’s rights policy by mounting a cam- want to call attention to this branch of government as a paign against the proposed policy . One way that con- potential influencer of women’s rights policy adoption . servatives can campaign against a women’s rights policy proposal is by putting new issues on the national agenda When the church and state are fused into one political that activists portray as contradicting or clashing with entity, religious authorities can enjoy formal veto power the demands of women’s activists . For instance, conser- over the passage of women’s rights policy . At the other vative Muslim activists may raise the issue of national extreme, the state can be antagonistically opposed to identity or patriotism in the public sphere . Conservative the church, such that the church has minimal or no veto activists, then, may portray women’s rights policy pro- powers . Most states fall in the middle of the spectrum, posals as “foreign” and demeaning to the country . with the church acting as an informal veto player . In these contexts, religious authorities are seen as legitimate play- Further, conservative activists may influence women’s ers on the political field . Their input on policy propos- rights policymaking by presenting proposed reforms as als may be sought, but constitutionally, the preferences unthinkable . To help make reform unthinkable, con- of religious authorities do not have to be respected . The servative activists use the same strategies that women’s United States and Senegal are examples of such states . activists use: they can draw on national symbols, invoke publicly accepted values, and enact rituals with emo- Illustration: Family Law Reform in Niger tional pull . In the Republic of Niger, which is more than 95 percent Veto Players Muslim, the country’s most controversial women’s issue has been family law reform . Since independence, Niger While many observers of politics in Africa depict the has had a two-track legal system for issues relating to state as run by one or a handful of “big men,” African marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance . One states are composed of multiple actors, and significant track is based on French law . The second track, the negotiation may take place among them in ways that default track, is based on “customary law,” in which judge influence the passage of women’s rights reforms . apply the “customs of the parties” with the guidance of 22 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
court assessors 6. In practice, if the individuals in the I refer specifically to the Association Islamique du Niger court case are Muslim, judges apply so-called Muslim (AIN), which was created in 1974 by president Seyni law or Islamic law . This usage of customary-cum-Islamic Kountché . AIN’s central headquarters in Niamey serve as law dates, in part, back to French colonial practices . a quasi-court and civil registry where Nigériens can for- malize a divorce and seek resolution in matters of inheri- In the 1960s, legal scholars based in the United King- tance . Nigérien presidents regularly invite AIN’s leaders dom and United States worried that a multiple-track to officiate religious-state holidays, and AIN’s leaders give legal system would be bad for nation building, eco- sermons on the state-managed television and radio nomic development, and women in newly independent station . AIN’s position on family law reform has vacil- countries and called for the unification of laws into a lated since the 1970s, at times supporting reform and at single-track system . Within this context, Niger’s leaders other times opposing it . When AIN publicly objected to in and since the 1970s formed committees to draft a new family law reform, the government abandoned attempts single-track legal system for family law . At one point or to reform . another, Oxfam-Quebec, the United Nations Develop- ment Program, the United Nations Childrens’ Fund, and Sociologist Mounira Charrad has made similar argu- the World Bank have given financial or technical sup- ments about the importance of state and society relations port for family law reform in Niger . in North Africa’s post-independence family law debates .7 Among Charrad’s cases, Niger most closely resembles The first point that I want to raise is Nigérien women’s Algeria’s post-independence authoritarian state, which activists in and outside the state helped put the issue formed partial alliances with traditional and religious of family law reform on the national agenda . Women’s elites and subsequently struggled for decades to reform activists in the 1960s and 1970s were particularly con- its family law . Partial alliances between church and state cerned about women’s rights to child custody, the prac- in democratic Niger resulted in protracted policymak- tice of repudiation (in which men unilaterally divorce ing, particularly when conservative activists mobilized their wives), and women’s rights to inheritance . Women’s against reform . activists raised the issue of family law reform again in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s . Conclusion
Yet in spite of repeated demands by women’s activists and Women’s rights policymaking in predominantly Mus- the encouragement of international donors, Niger did lim democracies and democratizing countries will be not overhaul its laws governing marriage, divorce, and contested and stalled, but not because the countries are inheritance . This leads me to a second point . Conser- majority-Muslim . Democracies permit both women’s vative activists mounted a concerted campaign against activists and conservative activists to make claims upon family law reform . In the wake of a national debate over the state . In democracies, moreover, parliament may the issue of secularism, activists opposed family law enjoy veto powers and act autonomously of the executive reform on the grounds that it was at the same time anti- branch . Where religious authorities are seen as legitimate Muslim and pro-secularist . Making the proposed reform public actors, religious authorities can also influence unthinkable, one conservative cleric publicly invoked a women’s rights policymaking . Ultimately, international curse against three proponents of family law reform in attempts to promote women’s rights operate at the mar- the early 1990s . Later, in 2011, hardliner conservative gins of a country’s political process . activists burned a draft family law reform in a public square . These public rituals intimidated women’s activ- Notes ists and policymakers alike into abandoning the family law project . 1 I elaborate upon these conditions and provide further evidence for these arguments in my forthcoming book, The third point is that in Niger, the state partially and Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring uneasily relies on religious elites, who themselves have Muslim Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minne- mixed feelings about family law reform . By religious elites, sota Press, 2015) . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 23
2 Joel Barkan, “Can Established Democracies Nurture highlights, Sufi orders play multidimensional roles in Democracy Abroad? Some Lessons from Africa,” in North African politics that reveal enhanced power vis-à- Democracy’s Victory and Crisis, ed . Axel Hadennius vis the state .1 During the Arab Spring, Morocco’s influen- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), tial Boutshishiyya order participated in pro-referendum 371–403 . marches, while in Tunisia, Sufi brotherhoods protested the desecration of Sufi shrines by Salafists 2. North 3 Michael Schatzberg, Political Legitimacy in Middle African political elites have sought the support of Sufi Africa: Father, Family, Food (Bloomington: Indiana brotherhoods to reinforce regime credentials, and broth- University Press, 2001) . erhoods have also been used to manage disputes among 4 George Tsebelis, Veto Players: How Political Institutions domestic groups . Equally important, Sufi brotherhoods Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) . have been employed to bolster the electoral fortunes of incumbent powers . In both Algeria and Tunisia, presi- 5 Melissa Thomas and Oumar Sissokho, “Liaison Legisla- dents Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali ture: The Role of the National Assembly in Senegal,” looked to Sufi orders to rally voter support in contests Journal of Modern African Studies 43, no . 1 (2005): that ended in victories for both . 97–117 . See also Staffan Lindberg, “What Accountability Pressures Do MPs in Africa Face and How Do They Examples of Sufi Resistance Respond? Evidence from Ghana,” Journal of Modern African Studies 48, no . 1 (2010): 117–142 . The longer history of North Africa, however, also pro- 6 Republic of Niger, Law No . 62–11, March 16, 1962 . vides illustrative examples of how Sufism has served as a basis for development of political activism . While local 7 Mounira Charrad, States and Women’s Rights: rulers and institutions in North Africa were dismantled The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and under the yoke of the external control of Ottomans and Morocco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) . Europeans, Sufi orders survived domination to mature into centers of resistance . Three examples are Algeria, Evolving Sufi Organizations in Libya, and Sudan, where Sufi orders engaged in resistance North Africa movements through adoption of non-accomodationist By Dr. Audra Grant, Researcher, National Opinion positions that reflected a variety of strategies . Research Center (NORC), University of Chicago, [email protected] As historians explain, major orders in Algeria such as the Daqarniyya and the Tajiniyya resisted oppressive Otto- Sufi orders began as informal groups and expanded man control and formed cooperative alliances with the throughout the 12th century into large-scale organiza- French in an effort to thwart Turkish rule and ensure tions based on a personalized piety and spiritual growth . their survival . During the 19th century, when Algerians Individual orders, also known as tariqas (or the “way”), faced the same domination from the French, Sufi orders provided a means of social integration and identity such as the Qadiriyya, led by Abd al-Qadir, took up that went beyond the boundaries of pre-modern states . arms in 1832 against the French from western Algeria Commonly held assumptions maintain that Sufi orders and eventually created a state (albeit a short-lived one) remain relegated to the spiritual and that they are, for based on tribes and brotherhoods, as Qadiriyya resis- the most part, apolitical . Still, others would primarily tance lasted until al-Qadir’s defeat in 1847 3. In 1871, the see Sufi orders as reactive when thrust into the political Rahmaniyya order, prominent in eastern Algeria, also milieu . Either view overlooks the role of Sufi institutions’ rebelled against the French . The order was divided into evolution as strategic actors in the political arena with a number of autonomous branches, each embracing its their own constellation of interests . own strategy of dealing with French occupation . One branch supported the rebellion by engaging in direct Indeed, numerous contemporary examples and dynamics confrontation with the French, while another branch challenge the conception of Sufi orders as merely reactive indirectly backed rebellion from afar in Tunisia 4. intermediaries on the political landscape . As Werenfels 24 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
In Morocco, the strategically influential Tijaniyya order used to strategically shape Morocco’s position vis-à-vis was drawn to the monarchy . The localization of Moroc- its regional rival, Algeria . In 2002, the king appointed co’s Tijaniyya hindered the development of effective the Kittani and Tijani orders’ leadership . In one sweeping political opposition to the Europeans . Facing competi- move, the king employed rewards to demonstrate monar- tion from the sultans, who relegated Sufi leaders to their chal control over Sufi institutions, manage competition local center of gravity, the Tijaniyya strategically cooper- between orders, and use the same patronage to contain ated with the French to prevent encroachment of the sul- Algeria’s efforts to exert influence over the Tijani order . To tans .5 Elsewhere, in Libya, the Sanussiyya order mounted put Morocco’s imprint on transnational Sufism, the king formidable resistance against Italians following the 1911 hosted the 2009 World Sufi Forum, again meeting Alge- invasion and later was the foundation for the Kingdom rian efforts to influence regional and transnational Sufism . of Libya . In Sudan, the Mahdis established a caliphate The king authorized the Islamic ministry to hold the during their rebellion against Egypt and their British forum every 2 years and annually in the kingdom .9 These allies . Therefore, colonial administration was confronted approaches by Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian leader- by well-mobilized orders defined by internal bonds that ship reflect an array of strategies aimed to diminish the transcended existing authority 6. Such activism in the influence of political Islam to head off serious challenges form of the resistance described did not stem from Sufist to their respective regimes, control the religious and polit- ideology, but rather from the purpose of survival amid ical space, and influence transnational Sufi Islam . Orders, penetration from external colonial forces . however, can also exert their own influence in politics .
Post-independence, authoritarianism pushed Sufi and Algeria’s Bouteflika has relied on Sufi brotherhoods civil society institutions to the background in North throughout his presidency as a bulwark against militant Africa . Sufism has also had to compete with other Islam and for electoral support . Yet Algeria’s Qadiriyya Islamist orientations that have attempted to shape the brotherhood, which has supported Bouteflika, boldly religious space . Current politics in North Africa have warned that their endorsement of him — or any other seen an evolution of the political role of Sufi orders, how- politician for that matter — should not be taken for ever . They have interacted with Maghrebi politics in ways granted, for the group would withhold its support from that underscore their centrality as strategic actors with those that run afoul of the order .10 Morocco’s Boutshishi- their own constellation of interests that, on the one hand, yya came out strongly in support of the “Yes” campaign demonstrate their utility to states, and on the other, reveal in the 2011 referendum, organizing “We love our king” brotherhoods’ attempts to maximize their own interests . celebrations, in major examples of a new assertiveness in Sufi activism, power, and visibility . Following Arab Sufism Today Spring marches in Morocco, leadership urged voters to support a new constitution, which limited executive In 2002, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI appointed powers of the king . The campaign came against the back- Ahmed Taoufiq of the Boutshishiyya order as minister drop of calls for a boycott of the referendum . Morocco’s of Islamic affairs . Before accepting the position, Taoufiq Sufi orders have also expanded their political networks to allegedly consulted with the order’s leader for consent, the palace political elites, and Sufi orders in all three an action consistent with the preeminent position Sufi North Africa countries have broadened their networks leaders enjoy in the “master-disciple” relationship . While with and outreach to orders to other countries, the latter consultation was a nod to a cornerstone of Sufi tradition, effort especially aided by media and technology 11. it was also politically astute, for rejection of the king’s offer for lack of permission from the order’s leader would A Useful Partnership be heresy 7. Are Sufi organizations agents for political change and Mohammed VI, in addition, has publicly stressed Sufi transformation? While it is clear that Sufi orders do not tradition to young Moroccan cohorts, praising the role of neatly ascribe to typologies of private/quietist or activist, Sufi orders in the kingdom for being a spiritual and moral organizational structure may make Sufi orders conduits compass for society and for their role in culturally defin- for political activity . Sufi orders have strong connections ing the kingdom 8. Sufi-state interactions have also been to their communities, particularly at the local level, and ARI Newsletter, March 2015 25
their functions go beyond their immediate members . 3 See John Obert Voll, Islam, Continuity and Change Besides being a source of learning, they are important in the Modern World (Syracuse: Syracuse University sources of identity for segments of the population . It is Press, 1994) and Raphael Danziger, Abd Qadir and through loyalty to the sheikh—confirmed through the the Resistance to the French and Internal Consolidation student-teacher relationship—and thus to the brother- (New York: African Publishers, 1977) . hood that attachments to ethnic, regional, or local identi- 4 Carl W . Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism ties can be formed, which can contribute to a mobilizing (New York and London: Shambala, 1997) . capacity that can be augmented by the ability of sheikhs to command support of subordinate members . Thus, 5 Voll, 102–103 . for North African leaders, Sufi brotherhoods can be an 6 Ernst . important resource for political maneuvering, and orders 7 Abdelilah Bouasria, “The Second Coming of Morocco’s alternatively can use rewards from the state to boost their Commander of the Faithful: Mohammed VI and position . This reality speaks to a new dynamism in rela- Morocco’s Religious Policy,” in Contemporary Morocco: tions between Sufi orders and the North African states . State Politics and Society under Mohammed VI, ed . Bruce Maddy Weisman and Daniel Zisenwine Notes (Routledge: New York, 2013) . 1 Isabelle Werenfels, “Beyond Authoritarianism Upgrad- 8 Ibid ., 48 . ing: The Re-emergence of Sufi Orders in Maghrebi 9 Ibid ., 49 . Politics,” The Journal of North African Studies 19 (June 2014): 275–295 . 10 Werenfels, 287 . 2 Ibid ., 278 . 11 Ernst, 220 .
(Continued from Cover Page) Remarks by Ms. Theresa Whelan shifts throughout the 1990s from post-colonial Cold economic, and security developments on the continent, War era autocratic and dictatorial governments toward it is critical to understand the nature of these various democratic ones, the “teenage years” of these democra- sub-national identities, how they influence people and cies are proving to be volatile and fragile in many cases . how that influence might be changing, as well as how Meanwhile, the continent’s growing youth bulge creates these identities may or may not conform to our current unprecedented and increasing opportunities to connect assumptions about them . In this context, the series of with others beyond their home village or town through articles collected in this month’s Africa Research Initia- the Internet and, more importantly, mobile telephony, tive Newsletter provides intelligence analysts and policy- but the majority of these young people have no access to makers alike with a variety of perspectives on the nature formal education and, consequently, little ability to make and influence of one of the more powerful defining iden- sense of the global cacophony on their own . tities in Africa: Islam . The works of these distinguished scholars/authors, examining topics ranging from wom- To complicate matters further, all of these dynamics are en’s rights in Muslim countries to Muslim behavior taking place in societies that remain heavily influenced, during the Rwanda genocide to the potential for radical- if not defined, by their ethnic, tribal, clan, and religious ization of Muslims on the Swahili coast, will no doubt identities much more than their national identities . help our efforts to better understand this fundamental Consequently, in order to analyze the complex political, element of the African milieu . 26 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Data Corner
Percent of African Population who Identify as Muslim, 2014
North Atlantic Ocean MOROCCO TUNISIA 99 99.1 Mediterranean Sea
ALGERIA 99 WESTERN SAHARA LIBYA 96.6 EGYPT 100 90
MAURITANIA CABO VERDE 100 1.8 MALI Red SENEGAL 94.8 NIGER Sea GAMBIA 94 80 ERITREA 90 SUDAN CHAD Not Specified GUINEA BURKINA FASO 53.1 Majority Arabian Sea GUINEA-BISSAU 60.5 50 85 Gulf Of BENIN DJIBOUTI Aden CÔTE 24.4 NIGERIA 94 SIERRA LEONE D’IVOIRE GHANA 50 SOMALIA 60 38.6 LIBERIA 17.6 ETHIOPIA 100 12.2 CENTRAL AFRICAN SOUTH 33.9 TOGO SUDAN CAMEROON REPUBLIC ILEMI 20 0 TRIANGLE 20 15 EQUATORIAL GUINEA <1.4 UGANDA SAO TOME REPUBLIC 12.1 & PRINCIPE GABON OF THE KENYA <6.2 <1 CONGO 11.1 1.6 DEMOCRATIC RWANDA REPUBLIC OF 1.8 SEYCHELLES THE CONGO BURUNDI ASCENSION 2.5 1.6 CABINDA 10 ZANZIBAR (U.K.) (ANGOLA) 0 TANZANIA (TANZANIA) 35 >99
ANGOLA (—) MALAWI COMOROS SAINT HELENA ZAMBIA 13 98 (U.K.) <2.7 0 MOZAMBIQUE 17.3 South Atlantic Ocean 17.9 ZIMBABWE Mozambique MAURITIUS Channel MADAGASCAR <1 7 NAMIBIA Percent of African REUNION 0 BOTSWANA (FRANCE) Population who Identify <1.4 as Muslim by Country
50–100 SWAZILAND 10 20–50 0 1–20 Indian Ocean SOUTH AFRICA LESOTHO 0 Less than 1 1.5 TRISTAN DA CUNHA (U.K.) Source: CIA World Factbook, 2014 ARI Newsletter, March 2015 27
Islam in Africa Research Centers
Research Center: Available at: Georgetown University, Berkley Center for Religion, http://berkleycenter .georgetown .edu/essays/ Peace, and World Affairs algeria-colonization-and-independence Rice University, The Boniuk Institute http://boniuk .rice .edu/home .aspx International Center for Law and Religion Studies http://www .iclrs .org/ Leiden University, African Studies Centre http://www .ascleiden .nl/ Northwestern University, Department of Religious http://www .religion .northwestern .edu/graduate/ Studies, Islam areas-of-study/islam .html Pew Research Center, Christianity and Islam http://www .pewresearch .org/daily-number/ in Sub-Saharan Africa christianity-and-islam-in-sub-saharan-africa/ School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), http://www .soas .ac .uk/islamicstudies/ University of London, Centre of Islamic Studies (CIS) Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis .org/event/ Islam in Africa islam-africa-trends-and-policy-implications University of Florida, Center for African Studies, http://africa .ufl .edu/research-training/working-groups/ Islam in Africa Working Group islam-in-africa/ University of Cape Town, Centre for Contemporary http://www .cci .uct .ac .za/ Islam University of Cape Town, Institute for Comparative http://www .religion .uct .ac .za/religion/institutes/icrsa Religion in Southern Africa (ICRSA) Harvard University, Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal http://www .islamicstudies .harvard .edu/ Islamic Studies Program Dartmouth College, The John Sloan Dickey Center http://dickey .dartmouth .edu/ for International Understanding University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, http://africa .unc .edu/ African Studies Center University of South Africa, Research Institute http://www .unisa .ac .za/ for Theology and Religion Default .asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=11132 London Metropolitan University, Centre for the http://www .londonmet .ac .uk/faculties/ Study of Religion, Conflict, and Cooperation faculty-of-social-sciences-and-humanities/research/csrcc/ University of Oxford, Oxford Center for http://www .oxcis .ac .uk/ Islamic Studies 28 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Select Scholars who Work on Islam in Africa
Name Title Specialty Region/Country Institution Faculty Website Abbink, Jan Senior Researcher Ethiopia, Somalia, Horn of Africa, African Studies Centre, http://www.ascleiden.nl/ Northeast Africa Ethiopia Leiden University organization/people/jan-abbink An-Na’im, Professor of Law Islam and human rights Emory University http://aannaim.law.emory.edu/ Abdullahi Ahmed Asumah, Seth Professor of Political Africana studies SUNY Cortland http://www2.cortland.edu/ Science departments/political-science/ faculty-staff-detail.dot?fsid= 320481 Badran, Margot Senior Scholar Islamic feminism, human MENA Wilson Center http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ rights, democracy, MENA staff/margot-badran Becker, Felicitas University Lecturer African history Tanzania University of http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/ Cambridge directory/[email protected] Bernal, Victoria Associate Professor African studies, Islam, Sudan, Tanzania, University of California, http://www.anthropology.uci.edu/ war, migration, and Eritrea Irvine anthr_bios/vbernal diaspora Bonate, Liazzat Assistant Professor History of Africa Mozambique Bratton, Michael Professor of Political Founder, former executive Michigan State https://www.msu.edu/~mbratton/ Science and African director, senior advisor to University Studies Afrobarometer Bremer, Kristin Professor of Political Kutztown University https://www.kutztown.edu/acad/ Science of Pennsylvania polsci/info/faculty.html Brenner, Louis Emeritus Professor SOAS, University of https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/ London staff36140.php Clarence-Smith, Professor of the Economic Islam and slavery, Asia SOAS, University of https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/ William G. History of Asia and Africa and Africa London members/history/ Darboe, Momodou Professor of Sociology Shepherd University http://www.shepherd.edu/ employees/faculty/sociology.html Dowd, Robert Assistant Professor African politics, Kenya, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria University of http://politicalscience.nd.edu/ Uganda, Nigeria, Notre Dame faculty/faculty-list/rev-robert- religion, democracy, and dowd-c-s-c/ development Erlich, Haggai Professor Emeritus Middle Eastern and Ethiopia, Eritrea, MENA Tel Aviv University http://humanities.tau.ac.il/segel/ African History erlich/ Fisher, Humphrey Emeritus Professor Islam in tropical Africa, Sahel, Sudan belt, SOAS, University of https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/ of History religious history of pre- Ghana London members/religions/ colonial Africa Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn Emeritus Professor Anthropology Rhode Island College ARI Newsletter, March 2015 29
Name Title Specialty Region/Country Institution Faculty Website Glover, John Professor of History West Africa, Islam, and West Africa, Senegal University of Redlands http://www.redlands.edu/ European Imperialism academics/college-of-arts- sciences/undergraduate-studies/ history/2291.aspx Gomez, Michael A. Professor of History, Islam, slavery, social and New York University http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/ Middle Eastern, and cultural formation michaelgomez Islamic Studies Hanson, John Associate Professor Religious imagination West Africa, Ghana, Indiana University, http://www.indiana.edu/ and social initiatives of Senegal, Mali Bloomington ~histweb/faculty/ Muslims in West Africa Display.php?Faculty_ID=12 Haustein, Jörg Lecturer in Religions History of Islam in East Africa SOAS, University of https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/ in Africa colonial East Africa London members/religions/ Haynes, Jeffrey Director for the Centre Religion and international MENA London Metropolitan http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/ for the Study of Religion, relations; religion and University faculties/faculty-of-social-sciences- Conflict, and Cooperation politics; democracy and-humanities/people/ and democratization; surnames-d-to-j/jeff-haynes/ development studies; comparative politics and globalization Henry, Clement Professor Emeritus MENA MENA University of Texas http://www.utexas.edu/cola/ at Austin depts/government/faculty/ henrycm Iddrisu, Abdulai Professor African history, history Sub-Saharan Africa, St. Olaf College http://wp.stolaf.edu/ of Islam in sub-Saharan Ghana africa-americas/faculty/ Africa, and gender and colonialism Jhazbhay, Iqbal Professor Religious studies, Arabic South Africa, Somalia, University of http://www.unisa.ac.za/ MENA South Africa default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent& ContentID=24283 Kane, Ousmane Professor of Near Intellectual history of Harvard http://nelc.fas.harvard.edu/ Eastern Languages and Islam in Africa people/ousmane-kane Civilizations Kang, Alice Assistant Professor Political science Niger University of Nebraska http://ethnicstudies.unl.edu/ Lincoln fac-akang Kelly, Chau Assistant Professor African history Tanzania, East Africa University of http://www.unf.edu/bio/ North Florida N00813788/ Kresse, Kai Associate Professor East Africa and the East Africa, Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ Swahili coast Swahili coast mesaas/faculty/directory/ kresse.html Laremont, Ricardo Rene Professor of Political Comparative politics, North Africa, Sahel Binghamton University, http://www.binghamton.edu/ Science and Sociology Islamic law, Islamic SUNY political-science/faculty/ politics, conflict resolution ricardo-rene-laremont.html LeBlanc, Marie-Nathalie Professor of Sociology Africa, religion University of Quebec https://sociologie.uqam.ca/ and Montreal departement/personnel/ professeurs/ficheProfesseur.html? mId=oS5uHmT%252b2ug_ 30 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Name Title Specialty Region/Country Institution Faculty Website Lee, Rebekah Lecturer in History Islam and Christianity in South Africa, SOAS, University of https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/ southern Africa Southern Africa London members/history/ Leichtman, Mara A. Assistant Professor Religion, politics, West Africa, MENA Michigan State http://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/ conversion to Shi’a Islam University people/faculty/leichtman.htm Limb, Peter Associate Professor History, South Africa, South Africa Michigan State history.msu.edu/people/faculty/ Africa University peter-limb/ Lubeck, Paul Senior Research Professor Nigeria Johns Hopkins http://www.sais-jhu.edu/ University, School of paul-lubeck Advanced International Studies Menkhaus, Kenneth Professor Politics of the Horn Horn of Africa, Somalia Davidson College http://www.davidson.edu/ of Africa academics/political-science/ faculty/kenneth-menkhaus Miles, William F.S. Professor International develop- West Africa Northeastern http://www.northeastern.edu/ ment, West Africa, University polisci/people/full-time-faculty/ religion and politics william-f-s-miles/ Morier-Genoud, Eric Lecturer African history Mozambique Queen’s University http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/ Belfast SchoolofHistoryandAnthropology/ Staff/AcademicStaff/DrEricMorier- Genoud/ Muhammad, Akbar Associate Professor Africa, Islam Binghamton University, http://www2.binghamton.edu/ SUNY history/people/faculty/akbar.html Nyang, Sulayman S. Professor Political science and West Africa Howard University http://www.gs.howard.edu/ public administration; gradprograms/african_studies/ West Africa; Islam; nyang.htm political party development Ostebo, Terje Assistant Professor Islam in Africa, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa University of Florida http://religion.ufl.edu/faculty/ contemporary Islamic core/terje-ostebo/ reform, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa Paden, John Professor Nigeria George Mason http://provost.gmu.edu/robinson/ University about/john-paden/ Pargeter, Alison Senior Research Associate MENA University of Cambridge Petry, Carl Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Islamic world and MENA Northwestern http://www.history.northwestern. Thani Chair in Middle North Africa University edu/people/petry.html East Studies and Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence Rahman, Fatima Z. Assistant Professor Politics of MENA, Islam MENA Lake Forest College http://www.lakeforest.edu/ and politics academics/faculty/rahman/ index.php Reese, Scott Associate Professor Islamic Africa Northern Arizona http://nau.edu/CAL/History/ University Faculty-Staff/Reese/ ARI Newsletter, March 2015 31
Name Title Specialty Region/Country Institution Faculty Website Robinson, David Emeritus Professor African societies and West Africa, Michigan State http://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/ of History Islam French colonies University people/faculty/robinson.htm Robinson, Pearl Associate Professor of African politics, culture, Tufts University http://ase.tufts.edu/polsci/faculty/ Political Science and life robinson/ Searcy, Kim Associate Professor of Islam, Islam in East Africa, Sudan Loyola University http://luc.edu/history/people/ African Studies and African history, slavery in facultyandstaffdirectory/ Islamic Studies Muslim Africa kimsearcy.shtml Seck, Mamarame Assistant Professor African linguistics, West Africa, Senegal, University of North http://africa.unc.edu/faculty/ Sufi Islam in West Africa Gambia, Mauritania Carolina, Chapel Hill faculty_main.asp Seesemann, Rudiger Assistant Professor Islam in sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa, Northwestern www.religion.northwestern.edu/ Africa Senegal, Sudan, Kenya University faculty/seesemann.html Shams, Faraidoon Associate Professor Africa and Middle East, Howard University http://www.gs.howard.edu/ Islam, political theory gradprograms/african_studies/ shams.htm Soares, Benjamin Senior Researcher Islam and Muslim Mali, Mauritania, African Studies Centre, http://www.ascleiden.nl/ societies in Africa Nigeria, Senegal, Leiden University organization/people/ Sudan benjamin-soares Stith, Charles Adjunct Professor Political and economic Sub-Saharan Africa Boston University www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/ development of academics/faculty/alphabetical/ sub-Saharan Africa stith/ Svensson, Isak Associate Professor International mediation; Uppsala University http://www.pcr.uu.se/about/staff/ nonviolent conflict; svensson_i/ religion and conflict Tayob, Abdulkader Professor Islamic studies, religion, South Africa, Kenya, University of http://www.religion.uct.ac.za/ public life Ghana, Zanzibar, Cape Town religion/staff/academicstaff/ Nigeria abdulkadertayob Trumbull IV, George R. Associate Professor Islam in Africa, Islamic North Africa Dartmouth http://www.dartmouth.edu/ of History African in a global ~african/faculty/ perspective Villalon, Leonardo A. Professor of Political Senegal, Mali, Niger, University of Florida http://africa.ufl.edu/villalon/ Science Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad Vinson, Laura Thaut Assistant Professor Ethnic and religious Nigeria Oklahoma State http://polsci.okstate.edu/people/ conflict/civil war, University faculty African politics Waltz, Susan E. Professor Public policy, Maghreb, North Africa, Maghreb University of Michigan http://fordschool.umich.edu/ human rights faculty/susan-waltz Willis, Michael University Research Politics, modern history, Maghreb University of Oxford http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ Lecturer and international iw/mwillis.html relations of the Maghreb Wright, Zachary Assistant Professor History and religion, West Africa, MENA Northwestern http://www.qatar.northwestern. in residence Sufism, Islamic knowledge University in Qatar edu/about/our-people/faculty/ transmission in West Africa wright-zachary.html 32 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
John T. Hughes Library Selected Bibliography Starting Points for Islam in Africa centuries of history, the book details both background information and nuances of Islam in Africa . In 4 parts Badru, Pade and Brigid Maa Sackey, eds. Islam in and 24 chapters, the book covers the history of Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Africa across geographies, time, and thematic topics . As Relations and Political Reform. Lanham, MD: an edited volume, the book also provides a glance at the Scarecrow Press, 2013. work of commonly cited scholars . Although subtitled Gender Relations and Political Reform, this book provides a wider understanding of Loimeier, Roman. Muslim Societies in Africa: Islam in Africa . Part 1 is a four-chapter explanation of the A Historical Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana history of Islam in Africa and a general overview of Islam University Press, 2013. in Africa . Part 4 provides a similar treatment of political Loimeier provides an overview of Muslim societies in considerations of Islam in Africa, including discussion Africa within the context of African history and the of Islam versus Islamism in South Africa . history of Islam . The book brings together a wealth of scholarship on the topic and provides a very balanced Islam in Africa Series. New York: Brill Academic, look at Muslim societies, while also reaching a level of 2003–Present. nuanced analysis of historical, social, economic, and Currently at an impressive 16 volumes, Brill’s Islam in political developments . Africa series highlights scholarly research on many aspects of Islam in Africa . Primarily focused on sub- Soares, Benjamin and Rene Otayek, eds. Saharan Africa, the series covers both historical and cur- Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: rent issues in social, religious, philosophical, and political Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. topics . Titles of note include: Soares and Otayek provide a much-needed contempo- rary and interdisciplinary approach to the current role of ■■ Bang, Ann K . Islamic Sufi Networks in the Western Islam in Africa . The book’s emphasis on politics and its Indian Ocean (c. 1880–1940) . Volume 16, 2014 . role among Muslims in Africa makes the content relevant ■■ Chesworth, John A . and Franz Kogelmann . Shari’a for many researchers and analysts and separates the book in Africa Today . Volume 15, 2013 . from religious and historical publications . Case studies ■■ Kobo, Ousman Murzik . Unveiling Modernity in range from regional topics within Africa to country-level Twentieth-Century West African Islamic Reforms . case studies from various nations . Volume 14, 2012 . Further Reading on Islam in Africa ■■ Cantone, Cleo . Making and Remaking Mosques in Senegal . Volume 13, 2012 . al-Bili, Uthman Sayyid Ahmad Ismail . Some Aspects of Islam in Africa . Reading, GBR: Ithaca Press, 2007 . ■■ Ostebo, Terje . Localising Salafism . Volume 12, 2011 . Bang, Anne K . Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Levtzion, Nehemia and Randall L. Pouwels, eds. Networks in East Africa, 1860–1925 . London: The History of Islam in Africa. Athens: Ohio RoutledgeCurzon, 2003 . University Press, 2000. Levtzion and Pouwels provide a very thorough treat- Batran, Aziz A . Islam and Revolution in Africa. ment of the topic within a single volume . Spanning 14 Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1984 . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 33
Bennett, Norman R . A History of the Arab State of in Nigeria . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Zanzibar . London: Methuen, 1978 . Press, 2005 . Buggenhagen, Beth A . Muslim Families in Global Quinn, Charlotte A . and Frederick Quinn . Pride, Faith, Senegal: Money Takes Care of Shame . Bloomington: and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa . New York: Indiana University Press, 2012 . Oxford University Press, 2003 . Curtis, Edward E . The Call of Bilal: Islam in the African Rabasa, Angel . Radical Islam in East Africa . Diaspora . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2009 . Press, 2014 . Robinson, David . Muslim Societies in African History . De Waal, Alexander . Islamism and Its Enemies in the Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004 . Horn of Africa . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004 . Rothman, Norman C . Islam in Africa and Europe: Selected Case Studies . New York: Nova Publishers, Diouf, Mamadou . Tolerance, Democracy, and Sufis in 2014 . Senegal . New York: Columbia University Press, 2013 . Schlee, Gunther . Islam and Ethnicity in Northern Kenya Diouf, Mamadou and Mara A . Leichtman . and Southern Ethiopia . Oxford: James Currey, 2012 . New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity . New York: Schulz, Dorothea E . Muslims and New Media in West Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 . Africa: Pathways to God . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011 . Entelis, John P . Islam, Democracy, and the State in North Africa . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997 . Spadola, Emilio . Calls of Islam: Sufis, Islamists, and Mass Mediation in Urban Morocco . Bloomington: Indiana Erlikh, Hagai . Islam and Christianity in the Horn of University Press, 2014 . Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan . Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010 . Trimingham, John Spencer . A History of Islam in West Africa . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985 . Evers Rosander, Eva and David Westerlund, eds . African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters Ware, Rudolph T . The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Between Sufis and Islamists . Athens: Ohio University Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in Press, 1997 . West Africa . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014 . Henretta, Sean . Islam and Social Change in French West Africa: History of an Emancipatory Community . Villalón, Leonardo Alfonso . Islamic Society and State New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009 . Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 . Hunwick, John O . and Basil Davidson . West Africa, Islam, and the Arab World: Studies in Honor of Volpi, Frederic . Transnational Islam and Regional Basil Davidson . Princeton: Markus Wiener Security: Cooperation and Diversity Between Europe Publishers, 2006 . and North Africa . New York: Routledge, 2008 . Levtzion, Nehemia . Islam in Africa and the Middle East: Recent Articles on Islam in Africa Studies on Conversion and Renewal . Burlington, VT: Abdullah, Zain . “Transnationalism and the Politics Ashgate, 2007 . of Belonging: African Muslim Circuits in Western Miles, William F .S . Political Islam in West Africa: State- Spaces ”. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 32, no . 4 Society Relations Transformed . Boulder, CO: Lynne (2012): 427 . Rienner Publishers, 2007 . Adua, Sulaiman Sheu . “Africa and Africans in the Paden, John N . Muslim Civic Cultures and Conflict History of Islam ”. Academic Research International 2, Resolution: The Challenge of Democratic Federalism no . 3 (May 2012): 657–660 . 34 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
Asekhauno, Anthony Afe and Matthew A . Izibili . “Islam Triaud, Jean-Louis . “Giving a Name to Islam South of and Culture: Two Epistemic Catalysts for Moral the Sahara ”. Journal of African History 55, no . 1 Dilemmas in the African Democratic Experiment ”. (March 2014): 3–15 . Matatu, no . 40 (2012): 257, 273, 490–491 . Villalón, Leonardo Alfonso . “Between Democracy and Bamidele, Oluwaseun . “Is There Space in Between? Militancy: Islam in Africa ”. Current History 111, Religion and Armed Conflict in African States ”. no . 745 (May 2012): 187–193 . African Security Review 23, no . 1 (March 2014): Wright, Zachary Valentine . “Islam and Decolonization 34–52 . in Africa: The Political Engagement of a West African Corman, Steven R . and Steven Hitchcock . “Media Use Muslim Community ”. International Journal of African and Source Trust among Muslims in Seven Countries: Historical Studies 46, no . 2 (2013): 205–227 . Results of a Large Random Sample Survey ”. Journal of Strategic Security 6, no . 4 (Winter 2013): 25–43 . Current Events, Magazines, and Research Journals Haron, Muhammed . “Southern Africa’s Dar Ul-’Ulums: Institutions of Social Change for the Common Information on conflict studies and on Africa is pub- Good?” Studies in Philosophy and Education 33, lished in a wide variety of academic journals . For assis- no . 3 (May 2014): 251–266 . tance in locating additional journals, newspapers, and research materials on the region, contact the John T . Jaye, Thomas and Abiodun Alao . “Islamic Radicalisation Hughes Library . and Violence in Liberia ”. Conflict, Security & Development 13, no . 2 (2013): 191 . African Affairs Journal Kaarsholm, Preben . “Zanzibaris or Amakhuma? Sufi Africa Confidential Networks in South Africa, Mozambique, and the The Africa Report Indian Ocean ”. Journal of African History 55, no . 2 Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, (July 2014): 191–210 . Financial & Technical Series Leichtman, Mara A . “Shi’i Islamic Cosmopolitanism and Africa Research Bulletin: Political, the Transformation of Religious Authority in Senegal ”. Social & Cultural Series Contemporary Islam 8, no . 3 (September 2014): 261–283 . African Studies Review Africa Today LeSage, Andre . “The Rising Terrorist Threat in Tanzania: Domestic Islamist Militancy and Regional Threats ”. BBC Focus on Africa Strategic Forum, no . 288 (September 2014): 1–15 . Jeune Afrique Manglos, Nicolette D . and Alexander A . Weinreb . Journal of Contemporary African Studies “Religion and Interest in Politics in Sub-Saharan Journal of East African Studies Africa ”. Social Forces 92, no . 1 (September 2013): 195 . New African Soares, Benjamin . “The Historiography of Islam in West Africa: An Anthropologist’s View ”. Journal of African History 55, no . 1 (March 2014): 27–36 . Solomon, Hussein . “Combating Islamist Radicalisation in South Africa ”. African Security Review 23, no . 1 (March 2014): 17–33 . Sonko, Karamo N .M . “Islam in Africa South of the Sahara ”. African Studies Quarterly 14, no . 4 (September 2014): 80–81 . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 35
Research and Research Fellowships at the National Intelligence University’s Center for Strategic Intelligence Research
By Dr. Michael B. Petersen, Director, Center for work by Dr . Nicholas Parker, a political scientist at the Strategic Intelligence Research, National Intelligence U .S . Army . Dr . Parker’s project, “Freshwater Stress and University, [email protected] Violent Conflict: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Under- standing Causal Pathways,” investigates how different Hello, and thanks for reading the second edition of the manifestations of freshwater stress relate to and influence National Intelligence University’s Africa Research Initia- organized violent conflict in parts of sub-Saharan Africa . tive Newsletter, published by the university’s Center for This work will be completed by October 2015 . Strategic Intelligence Research (CSIR) . At CSIR, we run a number of research programs that are designed to put But Dr . Parker’s work is not the only research happen- the best of scholarly research on various international ing in these fellowship programs that may be of interest security issues into the hands of Intelligence Commu- to readers of this newsletter . Dr . Jennifer Davis, a fac- nity and policymaking leadership . The Africa Research ulty member at the National Intelligence University, is Initiative is only one of these programs . adopting a mixed methods approach to investigate the dynamics of child soldier recruitment and use global, Our research center also manages the Office of the Direc- geographic, and cultural patterns of child soldiering and tor of National Intelligence Exceptional Analyst and decisions by state and nonstate actors to utilize them and National Intelligence University Research Fellowships . to cease their use . These competitive fellowships are open to qualified U .S . Intelligence Community and Defense Department Much of the research in these programs is extraor- personnel who are seeking to spend a year conducting dinarily timely . Dr . Michael Dennis, another politi- sophisticated strategic intelligence research on topics of cal scientist at the U .S . Army, is developing his work national security interest . They provide research fund- on “Chechen Refugees and the Politics of Violence” by ing, workspace, and hands-on scholarly research design building on 3 years of field research and exploring what and methods guidance to the fellows . Applicants do not drives Chechen refugees and members of the Chechen need to hold a Ph .D . to apply, but our expectation is that diaspora to support political violence in Syria, Iraq, Rus- the research will be the equivalent in sophistication to sia, and elsewhere . Ms . Katrina Elledge, a senior analyst a dissertation or post-doctoral work and will adhere to at the Europe Analytic Center in the United Kingdom, the highest standards of scholarly research . Successful is examining the impact of social media in the ouster of projects may be briefed to senior Intelligence Commu- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and exploring nity personnel and may be eligible for publication by the how dissident use of social media may compel regime National Intelligence Press . change elsewhere . These well-timed studies promise to add much to our scholarly and policy-level understand- The 2014/2015 academic year’s research fellows have ing of two of the most significant international security embarked on a series of exciting and important studies . issues faced by the United States today . Readers of this newsletter may be especially interested in
Center for Strategic Intelligence Research 36 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
But the fellowship projects also move beyond specific Intelligence Fusion Section and using this case as a way area studies to examine larger issues as well. Dr. Ryan to better understand how and why joint intelligence Baird, a political scientist in the Joint Warfare Analysis organizations develop, evolve, succeed, or fail. Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, is developing a project entitled “The Primacy of Governance Infrastructure in In short, these fellowships are intended to develop Democratic Consolidation and Anticipating State Fail- sophisticated, cutting-edge scholarly research among ure.” His research is developing a theory on the necessity some of the most highly qualified personnel in the U.S. of governance for democratic resiliency in new and/or Intelligence Community and Department of Defense. fragile democracies and ultimately on the role of gover- The goal is to contribute to both scholarly and official nance in democratic consolidation. Finally, Commander discourse on national and international security issues Rodd Ricklefs of the United States Coast Guard is inves- and to strengthen the natural ties between both of these tigating the history of an organization called the Border important communities.
Center for Strategic Intelligence Research ARI Newsletter, March 2015 37
Africa Research Initiative Report
By Dr. Kris Inman, Chief Africa Researcher, Center for change affects the political system and stability . This proj- Strategic Intelligence Research, National Intelligence ect will include field research in 2015 . University, [email protected] The second project under way at the ARI, a study of Overview Islam on the Swahili Coast, is being conducted to gain more insight into the potential for Islamic radicalization The Africa Research Initiative (ARI) began in April 2013 . in East Africa . While al-Shabaab remains an endemic Housed in the Office of Research at the National Intelli- threat in the Horn of Africa, little is known about the sus- gence University (NIU), the ARI responds to Intelligence ceptibility of Swahili Muslims to support al-Shabaab . The Community (IC) agencies’ strategic research needs per- project aims to compare Swahili Muslims’ experiences in taining to sub-Saharan Africa . ARI’s primary intent is to Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique and will include field address second- and third-tier priorities that are impor- research to Tanzania and Mozambique in 2015 . tant to the IC and national security interests but that the IC is unable to address due to resource constraints . Third, the ARI conducts an ongoing State of Research The ARI networks with analytic cadres and leadership in Africa series of meta-studies (also known as “stud- to develop collaborative and/or independent scholarly ies of studies,” or meta-syntheses) about major topics research projects using existing areas of knowledge and in African studies . The first meta-study was conducted expertise . It does not conduct bench research, which on “Technology in Africa” and found that technology may be misconstrued as collection operations, nor does in Africa has a variety of influences on African life . This it conduct finished intelligence analysis . is the first meta-study to critically and comprehensively review the state of research on information and commu- Current Research Efforts nications technology (ICT) in Africa, as well as identify knowledge gaps for future research . Through a system- The ARI is currently conducting several research projects, atic search and evaluation of all peer-reviewed research the first of which is an ongoing inquiry of political succes- published until June 2014, this research identified a total sion in Africa . The succession of the top political leader of 62 studies that fit the inclusion criteria . These stud- remains a source of potentially deadly conflict in many ies examine the role of mobile technology, the Internet, countries on the continent . Even in countries that at one and social media in conflict, politics, society, econom- time were consolidating democracies—such as Mali— ics, and health on the continent . A thematic analysis of struggles over legitimacy and power within the political the studies reveals three key findings on the patterns of system can destabilize the country and plunge it into vio- ICT usage and research coverage in sub-Saharan Africa . lence and chaos . In some cases, leadership change results First, users have harnessed and exploited ICTs for both in a regime change; in other cases, it causes the state to fail constructive and destructive aims . Second, the research (for example, Somalia after the ouster of Mohamed Siad concentrates on mobile telephony: while 23 studies fea- Barre) . In still other cases, successions have no effect on ture more than one ICT, 45 examine cell phones, 26 stability or legitimacy, and the country carries on with the focus on the Internet, and 22 feature social media . This status quo . With nearly half of the countries on the conti- reflects usage trends across the continent, where mobile nent holding elections for the top political office in 2014 phones enjoy the highest penetration rate of all ICTs . and 2015,1 it is important to understand how leadership Yet the studies only examine the use of features offered 38 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
and narratives on the ground and lends a far richer framework for understanding the conflict than what is available through other open sources, such as interna- tional media covering the conflict .
Other Activities
Beyond research endeavors, the ARI has been actively engaged in speaking engagements and conferences around the government and academic Africanist com- munities . Dr . Inman provided the introductory session at the Africa Regional Expertise and Culture (REC) Team’s Nigeria workshop, and she presented research on the domestic security roles of the Nigerian military on one of the workshop panels . In October, she chaired the socio-cultural panel at the From the Podium informa- tion exchange on Ebola, an event co-sponsored by the National Intelligence Council, the National Intelligence University, U .S . Agency for International Development, and State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau . She also attended the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association and the African Studies Association, where she presented research on the effects of remittances on political participation in Africa . She is by both basic phones and smartphones—namely, tex- currently working with Ms . Brittany Bland, the Africa ting and voice calling—and do not specify the extent of advisor at the REC Team, to organize the upcoming smartphone usage—for example, accessing the Internet seminar on the 2015 African elections . or social media—in the research . Third, the research also focuses on 24 countries—particularly Kenya, Nige- Get Involved ria, South Africa, and Uganda—and does not provide insight into the state of ICTs in all sub-Saharan coun- Work in the IC and have strategic research questions tries . Seventeen studies discuss Kenya alone, only one about Africa? The ARI is here to assist . Contact Dr . mentions Mali and Senegal, while none feature the Inman at [email protected] with your question . remaining sub-Saharan countries such as Angola and If the ARI is unable to conduct the research in-house, Ghana . The conclusion of the meta-study is that addi- we may be able to help commission a study through our tional research is necessary in order to better under- vast academic network . Want to hold an event about stand the potential role of ICTs in shaping security, Africa? We can connect you with the REC Team and stability, political reforms, and socio-economic devel- NIU’s Office of Research to help facilitate your request . opment throughout the entire continent . Note Finally, we commissioned two studies over the last year . The first, in response to the Chibok kidnappings 1 Algeria, Botswana, the Central African Republic, in northern Nigeria, focused on human trafficking in Comoros, Egypt, Guinea Bissau, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria and how viewing the kidnappings through the Mozambique, Namibia, Tunisia, and South Africa held human trafficking lens is more appropriate and more elections for Head of State in 2014 . Burkina Faso, pertinent to finding a solution than viewing them Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Nigeria, the Sudan, through a counter-terrorism lens . The second study, by Tanzania, and Togo are scheduled to hold elections for a civil service member in South Sudan, discusses events Head of State in 2015 . ARI Newsletter, March 2015 39
Regional Expertise and Culture Program, Africa Report
By Ms. Brittany Bland, Africa Advisor, Regional belief system of Muslims outside the Middle East and Expertise and Culture Team, Brittany.bland@ also analyzed Muslim-Christian relations in sub-Saharan dodiis.mil Africa and Southeast Asia . The seminar was inspired by Eliza Griswold’s book, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from The Regional Expertise and Culture (REC) Team is in the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam (Farrar, the Directorate of Mission Services within the Academy Straus and Giroux, 2010), which has chapters dedicated of Defense Intelligence (ADI) at the Defense Intelligence to Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Agency (DIA) . The REC Team is responsible for offering Philippines . The seminar, however, focused only on regional and cultural knowledge acquisition opportu- Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and Indonesia . Ethiopia, nities to the DIA workforce and throughout the Intel- which was not a chapter in Griswold’s book, was chosen ligence Community (IC) . The team’s objective is to foster because of its deep historical roots of Muslim-Christian a more culturally fluent workforce through a variety of relations, dating back to the Axumite Kingdom . Ethiopia educational and training initiatives . today still represents a potential fault-line for conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, nestled between neighboring Sudan The REC Team develops and executes professional and South Sudan and Somalia to the east . development training for U .S . Intelligence profession- als at DIA and throughout the IC . The team focuses on The seminar was designed to provide an in-depth exam- creating a DIA workforce possessing advanced foreign ination of the role of religious narratives in conflicts, language proficiency, in-depth regional and cultural how religion can escalate conflict, the different practices knowledge of a country and region, and cross-cultural of Islam in Africa and Southeast Asia, and Muslim- competence to support enduring and expeditionary or Christian relations . It featured a variety of subject mat- contingency operations of the Department of Defense’s ter experts, each providing unique insight into the topic . global mission . While regional expertise and culture The seminar included a discussion on the intersection training covers a broad range of topics, they fall pri- between religion and conflict, focusing on the way reli- marily into four categories: Culture, Governance, Econ- gion is mobilized for political purposes during religious omy, and Security . The REC Team is divided by region conflict . This was followed by a presentation on current (Africa, Middle East, the Americas, Asia Pacific, and religious trends in Africa . These two modules estab- Europe/Eurasia) to better develop custom programs lished the framework for the rest of the seminar, which based on each region’s priorities . A major initiative of focused on the four country case studies . History was an the program is to develop regional seminars that provide important component of each of the case studies, with multiple perspectives on a particular topic . each speaker taking the time to explain the impact that specific historical events, legacies, and perceptions have On 15–16 January 2013, the Africa and Asia Pacific REC on Muslim-Christian relations today . This seminar was Programs collaborated on a joint seminar to address not meant to be a single event but rather a starting point common misconceptions about Islam across the globe . for future education and training events focused on reli- The seminar, entitled “The Tenth Parallel: Future Flash- gion in Africa . The current FY15 schedule of events for point or Alarmist Fallacy?” discussed the ideology and Africa is still under development . Please check out our 40 ARI Newsletter, March 2015
blog on JWICS for more information on upcoming semi- AFPAK Foundation Course: “Introduction to Islam nars and other regional expertise and culture resources. Module”
Islam Related Events: AFPAK Hands Course: “Islamic Ideology Module”
Africa and Asia Geostrategic Intelligence Seminar: “The Tenth Parallel: Future Flashpoint or Alarmist Fallacy?” Middle East Geostrategic Intelligence Seminar: “Appeal of the Islamic State”
Africa FY15 Schedule of Events Month Region/Topic March Africa Seminar : Trade, Investment, and Energy Outlook Africa Seminar : Elections in sub-Saharan Africa April Africa Seminar : Multi-National Organizations (RECs, ECOWAS, African Union) East Africa Seminar : Ethiopia/Eritrea May Africa Seminar : Islam in Africa June Africa Seminar : Demographics, Urbanization, and Youth Bulge Africa Seminar : Military Structures in African States July Africa Seminar : Foreign Actors (Turkey, Brazil, and India) East Africa Seminar : Kenya August Africa Seminar : Illicit Trafficking and Security North Africa Seminar : Democratization Prospects Post–Arab Spring September West Africa Seminar : Sahel Stability and Security Outlook Central Africa Seminar : Sudan/South Sudan Border Tensions
Regional Topics