The Stakes of Investing in Religious Leadership for Peace in sub-Saharan Africa

In the aftermath of September 11,  Scott Appleby, Director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame,  while underscoring the potential of religious traditions for peacebuilding, observed, "While religious extremists are often integrated into a well-organized movement, armed to the teeth, expertly trained, lavishly financed, ideologically disciplined, and involved in a kind of 'ecumenical' collaboration with other violence-prone organizations, the non-violent religious actor is relatively isolated, underfinanced, and unskilled in the techniques of conflict transformation." In recent years a lot has been said and written on the necessity and strategies of tapping the resources of religious traditions to promote peace in the world, especially in countries plagued by interreligious conflicts. A number of interfaith organizations focusing on peacebuilding now exist on every continent, including Africa, where efforts at combating religious violence are beginning to receive greater attention with emphasis on interreligious dialogue.

Examples of Interfaith Organizations

In Sub-Saharan Africa, interfaith organizations exist at the local, national and continental levels. The most notable at the continental level to date are the African Council of Religious Leaders (ACRL), Religions for Peace, the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA), and the Program for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA). The African Council of Religious Leaders was founded in 2002 during a gathering of about a hundred senior religious leaders with the mission to "mobilize African religious communities and their leaders to build peaceful, just and harmonious societies in common action." It now has affiliated interfaith organizations from about 25 countries on the Continent.  IFAPA was also started in 2002 with the ambition "to act positively to establish peace in Africa with the strength of all faiths through engaging all stakeholders including governments, civil society and the private sector. It builds on the religious core values of integrity, human dignity, equality, justice, respect and diversity or acceptance." PROCMURA was established much earlier in 1959 by Christian Churches to foster "constructive engagement with Muslims for peace and peaceful coexistence." and now has constituencies in about 30 African Countries.

All three happen to be based in Nairobi, which is an indication that at the continental level efforts towards interreligious dialogue and action for peace have been driven by an agenda mainly set from English-speaking Africa. It is only now that French-speaking Africa is catching up with the trend, especially after the current crisis plaguing the Central African Republic. This contrast between English-speaking Africa and French-speaking Africa in regard to the public role of interfaith organizations also reflects different colonial legacies of secularization.

Peacebuilding Efforts in Conflict Zones

Besides holding interfaith summits and supporting causes related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) , one of the main activities of these organizations is to visit countries destabilized by conflicts, especially interreligious ones, in order to boost local efforts for peacebuilding. For example, PROCMURA general adviser, Rev. Dr. Mbillah visited the Central African Republic from the 22 to 27th July 2013 and met with both religious and political leaders to "advocate for peace and reconciliation". The religious leaders included the Archbishop of Bangui Mgr. Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Imam Oumar Kobine and Pastor Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou who have been praised for their joint and continuous efforts to reconcile Muslims and Christians in the Central African Republic. At the international level, interreligious efforts for peace also included the visit to the Central African Republic of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Archbishop of Washington, DC, Imam Mohamed Magid of the Islamic Society of North America and pastor Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States. Both the United Nations and the US state department explicitly encouraged these initiatives as an essential component of the strategy to reestablish peace in the Central African Republic. This explicit involvement of religious leaders in the Central African Republic builds on the now widely acknowledged and documented contribution of faith-based organizations and leaders to peacebuilding all over the world.

Roots of Religious Extremism

The new surge of religious violence in Africa calls for a renewed attention to the means by which religious radicalism is thriving on the continent. Besides internal factors, there is the external influence of religious reformists. Writing on Islamic revivalism in Northern Nigeria from 1999 onwards, Lubeck rightly remarks that "the shari'a movement was driven by a new generation of Islamic reformers who, while drawing upon eclectic sources, are largely inspired by neo-Salafi legal models and discourses originating in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia… Muslim revitalization movements seeking reform almost always originate in the pilgrimage centers of Mecca and Medina, and constantly inspire local Nigerian sects to imitate a specific reform practice." Similarly, Christian revivals in Africa, especially of the Evangelical-Pentecostal brand, tend to have their remote roots in the United States of America. These international links are built on the diffusion of new doctrines but also of human and financial resources. For example, it is now established that a good number of Christian and Islamic NGOs mushrooming in Africa are channels not only of social services but also of religious radicalism leading to new religious teachers, mosques and chapels.

Addressing the Challenges

The African state needs to address the challenge of reformist religious leaders propounding radical ideologies and preaching intolerance in their chapels, schools or mosques. For example, inspired by Morocco, Mali has just taken a bold step in that direction.  Islam in Mali is today confronted with the spread of religious intolerance both in the North and the South. The Malian government recently decided to curb the tendency by implementing a training program for Malian Imams in Morocco following an agreement between the heads of both states signed in 2013.   Inspired by the Moroccan model of the containment of religious radicalism, the idea is to train 500 Imams over a 5 years period for the promotion of a "tolerant and open Islam" as the President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubakar Keita put it. The foremost challenge obviously will be to balance the pressing need to prevent or contain the spread of religious extremism with upholding freedom of religion.

Conclusion

Although religious intolerance seems to be growing on the African continent, moderate Christians and Muslims are still the majority. Therefore, investing in the training of religious leaders for peacebuilding is definitely worth the effort given the influence they have on their respective communities, and hopefully the benefits will trickle down to the grassroots level. Considering that religious violence is becoming a serious threat to peace and security in Africa, national, regional and continental organizations will need to mainstream interreligious efforts in a more preventive approach in order to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence. National programs could include not only the training of religious leaders in conflict management, but also the involvement of media in the promotion of messages of religious tolerance. Furthermore, the African Union could consider establishing an office to coordinate these efforts and give more visibility and voice to interfaith organizations operating on the continent for the promotion of peace and religious freedom. This coordination is needed because "There is no question that bringing about a unified front would conserve a lot of resources, both human and material. It would have contributed to greater efficacy in carrying out their mission of addressing violent conflicts and the establishment of peace in the subcontinent."

Dr. Ludovic Lado is a Southern Voices African Research Scholar with the Africa Program at The Wilson Center, and Director of the Institute of Human Rights and Dignity at the Centre de Recherche et d'Action poir la Paix (CERAP) in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.

Photo Credit: Whitney Wilding/ Catholic Relief Services