1

Tensions, Threats, and a Nation’s Weakest Link: Muslim-Christian

Relations and the Future of Peace in Tanzania

Festo Mkenda

Campion Hall, Brewer Street, Oxford, OX1 1QS, UK

mkendafestol@gmail.com

Abstract

Peace and unity characterise Tanzania on her fiftieth anniversary of independence in

2011. This is no small achievement for a nation of great ethnic and religious diversity.

In the first part, this article shows that the roots of this claimed success can be

observed in culture, especially through language as one of its central elements.

Kiswahili—Tanzania‟s historical lingua franca and now the national language—

provides a rare opportunity to see a cultural evolution that celebrated religious

plurality. While the history of Kiswahili is not a new subject, it is here brought to bear

on the emerging theme of religions in the African public square. In the second part,

the article goes on to show the extent to which Muslim-Christian tensions around the

world are reflected in the local arena. Detailed hardening positions of the supposedly

„two‟ religious camps, which disagree on matters that are primarily political, are used

to elaborate the point and indicate the degree to which the traditional gains in

religious pluralism that Kiswahili helped to highlight are being reversed in the united

republic. Arguing, in the third part, that Tanzania‟s peace can no longer be taken for

granted, the article suggests that post-anniversary Tanzanians might have to do more

to ease current religious tensions and repair the fault-line that has been exposed. For

this to happen, it is suggested that politicians show greater statesmanship and clerics

think more locally.

Key words

Language, religious diversity, Muslim-Christian relations, state secularism

___________________________

Tanzanians take pride in their „culture of peace‟. They frequently invoke their

capital‟s name, Dar es Salaam (Harbour of Peace), to signify what appears to be their

most evident achievement as the country‟s mainland half celebrates fiftieth

anniversary of independence in 2011. At the signing of the fluid 2000 Burundi Peace

Agreement, Bill Clinton, the former USA President, called the northern town of

Arusha „the Geneva of Africa‟. Tanzanians have never failed to remind themselves of

this honorific title, which implies a neutral place where others come to make peace.

The ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM),1 continually cites „the culture of

peace‟ as its greatest achievement and the main reason it should continue to rule. In so

doing, the party makes secure capital out of something the electorate passionately

cares about.

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That care is not a natural gift devoid of human agency. Like most African

countries, at independence Tanzania was acutely aware of fault-lines that threatened

its political unity. In his 1961 inaugural address, the first president, Julius Nyerere,

listed immediate threats inherited from the colonial past. The first was a division

between rich and poor, aggravated by the fact that the very few, educated and well-to-

do also happened to be Asians and Europeans. The second threat arose from the

appalling state of education. The colonial state had delegated most of its responsibility

for African education to voluntary agents, mainly Christian missionaries. Of the

nineteen secondary schools existing in the territory in 1947 (all of them for boys),

only eight were run by the government (Hutt 1947). Consequently, at independence,

Africans with a measure of formal education were almost certainly male and most

likely Christians. The third threat was ethnic diversity, also worsened by educational

disparity. Missionaries did not build their schools all over Tanganyika, Nyerere

acknowledged, but only in certain selected places. Hence, not only were the majority

of educated Africans likely to be Christians by religious profession, but also Wahaya,

Wanyakyusa or Wachagga by ethnicity. „So,‟ concluded the new president, „those

who would strike at our unity could equally exploit this situation to stir up animosity

between the tribes‟ (Nyerere 1967, 178-9).

This admission assumed that unity was desired. But, unless acted upon, desires

breed no results. Tanzanian unity was hard won. The remedial pursuit of equality

through Ujamaa (socialism) improved the lot of many, worsened that of some and

contributed to holding back the country‟s economic potential. In principle, the

nationalization of mostly mission-owned institutions, which Ujamaa entailed, opened

school gates to many Muslims and practitioners of indigenous religions from all

ethnic communities but lowered the overall standard of education and discouraged

non-governmental investment in the sector. If Tanzanians appear to be near-paranoid

about any prospect of conflict, the likely cause is their awareness of the sacrifices they

have made for peace (Wijsen 2002, 244). When finding out whether Tanzanians were

truly the „patient trustees‟ they appeared to be or merely „uncritical citizens‟,

researchers puzzlingly met with people who were sharply critical of their state‟s

underperformance over the years and stubbornly supportive of its basic institutions. It

is possible, their research concluded, that Tanzanians have been rendered uncritical by

years of one-party socialism or they have learnt to support well-meaning institutions

even as they denounced poor leadership (Chaligha et al, 2002).

The „wisdom‟ behind some of the decisions Tanzanians have made for

themselves since independence will be debated by scholars for decades to come. Such

debate is not the subject here. Rather, I ask whether peace and unity can now be

perceived as Tanzania‟s secure patrimony. In this article, I argue that they cannot. By

looking at recent events, I show that Muslim-Christian relations remain the country‟s

weakest link, which is deteriorating in the current global anticipation of a showdown

of „civilisations‟. As the theologian Hans Küng (2007, xxiii-xxiv) has pointed out,

post-cold war forecast of a clash between „the West‟ (rightly or wrongly understood

as „Christianity‟) and „Islam‟ (rightly or wrongly understood as all that is culturally or

racially „Arabic‟) substituted the old hostile image of Communism with a hostile

image of Islam and created a favourable atmosphere for continued wars. Moreover, at

a time marked by minimal public expression of religion, commitment to Islam or

Christianity can easily—and cheaply—translate into capacity to stand up to one‟s

imagined religious opponent in the public square. As the Tanzanian case will suggest,

the tension resulting from such a polarized worldview trickles down to local contexts.

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There, individuals have to declare their allegiance to one, often broadly defined,

religious side or the other, not unlike in the cold-war period when even village

politicians took sides according to global ideologies. Once counterparts perceive each

other as embodiments of global subversive ideologies that threaten them, propositions

meet outright opposition and dialogue grinds to a halt.

Recent symptomatic events suggest that Tanzania is close to such a halt. In

1992, Zanzibar unilaterally joined the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), only

to be forced to withdraw on the ground that it violated the union‟s constitution.

Zanzibar‟s move was popularly interpreted as an Islamic threat to state secularism. In

1998, the government intervened to stop religious preaching in Dar es Salaam,

thought to have been instigating hatred. The situation was not improved by the police

intervening in riots centred on the Mwembechai Mosque in the capital, which had

lasted for some days and had become increasingly sectarian and violent. The

intervention left a number of casualties. Probably to court Muslim voters after a nose-

bruising encounter, the CCM enshrined in its 2005 election manifesto a promise „to

resolve the issue of establishing Kadhi Courts in Mainland Tanzania‟ (CCM 2005,

chapter 9, paragraph 108.b, my translation). After the elections, when Muslims

pressed for implementation of the promise that had made them vote for the CCM,

Christians viewed their demand as yet another attempt to subvert a secular

constitution. Claiming a right as much to express views as to cast ballot, in 2009 the

Tanzanian Episcopal Conference (TEC, a Catholic body) backed a document drafted

by the Christian Professionals of Tanzania (CPT) as a manifesto for the October 2010

general elections. Among many other demands, the manifesto asked the government

„[t]o respect the principle of Secularity of the State and not to allow religious

institutions (like Kadhi courts and membership of OIC) to become part of the public

system‟ (CPT 2009, 5). This line opened a vent for boiling anger in sections of the

Muslim community. A largely revisionist counter-manifesto was issued by the

Supreme Council of Islamic Organisations and Institutions in Tanzania (in Kiswahili

referred to as Shura ya Maimamu, from the Arabic shura, meaning „consultation‟).

The counter-manifesto aimed to debunk Tanzania‟s claim to a harmonious past.

„Mwalimu Nyerere betrayed Muslims,‟ declared the thirty-two page document, „and

decided to uplift his Church, the Catholic Church, to be above everything else.‟ It

urged Muslims to participate in future elections „as Muslims‟, arguing that past

participation „as Tanzanians‟ had never helped them (Kamati Kuu ya Siasa… 2009, 1-

2, 30, my translation).

Following these exchanges, a seemingly uncoordinated religious debate has

reached a crescendo, exposing a disturbing fault-line in a country that is known for

little more than its relative tranquillity within the often turbulent Great Lakes region

of Africa. More than ever before, leadership at the state level is critical. If the current

religious acrimony is allowed to go unchecked, future national elections might be

decided by religious quarrels, significantly ruining the country‟s „culture of peace‟.

Yet, this need not happen. As the Kiswahili language helps to show, the country

possesses sufficient cultural foundations on which to anchor peace. It is these

foundations that might need protection from what seems to be an external assault that

gnaws at disgruntled local material. We now focus on the Kiswahili language as a

window to the multi-religious heritage of this part of East Africa and thus provide a

background against which the current polemics must be contrasted.

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Tanzania’s multi-religious heritage as seen through Kiswahili

Current global awareness of religious plurality and its popular perception as

„problem‟ can be directly linked to growing multiculturalism in Europe and America.

Today there are in the West more Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists than ever

before in recent history. This change has imposed on the West different ways of

seeing and interpreting reality which question, if not threaten, the parochial ways that

for centuries had been thought to be inherent features of Christianity itself rather than

culturally determined expressions of that which Christianity communicates.

Elsewhere, societies have lived in multi-cultural and multi-religious contexts for

centuries, often peacefully and sometimes violently, without making headlines. The

longevities of the multi-religious experiences in Asia and Africa speak for themselves.

The East and Central African Swahili context is one example where

communities have been multi-religious for ages. The East African coast has for

centuries served as a doorway to external influence, especially from the Arab world.

This influence became increasingly significant since the 9th

century when trade and

Islam encouraged and sometimes compelled more Arabs to move out and settle in the

region (Sheriff 2010). Either by accident or by design, Arabs, like Germans many

years after them, did not replace the languages of their hosts in East Africa. Although

they preserved the Qurʼān and passed on some Muslim instructions in Arabic, they

carried out other transactions in the language of the coastal people, which is what the

word swahili denoted. In this encounter, the role of Kiswahili as an economic medium

preceded its role as a religious medium. Its social-economic role has remained the

major reason for the language‟s spread over East and Central Africa. Brought-in

religions, first Islam and then Christianity, have largely been free riders in this

process.

On its part, Kiswahili was enriched, not replaced, by the Arabic language. To

date the language of the coastal people remains entirely native in its structure, with

about sixty-five percent of its stems belonging to the Bantu family of languages

common to a large part of Africa (King‟ei 1999, 8). About twenty percent of its words

originate from Arabic, making John Iliffe‟s (1969, 206-7) description of Kiswahili as

„basically Bantu with much Arabic vocabulary‟ fairly accurate. The remaining fifteen

percent can be traced to such diverse origins as Hindi, German, Portuguese and

English, with the latter as the largest foreign contributor in recent years. It is hardly

surprising that a significant percentage that is traceable to Arabic is of a religious

nature, since the Muslim faith is one of the most obvious marks of Arabic influence

on East Africa‟s coastal culture. Most recent borrowings from European languages

tend to come more from science and less from religion, suggesting that there is more

scientific than religious interpenetration between East Africa and the West.

If we use etymology to determine religious influence, it should be possible to

view Kiswahili before the 19th

century as a pointer to an encounter between at least

two religious traditions: Islamic and indigenous African. One could even argue that,

in this encounter, the religions indigenous to East Africa had an upper hand, for, not

only did they provide the bed-rock on which Islam was laid, but also contributed most

of the religious vocabulary used. Even when Arabic remained the official language of

Islam, few Muslims in East Africa became fluent in that language any more than

Christian converts became fluent in Latin in later years. As the Imams delivered

sermons in Kiswahili, they used religious terminology of purely native background.

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They would have used the Bantu word Mungu for God and the Arabic-derived word

malaika for angels; the Bantu word Mtume for the Prophet Muhammad, and the

Arabic-derived word dini for religion in general; the Bantu word mbingu for the

heavens, and the Arabic-derived word ardhi for the earth, and the list can only get

longer (Mazrui and Mazrui 1995, 22; Mazrui and Zirimu 1990, 51).

Whereas in many parts of North Africa Islam replaced Christianity together

with the language in which it was expressed, in East Africa it neither wiped out

indigenous religions nor the languages through which they were communicated.

Rather, Islam contented itself with contributing to a common idiom terminologies that

had to be „swahilized‟ before use (Peel 1984, 161). The reasons for this contrast are

manifold. As already hinted at, early Arab migrants to East Africa were primarily

economic adventurers, not religious proselytizers. In some cases mass conversions

could have interfered with trade, since they would have entailed the selling of fellow

Muslims to slavery. Sometimes coastal residents had to fight their way to becoming

Muslims so as to acquire status and security. Beyond the coast, very few Muslim

communities developed around trading centres like Tabora and Ujiji, which had direct

trading contacts with the coast. Those from other parts who did not immediately face

a similar social threat did not become Muslims en mass.

In later years, as trade continued to take Kiswahili to the interior of East and

Central Africa, Islam largely remained a phenomenon of the coastal Kiswahili-

speaking communities. But the coastal communities were losing their grip on this

fast-spreading language. By the 20th

century, their shrinking percentage in the total

population that used Kiswahili greatly relativized their political significance (Mazrui

and Zirimu 1995, 29-30), which qualifies the argument by Wijsen and Tanner (2008,

551) that Kiswahili „may be seen by many as part of an assertion of coastal

dominance.‟

From scattered colonial records it can be estimated that, between 1913 and

1921, Muslims in Tanganyika (mainland Tanzania) were just above seven percent of a

total population of over four million, and that is after counting „a considerable number

who merely observe certain rites and whose connection with Islam is quite

superficial‟ (Tanganyika Government 1920, 30 and 1921, 7). Becker (2008, 4) has

warned that this sort of information was not necessarily based on people declaring

themselves to be Muslims but on practices, dress styles or names which observers

associated with Islam. The useful caution notwithstanding, if, as the same colonial

sources suggest, Kiswahili was a lingua franca in the sense of a widely spread and

commonly used second language, then the majority of its users must have been non-

Muslims. Despite popular belief to the contrary, Islam spread faster and wider into the

interior of Tanzania during the colonial and the post-independence periods than it did

in any other previous time (Nimtz, Jr. 1980, 10-11; Lodhi and Westerlund 1997;

Becker 2008, 1 and passim). For example, during the British period (1920-61), Asian

Muslim petty traders penetrated every village and hamlet of the territory, considerably

furthering the spread of their religion (Richter 1934, 53).

The context in which Kiswahili evolved before the middle of the 19th

century

can thus be viewed as thoroughly multi-religious, unless one still dismisses

indigenous African beliefs as non-religious. Kiswahili was never at any point wholly

Islamic. Neither did it remain purely indigenous African after it had encountered

Arabic and had been used to communicate Islam. From that point, the language

served the two religious traditions concurrently. It continued to be refined to become a

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medium of communication between Muslims and practitioners of indigenous African

religions who thus constituted an extensive, loosely defined, community of meaning.

In the middle of the 19th

century, Christianity became a newcomer in this

community, earlier European contacts having had little religious impact on East

Africa. Apart from those limited instances where Islam was manipulated to sustain

social distinctions between slaves and masters, available evidence indicates that

Christian missionaries entered a local environment free of religious animosity,

suspicion or competition. A few examples are in order. Zanzibar, which by this time

had become a large Muslim society, was the doorway to the interior of East Africa.

Many Christian missionaries did their language training there and started off from

there to the interior. When the Reverend Krapf arrived in Zanzibar on New Year Day

1844, he was introduced to the Muslim Sayyid Said who ruled the East African

islands and retained suzerainty over a large part of the mainland coast. Krapf

disclosed to the Sayyid his Christian missionary objectives. At once the Sayyid gave

him full permission to evangelize, furnishing him with a letter addressed to all the

governors of the coast, instructing them „to be kind to Dr Krapf, who wishes to

convert the world to God‟ (Krapf 1882, vii). Again in the 1860s, Bishop Edward

Steere expressed his wish to translate the Bible into Kiswahili. The Bishop received

much help in Zanzibar, not least from one Sheikh Abd al Aziz who volunteered to and

actually translated parts of the Arabic Psalter into what was judged to be the best and

purest Kiswahili (Steere 1917, vii-viii).

Traditional authorities in the interior were just as welcoming to the Christian

message in their countries. In 1878, Chief Mandara of Moshi on the slopes of Mt

Kilimanjaro had a letter written for him in Arabic, inviting members of the Church

Missionary Society (CMS) at Frere Town near Mombasa to come to his territory and

teach the children there, with an additional request for a book. A copy of the Bible in

Arabic was sent to him promptly („Invitation from King of Chagga‟ 1878, 448-9).

Later in 1890, the French Holy Ghost Missionaries also sought to evangelize

Kilimanjaro. For their guide and translator, they picked up one Daringo, a Chagga

youth they met at Mombasa, who was fluent in both Kiswahili and Kichagga. On

reaching the mountain, one of their immediate observations was the extent to which

coastal Swahili culture, including Islam, was already established in the region. Yet it

was Pfumba of Kilema, another Chagga chief, who was their host. Through a Chagga

traditional ritual, Pfumba granted the missionaries permission to stay and evangelize

among his people. The chief trusted that, because their affair was about „instructing

the Blacks and passing on to them [their] spirit,‟ these missionaries were different

from other White men. Such others visited the place, he said, and took photos which

they showed to their wives saying „here are the people of Kilimanjaro with heads like

large pots.‟ He explained that the Chagga people knew God, but admitted „we do not

know well what he has said.‟ It was for this reason that he allowed the missionaries to

stay and teach their religion. He and the missionaries became blood-brothers through

a ritual that was presided over by a Chagga religious elder (Le Roy 1928, 274, 186-

92).

All these interreligious encounters were made possible by Kiswahili, either

directly or indirectly through translations. One did not have to stay long in the region

to notice the language‟s potential. After a brief visit to the CMS missions in Mombasa

in the 1870s, for example, Bishop Rayston of Mauritius wrote:

…Might I suggest here how very important it would be for the various societies who

have agents in this part, to direct them to confer with those of other Missions as to

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translation, &c., in the Suaheli language? From all I can learn, there is no reason why

the slightly differing dialectic shades of north and south should not be merged into

one tongue, to be „fixed,‟ as has often been the case, by Christian literature. This

Suaheli seems so easy, so effective, and so widespread, that it might be an organ of

speech to the very heart of the continent („Bishop Rayston…‟ 1878, 717).

It is sufficiently clear that the early Christian missionaries studied Kiswahili,

not because of some altruistic desire to spread it, but because it was already known in

the regions they intended to evangelize. However, the very nature of their work

further promoted Kiswahili. Having had their language training in Zanzibar and their

ministries in the interior, they unwittingly popularized Kiunguja—the Zanzibari

dialect of Kiswahili—which came to be declared the standard written form by an East

African inter-territorial conference held at Mombasa in 1928. Besides running schools

that instructed in Kiswahili, the missionaries continued to translate the scriptures and

prayer books and even produced the first local newspapers in Kiswahili (Massamba

1989, 61). Theirs was a significant contribution. As they joined the already existing

community of meaning, the missionaries did not remain indifferent to the process of

shaping the language, but actively airbrushed existing religious idiom with a

specifically Christian sense. Musa, for example, clearly pronounced as in Arabic, was

no longer a figure limited to Muslims alone, but a prophet in Christian scriptures.

Words like kadhi, simply meaning „judge‟, found their way into Swahili translations

of the bible without raising eyebrows. As Christianity continued to be a day-to-day

reality in this community, the context became even more multi-religious. More than

anywhere else, it is probably here in East Africa that we find a test case for Ali

Mazrui‟s theme of a „triple heritage‟ in Africa (that is, indigenous African, Western

and Islamic), which marked his 1986 BBC/PBS television series and the subsequent

book (Mazrui 1986).

As a language, therefore, Kiswahili evolved to serve relations between

individuals and communities, making mutual understanding and enrichment possible

within a context of religious plurality. The language has not existed to serve

exclusively one religious tradition. As Mazrui and Zirimu (1990, 26) put it:

The great impact of Arabic in loan words is as irreversible as the impact of Latin on

the English language. But Kiswahili is becoming less Islamic and more African

because of its very success. Two trends have made it less Islamized. One is its

evolution into an ecumenical language—a medium of worship and theology for

Christianity and indigenous African religion, as well as Islam. Kiswahili is now the

language of a Christian hymn, of an Islamic sermon, and of funeral rites in African

traditional creeds. … The ecumenicalization of Kiswahili is part and parcel of its

universalization.

What these authors see in religious terms as ecumenicalization of Kiswahili they also

see in political terms as its secularization. Here, the term „secular‟ does not mean

indifference to religion, but the ability to serve as an environment for the independent

thriving of different religions.

This secular aspect of Kiswahili has not received much attention in history.

Instead, there has been an undue focus on its otherwise undisputed links with Arabic

and, therefore, Islam. Such skewed analysis partly resulted from failure to give

sufficient attention to indigenous African religions and their contribution to Swahili

religious idiom. Furthermore, research and conclusions have also been conditioned by

certain debates among Christian missionaries and European colonial administrators

from their earliest days in East Africa. For instance, unlike Bishop Rayston whose

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favourable comment was quoted above, Bishop Alfred Tucker in Uganda had

nightmares every time he thought about Kiswahili. „That there should be one

“language” for Central Africa is a consummation devoutly to be wished,‟ said he, „but

God forbid that it should be Swahili.‟ Preferring English to the object of his phobia,

the Bishop argued that „[t]he one means the Bible and Protestant Christianity, the

other Mohammedanism, sensuality, moral and physical degradation and ruin‟ (Tucker

1908, ii: 216). Before Tucker, Krapf had expressed similar fears about the link

between Kiswahili and Islam, even as he admitted the language would be the best

medium of evangelization in the region (Krapf 1850, 170; Krapf 1882, xi). Colonial

administrators shared in this imported islamophobia. Addressing the Kolonialrat in

1905, one Director Butchner described Kiswahili as „irredeemably mixed with Islam‟

and called for the deployment of every resource „to obstruct their joint penetration.‟

Complaining about official support for the language, Julius Richter blamed the

German government for being „blatantly pro-Islamic‟ (Wright 1971, 113). Ultimately,

these concerns led to the missionary-inspired and government-sponsored change of

written Kiswahili from Arabic to Roman script. But that change was probably their

only gain, since, as we have seen, Islam spread faster and wider during the colonial

period.

Yet remnants of the colonial fear of Islam linger on in some quarters. In a

number of publications, Ralph Tanner has recently highlighted „problems‟ associated

with Kiswahili as an ecumenical language, not the least of which is the historical

association with Arabic and, therefore, Islam. He suggests that, „[o]nce the post-

colonial enthusiasm for having an African national language has declined, Tanzanian

Christians in senior Church positions are unlikely to have any active interest in

investing in theology either created in or translated into Swahili‟ (Tanner 2005, 210;

also Tanner 2006, 26-34; Wijsen and Tanner 2008).

The thriving of Kiswahili amid such religious and secular reservations

redounds to its cosmopolitan credentials. The language continues to act as a medium

of communication between individuals and communities of different beliefs and of

none. It is this quality of Kiswahili which manifests a localized openness to multiple

religions (Sheriff 2010, 38-39), possible only when essentially global theologies are

adapted to fit within a particular context. Tanzanian Muslims learnt this lesson fairly

early. In their well-written article on the history of Islam in the country, Abdulaziz

Lodhi and David Westerlund record that, both in the interior and along the coast, this

world religion is full of local African characteristics. „African practices and beliefs are

often very obvious‟, they say, adding that it is sometimes hard to distinguish the

dividing line between Islam and indigenous religions. The marked ignorance of

Arabic is one of the authors‟ evidence for a localized Islam. „Both religiously and

culturally‟, they conclude, „the Moslems of Tanzania have a very strong local African

identity‟ (Lodhi and Westerlund 1997; also Deutsch 2006, 30-32; Pouwels 1978,

205). Christians, too, have come to learn the same lesson, though somewhat belatedly.

Missionary attempts to turn the African convert into a tabula rasa having failed,

church leaders and theologians increasingly speak about inculturation as a new

approach to evangelization. The term implies the viewing of local cultures as

potentially receptive to the preached message in ways which could desirably alter its

form and even deepen its meaning. This theological position, unthinkable a few

decades ago, admits that indigenous African beliefs could facilitate and improve on

the general understanding of an essentially Christian message. Today the Roman

9

Pontiff can face Africans and say: „I urge you to look inside yourselves… Look to the

riches of your own traditions‟ (John Paul II 1995, paragraph 48).

From the foregoing discussion, it can be said that the Eastern African context,

especially as marked by Kiswahili, manifests relative facility for multiple religions.

We saw a language that grew because of new encounters and was adjusted to

accommodate diversity, giving the lie to pessimistic predictions of inevitable clash

when different „civilizations‟ meet. In fact, the case of Kiswahili helps us to

appreciate the argument by John Voll, that „[o]ld-style definitions of “civilizations” as

separate entities that are essentially complete, which then interact with other such

entities‟ are unhelpful in our attempt to understand the „Muslim-Christian-African‟

interactions which are essentially threefold in nature (Voll 2006, 20). Equally old-

styled and unhelpful are portrayals of indigenous cultures as „the passive element‟ in

this specific encounter between Islam and Africa (Trimingham 1964, 66). Looking

back, Kiswahili reveals an interaction rather than a clash. And, looking forward,

increased openness by world religions to local adaptations should give hope for

contextualized harmony. However, the current stand-off between Muslims and

Christians in Tanzania, suggesting, as it does, deteriorating relationships, provides

evidence to the contrary. It is as if Christians have suddenly realized that Muslims

have horns, and Muslims that Christians had been hiding their stinging tails all along.

This is a puzzling reversal of historical gains, which calls for intelligible explanation.

While it may be too soon to attempt such an explanation, a good understanding of the

situation as it unfolds is a necessary step in the direction of meaningful dialogue. As

already proposed, strained relationships in Tanzania, especially their timing, cannot

be fully explained without having in the background religious tensions on the world

stage. This proposition begins to make sense as we trace key events that lead to the

present.

Antecedents to the Present

Studies have linked current Islamic and Christian revival and reform movements in

East Africa with personages and events back in the 1970s and beyond (Loimeier

2003; Chesworth 2006; Becker 2008, 243-249). However, although one could cite

recorded skirmishes, it is hard to detect serious tension between Muslims and

Christians in post-independence Tanzania before 1992. This is not to suggest that

Tanzania‟s past is without conflict that could have been inspired by religion, but that

such conflict was overshadowed by general good will and neighbourly trust. After

independence, such good will and trust were anchored on the acknowledgement of

inherited shortcomings and a determination to rectify them together. The nature of

Tanzania‟s movement for independence facilitated this friendly beginning. While

most of the few educated champions of the movement were Christians or mission-

educated individuals, Muslims constituted the bulk of its rank and fine. This was not

merely accidental. While educated Christians enjoying government employment

could not freely join the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), most Muslims

had little to worry about expressing anti-colonial sentiments. TANU membership

cards were often distributed in mosques. This loosely understood Christian-

élite/Muslim-masses symbiosis in the nationalist movement ensured that, if

independence became a Tanzanian achievement, it would be one that could be

claimed by both Christians and Muslims.

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Moreover, post-independence „developments‟ could be equally claimed by

both sides of the creedal divide. Arguably, Tanzania‟s most significant political

„development‟ after independence is the 1967 Arusha Declaration which adopted

Ujamaa as the country‟s socialist economic policy. Subsequent nationalization of

health and educational institutions, hurting to many Christian denominations who

owned them, was hailed by most African Muslims as a welcome corrective measure

to inherited disparities. Generally, in the heyday of Ujamaa, it was an honourable

thing for religious communities to appear to be identifying themselves with the

policy. Practically, it was easier for Muslims to so identify themselves than the case

was for mainstream Christians who enjoyed institutional and financial support from

the capitalist world and were under pressure to resist „communist‟ tendencies.2

Although there have been more studies linking Ujamaa to Christianity (Rwelamira

1988; Sivalon 1991), the roots of Tanzania‟s socialism have not been lacking in

Islamic sources (Westerlund 1982; Yusuf 1990). As Lodhi and Westerlund point out,

Ujamaa „has many similarities with Islamic Socialism, and especially Nasserism

influenced many Moslems in Tanzania‟ (Lodhi and Westerlund 1997).

At least two developments in Tanzania‟s recent past stand in contrast to what

is happening in the present. First, immediately after independence, mainland Tanzania

considered adopting a coherent family law with a national character. The critical

question was how an increasingly national judicial system could, in principle,

adjudicate in cases involving laws that were not common to all, such as „Customary

Law‟ limited to particular ethnic communities or „Islamic Law‟ limited to one

religious community. By sifting out the „principles‟ believed to be behind different

customary rules, it was relatively easy for courts to take account of traditional

expectations in different communities while allowing for the alteration of practices

that, as a matter of course, had become unacceptable to changing societies and were

being ignored by most people. Because of its appeal to divine authority and claim of

universal validity, „Islamic Law‟ could not be so easily integrated into the country‟s

emerging legal system. The deliberations led to the overhaul of the entire judicial

system. State-sponsored „Customary Courts‟ and „Islamic (or Kadhi) Courts‟ which

operated in colonial days were purged from the new system. Further changes

regarding marriage law were introduced in 1971. As these sought to regulate

marriageable age, inheritance and divorce with the view to promote rights of the

woman, they further constrained the application of customary and Islamic laws. In

varying degrees, the changes were disagreeable to Muslims and Christians. For

example, while they made it slightly harder for Muslim men to initiate divorce, they

made it practically possible for Catholics to seek divorce outside the constraints of

their Church which has no provisions for undoing a valid marriage. These legal

arrangements remain true in the mainland to date. In Zanzibar, where probably ninety-

eight percent of the population is Muslim, Islamic Law extends beyond family and

inheritance to all other matters not covered by statute law. Zanzibar has a separate

judicial system which culminates in a high court („Chief Justice on Multipartyism‟

1995).

The second development is the 1968 creation of the Tanzania‟s National

Muslim Council, in Kiswahili, Baraza Kuu la Waislamu Tanzania and usually

acronymed BAKWATA. Just as they did for Christians, the politics of Ujamaa

unmasked divisions within the Muslim community. An East African Muslim Welfare

Society (EAMWS), founded in Mombasa in 1945, had been moved to Dar es Salaam

in 1961 under the presidency of the politically ambitious Chief Abdallah Fundikira.

11

EAMWS claimed to be the official mouthpiece for all Tanzanian Muslims. Influenced

and funded mainly by wealthy Shiites of Asian descent, the society was used to voice

that group‟s protest against Tanzania‟s socialist policies. Pro-TANU Muslims, a

majority of whom were indigenous African, materially modest and mainly Sunni,

managed to discredit EAMWS before the political regime, securing the registration of

BAKWATA as the supreme Muslim body in the country. EAMWS and other Muslim

organisations were subsequently dissolved (Lodhi and Westerlund 1997; Becker

2008, 237).

The two developments are important in that they were controversial changes,

certainly unsatisfactory to some, which at that time were not seen as a Christian

scheme to undermine Muslims. Nor were they explained in the jargon of protecting

state secularism against encroaching Islamism. For many people, these were simply

adjustments, some of them patchy, taking place in a period of rapid change. In the

future, however, they will be interpreted very differently.

We already mentioned Zanzibar‟s unilateral decision to join the OIC in

December 1992, allegedly for economic benefit. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, a Zanzibari and

then Union President, publicly endorsed Zanzibar‟s decision even as he insisted that

Tanzania remained a secular state. Radical opponents called for his impeachment. The

President was not impeached, but, in February 1993, a union parliamentary

commission ruled that Zanzibar‟s action was unconstitutional, since foreign affairs

were reserved to the union government. Zanzibar withdrew its OIC membership in

August 1993 (Minorities at Risk Project 2004). The whole issue was understood to be

a constitutional matter and, whether satisfactorily or not, was handled within the state

apparatus. But the problem did not rest in peace.

Around the same period, the country was witnessing a wave of Islamic

revivalism, backed by local scholars and enjoying external support. The revivalists

were particularly critical of the post-independence situation, highlighting the fact that

Muslims still lagged behind in education and held fewer positions in the government

and the civil service. Exploiting the then allowed political opposition, they also

criticised the conduct of BAKWATA, arguing that the body was controlled by the

CCM and its government. With financial support from mainly Arabic countries, many

mosques were renovated, new ones constructed, and new Muslim schools and clinics

established countrywide (Lodhi 1994, 93; Becker 2008, 245-249).

Also developing around the same time, though not necessarily connected,

were forms of Muslim and Christian views and actions that verged on the extreme.

The views were mainly expressed in street or open-air preaching and in tape-recorded

or printed messages meant to undermine theological tenets of counterparts. This

strategy was so widespread that it has been a subject of much research (Chesworth

2006; Chesworth 2007). Christians were put on the defensive, and TEC issued a

public statement expressing concerns about what it called „religious blasphemy‟ (TEC

1993). Apparently, the reaction by TEC caused offence to Muslims. In April 1993,

angry Muslims attacked pork butcheries in Dar es Salaam, completely destroying

three, and elicited condemnation from government and church leaders. On the other

hand, sections of the Christian community were also expressing dissatisfaction with

the political order. The opposition Democratic Party (DP), led by the Reverend

Christopher Mtikila, complained about what it perceived to be an overrepresentation

of Zanzibaris in the union parliament and government even as Zanzibar continued to

enjoy a kind of internal political autonomy that is denied to the mainland. Since the

12

population of Zanzibar is almost entirely Muslim, the DP interpreted the situation as a

conspiracy against Christians. More generally, Christians viewed financial aid from

Arabic countries as an attempt to Islamize their country—an irony given their own

heavy financial reliance on churches in the West (Lodhi 1994, 93).

By mid-1990s, boundaries had been drawn. Nearly every political move

started to acquire religious significance. Events like the 1998 terrorist bombings in

Dar es Salaam and Nairobi could only fuel the existing animosity, with the country‟s

subsequent anti-terrorism laws described by some as „an opportunity to further

weaken Muslims‟ („Tamko la Waislamu…‟ n.d., 5, my translation).3 In this way,

almost every state action was believed to give form to some religious conspiracy. In

turn, this interpretation of events elicited two different but concurrent responses:

while many Christians viewed Muslims as a potential threat, many Muslims perceived

Christians, especially Catholics, as historical sponsors of a state-enforced pattern of

discrimination against them. Consequently, Christians assumed a posture of resistance

while Muslims adopted a revisionist strategy. These two positions have continued to

harden and have significantly reversed the initial trend towards acceptable religious

pluralism. Chances for peaceful and meaningful dialogue have also been diminishing.

Two issues help to illustrate the Christian resistance. The first is the persistent

call to join OIC. As was noted above, the issue did not disappear in 1993. Sections of

the Muslim community have continued to demand that Tanzania join the faith-

inspired organization. They cite the country‟s diplomatic relations with the Vatican as

a Catholic precedent to their supposedly modest demand. Christians have sounded a

big „NO,‟ citing preservation of state secularism as their main argument. Leaders of

the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT, a Protestant body) meeting in Dar es Salaam

in October 2008 were reported to have said that „“even discussing whether or not the

country should join the religious organisation” could pose a threat to peace and

national stability.‟ They even called for the immediate resignation of the Minister for

Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for „misleading the public and “using

his office to breach the Constitution”‟ (Citizen Team 2008). The OIC question

remains, as one blogger described it, „a pain in Tanganyika‟s rear end‟ (Metty 2006).

The second issue, closely related to the first, is that of Kadhi Courts. Some

Muslims feel that the country‟s statute laws and judicial structures do not cater for

their personal, family and inheritance procedures. They demand special provisions for

their use in the country‟s mainstream judicial system. Again, Christians have stood

their ground in opposition. In November 2007, a letter from The Full Salvation

Church, signed by the Reverend Mtikila and widely circulated through e-mail, was

addressed to Mr. Edward Lowasa, a Christian and then Prime Minister, accusing him

of betraying the country. It said the premier was assisting Mr Jakaya Kikwete, a

Muslim and the country‟s President, to islamize Tanzania through Kadhi Courts

(Mtikila 2007).4 Speaking on a similar issue during the recently concluded Synod of

Bishops for Africa, the Bishop of Zanzibar complained that Tanzania was „being

pressurised to establish Islamic courts and join the membership of OIC on the

expenses of tax payers‟ (Shao 2009). The Bishop‟s position on the matter echoed one

already expressed by the CCT. A less common strategy was adopted by some

churches and professionals who were reported in 2007 to have drafted a bill

demanding the establishment of a Christian court („Faith News‟ 2007), but this has

not been pursued further. The religious drift implied in this antagonism is also visible

in latest linguistic trends. The word Kadhi has been purged from recent bible

13

translations, and Kiswahili readers of the holy book must now learn to refer to Moses

as Mose, a deliberate shift from the Arabic-sounding Musa.5

The Muslim revisionist strategy can also be illustrated by two issues. The first

is the place of Julius Nyerere—the Mwalimu (Teacher) or Baba wa Taifa (Father of

the Nation) as he is called in Tanzania—in the country‟s politics. Arguably, the

Mwalimu was at once a shrewd politician and a committed Catholic. Muslim

revisionists have used him as evidence for supposed Catholic meddling in national

affairs (Becker 2008, 246). Hamza M. Njozi argues that Nyerere‟s popular 1959

speech expressing a desire to place „A Candle on Kilimanjaro‟, which would shine to

replace despair with hope, hate with love and humiliation with dignity, is patterned

after a 13th

century prayer by St. Francis of Assisi. „The fact that Mwalimu Nyerere

modelled Tanganyika‟s national ideal after the prayer of a Roman Catholic saint,‟

Njozi argues, „awakened the fear that Nyerere was so profoundly influenced by the

teachings of his church that he might consider its doctrines and ideas as necessarily

coinciding with those of independent Tanganyika‟ (Njozi 2000, 1-2).6 Again quoting

a pious 16th

century text by St. Ignatius of Loyola which says „we ought always to be

ready to believe that what seems to us white is black, if the hierarchical church so

defines it‟, Njozi suggests that Nyerere used his political powers not only to ban

EAMWS, but also „to confiscate all its properties and to impose on the Muslims a

puppet organisation, BAKWATA,‟ and all that because the church perceived

EAMWS to be a threat. As a sincere Roman Catholic, concludes Njozi, Nyerere

„could not pick and choose what to follow and what to reject in his faith‟ (Njozi 2000,

3). Similarly revisionist around the person of Nyerere is the Muslim counter-

manifesto referred to above: „Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere—who stands

accused by many historical writings as “an important agent of the church in the

government”—used his great authority as the country‟s president to implement the

program of dismantling Muslims‟ system of bringing up children, inheritance,

marriage, trust and religious endowments‟ (Kamati Kuu ya Siasa… 2009, 11, my

translation).7 These writers extensively use John Sivalon‟s (1991) Roman Catholicism

and the Defining of Tanzania Socialism as their single most crucial reference.

The second issue, again closely linked to the first, is the place of Zanzibar in

the United Republic of Tanzania. Some Muslim revisionists have portrayed the union

as a grand Christian plot to stifle a burgeoning Islamic empire that was centred on

Zanzibar. An article by Khatib M. Rajab al-Zinjibari epitomises this approach.

Describing the extent of the legendary empire, al-Zinjibari (n.d.) says:

The Zanzibar Empire under the Sultanate stretched from Cape (Rãs) Asir in Banadir

coast of Somalia to the Ruvuma river at the Cape Delgado, and inland beyond the

great lakes. In addition, its ruler held sway over all the south-eastern corner of Arabia.

His influence stretched beyond even these extensive borders. At the time of the

heyday of the Empire, Zanzibar became celebrated in the well-known saying that:

„When you play flute in Zanzibar, all Africans as far as the Lakes (Tanganyika,

Malawi and Victoria) dance.‟ This Zanj Empire has passed….

Needless to say, al-Zinjibari exaggerates the extent of Zanzibar‟s hegemony in the

interior of East Africa and makes a direct link between 19th

century commercial

expeditions and religious expansion, which does not bear scrutiny. Authors of his

persuasion find it hard to accept the fact that, as Felicitas Becker has so well

demonstrated, the colonial context between c.1890 and 1960 was the most favourable

for the spread of Islam into the interior of Tanzania, and that „Islamization was

intertwined with Christianization and with change in indigenous religious practice‟

14

(Becker 2008, 6). Our opening discussion of the evolution of Kiswahili sheds more

light on this crucial observation.

But al-Zinjari is not concerned with the colonial period alone. Persistently

referring to the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution as a „crusade‟ and seeing it as „reminiscent

of the Spanish Inquisition which led to the last stronghold of the Muslim State in

Spain,‟ he further argues that, being a devout Catholic,

Nyerere…saw that the Islamic Zanzibar state [was] a threat to Christianity. He

masterminded a clandestine movement for the so-called Zanzibar Revolution under

the leadership of John Okello, a radical Christian from Uganda. It was not only a

prelude to the creation of Tanzania, but a continuation of crusade against Islam and

extension of Christian colonialism (al-Zinjibari n.d.).8

The approach which al-Zinjibari adopts keeps him well in the company of other

revisionist authors like Hamza Njozi (to whom we have referred), Mohammed Said,

and Harith Ghassany. Said (1998) presents Muslims as a specific „political‟

constituency in the history of Tanzania which, as such, has contributed much but has

been acknowledged for little (see also Chesworth 2004, 40-43). In a recent volume in

Kiswahili, Ghasany recasts the Zanzibar Revolution from a racial perspective. He sees

Nyerere‟s brand of Pan-Africanism as one that held those with ancestral roots beyond

the African continent as foreigners with no right to rule and argues that the 1964

„Afrabian‟ revolution in Zanzibar was based on this principle, which disadvantaged

Zanzibaris of Arabic origin (Ghassany 2010, 11).

The just described combination of Christian resistance and Muslim

revisionism characterises the present religious mood in Tanzania. When viewed

together, the two positions are mutually fulfilling. On the one hand, resistance—

especially an outright refusal even to discuss the implications of the institution of

Kadhi Courts and the joining of OIC—reinforces the revisionist portrayal of

Tanzania‟s Muslim population as the underdog. On the other hand, the deliberate

revisionist attempt to link colonial and post-independence social, political and

economic underperformance with an alleged global scheme to undermine Islam and

then hold local churches responsible for it makes Christians more fearful and,

consequently, more defensive.

The antagonism between these two fortified camps completely cloud whatever

remains of good will and genuine cooperation between Muslims and Christians in

Tanzania. For example, in 2008, TEC, CCT and BAKWATA jointly commissioned a

report that critically assessed the country‟s mining industry. The industry was found

to be financially wasteful, lacking in democratic accountability and detrimental to the

poorest people in the mining areas and to their natural environments. In their joint

foreword to the report that challenged the government to improve the lot of poor

Tanzanians, the religious leaders freely cited from the Bible and the Qurʼān, from

Budhist and Bahàʼi scriptures, and from the Dalai Lama (Curtis and Lisu 2008, 4-5).

This document passed almost entirely unnoticed while religious tensions dominated

the headlines.

Besides obscuring actual cooperation among religious communities, what

appears as two neatly circumscribed antagonistic camps give a false impression of

internal unity. The reality is rather different. There is not one organised body that

represents all Christians in Tanzania. TEC is exclusively Catholic, and CCT does not

speak for a majority of smaller, mainly Pentecostal, churches. When approached for

comment on the CCT‟s statement about OIC and Kadhi Courts, the president of TEC

15

could only say that his church would issue its own statement later (Citizen Team

2008). Moreover, neither CCT nor TEC can be presumed to endorse the radical views

of the Reverend Mtikila. Divisions among Muslims are even more glaring. Whereas

statements from CCT and TEC command respect as representing an institutional

position on issues, Muslim bodies do not even recognise each other‟s mandates.

Although BAKWATA claims to be the official voice of majority Muslims, it has been

described by revisionist Muslims as „a puppet organisation‟ (Njozi 2000, 3) and „a

weak and corrupt organisation…which works under the protection and guidance of

the government‟ (al-Zinjibari n.d.; see Becker 2008, 246). Some even consider

BAKWATA to be an obstacle to Muslim advancement in the country („Makala…‟

1998). The earlier mentioned Shura ya Maimamu was formed in 1992 „by Muslim

professionals and intellectuals against much opposition from BAKWATA‟ (al-

Zinjibari n.d.). This origin and composition of the Shura may explain its sympathies

with the old EAMWS and its antagonism towards BAKWATA. Hence, when the

Shura issued the above-mentioned counter-manifesto in response to the Catholic-

backed 2010 election manifesto, BAKAWATA quickly distanced itself from the

document (Kagashe and Mkinga 2009). The current Muslim-Christian divide masks

such discordances within the Muslim camp.

This, however, does not mean that Muslims lack genuine grievances. Like

many other post-independence state-led initiatives, the attempt to eliminate

educational disparities along religious and ethnic lines did not bring expected results.

Still very few Muslim students were in secondary and tertiary institutions in the

1990s. It has been observed that up to seventy-eight percent of the intake to secondary

schools in 1983 was made up of students who professed Christianity. It is not

surprising, therefore, that, between 1986 and 1990, Muslims at the University of Dar

es Salaam constituted probably only thirteen percent of the student body (Lodhi 1994,

93-94; see also Becker 2008, 247-248). Together, Muslims and Christians make up

about eighty per cent of the population of Tanzania and split that percentage roughly

equally.9 Muslims are thus underrepresented in the education system, which also leads

to underrepresentation in all other formal sectors and implies income disparity. The

situation is not helped by the fact that Christian groups continue to be the main

investors in the education sector, with TEC alone owning 72 of the country‟s 242

private secondary schools in 1995 (Protestants owned 42 and Muslims 14). In fact,

although religious-affiliated schools were not allowed to admit students on religious

grounds, there tended to be more Christian students in Muslim schools than there

were Muslims in Christian schools (Sivalon 1995, 283, 290). Hence, on their own,

these figures do not constitute an air-tight proof of wilful injustice; they may as well

speak of a Christian-inspired aggressiveness in search of formal education or Muslim

misgivings about elimu dunia (secular knowledge)—two attitudes the state can hardly

legislate against.

To make matters worse, the collapse of Ujamaa and the poor economic

conditions of the 1980s and 1990s forced the Tanzanian government to delegate the

provision of social services, especially health and education, to voluntary agents.

Previously nationalised institutions were returned to the management of churches or

were run in partnership between the state and religious organisations. In 1992, the

government signed a memorandum of understanding with TEC and CCT, promising

never again to nationalize church-owned schools and hospitals. The memorandum

also stipulated how money given mainly by the Christian aid agencies Misereor and

Evangelische Zentralstelle (EZE) through the Federal Republic of Germany to the

16

Government of Tanzania would be channelled to those service institutions that are run

by churches. As it happened, Muslims were not party to this agreement, and Muslim-

run institutions which provide similar services did not benefit from this Christian aid

package. The memorandum has been cited by revisionist Muslims as yet another

evidence of the state favouring the churches (Kamati Kuu ya Siasa…2009, 10). At

least one Christian author has also considered the memorandum deficient for the

purposes of enhancing social equality and called for its renegotiation. „In terms of

promoting religious equity,‟ writes John Sivalon (1995, 295), „the Government of

Tanzania could have required the inclusion of BAKWATA in the memorandum.‟

Like the general pursuit of economic progress and self-reliance, the search for

social equality across multiple religions seems to have eluded Tanzania. The

Christian-Muslim tensions described in this article, which some have termed „seeds of

conflict‟ (Wijsen and Mfumbusa 2004), sufficiently expose a fault-line in the united

republic. They are symptomatic of socio-political problems which Tanzania faces as a

nation and which it might wish to explore and address. With good leadership at the

state level, the exposed fault-line could be turned into an opportunity to rethink old

strategies and marshal new energies for social equality within a unified country.

However, if the tensions are left to simply run their course, the situation could be

exploited by internal political groups with a divisive agenda or even by external

religious forces with a globalizing mission.

Conclusions

In a world desperate for a working formula for the peaceful co-existence of religions,

the growing deadlock in Tanzania is a space worth watching. Tanzanians have a

realistic chance to manage the tension well and come out strengthened in their

„culture of peace‟. If they succeed, they will have provided the world with an example

of the much desired formula, and their history will have continued to disprove

theories that predict inevitable clashes between „civilisations‟. However, they could

also mismanage the situation and succumb to the same pessimistic theories. I will

conclude by expounding on these two possibilities.

Tanzania has enough resources for strengthening the peace it has enjoyed

since independence. As was suggested, Kiswahili bears the marks of indigenous

African religions, Islam and Christianity. If viewed as a whole, this long multi-

religious tradition, which is mediated by a shared idiom, is itself a valuable facility for

mutual understanding. In this context, believers of different religions form a broad

community of meaning. The fact that as of yet no one has thrown the first stone

despite the current tensions and threats suggests that peace has indeed become an

element of Tanzania‟s culture. With these conditions on the ground, the balance is

tipped in favour of peace.

Nevertheless, persisting religious friction puts the country to the test.

Tanzanians may be celebrating fifty years of peace, but they cannot sit back and

presume that peace is their secure patrimony. More has to be done now to guarantee

peace in the future. To succeed, a high degree of statesmanship will be vital,

especially so because the tensions we have discussed point more to political, social

and economic discontentment than to doctrinal intolerance. If the on-going changes in

North Africa and the Middle East are anything to go by, then arguments for theocracy

hardly address the disenchantment of ordinary people with a non-performing political

17

dispensation. Thus, the tensions in Tanzania may need to be addressed politically, not

theologically.

It seems to be necessary for discussions of whether Tanzania should or should

not establish Kadhi Courts to go on and to be openly moderated by the state rather

than by partial faith communities. As was pointed out, certain functions of the state,

such as the provision of education and health service, are already delegated to

religious agents. Even the registration of marriage is usually done by Muslim and

Christian leaders on behalf of the state. Couples have the option to register their

marriages with secular registrars or with approved religious ministers, and in both

cases the marriages have the same legal status although in each case they may have a

different religious signification. In a similar spirit, some judicial functions could be

delegated to religious groups which feel the need to exercise them according to their

traditions. For example, Kadhi Courts could be allowed for those who choose to

recognise their jurisdiction, with individuals retaining their freedom to seek justice

in—and especially to appeal to—the regular court system. However, even when

judicial powers have been delegated to faith communities, the state would have to

retain its position as the guarantor of individual freedoms, including the freedom to

opt in or out of the confines of a particular religious group. Moreover, through its

legislative and judicial machinery, the state would have to assert its authority to

demand certain common standards independent of divers and sometimes

contradictory religious prescriptions. For example, the state could not avoid declaring

a minimum marriageable age or establishing the rights due to a woman at divorce

simply because Muslims allow marriage immediately after the variously interpreted

„puberty‟ or because Catholics do not recognise divorce. If faith-led courts are

established, they would be made to adhere to a minimum of such state-defined

standards.

The discussion on whether or not Tanzania could join OIC, which might also

need to be state-led and carried to a logical conclusion, will be more complex. To join

the faith-inspired organization „as a state‟ is not the same as to establish diplomatic

relations with a theocratic state—say the Vatican or Saudi Arabia. For example, the

2008 updated OIC charter describes a candidate member as any state „having Muslim

majority and abiding by the Charter, which submits an application for membership‟

(OIC 2008, article 3.1). To formally declare that Tanzania is a state with a Muslim

majority would not be simply to state an innocent fact, but to take a political stand

with significant ramifications. The statement would mean that Tanzania has shifted

from being a non-religious state to being a multi-religious state. In Kiswahili, it would

change the popular statement serikali haina dini (the government has no region) into

serikali ina dini nyingi (the government has many regions). It would then imply that

non-Muslims occupy a minority status in their own country. And if the case for

joining OIC were to be determined solely by a Muslim numerical superiority, it would

also imply that the religion of the majority determines the actions of the supposedly

multi-religious state regardless of what its religious minority think—a classic case of

„tyranny of the majority‟. Then, Tanzania will have walked into the place where

countries like Britain with a long experience of an established church that is

privileged in statute law are figuring how to come out of in order to accommodate a

desirable legal pluralism that is informed by multiple religions (Williams 2008; Hill

2010).

The OIC discussions will be further complicated by the fact that some of the

organization‟s objectives are purely religio-cultural, and member states undertake to

18

see them realized. For instance, the OIC aims to „disseminate, promote and preserve

the Islamic teachings and values based on moderation and tolerance, promote Islamic

culture and safeguard Islamic heritage‟ (OIC 2008, article 1.11). While Tanzania

should do all it can to create an environment within which Muslims can freely

promote such values, for the state to commit itself to actively promote values that are

specifically—even exclusively—Islamic will definitely interfere with constitutional

secularism. The state may cooperate with religious bodies to provide social services,

but it can hardly join them in proselytizing without appearing to take a stance against

some of its citizens. Therefore, the obligations of the Tanzanian state vis-à-vis Islam,

which might arise from a binding commitment to OIC, could form part of a

meaningful dialogue. Even if the country fails to join as a full member, it could still

settle for alternative ways of working closely with the organization without embracing

its missionary objectives. For example, it could obtain an observer status like that held

by Bosnia, Central African Republic, the Russian Federation and Thailand, or jointly

run projects to provide social services, promote human rights, protect the family,

combat terrorism and crime, or encourage dialogue among „civilizations‟ and

religions, which are some of the objectives that the organization pursues (OIC 2008,

article 1).

If the state fails to turn the current tensions into opportunity for strengthening

the foundations for peace, other players could seize on them for opportunistic

disruption. Even when unjustified, persistent expression of socio-political

discontentment in religious terms might gradually numb the sensitivity which

Tanzanians have come to attach to their „culture of peace‟ and thus set the stage for

conflict. One of the salient lessons of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide is that, if

neighbours are repeatedly referred to as „cockroaches‟, at some point they might be

eliminated as easily as cockroaches tend to be eliminated from kitchens. Tanzanians

might not go that far, and any prediction of imminent conflict could only be a useless

prophecy of doom. However, they cannot presume that conflict of this nature is

impossible. Moreover, the country is faced with a host of other possible scenarios

which may not be necessarily desirable. As was suggested earlier, the two,

deceptively neat, antagonistic religious camps could be used to influence the outcome

of future national elections. It is also possible that those in the mainland who feel

Zanzibari Muslims are overrepresented in the union could find convenient partners

from those in Zanzibar who view the union as a Christian scheme to undermine Islam.

Such a coalition would further weaken the forty-seven year old union which is already

fraught with political and legal controversy.10

Alternatively, elements in the almost

entirely Muslim Zanzibar might consider OIC membership more important than union

with the mainland and make a case for separation. A document that was circulated in

January 2011 said it was time to split the country into two so that Muslims and

Christians could live separately, adding that every Muslim bore responsibility to pass

the word around („Tamko la Waislamu…‟ n.d.). It is not unthinkable that radical

groups from outside Tanzania could also exploit such sentiments and heighten

religious hatred. Already in 2007 Hizb ut Tahrir—a group which campaigns to have

all Muslims under a world-wide caliphate—was reported to have started activities in

Zanzibar. A member reportedly said democracy was „the way of the infidels‟ and

expressed the group‟s objective as „to lead a peaceful transition from a secular state to

an Islamic state‟ („Faith News‟ 2007).

As Tanzania deservedly celebrates fifty years of peace and unity, religious

tensions have exposed a disappointing fault-line. But Tanzanians know well that, as

19

they say in Kiswahili, usipoziba ufa utajenga ukuta (if you do not repair a crack you

will have to construct an entire wall). The exposure is an opportunity as much for the

state to strengthen historical foundations of peace as for religious opportunists to

execute alien political agenda. Success to maintain peace beyond the anniversary will

largely depend on true statesmanship at the level of government. However, it will also

depend on the capacity of religious leaders to soften exclusive positions and think

more locally. Just as they strive to match local practice to universally accepted

doctrines, they might also work hard to translate universal principles in a manner that

will be applicable to their multireligious local context. If success is thus gained and

peace is sustained in Tanzania, it will be a local defiance of the intolerant global

mood, all the more laudable in the broader Great Lakes region of Africa which does

not count stability and peace among its treasures.

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Notes

1 Following the 1964 union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania, the

Zanzibari Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) and the mainland Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)

united in 1977 to form CCM, which remains in power to date. 2 For a good overview of the ambiguous „Christian-Ujamaa’ relations, see D. Westerlund (1980).

3 „Tamko la Waislamu Dhidi ya Kauli za Maaskofu‟ („Muslims‟ Declaration Against Bishops‟

Statements‟) is a seven-page document, very well written in fine Kiswahili, bearing neither date nor

signature, but definitely issued after the October 2010 general elections in Tanzania, most likely in

January 2011. 4 A six-page letter, signed Mchungaji C. Mtikila, Mwangalizi wa Kanisa (Caretaker of the Church),

addressed to Ndugu Edward Lowasa, Waziri Mkuu (Prime Minister), and bearing the title „Usaliti

Wako wa Kumsaidia Kikwete Kusilimisha Nchi kwa Mbinu ya Mahakama ya Kadhi‟ („Your Betrayal

in Helping Kikwete to Islamize the Country Through the Tactics of Kadhi Court‟), sent from Dar es

Salaam and dated 1 November 2007. 5 See, for example, the 1995 ecumenical translation Biblia: Habari Njema kwa Watu Wote, produced

by the Bible Societies of Kenya and Tanzania. 6 Nyerere‟s text reads: „…we, the people of Tanganyika, would like to light a candle and put it on top

of Mount Kilimanjaro which would shine beyond our borders giving hope where there was despair,

love where there was hate and dignity where before there was only humiliation,‟ (Nyerere 1967, 72);

that of St Francis says: „Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred let me bring your

love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, true faith; where there is despair, hope; where

there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy‟ (popular). 7 The words „bringing up children‟ translate the Kiswahili word malezi, which is sometimes rendered

as „guardianship‟; „trust‟ translates amana which could also imply security, deposit or savings; and

„religious endowment‟ translates wakfu (from the Arabic waqf). These terms are conceptually more

complex than can be rendered in a simple translation. 8 Indeed a Ugandan by the name John Okello did take part in the revolution and even became a

member of the first Revolutionary Council, but was quickly dismissed, allegedly for holding anti-Arab

views, and returned to public insignificance in his native country. The fact that Okello was one of only

two non-Muslims in a Revolutionary Council of thirty, and not even one of its fourteen-member core

24

team, makes Rajab‟s claim hard to comprehend. For more on the controversy surrounding Okello and

his role in the Zanzibar Revolution, see Mapuri (1994, 49-58) and Ghassany (2010, 120-141). 9 Current estimates put Tanzania‟s population at close to 44 million. National censuses do not record

religious affiliation, though for a long time the percentage of Christians and Muslims has been

estimated at or just below 40% each, with the remaining 20% taken up by practitioners of other

religions, especially indigenous African ones, and people without religious affiliation. Christian and

Muslim sources always present their own figures as higher than those of their counterparts, making

their estimates highly unreliable. Some Muslim authors (al-Zinjibari, for example) claim that up to

65% of Tanzanians profess Islam, which many would consider outlandish. 10

See, for example, Issa G. Shivji (2008) for a legal critique of the union, and a rejoinder by Hamudi

Majamba (2009). A classic text in this area remains Aboud Jumbe‟s (1995) The Partner-ship.