Culture, Religion, and the State

In light of the preceding review and analysis, I am suggesting that the relationship between Islam and constitutionalism in Africa should be understood within the framework of the dialectic of what might be called “Islamization in Africa and Africanization of Islam,” as aspects of the broader context of culture, religion, and politics.

As outlined earlier, Islam came to North Africa within a few decades of its beginning in seventh-century Arabia, and spread into sub-Saharan African very gradually, primarily through migration, cultural integration, and assimilation. But that gradual Islamization of Africa also meant the Africanization of Islam, by adapting it to the social and economic realities of African communities. However, a counter re-Islamization occurred during the last three decades of the twentieth century, efforts to transform and mobilize the Islamic identities of Africans in pursuit of certain political objectives. This re-Islamization has taken a variety of forms and directions, some of which are clearly inconsistent with the need for political stability, economic development, and social justice.

Essentially, the Africanization of Islam is simply a regional manifestation of a historical phenomenon of adaptation and indigenization of Islam wherever it managed to spread in the past, from southeast, southern and central Asia, to north and sub-Saharan Africa. This adaptability, whereby people can become Muslims by a confession of the faith and the practice of devotional rituals like prayer and fasting, while retaining many of their own norms and institutions, has in fact facilitated the remarkable spread of Islam over the centuries. That is, instead of seeking to displace preexisting local cultures, propagators of Islam have traditionally endorsed and incorporated local traditions into the core ethical precepts of social justice and practical expediency they sought to promote. This is not to suggest that there was no conflict and tension between Islamic precepts and the pre-Islamic norms and institutions of Islamized communities. Rather, whenever conflicts or tensions arose or were perceived, the mediation of local customary practices was so gradual and minimal that it was hardly offensive or overtly intrusive. In time, I suggest, Islam was itself localized in the process.

Africanized Islam, with its strong sufi (mystical) roots, was inclusive and tolerant of diversity among Muslims and in their relationships with non-Muslim communities. But that approach remained at the spontaneous grass-roots level, and did not manage to develop a superstructure of ideas or “theology,” probably because people accepted and lived by it without much theorizing about its theological foundations or formal legal implications. But the lack of corresponding theological developments meant vulnerability to challenge as “un-Islamic” from a Middle Eastern, purportedly orthodox point of view.

The nature and possible outcomes of the current challenge to Africanized Islam is still unfolding, but one can already observe certain elements of the notion of contingency. It is possible, on the one hand, that this cycle of re-Islamization may turn out to be more effective in transforming the lives of the Muslims and non-Muslims of sub-Saharan Africa because of its ability to control and manipulate the postcolonial territorial state, with its more effective institutions and expansive powers. That is, the scope, speed, and dynamics of transformation may be on a larger scale and faster than in the previous cycle in its ability to use the educational administrative and judicial institutions of the state. But it is also reasonable to expect, that the ability of various actors to reach and compete for influence on these institutions makes it difficult to predict the precise outcomes of these processes. Moreover, the regional and global nature of the cross-cultural and political interaction adds to the contingency of the role of Islam in relation to constitutionalism. In other words, the same factors that indicate greater risks to constitutionalism also open new possibilities of its sustainable development throughout the region and beyond.

Thus, there seem to be two main competing currents of Islamic thinking and practice, or visions of Islamic identities and their political, constitutional, and legal consequences. These competing currents of thought and visions of identity correspond, broadly speaking, to the above-mentioned notion of an indigenized Africanized reality of Islam, on the one hand, and a Middle Eastern, militant, literalist theocratic vision of Islam.

Still, as emphasized earlier, the processes of cultural transformation are not totally arbitrary or unpredictable. Culture enables human beings to adapt to their social and physical environment, the ways each culture depends on the nature and dynamics of change in that environment. Understanding those changes can help in identifying or predicting the ways in which local cultures will adapt to them. The ability to identify or predict outcomes of processes of cultural transformation is also related to people’s understanding of the parameters and dynamics of the flexibility and adaptability of culture. At the same time, I would emphasize, these parameters and dynamics are themselves the subject of constant renegotiation and transformation. In other words, dynamism and change are inherent to every aspect of culture and its operation, including perceptions of what can or cannot change about culture. However, in hoping and planning for cultural transformation in favor of enhancing the prospects of constitutional governance, I am counting on the fact that the continuous contingency of the role of Islam is not beyond the realm of human agency, and the choice and action people can take in that regard.

As an integral part of culture, the understanding and practice of religion are factors in the processes of adaptation and transformation, as well as being influenced or shaped by them to varying degrees.

The same analysis would suggest that the relationship between religion and the state is both the site of contestation and its outcome. Religious symbols and discourse, as cultural resources, are deployed by various actors in their effort to control the state, while state institutions are used to shape popular understandings of religion. It is therefore not surprising that competing constituencies and perspectives seek to control the state, or at least those parts they find most useful for advancing their particular religious/ideological objectives.

One issue arising from this view of the state as the product and object of cultural contestation in the present African context is that cultural boundaries, to the extent identifiable, are far from concurrent with the political borders of the state. On the one hand, the boundaries of culture tend to go beyond the political borders of the state, while a given territorial state normally includes a variety of cultures. The present state of Sudan, for example, encompasses many cultures, while some of them extend beyond the political borders of the country into Chad, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Both phenomena reflect the arbitrariness of European colonialism that often forced divergent groups into the same political entity, while keeping apart others who could have belonged well with each other. Which European power, Britain, France, Belgium, or Portugal, happened to conquer or otherwise gain control over which territories first, or trade them for another territory, as happened through the so-called mandate system of the League of Nations after the First World War, was a historical accident. In the process, European colonial powers often forced populations together or apart, and transformed their social and political institutions beyond recognition.

This state of affairs raises risks of political instability, civil war, and threats of secession to establish a separate state, due to perceptions of cultural, including religious, hegemony of some groups over others within the same territorial state. Whether Somalis in Ethiopia, or Christians in southern Sudan, the plight of cultural or religious minorities can attract external sympathy and support from neighboring countries or the international community at large. Regardless of one’s view of the justice of the grievances of a particular minority, or realistic prospects of the success of their protest/secessionist movement, such situations have clear implications for the development of constitutionalism in Africa. These problems are compounded by the weakness of the postcolonial state, as outlined in Chapter 2 earlier, and its vulnerability to external pressures of geopolitical competition, economic globalization, or of structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that tend to diminish its sovereignty over its own territory, economy, and domestic policies.

The weakness and artificiality of the postcolonial state in African does not prevent it from controlling the lives and livelihood of its population. In fact, I argue, perceptions of the helplessness and indifference to the state, especially among rural populations who see little evidence of its power or resources, are both misconceived and dangerous. However weak and artificial it may be, the state is still a fundamental reality for their own populations through its almost exclusive and overwhelming power, to monopolize the use of force and mobilize economic resources and legal institutions to enforce its will on the population. The state has the exclusive authority to levy taxes and to disperse the income as it deems fit, to develop and enforce national policies on social and economic relations, regulate international trade, and so forth. In fact, the weakness and vulnerability of the state, especially in relation to external actors, may make it more determined to exercise whatever degree of control it can over its own population, regardless of the consequences for that population. Underestimating the power of such states is dangerous because it can encourage indifference to the critical need for their political and legal accountability to their own populations. For our purposes here, this situation has the paradoxical result of making constitutionalism and its safeguards more important for local populations, yet harder to achieve in a sustainable manner.