Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa

This entry examines the relationship of religion and politics in Africa in the context of Democratization over time, with particular focus on the roles of religious leaders. Two main issues form its focus. The first is the relationship of senior religious figures to the state in Africa and the role of the former in the region’s recent attempts to democratize in the 1980s and 1990s. The second aim is to examine a more recent development: Islamic militancy in Africa in the 2000s, and its relationship with politics, political change, and democratization. During the 1980s and 1990s Africa experienced something it had not seen for decades: widespread popular calls for democratization, part of a wider package of demands for improved economic and political, including human, rights. Demands for democratization had both domestic and external roots. Domestically, demands for reform reflected an awakening—or reawakening—of an often long dormant political voice for various civil society groups, with trade union officials, higher education students, businesspeople, civil servants, and religious (mostly Christian) figures initially leading and coordinating popular demands for reform. Professional politicians later made such demands integral parts of their programs for election. The widespread expectation was that popular efforts would force long-entrenched, often venal governments from office. A second factor was that Africa’s democratization was the ‘road map’ for political change preferred by key external actors: Western governments who provided Africa with the bulk of its foreign aid. In sum, demands for democratization in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s are best explained through the interaction of domestic and international factors, with the former of most importance. During the 1980s and 1990s, religious figures, notably Christian leaders, added their voices to the clamor for fundamental political changes in Africa. Leading Catholics were frequently involved in national conferences on the political way forward in a number of French-speaking, mainly Christian, countries, including Congo-Brazzaville, Togo, Gabon, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), and Chad. In addition, in South Africa, apartheid rule came to an end in 1994 and a democratically elected government followed. And in Muslim-majority Niger and Mali new political leaders and democratically elected governments emerged. In sum, during the 1980s and 1990s involvement of religious leaders, including Catholic leaders in national democracy conferences and other means of democratization, reflected the fact that many religious figures became convinced of the need for democratically elected government in Africa.