Religion

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering May 18 to May 28, was compiled by Rebecca Hughes, Alexandra Bro, and Rebecca Turkington.

General elections for India’s lower house of parliament began on April 11 and will last through May 19, with all ballots counted on May 23. This is the world’s largest democratic exercise. I had the chance to ask Dr. Kanchan Chandra, professor of politics at New York University, about ethnic politics, caste, and Hindu nationalism. Our exchange, the fourth of a series of Q & As on the Indian elections, appears below. The first is here, the second here, and the third here. You have done pioneering work on ethnic and caste politics in India. How do you see caste and ethnicity evolving as a feature of Indian politics? This election is distinguished by an effort by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to construct a political majority out of India’s Hindu demographic majority, and an effort by other parties to prevent this from happening. Hindus in India are a very diverse lot. They consist of many castes, languages, regions, and tribes. The same goes for members of other religious categories but I will focus on Hindus in this answer. In principle, this election could go two ways. The mobilization of caste, linguistic, regional, and tribal identities might cut across religious identities and prevent the consolidation of the Hindu majority. Or, the BJP may be able to homogenize caste, linguistic, regional, and tribal identities in service of a larger Hindu majority. I think the first scenario is more likely. In November, you wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs that examined “The Triumph of Hindu Majoritarianism” in Indian politics, noting that the shift away from Nehru’s idea of secularism began back in the 1980s. Can you explain for a general reader what a more moderate approach to religion in public life might look like, one that in your words “offers equal respect not only to India’s non-Hindu minorities but also to the many different ways of being Hindu”? Unlike Catholicism, which has a Church and a Pope, Hinduism is a religion of many traditions, many books, and many religious institutions. There is no single book, church, priest, or institution that defines it. A state could offer equal respect to all of these traditions (Hindu as well as non-Hindu) by following a highly differentiated policy toward religion that recognizes all these traditions. Such a state would do away with the notion of majority and minority altogether by recognizing a multiplicity of traditions. It would also be equidistant from, rather than neutral toward, all religious traditions. The version of India as a secular state as laid down in its Constitution approximates the ideal of equidistance but could do more to recognize the diversity within Hinduism. This kind of state is now unlikely in India. What is happening in India now is a change both in the form of the state and in the form of religion itself. Hinduism itself is undergoing a transformation from a religion of many traditions to a religion that is becoming evangelized and approaching the idea of a single great tradition. And the state is beginning to recognize and institutionalize this homogenized, evangelized form of Hinduism. The politics of Hindu nationalism, coupled with the liberalization of the economy and the creation of a nationwide media, has a lot to do with that. India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is the size of a large country, with its 200 million people. You have focused closely on the politics of this state. What will you be watching in the coming weeks? Uttar Pradesh is the classic case of the politics of caste and ethnicity cross-cutting the politics of religion. The BJP is defending its position in this state by focusing on religious mobilization. The two main opposition parties – the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) – are attempting to neutralize this trend toward religious mobilization by emphasizing the distinct interests of subordinate caste groups and religious minorities. I will be watching for the number of seats each combination takes away, which could also have a major impact on who forms the government at the center. What will you be watching most closely at the national level during India’s 2019 general election? I have been paying close attention to the way in which most political parties have begun to capitalize on the politics of religion. The BJP is trying to mobilize a Hindu majority by activating fear (of terrorism, of Pakistan, of instability). The Congress is trying to mobilize a Hindu majority in a different way, by emphasizing the religiosity of its leaders and their commitment to Hindu values. No matter who wins, this will change the relationship between India’s Hindu majority and the government, and therefore the nature of India as a secular state. I will be watching to see how this plays out. My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. An article from Fox News recently called attention to the killing of Christians in Nigeria by comparing it to the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. According to the article, the attacks “highlight the dangers that remain from asymmetric terrorism and violence against Christians in ethnically and religiously divided societies.” However, linking these tragedies to each other and to a perceived global trend of violence against Christians mischaracterizes the nature of the conflicts in Nigeria.  The appropriateness of a comparison between Sri Lanka and Nigeria is not clear. Their ethnic make-up, social statistics, and post-colonial experiences are vastly different. Not least, Christians and Muslims are a tiny minority in Sri Lanka, a predominately Buddhist country, while in Nigeria, Christians and Muslims each constitute about half of the population. Identifying the perpetrators of atrocities in both countries is difficult. Although the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, it is not clear what its role was in the Sri Lanka bombings or, for that matter, what its role is in northern Nigeria.  With respect to Nigeria, Fox cites the recent killing of eleven and the wounding of thirty in Gombe. A police officer got into an argument with a procession of children during Easter activities, which reportedly led him to drive into it. It is not clear what the police officer’s motives were; Boko Haram is active in Gombe but it seems that they were not involved. Boko Haram appears to be largely an indigenous movement, and there is little evidence of strategic or tactical cooperation between the Islamic State or al-Qaeda affiliates and Boko Haram, though they share a common belief system, are murderously hostile to Christians, and have exchanged various forms of communication, the significance of which remains unclear. The article also notes the killing of seventeen Christians and the wounding of eight in Nassarawa state early in April. No link is provided, but the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) documented an attack in Numa Kochu, resulting in the death of a pregnant woman and several children. This seems to fit the description in the article. According to reports, Numa Kochu is a predominantly Christian community comprised of those of the Mada ethnic group. The victims’ funeral services were led by local leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria, a prominent religious organization. As is often the case, the affiliation and motive of the perpetrators are not clear. They have been described as “gunmen” and “herdsmen” by various Nigerian media outlets, and reference is made to the farmer-herder conflict in Nassarawa, which has been intense and deadly. It is worth noting that in some statements made by community leaders and the security services, no reference is made to religion.  Christians are certainly murdered in Nigeria, and in some cases, they are murdered because they are Christian. But, despite Boko Haram’s murderous hostility to Christians, most of its victims have always been Muslim, not least because the insurgency takes place in a predominantly Muslim part of the country. (Boko Haram’s killing of such great numbers of Muslims, based on a wide definition of apostasy, is understood to be one of the reasons that the group split in 2016.) For what it is worth, data from the NST shows a decline in Boko Haram attacks on churches and an increase in attacks on mosques over time. Indeed, the smaller number of Christian deaths at the hands of Boko Haram likely reflects the fact that most of them have fled.  Today, most Christian deaths are occurring in the Middle Belt, where there are overlapping quarrels over land and water use, ethnicity, and religion—and where Christians are numerous. But when Christians or Muslims are killed in the Middle Belt, it is not clear exactly why. Is it because they are a farmer or a herder? Or because they are ethnically Fulani, many of whom are herders, or of a small ethnic group, who are often farmers? Or is it because they are Muslim, which most Fulani are, or Christian, which those of many small ethnic groups are? These questions are not easily answered. Ethnicity can often correspond to a particular religion, both of which can sometimes correspond to a distinct way of life. Or not. In Zamfara, where the violence is particularly bad, both herders and farmers are mostly Muslim and mostly Fulani. There is also an important criminal element involving bandits and cattle rustlers. Another way to think about it: violence may fall along ethnic and religious lines, but it is not necessarily driven by those distinctions.  Religious polarization is a real challenge in Nigeria, and it has likely increased. The government has been unable to destroy Boko Haram or end the local conflicts in the Middle Belt. Further, the economy remains in the doldrums, and the country now has the most people living in extreme poverty in the world. But linking Nigerian tragedies to the tragedy that occurred in Sri Lanka and a global trend of violence against Christians overlooks important nuances in Nigeria’s multiple ongoing conflicts. 

A brief clip in Sahara Reporters brings to mind the wealth and influence of a group of Pentecostal preachers in Nigeria. The outlet states that Apostle Johnson Suleiman, a televangelist and the head of Omega Fire Ministries, recently acquired his first private jet. In addition to congregations all over Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa, Omega Fire Ministries has twenty-five in the United States and five in Canada. It also has a presence in Europe and Asia.  Johnson Suleiman’s new jet apparently puts him in the company of Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, and Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, all of whom also have private jets. Bishop Oyedepo, head of the Living Faith World Outreach Ministry (also known as the Winner’s Chapel) is commonly regarded as the wealthiest preacher in Nigeria, with an estimated personal net worth of $150 million. His fleet of four jets includes a Gulfstream V, which cost $30 million. In addition to Nigeria, he has congregations in sixty-five countries, including in the United States. Pastor Adeboye is Head of the Redeemed Christian Church of God which claims some five million members; his denomination has branches in Dallas, Tallahassee, Houston, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Pastor Oritsejafor, also a televangelist, is the head of Word of Life Bible Church. His church in Wari is said to seat thirty-five thousand adults and seventeen thousand children, and it has congregations in the United States.  In all cases, it is unclear whether the jets are the personal property of the clergymen or whether they belong to the denominations which they head. In any event, the jets are evidence of the wealth of Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. Of the clergy cited by Sahara Reporters, the denominations they head have slick websites and can received contributions, pledges, and tithes by credit card or Paypal. It is difficult to pin down how many adherents each denomination has, but it is clear that their numbers are large. Clergy have not been shy about participating in politics, and some actively endorsed the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, in the 2015 elections, which he lost to Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim. Bishop Oyedepo called on President Buhari to resign the presidency because of alleged Fulani attacks on Christians in the Middle Belt. Given the growing salience of religion in all aspects of Nigerian life, the influence of such clergy is highly significant.

The importance of religion to Africans is well known among those who study and follow the continent. Of particular interest has been the explosive and relatively recent growth of Christianity there. For example, the conventional wisdom is that in 1900, Christians in what is now Nigeria were perhaps 2 percent of the population. Now, they are said to comprise roughly half of a population of over 200 million. (Nobody really knows how large Nigeria’s population is or what proportion of it is Christian, but this conventional wisdom is widely accepted by Nigerians themselves.) Explanations for Christianity’s success have included its association with the colonial masters and the modern world. Others, perhaps derisively, have observed that Christianity in Africa is “a mile wide but an inch deep,” and that it has been compromised by the incorporation of heterodox elements from African religions. Dr. Lamin Sanneh, the celebrated scholar of Christianity and Islam who died on January 6, compared such explanations to a “caricature." Recent obituaries published in both the New York Times and the Washington Post celebrated his enormous scholarly contributions to religion in Africa. He emphasized the role of African missionaries as well as European ones in the spread of Christianity throughout the continent. For example, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a missionary from Sierra Leone, not Europe, introduced the Anglican Church into Nigeria. Sanneh saw the success of Christianity in Africa as owing much to its “translatability.” Whereas Islam is associated with Arabic and Judaism with Hebrew, Christianity is associated with no particular language (at least since the Reformation). This enabled the translation of the Bible into African languages early on, which, according to Sanneh, rather than “compromising” Christianity, affirmed the dignity of local cultures. For Sanneh, the African experience did much to change Christianity from primarily a European to a global religious sensibility.  Sanneh, born a Muslim who converted to Christianity as an adolescent, was also a scholar of Islam. His most recent book, Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam (2016) argued that the spread of Islam in West Africa was a consequence of its emphasis on peace, not on military conquest. Upon the release of the book and in the context of the global war on terror, he warned, “the only thing worse than being the target of religious extremism and violence is the forsaking of the very values and ideals that violent extremists find so abhorrent. The enemy doesn’t deserve that outcome because the West is worth of more noble ends.” Sanneh was born in the Gambia, his family was descended from Islamic royalty. Educated at British and American universities, he became a distinguished academic, teaching at Yale for more than thirty years and as editor at large for the Christian Century. He was appointed by two popes to Vatican committees.  

The New York Times, along with the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, is probably the most influential newspaper in the United States among those who follow foreign affairs. On December 18, the Times ran a full-page story with three photographs on the Nigerian army’s killing of peaceful Shiite protesters in the outskirts of Abuja, the national capital, at the end of October. The Times reported the Nigerian army’s efforts to portray the Shiite protesters as violent and posing a threat to Nigerian soldiers. At the time, army spokesmen defended their deadly response as being what President Donald Trump had told American soldiers to do in similar circumstances (in reference to the migrant caravan then approaching the southern U.S. border), and they grossly underreported the number of those killed by army fire. The Times' conclusion is based largely on a close analysis of a video made at the time and interviews of witnesses. It shows soldiers indiscriminately shooting into crowds trying to flee. An army spokesman, who said he had not seen the video, said that it had probably been “stage managed” to discredit the soldiers.  On December 14, the army suspended the operations of the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in areas where the Islamist jihadist Boko Haram is most active (and where the situation is most dire). The army accused UNICEF of “spying” for Boko Haram; the charge apparently was based on UNICEF training material on spotting human rights abuses by the military; the army rescinded the ban shortly thereafter. On December 17, the army called on Amnesty International to shut down its operations in Nigeria. Amnesty had just issued a report that, since 2016, 3,641 people had been killed in violence characterized by conflict between farmers and herders in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. The army has claimed that Amnesty is attempting to destabilize the country with its “fictitious claims.” Since the colonial period, it has been the army, not the police, that successive military and civilian governments have used to maintain order. With little or no training in police work, the army’s response too often has been rough, if not brutal. Army personnel have only rarely been held accountable, and seem immune from international pressure, whether applied by human rights organizations or foreign governments. Nigeria faces presidential elections in February 2019. The two leading candidates are Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent president, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president. Buhari, himself a former general and military head of state, has largely followed a hands-off policy with respect to reports of military abuses, and his opponent has largely been silent. When Buhari was elected president in 2015, his platform included, among other things, defeating Boko Haram and restoring security throughout the country. Despite some significant initial progress against Boko Haram, the group is now intensifying its operations. Furthermore, the conflict between farmers and herders is escalating, and a wave of kidnappings is sweeping throughout the country, prompting many Nigerians to feel more insecure. Security is a major electoral liability for Buhari's reelection. Army propaganda relating to Shiite protesters and attacks on highly respected human rights organizations might therefore be politically motivated. However, election season or not, Shiites are widely distrusted by the Sunni Muslim majority, while the political class, especially in areas far away from conflict, are still willing to defend the army and generally deeply resent criticism of Nigerian human rights by international organizations and foreign governments. So, it is by no means certain that this latest round of press coverage on army human rights abuses and army attacks on NGOs will translate into votes for opposition candidates. 

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from October 27 to November 2, 2018. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker.    var divElement = document.getElementById('viz1541434259370'); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName('object')[0]; vizElement.style.width='100%';vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+'px'; var scriptElement = document.createElement('script'); scriptElement.src = 'https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement);   October 27: Gunmen killed three in Lau, Taraba. October 27: Nigerian troops killed five Shiites in Gwagwalada, Abuja. October 27: Nigerian troops killed "scores" (estimated at forty) Boko Haram militants when the militants attacked a military base in Mobbar, Borno; one soldier was also killed.  October 27: Pirates kidnapped eleven from a ship in Bonny, Rivers. October 28: A clash between rival groups resulted in eight deaths on Lagos Island, Lagos.  October 29: Nigerian security forces killed thirty-five Shiites in Abuja.  October 30: Nigerian security forces killed seven Shiites in Abuja.  October 31: Boko Haram killed fifteen in Konduga, Borno.  November 1: Gunmen abducted three health workers in Toto, Nasarawa.