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IDD-UL-FITRI: Share
Monday, 21 September 2009 at 03:46
In Uganda, and other African countries where a European power was the coloniser, Islam was discouraged - and persecuted. Muslims were denied education, and discriminated against in public life. In Uganda, they drifted to the more liberal environment urban areas where they became artisans,taxi drivers, small traders, cobblers, name it. One result is that outside of the Islamic countries in Africa, mosques were a rarity in the countryside.
However, the discrimination against Muslims turned into a boon. Because they were not tolerated in rural areas and congregated in urban areas, and because of the ablutions that Islam requires them to undergo (much despised by Christians) the unintended result was that Muslim households in East Africa, for example, have generally a higher standard of living than Christian ones. They are more likely to have piped water, electricity, latrines or flush toilets, than Christian homes Because they are largely urban, the many children from their many wives were integrated in the modern urban economy much faster than the many children of Christian polygamists in the villages, who became peasants. When a Muslim child in the city went rogue, and became a thief, if he was lucky, a robbery would net him $1,000. The Christian child in the village, meanwhile, would only steal a chicken worth $5.
The Muslims have, therefore, been able to grow their numbers more than Christians because the child mortality rates in their households are far lower; and they have accumulated more capital.
Granted, the sight of Al Shabaab in Somalia stoning rapists to death, and chopping off the hands of pickpockets will revolt many, but this strict approach to discipline has generally ensured that Muslim children (as a percentage) stay on the straight and narrow and fish school more than Christian children.
With better standards of life, in Kenya you will notice that Muslim women are better groomed and, given the percentage of the population, most of the very beautiful women on the covers of newspaper style inserts are Muslims. Behind the burqa lies a bewildering array of beauty, my Muslim and adventurous Christian friends tell me.
In Christian homes, the Protestants did much better than Catholics in decades gone by. But then Protestantism got hit by the independent Born Again churches which turned followers into zombies, and robbed them of their savings in the name of Christ. In Uganda, now, we are seeing what happens in the west - Born Again churches going bust like the commercial entities they are. Protestantism, as a result, is in deep s**t. There is nothing more devastating than being robbed by your Messiah.
Catholics are coasting alone. Catholics have the most liberal church in Africa. Apart from its backward position on the role of women in the church, and abortion, the Catholic allows its priests to get drunk, smoke, and mix more freely. The result of this liberal attitude, mixed with its inflexibility on matters of doctrine (I do, by the way, support the Church's position on celibacy), has made it the laughing stock, because the weaker members among its priests, nuns, and bishops are forced to live a double life as secret husbandas and wives. This has landed Catholicism with a serious image problem.
But that, really, is not a crisis--the Catholics are just going back to their roots, of powerful corrupt popes who had harems and real political power. One result of this laxity, is that in Uganda Catholic households up-country tend to have a lower standard of life than Muslim and Protestant ones, and the very high birth rate that ususally comes with poverty.
The only advantage is that outside the Islamic countries, in Africa the Catholic populations continue to grow and present the church with an opportunity to be powerful. However, the general lack of an official line on behaviour, means Catholics tend to be more divided than Muslims and Protestants, and therefore are not able to vote their own into power in most countries (in Uganda, they are majority, but the country has never had, and is far from having, a Catholic president).
The African traditional religion, meanwhile, continues to thrive as Protestants, Catholics, Muslims all dip into its rituals of superstition and ancestors' shrines at night. They are like the attractive househelp. The man of the house will visit her quarters when the Madam is away (sometimes even when she is around), but he will almost never acknowledge her or step out hand in hand with her.
My sense, and the evidence supports it, is that Islam (hopefully it will the more liberal and cosmopolitan version), Islamic banking, and Islamic-backed secular schools, will be the most dominant in most of Africa in the coming decades. Christianity could be moribund. The Golden Age of Islam in Africa is yet to come.
IDD-UL-FITR
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