Africa turns its eyes to Islam

In the blood-splattered Somali capital, Mogadishu, militias loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts last week seized power from a United Nations-backed transitional government.

In Northern Sudan, Islamic militancy has changed the character of the country, imposing sharia law and pushing religion into the political arena as never before.

In Nigeria, the northern states have adopted sharia law, anger against the United States is simmering, and Osama bin Laden is one of the most admired figures in the territory.

On the face of it, Africa is the next footprint in the march of militant Islam.

In addition to North Africa, where war and terrorism devastated post-colonial Algeria, Kenya and Eritrea have become increasingly vulnerable to radicalism, and even economically progressive Tanzania has raised alarms in London and Washington.

But, experts say, it would be wrong to see the events in Somalia as part of a pattern of Al Qaeda-style religious extremism, or to assume that Islamic rule is the worst option for countries where violence has raged for decades. Extreme poverty, instability, exhaustion and frustrated hopes have all played a role in the upsurge of militant Islam, they say.

According to global World Bank figures, the largest proportion of people living on less than $1 (US) a day are in Sub-Saharan Africa. But the continent is also the scene of some of the worst massacres of the past half-century.

"In Somalia people have known nothing but war for 15 years," says an aid worker who travels in the region frequently. "The Islamic court militias that took over Mogadishu helped to restore law and order. They began by settling small crimes, then went to larger ones. Eventually they took on civil matters like weddings and divorces and property. For the majority of people, it was a relief that somebody was in charge."

Washington is encouraged that the militia leaders began talks with Somalia's crumbling U.N.-backed government.

The United States, which is fiercely opposed to the spread of Islam in the volatile Horn of Africa, had accused the Islamists of harbouring Al Qaeda suspects.

The negotiations came after a surprise statement by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, who told reporters that the Union of Islamic Courts was aiming to "lay the foundations for some institutions in Somalia that might form the basis for a better and more peaceful, secure Somalia where the rule of law is important."

The United States — which exited Somalia in 1994 after a calamitous attempt to capture warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid — backed opponents of the Islamists to wage a proxy war against what it believed was an Al Qaeda-linked movement.

But, said the aid worker, ordinary Somalis were exhausted by the lawlessness and violence of the warlords, and the transitional government that was supposed to create a stable democracy had been a devastating failure.

"It couldn't even establish control in Mogadishu. The warlords were already included in the government, but they continued to fight at the same time."

The yearning for stability is widespread in Africa, where violence, in many countries, has become a way of life.

"What has happened in the region, including Somalia, is that modern institutions and political parties have collapsed in one way or other," says Abdelsalam Hassan, a Sudanese lawyer and writer who focuses on human rights and democracy.

"After the colonial period, the way forward for many of them was to embrace a pan-Arabist, socialist agenda. Most failed to deliver, and ended up sunk in corruption."

That left millions impoverished and disillusioned: "in the absence of alternatives, Islam seems to be a good thing to fill the vacuum. Many people are Muslim, and the Islamists tell them something that is unquestionable. It also has the blessing of God himself," said Hassan.

Islam has a long history in Africa, beginning with early Muslim believers fleeing repression in the Arabian peninsula.

After the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632, a vigorous military campaign spread the religion across the North African Maghreb. But it also took root by peaceful means.

For the East and West African coasts, it arrived with traders from the Persian Gulf and Indian subcontinent, and spread inland. By the 20th century, one-third of Africa had converted to Islam.

Traditional Islam flourished in Africa. But less successful was the apocalyptic radicalism of bin Laden, whose defiance of the West was widely admired, even as his ideology was rejected.

"Jihad in its highly-colored ideological forms has been rare in contemporary Africa," says British-based expert Alex de Waal, in Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, which he edited. "Militant Islam's encounter with Africa has been marked by confusion and ambivalence, and insofar as it has made progress, this has been by embracing local agendas."

In the 1990s, Muslim extremists spread the doctrine of jihad in local wars and terrorist attacks, and bin Laden was welcomed by the government of Sudan.

But, says de Waal, a decade later Washington's massive reaction to the September 11th attacks frightened countries ill equipped to battle a superpower, and forced them to modify their policies and rhetoric.

Ali Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at New York State University, says that the complexity of Africa's relationship with Islam may lead Westerners to draw the wrong conclusions.

"There are two competing forces, revivalism and radicalization," he says.

"Sometimes they are both together, but that isn't necessarily the case. Revivalists want to recapture traditional movements, as those in Northern Nigeria do. There may be some radicalizing elements, but it's more a combination of revivalism and local politics.

Somalia's Islamic court movement may also be a nostalgic recreation of ancestral mores rather than a politicized confrontation with the West."

What is dangerous, insists Mazrui, who is also chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, is American policies in Africa: "They search for radical Islam, and some of the anti-terrorism campaigns that have been adopted as a result have compromised whatever progress we have made."

But Moshe Terdiman, Israel-based researcher on Africa for the Project for the Research of Islamic Movements, says that the threat of radical Islam must not be dismissed. Somalia's Islamic courts movement may be affiliated with Al Qaeda, he says, and Northern Nigeria has been prey to brutal violence against Christians and other non-Muslims.

"The majority don't want extremism," he says. "But there is so much misery in Africa that people are sometimes forced to accept it as an alternative."

While the West is preoccupied by Islamic militancy, instability is a more serious threat to Africa, observers say.

"If instability increases, as it did in Somalia, it can spill over borders," says Andrea Lanthier-Seymour, communications officer for Care Canada, which works in about 30 African countries, and supports refugee camps in Chad and Kenya.

"If we see more violence and warfare we'll have more refugees," she said in a phone interview from Nairobi. "The fighting between the militias in Somalia drove thousands of people out of the country. Some walked for a month to get to safety. We're concerned that resources to look after them are badly strained."

And, she adds, refugees are often shadowed by rebel groups who attack and recruit young people from camps — as has happened in Chad, which received thousands of refugees from Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region.

If wealthy countries fail to provide the funds for food, shelter, education and social support, humanitarian workers say, militants have the chance to create a new generation of battle-hardened young people who are prey to extremism.

"The passions that ignite rage in the Arab world are not so strong in Africa," says Mazrui. "But there are still many causes for anger."

by OLIVIA WARD