Islam, secularist government, and state–civil society interaction in Mozambique and South Africa since 1994

Abstract

This article explores state–civil society interactions in Mozambique and South Africa with a focus on Islamic groupings, and places the two countries within an Indian Ocean coastal continuum of links to East Africa, India, and the Arab world. Contrasting the histories of dominant-party rule since the transitions in 1994 to multiparty-ism in Mozambique and to democracy in South Africa, the article discusses the development of Islamic organisations including both transnational Sufi orders and modernist reform movements as important components in local civil societies. The article contrasts the spaces for accommodation of Islamic groups that have been created in South Africa with the more radical secularism that has been in place in post-Independence Mozambique. Finally, the article discusses the effects of this contrast on possibilities for stability and democratic consolidation in the context of the 2014 elections in South Africa and Mozambique.

Keywords:

• Islam
• secularism
• state-civil society interaction
• dominant-party states

Acknowledgements

This paper was developed through discussions at two international workshops held at Roskilde University in November 2013 and May 2014, and owes a lot to the constructive comments received from workshop participants and discussants. The two workshops were organised jointly by the AEGIS collaborative research group on ‘Africa in the Indian Ocean’ and the Roskilde University research priority initiative on ‘The Dynamics of Globalisation, Inequality and New Processes of International Interaction’. The funding provided by Roskilde University for the workshops is gratefully acknowledged. The comments from the two anonymous reviewers were helpful and much appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Preben Kaarsholm http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7594-8766

Notes

1. Thus Mozambique is not included in Roger Southall's recent comparison of Southern African state, see Southall, Liberation Movements in Power.

2. The Democratic Alliance has an electoral majority in the Western Cape Province. Minority parties like the Congress of the People (COPE) and Economic Freedom fighters (EFF) may historically turn out to be temporary protest splinter parties from the ANC, rather than fully fledged alternative parties with a distinct agenda. The EFF, however, has established a spectacular left-populist presence, including the disruption of Parliamentary procedure by red-uniformed EFF MPs.

3. Political society in the sense of Tocqueville, rather than of Partha Chatterjee. See Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 604–609; cf. Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed, 38–41. See also Frederiksen, “Mungiki”.

4. See, e.g. Buur and Kyed, “State Recognition”; Ntsebeza,“Traditional Authorities”.

5. Cf. Ahmed, Les conversions à l'Islamfondamentaliste, 33–97; “Introduction” in Diouf, Tolerance, Democracy and Sufis, 1–35.

6. Based on the South African census of 2001 and the Mozambican census of 2007. For Mozambique, cf. Cahen, Waniez, and Brustlein, “Pour un Atlas,” 359; for South Africa cf. Vahed and Jeppie, “Multiple Communities”.

7. Simone, “Advantageous Marginalities,” 205–244.

8. The census, which indicated a dramatic rise in the overall size of the Muslim population in Mozambique, is discussed further in Cahen, Waniez, and Brustlein, “Pour un Atlas,” see especially 361–364 (the map reproduced in Appendix 2 below is found on p. 342).

9. Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa, 97–98; Datta, From Bengal to the Cape, 67–69; Tayob, Islam in South Africa, 34–40; Worden, “Indian Ocean Slaves in Cape Town”.

10. Vahed, “Constructions of Community”; Desai and Vahed, Inside Indenture, 214–227; Green, Bombay Islam, 208–234.

11. The crucial role of both Hindu and Muslim Indian traders in underwriting the slave trade from Mozambique is discussed in Capela, O Tráfico de Escravos, 63–66, and more extensively in Machado, Ocean of Trade, 208–267.

12. Pereira Bastos, “Indian Transnationalisms”; Khouri and Pereira Leite, “Indians of Eastern Africa”.

13. Bonate, “Traditions and Transition”; Kaarsholm, “Transnational Islam”; Bang, Islamic Sufi Networks, 90–107

14. See, e.g. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 19–24.

15. Cobbing, “The Mfecane as Alibi”; Etherington, The Great Treks, 147–182. This revisionism has recently been challenged back in Jeff Guy, Theophilus Shepstone, 79–81. On the displacements caused by the slave trade in Mozambique, see also Capela, O Tráfico, 273–303.

16. New research by Goolam Vahed on traders like Moosa Hajee Cassim promises to make amends for this, see Vahed, “Family, Gender, and Mobility”.

17. Vahed, “Contesting Orthodoxy”.

18. Cf. Green, Bombay Islam, 228; Kaarsholm “Transnational Islam”.

19. Bonate, “Islam in Northern Mozambique”; Declich, “Transmission of Muslim Practices”. CIMO follows on the earlier Comunidade Mahometana de Moçambique (CMM), and has been important for the affiliation of Indian Muslims to the national Islamic Congress of Mozambique. As discussed further below, Shia Ismaili Islam has also been significant historically in Mozambique, see Pereira Leite and Khouri, “História Social e Económica dos Ismailis” and Khouri and Pereira Leite, eds. Khojas Ismaïli.

20. Bonate explains ‘Moor’ as “a Portuguese term applied to Muslims in general, and to Indians or those descending from Muslim Indians and local African women in particular, whom the Portuguese also often identified as the descendants of the ‘Moors of Daman’ (Mouros de Damão) in Gujarat, India”. See Bonate, “Traditions and Transitions,” 73, note 277. Cf. Machado, Ocean of Trade, 268f., on the links between Muslim Khoja and Ismaili merchants, Muscat, Zanzibar, and the Omani commercial empire.

21. Landau, “African Urbanization”.

22. Sadouni, “Somalis in Johannesburg” and “Playing Global”.

23. On the slave trade and the dispersion of Makuas, see Allen, “The Constant Demand”; on Makua diasporas in Somalia and Madagascar, see Declich,“‘Gendered Narratives’” and Boyer-Rossol, “De Morima à Morondava”.

24. On the ‘White widow’ rumours, see Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Lewthwaite (accessed 2 December 2014). The rumours were recycled in the British press without further documentation after the Al-Shabaab Garissa attack in April 2015.

25. The biggest group of coastal immigrants in Northern Mozambique, though, come from Tanzania. See Araujo and Donado, “Communidades Costeiras”, 4–6. Cf. Borges Coelho, “Uneasy Shores”.

26. Kaarsholm, “Zanzibaris or Amakhuwa”.

27. Bonate, “Traditions and Transition,” 30–72; Bang, Islamic Sufi Networks, 22–46.

28. Kaarsholm, “Diaspora or Transnational Citizens?”

29. Green, Bombay Islam, 18.

30. Interviews with members of the Amakhuwa Research Committee, Bayview, Durban, January 2014. An extended account can be found in Kaarsholm, “Zanzibaris or Amakhuwa?”

31. See also Pouwels, Horn and Crescent, 191–208; Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea, 126–152.

32. Nuotio, “The Dance that is not Danced”; Arnfred, “Tufo Dancing”.

33. Interviews with mosque officials, Maputo, January 2014, and with members of the Amakhuwa Research Committee, Bayview, Durban, January 2014.

34. Surveillance records and government reports are discussed in Bonate, “Traditions and Transitions,” 13, 127–135.

35. Interview with Said Habib, Maputo, 22 January 2014; on the songs commemorating Sayyid ba Hasan's miracle working, interview with Shehe Omar Bishehe Abdallah, Nampula, 27 January 2011.

36. In its inclusiveness, the South African constitution is comparable to the Canadian constitution, and – as a more recent example for discussion – the Kenyan constitution of 2013. Inclusiveness of rights can of course present problems of contradiction as well as possibilities for compromise and mediation as will be discussed further below.

37. Vahed and Jeppie, “Multiple Communities”; Tayob, “Muslim Publics”.

38. Tayob, Islamic Resurgence, 148–156.

39. Vahed, “Islam in the Public Sphere of South Africa”.

40. Moosa, “Muslim Family Law in South Africa,” 342.

41. Misgun, “Foreign Migrants”.

42. Vahed, Ahmed Deedat, 81–90.

43. Kaarsholm, “Zanzibaris or Amakhuwa?”

44. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, 398–401. Cf. Hafkin, “Trade, Society, and Politics,” 359ff.

45. Bonate, “Islam in Northern Mozambique”.

46. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, 441f. Cf. Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, 120–123.

47. Bonate, “Muslims of Northern Mozambique”. Cf. Alpers, “Islam in the Service of Colonialism?”

48. Bonate, “Muslim Religious Leadership,” 643.

49. Pereira Leite et al., “Les departs des Ismailis.” Cf. Melo, “A Diáspora Ismaelita”.

50. Morier-Genoud, “Muslims and Political Power”; Bonate, “Muslim Religious Leadership,” 2008; Bonate, “Islam in Northern Mozambique”.

51. An interesting alternative wahaabi perspective is provided in Kadara Swaleh's article on his father's missionising in Mozambique. See Swaleh, “Islamic Proselytising,” 414–418.

52. Interview with Aminuddin Mohammad, Matola, 8 February 2011; interview with Said Habib, Maputo, 22 January 2014.

53. Morier-Genoud, “Muslims and Political Power in Mozambique”; interviews with Jose Abudo, Maputo, 7 February 2011 and 21 January 2014.

54. Buur and Kyed, “State Recognition”; CEDAW, “Shadow Report”.

55. Morier-Genoud, “Muslims and Political Power,” 264f.

56. On Abdulrazzaque Jamu, Sayyid Amurri bin Gimba, Sayyid Habib Bakr and the leadership of the major Qadiriyya and Shadhiliyya groupings from the 1960s after the death of Sayyid ba Hasan, see Bonate, “Traditions and Transitions,” 102–107.

57. In the municipal elections held in November 2013 (and boycotted by RENAMO), FRELIMO won 50 out of 53 municipalities, but the opposition party MDM won in Nampula, Quelimane, and Beira, and on a national scale won 30% of the number of municipal assembly seats. See Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, no. 54, part one, 23 December 2013: 1.

58. For the Presidential election results, see 2014 National Elections: Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, no. NE-74, 30 October 2014. For the National Assembly results, see Appendix 1 below.

59. Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, no. 56, 28 November 2014, 14 and 16.

60. “Mozambique: Abdul Carimo Appointed CNE Chairperson,”All Africa, 27 May 2013 – http://allafrica.com/stories/201305280275.html (accessed on 1 December 2014).

61. 2014 National Elections: Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, no. NE-76, 9 November 2014, 2.

62. Southall, Liberation Movements. On Marikana, see Kaarsholm, “Africa Globalized?”; Breckenridge, “Marikana and the Limits of Biopolitics”.