Zombie Faith and Our Global Crisis

You hear a lot in religious studies about the 'return' of religion, how people, contrary to secular modernist predictions, didn't abandon faith, but returned to it, revived it. Of course, I agree, but many types of faith were revived, in many different religions. I've been studying some of these expressions, and I think we need to talk about one type of faith that has made a 'comeback' today in global religious communities of all kinds.

I put 'comeback' in scare quotes, because, in spite of its hyper-emphasis on fidelity to tradition, this isn't the same faith of the believer of old, in which a person's conviction made them into a better person with other people of all kinds, and gave them hope that the world in which they were oppressed was not the only world. This was faith as vital life force, faith as the 'substance of things hoped for'. This new faith is more like Gage, from Pet Semetary, a sort of undead changeling. It is zombie faith.

This new zombie faith is methodologically nationalist in orientation, characterized by ressentiment, filled with huffy irritation, envy and a sense of victimhood. Zombie faith is always petulantly demanding that one cannot claim they are a person of said faith unless x x and x characteristics are met. It is anxious about its own dissolution, and about what is perceives as its declining relevance. It muses violently at those who reject it. It snarls at information and critical evidence as 'harmful' to faith. It demarcates a strong line between a faithful self and a non-faithful other, and then sees knowledge emanating from the non-faithful as threatening. It identifies itself as the only and supreme epistemological foundation. It identifies itself completely with what public morality should be. Zombie believers sometimes debate about permissibility and the boundaries of faith in ways that personally have always terrified me, as if they were the admissions committee to the pearly gates themselves.

Zombie faith is extremely self-conscious about some of the more obviously bizarre 'unseen' things it is required to believe to maintain its faith, and will defend them as essential to faith. Yet this self-consciousness stems from the knowledge that it insists on the belief in unseen things foundationally, while rejecting out of hand naturalistic conclusions that have been the subject of decades of detailed study and evidence compilation. Like nationalism, this denial of the 'other' is not rational, but rooted in fear and anxiety. In its more reflective moments, zombie faith is uneasy about the many low information suppositions that make up its intellectual apparatus, while regarding things which methodological naturalism has high information answers for (biological evolution, for instance), as conspiracies to take one away from belief.

Zombie faith will try to make that information liability into a strength, by turning to post-modernist individualism, specifically the idea that no one has a right to challenge my fundamental conception of what I believe or what I use to arrive at that belief. ("You don't know me!") Another strategy used to cover the information deficit is to insist that people of zombie faith have a unique insight, a sixth sense, that others just don't have the ability to get, because they're blinded by scientism or arrogance. Zombie faith may also give itself the imprimatur of intellectual respectability by turning heavily to scholastic theology, preferring to have intellectual conversations with the dead, who they can exalt as an obviously superior type to the 'atheist' philosopher of today. In this way they can avoid having to confront the epistemic revolutions of the modern age. Zombie faith will tell itself that the reason people are critical of its faith is that they have insufficient grounding in these sources they use.

Today's zombie faith has absorbed some of the worst qualities of nationalism, and yet, like nationalism, it still offers an invaluable succor to the average person on the street. In the absence of the old faith, the people turn to zombie faith, as a sugar lover would turn to stevia, because it appears to offers a 'sweetness', a certitude and ethical orientation that ordinary modern life, with its runaway global political corruption, its hierarchies of extreme wealth and poverty, and its degradation and destruction of the earth, is unable to.

None of this should be read as an attack on the ethical dispositions of compassion and care which faith (yes, even zombie faith) can provide. Nor should it be read as a vindication of today's scientific consensus. The challenge for critical decolonial thinkers on the ground today, when engaging with religion, is to engage the psychological need many people have for this zombie style of faith, to cultivate a sense of wonder and mystery that draws on the old faiths, and to use the high-information contexts of empirical observation that come to us from detailed naturalistic study of the world to fuel the urgently needed and revolutionary changes required to address the current climate crisis, among other urgent issues in global civil society.

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Zionism, Anti-Semitism, Nationalism and Civil Rights

I find it remarkable that we've reached a point in history where elements of White House leadership are basically anti-Semites or linked to anti-Semites, yet are praised by Israeli leadership because they give more money to the Israelis to build walls and buy guns and "fight terror." The implications of this apparent contradiction are consistent with the views of Bannon and other's ethno-nationalists in Trump's administration. What is ethno-nationalism? Ethno-nationalism basically believes that each ethnicity or race needs their own nation. This belief is a big part of the underlying worldview of Trump and other right wing populists. The message? : "The other" is raping, murdering and taking "our" jobs. This country belongs to "us" and we're taking it back. In the olden days international socialists correctly called this "the socialism of fools." The policy that proceeds from this thinking is as follows: Bannon, Miller and his crew will deride Jewish accomplishments for human rights and civil liberties in the US, while encouraging the racist fortress mentality of right wing Israeli leadership. Lest you think this tendency unique to Israel and its diaspora, the current leadership will also racistly denigrate Muslims as non-Americans while courting the authoritarian leadership of Muslim countries. Contrary to some people in my circles, I do believe Zionism was originally a movement with a deep moral core, as many diasporic movements for nationhood are. But ironically the success of becoming a nation has damaged the moral authority of Zionism, because it had to displace a whole other people in the process of fulfilling its destiny. Israel today, in my opinion, is little better than any other state that discriminates on the basis of ethnicity and religion. "But Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East," you say. The US is a democracy too, but that hasn't stopped it being a state based on the once explicit, now implicit dominance of a single group. Democracies can develop a kind of autocracy of the majority, just as pernicious as dictatorship or theocracy. The struggle for universal civic rights, that is, the struggle for governments to transcend the tyranny of BOTH majority and minority, is the most significant unfinished struggle of the modern era, encompassing everything from the Haitian, French and American Revolutions, to the civil rights movement, African decolonization and the fight against fascism. To see the current administration walking that struggle back ought to be deeply concerning for those who have seen where this has led in the past. Hannah Arendt is rolling over in her grave.

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The Mombasa Republican Council: Separatist Extremists or Legitimate Protestors?

by Nate Mathews
As I stepped out into the steamy humid Mombasa dawn, into a waiting taxi at Mombasa International Airport, I wasn't thinking about politics, or religion for that matter. But with a name like Prophet, my driver seemed destined to deliver a particular message. As we drove through the Mombasa morning, the acrid smell of burning trash piercing my nostrils, he shared some definite ideas about Mombasa's political situation. Apropos of nothing, he began speaking about the Mombasa Republican Council, a group of "extremists" who "were trying to destroy Kenya." They had, according to him, repeatedly said "they were not part of Kenya, until President Kibaki had no choice but "to go in there and start busting some heads" to "teach them a lesson." I asked my driver how long this was. "2 months ago, after they were banned."

I was fascinated by this rather pointed condemnation. I had been unaware of the recent rise to prominence and notoriety of the MRC, and I resolved to find out more in my short trip. I started with Paul Goldsmith's ominous sounding  MRC Conflict Assessment Report. The report is an excellent place to begin contextualizing the history of the Kenya Coast and the tangled threads that led to the present situation.
 The MRC issue is also heating up just as the country begans its long breath-holding leading up to the important March 2013 elections.

Colonialism and the Sultanate of Zanzibar
Back up a little for a brief review of history. The coast of Kenya has always had a different sense of historical identity than the rest of Kenya, and was treated as such by the British. Since the 1800s parts of it had been ruled by various Omani families. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Busaidi royal family under Said bin Sultan brought it under the control of the Sultanate of Zanzibar. In 1888, the 10 mile strip of coast was leased to the Imperial British East Africa Company. In 1895, in an agreement between the Sultan and the British Crown, the coast becoming a Protectorate as the Sultanate of Zanzibar was, while the rest of Kenya became a colony. In the early 1900s, British interests shifted inland, and they shifted their colonial capital to Nairobi. Thus from the beginning of the British colonial project, seperate administrative regimes characterized coast and interior.

Kenyan Independence and Mwambao
 As Kenyan independence approached, the status of the coast again became an issue. For various reasons, the Coast lagged behind other areas of Kenya in development and education. At least part of the reason was due to the reluctance of Muslims to send their children to colonial or missionary schools.  So while a generation of upcountry people took advantage of educational opportunities under the colonial system, coastal people were bypassed. Upcountry people moved down to the coast to take advantage of job opportunities, changing the demographics of the coastal towns. Coastal residents worried about the disposition of their lands. Swahili and Arab townsmen, fearing loss of representation and privilege, formed political parties to advocate for the rights of coastal people. The various parties can be grouped under a general "movement" called Mwambao, which called for autonomy and sovereignty for the Coast, or for its unification with Zanzibar. But Mombasa's economic importance to the rest of Kenya made this political outcome highly unlikely. In late 1961, the Robertson Commission recommended that the Coast be joined to mainland Kenya before independence. In response, On December 17, 1961,  Mijikenda leader Ronald Ngala lowered the red flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar at Malindi, a Kenyan coastal town. 

Coastal communities themselves were deeply divided, and unable to unite behind a single platform or identity. KANU and KADU, the two largest political parties in Kenya leading up to independence, were both united in their opposition to mwambao.The 1963 Memorandum of Understanding between the Sultan of Zanzibar and Jomo Kenyatta that formally transferred sovereignty over the coast to 
independent Kenya retained the outlines of the 1895 agreement:

1) Insure complete freedom of religion, especially  for Muslim subjects, and 
preservation of their religious buildings and institutions;  

2) the Chief Kadhi will have jurisdiction over questions of Muslim law relating to 
personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance);  

3) administrative officers in Muslim areas should be, “so far as is reasonably 
practicable:”   

4) Muslim children should be instructed in Arabic,  “so far as is reasonably 
practicable;”  

5)  “The freehold titles to land in the coast region that are already registered will 
at all times be recognized, steps will be taken to ensure the continuation of 
the procedure for the registration of new freehold  titles and rights of 
freeholders will at all times be preserved save in  so far as it may be 
necessary to acquire freehold land for public purposes, in which event full and 
prompt compensation will be paid.”

Nationalism and the Entrenchment of Colonial Borders
In the 1960s, Kenya also faced demands from Somalia to cede part of its territory in the northeast. Unlike most post-colonial African states, which were and are divided by ethnicity and language, Somalia faced a situation of internal ethnic and linguistic unity, with a good number of Somalis actually living beyond the colonial borders.

But Kenya violently quelled the secessionists, indicating that it would be willing to use force to maintain the territorial integrity of Kenya. The idea of the territorial integrity of colonial boundaries was something that emerged from the more conservative political vision of OAU members, who sought guarantees that what they viewed as "radical" Pan-African activism of states like Ghana would not affect their own bases of power. 

The Land Issue
It is well known that the Kenyan president throughout the state's recent history possessed final say over the disposition of land on the coast. President Kenyatta in particular used coastal land to reward independence fighters and other supporters, at the expense of locals. Thousands of acres of land were  declared state property and made a patrimony of the former president, a tool of political patronage. This is well known even by upcountry people residing on the Coast.

Tourism and the Marginalization of the Swahili
Despite the Coast being one of Kenya's top tourist destinations, and a base for the ever popular safaris to the major game parks, the local people have not enjoyed the economic benefits of tourism. Tourism dollars have not translated into substantial advances in education and development, and in fact have only eroded coastal people's control over the land. Far more upcountry people work in the tourist industry on the coast--as guides, drivers, cooks, builders, and souvenir sellers--than do coastal people.

The Mombasa Republican Council

The MRC has been around in one form or another since the late 1990s. The MRC's cry of "Pwani sio Kenya" is indicative of this tangled history and intense grievances. But it is also a strategy to get themselves heard, albeit a non-starting strategy in the eyes of most Kenyans.  The MRC claims to possess documents separate 50-year lease agreement signed by Kenyan Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta and his Zanzibar counterpart Mohamed Shante in which the Kenyan coastal strip is integrated into Kenya. The MRC claims that this lease expires next year, when the coastal strip should ‘regain’ its independence.The group has been banned and unbanned various times over the past few years, its leaders have been beaten by police, imprisoned and arrested, and generally treated as an extremely dangerous threat by other Kenyan leaders. MRC supporters, unlike most Kenyans, have greeted the new 2012 Constitution with cynicism, arguing that it doesn't reflect their interests. There is a deep-seated well of frusturation on the Coast that secessionist sentiments play into. Not all coastal people support secession, but any coastal person with some familiarity with the situation is aware of the pressing need for change that will empower coastal residents.

Islamism in East Africa
Does the MRC have links to militas like al-Shabaab or more militant transnational groups like al-Qaeda? The evidence for such links is extremely tenuous, although upcountry Kenyans often link the seperatists with al-Shabaab, mostly because (I think) their idea of the threat of Islamic militancy is primarily represented through the symbol of that specter in modern day Kenya (also connected with Kenya's brief incursion into Somalia during Operation Linda Nchi).

MRC is frequently linked to Uamsho, another separatist oriented group in Zanzibar, although it seems Uamsho has a much clearer social agenda related to the "Islamization" of Zanzibar island, than does the MRC, which is far from being a Muslim-only group. As the many media commentators have observed, the common thread linking these movements are social problems like unemployment, poverty and economic and social marginalization. Despite the tremendous wealth entering Coast Province through tourism and trade, coastal residents have benefited little from development projects mainly designed to serve foreign tourists. I saw concrete evidence of this driving through the countryside south of Malindi, where mile after mile of coastal resorts with Italian names were in various stages of construction, while people live in abject poverty sometimes only a few hundred yards away.

What provokes most anxiety in ordinary  upcountry Kenyans who live on the coast, many of whom are struggling to make a living just as much as the Swahili and other indigenous coastal groups, is xenophobic, anti-Christian, anti-mainlander/upcountry undercurrent to the MRC protests. It fuels irrational fears by these Christian coastal residents of Muslim dominance or foreign, Arab control of Kenya. 

The sad reality is that the Kenyan economy is already controlled by foreigners. Its economy is dependent on foreign aid and tourism, a fact which I believe will play some significant role in the upcoming election. Kenya's dependence on the West means that the election of Kenyatta and Ruto would throw its economy and political situation into further disarray, given their situation at the ICC. But that is another story. 

Analysts urge Kenyan leaders to address the grievances (if not the demand for secession) of MRC while remaining alert that it does not develop into an armed rebel group. In the 2007-08 election violence, elites often armed youth brigades to commit destabilizing acts of violence. Youth sympathetic to the MRC could very well be drawn into post-election violence. 

In my opinion 1) the coast will not cease to be a part of Kenya because Kenyan elites will not allow it 2) MRC can succeed in demands for autonomy and development if they moderate their secessionist stance while retaining the unity of their base 3)In addition to development projects and education for coastal residents, some sort of cultural program of understanding should be put into place to develop deeper ties of mutual understanding between coastal and upcountry communities.

What do you think?

For more on mwambao, see James Brennan, "Lowering the Sultan's Flag: Sovereignty and Decolonization in Coastal Kenya." Comparative Studies in Society and History 2008: 50(4), 831-861.

For more on Muslims and their relationship to nationalism and politics in Kenya, see Hassan Ndovu. "Muslim Relations in the Politics of Nationalism and Secession in Kenya." PAS Working Paper 18. http://www.northwestern.edu/african-studies/docs/working-papers/Hassan-Muslims%20and%20Secessionism%20in%20Kenya-FINAL.pdf

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Arab World Diasporas in Historical Perspective - Panel at CCAS Annual Conference, Georgetown University, 2011

In March, I had the privilege to speak on a panel with a group of distinguished historians at Georgetown University. I spoke about my research into Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui and his project of Islamic reform through the Swahili-Arabic newspaper "al-Islah". Here is the full panel:

2011 Symposium - Arabia to Africa: Reassessing the Omani Trade Diaspora in East Africa, 1861-1920 from Georgetown CCAS on Vimeo.

2011 Symposium - Reimagining Communities: Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui, al-Islah and Transnational Arab Muslim Identity in Kenya, 1897- from Georgetown CCAS on Vimeo.

2011 Symposium - Syrian Migrants to the Colonial Philippines, 1880s to 1940s from Georgetown CCAS on Vimeo.

2011 Symposium - A World of Their Own: Algerian Diaspora and the Making of Algerian Nationalism from Georgetown CCAS on Vimeo.

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Swahili Proverbs from Life and Politics in Mombasa

Sheikh Hyder el-Kindy was a Swahili political leader whose autobiography, Life and Politics in Mombasa, has a number of great Kiswahili proverbs:

"Kweli ikidhihiri, uwongo hujitenga" meaning when truth comes, falsehood disappears. This was said in relation to Sheikh Hyder's story of standing up to a brutal overseer while on a prison chain gang.

"Mtambua ndwee ndiye mganga" meaning he who diagnoses a disease is the physician. This was related by Sheikh Hyder after the installation of the new Tamim of the Thelatha Taifa (Three Tribes) a group of Swahili clans in Mombasa. He afterwards was appointed deputy Tamim.

"Kinolewacho hupata" meaning that Anything that is sharpened becomes sharper. This was said in relation to Sheikh Hyder's ambivalence about translating subservive Kiswahili political texts for the colonial police,(he worked as a translator), which implicated his grandnephew as an anticolonial agitator.

Sheikh Hyder relates many other stories about the social and cultural history of the coast. His memoirs are a valuable source for understanding the tension between "Arabs" and "Swahili" in the colonial era, the relationship between nationalism and Islam in Kenya, colonial political agitation, and some of the attitudes of postcolonial African leaders in Mombasa.

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The Role of Islam in Tanzania's Liberation Struggle

What's often left out of the Nyerere-centric narrative of Tanzanian nationalism is the contributions of Muslim townsmen.

Back during my first trip to Tanzania in 2006, I went with a friend to the Maktaba ya Taifa in Dar-es-Salaam and happenned across Mohamed Said's book on Abdulwahid Sykes. It came as a revelation to me that Sykes and other Muslim leaders in Dar had been the impetus and the organizational core of the Tanganyikan African Association, the organization which would eventually become TANU.

The book is a chronicle of that struggle, and Mohamed Said is anxious not to allow his readers to forget this 'underground' history.

Dr. John Iliffe has offered his review of Said's book. He critiques its somewhat polemical tone and addresses a personal accusation Said made against him. However I believe despite the occasional polemic, Said's work brings to light some important aspects of Tanzanian history that deserve a wider audience. We owe Bwana Mohamed Said a debt for bringing this forgotten history to light. Please visit the following links for more of his work:

Islam's Role in Tanzania's Freedom Struggle

Interview with Mohamed Said

The Question of Muslim Stagnation in Education

Islam and Politics in Tanzania

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The 'Swahili' Omani

Nation-building and communities in Oman since 1970: The Swahili-speaking Omani in search of identity

by Marc Valeri
full text article
In 1964, the revolution in Zanzibar put an end to the local al-Busa‘idi dynasty. The Omani Arabs were summoned by the newly independent state to ‘go back home’, because of their supposed foreignness. Yet no collective repatriation process was organized by the sultan of Muscat. It is alleged that around 17,000 Arabs died during the events. Oman received 3,700 refugees only and many other families were forced to settle in Dubai, Kuwait or Cairo.

A second wave of return followed the call launched in 1970 by Sultan Qaboos to the Omani elite abroad, inviting them to contribute to the ‘awakening’ of the country. Around 10,000 Omani from Zanzibar are thought to have moved back to Oman by 1975. Despite the fact that most of the expatriate Omani did not speak Arabic fluently, Qaboos had no option but to grant them Omani citizenship, as soon as they returned, without any consideration of the time their family had spent abroad. First, the Omani abroad were relatively more educated than those at home. Many of them spoke English fluently and had been trained in technical fields in Europe, East Africa or other Gulf countries, so they made a significant workforce for the ruler's planned modernization. Besides, given his political isolation when he came to the throne, the Sultan understood that since the Omani abroad had neither been involved in the internal political and tribal issues in Oman nor on the best of terms with his father's regime, they could be an asset to him.

All these factors account for the fact that the returnees soon filled many positions in key fields such as intelligence, police and security. Their Arabic language handicap was outweighed by their skills in administrative organization and political control. An example of the Sultan's dependency on these Omani during the first years of his rule is given by the Interim Planning Council, established in March 1972 to shape development achievements. Of its 10 members, six had been educated in eastern European countries, while two had been born in Zanzibar and had never been in Oman prior to the 1970 coup.

Yet, in a society like Oman where personal relationships play such a role, the fact that marriage patterns of most Manga Arabs had been limited to their kin in Africa, and that they had been kept out of the political affairs of the sultanate in Zanzibar, dramatically narrowed the networks on which they could rely when they returned. The cumulative effect of this lack of social intermediation (wasta) with their lower level of education was a tremendous handicap. If the ‘back-from-Africa’ Omani in general were unquestionably advantaged compared with the nationals who had stayed at home, nobody was better positioned to benefit from the opportunities offered by the developing Oman than the descendents of the aristocracy of Zanzibar.

Today, the ‘back-from-Africa’ Omani population is thought to number about 100,000, out of a total of more than two million Omani citizens. Locally they are called ‘Swahili’ (referring to their vernacular language) or ‘Zanzibari’ (Zinjibâriyyin; ‘Umâniyyin min Zinjibâr). Most of the tribes and ethno-linguistic groups contain within them so-called ‘Swahili’ individuals or clans—including among the royal tribe, the Shia communities and the Omani groups native to Baluchistan—but in varying proportions. The greatest numbers are found within tribes from Inner Oman, like Habus, Hirth, Bani Kharus, Kinud, Mahariq, Masakira, Bani Riyam or Bani Ruwaha. Families, or even individuals, descended from the same clans can be considered ‘Swahili’ (or not) whether they are tied (or not) to Africa.

The Omani who came back from East Africa thus constitute a highly heterogeneous group, which cannot be defined solely on genealogical or geographical criteria. The most important dividing line is the one inherited from the hierarchization in East Africa. This combination of social, cultural and economic divides was a determining factor of the position these returnees found in Oman.

In addition, every member has remained closely linked to his native tribe. Sheikhs who had stayed in Oman played a key role in validating the genealogies of members who came back after three or four generations. The vivacity of the tribal affiliation is highlighted by the huge amounts of financial transfers made by expatriates both to their native villages in Oman before 1970 and to the poorest clans of the tribe in Africa itself.

Another major dividing line is the African place of settlement. Here, there is a division between the ‘anglophone Swahili-speaking Omani’ who had lived in Zanzibar, Kenya or former Tanganyika on the one hand, and the francophones who had travelled to Central Africa (Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Congo) on the other. The latter, who are estimated to be about 10 percent of the whole Swahili-speaking Omani population, were usually Manga Arabs. Most of them only came back to Oman at the beginning of the 1990s, when Rwanda and Burundi exploded into crisis.

Finally it is necessary to keep in mind that a strict and well-known distinction is established between the back-from-Africa Omani, who can lay claim to a patriarchal genealogy in southeast Arabia and are the proper subject of this paper, and the Omani citizens who are descended from slaves brought forcibly from Africa (khadim) and who are considered not to be of Arab blood. As Mandana Limbert has put it, ‘Through the paternalizing care of the Arab-Omanis, [they] could become brothers, however, who would never be allowed to forget that they had been slaves, that they had known nothing and that they had had to be cultured’. Hence, many families with noble (qabîli) Arab lineages, who lived in Africa and are nowadays viewed as ‘Swahili’ in Oman, have always taken care to keep their Arab lineage ‘pure’.

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