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INSIDE AFRICA
The Impact of Religion on African Societies
Aired November 17, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. This is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and issues on the continent. This week, we focus on the impact of Christianity and Islam on African societies and visa versa. In Morocco, women preachers are taking up the frontline positions in the fight against Islamic radicalism.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We urge youth to become productive members of their society and to reject fundamentalism, a foreign value that is alien to Islam.
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OKE: In Kenya, some recent scientific discoveries are pitting proponents of evolution theory against believers in the Bible story of creation.
And we look at the rise of evangelical Christianity in parts of Nigeria, a country that is also half-Muslim.
We begin in Morocco, where the government has enlisted women to take a leadership role in Islam. They're called moshedas (ph). And their job is to discourage radicalism by preaching a moderate form of Islam.
Their numbers grow each year, and most Moroccans seem to approve of their work. But as Shahira Amin reports, not everyone has faith in their mission.
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SHAHIRA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tmara (ph), a rural village on the outskirts of the Moroccan capital Rabat. Miriam (ph) is a regular visitor here. She is one of Morocco's first women preachers, appointed by the government to promote a moderate, more tolerant version of Islam.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Our role is to fight extremism. We do this by teaching the women here, most of whom are illiterate, the true Islam, the religion of moderation and compassion.
AMIN: Today's sermon is about ablution. Miriam tells the worshippers that cleansing one's soul of evil is far more important than the actual washing process that precedes Muslim prayers five times a day. Her words, filled with encouragement and optimism, a far cry from the hate rhetoric that some radical clerics have been feeding Moroccan Muslims.
The 2003 Casablanca bombings marked a turning point in the government's willingness to tolerate radical teachings. The attacks, directed at Jewish and foreign targets, killed at least 45 people, injured dozens, and reduced this building, a popular Casablanca nightclub, to rubble. Since then, the government has monitored all mosques' sermons and replaces radical clerics with other imams and moshedas like Miriam.
AHMED ABBADI, MOHAMEDIAN LEAGUE OF SCHOLARS: Now, women are having access to the masses, guiding them, preaching among them. And among men as well. So religiosity is not anymore a gender issue. It's a human issue.
AMIN: Outside Casablanca's King Hassan Mosque, the Islamic world's third largest, a sea of worshippers streams out after Friday noon prayers. We gauge their views about the moshedas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): In Islam, men and women are equal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's an excellent initiative, as long as they don't challenge men. For instance, women should not be allowed to lead prayers. That's a man's role.
AMIN: While they are allowed to preach in mosques, leading prayers remains out of the realm of the female clerics. That task is strictly reserved for the imams, or male preachers. "Leading prayers is strictly a male domain, and will remain so," says this mosheda.
Moshedas are trained at this center in Rabat, affiliated with the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The intense, year-long curriculum includes Islamic studies, law, psychology, sociology and computer skills. It is specifically designed to prepare the new clerics for the difficult task ahead - ridding society of extremists.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We urge youth to become productive members of their society and to reject fundamentalism, a foreign value that is alien to Islam.
"True jihad is a struggle to serve one's religion and one's nation to the best of one's abilities," says this mosheda.
The moshedas attending this astronomy class, alongside their male counterparts, are to graduate in April. They will join 100 women now preaching across Morocco. Their work will not be confined to the mosque.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We visit hospitals, prisons and schools, reaching out to those in difficulty, those most in need of guidance.
AMIN: Like Morocco's downtrodden and poor, who live in desolate conditions in ghettos across the country.
It's in ghettos like this one, lacking in basic services and infrastructure, that the work of the women preachers takes on added significance. Rampant poverty and high unemployment make slum areas like City Mutmin (ph) fertile ground for the recruitment of extremists.
The youth here tell us that there's no future for them in Morocco.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No work, no education. The only solution is to emigrate to Europe. There's no hope for us here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): In the West, they have everything - work, education, opportunities. What do we have here?
AMIN: Fathalla Arsalan is a member of the outlawed Islamist Justice and Charity Party. He commends the role of the moshedas, but stresses the need to address what he sees as the underlying causes of radicalism.
FATHALLA ARSALAN, ISLAMIST JUSTICE & CHARITY PARTY (through translator): Youth become radical because they have no open horizon, because they are marginalized by society, because they feel rejected, because illiteracy rates are high. It's also because they have no freedom. They are oppressed. And it's because of the social injustice.
AMIN: Parliament deputy Mustafa Ramid of the Islamic Justice and Development Party agrees.
MUSTAFA RAMID, ISLAMIC JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY (through translator): We need to work to improve economic and social conditions.
AMIN: To support his argument, he shows us an opposition newspaper article about the arrests of suspected extremists. He feels these arrests are unjustified.
The moshedas also face another great challenge - gaining the trust of skeptics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The official religious discourse lacks credibility in the Arab world. The moshedas are part of that discourse, in which the public has no confidence. Extremists are capitalizing on the people's rejection of the official discourse, and are winning the masses over to their side.
AMIN: Bridging the gap between that official religious discourse and popular attitudes is vital, Varif (ph) says, adding that that can only be attained by allowing Islamist movements to have representation in politics and a role in public life. Without that, the analysts say, the moshedas' work will remain merely cosmetic. Only by eradicating oppression, illiteracy and poverty, they say, can the moshedas and the government of Morocco hope to wipe out religious fanaticism.
Shahira Amin, CNN, Rabat.
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OKE: Religion and some ancient fossils are at the center of a controversy in Kenya. I'm not talking about my bosses here. Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA - I'm in trouble now - creationism, evolution and what some scientists think could be the missing link.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week. The World Bank says Africa's economic growth is on pace with the rest of the world for the first time in three decades. A new report says sub-Saharan economies grew at an average rate of 5.4 percent in 2005 and 2006. The report credits improved governance and major economic and trade reforms. Still, it warns that South Africa and Nigeria generate more than half of the continent's gross domestic product.
And the International Monetary Fund says member states have pledged more than $842 million in debt relief for Liberia. IMF President Robert Zoellick says the country has met necessary benchmarks. He is praising the Johnson-Sirleaf administration's economic track record since taking office last year. Liberia currently owes $4.5 billion internationally.
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OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
Paleontologists have long been searching for the missing link, which is evidence of an evolutionary stage between ape and man. And now some researchers think they have found it, in Kenya's Nakali region, in the form of a 10-million-year-old jaw bone. As Christian Purefoy reports, this and other recent scientific discoveries are fueling a grand debate in Kenya, with religion at the center.
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CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the last piece of the human puzzle. Archaeologists hope that this 10-million-year-old jaw bone is the evolutionary missing link between gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.
FREDRICK MANTHI, NATIONAL MUSEUMS OF KENYA: It's possible that this could be the link that we've been looking for, for a long time.
PUREFOY: Fossils from dig sites across East Africa support archaeological theories, that this is the cradle of mankind. From here in the Rift Valley, it is believed humans evolved, and then populated the rest of the world.
Fossils dating back millions of years are locked up safely here, in Kenya's national museum. And later this year, some of these world treasures will be put on display to the public, for the first time ever.
Treasures like Turkana boy, 1.5 million years old. It is one of the most complete skeletons ever found.
But now, the fossil has become a bone of contention. Bishop Adoyo Boniface is protesting the display of Turkana boy, (inaudible) reference to creationism, and the belief that humans were made by God, not evolution.
Although he is only one of a few outspoken Kenyan critics of evolution, he chairs the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, a fellowship of some 10 million Christians.
BISHOP ADOYA BONIFACE, EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE OF KENYA: We cannot ascribe to the fact that this boy is being displayed as scientific evidence of evolution, in that evolution is a theory.
PUREFOY: The Kenyan museum director, himself a Christian, welcomes the debate.
MZIAENDO KOURJA, KENYAN MUSEUM DIRECTOR: We are not trying to stop them from discussing. In fact, we are welcoming them, because we can then come and (inaudible) to them why evolution is real, why evolution is a fact.
PUREFOY: A fact he believes that has not silenced the debate on how life began.
Christian Purefoy, CNN, Nairobi, Kenya.
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OKE: You know, my favorite phrase in Christian's report there was where he was talking about the Turkana boy fossil controversy and he called it a bone of contention. Hilarious! Thank you so much, Christian.
We move on now to Nigeria, where evangelical Christianity is a powerful force. Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, we'll find out what makes this form of Christianity so appealing. Stay with us.
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OKE: Excellent to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
We want to look now at the religious trends taking place around the continent. During the 20th century, nearly 40 percent of Africans shifted from indigenous religions to some form of Christianity. Evangelical Christianity is among the fastest growing versions today. Evangelicals are loosely defined as Christians who undergo a personal conversion, often being described as being born again. And they take the Bible literally. They also believe in spreading their faith.
Mary Jordan is a co-bureau chief of the "Washington Post" in London, and she recently returned from Nigeria, where evangelism is already enormously popular and on the rise.
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MARY JORDAN, WASHINGTON POST: I've never been to a place where there are more churches. In one block, you might see - a small block - you might see six or seven different churches, and particularly the Pentecostals have really hung out their sign there. It's just phenomenal growth.
Several people said, you know, why is this phenomenal growth happening? Why are there 23,000 new Christians every single day in Africa? Why are they so receptive?
I asked a woman on the streets of Lagos that question just a few days ago, and she said, "look around me. Look at the crime, look at the health problems. The electricity goes off six times a day in this city. I have no one else to believe in but God."
OKE: I remember the first time my parents took me to church in Lagos, and I was stunned, having grown up in a Church of England church in London, going to church on Sunday - everybody was with massive head dresses, looked amazing, and was so loud. People were standing up and saying prayers and saying "hallelujah" and "amen."
What else makes this kind of worship very distinct in Nigeria?
JORDAN: Well, what you were saying - there is a couple of new Mormon churches in Lagos, and people are always saying, "it's too quiet in there. What are they doing?" But by and large, mainstream Christianity there is loud. There's drums, there's bands. Even in these small second-story little churches that spring up, half of the whole church is the musical equipment.
You know, the Pentecostals have even been known to stay up all night singing and praying. It's just actually an enormously vibrant scene.
OKE: What's behind the growing appeal of evangelism in the southern part of Nigeria?
JORDAN: First of all, there's hundreds of millions of dollars behind these evangelizing groups. The money is coming from all over the world, not just the United States, but Australia and Europe. There is a lot of radio money and Christian broadcasting going on.
It must be also said that the same is on the other side. I mean, with the Muslims as well. And you have Saudi Arabian money, and a lot of it, going to build mosques in the north, and you have European and American money behind the Christian groups in the south.
OKE: So how comfortably does Christianity and Islam sit together in Nigeria today?
JORDAN: In some places that I've been on the outskirts of Lagos, it was on this side of the street was a mosque, this side of the street was a Pentecostal church. Everyone was at the same market. Nobody bothered each other. Everybody gets along.
But there are tensions, especially in the north, and I think it's especially when people are knocking on doors and trying to convert people, and that's where you do see some problems. And of course, every time some international incident happens, like this cartoon of Mohammed a few years ago that really inflamed the Muslims, there were lots of Christians, you know, just hurt during that tense time.
OKE: Do you think there are any lessons that the rest of the world can learn from the way that Nigerians and Africans celebrate their Christian faith?
JORDAN: I think that there's just a bit of - there is more of a joy and a celebration and a letting loose. I mean, people cry and they stand up and they shake their head. And just seems that they are enjoying it, while here I am in London, and if you have five people in a pew on Sunday, I think that they think that's a good day.
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OKE: And that was Mary Jordan, who is the co-bureau chief in London for the "Washington Post."
Next on INSIDE AFRICA, a flare-up of fighting in eastern Congo displaces the already displaced.
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OKE: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back.
Here's a look at some of the headlines from the continent.
A Taiwanese fishing vessel has docked in Mombasa, Kenya after being released by Somali pirates. The pirates seized the ship nearly six months ago off the Somali coast. They released it last week after the U.S. Navy intervened. Fourteen freed sailors, mostly Chinese, say the pirates killed one of their crewmates.
The United Nations Security Council is calling on Eritrea and Ethiopia to settle their border dispute immediately. The U.N. secretary-general says the long-standing disagreement and military buildup along the border are causes for serious concern. He's urging both countries to abide by a 2002 ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission.
And casualties from a flare-up in fighting are overwhelming medical personnel in Somalia. Dozens have been killed and hundreds injured in recent clashes involving Islamic insurgents, government troops and African Union forces. Hospitals in Mogadishu are at full capacity.
Renewed fighting in eastern Congo has displaced tens of thousands of civilians once again, forcing many to flee one (inaudible) patch of mud for another. The area near the Rwandan border is a lawless one, where tribal- based rebel groups fight for the territory. Now, the conflict is coming closer to camps for the internally displaced, and as Nick Valencia reports, people who have already lost so much are caught up in the crossfire.
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NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a painfully familiar scene. Thousands fleeing conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In the last year, more than a quarter million Congolese have been forced to leave their homes. Now, renewed fighting threatens camps for the displaced, and thousands more are on the run.
RON REDMOND, UNCHR SPOKESMAN: There are people in poor health. They're soaking wet because of torrential downpours. They need shelter. They need food. They need a lot of assistance, so we're going to have to move quickly to get that help to them, because a lot of them are already in a weakened state.
VALENCIA: North Kivu is a divided region. Those loyal to rebel general Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi, fight Hutu rebels, who came to the DRC from neighboring Rwanda in the mid-90s. Nkunda has a reputation for fighting just about anyone who does not support him. This week, Congolese soldiers clashed with his forces, further destabilizing an area already torn apart.
The U.N.'s refugee agency says it's the worst internal displacement in north Kivu since the end of Congo's civil war in 2004.
REDMOND: There was fighting about two kilometers, two to three kilometers from the camps. The internally displaced people in those camps, about 38,000 in the immediate vicinity, panicked, and they grabbed what they could, put it on their backs, and fled the camps.
VALENCIA: There has been some progress. The leader of one rogue militia recently surrendered to U.N. peacekeepers. But Nkunda, who commands thousands of rebel troops, appears determined to fight on, and there seems to be no diplomatic strategy for ending the bloodshed.
Human rights activists say international pressure is needed.
JOHN PRENDERGAST, ENOUGH PROJECT: It's up to some of the key donors, the French and the Belgians and the Americans, to come in and say, you know what, we have to encourage a new round of talks. There has to be a way to address this. In the meantime, you can develop the hammer, you know. Build a better military strategy as a plan B to address these rogue militias.
VALENCIA: DRC President Joseph Kabila has asked for continued U.S. support to promote stability and economic development in his country, but those living in squalid camps are just hoping for the day that they can go home.
Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.
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OKE: And that's our show for this week. But don't forget, if you'd like to comment about any of the reports you've just seen, send us an email to insideafrica@cnn.com. That's insideafrica@cnn.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
I'm Femi Oke. Until the next time, take care.
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