The “East African corridor,” extending from Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda through Tanzania, and Mozambique, has experienced a marked increase in violent extremism. While often characterised as “religious”, these extremist groups are often motivated by a complex array of political, economic, ethnic, and cultural factors, in addition to religion. Notable here is Al Shabaab, spreading from Somalia and the Islamic State (IS), continuing to make inroads in the East African region. These non-state armed groups reflect the fluid and variable nature of conflict systems today and are at the heart of some of the continent’s most enduring peace and security challenges. Recent extremism activities in Mozambique by the Islamic State in Mozambique, and the constant attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group affiliated with the Islamic State (Islamic State Central Africa Province), show the new transnational wave of religiouslinked extremism in the region. The East African region has embarked on massive counterterrorism (CT), preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE) frameworks, resolutions, guidelines, and practices initiated to contain and avert extremism and terrorism.
These extraordinary national security measures in their terrorism containment efforts resulted in myriad violations and abuses of fundamental human rights and principles, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. Despite the argument for legitimate demands to ensure public safety and national security, Governments have instituted stricter regulations on religious expression and the role of religion or belief in the public sphere. Amid different forms of success in violent extremism mitigation, CT and PCVE frameworks and mechanisms have further contributed to stigmatizing communities based on religious affiliations - within the purview of the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) - furthering new waves of radicalization and extremism.
For countries like Ethiopia, for example, religious actors are pivotal in peacebuilding where internal conflicts are heightened under ethnic and religious banners, often politicized by political entrepreneurs. Ethnicity or religion by itself has never been a sufficient reason for conflict to arise in the country; rather, politicians try to provoke the public through their ethnic identities and religious backgrounds. Resource-based conflicts also exist in the region, often viewed under ethnic or religious cover. The recent phenomenon of destructive cults like the Shakahola cult incident in Kenya - which contributed to the deaths of more than 400 people, further heightens the role of religion and how we term ‘religiously driven violent extremism’ in the management and regulation of religious institutions. This drives the dilemma of the complications associated with the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Right to life in safeguarding national security interests.
There is the acknowledgment that religion is a strong instrument in building peaceful and just communities. Existing national and locally-led peacebuilding initiatives reveal the importance of religious engagements to advance the interests and values at the national and local levels. National governments and international donors increasingly work with religious actors to strengthen peacebuilding initiatives, including anti-corruption mechanisms, strengthening democracy, gender equality, and recognition of and protection for human rights in general, including the right to FoRB. Strategic religious engagements that utilize FoRB literacy and religious literacy show immense potential in creating and sustaining peace.
Religious engagements enable a platform to assist in understanding and working effectively with diverse religious actors to achieve development, humanitarian, and peace endeavours. Joint Initiatives for Strategic Religious Action (JISRA) a partnership of 50 civil society organisations based in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda, has shown the potential of religious actors in promoting religious engagements and, building peace by helping to address issues such as poverty reduction, climate change, public health, education, corruption, preventing and countering violent extremism. JISRA is a five-year programme (2021-2025) funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to further peaceful and just societies where all enjoy Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB).
Promoting the right to FoRB where no person should experience discrimination for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief, is key in safeguarding other human rights. For example, when the right to FoRB is curtailed, it can deny freedom of expression, deny freedom of association by banning religious assemblies, detention without trial, impunity for attacks on places of worship, and unlawful killing. FoRB fluency can create an enabling environment for respect between religious groups and can make it harder for violent extremists to exploit local religious differences in communities. Religious literacy is an instrument for understanding not only different religions, but also understanding the diverse dimensions of religion as a sociopolitical phenomenon, and its entanglement with other aspects of human co-existence. Building capacity in this area has the potential to reduce suspicion and antagonism within and across religious and non-religious communities. It facilitates engagement and relationship building. When religious actors work together to develop and implement shared goals, they create mutual trust. Creating and building trust underpins the values and ethics in building sustainable, peaceful, just societies, and strengthening national and global security.
Nevertheless, religious engagements and FoRB interventions driven by external actors or by local communities are often viewed with skepticism, especially regarding the actors' or parties’ motivations and interests. This skepticism is not without reason. Both FoRB and religious engagement have been criticized in scholarly literature for their potential and actual misuse and abuse to privilege the rights of some religious actors and communities over others, or for the cynical instrumentalization of religion in the pursuit of secular foreign policy goals. Such skeptical views also exist at the grassroots among recipient communities, where FoRB initiatives have been seen at times by some actors as a smokescreen for neo-colonial interventions by Global North donor governments. Further, effective religious engagement is inhibited by low levels of knowledge regarding religion and religious dynamics among government officials, security personnel, and even non-state actors working on security realms and peacebuilding efforts. Preliminary research findings also suggest that there is a blurring of “FoRB” with “religion”, meaning that some members of recipient communities see FoRB not as a human right, but as an interchangeable term for religion (most often Christianity and Islam) itself. Yet we can also see terminological confusion and imprecision in discourses on “FoRB”, “interfaith dialogue” and “religious engagement” within policy discourses and practice amongst Global North actors and within international institutions and forums. This highlights the urgent need for improving religious literacy and FoRB literacy in diplomacy, security, and peace-building in the East African region.
