Oct 15 2010 – SYD – A night in Africa – Fundraiser

Malians rally for return of peace, order

Tens of thousands of protesters crowded the stadium of Mali’s capital Bamako Sunday to demand government action to re-establish control in the country’s north and restore peace in the western African nation.

Many Malians accuse the interim leadership of internal bickering which they say has enabled Islamists groups in the north to take hold.   Meanwhile, those groups are seeking to impose strict Islamic laws in the areas they have occupied.  Last week they caused outrage by amputating a hand of a suspected thief.

The West African bloc ECOWAS has said it is ready to deploy about 3,000 troops to help restore legitimate rule in northern Mali.

The country’s interim President Dioncounda Traore has said he will make the request once a unity government is formed.

Mali’s interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra took over in April to lead the country until a more representative government can be elected.   But he refuses to step down and has been accused of blocking the move to form a unity government.

More extremist destruction in Mali

A senior official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said the world may be witnessing the last act of barbarism by Islamist militants in northern Mali before an international force is sent in to reclaim that part of the country.

Abdel Fatau Musah, ECOWAS director for external relations, was reacting to news that rebels from the Ansar Dine militant group Sunday destroyed more ancient mausoleums in the northern Malian city of Timbuktu.

Musah said ECOWAS condemns what he calls the terrorist acts of Islamists in northern Mali.

“Our reaction has always been the same that we [an African-led international force] are going there to get the jihadists. And I think what they are doing there in Timbuktu and other parts of the occupied territory in the north of Mali is just an act of desperation. Hopefully, we are seeing the last act of their acts of barbarism and terrorist activities,” he said.

The militants destroyed several mausoleums in the city in July, after the U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, put Timbuktu on its list of sites that are in danger.

Some of the ancient mosques and shrines date back to the 15th century.
They are revered by many Muslims but Ansar Dine considers them sacrilegious.

On December 20, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of foreign troops to Mali.

The Economic Community of West African States is making plans to send a force of between 3,000 and 4,000 soldiers to help retake the north.

Musah said once the military operation begins, ECOWAS will hold the militants responsible for their acts of human rights abuses.

“We are compiling the list of offenders in the north of Mali. They know that that they are either going to pay with their lives during the effort to retake the north or they will be handed over to the International Criminal tribunal for them to answer,” Musah said.

He describes as a “positive development the UN Security Council resolution on military intervention in Mali. But Musah said the sub-regional group is waiting for the support package that was promised.

“As you know, any operation in the north of Mali will require a lot of resources. So, ECOWAS and for that matter, African Union, we are waiting for the support package that was promised in the adoption of that resolution,” So, we expect another resolution that is putting together a UN support package for the mission,” Musah said.

What Muslims want in a new Pope

(RNS) Together, Islam and Catholicism represent about 40 percent of the world’s population, so the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world have more than a passing interest in the new pope who will shepherd the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Too often, relations between the two groups have been shaped by conflict — the Christian Crusades of 1,000 years ago are still a raw wound for many Muslims, and more recently, Muslim extremist attacks on Christian communities across Africa and the Middle East have left the Vatican deeply concerned.

“What the pope says or doesn’t say can have enormous consequences on such relations,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the Cordoba Initiative, an organization dedicated to improving Muslim-Western relations, and the founder of the controversial so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York.

The selection of the 266th pope comes at a critical juncture in Muslim-Catholic relations, which have been marred by persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, Islamophobia in Western countries, Western military action in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and rioting between Muslims and Christians across Africa.

While many Muslims said they saw an improvement in Muslim-Catholic relations under Pope John Paul II, they say Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy was more problematic.

Most worrisome, Muslims say, was in 2006 when Benedict spoke at the University of Regensburg in Germany and quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said Islam’s Prophet Muhammad had only brought “evil and inhuman” things to the world, and that Islam was “spread by the sword.” Those remarks touched off a series of deadly riots in several Muslim countries.

Muslims were also concerned by the Vatican’s opposition to Turkey joining the European Union, and in replacing Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, a British-born Islam expert who was seen as friendly with Muslims, as head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 2006.

Since then, Benedict made several trips to Islamic countries, including Turkey, which repaired some of the damage, and many Muslims give Benedict high marks for his efforts to re-engage Muslims.

“Pope Benedict XVI made a significant effort to reconcile with Muslims after his Regensburg speech,” tweeted Ingrid Mattson, chair of Islamic studies at Huron University College in Ontario and a former president of the Islamic Society of North America.

Ebrahim Moosa, an Islamic studies professor at Duke University, said the Regensburg fiasco showed the need for improved ties. “The Vatican is invested in good relations with the Muslim world, and under a new pope there is no reason to believe that it would be any different,” he said.

While many Muslims acknowledge the interfaith efforts Benedict made, many also hope a successor will be more like John Paul II.

“This pope had not really been a bridge-builder and there will be hope that the next one will be someone who tries to heal wounds and build bridges,” said Adil Najam, vice chancellor at Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences, and former director of Boston University’s Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.

Some Muslims believe that a pope from Africa or Asia, where Muslims and Christians live alongside each other in sometimes volatile conditions, would benefit Muslim-Christian relations.

“There could be a lot of opportunity. A young pope could be more in tune with the globalized world and all the interfaith activity that takes place,” said Qamar-ul Huda, an expert on religious conflict and reconciliation at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. “They live in pluralistic societies, and have to have good relations with Muslims so their communities get along on a day-to-day basis.”

Chris van Gorder, an expert in Muslim-Christian relations at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, named three possible papal contenders with firsthand experience in Islam:

• Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, 71, founded an organization called “Oasis” designed to promote Muslim-Catholic dialogue and has spoken and written extensively on the need for Muslims and Christians to mutually confront secularism and social justice issues.
• Cardinal Francis Arinze of strife-torn Nigeria has been “a leading light in the Vatican about promoting respect for Muslims,” van Gorder said. “But he’s now 80, so it’s not likely he would become pope.”
• Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, 64, had a paternal uncle who was Muslim. As president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, he has “supported Muslims and Christians working together to promote improved moral and civic society,” van Gorder said.

While many Catholic leaders acknowledged Benedict’s missteps and the need for greater dialogue, many also said Muslims could do more to address the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries.

In 2011, when Benedict condemned Muslim attacks against Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria, officials at the renowned Al-Azhar University in Cairo called off dialogue with the Vatican, citing the pope’s “insults.”

“A new pope will not just want to talk about love and peace. He will want to talk about the difficult subjects, too,” said the Rev. Patrick J. Ryan, a Jesuit priest and professor of religion and society at Fordham University in New York.

Rauf agreed that Muslims need to do more about the persecution of Christians in Muslim nations. “We can’t do enough to combat the militancy that you see in Muslim countries in various parts of the world against their fellow countrymen who are Christian,” said Rauf.

A key appointment will be who the new pope chooses to advise him on interfaith dialogue. Fitzgerald was replaced by French Cardinal Paul Poupard, who served until September 2007, when he was replaced by the current prefect, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran. Last July, Benedict named another Islam expert, the Rev. Miguel Ayuso Guixot, as the No. 2 official at the interfaith office.

“He’s a man of great capability,” said Ryan. “He’s a name to be watched. He will be very influential.”

Muslim fashion takes hold in Bay Area

Ruhollah Habibi dresses sharply in a suit and tie each morning for his job at JP Morgan. But the banker also carries a thobe to work on Fridays, slipping on the Arabian-style tunic for afternoon prayers.

“I just take off my suitcoat and throw that on over my button-up,” said the 28-year-old San Ramon resident. “It’s our etiquette to wear Islamic clothing when you’re going to learn the sacred knowledge.”

From kufi caps to veils and ankle-length abayas, multicultural Muslim clothing is in demand among the Bay Area’s young and devout. American-born Muslims who once shunned their immigrant parents’ Old World attire now mix and match between global Muslim styles from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, choosing clothing that is modest but rarely ascetic.

“It’s a matter of balancing our Muslim identity, our cultural identity, and at the same time being American,” said Sadaf Siddiq, 24, who wears a pricey, beaded abaya for formal religious occasions but usually gets her clothes from H&M.

The Internet replaced traveling abroad as the best way to acquire well-made Muslim clothing — what Habibi calls the Guccis of Muslim wear — but now some merchants are capitalizing on the trend by allowing Bay Area Muslims to browse clothes and feel the fabrics locally.

“Thobes, abayas, hijabs, topis, khuffs and more!” says a sign outside Maqbool Islamic Clothing, a new store next to the post office in the historic Alvarado district in Union City.

Entrepreneur Jabir Tarin, 20, dressed recently in blue Vans sneakers, a bright plaid shirt and a taqiyah cap, opened the shop March 1 with his older brother and a friend. They couldn’t find the clothes they wanted to wear, so the Cal State East Bay students began importing them.

“It’s totally normal for us to wear this in public,” said the bearded college student, walking through a store that sells everything from Arab yashmagh scarves to the tropical lungis and sarongs favored from Bangladesh to Indonesia.

Tarin said what Muslim youths wear is inspired by Islamic scriptures, longstanding cultural traditions and a desire to emulate others whose clothes they admire. It doesn’t hurt that the Bay Area is an accepting place, he added.

“One of the blessings of living in the Bay Area is there’s so much diversity,” Tarin said. “You could all but go naked and nobody will say anything.”

Like many of his peers, Habibi never wanted to wear Islamic clothing as a child growing up in an Afghan-American family in Fremont. He avoided the perahan tunban, the long shirt-and-trousers combo his father wore at home and to cultural events.

“My mom wanted me to wear the clothes, and we would rebel and say, ‘No way, we’re not going to wear that stuff.’ It wasn’t cool. We were kids. We wanted to fit in,” said the San Ramon banker.

Now he wears Arab garb his father would never think of wearing. Habibi said he had a change of heart three years ago as he began to take his faith more seriously and found a new pride in his Muslim culture and community.

“Every single day, I’ve got to look sharp, especially with clients,” he said. “I kind of look at Islamic clothing the same way.”

He’s on the lookout now for a new thobe of the Yemeni style he spotted on a passer-by some weeks ago. He called the Union City store to see if they have it.

“I’m not really a big fan of wearing a collar. I told him, ‘Hey man, are you going to get any of those Yemeni thobes there? I can’t find one.’”

Not yet, Habibi said, but someone’s bound to start selling them soon.

Arab revolutions smashing Media stereotypes

Exhaustive media coverage of the wave of popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa has helped to dispel myths and stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, and foster better cultural understanding, media experts said during a conference in Cairo on Wednesday.

“In covering the events that unfolded in Egypt and Tunisia, and are happening now in many other Arab countries… the media was able to build bridges that politicians were unable to achieve over many years,” said Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League. “Their imagery has helped create rapprochement between Arabs and the West.”

The conference, a forum on ‘A New Era for Arab-West Relations’, explored the implications of social transformation in the Arab region and the potential for enhancing intercultural dialogue. Participating journalists and members of civil society highlighted the role of media in bridging the gaps in mutual perceptions between the Arab world and the West.

Panelists described how Western media historically failed to convey the diversity of the Arab world, its varied geography, and its full spectrum of religious, ethnic and cultural identities. As a result, many Westerners perceive the Middle East as an exotic and often threatening milieu of deserts and camels, religious fervour and arbitrary cruelty.

Roland Schatz, CEO of content analysis firm Media Tenor, said international news coverage has for decades reinforced stale stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, focusing on acts of violence and repression, while glossing over positive and “ordinary” aspects of their lives.

“Violent upheavals drive news, which is mostly negative when Western journalists cover this region,” he said.

While the past few months have seen plenty of upheaval in the Arab world, the images filtering into Western homes also carry many positive, inspirational messages. Iconic photographs and video footage of protesters challenging brutal and autocratic regimes to demand democracy and transparency have dispelled the myth that Arab societies are politically apathetic and easily manipulated by dictators and Islamists.

Abdallah Schleifer, a professor emeritus of journalism at the American University in Cairo, told IPS there has been an encouraging change in the world’s perception of Arab societies.

“The images of the past decade were of Islamists, Osama and beheadings — and in the decade before that, of burning American flags and plane hijackings,” he said. “Suddenly we’re getting an image projected in the West that is not intrinsically anti-Western, and that raises themes which are very acceptable to the West, such as democracy and freedom.”

Popular uprisings toppled Tunisian dictator Zine Al-Abdine Ben Ali in January and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak the following month. An opposition movement has taken up arms to end the tyrannical rule of Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi, while anti-regime demonstrations have challenged the despots of Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.

The “Arab Spring” has reversed the usual flow of ideas, which are now emanating from the crowded squares of Tunis and Cairo to take root in the streets of Europe and North America. Schleifer points to recent demonstrations in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of protesters denounced the governor’s attempt to introduce anti-union legislation.

“One of the protesters’ slogans was “Walk like an Egyptian,” a phrase intended to imply with dignity and pride,” he said. “It shows that (Egypt’s revolution) has become iconic for similar protests within the democratic formula.”

Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies, cited surveys that revealed the positive impact of the region’s recent media exposure.

“The media had a role in showing the humanity of the people in Tahrir Square,” she said. “Research showed that the American public was paying close attention to the demonstrations in Egypt and 80 per cent said they were sympathetic with the protesters.”

Conference panellists identified deficiencies in Western news coverage of the region, particularly in representing the diversity and complexities of Arab society to uninformed readers and viewers.

Hisham Hellyer, a fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick, criticised the media’s disproportionate coverage of the secular, liberal elite while interviewing anti-Mubarak protesters. He said Western journalists seeking the most accessible and articulate interviewees inadvertently created the illusion “that everyone in Tahrir Square spoke fluent English.”

He also challenged the media to go beyond “the usual suspects” so as to present the views of wider Arab society, not just a few individuals.

“There is a tendency among journalists to select people known for their inflammatory comments,” he said. “These people have no representative value; they only provide good sound bites.”

One negative image that will prove difficult to efface: when thugs riding camels and horses charged anti-Mubarak protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Feb. 2. The incident — captured on film — reinforced many negative stereotypes about Arab backwardness and barbarism, remarked Gilles Kepel, head of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.

“It looked like a clash between the medieval and the modern,” he said. “On one side were guys on camels and horses and on the other were young protesters with iPhones and iPods.”

Importantly, however, intensive media coverage had already acquainted Western audiences with the goals and composition of the protesters in Tahrir Square. When the mounted attack came, it drew world sympathy to their cause.

Containing China by “fighting Al-Qaeda” in Africa

February 02, 2013 “Information Clearing House” – France’s military intervention into Mali may at first glance appear to have little to do with the U.S. “pivot” to Asia. But as a French mission supposedly meant to bolster a U.N. sanctioned and African-led intervention has gone from “a question of weeks” to “the total re-conquest of Mali,” what may have begun as a French affair has now become a Western intervention. And this in turn has drawn wider strategic interests into the conflict. Strategic interests, it is becoming clearer, shaped by the imperatives of the U.S. Asia pivot.

Widening Intervention

The geopolitical posturing over the crisis in Mali, coming as France’s intervention fans out across the region, is no more evident than in the public statements coming from both London and Washington.

As British Prime Minister David Cameron declared, the crisis in Mali “will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months.” Backing up such bluster, Britain has reportedly joined France in dispatching special commando teams to Mali, in addition to surveillance drones.

In Washington, the talk of a long war to be waged across the entire Sahel region of Africa has also begun. As one U.S. official speaking on the Western intervention into Mali warned Monday, “It is going to take a long time and time means that it could take several years.”

Such remarks mirror those made by outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“This is going to be a very serious, ongoing threat because if you look at the size of northern Mali, if you look at the topography — it’s not only desert, it’s caves,” Clinton remarked. “Sounds reminiscent. We are in for a struggle. But it is a necessary struggle. We cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the safe haven refrain is also pulsating through the corridors of the Pentagon.

“Some top Pentagon officials and military officers warn that without more aggressive U.S. action,” theTimesreports, “Mali could become a haven for extremists, akin to Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

And as the American public is prepped for the opening of a new front in the unending “war on terror,” U.S. intervention accelerates.

As the Washington Post reports, the U.S. is now offering “aerial refueling” to French warplanes, along with “planes to transport soldiers from other African nations.”

U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, have reportedly begun drawing up plans to provide “data to help French warplanes locate and attack militant targets.” This, as Pentagon hawks continue to push for the use of drone strikes.

In fact, the New York Times reports the U.S. has begun “preparing plans to establish a drone base in northwest Africa to increase unarmed surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups.”

The paper, which notes the base’s likely location to be in Niger, reports the Pentagon has “not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.”

As one American official told the Times, the decision to establish a permanent drone base in northern Africa “is directly related to the Mali mission, but it could also give Africom [the U.S. Military’s Africa Command] a more enduring presence.”

The very notion, though, of an al-Qaeda threat in northern Mali so dire as to require Western intervention and a permanent U.S. presence is anything but well-defined. As Blake Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy,notes: “it’s by no means clear what threat al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb…poses to the United States.”

Indeed, the very notion of al-Qaeda in Mali posing a threat to the West is predicated on the oft-repeated safe haven refrain. That is, the belief that without foreign intervention al-Qaeda will use northern Mali as a staging ground to launch attacks within Western countries.

“But,” as Stephen Walt questions, “is there any real evidence that the extremists in Mali are plotting to attack France, the United States, or anyone else? Even if they were, is there good evidence that they have the will and the skill to carry out such activities, or that the consequences of a successful attack would be greater than the costs of French (and other) efforts to root them out? And is it possible that intervention in Mali might actually focus the extremists’ attention on the intervenors, instead of the central government?”

The answer to the latter question appears quite clear in the wake of the bloody hostage crisis in neighboring Algeria. Although, as French President François Hollande claimed, the retaliation for the French intervention merely provided “further evidence that my decision to intervene in Mali was justified.”

Interventions, we see, are predicated upon a rather self-fulfilling logic. For in a seemingly endless loop, interventions inevitably seem to create additional problems and crises that are then posited as both justifying the initial intervention, as well yet further interventions. In short, intervention begets intervention.

The Useful Menace

But while Western leaders dig deep to reassure themselves of the justness of their latest intervention, doubts are nonetheless increasing over the competence of the Malian army. As the New York Times reports, despite extensive U.S. training, the Malian army has proven to be “a weak, dysfunctional force that is as much a cause of Mali’s crisis as a potential part of the solution.”

The Western “hope” in Mali, then, as the Economist argues, “is to kill as many as possible of the most fanatical jihadists, and to garrison the northern towns with soldiers from Mali and its neighbours, before the insurgents can regroup or bring in recruits.”

With such “hope” one understands the talk of a struggle to be measured in decades.

Indeed, even the head of the U.S. Africa Command, General Carter Ham, has acknowledged the limitations the West faces in Mali.

“Realistically,” Ham recently remarked, “probably the best you can get is containment and disruption, so that al-Qaida is no longer able to control territory [there] as they do today.”

But as U.S. officials talk up the al-Qaeda threat in Mali, one can’t help but recall the assertion made by U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta back in 2011. As Panetta then declared, the U.S. was “within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda.” Yet, after the West’s support of Islamists fighters in Libya and Syria, that handy al-Qaeda specter has evidently been roused sufficiently to haunt the Western mind once more.

Of course, despite all the public claims to the contrary, defeating al-Qaeda has never really been a genuine pursuit of the U.S. anyway. After all, a vanquished al-Qaeda would really denote something of a strategic setback for Washington. It would deprive the U.S. a source of proxy war foot soldiers, while also leaving Washington struggling to justify its global garrisoning. In the end then, the al-Qaeda menace — that gift that keeps on giving — is simply too useful to defeat.

Containing China

One needs look no further than the intervention into Mali to see the al-Qaeda threat bearing fruit for the West. All the attention on combating al-Qaeda in northern Mali has provided the perfect cover for the U.S. and its junior Western partners to pursue their grand strategy of containment against China. And with China increasingly out competing Western interests throughout Africa, one understands the sudden neo-colonial urge in the West.

According to Razia Khan, the regional head of research for Africa at Standard Chartered Bank, bilateral trade between Africa and China is nearing $200 billion annually, having grown at an average rate of 33.6 percent per year over the past decade. What’s more, in the coming years Africa stands to become China’s largest trade partner, surpassing both the EU and the U.S.

None of this has been lost on Washington. As the presumptive next U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, noted during his Senate confirmation hearing, the U.S. is knowingly playing from behind.

“Now with respect to China and Africa, China is all over Africa — I mean, all over Africa. And they’re buying up long-term contracts on minerals, on … you name it,” Kerry commented. “And there’re some places where we’re not in the game, folks. And I hate to say it. And we got to get in.”

In a 2010 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Johnnie Carson, U.S. assistant secretary for African Affairs, echoed Kerry’s concerns. In fact, Carson went so far as to classify China as a “very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals.”

Such U.S. sneering over growing Chinese investments in Africa were aired publicly during Secretary of State Clinton’s visit through African back in August. As Clinton, in a clear jab at China declared on her trip, “Unlike other countries, ‘America will stand up for democracy and universal human rights even when it might be easier to look the other way and keep the resources flowing.’”

(The rights violations of the U.S.-trained Malian army puts just the latest lie to such righteous declarations.)

In response to Clinton’s jab, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency shot back that Clinton’s trip was “aimed at least partly at discrediting China’s engagement with the continent and curbing China’s influence there.”

And it is with such a fear of U.S. containment in mind that Beijing has come to interpret France’s intervention into Mali as a gateway for further Western interventions. As He Wenping of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warns, “French forces’ involvement in Mali will provide the case for legalization of a new interventionism in Africa.”

And indeed it will, just as the West’s Libyan romp, costing China $20 billion in investments, helped set the stage for the current intervention into Mali. For in order for the U.S. to harness Asia’s (read China’s) growth and dynamism — and thus cement America’s Pacific Century — the U.S. must come to also harness the growth and dynamism of Africa.

The U.S. containment of China, then, requires a pivot of sorts to Africa. Only the African pivot appears set to fall under the banner of that ever-malleable “war on terror.”

Polygamy fading for African Muslims

GOMA – Young Muslim men in the Democratic Republic of Congo are less interested in having several wives than their fathers were. Facing rising prices and feuds over inheritance, the new generation doesn’t see how the benefits outweigh the costs of having multiple spouses in the same household.

As for the women of the current generation coming of age, they see that wives are often the victims of polygamous customs, and reject this form of marriage. It’s also worth noting that it is no longer legal under Congolese law.

“If you want to end up like me, embrace polygamy…” This is how 70-year-old El Hadji H.E warns his grandchildren. In the middle of his large parcel in Magendo, the popular neighborhood of the eastern city of Goma, a large, old house occupies much land. In the garden are two wrecked Volvo trucks, the latest symbols of yesterday’s prosperity for this family of 40 children and eight wives.

It’s impossible to get everyone through school, but El Hadji adds thhat “22 of my girls and boys who couldn’t go to school went to Koranic school.” Still, such religious teachings are not enough to help them find a job and cope with what life has planned for them. One of his sons, Amadi Rubani, just got fired from his job at a security company, which prefers hiring people with high school diplomas.

Even the Muslim authorities dissuade the population from taking multiple wives. After the noon prayer, Imam Shabani Kiboko often explains that polygamy isn’t compatible with the Congolese lifestyle. The multiple dowry gifts are prohibitive. “In the eighties, All my father had to do was read a passage from the Koran … and the father-in-law would give him his daughter to marry,” remembers Salumu Idi.

And so young Muslims, more and more, are rejecting polygamy. They remember from their own childhoods the small rations and the need to share with numerous siblings, the  fights it leads to. The patriarch’s death is also a factor of conflicts: very often, he leaves no will behind.

Financial questions

Ali Moussa, the family elder, found himself in a prickly situation. He can’t marry several women for he’s not allowed to: His father left him the responsibility of two of his spouses as well as the children whom he must put through school. “Here’s what my father left for me: his wives and my brothers.”

Women’s associations are getting involved. They tell each other that a household with one husband is a good thing. Also, whenever they consider getting engaged with a married man, it’s better to check his finances. This recommendation even finds a religious echo for it is specified in the Koran’s An-Nisaa Sura.

Some of these women also note the benefits of a more intimate couple without any rivalry: “I choose monogamy, for it’s the best way to share secrets with your husband without taking the risk of them being divulged,” claims Yasmin.

Too often, women growing up in polygamous families suffer from injustice, especially the second, third or fourth ones. In case their husbands die, they get harassed by the in-laws who are not restrained by any legal acts. “After my husband’s death, his family came and took everything in my house, children included, arguing about how I wasn’t their brother’s wife,” regrets a young widow with four children who sued her in-laws to guarantee her kids would get their share of the inheritance. Now a member of the Union of the Muslim women, she takes advantage of her misfortune to dissuade people from choosing polygamy.

As a reminder, according to Anne-Marie Furaha, jurist and project leader for the human rights association Social Action for Peace and Development, the Family Code (art. 330-333) stipulates that marriage is the “civil, public, solemn bond through which a man and a women not engaged in a previous registered marriage, can enjoy legal union.” Such a marital union cannot be ordained by a Church or other sectarian group alone, in order to be legally recognized by the state.