William andrew kopwe the open university of tanzania

4.4.4 State-Religion-Society Relations

Historical background of Tanzania from pre to post colonial eras shows that politics of the Country have been in close ties with religion. Muslims and Christians played a decisive part in the movement for the independence of the Country.¹⁵⁰ Muslims for instance, were the pioneers of the movement for independence in the Country. TANU was a Muslim dominated party with a lot of Islamic influence, which brought a lot of discord when, Nyerere a Catholic, joined TANU and became a leader of the party. The Islamic influence in TANU helped Nyerere to reach the Muslim community in the Country during the campaign for independence. Nyerere openly said in one of his famous speeches, which are now freely found in cassettes, VCD and VHF tapes that during the movement for independence he went to Mlingotini-Bagamoyo, a place which has a lot of Islamic influence, especially with the connections to Sharifs (people who are said to be descendants of the Prophet Muhammad). This place is dominated by Suffi Muslims. There, he was told to fast for the whole day, which made him to suffer from headache. In Bagamoyo town, Nyerere got a lot of support from a famous Sheikh Ramiah, a Suffi, whose descendants were freed slaves from Congo. This influence made some Muslims to say that Christians did not participate in the struggles for independence same as the Muslim did (Said, 1998).
Christians and the church seemed reluctant to join the movement for independence. The church was skeptical in mixing religion and politics on one hand, and on the other, the European Missionaries, who in most cases were the leaders of the church, had close ties with the colonial Government. But this should not be taken in general terms because there were Missionaries who vehemently opposed colonialism in the Country. “Some missionaries did actively support the nationalist movement. An example is Babro Johansson, from Sweden, who worked for the Lutheran Church as a teacher in Bukoba. She had close connections with the leaders of TANU and also acted as an intermediary between TANU and the Swedish Government” (Ludwig, 1999:31). The Roman Catholic Church newspaper-Kiongozi was also used to propagate TANU’s agenda of nationalism. The Protestant Churches under the auspice of the Christian Council of Tanganyika had several key leaders who inspired Christians to support the movement for nationalism. A good example of such people was Bishop Theophilo Kisanji from the Moravian church.¹⁵¹
After independence to date, religion continues to chart the course of Tanzania politics. All the Presidents have been meeting with religious leaders from both Muslims and Christians for consultation and advice. On the other hand, it seemed that Nyerere had a gentlemen’s verbal covenant with Muslims leaders that there shall be alternation of Presidents from Christians and Muslims in the Country. This is proved by the statement given by the late Mufti Hemed bin Juma bin Hemed which he gave in the year 1994 when Ali Hassan Mwinyi, a Muslim President, was about to finish his term. CCM youth wing wanted Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, the current President to be elected as a Presidential candidate from CCM party. The Muft said that that was not possible because Kikwete is a Muslim. He cannot come after Mwinyi. He was quoted saying that this Country has agreements that the Presidential position should alternate from Muslims and Christian. This led to Benjamin William Mkapa to come into the Presidential position.¹⁵²
Since religion charts some areas of political course of the Country, religious groups have power to even pose threats to the Government and the ruling party in particular. For instance, in the year 2009, the Bishops of the Christian Council of Tanzania threatened the ruling party CCM, that if the Government would proceed to implement |§∙ī Court as a Government institution, they would reconsider their relation with the ruling party. Reading between the lines, this statement was a threat of stopping their relationship with the party. The Government had to give in, even though the state is secular, people are religious, and they can easily be influenced by their religious leaders to vote against the ruling party.
Since the idea of including the issue of |§∙ī Court in the ruling party’s election manifesto was against secular constitution the party had to find some ways to maneuver with the matter. Much of the discussions about the debate on |§∙ī are presented in the following chapter of the study. It is suffice to mention here that CCM’s statement was very important at this time when the Country was approaching the general election of October 2010. One of things which CCM had to answer to the Muslim voters was how far has it gone with the issue as part of its fulfillment of its promises in accordance with its 2005 election manifesto. Pius Msekwa, CCM spokesperson said that people did not understand the statement in the CCM manifesto which says that CCM would find ways to solve the issue of |§∙ī Court reintroduction.
The statement was open and did not show how the issue could have been dealt or how could CCM find solution. Therefore one of the ways to solve it is by bringing back the agenda to the Muslim community in the Country. CCM reached that decision after it had carefully analyzed the issue and made different consultations. Msekwa said the agenda was brought back to the Muslim community to manage it because it could have been an infringement of the Constitution if the government would have taken it as its agenda since the government is secular.
He said they reached this decision after being advised by the Parliament commission for law reform in the Country. This show how politically was the issue founded. The promise was just put there to mesmerize the Muslims in the Country in order to vote for them. Or if that was not the case then the statement by Mr. Msekwa proves the allegations that the promise was incepted by an individual who had access to the final form of the manifesto. This tells why CCM is dropping it as not its agenda.
On the other hand, Muslims Communication Council (BAHAKITA)¹⁵³ gave similar threat to the CCM Government. The council calls upon Muslims in the Country not to vote for CCM because the party has cheated Muslims in the issue of reintroducing |§∙ī Court in the Country. The issue at stake is that CCM-the ruling party, has failed to reintroduce the Courts in the Country, while it promised to do so in its 2005 election manifesto. The organization planed to run a campaign against CCM all over the Country, which would be accompanied by a great demonstration in Dar-Es-salaam. The Mufti has tried to appease the Muslims unsuccessfully. The threat from both religious groups mentioned above show that, though the Country is secular, religion has power to shape and to chart the political course of the state.
Several events in the Country show that religion is part of political process of the Country. One important factor is the audacity of religious groups to rebuke the Government leaders when they feel that what they do is not right. This study was done during the time when, ufisadi (corruption), in Tanzania is said to have reached an alarming state. The politics of the Country is currently dominated by the Mafisadi (corrupted people) discourses. Some people feel that the current CCM Government failed in controlling corruption in the Country. Religious leaders have decided to intervene by rebuking the Government in different instances. Religious festivals and occasions have been used as platforms for airing their feelings on the subject of corruption. The Roman Catholic Church in Tanzania offered statements which aimed at providing civic education to people, especially on who is a good leader to be elected. The aim is to make sure that corrupted leaders do not get a chance to come back into the Government again and to prevent new corruption from coming into the Government.
To some, people like the famous long serving political leader, Kingunge Ngombale Mwilu,¹⁵⁴ was against the statement with the consent that it may stir up political discord in the Country. Muslims also offered their statement to direct Muslim on the character of the people to be chosen in the next election. The two statements shocked the CCM Government, because the Government is very much aware that religion is such a powerful agent in the Country’s politics. Therefore, the Government convened a meeting with religious leaders in the Country.¹⁵⁵ The President and other important leaders in the Country had discussions with them. Though the two statements were not discussed in the meeting, to some people, this was understood as CCM’s maneuver to appease the religious leaders following their stern statements to the Government. The meeting gives two things of interest to the study. It shows that the Government is aware of the position of religion in the political process of the Country. Following that the Government had to talk to the religious leaders to try to curb any discord which may happen out of the discontentment of religious leaders in the Country following the allegations of corruption commonly known in Swahili as ufisadi.
On the other hand, one of the greatly debated issues among some citizens and sometimes in the Parliamentary seating, is the issue of tax exemption to religious activities and social services offered by the religious groups. For instance, commodities or materials bought within the Country or imported from outside the church are not taxed by the Government.¹⁵⁶ In the 2010-2011-budget, the Government proposed to lift the VAT exemption to the religious institutions in the Country. This stirred a heated debate between religious leaders, particularly Christians.
This caused the Prime minister to meet with religious leaders in the Country for further discussions of the issues. The Government said it was about to lift the exemption, because some religious organization abuse the opportunity by using it individually, which makes some people to escape taxes in the Country. This makes the Government to lose a lot of money. After the discussion with the religious leaders, the Premier told a press conference that the President has blessed the decisions to expunge the proposal of lifting tax exemption to the religious organizations and activities. Therefore, VAT exemption will remain in place. The chairman of Christian Council of Tanzania, Bishop Dr. Valentine Mokiwa is quoted saying that if the Government continued with its plans of lifting the VAT to the religious organization, CCM Government will have lost at least about 11 million votes from the CCT Christians in the Country in the 2010 general election (Anglican News Partners, 2009).
Two things arise out of this issue. Firstly, the issue shows that religion and religious activities are financially supported by the Government in the Country by exempting them from VAT. This is justifiable because religious groups in the Country help the Government in offering social services where the Government cannot afford to do so.¹⁵⁷ Hence, they have the right to be exempted from paying taxes. Secondly, which actually is the most interesting, is the threat by the chairman of CCT that CCT members would not vote for CCM in the general election if the Government would have not expunged the lift.