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| Title: | Ethnicity and Pluralism: The Politicization of Religion in Kenya |
| Author: | Mazrui, Alamin |
| Year: | 1993 |
| Periodical: | Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs |
| Volume: | 14 |
| Issue: | 1-2 |
| Period: | January |
| Pages: | 191-201 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | Christianity Islam religious parties multiparty systems Religion and Witchcraft Politics and Government Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) politics |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/13602009308716291 |
| Abstract: | In Kenya, until recently, it was only ethnicity that dominated the debate between defenders of a monoparty system and advocates of multiparty democracy. But with the return of multiparty politics since February 1992, religion, too, seems to have entered the fray. Nonetheless, the KANU (Kenya African National Union) regime seems to have accepted the ethnic equation in the country's politics of pluralism, but not the religious equation. Although Kenya is constitutionally a secular State which upholds the principles of nondiscrimination on grounds of religion, non-Christian citizens have been known to suffer inequalities in their postcolonial experience. The ascendancy of Christianity to a position of dominance in Kenya's body politic has partly resulted in a systematic imbalance that has allowed the management of national and public affairs to assume a Christian basis. This paper contends that it is precisely this pro-Christian bias of the status quo in Kenya under Moi's rule that has led to the increasing politicization of religion - a trend that has expressed itself in the formation of political parties such as DEMO (Democratic Movement) and IPK (Islamic Party of Kenya). It is also this same Christian bias, rather than a concern with legal provisions, that has led to the government's refusal to register IPK and DEMO. Notes, ref. |
