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CIAO DATE: 07/06
Religion and Conflict in Africa with a Special focus on East Africa
Bjørn Møer
June 2006
Abstract
The report provides a brief overview of the religious landscape of Africa with a special focus on the role of religion in the continent’s several confl icts. It then proceeds to look at East Africa, where the three religious “families” of traditional religion, Islam and Christianity are all present in large numbers. It does not fi nd any signifi cant correlation between confl ict propensity or terrorism and religion, neither in the sense that religious diversity gives rise to any “clash of civilizations” nor in the sense that the predominance of any one religion (e.g. Islam) make a country more prone to confl ict or terrorism. It then proceeds to country case studies of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, providing a brief overview of the history of religion and confl ict and an assessment of the present situation and the prospects for the future.
