Societal Security and Religion in Post-Colonial Africa

Abstract

The article examines the role of religion in the formation of societal security in three countries of Africa - Ivory Coast, Ghana and Gabon. The authors focused on the correlation of indigenous African traditions, Christianity and Islam in the political elites’ search for a post-colonial national identity. The authors identify religion’s various relations to societal security. In the Ivory Coast, religious violence was the result of political manipulation of religious beliefs of different groups, which has blown up societal security. In Ghana, the society was not religiously split because the state emphasized civic identity, which stabilized the security. In Gabon, the politicization of religion turned the head of state into a “supernatural being", which devalued societal security. The authors show that in Ivory Coast, and especially in Gabon, the role of religion in society is more significant than in Ghana. Despite the contextual differences in the political and cultural spheres of the countries under study, none of them could have traditional religion as a driver of political change, but everywhere it has proved to be a catalyst for it. In the context of the formation of national identity, religion in African societies most often appears not as a primary factor of civil conflicts, but as a motivating, situational factor associated with communal violence.