12 - Outlook: Religious Difference, the Yoruba and Beyond

Summary

Drawing on the case study of Ede and south-west Nigeria, this book offers an understanding of inter-religious relations that challenges the notion that Muslim–Christian difference is inherently conflictual. We suggest that the dominant role ascribed to conflict arises from the assumption that the experiences of the global North, where the increase of Muslim–Christian conflict has been an important feature of the religious encounters between clearly bounded groups, is paradigmatic for the rest of the world. As a result, interfaith debates and practices centre on the need for mutual toleration. However, in Africa, both the growth of intra-religious mobilisation in some contexts, and the close social relations between members of different religions in others, illustrate that conflict – and the need for toleration – is only one form of interreligious engagement.

In order to understand the full implications of the growing political importance of religion, we must recognise that in Africa and the global South, the social diversity and creativity subsumed under functioning forms of rationality in the global North are often ‘promiscuously visible’. Examples of the wide range of practices that shape Ede's mixed religious landscape certainly include practices of toleration and low-level conflict, particularly in the context of clearly bounded religious groups (chapters 5–7, 8). It is especially in these cases that religious boundaries are produced in relation to other forms of identity, such as descent and belonging, and in relation to social or institutional hierarchies. In other words, it appears that both potential conflict and the need for tolerance are of particular importance where religion is closely linked to social or institutional structures. In such contexts, practices of tolerance do not solely reflect explicitly normative values but also rely on practical strategies that reflect entrenched social interests. In other words, tolerance does not exist independently of relations of power, and is thus itself subject to criticism from different vantage points: as chapter 8 illustrates, even toleration on an equal level between two important groups may alienate those who do not feel included by the resulting compromises.