It is often assumed that

globalization and neoliber-

alism mean Westernization

on a global scale but such a

view fails to appreciate, for

instance, how the influence

of the Arab world is also

increasing in Africa.

Transnational Islamic NGOs in Chad: Islamic Solidarity in the Age of NeoliberalismMayke Kaag1

In the current era of neoliberalism, there is not only an expansion of Western influence in many parts of Africa, but also increased influence from the Arab world. Transnational Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a vehicle of this influence. In a context of structural adjustment, an increased spread of Western consumption ideals through mass communication, and a growing sense of the global context in which one is living, these organizations aim to influence people’s material and moral well-being. By combining mate-rial aid with proselytization, they embed their work in ideas about transnational solidarity and the importance of enlarg-ing the umma, the global community of the faithful. By dis-seminating a Salafi form of Islam, they link local believers to other parts of the Muslim world. They thus nourish processes of Islamization and Arabization. This paper explores the interventions of these organizations in Chad, focusing on the logic of their work and the effects of their involvement in Chad, characterized by poverty and a strong politicization of religion.

Introduction

It is often assumed that globalization and neoliberalism mean Westerniza-tion on a global scale; however, such an assumption fails to appreciate how, for instance, the influence of the Arab world is also increasing in Africa (Bennafla 2000; Hunwick 1997). Transnational Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a vehicle of such influence. Their proliferation in Africa has taken place not in spite of, or on the margins of, globalization and neoliberalism, but rather in tandem with them.

The relationship between the activities of Islamic NGOs and neoliber-alism has several dimensions. First, processes associated with neoliberalism,

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such as democratization and political and economic liberalization, are easing the intervention of nongovernmental organizations—Christian, secular, and Islamic. In addition, neoliberalism and associated developments, such as the increasing gap between rich and poor, and state withdrawal from social service provision, are making interventions of such NGOs even more impor-tant. At the same time, the work of Islamic NGOs can be seen as a reaction to neoliberalism, since they sometimes contest the influence of “the West” and secularized and Westernized elites (Ghandour 2002; International Crisis Group 2005), including capitalist rent-seeking behavior, individualism, and lack of solidarity.

In spite of this, Islamic NGOs do not appear in the literature on NGOs and neoliberal policies in Africa. Studies that focus on local NGOs and civil society abound (Harbeson, Rothchild, and Chazan 1994; Igoe and Kelsall 2005; Marcussen 1996; Van der Walle, Ball, and Ramachandran 2003), often heralding their capacity to produce development unlike corrupt states (Brat-ton 1989; Riddell and Robinson 1995; Wellard and Copestake 1993). Studies focusing on transnational NGOs (Barrow and Jennings 2001; Callaghy 2001; Hearn 1998) tend to be more critical, pointing to the fact that their involve-ment in local development may make weak states even weaker. Others are critical about neoliberal policies in Africa, but stress the importance of NGOs in mitigating their effects (Larmer 2005). In none of these analyses do Islamic NGOs figure at all. Even the idea of “faith-based development” (Bornstein 2003; Hofer 2003), referring to the importance of religious orga-nizations in bringing about development and which has recently become fashionable, is usually seen as only relating to Christian initiatives. A pos-sible explanation for the inattention to Islamic NGOs is that the concepts of NGOs and “civil society” are part of the neoliberal project; they therefore tend to be filled in by categories that match the agenda of liberal democracy (Bornstein 2003; Williams 1993)—and Western conceptions of development, in which the very idea of Islamic NGOs appears almost unthinkable.

Islamic NGOs are Islamic in the sense that Islam is an important source of inspiration for them as organizations. Different Islamic NGOs may have differing objectives and methods of operation, but all share a founda-tion in the sacred textual sources of Islam, the Qur’an and the Sunna (the authoritative practice of the Prophet Muhammad), and in the basic principles of Islamic law and ethics, acting on their identity, agenda(s), and the manner in which they obtain and distribute their resources.2 The first transnational Islamic NGOs were established at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s, triggered by the war in Afghanistan and made financially viable by the oil boom in Arab countries (Ghandour 2002). They based themselves on an Islamic understanding of solidarity that comprised three elements: ighatha ‘humanitarian relief’, da’wa ‘the call or invitation to Islam’, and jihad in the sense of armed support of the Islamic cause3 (Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan 2003; Ghandour 2002). In some contexts, such as Afghanistan and Bosnia, these elements have all been present in Islamic NGO activities; but over the years, these NGOs have evolved, and a process of professionalization

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has set in (Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan 2003). Some have developed a more humanitarian outlook, while others have become more politically active (Ghandour 2002). In Africa, where they have been active since the 1980s, they have mainly focused on ighatha and da’wa.

An Islamic concept of solidarity not only informs the work of these NGOs, but is the basis of their funding. The financial aspect of this solidarity is formed by the religious duty of zakat ‘obligatory almsgiving’ 4 and sadaqa ‘voluntary almsgiving’. Zakat, a kind of financial worship, constitutes an act of social solidarity and an affirmation of faith ((Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan 2003:26). The Qur’an states who has a right to zakat. In many places, it was traditionally paid to help the needy in one’s own community, but it has increasingly been understood that the community can encompass the whole of the umma. This idea took root in rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom as Muslims progressively felt that the real poor no longer or only sporadically lived in their own countries—a fact enhanced by the mass media, which exposed poverty and disasters worldwide. A point of contention is whether zakat is for needy Muslims only, or also for non-Mus-lims. Generally, it is considered to be for Muslims only, but if the concept is widened to include not only Muslims but also those who can become Mus-lims, aid to non-Muslims becomes appropriate. This means, however, that da’wa remains an important component of an Islamic NGO’s strategy.

Islamic NGOs from the Arab world generally disseminate what is often called a Salafi form of Islam. Salafism is a modernist current, which purports to follow the “pious predecessors” (Arabic, salaf), the first genera-tion of Muslims, whose practice of Islam it considers to be the “purest” form (Ghandour 2002). Salafis seek an Islamic revival through the elimination of what they consider to be foreign innovations (bid’a).5 Through their efforts to “reeducate” African Muslims about Islam and to purify Islam of allegedly un-Islamic practices (see Rosander 1997), these NGOs help ease processes of Islamization and Arabization, with the latter understood as an increased cultural orientation toward the Arab world, expressed in the adoption of ele-ments (such as language, styles of clothing, and social and cultural values) of transnational Arab elite culture as a reference. Arabization and the teach-ing of Islam and the Arabic language are seen as an antidote to the effects of Western colonialism and contemporary influences from “the West” (see Hunwick 1997).

In a context of structural adjustment, an increased spread of Western consumption ideals by mass communication and a growing sense of the global context in which one is living, transnational Islamic NGOs aim to influence people’s material and moral well-being. In combining material aid with proselytization, they embed their work in ideas about transnational solidarity and the importance of enhancing the umma, the global commu-nity of the faithful. In this paper, I illustrate this by focusing on the work of transnational Islamic NGOs in Chad. In 2004, as many as eleven transna-tional Islamic NGOs had a presence in Chad, which has become a favored country of intervention for Islamic (and Christian) NGOs for at least two

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reasons: the first is that it is a poor country, where the needs on the ground are manifold; second, it is situated at the crossroads of Arab and Black African and Western spheres of influence, and is, therefore, strategically important. I first outline what neoliberalism has brought to Chad, sketch longer-term globalization processes, and indicate how Chad’s contacts with the Arab world fit into these. I then elaborate on the current interventions by transnational Islamic NGOs in the country and discuss some effects of their work on Chadian society. It appears that the opening up of the country after the end of the civil war has facilitated the arrival not only of Western organizations, but also of Arab ones, that Islamic NGOs have intervened in areas that are, or that they see as, neglected, or at least not well covered by the state, and that their interventions can partly be seen as opposing Western influence, as is shown by the rivalry between Christian and Islamic organiza-tions. I conclude with a more general reflection on the study of transnational Islamic NGOs in Chad in the context of neoliberalism.

Building on previous work on secular NGOs in Africa, I explicitly put the agency of the NGOs central in the research, as no research had yet been done on Islamic NGOs in Chad, and information about these organizations was sparse, while prejudices were plenty. During two field trips to Chad,6 I visited every transnational Islamic NGO’s headquarters, had one or more interviews with the director or staff members, and in many cases visited one or more of their projects. In addition, I conducted interviews with other informants, such as staff from Christian NGOs and Muslim authorities. To grasp what happens in the interaction between NGOs and the population, I conducted interviews in different neighborhoods in the capital, N’Djamena, and in several villages in the south of Chad. For a European non-Muslim researcher, doing research on transnational Islamic NGOs is not an easy task in the post-September 11 era. My work aroused suspicion among the NGO directors: was I a spy for the American government? It was only after exten-sive informal talks and repeated explanations about my academic affiliation that they became more relaxed.7 They started to see me as a mouthpiece to make their good intentions known in the Western world—which of course had an influence on how they portrayed themselves and their work. Most of the NGOs were therefore quite open about their material assistance, but stayed silent about their da’wa activities, about which I gained more data only when I was out of their offices and in the field. Further research should be carried out on the dynamics related to the operation of these organiza-tions in Chad and elsewhere in Africa (Kaag 2007), much as has been done for Christian and secular NGOs. Since the time of my fieldwork, the American government’s war on terrorism has forced several NGOs (mainly Saudi ones) to suspend their activities; however, the general dynamics I describe in this paper remain valid.

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Chad in the Neoliberal Era: Poverty and Conflict at the Crossroads of the Local and the Global

After twenty years of civil war, Chad entered a period of nominal peace and democratization in the early 1990s, when Idriss Deby, supported behind the scenes by Libya, Sudan, and France, defeated his predecessor, Hissene Habré, in a coup d’état (Buijtenhuijs 1993). In 1992, the government of Chad, under pressure from the World Bank, the IMF, and other donors, adopted a set of measures to cure the Chadian economy. After Deby’s coming to power, Chad gave the impression of being a schizophrenic country (Buijtenhuijs 1993:36): on the one hand, it had grand discourses, a democratization process, and a free press, but on the other, there was a general atmosphere of insecurity, conspiracy, and a declining economy. In 2004, the general atmosphere of insecurity and threat seemed to have gained the upper hand, people were afraid to talk, and soldiers were omnipresent in the streets of N’Djamena. In that year, Chad was ranked eleventh on a list of the world’s “least inhabit-able” countries, with a life expectancy at birth of 45 years, an adult literacy rate of 45.8 percent, and an adjusted GDP per capita of US$1,002 (United Nations Development Programme 2004). The situation of most Chadians, who had already suffered in the civil war and during periods of prolonged drought in the 1970s and 1980s, had not improved in the 1990s.

The recent coming on line of the oil fields near Doba in the south of Chad, which are exploited by an American–Malaysian consortium under the supervision of the World Bank, has led to new expectations among the Chadian population, but has generated unrest as to who will benefit from the profits (Bennafla 2000; Ellis 2003; Guyer 2002). The World Bank presented the project as revenue-driven poverty alleviation, and the Chadian govern-ment agreed that a large share of the profits would be spent on health and education and other basic needs for the poor. The project intends to be sensi-tive to human and environmental concerns, and unprecedented regulatory arrangements have been made to ensure transparency and accountability. It has been hailed as a pioneering model for responsible private investment in Africa, but many negative environmental and social impacts were by 2005 already being reported about how the World Bank and Exxon-Mobil were handling the project (Massey and May 2005). It became clear that Deby was unwilling to adhere to the spending arrangements for poverty alleviation, partly because he was in a difficult situation as a result of the war in the Darfur region while being under attack from rebels in his own circles.

Since 2003, Chad has become an important element in the U.S. gov-ernment’s war on terror through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, a U.S. European Central Command program to train and equip Sahelian countries in the fight against groups linked to Al-Qaeda. Chad is one of four countries that are the focus of the program; the others are Mali, Niger, and Mauritania (Ellis 2004).8

Nevertheless, it is not through these recent events that Chad has become linked to the wider world. The country has long been a transitional

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area between Islamic, and “animist” and Christian zones, corresponding with the northern and southern parts of the country respectively. The north of Chad came into contact with Muslim influences from the north and the east through trans-Saharan trade and migration, and has been Islamized for a long time with a strong presence of the Tijaniyya Sufi order. The south is mainly Christian, the area most affected by colonial development initiatives and by the Christian mission that arrived in Chad from Cameroon and the Central African Republic at the beginning of the 20th century.

In recent history, religion has become politicized in Chad. After inde-pendence, a Christian southerner became the first president, and the main positions in the administration were occupied by southerners. They had been educated at French schools, which the majority of Muslims had boycotted. Another factor contributing to this southern dominance was the fact that France had focused on developing the south. This situation and the openly negative attitude of the president and his fellows led to increasing tensions between the Muslims and those in power. After a long period of guerrilla and civil war, the northerners seized power in the mid-1980s. Under the first Muslim president, Hissene Habré, southerners felt that northerners were progressively occupying their area by installing northern administrators. The arrival of large numbers of Muslim traders and Muslim cattleowners, who actually were fleeing the droughts in the north, reinforced this sentiment. These factors and the conversion of former Christians and animists in the south have made Islam more widespread in the south.

In 1990, Habré fell from power, and Deby, one of his former col-laborators, took the presidency. Despite the democratization process, the functioning of the state—with the group in power using state resources for its own purposes—has not fundamentally altered and conflicts and tensions between the Muslim North and the Christian South consequently continue. Differences between these areas have become prominent in most thinking about religious, social, and political dynamics—which makes it difficult (and often politically undesirable) to perceive variations and differentiation within the two camps. Since 2004, exploitation of the oil fields in the south has aggravated tensions further.

While oil reserves have been bringing Chad to the forefront of Western attention, the country has been (re)intensifying its ties with Arab countries since the 1980s. Heightened orientation toward the Arab world is economic and religious–cultural in character. Chadian imports from the Gulf States have increased, and Arab investments in real estate, public works, and industry have grown (Bennafla 2000). Sudan can be considered an old player in Chad, but Sudanese influence has recently been facilitated by Deby’s rise to power as a result of Sudanese support.9 Libyan investments in Chad have increased too, since the settlement of the twenty-year-old conflict over the Aouzou Strip10 in the mid-1990s.

In addition to investments, Arab bilateral and multilateral aid has become increasingly important. The King Faysal University and the Central Market in N’Djamena were financed by Saudi Arabia. Multilateral support

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has mainly been provided through the Islamic Development Bank and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa. Ties with the Arab world are developing further as growing numbers of Chadians are studying in Sudan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, increasing numbers of immigrants to Saudi Arabia are keeping in touch with their families back home, and large num-bers of Chadians are performing the hajj, made possible in part by improved means of transport. This intensification of contacts with Arab countries has been accompanied by processes of changing perceptions of Islam and a process of Arabization.

Neoliberal policies have not brought much improvement to ordinary Chadians’ lives, but instead have favored some external and internal actors and fueled frustration for others. This frustration tends to be grafted onto old cleavages and is exacerbating existing tensions between Muslims and Christians, and between the north and the south. Alongside the increase in influence from western actors—states, NGOs and enterprises—normally associated with globalization and neoliberalism, Chad’s links with the Arab world have been intensified, as well. The Islamic NGOs studied in this arti-cle form part of the growing influence of the Arab world. In the following sec-tion, we explore how they are intervening in Chad, characterized as it is by poverty, internal political and religious tensions, and a growing geopolitical importance of the country.

The Intervention of Transnational Islamic NGOs in Chad

The transnational Islamic NGOs operating in Chad in 2004 comprised one Libyan, three Sudanese, one Kuwaiti, and six Saudi organizations. In the same year, a total of forty-two international NGOs were working in the country.11

What is interesting here is that two waves of arrivals can be discerned. The first Islamic NGOs arrived in the mid-1980s, at the time of the serious droughts and the coming to power of Hissene Habré. Internationally, the late 1970s and early 1980s had seen the establishment of the first transnational Islamic NGOs, which in the following years started to work in various parts of Asia and Africa. For example, the International Islamic Relief Organiza-tion (IIRO), one of the first Saudi transnational NGOs set up by the Saudi government (in 1978), arrived in Chad in 1986. The arrival of the Suda-nese organizations al-Dawa al-Islamiya and the International African Relief Agency (IARA) in Chad in the same period can partly be related to Sudan’s foreign policy, which was oriented toward the spread of Arabo-Islamic cul-ture in Africa (Grandin 1993). Al-Dawa al-Islamiya at that time, however, was not only in the hands of Sudan, but for a large part funded by Libya and progressively by the Saudis. The latter were afraid that Khadaffi would use the organization to increase his influence in Chad, and they tried to outbid him financially (Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan 2003:115).

The second wave began at the end of the 1990s. In 1993, a national conference in Chad had set in motion the process of (formal) democratization

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and peacemaking—which led to a constitutional referendum and elections in 1996–1997.12 In the context of new beginnings, some high-placed individu-als started a lobby in the Gulf States to attract Islamic NGOs by organizing meetings and conferences at which it was explained that Chad was a poor country in need of material, social, and cultural support. Saudi Arabia in the mid and late 1990s had seen an upsurge in new NGOs independent of the Saudi state, but often still administered by members of the Saudi elite. These sought an outlet for their funds and were willing to respond to the Chad-ian call. The Libyan World Islamic Call Association arrived in Chad only after the end of the conflict over the Aouzou Strip and the historic visit of reconciliation by Khadaffi to N’Djamena in 1998 (Haddad 2000).

Islamic NGOs in Chad concern themselves primarily with concrete aid: constructing mosques and wells and providing support for orphans, healthcare, and education. The construction of wells and mosques often goes hand in hand, based on the idea that Muslims need water to purify themselves before praying. The care for orphans is a core activity of most NGOs, be it the financing of orphanages (for example, IIRO) or the sponsor-ing of orphans who stay with relatives through a kind of foster-parents plan (for example, al-Dawa al-Islamiya). Caring for orphans is rooted in Islam: the Prophet himself was an orphan, and many hadiths point to the value of providing care for these children.

In the area of healthcare, several NGOs run small clinics in towns such as N’Djamena, Abeche, and Sarh. A popular activity is the organization of medical caravans (Délégation Spéciale du Prince Sultan, AMA, al-Muntada al-Islamiya), whereby a team of doctors and nurses travels through the country, organizes consultations for the population, and carries out simple surgery. These caravans have a strong publicity effect.

In the educational field, Islamic NGOs have constructed schools for formal education and Quranic schools, and ensure their continued func-tioning by financing teachers’ salaries. AMA, for instance, has financed eleven formal schools for a total of 2764 pupils and pays the salaries of one hundred twenty-eight teachers. It has constructed seven Quranic schools for four hundred fifty pupils (Agence des Musulmans d’Afrique 2002). Al-Dawa al-Islamiya finances schools in Sarh and Abeche for a total of six hundred pupils and a school in N’Djamena for a thousand. The World Association of Islamic Call from Libya finances, among several educational projects, a sec-ondary school and a library in N’Djamena. All the organizations consider the teaching of, and in, Arabic highly important. For them, the Arabic language stands for a way of living and perceiving that is inspired by Islam and Arab culture—values that in their view are marginalized in the Chadian state’s secular (laic) educational system.

According to the NGO Directorate of the Ministry of Planning, NGOs sign a protocole d’accord with the Chadian state through the Directorate of Cooperation when they arrive. When they effectively start their work, they have further dealings with the NGO directorate. They have to submit a plan of operations, and the directorate puts them in contact with the relevant

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ministry. These parties together frame a project agreement, in which the NGO’s plan is seen as complementary to government policy. The Sudanese organization Al Biir / International Benevolence Foundation, for example, builds health centers in cooperation with the Ministry of Health.

Material aid is not the only focus of these NGOs. As Islamic NGOs (and not NGOs merely run by Muslims), they have a missionary function: they are, at bottom, concerned with the advancement of Islam, be it by deepening people’s understanding of Islamic principles and by improving Muslims’ religious practices (re-Islamization), or by converting non-Muslims (Islamization). This missionary aspect comes most explicitly to the fore in activities in the field of religious education and the promotion of Islam (sponsoring Quranic teachers, distributing learning materials, and so on), but in fact underlies all other NGO activities. On the Saudi NGO al-Haramain website, for example, the most important aims of the organization include “Being quick to provide aid to the Muslims who suffer from catastrophes, disasters and calamities and to benefit them with material assistance to enliven the eeman [faith] in the hearts and implant knowledge in their breasts if Allah Most High so wills.”13

These missionary activities are directed at Muslims who, in the eyes of these organizations, have only a limited knowledge of Islam. In the south of Chad, predominantly Christian and animist, missionary activities are primarily directed at the non-Muslim population. In this zone, organiza-tions such as al-Makka al-Mukarrama, AMA, and al-Muntada have centers for recent converts. One of their strategies is to go preaching in the villages, and men who show an interest in becoming a Muslim are then taken back to the center, where they get a course of one to nine months, during which time they are fed and housed; after their course, they ideally return to their villages and start spreading the message themselves. Another strategy con-sists of approaching local power holders, such as the chefs de canton, the idea being that when they convert, their family and partisans will follow. Part of the sensitization process can be the offering of presents or money, the prom-ise of an all-expenses-paid visit to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj, and/or a community project. The chef de canton of Dunia, for example, was offered a trip to Mecca by AMA, and from there he went on to Kuwait, where he met the amir, through whom he obtained a center with a mosque, a school, and a clinic for his canton. The AMA 2001 annual report includes the cost of seven people’s pilgrimage to Mecca (Agence des Musulmans d’Afrique 2002).

The Islamization discourse used by the organizations stresses the global umma and the unity of the Muslim community. They bring the mes-sage of Islam as one; at the same time, however, they strongly differentiate between “good” and “bad” Islam (Rosander 1997: 2). There is a strong accent on right behavior, such as the correct ways of dressing, praying, fasting, and so on. Rosander observes in this respect: “Formal gestures and roles repeat-edly acted out tend to become more authentic as times passes and the per-former gradually identifies with his or her role” (1997:17). The idea is that, during the course of Islamization, frame and idiom become essence.14

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It must be stressed that Islamization is a complex process, which cannot simply be attributed to the efforts of one organization. Let us take the example of a village in the south of Chad, where (so I was told) the village chief had recently become Muslim, with a large group of villagers. When I visited the village, it appeared that it had not been sudden, but rather a com-plex and ongoing process, in which Muslim merchants from the north had settled in the village some years before, a village chief from an adjacent vil-lage had spent time in Nigeria and converted to Islam there before returning home, preachers affiliated with the Grand Mosque in Moundou had invested time and effort in the village, and, finally, sensitization by AMA had made progressively more people Islamize over the years. In the background is always the fact that people associate Islam with power, as most of those in high positions in the (local) administration and the military are Muslims.

Effects in Chad

It is reasonable to expect that in Chad, a country that exhibits strong politici-zation of religion and Muslim–Christian tensions, the interventions of these NGOs would have political implications, particularly in the south, an arena of real Christian-Muslim competition.

The Islamic and Christian NGOs are actors in this arena, and they feel that they are there to defend a cause. Each side suspects the other of using aid as a means of gaining converts. The other is often suspected of having hidden political objectives, or of being a political instrument in the hands of states or global power blocs. The director of an Islamic NGO suspected the Christian NGO World Vision of being politically active in a town where both organizations were operational. A staff member at an American Protes-tant NGO qualified the transnational Islamic NGOs as puppets in a master plan of the Saudi state. More often, however, Christian organizations—and Christians in Chad more generally—see the “Islamic threat” as coming from Sudan. They fear that Islamic influences from there will result in Chad’s becoming an Islamist state. Christian organizations frequently suspect the Islamic organizations of being given preferential treatment by the Chadian administration; however, a nun from a Roman Catholic mission, who could critically reflect on her own position, noted that “every party tries to win over the population by gifts; we [Roman Catholics] also impose [ourselves], for instance through healthcare.”

It is important to note that Christian organizations may have pros-elytizing objectives in much the same way as Muslim organizations do. The Chadian national association of Protestant churches, the Entente of Evangelical Churches and Missions in Chad (EEMET), explicitly mentions evangelization as one of its objectives, in addition to the improvement of religious practices, the fighting of “wrong doctrines” within its own com-munity, and the defense of the interests of the evangelical community vis-à-vis the state. In its vision statement, the proselytization component appears

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even more strongly, as it is stated that the aim is “to make the whole of the Chadian nation the followers of Jesus Christ” (EEMET 2003). These three objectives—the education of their own community, the conversion of others, and the defense of the group’s interests—basically parallel those of many Muslim organizations.

There is little direct confrontation between Christian and Islamic organizations, but the people at the grassroots level—the target groups of NGO activities—often feel the consequences of their rivalry. Sometimes it is only that they have to deal with two different messages or approaches—which can be confusing.15 Not uncommonly, however, the rivalry between Christian and Islamic organizations takes a fiercer turn, with the slandering of the other party and the fueling of fear.

Efforts are being made not to polarize the strained relationship any fur-ther. In this respect, Roman Catholic organizations are generally more open to Islamic organizations than Protestant ones, while an open attitude toward the other party by and large appears to be easier for Muslims than for Chris-tians. The sense of being the minority party contributes to a defensive atti-tude on the part of many Christian actors. This point is nicely illustrated by the fact that a director of an Islamic NGO expressed his open attitude toward his Christian colleagues while stressing that he saw the rivalry between them as nothing bad; however a Christian director experienced this rivalry not as something amusing or natural, but as truly threatening. A Protestant orga-nization organized a seminar entitled “How to Respond to the Objections of the Muslims against Christian Faith?” to enable its members to defend them-selves. In the booklet accompanying the seminar, information on Islam was provided, as were the correct answers to six of the main Muslim objections to Christianity (about the idea of the Trinity, of Jesus being the Son of God, and so on). The booklet ends with the question: Who will win the battle?—and the answer is that Christianity will win only when all Christians are mobilized; otherwise, Christians will become Muslims (Haq 2004).

In addition to Christian–Muslim competition, there is the intra-Mus-lim arena. The more established form of Islam is that of the Sufi order of the Tijaniyya. Staff members of the Islamic NGOs from the Arab world frequently embrace more Islamist and reformist forms of Islam. In their way of thinking, the way Africans practice Islam is not “real” Islam, and they often emphasize the need to purify Islam in Africa of its un-Islamic elements, which for many of them includes Sufi orders in general and the Tijaniyya in particular. There is a strong focus on learning Arabic and on Mecca and Madina as the true center of the Muslim world. They can thus be considered anti-Sufi. While being welcomed by the Muslim establishment as a partner in the Islamic cause, they are therefore partially seen as a threat. But Sufi Islam is also not a static institution: there are more reformist-Islamist ten-dencies, especially among younger and better-educated urban people, who tend to view positively the message of the Arab NGOs.

For ordinary people in villages and urban neighborhoods, the interven-tion of Islamic NGOs may offer a rare opportunity to obtain a well, a mosque,

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or medical treatment. The Islamization message may be equally welcome in situations of insecurity. In the south for instance, tensions between mostly Muslim cattleholders and non-Muslim farmers are currently an explosive problem (Arditi 2003). To solve them, the local administration is approached—an administration that, as we have seen, is nowadays usually Muslim. In such cases, it helps appellants to be a Muslim, but becoming Muslim is undertaken for more than material or political reasons: faith gives moral support, and having clear rules to follow adds to a feeling of security. A Muslim convert in a southern village stated that praying five times a day gave him strength, as it made him feel he was not alone in facing his problems. People who had become Muslim in the south added that the ban on alcohol was a good thing: whereas before, they had spent much of their income on alcohol, they now had more money and energy to put to productive uses. This perception does not prevent people from feeling that Islamization leads to cleavages in villages and families, in particular because politics are infiltrating local communities along religious lines.

Concluding Observations

The first Islamic NGOs arrived in Chad when Chadians needed help as a result of the civil war and the severe droughts of the 1980s. The opening up of the country after the war and the start of a process of democratization have facilitated the arrival of not only Western, but also Arab organizations. Islamic NGOs intervene in areas that are, or that they perceive as having been, ignored or not well covered by the state, such as (religious) education and healthcare. Their interventions can partly be seen as a reaction to West-ern influence. Their accent on the learning of Arabic and on Islamic educa-tion is inspired by a strong feeling that it is a natural antidote to an artificial colonial legacy expressed among other things in Western-style education and a secular state system, and against current Western influences (such as morals perceived as lax) put out by the mass media. In addition, they see it as a way of improving traditional Islamic education, which one of the NGO directors indicated as being “very primitive.” In these ways, they find a will-ing ear among Chadian Muslim intellectuals and their financial supporters in the Arab world. A web of transnational Islamic solidarity is thus being nourished on the giving and receiving sides.

In all these respects, the intervention of Islamic NGOs fits into this era of neoliberalism, but the last aspect has in the last few years become increas-ingly important. The age of neoliberalism is no status quo, nor is it the end of history, and, as Kalb (2004) rightly observes, since the mid 1990s, “pure” liberalism has given way to more conservative stances, in which culture is playing an important role. The idea of a clash of civilizations appears to be replacing the idea of the global village. Both Christian and Islamic NGOs are acting within this dynamic, and are reacting to it globally and locally. It should however be realized that more generally, ideas about Islamic NGOs

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in the West are influenced by this worldview, as well. These NGOs thus often tend to be portrayed as the Big Evil, forcing fundamentalist Islam on Africans. The reality is much more complex: Islamic NGOs are part of a broader dynamic, one that is fueling Islamization processes, and can only reinforce or bend ongoing developments.

It has been argued for the Chadian civil war that not only external intervenors used local actors to pursue their own agendas, thereby exacer-bating internal cleavages, but that internal actors also made use of possibili-ties offered by external interference (Nolutshungu 1996). In the same vein, instead of nurturing an image of Arab NGOs as mighty invaders, it is more useful to see the effects of the interventions of Islamic NGOs in Chad as a dynamic in which internal actors too feel attracted by external messages for different reasons. People may see possibilities for reducing their level of poverty by accepting material help, or they may Islamize because they feel morally and religiously strengthened and can face their difficult living circumstances. Alternatively, they may see the opportunity to gain political support or power. Rosander (1997:2) rightly states that Islamization processes frequently contribute to a polarization between religious practices and between traditional and reformist Islam, but people find support and relief here too. It is only from this double angle that we can begin to understand the interventions of transnational Islamic NGOs and current Islamization processes in Sub Saharan Africa.

noTes

african studies centre, leiden, The netherlands, kaag@ascleiden.nl. research has been made 1.

possible by financial support from WoTro, the Van coeverden adriani stichting, the “islam in

africa” program (asc/cean) and the african studies centre.

This obviously does not mean that the Muslim character of such a nGo may not be contested 2.

among Muslims, comparable to the ways in which the work of christian nGos is disputed

among christians.

This understanding only makes up part of the broader meaning of the concept of 3. jihad. The

denotation is of a struggle or a challenge; it is also often used to indicate the inner struggle

to master oneself.

Muslims with an income below a certain threshold (4. nisab) do not have to pay zakat.

it must, however, be stressed that there is much disagreement between different groups who 5.

call themselves salafi as to “true” salafism, as well as to the appropriate method of reform.

From March to June 2004 and in september 2004.6.

i felt it also helped that i am a woman, and that i came on foot to their offices, and not in a 7.

posh, four-wheel drive.

in an interview with al Jazeera, chad’s former ambassador to the United states pointed to the 8.

danger that the chadian president might use the equipment and better-trained armed forces

for his own ends. see also Africa Confidential (2004), which states that U.s. military cooperation

will draw President deby further into Washington’s sphere of influence; however, a recent

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report by the international crisis Group (2005) stresses that, though the goals of the initiative

are ambitious, “the day-to-day activities are often rather mundane.”

The relationship between deby and sudan has been negatively affected by the darfur crisis. 9.

The president’s own ethnic group, the Zaghawa, is a main target of attacks by the sudanese

government-supported Janjaweed militias, putting deby in the middle of a web of competing

interests.

The aouzou, in northern chad, is a strip of land that lies along the border with libya. in 1973, 10.

libya tried to seize the strip to gain access to its minerals and to use it as a base of influence

in chadian politics. This action marked the beginning of a war for control of the area. in 1994,

a decision of the international court of Justice granted sovereignty over the aouzou strip to

chad.

There were sixty-nine foreign nGos registered with the ministry of Planning, but only forty-11.

two were operational: that is, they sent reports to the Ministry (source: interview Ministry of

Planning, nGo direction, n’djamena, april 2005).

see Buijtenhuijs (1993) for a detailed account of this conference and its related dynamics, and 12.

Buijtenhuijs (1998) for the subsequent democratization process.

www.alharamain.org. The saudi Ministry of islamic affairs dissolved the charity worldwide in 13.

2004 after the U.s. government had accused it of funding terrorism.

a member of an american christian nGo in chad stated that this was the difference between 14.

the approaches of christian organizations like his and islamic organizations: islamic organiza-

tions focus on the outside and appearances, while christians work the other way round, trying

first to bring about a change of heart—which of course he considered the right approach

morally.

a staff member with a christian organization, for instance, said that when they intend to dig 15.

a well in a village they first form and train a management committee, while an islamic nGo

simply digs a beautiful well and then leaves, making the villagers feel that the roman catholic

organization is far too demanding.

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ellis, stephen. 2003. Briefing: West africa and its oil. African Affairs 102:135–138.

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