Generational Changes, Political Stagnation, And The Evolving Dynamics Of Religion And Politics In Senegal

The simultaneous crises of waning regime legitimacy and generational succession tensions indicate shifts in the Senegalese model of religion and politics. Although the edifice remains standing, there are cracks in the foundation.

Generational Changes, Political Stagnation, and the Evolving Dynamics of Religion and Politics in Senegal Leonardo A. Villalón

Religious institutions, in the form of Muslim Sufi orders, have been an integral feature of Senegal’s stable and relatively democratic socio-political system. Over the course of the 1990s, this system has experienced strains due to two factors: generational changes and a crisis of legitimacy of the political system. This has resulted in three potentially significant types of phenomena: 1) the growing (though still limited) appeal of reformist Islamic ideology; 2) contestatory movements for leadership of the orders; and 3) succession struggles within religious families. This article examines these three trends by means of a discussion of the Muslim students’ movement at the University Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah movement in the Mouride Order, and the Moustarchidine movement which has resulted in a schism in the Sy Tijan family. While the socio-political system remains well in place, its evolution is likely to be shaped by these dynamics.

As it approaches the end of its fourth decade of independence, Senegal continues as a unique case both within sub-Saharan Africa and in the broader Muslim world. The country has maintained a remarkable political stability, even a degree of democracy, based on a peculiar socio-political system in which Islamic institutions have been central but have coexisted with a nominally secular state and have made no significant challenge for control of the state, at least until recently. I have argued elsewhere (Villalón 1995) that these two peculiarities are closely related. A well entrenched system of trilateral relations between the state, the religious elite, and a well-organized religious society have provided for a measure of reciprocity in Senegalese state-society relations, providing the country with its singular political system. The system has proven durable, but there have also been periodic indications of strain. As elsewhere in the Muslim world following the Is-

lamic revolution in Iran, many observers of Senegalese politics noted an apparent increase in the importance of religion to public life and feared for the country’s stability. Christian Coulon and Donal Cruise O’Brien wrote at the end of the decade of an “Islamic Renaissance” in Senegal and noted:

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To stay just a few days in Dakar is to realize that the tranquil and moderate Islam which has long prevailed in this country is now in question. One finds in Senegal the atmosphere of Islamic agitation which marked the early years of colonial rule, a period when the economic, social, and political upheavals introduced by the European presence produced large scale religious movements . . . for the last ten years or so, and especially since the accession of Abdou Diouf as head of state [1981] Islam seems to be a more and more autonomous force. (1989:156)

GENERATIONAL CHANGES, POLITICAL STAGNATION, AND THE EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IN SENEGAL

More dramatically, the journalist Moriba Magassouba, noting the proliferating signs of religiosity, the founding of religious associations, and mosques “multiplying like mushrooms,” subtitled his book on Islam in Senegal with the ominous question: “Tomorrow the Mollahs?” (1985). Even to the extent that these impressions were valid, by the late 1980s both the state and the leaders of the Sufi orders, the traditional pillars of Senegalese religious life, appeared not only to have contained and controlled this new dynamism but actually to have co-opted and diverted the growing interest in religion to their own purposes. That is, to a striking degree, the increase in public religiosity in the 1980s served to reinforce the existing system of “tranquil and moderate Islam,” rather than to undercut it. The remarkable vitality of the religio-political system was its most salient feature in the late 1980s. And yet the changes of the decade also entailed some pressures and left some lingering questions about the sustainability of the system. In the early 1990s, several events seemed to signal once more the contestatory potential of increased religious fervor. Most significantly, in 1993–94 a religious movement known as the Moustarchidines became directly and centrally involved in political protests surrounding the 1993 elections, marking the first time that resistance to the Parti Socialiste’s (PS) historical domination of the government was cast so explicitly in Islamic terms. In the press coverage surrounding them, and for various scholars of Senegal, the events suggested an incipient threat of “Islamic fundamentalism” (da Costa 1994; Vengroff and Creevey 1997:209). The subsequent trajectory of the Moustarchidine movement indicates that the suggestion that militant Islam threatened to overwhelm the existing system was an overstatement, but it also clearly indicates that there have been incremental changes in the established pattern of religion and politics in Senegal. While there has been no revolution, there clearly has been an evolution. I would suggest that this evolution in the role of

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The political exceptionality of Senegal in the African context in the mid– 1970s was striking. As single party regimes consolidated across the continent, Senegal moved toward the re-establishment of a multiparty system and launched a gradual and carefully controlled process of incremental democratization. This democracy was limited, however, and contestation by the newly legal opposition held little real chance of their taking control of the government. Along with the equally singular peaceful and voluntary transition from the “founding father” president to a leader from the younger generation in 1981, it was not difficult to see Senegal as “a quite remarkable success story” in Africa (Cruise O’Brien 1978:187). Over the course of the 1980s, however, the government’s image became tarnished, in the eyes of its constituency as well as internationally. In response to economic decline and the apparent failure of the regime of President Abdou Diouf to make good on the promise of a renewal of the democratic process, optimism gave way to frustration, and the regime grew increasingly unpopular, especially in the cities. By the end of the decade, demands for soppi, “change,” had become the omnipresent rallying cries of angry urban youth. It was in this context that popular reaction to the flawed 1988 elections, which gave an overwhelming victory to the incumbent PS and President Diouf, provoked the most severe political crisis in the country since 1962.1 While the opposition contested the results of the election, urban youth rioted in the cities and provoked a state of emergency as the government struggled to keep control of the situation (Young and Kanté 1992).

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The Political Context: A Blocked Quasi Democracy

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religion has been shaped by two factors in particular. The first is the perceived illegitimacy of the political system due to political stagnation and the crisis of “democracy” in Senegal. The second relates to generational pressures of two sorts: a growing number of young urban intellectuals no longer willing to accept the models of the state proposed by their elders and generational tensions within the leadership of the major Senegalese religious families. These two factors have had varying, and at times contradictory, effects on social movements. The ultimate direction of change remains contingent and unpredictable, yet it is possible to begin to trace patterns of change and to evaluate the likely impact of this evolution. In what follows I will first briefly review the political and religious environment of postindependence Senegal and, notably, the tensions which mark this environment at the end of the 1990s. The remainder of the article focuses on three specific cases of significant interest in their own right and which also represent the types of new movements to which these political and generational tensions are giving rise. I conclude that while the system is unlikely to collapse soon, these tensions will certainly shape the transformations it is likely to undergo.

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The Senegalese crisis coincided with political changes elsewhere in Africa and indeed around the world. As pressures for democratization dominated the international political context of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Senegalese regime realized that real political reform was the only way out of the crisis. With the participation of the opposition, significant reforms of the system were undertaken, most importantly the promulgation of a new and consensual electoral code. The main opposition, including Abdoulaye Wade of the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (PDS), entered the government in a show of consensus about the new rules of the democratic game and awaited the elections of 1993. The 1993 elections took place in this context of optimism on the part of the opposition regarding the implementation of the much delayed reforms. The results, however, disappointed them. While the opposition managed to erode the dominance of the PS, Abdou Diouf easily won reelection and the PS maintained its domination of the National Assembly. These results can be attributed to the ability of the PS to mobilize its core rural voters and to the extraordinarily high level of abstention, particularly among those categories most hostile to the government, younger people and urban dwellers. Ironically, the election that was expected to restore the democratic legitimacy of the Senegalese system in fact served mainly to demonstrate the depth of its crisis of legitimacy (Villalón 1994). Having promised loudly and publicly that change was inevitable in the new context, the opposition found its own legitimacy weakened among its traditional base of support. When Abdoulaye Wade and others in the opposition again entered the government in 1995, their credibility was further eroded, and the entire classe politique was dismissed by many as opportunistic. If the early 1990s brought reforms which seemed to open the door to a possibility of change, the subsequent course of the decade has reversed that process. It has instead been marked by constant manipulation of the rules of the political game by the PS through constitutional amendments and reforms to the electoral code designed to ensure its continued hegemony. Although these processes are legal and constitutional, given twothird’s majority of the PS in the legislature, they are perceived as illegitimate in the eyes of significant sectors of the population. This trend has accelerated toward the end of the decade and with the approach of legislative and presidential elections.2 The plebiscite for the National Assembly in May 1998 was held after a series of further modifications to the rules (including an increase in the size of the legislature from 120 to 140 seats), and using a system which translated slightly over 50% of the vote into some 66% of the seats for the PS, just enough to continue to change the constitution at will. These elections again were marked by an extremely low turnout, the lowest in the country’s modern history. The legislative elections were followed by the highly unpopular decision to create a Senate as a second chamber of the legislature. When the Senate was in fact put in place in early 1999, the indirect electoral system guaranteed a PS monopoly of the chamber.3 In late 1998 a change in the consensual electoral

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Senegalese Islam is overwhelmingly Sufi Islam, and two major Sufi orders (“brotherhoods”) have dominated in the country. The Tijaniyya order, which is numerically superior to the indigenous Mouride order, is divided into several branches, each owing allegiance to a different religious family in the country.5 In the Sufi tradition, the orders are centered around reli-

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The Maraboutic Model and its Evolving Challenges

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code of the early 1990s lifted the limit of two presidential terms. Most importantly, it abolished the provision which was most likely to present an obstacle to the reelection of Abdou Diouf in the year 2000.4 In April of 1999, the PS launched a new debate about another possible reform—the establishment of a Vice Presidency or a reinforced Prime Ministry. Again cast by the PS as an effort to “reinforce and improve” Senegalese democracy, all significant observers in the country read the moves in purely partisan terms. At the end of a decade which began with the promise of change, the clear result of this maneuvering is a striking decline in the perceived legitimacy of the regime, especially among the young and the urban sectors of the population. Importantly, the democratic game itself as configured in Senegal is increasingly seen by many, including intellectuals, as an unlikely force for change. Graduate students in the Faculty of Law of the University Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, for example, insist on a distinction between the “legal” and the “legitimate.” Senegal’s much-vaunted “rule of law” (état de droit) is openly criticized as a cover for maintaining PS domination. For a significant number of young intellectuals, the efforts of the1990s demonstrate that the democratic process has been tried and failed to achieve change in Senegal. They group the PS and the opposition together as parts of a discredited system. One result of this process is that the 1990s have witnessed the exacerbation of a trend already noted at the beginning of the decade: the growing disenchantment of a crucial social category, what Momar Coumba Diop and Mamadou Diouf described as the masses of “urban youth in search of a framework for social and political contestation of the government, a framework which the opposition parties did not seem capable of offering them” (1990:80). They further note that this disenchantment provided an opening for religious entrepreneurs interested in capturing this clientele by providing an alternative framework for political contestation. Among a small but important minority of students and other intellectuals, growing dissatisfaction with the model of the state employed since independence feeds a search for alternative models based on various ideologies, including, most importantly, religion. The discrediting in the eyes of a growing number of young intellectuals of the model of a democratic (and by extension secular and Western) state has provided fertile ground for proponents of alternative visions of the political order.

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gious teachers or shaykhs, known as marabouts in Francophone West Africa. In the Senegalese context the Sufi model has developed some distinctive features, the result of the historical origins of the system in the colonial period. The establishment of Senegalese religious centers of contemporary significance dates from this period. The Senegalese maraboutic model is characterized by its extraordinary presence in public life; in businesses, public transport, private homes, government offices, schools, and industry the icons of affiliation with a Sufi order, and more specifically with a maraboutic guide, are omnipresent. For the vast majority of the Senegalese population, relations with a marabout are an integral component of an individual’s life. Such relations are carefully cultivated. The reverse is also true: marabouts need to cultivate a following in order to maintain their position. In theory, maraboutic authority is earned by means of a reputation for piety and knowledge in the religious sciences and acquired through study and initiation into the mystical secrets of the order by religious guides. In contemporary Senegal, however, inheritance has become the major avenue to maraboutic status. All important Senegalese marabouts today are descendants of the founders of the major religious centers of the country in the colonial period. Since the death of its founder, Amadou Bamba Mbacké, in 1927, the Mouride order has been led successively by five of his sons, and numerous other descendants constitute the leadership of the order. Tijani families, most notable the Sy family of Tivaouane, whose founder EH Malik Sy died in 1922, have followed the same pattern. In these two cases, after the death of the founder, his eldest living son was named the caliph, or “successor,” of the order. The death of the first caliphs, however, provoked significant crises as struggles erupted between the caliphs’ brothers and sons for the position. In both cases, resolution came through an agreement that succession would pass through the founder’s sons before proceeding to the next generation. In the 1990s, new tensions have arisen as the transition to the third generation approaches. The large number of potential heirs among the grandsons of the founders, uncertainties about seniority, and ambiguities in the rules of succession have fueled intense competition among the younger generation for the allegiance of disciples of the order. In the Mouride order, the transition to the next generation is imminent, as only one living son of the founder remains in addition to the aged reigning caliph. The Tijanis in Tivaouane faced the transition to the third generation at the death of the caliph in September 1998. In both of these cases, the generational tensions surrounding succession have had important consequences in terms of the movements I will discuss below. A significant aspect of the Senegalese Sufi model is its unique organizational infrastructure, based on the institution known as the daaira, which unites followers of particular marabouts in well-organized cells. This has placed marabouts at the center of very highly structured and dynamic social networks with obvious political potential. This potential was

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recognized early in the colonial period, and a generally peaceful and even collaborative relationship between the marabouts and the state elite was worked out, which has lasted to the present. These close ties have led to the marabouts’ reputation as power brokers in Senegalese electoral politics, and in fact at various times they have made official religious pronouncements (ndigals) in favor of the ruling party. This tendency, however, has also shifted with political and generational changes. The last major political ndigal was pronounced by the Mouride caliph in favor of the ruling party at the time of the 1988 elections. It came in the face of massive popular dissatisfaction and was evidently widely ignored, which made clear that such pronouncements had the potential to backfire. Significantly, there has not been another such statement by any important caliph. In 1993 the major religious leaders offered various public prayers for peace and calm, but cautious of either demonstrating excessively close ties to the regime or of going against it, they were silent on the elections themselves. Yet this very reluctance by major marabouts to take public political stances has opened up possibilities for younger marabouts to adopt more controversial positions, for or against the regime, in a bid for followers and influence, a tendency which grows with the increase in the number of potential claimants to maraboutic status with each generation. This dynamic has the potential to lead to a fragmentation of religious authority and erosion of maraboutic legitimacy, notably among intellectuals critical of the perceived opportunism of younger marabouts. In June of 1995, the independent daily newspaper Sud Quotidien devoted two consecutive days of banner headlines to articles under the rubric of “Spiritual Terrorism: Those Little Marabouts Who Hold Us Hostage.” Over and over the articles expressed dismay at the “little marabouts” who took advantage of their lineages for personal profit, and the paper warned about “sects” which, “while copying the dynamics of the orders, lead to perversions.” 6 This sentiment of cynicism about the motivations of the younger maraboutic generation has become a common feature of intellectual discourse in Senegal. The simultaneous crises of waning regime legitimacy and generational succession tensions indicate shifts in the Senegalese model of religion and politics. Although the edifice remains standing, there are cracks in the foundation. Three in particular seem significant: 1) the growth of anti-maraboutic, reformist tendencies or sentiments; 2) contestatory movements for the leadership of the orders, challenging the younger maraboutic generation from within; and 3) schisms produced by succession struggles within maraboutic families. While still limited, there have been indications of all of these in recent years, with potentially significant political consequences. To the extent that the Senegalese socio-political system has been built around the central feature of maraboutic families and the Sufi orders, significant changes in the strength of these institutions and in their inter-

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nal dynamics will have repercussions for the entire system. Changes which produce a growing number of competing claimants to religious authority intersect with and fuel a growing sense of dissatisfaction on the part of the urban population with the prevailing models of both religious and political organization. As competing religious entrepreneurs take contradictory positions, the possibility of a fragmentation of the historic maraboutic counterweight to the state becomes real. These social developments allow some to adopt positions, such as a call for the Islamization of politics, hitherto quite muted in Senegal. A number of outcomes seems possible. For example, the fragmentation of religious authority and the decline of PS hegemony might lead to greater political competitiveness by opposition parties. What is clear is that the system which has characterized the country for much of its independent history is under strain, and changes in its foundation are underway.

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Students, Reformist Sentiments, and an Incipient Movement Reformist movements, intending to “return” Islamic social practices to their “true foundations,” have a long history in Africa and the broader Muslim world. Sometimes they emerge in opposition to Sufi practices, which are seen as syncretic distortions of the original Islamic message. While conceptually distinct, reformism is frequently linked to Islamist movements, which profess the more explicitly political goals of building state institutions and legal systems on an Islamic model.7 While both movements have existed in Senegal to some extent (Gomez-Perez 1991), their influence has been extremely limited compared to the overwhelming weight of popular Sufism. There are some indications, however, that such sentiments are finding a broader resonance in contemporary Senegal. Reformist anti-Sufi movements have historically thrived in an urban intellectual milieu. The Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, in its heyday the premier scholarly institution in French West Africa, and the only university in Senegal until the 1990 creation of the Université Gaston Berger de St. Louis, has been at the core of a number of these movements in Senegal. The first significant example was the Association Musulmane des Etudiants d’Afrique Noire (AMEAN), founded in 1952 and very active in the 1950s (Bathily, Diouf, and Mbodj 1995). AMEAN was linked to a broader socio-political movement, the Union Culturel Musulmane (UCM), founded in 1953 with Algerian inspiration and following an Algerian model (Loimeier 1996). The two organizations shared an ideology based on the twin pillars of anti-colonialism and anti-maraboutic reformism. They were able to attract the support of some younger marabouts even at the time, who in turn were to borrow some of the reformist rhetoric. These movements virtually disappeared with independence, marginalized mainly by the greater appeal to students of leftist and Marxist movements. AMEAN and UCM gradually found themselves pushed toward accommodating with the maraboutic mainstream (Loimeier 1996:187).

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Not until the late 1970s did any other reformist movement of significance surface. In 1978 an association known as the Jamaat Ibad arRahmane (known as Ibadou Rahmane, or more popularly, “Ibadou”) was founded with a strong reformist message. Although not explicitly a student movement, it found a clear (if still limited) resonance at the university. The Ibadou Rahmane had an important role in the 1980s “revival” of Islamic interest in Senegal, which popularized positions which were then adopted by maraboutic movements such as the Moustarchidine. The successor to AMEAN within the university, the Association des Etudiants Musulmans de l’Université de Dakar (AEMUD), and the national level student movement, the Association des Etudiants et des Elèves Musulmans du Sénégal (AEEMS), maintained a position ideologically close to the Ibadou Rahmane, but remained a small minority. In a very important symbolic victory, however, they pushed for and secured the construction of a mosque on the campus of the University of Dakar in the mid–1980s. The strength and popularity of the maraboutic system has required that such reformist organizations abandon their most overtly anti-maraboutic stances (Villalón 1995:236–9). In March 1997, for example, the Ibadou Rahmane movement held its seventh General Congress, for the first time in the presence of invited representatives of the Mbacké and Sy families, and publicly declared the leadership’s intention to make it a “more conscious and popular” Muslim movement, “which integrates all of the sectors (couches) of our population.”8 The movement found itself obliged to reach out to the mainstream of the maraboutic system in the quest for greater popular support. For movements that target the universities, broad popular appeal is less of an imperative. There are many indications of the growth of reformist sentiment at Senegalese universities in recent years. Increased student support seems to reflect the search for new ideologies in the face of the perceived loss of legitimacy of Senegal’s current model of “democracy.” This trend is further fueled by intellectuals’ distaste for the perceived demagoguery of younger marabouts as they compete for a following. These critiques frequently appear in the AEMUD publication L’Etudiant Musulman. A key theme of the reformist discourse is a critique of the maraboutic monopoly of religious knowledge and guidance. In fact, the movement could be characterized as primarily a struggle to define who may legitimately speak for Islam, a struggle which sometimes plays out in bizarre and fascinating ways. In April and May of 1999, for example, the visit of a four-year-old Tanzanian Muslim “preacher” with reputedly prodigious knowledge captivated public and media attention in Senegal and drew intense popular reactions on both sides of the issue. Actively promoted by an NGO called Jamra, headed by the journalist Abdoulatif Guèye, and depicted extensively on state television as a “miracle,” the visit was loudly condemned by various other religious authorities as the work of the “Antichrist,” “Satan” or “freemasons.”9 The passionate debate dominated the airwaves and the printed press for days, an indication of the simmering

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struggle over the production and control of religious knowledge in Senegal. At least in part, this struggle has pitted traditional maraboutic authorities against new religious entrepreneurs. The most publicly visible indicator of the reformist trend within the universities since the mid–1990s has been the dramatic increase in the number of young women adopting “modest dress,” including a veil. From virtually none at the beginning of the decade, to a tiny number in 1995, observation in 1999 suggests that some ten percent of female students at the universities have adopted this dress. The significance of and motivations behind this phenomenon have not yet been fully studied, and the movement remains incipient and unorganized.10 Tellingly, the label “Ibadou,” which at one point was applied to those who donned the veil, is no longer readily accepted by many who insist that they are “just Muslim,” shunning any other label. The reformist trend is thus still present in the universities, and current religious and political trends are fostering its expansion and growth. Although it has not crystallized into a coherent movement, and if it did, might find itself obliged to temper its discourse and accommodate itself to the maraboutic mainstream, it also clearly has the potential to influence Senegalese society in general.

A Contestatory Movement within the Orders: The Case of the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah Reformist movements are clearly of some significance, but because they have been limited to intellectuals, they remain unrepresentative of Senegalese society at large and thus of limited influence. Youth, however, and university students in particular, are increasingly an important catalyst for change within the established system of Sufi orders in Senegal. The most significant demonstration of this potential comes from a movement within the Mouride order known as the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah. The movement experienced a spectacular rise and then a dramatic fall in July of 1997 which led to the most significant crisis in the order since the first succession struggle of 1945.11 The crisis arose due to tensions that have by no means disappeared and appears to foreshadow further problems. The Hizbut-Tarqiyyah originated as a Mouride students’ daaira at the University of Dakar. It was founded in 1979 under the patronage of the caliph of the order at that time, Abdou Lahatte Mbacké, and led by a young Mouride student from the Department of History and Geography, Atou Diagne. The daaira found resonance in the atmosphere of renewed religious interest of the time and grew quickly, carving out an important place for itself within the order. It was given a new impetus in 1986, when the rival Young Mourides Association was dissolved by the caliph, apparently because it was taking on a life of its own and escaping the marabout’s control. As its student members graduated, the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah move-

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ment spread beyond the university. Atou Diagne himself finished a maîtrise in Geography and remained at the head of the movement. “Sections” of the daaira were set up around the country, especially in high schools and other educational institutions, and even abroad among Mouride traders. Atou Diagne married into the Mbacké family, and the movement gradually built close ties with its first patron, caliph Abdou Lahatte and then with the current caliph, Saliou, after he inherited the position in 1990. Saliou Mbacké gave the movement the name Hizbut-Tarqiyyah in 1992. 12 The movement also found a following among the growing number of Mouride traders abroad and partly from this source raised significant funds. The money was invested in organization and infrastructure meant to “modernize” the order. This logic appealed to the emerging generation of Mouride intellectuals, an increasingly important component of the order despite its historically rural peasant base. As the weekly newspaper Le Temoin noted in 1997, “One thing is in any case certain: Atou and his codisciples had undertaken to bring a touch of modernity to Mouridism, notably by creating a database on the brotherhood connected to the minitel and even the internet, by computerizing all of their activities, by broadcasting on FM during the maggal, by projecting slogans to the glory of Serigne Touba [Amadou Bamba] on lighted screens, by publishing the works of the holy man, etc.”13 The Hizbut-Tarqiyyah came to play a central role in the grand màggal, the most important annual pilgrimage of the Mouride order, working to make the pilgrimage more “modern” and “rational.” In the late 1980s a major effort was invested in preparing a formal exhibit on the history and ideology of Mouridism at the library of Touba, with professionally produced texts in French, Arabic, and English. In 1997, Atou Diagne himself was given the job of organizing the màggal, a role which had always fallen to an Mbacké family member. The movement provided documents (referred to as “passports” and “visas”) for its members, organized their transport and stay during the pilgrimage, and by 1997 had equipped a widely praised mobile medical unit for the event. The Hizbut-Tarqiyyah professed an ideology of great devotion to the founder, Amadou Bamba, and to the unity of the order. Insisting on a distinctive style of dress intended to evoke that of the founder, the movement’s symbolism concentrated on a strong Mouride identity. This devotion, however, did not necessarily extend to the descendants of the founder. This ambivalence and the increasing influence of Hizbut-Tarqiyyah within the order brought forth tensions between the organization and the Mbacké family, notably with the many grandsons and great-grandsons of Amadou Bamba. Within the maraboutic family there was a growing sense that “outsiders” were becoming rivals for control of the order.14 The tensions came to a head when Atou Diagne was reported to have publicly questioned whether the leadership of the order should necessarily belong to an Mbacké. His suggestion that allegiance was owed to the caliph,

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but that any disciple could become the caliph, scandalized many and sent shock waves through the maraboutic family. A conflict arose between Atou Diagne and Moustapha Saliou, the controversial son of the caliph. Tensions mounted following an incident in which the younger marabout was denied access to his father by Hizbut Tarqiyyah guards during the grand màggal. A few weeks later, on July 11, 1997, tensions erupted into open conflict in a dramatic standoff at Touba. Hizbut-Tarqiyyah members locked themselves in a house intended for important guests of the caliph, after refusing to relinquish the keys to Moustapha Saliou. When they refused orders to evacuate which were broadcast over the mosque loudspeakers, rumors spread that they were well armed and that a call had gone out for members from across the country to head for Touba. An angry crowd gathered, and there were real fears of violence and bloodshed. Only with the intervention of the caliph and the involvement of the police was the crowd finally dispersed in the middle of the night. The caliph disowned the movement and withdrew some two hundred young disciples he had entrusted to the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah’s school in Touba, sparking similar withdrawals around the country. Trying to save what he could of his movement, Atou Diagne made a public radio apology four days later, which included a recognition of the Mbacké family’s leadership of the order. He was eventually officially forgiven, and the movement has continued, but it has clearly lost much of its momentum. However, Mouride youth retain significant sympathy for the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah, even if there is a sense that Atou Diagne went too far. Beyond the fate of the Hizbut-Tarqiyyah itself, these events are significant because they represent the first time that the leadership of a major order has been challenged by its disciples, by a movement that dared to question the hereditary authority of the younger generation of marabouts. In the face of this challenge, the younger generation closed ranks. An unprecedented emergency meeting of all grandsons of the founder (including those through the maternal line) was held in Touba just days after the crisis. Echoing the resolution of the first succession crisis, an agreement was reached to proceed through the grandsons in order of age when the caliphate passes to the third generation. This agreement is sure to be difficult to implement for many reasons. The founder has many grandsons and great-grandsons.15 There is little incentive for those far down the line of succession to wait their turn. Especially for the oldest of the grandsons, seniority will not always be easy to determine, as few will have accurate birth records. The unity of the grandsons is clearly tenuous. Moreover, no grandson will have the automatic claim to a following that the founder’s sons have had, and faced with tensions within their generation, none will be able to assure the same cohesion of the order. A major succession struggle in Touba is possible, even likely, with the passage to the third generation. Even if resolved, this strug-

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The Dahiratoul Moustarchidina wal Moustarchidaty, more generally known simply as the Moustarchidine, represents the first challenge to PS hegemony cast in religious terms. This movement led to talk of “Islamic fundamentalism” in Senegal in the early 1990s. The politicization of the Moustarchidine reflects both state and family politics: the regime’s crisis of legitimacy and the discontent of youth as well as the politics of maraboutic succession within the family.16 By the end of the 1990s, the Moustarchidine seemed to have remade an (uneasy) peace with the regime, but the schism within the family has hardened, with important long term consequences. The current dynamics of the movement must be situated within the historical context of the maraboutic family. Upon the death of al-hajj Malik Sy in 1922, his eldest living son, Ababacar Sy, inherited his position and took the title of caliph of the Tijaniyya order. Ababacar held the position until his death in 1957, presiding over the institutionalization of his father’s movement, notably through the elaboration of the system of daairas and the regularization of religious ceremonies. In this process he was helped and encouraged by one of his sons, Cheikh Tidiane Sy. Cheikh Tidiane’s activities led to various tensions in the family, especially among Tidiane’s brothers, in the 1940s and 1950s. Foreshadowing events in the 1990s, these tensions were aggravated by the highly charged political environment of pre-independence electoral politics. Upon Ababacar’s death in 1957, the caliphate was claimed by both his son, Cheikh Tidiane, and his brother, Abdoul Aziz. While the latter eventually won the support of the majority of the family, Cheikh Tidiane nevertheless continued to cultivate his own following, in part by stressing his father’s memory, thus insisting on the particular religious credentials of his own genealogy. Publicly the family was reconciled, but lingering

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Family Troubles: Succession Tensions and the Moustarchidine Movement

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gle could compromise the unity of the order, with significant ramifications for Senegal as a whole. The Hizbut-Tarqiyyah movement seems to have grown more out of generational pressures and the internal dynamics of the order than out of the crisis of Senegalese politics, but the phenomenon it represents has a clear potential to influence the broader political domain. Generational tensions within the religious families in Senegal are transforming the established pattern of religious organizations’ involvement in Senegalese politics. Indeed, the most politically important contestatory religious movement in Senegal in the 1990s, which seemed to represent a potential religious challenge for control of the state, grew directly out of such a succession struggle within the Sy family.

africa TODAY 142 GENERATIONAL CHANGES, POLITICAL STAGNATION, AND THE EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IN SENEGAL

tensions and important rivalries remained. These rivalries were not only to persist but to intensify significantly as the transition to the third generation neared, a transition which also carried implications for members of the fourth generation. The Moustarchidine was officially founded as an organization by Cheikh Tidiane in 1980. From the beginning, Cheikh Tidiane maintained a low profile and the organization was in fact led by his son, the ambitious and dynamic young marabout Moustapha Sy. In many ways the Moustarchidine represented a new kind of “hybrid” organization, borrowing from reformist themes and elements of “modernist” Islam while building very much on the maraboutic model. Its full name, in fact, identifies it as a daaira, and it regularly stresses genealogy as a legitimization of its leadership, and many of its activities have focused on promoting Cheikh Tidiane’s personal religious credentials. At the same time, it has stressed the “modernization” of the model, notably in terms of the organization of the movement itself. And it has flirted with critiques of (some) maraboutic practices. It has also from the beginning cast itself as a movement intended to appeal to the younger generation. As the movement was built over the 1980s, it provoked some unease in the family, although it maintained a relatively low profile. The political crisis of 1988 provided an opening for Moustapha Sy to carve out a wider realm of influence within national politics. Positioning the movement as the representative of a crucial social category, namely disaffected Senegalese youth, Moustapha undertook such transparently political activities as the organization of an “International Conference on Muslim Youth” with presidential sponsorship in early 1989. This posture entailed some risks. In aligning himself with an unpopular regime, he felt he needed to stress his genealogical credentials in order to maintain the momentum of his movement. Yet this was also risky, given his flirtation with reformist themes. By the early 1990s, the caliph Abdoul Aziz’s advanced age and ill health pushed the succession issue to the forefront of the movement. As the last living son of the founder, the caliph’s passing would signal the passage to the third generation, and this raised questions about the rules of this transition. In particular, Cheikh Tidiane’s long-standing claims to being his father’s chosen successor conflicted with the seniority system which placed his slightly older half-brother Mansour ahead of him for the caliphate. For Moustapha the continuing relevance of genealogy made his father’s status significant, and he actively promoted Cheikh Tidiane’s religious credentials, if not necessarily as a prelude to claiming the caliphate itself, at least as a means of maintaining authority over disciples of the family. It was in this context that, in the middle of the 1993 presidential electoral campaign, Moustapha Sy undertook a dramatic public attack on the regime and President Diouf and also signaled a clear break with the

africa TODAY 143 LEONARDO A. VILLALÓN

larger Sy family.17 In those elections and their aftermath, the Moustarchidine maintained their momentum and stayed at the heart of the political storm in Senegal. In siding with the opposition in protesting the elections, the Moustarchidine were directly involved in a riot that left six policemen dead in 1994. Moustapha Sy was jailed at various times, and the movement was officially banned, though it continued to operate. In the midst of this storm, with the succession looming in Tivaouane, the Moustarchidine carefully prepared the dramatic reentry of Cheikh Tidiane Sy into public life. In 1995 Moustapha Sy announced the first in a series of major public conferences by his father, Cheikh Tidiane’s first public appearance in seven years. These lectures were carefully timed over the next two years, and their symbolism and location were carefully orchestrated to present Cheikh Tidiane as a major religious figure. All of these lectures, delivered to overflowing crowds and lasting as long as seven hours, were officially devoted to the same theme: the oneness of God. As he made headlines, and cassette and video copies of his conferences circulated, Cheikh Tidiane ensured his stature as one of the most visible of Senegalese marabouts. The caliph Abdoul Aziz died in September of 1997. In Tivaouane, the eldest grandson, Mansour, was named as successor as apparently was specified in the caliph’s will. But while religious leaders, disciples, and politicians streamed to Tivaouane to pay their respects and recognize the new caliph, Cheikh Tidiane and his own sons remained conspicuously absent. In choosing to ignore the death and the succession, Cheikh Tidiane and his Moustarchidine disciples signaled their break with the family and the decision to strike out on their own. This decision has been reinforced by various symbolically important gestures and periodic eruptions of public recriminations between the two sides of the family. This politically significant schism in the maraboutic family appears entrenched. The intertwining of family dynamics and politics is inherent to the Senegalese system of religion and politics as it has evolved in the twentieth century. Marabouts need followings, and hence competition for disciples is inevitable. The competition for disciples reflects the marabouts’ desire for leverage over the state, which constitutes both the means of appealing to a following and the value of having a large one. With each generation, however, the circumstances of maraboutic competition are transformed; the increasing number of potential claimants to maraboutic authority requires contestants to take more and more dramatic measures in order to stake a viable claim to leadership. The trajectory of the Moustarchidine movement demonstrates that the dynamics of succession and the need to distinguish oneself from the large number of potential claimants to the founder’s inheritance provide incentives for younger marabouts to undertake innovative and risky activities. The resulting movements will play an increasingly important role in the evolution of religion and politics in Senegal.

Conclusion: The Factors of Change

africa TODAY 144 GENERATIONAL CHANGES, POLITICAL STAGNATION, AND THE EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IN SENEGAL

The interaction of religion and politics in Senegal in the 1990s has evolved in unprecedented ways. These developments can be attributed to two factors: a blocked political system which has led to rising frustration, particularly among youth, and generational tensions which have emerged within religious families. The significance of these developments and their consequences remain to be seen. The dynamics described above, while significant, are by no means currently overwhelming the established system. The Sufi orders remain central in Senegal, and the maraboutic system is not likely to be supplanted in either the political or the religious domains soon. Even at the universities there are many indications of the continued vitality of the Sufi system. In early 1999, for example, posters at the Université Gaston Berger de St. Louis announced that a Mouride daaira was sponsoring a “Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké Cultural Weekend,” and at the main entrance to the students’ campus at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar a large banner announced a “Tijan Cultural Week.” The series of newspaper articles noted above which expressed dismay at the “little marabouts” encouraged people to turn back to the original founders of the maraboutic families, the “true” men of religion; that is, they proposed a return to an idealized past of Senegalese Sufism, rather than an abandonment of the system. Yet an erosion of the popularly perceived legitimacy of maraboutic authority is clearly also a possible outcome of the political dynamics described above. The reformist tendency is likely to remain a highly relevant force which, even if it does not coalesce into a dominant social movement, will provide an ideology and a discourse which will continue to push social movements in particular directions. Many factors will influence the extent and nature of change. While succession tensions tend to weaken the centralized authority in the orders, there is still much variation. Among the Mourides in particular, the economic solidarity of the order may counteract some of the centrifugal tendencies. But rivalries for leadership positions are certain to remain. Without renouncing the system, sons and grandsons of the current generation of leadership will be tempted to borrow reformist and Islamist ideas in order to cultivate a following. The success of such attempts will depend in part on the evolution of popular sentiments regarding such ideologies. The near future may prove decisive in this regard. Given profound popular dissatisfaction with the political situation, the conduct and outcome of the presidential elections scheduled for February 2000 may prove a turning point for electoral politics in Senegal. Since the 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc, the government of Abdou Diouf has undertaken a significant gamble in embracing substantive economic reforms. There are very tentative indications that the economic situation in the country is improving. Whether this will improve the status of most of the population

remains to be seen, and the outcome will inform popular sentiment regarding the legitimacy of Senegal’s entrenched political system. On the eve of its fifth decade of independence, the Senegalese socio-political system faces significant challenges, and its future depends on how these challenges are met.

In 1962, two years after independence, tensions between President Léopold Senghor and Prime Minister Mamadou Dia led to what was described as a failed coup d’état by Dia, which ended in his arrest and Senghor’s consolidation of power in a strongly presidential system.

2

Until 1993 both legislative and presidential elections were held on the same five year cycle. As part of a compromise with the opposition, the rewriting of the electoral code in 1991 entailed the change of the presidential term to seven years, starting with the 1993 elections.

3

Of the sixty seats in the senate, 12 are appointed by the president. Three of those appointed were technically from the “opposition,” that is, not from the PS, although they represent parties which have supported Abdou Diouf in the past.

4

The code required not only an absolute majority for victory on the first round, but also that the majority represent at least 25% of registered voters. Given low voter turnout, that provision could have forced the election into a second round, with unpredictable consequences.

5

There are two other orders of some importance, the Qadiriyya and the Layène, along with

6

“Terrorisme spirituel: Ces petits marabouts qui nous tiennenet en otage.” Sud Quotidien 29

7

For more discussion of the reformist and the Islamist trends in contemporary African Is-

8

“Les ‘Ibadou Rahmane’ veulent sortir de leur marginalité,” Le Temoin no. 340, 11–17 March

9

The child prodigy’s name (as spelled in most of the Senegalese press) is Cheikhou Sharifou

several minor movements. and 30 June 1995. This and all translations are my own. lam, see Kane and Triaud 1998. 1997. al-Khalifa. Other important members of the steering committee which prepared the visit were the cardiologist Daouda Diouf, who had in the 1980s served as president of an Islamist group known as the Cercle d’Etudes et Recherches Islam et Dévélopement (CERID), and Babacar Diagne, director of state television. The critical terms appeared in various

LEONARDO A. VILLALÓN

1

145

An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the April 1999 Spring Symposium of the Center for African Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, as part of a conference on Islam and Politics of the Joint Center for International Studies of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. My thanks to Jo Ellen Fair for the invitation to take part and to participants in the conference for their comments. I would also like to thank Erin Augis, Victoria Ebin, Penda M’Bow, Fiona Mc Laughlin, Thierno Seydou Sall, and Cheikh Thiam for their help.

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NOTES

debates in the press; see for example Sud Quotidien, 30 April–1 May 1999, where Sidy Lamine Niasse, editor of the Wal Fadjri newspaper and descendant of an important Tijani maraboutic family, made the accusation of freemasonry, which has very negative implications in Senegal. The alleged involvement of President Abdou Diouf himself in planning the visit also led to much speculation about the political motivations behind the event. The controversy over the case dominated headlines again in June, when a Senegalese journalist in Tanzania revealed that the child prodigy was a hoax. The intense public debate which followed underlines the argument made here that the significance of the case

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extends beyond the visit of the child to Senegal. 10

Erin Augis’ dissertation research in progress suggests that personal marriage considerations may be the primary motivator among female reformist students. I thank her for her insights into this phenomenon.

11

The events of July 1997 dominated the Senegalese press for many days. The story recount-

12

The name means “The Party of Progress” in Arabic. That, however, is not widely known,

ed here is constructed primarily from press reports and interviews in Senegal.

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even among followers of the movement, and it is regularly translated in various other GENERATIONAL CHANGES, POLITICAL STAGNATION, AND THE EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IN SENEGAL

ways in the press, e.g. “The soldiers of the order,” in Sud Quotidien 22 July 1997. 13

Le Temoin, 15–21 July 1997.

14

Another “outsider” whose influence over the order and the caliph in particular came to be strongly resented, and whose fate was to be linked to that of Atou Diagne, was a retired civil servant named Béthiou Thioune. Elected president of the rural community of Touba in 1996 with the caliph’s backing, Thioune undertook an unprecedented collection of taxes in Touba in the context of the politics of decentralization. An interesting analysis of this aspect of the tensions in Touba is available in Beck 1998.

15

To my knowledge there has been no effort to enumerate them, but they are certainly in the hundreds. Although a delicate issue and not often publicly discussed, the Mbacké marabouts are highly polygamous, with reports of forty to sixty wives in some cases. There are also numerous descendants through maternal lines.

16

For a more detailed discussion of these two contexts, see Villalón and Kane 1998 and

17

The full text of the speech in which this attack was made is available in Kane and Villalón

Villalón forthcoming. 1995.

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Cruise O’Brien, Donal B. 1978. Senegal. In West African States, Failure and Promise: A Study in Comparative Politics, edited by John Dunn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. da Costa, Peter. 1994. Senegal: Shades of Algeria? Africa Report, May–June:58–61. Diop, Momar Coumba and Mamadou Diouf. 1990. Le Sénégal sous Abdou Diouf: Etat et Société. Paris: Karthala. Gomez-Perez, Muriel. 1991. Associations Islamiques à Dakar. In Islam et Sociétés au Sud du Sahara 5: 5–19. Kane, Ousmane and Jean-Louis Triaud, eds. 1998. Islam et Islamismes au Sud du Sahara. Paris:

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Worldwide Resurgence of Religion and Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Magassouba, Moriba. 1985. L’Islam au Sénégal: Demain les Mollahs? Paris: Karthala. Reform in Francophone Africa, edited by John F. Clark and David E. Gardinier. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Villalón, Leonardo A. 1994. Democratizing a (Quasi)Democracy: The Senegalese Elections of 1993. African Affairs 93: 163–193. ———. 1995. Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. Forthcoming. The Moustarchidine of Senegal: The Family Politics of a Contemporary Tijan Movement. In La Tijaniyya en Afrique de l’Ouest: Bilan, Enjeux, et Débats, edited by David Robinson and Jean-Louis Triaud. Paris: Karthala. Villalón, Leonardo A. and Ousmane Kane. 1998. Senegal: The Crisis of Democracy and the Emergence of an Islamic Opposition. In The African State at a Critical Juncture: Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration, edited by Leonardo A. Villalón and Phillip A. Huxtable. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner. Young, Crawford and Babacar Kanté. 1992. Governance, Democracy, and the 1988 Senegalese Elections. In Governance and Politics in Africa, edited by Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.

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