Browsing by Author "Kaiser, Paul J."
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Religion, identity and politics in Tanzania(Taylor & Francis, 2002) Heilman, Bruce E.; Kaiser, Paul J.In Samuel Huntington's world of hostile civilisations, Tanzania would fall into the category of a torn country, a battle ground for the forces of African, Western and Islamic meta-cultures to expand their influence. On the surface, this might seem the case. Tanzania is an impoverished country where the benefits of economic liberalisation have reached only a narrow stratum and the fruits of political liberalisation are yet to be seen, placing severe strain on national social cohesion. There is certainly a possibility that pent up economic and political frustrations could be channelled into religious extremist movements. However, religion has not served as a primary fault-line for sustained political violence and conflict, although there are signs that this might be changing. In this paper we argue that uncovering and analysing these relationships elucidates how cross-cutting cleavages complicate the mobilisation of individuals and organised groups based on identity, not only in Tanzania, but in other societies as well.