Africa and the Decolonisation of State-Religion Policies

Abstract

Abstract This volume in the Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law addresses religion, the State and discrimination. The long history of state-religion interaction has yielded four main interface models: the religious state; the state with an established religion; the antireligious state; and the secular state. African states have drawn from these four models when struggling to manage state-religion relations. This volume argues that the African countries studied here, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, apply the concept of state-secularism without having their triple heritage, which encompasses African religion, Islam and Christianity, in contemplation. This volume proposes that the best way to realise the full flowering of the triple heritage is to erect the three pillars of Charles Taylor’s definition of state-secularism, which in this case should entail i) the freedom to have and to manifest religious beliefs, ii) equal treatment of religion, and iii) and efforts toward an all-inclusive state identity.