The launch of the Sanneh Institute
A fortnight ago, I attended a morning of lectures on “Territoriality and Hospitality”, marking the launch of the Sanneh Institute. The new institute, based at the University of Ghana Legon, addresses Research, Religion, and Society. It is named in honour of the late Professor Lamin Sanneh, who served for many years as Professor at the Yale School of Divinity, and was a leading scholar on Muslim-Christian relations.
The conference organisers explain that the theme of Territoriality reflects the view that tensions between Christians and Muslims (and indeed other groups) often have mainly to do with who is in control of a particular place. Hospitality, on the other hand, is seen as a key element of the solution to such tensions, in particular when practiced across religious boundaries. Africa has often demonstrated harmonious coexistence of Christians and Muslims, even within the same family, and this reflects African traditions of hospitality. These themes of Territoriality and Hospitality are ones explored by Professor Sanneh through his numerous academic publications. He argued that African traditions of hospitality played a large part in both Christianity and Islam being welcomed into Africa; but that as Christians and Muslims have ended up often vying for territory with each other and with African traditional religion, accommodation of other religionists is now often trumped by claims that I am the true citizen, and the “other” is somehow a foreigner or at least without ownership (and indeed, often other) rights.
The main speakers were Professor Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, from the UK, and Professor Farid Esack, a leading Muslim scholar, from South Africa. We were told that both Christianity and Islam, at least as interpreted by the speakers, preach universal hospitality and compassion, where we see the whole of humanity as worthy of being welcomed because each person is a creation of the one God, the creator who called us all into being. The two religions should therefore also be against a territoriality that excludes, because God does not ask us to capture land from others, since all people and land already belong to God.
What can we learn from tensions between settlers and herders?
An interesting example is given of the tensions between herders and settlers across West Africa, and the question posed of whether drawing on our traditions of hospitality could help us manage these tensions better.
My own reflection on this example highlights two additional issues: first, the perception of the likelihood of reciprocity, the hope that giving hospitality may have indirect benefits for me and my family later; and second that of group identity.
Indeed, on reciprocity, one can view both religions as aiming to persuade their adherents that kindness to others will result in later benefits to oneself, such as gaining approbation and reward (or avoidance of punishment) from God, in this life or the next. The benefits of this teaching for peaceful human coexistence depend whether the approbation and reward we hope to receive applies when the beneficiaries of our kindness are outside our own religion. Both Christianity and Islam have shown that when they are interpreted as only requiring hospitality and kindness to co-religionists, they can contribute to conflict rather than peace-making.
On group identity, in this as many other conflicts, how we see ourselves and our primary group, will shape how we relate to others (and indeed who we see as “other”). For example, an offer of farming land to herders so they can give up herding, as a way to try to stop the conflict with settlers, may not be well received if it is seen as undermining the herders’ identity, however generous the offer in economic terms. In other words, conflict with “others” is often not just about economics and resource conflicts in Africa or elsewhere, but also about protecting one’s group identity. The UK vote for Brexit and US voter support for President Trump’s exclusion of economic migrants, against the advice of most economists, illustrate this.
On likely reciprocity, the implicit calculation for settlers and herders is likely to be that there would be little future advantage to be gained for oneself and those closest to one from generosity to the “other” in this case. Rather, hospitality to them today may seem to increase the chance of poverty for oneself tomorrow, as the other’s cattle eat one’s crops, or conversely the settlers chase away one’s cattle from the plants they need for sustenance. Indeed, for such reasons, hospitality to the “other” may be seen as treachery by one’s own side, and punished as such.
However, bringing in the issue of identity also reveals a potential positive contribution of territoriality to hospitality: by having somewhere one can call home, one is potentially enabled to offer hospitality there.
Going beyond hospitality
Returning to the potential conflicts arising from territoriality, the benefit of hospitality is less in providing a direct solution in itself, but rather in widening the size of group we consider to be “one of us” or at least close to us, rather than an “other” to be ignored or exploited. It is good will to the “other”, which can indeed be encouraged by the practice of mutual hospitality, that provides the necessary but not sufficient basis for finding ways to peacefully coexist, and hopefully beyond that to learn how to see ourselves as enriched by diversity rather than diminished by it.
This point came out clearly in some of the illuminating examples given by Professor Esack. He spoke of how people who had lived peacefully as neighbours for decades and knew each other well – often to the extent of intermarriage – have, notoriously in Rwanda and more recently in South Africa’s anti-African violence, shown that shifting perceptions of identity and the interests of the group one particularly identifies with, can rapidly whip up destructive hatreds that overwhelm the connections formed over decades of living closely and hospitably together. These are strong reasons never to take the relative peace we enjoy in Ghana for granted.
Professor Sanneh’s own life, growing up as a highly religious Muslim in Gambia, and later becoming a Christian living in the United States who came to see Ghana as a spiritual home, provides a challenging perspective on how we address identity and loyalties. Professor Esack named the “elephant in the room”, the sense for many Muslims of rejection and betrayal when a co-religionist such as Sanneh “joins the other side”. The Christian speaker responding to Professor Esack’s lecture responded by a moving reflection on her own likely response and emotion, if one of her Christian children told her they had converted to Islam.
Territoriality in economics
Professor Williams commented on the irony that in our ever more globalised world, where a virus emerging in a remote part of China is killing hundreds of people in Italy within weeks, we see a resurgence of narrow group identity and the politics of fear and demonisation of others.
This may be ironic but it is not surprising. Globalisation is seen as a threat to many people’s sense of identity, and their perceived access to resources. It is notable that world economic output, having changed little throughout human history, has increased 100 fold over the last 2 centuries. This enormous growth reflects increasing trade bring larger markets, opportunities for specialisation, and innovation spurred by the widening market in ideas. But siren calls to impoverish ourselves and others through ill thought out protectionism whether in what we buy, or who we allow to own things in our country will continue to be reinforced by distrust of the “other”. This focus on a form of economic territoriality is a distraction from the most significant economic challenges of our time: how to ensure a fairer distribution of resources when 1% of the world owns half the world’s wealth (and who typically are little constrained by national boundaries), and how to eradicate extreme poverty now focussed mainly in Africa, which would only require application of a small fraction of the half of the world’s wealth owned by the richest 1%.
Our biggest global challenges in economics and development therefore turn out to have much in common with the challenges in politics and sociology that were the focus of the Sanneh Institute lectures. They all require embracing concern for wider groups than those closest to us, perhaps starting with neighbour but then widening out to include more “others”. The theologian would say the underlying principle reflects the nature of our creator God, so will naturally apply in every sector of human society.
Why I am hopeful
To conclude, let me explain why I found the Sanneh inaugural lectures a sign of hope. It was so positive to see Christians and Muslims together talking openly about the challenging issues relating to their religious identities, in a group going well beyond academics and clerics specialising in interfaith dialogue. I realised I have not come across much of this either in the UK or Ghana, so I commend the Sanneh Institute for a real achievement even in its inaugural lectures, providing a wonderful example of hospitality at work. I hope that hospitality will prove a good foundation for also developing the other challenging virtues needed to enable us to build a happier, fairer and more peaceful world for all.
A fundamental building block will be the imagination to grasp that in the end, our true individual and group interest lies in working towards a happy and safe world for all, rather than in grabbing as much as we can for ourselves and our identity group. True religion can help, and false religion hinder, so let us be discerning and open to the insights of the “other”.