Foreign Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence from Mr Philip Fletcher CBE, Chair of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council
1. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s decision to hold an inquiry into the UK’s response to extremism and political instability in North and West Africa is one the Mission and Public Affairs Council very much supports.
2. The Council is the representative body responsible for taking forward policy and research on behalf of the wider Church of England. It is acutely aware that there is sometimes a strong religious dimension to the rising levels of political instability in North and West Africa. This letter draws on the expert insights of various Church of England stakeholders, including Lambeth Palace, to outline our observations on this perceived trend.
3. The links between the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, as well as the work of its mission and development agencies on the ground, makes the Council conscious that context is all important. North Africa is not West Africa. Egypt is not Tunisia. Nigeria is not Mali. The boundaries between countries, especially in West Africa, are porous, which makes it all the more important to understand the resilience of each country to withstand political shocks and economic stresses and its propensity for social violence.
4. Our experience is that listening and learning in order to reassess the drivers of instability lying behind the shifting reality on the ground is crucial. This approach is hungry of diplomatic (and no doubt other resources), but given the geo-political issues at stake merits the investment. Otherwise the risk exists that policies are solely driven by short term responses to crises, rather than considered and sustained policies to strengthen the resilience of those same communities to manage and accommodate the presenting risks.
5. We hold that the need for thorough investigation and sensitive understanding is especially necessary when grappling with the religious dimension of social violence. The rise of jihadism in the region is not simply an unwelcome fall out from the region’s Arab Spring (Libya and Tunisia are often cited as conduits for the heavy weaponry now being deployed by armed Islamists groups across the Sahel). It is probably part of the explanation of how armed groups in Northern Mali were able to consolidate their position, but to conflate Boko Haram, and other such groups in North East Nigeria, with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is misleading at best and damaging at worst.
6. Actors such as Boko Haram may well have informal relationships with wider regional and international terrorist groups, but they remain largely Nigerian and any policy response needs to be nuanced to reflect the country’s specific complexities. If similarities exist between Mali and Nigeria they are perhaps to be found in the weakness of state institutions to provide for the welfare and security of all its citizens.
7. In the case of Mali this manifested itself in the inability of state institutions, not least its army, to respond to the subjugation of its citizens in the North. In Nigeria, the growth of Boko Haram cannot be attributed solely to socio-economic factors, though it is no coincidence that Boko Haram emerged from Nigeria’s most impoverished region. Despite Nigeria’s impressive economic growth in recent years, policies of the central government have meant the benefits have not been widely shared. The strength of state institutions in Nigeria is such, however, that unlike Mali, the challenge posed by agents of instability falls short of an existential challenge to the nation.
8. Our expectation is that religion is set to become more of a marker of identity than it currently is. The political transitions in Egypt and Tunisia will not be short lived and the probability is of a kaleidoscope of shifting governments, factions and ideologies for the foreseeable future. The process of economic development in West Africa will continue to disrupt traditional lifestyles and reawaken ethnic divisions. Our experience of West Africa suggests that at times of competition for scarce resources, such as access to water, the probability is that communities will divide on religious lines unless strong countervailing pressures are brought to bear.
9. We believe that developing a prosperous and stable North and West Africa is morally right as well as being in the UK’s longer interests. The region is Europe’s near neighbour. The levels of interdependence between the region and Europe are such that instability in any one country in the region can be felt far beyond the northern shores of the Mediterranean.
10. We welcome the vision underpinning the Government’s Building Stability Overseas Strategy (July 2011). It is ambitious and compelling. It is encouraging that the strategy places such a heavy emphasis on building inclusive democracies, strengthening the rule of law and ensuring basic needs are met and opportunities for development are open to all.
11. We recognise, however, that translating this all-encompassing strategy into realizable country programmes will not be easy given the growing pressures on resources. The UK will need to ration its diplomatic, foreign aid and military resources with great care, but never hesitate to use them when there is a clear need that serves the government’s strategic interest or meets vital humanitarian needs.
12. In taking forward this strategy we suspect that too much attention to date has focused on engaging with governments in capitals that are all too often distant from their people, while at the same time falling foul of different regional political calculations and rivalries. State building is a desirable long term goal, but without strong and secure foundations at a local and communal level the prospects for long term stability are diminished.
13. We suggest that the Committee as part of its inquiry should consider whether the Government’s support to central state authorities could be tailored to encourage their engagement and involvement of local leadership. Such a strategy, especially in northern Nigeria, could help local authorities and traditional leaders regain some much needed credibility with their own constituents.
14. Within this mix, we also suggest that the Committee looks creatively at how the Government might better harness the resources and social capital of faith communities here in the UK and their overseas networks to help foster more resilient community relations in those areas prone to instability and social violence. The ongoing work of the Diocese of Coventry in Nigeria and the institutional dialogue between the Anglican Communion and Al Azhar Al Sharif in Egypt are but two examples of this type of engagement. Gaining the trust of communities and their leaders might prove profitable in both understanding and containing the threat of social violence in many of the countries in question.
15. This engagement is already taking place in some places, but we believe that the more that Britain and the rest of Europe can open up and build social ties between its people and the people of North and West Africa then the greater the chance that it will help to build a culture of democracy and tolerance in those same countries. Such engagement might also help to influence attitudes in the UK and Europe to a more open minded of its neighbours to the South which can only be beneficial to both.
22 April 2013