And Christians are resisting the call, of course. Would you want to be a despised inferior class in your own country? From Inter Press Service of Johannesburg, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
Religion is playing a major role in undermining Kenya’s draft constitution. Christians and Muslims, who have lived peacefully for decades, have now suddenly found themselves at loggerheads over the document.
Muslims are insisting that Islamic sharia (laws), which call for floggings for consuming alcohol and stoning to death for committing adultery, be enshrined in the new constitution.
This has angered Christians who make up about 85 percent of Kenya’s estimated 30 million people.
A referendum is set for November to resolve the dispute.
But the government is worried because members of ‘The Kenya Church’, who met in the capital Nairobi Aug 25, said they would mobilise their congregations to vote ‘no’.
“We are saying that all religious courts and traditional courts not be included in the constitution. These courts are out-rightly unconstitutional,” David Githii, chairman of The Kenya Church, an umbrella for 40 church groups, said during their meeting last week.
Clause three of article 179 of the proposed constitution provides for traditional and Sharia courts, while at the same time the first clause of article 10 stipulates separation between the state and religion.
“We have strategies of getting right to the village level to get the persons there to vote ‘no’ to this constitution. We have branches down in the villages and we interact with the grass-roots almost on a daily basis. This campaign for a ‘no’ vote will go on even after the referendum. It will continue up to the next general elections in 2007,” Bishop Margaret Wanjiru of ‘Jesus is Alive Ministries’, a charismatic church, told the gathering.
“Our vote and that of our congregations remain ‘no’ until clause 179 changes. If the government chooses to remain adamant, it is their choice. The ball is in their court,” she said.