Muslims

• These are the words of Nigerian writer Dipo Faloyin in his book Africa Is Not a Country.
• Nearly half a century earlier, in 1914, the British amalgamated the Northern and Southern British protectorates into the Nigerian Federation.
• Since independence, Nigeria has made deliberate attempts to knit a cohesive nation from this legacy of division.
• We identified these as ethnic and religious division, economic disparities, identity and lack of nation building.

Divisions

• According to the Irish political scientist and historian, Benedict Anderson, all nations are imagined.
• However, our observation is that the first reason for persistent disunity in Nigeria is the depth of ethnic and religious division.
• Ethnic and religious division: This must be placed in the context of colonial mapping and plunder of material and cultural resources.
• Before colonialism, what is now called Nigeria was peopled by different kingdoms and empires.
• The arbitrary borders drawn by the British during colonisation bundled together these numerous ethnicities and peoples without regard for their historical, cultural or socio-political differences.
• Nigeria is home to over 300 ethnic groups – the Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Fulani are the major ones.
• A lack of investment in the infrastructures of the state has also created deplorable conditions for ordinary Nigerians.

Moving forward

• These include comedy, sport, food, music, movies, and a general sense of hope and positive interaction.
• We argue that this ground-level, soft but courageous and clear-minded activism has the potential to restore hope in the nation.

• Education Minister Gabriel Attal cited “laïcité,” or French secularism, as the reason for the ban.
• Many critics argue that the abaya is a cultural garment, not a religious one, and should be allowed under laïcité.
• My ethnographic research in French schools, where secularism debates are particularly heated, suggests that the abaya ban and the earlier “headscarf law” aren’t really about defending laïcité.

‘Catho-laïcité’

• Yet the faith still has a powerful influence upon French culture.
• Moreover, these get flagged as religious symbols, putting them in conflict with laïcité in ways that Catholic symbols avoid.
• Rather than neutral secularism, “laïcité” can represent a particular, Catholic-infused French identity that views religious or cultural “others” with suspicion.

Santa Claus in class

• In the lead-up to Christmas, schools often celebrate with decorations, concerts and even visits from Santa Claus – activities defended as cultural rather than religious.
• More recently, a mayor in northern France issued an official authorization for Santa Claus to park on rooftops, publicly declaring that Santa would be “within the law” during his visit that season.
• Local public elementary school students were later surprised with a video of Santa Claus and his elves depositing gifts at their school.

Fish, fowl and halal

• French school cafeterias often serve fish on Fridays, a Catholic tradition, but debates have raged over offering halal food or other substitutes.
• In 2015, a town in central France decided to stop providing substitutes for pork, which is forbidden in Muslim and Jewish tradition, in its school cafeterias.
• The following year, a middle school in Bordeaux began providing occasional halal meals, as well as nonhalal alternatives.

Other options

• Families seeking alternative education options often turn to France’s state-funded private schools, which are allowed to offer optional religious education but must otherwise follow the national curriculum and accept students of any faith.
• Options for state-funded private Muslim schools, on the other hand – a focus of my research – are sparse.

Future consequences

• The 2004 headscarf law, however, seems to have harmed Muslim girls’ educational success.
• Moreover, the study’s authors argue that this disparity increased the employment gap between Muslim and non-Muslim women.
• Taking a closer look at France’s education system, I argue, shows that the abaya ban isn’t really about laïcité.

• The word “India” is, after all, an exonym – a placename given by outsiders.
• Alongside English, Hindi is one of two languages used in the Indian Constitution, with versions written in each language.
• But the use of “Bharat” has elicited outcry from the political opposition, some Muslims, and Hindu conservatives in the south, reflecting ongoing tensions in India between language, religion and politics.

Two different language families

• My book with fellow linguist Julie Tetel Andresen, “Languages in the World: How History, Culture, and Politics Shape Language,” covers the language history and politics of India.
• Hindi is the most-spoken language in India, but its use is largely relegated to a part of the country that linguists refer to as “the Hindi belt,” a massive region in northern, central and eastern India where Hindi is the official or primary language.
• Around 1500 B.C.E., a group of outsiders from Central Asia – known now as the Indo-Aryans – began migrating and settling in what is now northern India.
• They spoke a language that would eventually become Sanskrit.

Dravidians spurn Hindi

• But after independence, opposition to Hindi grew in the Dravidian-speaking south, where English was the favored lingua franca.
• For Tamils and other Dravidian groups, Hindi was associated with the Brahmin caste, whom many felt marginalized Dravidian languages and culture.
• For many people in the south, Hindi came to be seen as a language as foreign as English.

Nationalists push for one official language

• In India, Hindus make up about 80% of the population, while Muslims make up about 14% – more than 200 million people.
• One such policy is the promotion of Hindi as the sole official language of India.
• Speaking in 2022 at a Parliamentary Official Language Committee meeting, BJP Home Minister Amit Shah said, “When citizens of states speak other languages, communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India.” To Shah, the “language of India” and Hindi were one and the same.

Suppressing Urdu

• Although Urdu and Hindi are remarkably similar, their differences take on outsized religious and national significance.
• Whereas Hindi draws on Sanskrit for new words, Urdu draws on Persian and Arabic, again emphasizing associations to Islam.
• And whereas Hindi predominates in India, Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, along with English.

A recent book, Queer Bodies in African Films, studies the growing LGBTIQ+ output from film-makers around the continent, from Morocco to South Africa. In the process it analyses what queerness is and means within the context of African countries. Its author, Gibson Ncube, is a lecturer and scholar who focuses his research on queerness in African cultural production – from literature to films. We asked him four questions.

Is there a growing queer representation in films from African countries?

• Nigeria’s Nollywood has produced a considerable body of films portraying queer lived experiences.
• With its long history of queer representation in film, South Africa continues to produce work that highlights the diversity of LGBTIQ+ experiences.
• African queer films often navigate unique social, cultural and political challenges – such as deep rooted homophobia and colonial legacies.
• These films contribute to a broader global discourse on queer issues while offering distinct perspectives and narratives.

What is the book’s main argument?

• I first watched some of the films in their original languages and without subtitles.
• Although I did not understand languages like Afrikaans, Arabic or Kiswahili, I found that the visuality of queer bodies told stories.
• One of the main differences between films north and south of the Sahara is the openness of depicting queerness.

Please tell us about a few of the films you studied

• I also looked at the gay 2017 Xhosa initiation school drama Inxeba/The Wound by John Trengove and the 2018 Kenyan lesbian romance Rafiki by Wanuri Kahiu.
• Through their varied depictions, these films play a significant role in making visible marginalised gender and sexual identities.
• They provide a crucial visual archive that contributes to our understanding of queer lives in north Africa.

What did you learn from studying these films?

• Studying these films has yielded a profound understanding of queer experiences within diverse African cultural contexts.
• They undoubtedly shape our understanding of queer lives and experiences in a continent where queerphobia remains rampant.
• Moreover, studying these films chronicles the journey of queer rights in Africa.