Mosque's call to prayer controversy show crack in rainbow nation myth

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For about 100 years the Islamic call to prayer has sounded from the Zeenatul Islam Mosque in Muir Street, District Six, Cape Town, five times a day. Last week, for the first time in its history, the mosque was issued with a complaint that characterised the sacred sound as a noise nuisance. South Africa has been lauded for the plurality of its religious landscape and the peaceful co-existence associated within the diversity. However, the master narratives of peaceful religious co-existence within and between religious groups, the state and other actors that have dictated the image of religious diversity obscure the rising tension and conflicts between and towards religious communities. The expiration date of the myth of the rainbow nation has been noted and accepted. Rainbow-ism has been thanked for its utility at a crucial juncture in the country’s history, critiqued, and in the fervour of the decolonial turn in scholarship, abandoned in favour of a more nuanced exploration of the politics, poetics, meaning and management of difference. However, in matters relating to religion, the myth of the rainbow nation persists, concealing dangerous and increasing intolerance towards religious differences. Within the context of the mythical rainbow nation, where the constitutional precept of freedom of religion is wielded like a trident enforcing justice and peace, the noise complaints against the call to prayer from the Zeenatul Islam Mosque have been met with shock.

Some members of the public characterised the complaints as ridiculous, and others called for greater tolerance. In one news report the complaint was minimised as “one grumble”.

We would be gravely remiss to underplay the seriousness of one complaint. Without first critically engaging with what appears to be a subtle yet sustained increase in the presence of thinly veiled anti-Islamic sentiments in South African public life, it would be reckless to allow the attention it is receiving to fade into the social media abyss, or to assign the responsibility of this passive-aggressive act of intolerance to the hubris of a lone individual.

Allow me to offer but one example of what I argue is becoming a disturbing tendency. A few years ago Christian consumers complained about the halaal symbol on hot cross buns.

In response, citizens expressed shock; others called it ridiculous; there is nothing Christian or biblical about this pastry. In the end, Woolworths offered a non-halaal option and every year around Easter, we revive the story and share it like an urban legend - just too ridiculous to be true and therefore nothing to be concerned about.

There is an organised campaign which advocates against the ubiquity of the halaal symbol on food goods. The Christian Friendly Products movement has also developed its own counter-halaal food symbol and claims that it cannot be displayed side by side with the halaal symbol. This separatist food policy is echoed in the group’s views on Islam and the place of Muslims.

Even more chilling are the numerous Islamaphobic and hateful claims being made. As one piece of campaign material, easily downloaded from the internet, reads: “It may not be too far-fetched to assume that some of the South African ‘halaal money’ has already been used to finance terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Isis’s unholy war against Christians and Jews. Using halaal money for terrorising and persecuting Christians in our country may even become a reality much sooner than we may expect.”

These are worrisome accusations, not only because of their unsubstantiated, outlandish veracity, but even more so because of the fear-mongering they imbue. By no means does the Christian Friendly Products campaign represent all Christians. However, as history has taught us, numerical strength is a crude indicator of support for a cause.

Riding the back of the Zeentul Islam Mosque issue are calls for greater tolerance, a return to the honeymoon phase of democracy. Twenty-five years ago it was easier to be optimistic. The monster was slain, we were free and the possibilities were endless.

"The myth of the rainbow nation is concealing the rising tension and conflicts between and towards religious communities," writes Dr Lee-Shae Salma Scharnick-Udemans.

A quarter of a century later and the calls for tolerance seem trite and futile. In committing to an attitude of tolerance, we commit to exercising our ability and displaying our willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviours that we don’t necessarily like or agree with. Tolerance is but the public face of intolerance. It is worn in polite company but can be disregarded at a whim and frazzled by a perceived infraction or convenience. Tolerance requires little engagement with or understanding of that which one has decided or been instructed to tolerate. Tolerance extends only so far as that which is tolerated does not offend my sensibilities and sensitivities too much.

Tolerance, particularly when exercised by the powerful and the wealthy, carries the stench of unearned privilege. Understanding, appreciation and respect more accurately define the attitudes we need to cultivate in response to religious diversity.

Amid a crisis, hope springs eternal, and the defence of the Zeentual Islam Mosque from individuals and communities across the religious spectrum have been heartening.

I am certain justice will prevail and the city will ensure the mosque is able to carry out its activities without restriction. To consider a law-based intervention a victory would be to tolerate the rainbow until the arrival of the next, perhaps even greater, storm.

The call to prayer has, ironically and patronisingly, elicited a call for tolerance. The storm over the Adhan calls us to consider the precariousness of the religious rainbow.

* Dr Lee-Shae Salma Scharnick-Udemans (pronouns she and her) is the senior researcher in the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice at UWC. She researches, teaches, and supervises in the area of religious diversity, pluralism and the media.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.