If I didn’t actually live here, the first question I would ask myself is, “What kind of society lets themselves get dragged into this kind of mess by an argument between children?” But it turns out that we are those people.

Of all the civic dangers to watch out for in Tanzania, I haven’t paid much attention to religious strife. It’s not that we don’t have the occasional incident so much as common sense tends to prevail — or so I have chosen to believe so far.

Actually, that is not quite true. The truth is more pragmatic: I have a policy of complete disengagement from all things religious, religiosity, religionism or any other variation of faith-and-politics. I can’t think of a more toxic combination than those two.

Young minds

The events that led to the recent riots in Mbagala were exasperating. A 14-year-old boy was having an argument with his friend about whether or not desecrating the Quran would result in his turning into a snake or an amphibian. You can already see where this is going, can’t you? Fourteen-year-old boys?

Our culprit, clearly unable to reasonably weigh the pros and cons of investigating his friend’s assertion, like most men of his age, accepted the dare. What ensued was a dramatic escalation in hostilities. FFU water trucks were called out onto the streets in a bid to disperse a furious mob. Churches were burned. My goodness, we went there.

This is not a good habit to get into. Churches burned in Zanzibar, churches burned in Dar; we are playing with fire. Our homegrown arson brigade didn’t discriminate either: Modern charismatics or stuffy ancient sects, the sign of the cross seems to be enough to trigger a flaming rage these days.

I mean, I can almost understand about the charismatics — those speakers are too loud! — but seriously? It is the scale of the overreaction, and the consistency of this pattern that is worrying more than anything else. Not to mention the crushing shame of it. I can hardly stand myself right now. Any claims I may have made about our ability to appreciate and practise Utu has had its eyebrows singed off.

I smell a rat. Someone is exploiting the simmering discontent that’s building up in the coastal urban centres to their own ends. No one who has a job has the time to put down tools and go torch a building. The criminal insta-mob was made up of young men: we have tons of them sitting around looking for a way to keep body and soul together with dignity.

But employment is scarce, especially if the best asset you have to offer is your physical labour. We’re not building the great pyramids here, folks, and industrialisation has mechanised production. The need for physical labour is sadly limited, with all its consequences. Crime is already on the rise generally speaking, being an equal-opportunity employer with a fondness for the furious idle.

Election promises

What was that promise the fourth administration made to its loyal young supporters during election campaigns again? Oh, I remember now: Employment. Lots of good jobs to soak up all that energy and productivity and testosterone and turn it into some serious economic transformation.

What happened instead? Ah, yes. Among other things, Admin4 bullied the machinga street traders off the streets and effectively declared war on people’s livelihood since their utility had expired.

So, why are churches being burned today by scores of angry young men looking to vent their frustration? Hm. Maybe we should ask our executive branch of the government.

Oh, I won’t lie; this ludicrous religious “tension” business has been around for decades if not centuries. That’s what happens in a diverse society: We differ. We’ve got all the usual schisms to navigate: Race, religion, gender, tribe and income, even football teams. There are always people itching on one side or another of a divide to throw a spear into the works, to exploit the gullible and the discontented, to make a situation worse so that they can profit from the resultant chaos.

Tanzania is hardly free from these kinds of challenges, as the 1998 bombings of the American embassy in Dar es Salaam proved. Sometimes, these fights we get dragged into are not our own.

So there’s no reason to give in to the fire-starters. This execrable nonsense of beating each other up over so-called faith has no place here. We have been urbane, we have been cosmopolitan for far too long to desecrate our hard-won complacency with a domestic altercation.

If anything, let us practise a little superiority. Tanzanians have no excuse not to rise above such puerile provocations with our soft-spoken voices and our byzantine politics.

But we need to stop burning churches, okay? Their congregations will notice, eventually, and I don’t know for sure but I have a feeling they might take it the wrong way.