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R. Otayek-Crisis in the Upper Volta Moslem Community: Islam between Reform and Tradition, Autonomy and Subordination. The situation of Islam in Upper Volta is ambiguous: while dominant in numbers it remains in a subordinate position in the polity. Within the contemporary context of Moslem political awakening, peaceful Voltaic Islam looks like an oddity, whose origins lie in the history of Islamization. In the Mosi kingdoms Moslems occupied a marginal position and the vectors of Islamization were extraneous. Despite their role in the royal courts, Moslems were accepted only on tolerance and the political System was free of Islamic influence. While the colonial System did not bring any deep change in this status, the disruption of traditional structures accelerated the rate of conversions. Nevertheless, due to its divisions and to its inability to cope with modernization, Voltaic Islam has been unable to produce a political elite which could have claimed leadership in the post-colonial State or put forth a social design of its own. Islam remained thus exposed to the most various ideological, religious and secular influences, which perpetuated its subordinate position. This led to the 1983 crisis in the Communaute musulmane de Haute-Volta, the most serious since the creation of this important Islamic association.

In the early 1980s Burkina Faso experienced an Islamic resurgence which coincided with the advent of a “democratic and popular revolution”, heralding a programme of authoritarian modernization, transforming civil society and incorporating it into the state sphere. In this context came profound and sometimes brutal changes; for Muslims, Islam was an instrument to rebuild their identity and preserve their autonomy as a community, in the face of heavier and heavier-handed state domination. However, this awakening has not necessarily expressed a rejection of the state; on the contrary, in certain cases it articulates the desire for inclusion in the centre of the revolutionary process.

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