Archive post. Issued by SAMNET on 19 September 2025 and published here as part of SAMNET’s advocacy archive. The two developments set out below are separately documented; the connection SAMNET draws between them is an argument, not a finding.
The United Ulema Council of South Africa’s statement condemning the visit by Muslim Ulema from Rwanda to Israel is understandable. But there is more to take from it than the condemnation.
What kind of state Rwanda is
Rwanda is a state with very direct and, arguably, repressive government control. That has coincided with real economic success and a good deal of international praise. It has also produced darker consequences.
Among them is a strict regulatory framework for religion.
Some will argue that regulation protects citizens from those who abuse religion for money and power. It does something else at the same time: it creates a monopoly within each faith, and a dependence between political and religious leadership that blurs the duty of religious leaders to speak truth to power.
Where that relationship is unequal or controlling in either direction, each side comes to expect it can steer the other. The historical examples are not obscure — the Church and the monarchies of Europe, Rome in Palestine, various Khalifates. The contemporary ones ebb and flow in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Tibet and Lebanon, and are rising or falling in the United States, Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Russia, Pakistan, Somalia, the Middle East and across Africa.
A wake-up call for the South African debate
The Chairperson of the CRL Rights Commission has reintroduced the idea of regulating religion in South Africa. Freedom of Religion South Africa reports that the Commission has been looking to African countries that already regulate religion as potential models — Rwanda among them.
This should be a high priority for our community and religious leadership, and it demands a proactive and thoughtful response. NGOs and activists have warned that it could fundamentally change the role, functioning, freedom and control of religion in this country.
It needs an urgent, collective answer. Not wait-and-see. Not apathy.
If anything, the UUCSA statement should be a moment of reflection on what state regulation of religion would actually mean here, if we let it happen. It is also a warning about what follows when we do not engage with legislators, with regulators, or with other faith organisations — and when we disconnect from the issues entirely.
And it underlines the need for greater participation, and for skilled and inclusive representation in every sphere — commissions, political engagement, NGOs — locally, nationally and globally, and not only where our own interests are directly at stake.
The dots
Two things are on the record. Israel is working to build allies in Africa as its traditional support in Europe and North America comes under strain. And the CRL has signalled interest in the Rwandan model of state regulation of religion.
We are not asserting a line between them. We are saying that a community which is not in the room for either conversation will find both settled without it.
- Rwandan Muslim religious leaders visit Israel — JNS.
- Herzog visits Rwanda for genocide memorial — Times of Israel.
- Is Rwanda the CRL’s model for state regulation in South Africa? — Freedom of Religion South Africa.
Contact SAMNET on info@samnet.co.za or WhatsApp 084 333 3979.
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Shared by the South African Muslim Network (SAMNET) in the interest of freedom of religion, and of participation and engagement in our legislative and NGO structures.