46 Middle East & Africa The EconomistSeptember 7th 2019
2 from the Boko Haram terrorist group, part
of which is aligned with the jihadists of Is-
lamic State, and from Muslim Fulani
herdsmen who have attacked crop-grow-
ing farmers. At least three Catholic priests
have been killed this year.
Francis has always stressed the primacy
of economic factors in fuelling conflict,
and he has refused to engage in Christian-
Muslim name-calling. That marks a con-
trast with his predecessor, Benedict, who
provoked a storm in 2006 with a speech
that unintentionally seemed to link Islam
with a propensity for violence. As Jimmy
Burns, a biographer of the current pope,
puts it: “Francis is convinced that environ-
mental damage, inequality and competi-
tion for resources are the factors behind re-
ligious fundamentalism of any kind.” In
recent days Francis seemed to confirm his
doveish credentials in matters of Chris-
tian-Muslim relations by giving a cardi-
nal’s hat to Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald,
a British expert on Islam who had been de-
moted by Benedict, apparently for being
too emollient.
Arguments based on economics as a
cause of interfaith conflict may resonate in
academia but some Catholic leaders from
Africa are pressing Francis to serve up
stronger doctrinal medicine. Among the
most powerful of African-born prelates is
Cardinal Robert Sarah, who grew up in
Guinea under a harsh Marxist dictatorship
and developed a strong antipathy to left-
wing authoritarianism.Sarah’s conceptions
Cardinal Sarah has endeared himself to
conservative critics of Francis by describ-
ing Islamist terrorism and liberal ideas
about reproduction and sexuality as co-
equal threats to the integrity of the Catholic
faith. “What Nazism [and] fascism and
communism were to the 20th century,
Western ideologies on homosexuality and
abortion and Islamic fanaticism are today,”
he declared in 2015. Cardinal Sarah, who is
responsible for worship and liturgy at the
Holy See, is more or less loyal to Francis,
but many traditionalists hope he will be the
next pontiff. An African candidate more in
line with Francis’s thinking would be Car-
dinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the Vatican’s
point-man on development.
Even leaving aside the sensitive ideo-
logical questions that divide conservatives
from relative liberals like Francis, the sheer
size of the African Catholic church makes it
difficult for anyone to control. Take a re-
cent clerical dispute in Nigeria. Francis
tried in 2017 to use the might of his office to
force priests in the diocese of Ahiara to sub-
mit to a bishop who was not a member of
their cultural and linguistic group. The
clerics were told to write personal letters of
apology for their reluctance to accept the
unpopular prelate. Some letters werepenned, but the Vatican blinked first: the
bishop stepped aside.
Elizabeth Foster of Tufts University,
who has just written a book called “African
Catholic”, says today’s lively, stubborn
church is in some measure a by-product of
French colonial policies. During the final
decade or so of colonial rule, the French
state overcame its secular principles and
helped the church in a burst of missionaryzeal, building schools and dispensaries
which spread the faith. This produced a
generation of well-educated and articulate
Francophone clerics, but they did not al-
ways take the line that was expected by the
church or state in Paris.
Little wonder that Francis finds Africa
uncomfortable. But his successor, whoever
he is, will at the very least have to focus
more on it. He may even be African. 7G
etabalew seifeis beginning to feel
suspicious. Four times a week he
saunters into the same bar in downtown
Addis Ababa and puts down a bet. He
often punts on Manchester United, his
favourite football club. But he almost
always loses. “I think Manchester United
is somehow supporting the betting
companies,” he says. Still, he returns.
“I’m playing just to get my money back.”
Like Getabalew, Ethiopia has caught
gambling fever. Sports betting shops are
springing up across the country. “People
have gone crazy,” he says. His friend had
to sell his car last year after a run of bad
luck. Others, though, are making out just
fine. “It’s a cash cow,” says Sophonias
Thilahun of Bet251, which plans to open
100 betting shops in Addis Ababa over the
next six months. It may soon compete
with 18 other companies, most of which
were granted licences in the past year.
Sports gambling has been growing
across Africa, fuelled by the spread of
smartphones and mobile money. Kenya,
Nigeria and South Africa lead the way,
with multimillion-dollar gambling
industries. A survey in 2017 across six
sub-Saharan African countries found
that more than half of young people had
tried gambling. Over 75% of young Ken-yans have placed a bet.
Ethiopia was until recently a laggard.
Addis Ababa had a hotel casino in the
time of Emperor Haile Selassie, but this
was closed by the Marxist junta known as
the Derg in the 1980s. Its successor, the
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Demo-
cratic Front, shared the Derg’s suspicion
of gambling. The first betting licence was
not granted until 2013 and the market
remained mostly empty until 2016. For-
eign firms are still prohibited.
Recent improvements in Ethiopia’s
telecoms infrastructure help explain the
boom. “Without internet you couldn’t do
anything,” says Michael Demissew of
Abyssinia Bet, a gambling firm that uses
mobile money. The government has also
softened its stance since the appoint-
ment of Abiy Ahmed, the relatively liber-
al prime minister, last year. It has al-
lowed gambling advertisements on radio
and television and may soon permit
casinos. It is motivated by the potential
for new tax revenue, says Sophonias.
But the boom also reflects deepening
economic frustration among the coun-
try’s youth. “Almost everyone is playing
for money, not entertainment,” says one
punter. “You could get money here that
you can’t get anywhere else.”All bets are on
Gambling in EthiopiaADDIS ABABA
A craze for wagering on football is sweeping the nation