Working Paper, page 1 Religious Conceptions of Citizenship in a Multicultural South Africa 1 Jonathan D Smith Abstract: This paper explores multiple ways that religious groups conceive of their roles as citizens in the newly-democratic, multicultural South Africa. Religious affiliation is among the strongest group identities in South African society, largely cutting across racial and class boundaries. The swift political transition in South Africa from apartheid to democracy has resulted in a greatly changed relationship between religious groups and the newly democratic government. The adoption by the government of a religion-state model of separation with interaction and the rapid pluralisation of the public sphere have opened numerous channels for religious groups to critically engage as citizens with government in the construction of a democratic South African society. Yet religious communities that were divided over the appropriate response to apartheid are now divided over their role in the pluralistic public sphere. How can religious groups maintain their particular identities and at the same time participate in the constructing of a national identity along with people from other religions and the non-religious? Religious responses have included 1) retreat into the private sphere, 2) prophetic critique of government policies, and 3) active participation in multi-faith partnerships with government through informal and formal channels. Case studies illustrating each of these conceptions of citizenship are presented. It is argued that multi-faith partnerships best represent the model of plural citizenship fitting to the development of a multicultural democracy in South Africa. 1. Introduction The concept of citizenship in Western democracies has undergone drastic modifications in the past few decades. A major shift has been from recognition of individuals to recognition of groups. The growing pluralistic makeup of Western societies challenged the traditional concept of the citizen as having an individual relationship with the State, as well as a public life based on unity and equality, without a clear recognition of diversity and marginalization. Multiculturalism challenged that concept with the idea of group citizenship and respect for difference. Although much criticized for institutionalizing difference and contributing to marginalization, an often-overlooked weakness of the theory was that it did not allow a place for religious identities, as demonstrated by Kymlicka’s 1995 seminal work on the subject. The reluctance to recognize religious citizenship is largely due to the uncomfortable relationship between secular ideas of democracy and the seemingly non-rational or supra- rational claims of religion. Religion was usually relegated to the private sphere and considered a dying remnant of pre-modern thinking. The resurgence of religion into the public sphere has greatly challenged this arbitrary concept of separation (cf. Casanova, 1994), especially when a supposedly secular democracy would elect a President based on religious beliefs, as is largely believed the case in the 2004 election of George W. Bush. Scholars have recently tried to reconcile this gap between theory and reality with a re-defining of the concept of religious citizenship. Updating his theory of the public sphere, 1 This paper was presented at Annual Conference of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), Oxford, UK, 3-5 September 2008, and at a subsequent CRESC seminar on religion, culture and materiality on 12- 13 February 2009 in Milton Keynes, UK.