In front of the Cheick Al Buhran mosque, close to the Médard market in the 2nd arrondissement of the city of Moundou, when the muezzin announces the hour of prayer, the public roads are obstructed. But not only that. The worshippers at Saint Jean Cathedral in the Djarabé district are also no exception. Every Sunday, at the end of mass, quarrels with passers-by happen in the vicinity of the Cathedral. Some worshippers get irritated by this. However, if they better organise themselves, the worshippers can avoid these nascent dislikes caused by religious incivism.
Friday 9th February 2024. It is 12.48 pm. Mr Beindé Mathias’ phone rings. He picks up. On the other end of the line, the general supervisor of Notre Dame College, informes him in a tearful tone: “Your daughter is ill. Please come and take her to hospital urgently.” Mr Beindé Mathias is disturbed by the news. He grabs his car key and speeds off towards the school to pick his daughter up and take her to hospital. Within 15 minutes, he manages to get through the entrance of the Collège Notre Dame and rushes to the supervisor’s office. There, he sees his daughter lying on the floor, moaning like a woman in labour on a hospital bed. There is no time to lose. He has to save her before anything irreparable happenes. With the supervisor’s help, he carries his offspring into his car and and starts the engine.
On the way to the hospital, he runs into a huge traffic jam. What a mess! Despite the urgency of his daughter’s health, he has to slow down. He honks his horn, tries to clear the way and turns left. Ahead, Muslims hurry to the Cheick Al Burharan mosque. Traffic is blocked by worshippers who have spread out their carpets from the mosque to the edge of the road. Clearly, the gods of health are not on his side.
While the Muslims blocked traffic to pray, his daughter was writhing in pain in the car. No alternative. Visibly very angry, Mathias was sweating profusely as if the water in his body was running out. His only choice was to go for it. But he couldn’t keep up. The way he’s driving gives the impression of a broken-down vehicle. Yet it was the traffic jams that forced him to take this speed. Unable to continue or reverse, he honks his car horn, orchestrating a hullabaloo: “What’s wrong with you? How can you spread your mats so thickly that they block the public highway? Aren’t there any other mosques where you can go and pray? But no one ignored him. Not knowing which saint to turn to, Mathias screams at the top of his lungs in distress. “Whoa! Unfortunately, his insistence did not pay off. A Muslim in the middle of a prayer, sitting on his two feet, resting his forehead on the ground, raises his chest – turns towards the troublemaker with a sly look, turns his head in the direction of the imam and continues praying quietly as if nothing had happened. Through his windscreen, Mr Beindé Mathias waved his hand, calling out to those who had come to pray. He was so insistent that one of them, certainly pious, approached his car to find out what was going on. This scene caught our attention. We move closer to understand better. That’s when Mr Beindé Mathias calls us for help. “Can you help me find a way to get my daughter to hospital urgently? We try to lend him a hand. But not for too long on our journey. We came up against many worshippers in rows in front of us, in full prayer. Mr Beindé waved to a man who was on the spot, a regular visitor to the area. “Help me get my daughter to hospital because my car is stuck and her health is deteriorating”, he says to the man. But his plea for help went unanswered. “Even if I manage to do it, there will always be obstacles in front of you. I’m sorry, but you’d better wait until the end of the prayer before continuing”, he replies selflessly. Not knowing what to do, Mr Beindé Mathias gets out of the car, puts his daughter on his shoulders, closes the car doors and continues on foot. After a few minutes of walking, he is almost out of breath. His strength was failing him. He made his daughter sit on his daughter by supporting her back. With the help of local residents, he managed to find a clinic nearby. Almost exhausted, Mr Beindé Mathias lends himself to us. “It’s been a bad quarter of an hour. How can people allow themselves to block traffic for hours on end in the middle of town for prayer? What country are we in? Will God still hear their prayers when someone is writhing in pain but they don’t give a damn about their state of health? It’s all the fault of the town hall and the national police”, he says. [The whole beginning of this scene was reported to us by himself].
During our discussions, the man we spoke to made it clear that, as he was a Christian, he and his daughter would not have to go through this obstacle course. According to him, the Christians (since he is also a Christian) were going to interrupt the prayer to help him. “I think that if it were my Christian brothers, they would stop praying to help us. What’s more, it’s rare to see Christians blocking traffic to pray. Even during evangelistic campaigns, everything is organised in such a way as to facilitate road traffic. It’s not their fault. If the Town Hall and the police were doing their job properly, we wouldn’t be at this level”, he insists.
According to him, the municipal police and the road traffic brigade need to get organised to regulate traffic at peak times and at Muslim prayer times to avoid traffic jams. A few stone-throws from where we are standing, two municipal agents can be seen. We tried to find out more about this lax attitude, which is often seen at Muslim prayer times, but they gave us a polite refusal. “We don’t talk without the authorisation of our superiors. You can approach the people in charge of roads”, they reply. No sooner do we want to cut short this discussion, which is in danger of turning sour, than a policeman from the traffic brigade comes up to us. He readily agreed to answer our questions, but on condition of anonymity. According to him, since the advent of the terrorist attacks in Chad, on Muslim prayer days, especially Fridays, each public security police station assigns its officers to places of worship in its district to ensure the safety of people and their property. “Police officers are assigned to mosques and churches to ensure security and regulate traffic during prayer times. But some people desert these places because they don’t like what they see”, he confides, adding that it is difficult for mosques located in markets and along main roads to respect traffic. “It’s not easy, especially on Fridays. Every day, new mosques are created and the police can’t control everything. We only deal with the big mosques. You also have to take into account the number of police officers”, he explains. Anyone can understand that! It’s been an exhausting day, but let’s hope we can make some sense of it. A trip to the central market in Chad’s economic capital is in order. Another scene can be observed.
Mr Altébaye Gérard was strolling through town! As he turned off at the central market to do some shopping, he came upon a traffic jam. It was Muslim prayer time. A few shopkeepers were jostling to catch up with the imam who was announcing the prayer. In spite of himself, he tries to rush ahead. But his pedestrian adventure was interrupted by just ten or so steps. The aisles were blocked by Muslims praying. There was no way forward. Altébaye Gérard waited until the end of the prayer before doing his shopping. Very angry, he holds his breath. “One day, one day”, he repeats angrily as his anger dissipates.
This harmless scene often recurs at prayer time in front of mosques and churches and shows a latent conflict in religious communities that should not be overlooked. These are not the only habits of Muslims.
This Sunday, 18 February 2024, marks the beginning of the catechumenate in the Catholic Church. As usual, this ceremony attracted a large number of Christian families to the church. It’s 11.47am in front of Saint Jean de Djarabé cathedral. A large cross is carried by an altar boy in a white cassock, followed by other altar boys and two priests. The bishop, holding his walking stick, closes the procession, making signs of the cross as he goes. This procession marked the end of the mass. In the wake of the congratulations and celebrations, those who had just received the sacrament as they embarked on their spiritual journey, which should lead them to baptism in two years’ time, received hugs from members of their families and acquaintances. It’s a feast of dust intermingled with the youyous and roars of the users’ engines. Everyone wants to get out first.
Abdoulaye Hassan was to deliver ice cream bars to a restaurant a few steps from Saint John’s Cathedral. As he made his way to the restaurant, he came across worshippers leaving the church. They ignored his ice cream bars, which collapsed under the sun. Clearly very upset, he tried to find some lanes. The horns of his motorbike and other pleas did not allow him to continue on his way.
In front of him, a group of young people dance to the sounds of Tam-Tam. The tension rises a notch. Abdoulaye Hassan blurts out “Houmar dol da”, which in Chadian Arabic literally means… “Bunch of donkeys”. Bunch of donkeys”. Listening to this snippet of abuse, one of the group’s leaders defends himself. “That’s what you do at prayer time too, isn’t it? You don’t even care about passers-by. You act as if Chad is an Islamic country and when it comes to us, you take the liberty of insulting us? Besides, it’s only on Sundays, whereas you do it every day, and even worse on Fridays”, he defends his cohort. One of them, who had not digested the insult, wanted to have it out with the ice-cream vendor, had it not been for the intervention of the other Christian faithful who had come out of the church. It took almost a quarter of an hour to calm the overheated spirits. Abdoulaye Hassan lost almost half the order of ice cream bars he had to deliver. He still managed to get out of the jam. So much the better!
In densely populated areas, mosques and churches can be seen dotting the streets, alleys and roads. If it’s difficult to find your way around at rush hour, it’s even worse at prayer time. The Muslim faithful lay down their carpets to the point of disrupting road traffic, creating traffic jams. Whether in markets, in front of schools, hospitals, churches or public institutions. This situation, which is akin to a public order disturbance, irritates some users, who mute their frustrations and discontent. On the other hand, some rare Christians and Muslims who respect the rules of good behaviour make an exception to this rule, as is the case at the Cheick Abdelhatif Mosque.
There, a security cordon is set up around the prayer area. Young volunteers dressed in green waistcoats filter all entrances. Another team searches for weapons and sharp objects. Yet another team takes care of the vehicles, directing drivers to park their vehicles in the designated car park. Yet another team aligns the carpets. At the end of the prayer, the worshippers are asked to leave in the order in which they arrived to avoid any jostling. Despite it being a Friday, traffic is flowing smoothly in front of the mosque.
The same example can be seen at the Evangelical Church in Chad (EET) No. 1 in Moundou. In this church, the young torches and lights give themselves willingly to the service. Already at the entrance, two troop leaders, dressed to the nines in their uniforms, are regulating traffic. Whistles are blown from time to time. Curious, we approached them to find out what was going on. “Apart from other days of prayer, when large crowds flock to church, Sundays are huge. To avoid accidents and scuffles between our worshippers and passers-by, we have organised ourselves to regulate traffic in front of the church. We don’t allow worshippers to park their vehicles outside the car park. My staff have to arrive very early before the time of worship to set everything up and return after everyone else. This helps to avoid disorder”, explains the EET n°1 troop leader on duty.
These are all textbook examples for those in charge of mosques and churches to follow in order to keep traffic flowing smoothly and avoid wasting unnecessary time. Even on the administrative side, we were told that there are as yet no regulations governing the creation and siting of churches and mosques in urban areas.
This story was written in the context of the Bon Buzz project.
