This Group Celebrates Kenya’s Religious Diversity by Painting Religious Centers Yellow
Painting for pluralism
By Danny Lewis
SMITHSONIAN.COM
SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Over the last few months, temples, churches and mosques in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi have turned a bright shade of yellow. While this isn’t the result of a divine touch, the bright colors are meant to celebrate Kenya’s long-held traditions of religious and cultural tolerance at a time of great tension.
In recent years, Kenya has not exactly had a glowing reputation when it comes to religious openness. Even before the religious terrorist group al-Shabaab began its campaign of brutal violence and kidnapping, the relationship between Kenya’s Christian and Muslim populations wasn’t exactly rosy, Antonia Blumberg reports for the Huffington Post. However, by visually binding the country’s houses of worship together, a project called “Colour in Faith” hopes to help bring these communities together in spite of attempts to sow discord.
“Kenya has had a long established culture of religious acceptance, tolerance, accommodation and exchange,” organizer Yazmany Arboleda tells Claire Voon for Hyperallergic. “These cultures are being undermined by an infusion of hardline interpretations of faith and the deepening of a global identity based on media stories about division, terrorist attacks, and insecurity. The risk is a cultural confusion that would have agents of insecurity succeed in dividing these societies.”
Kenya’s population is mostly Christian with a significant Muslim minority, but those aren’t the only religions practiced in the country. In addition to mosques and churches, Arboleda and his volunteers have also painted Hindu temples and Jewish synagogues bright yellow, Voon reports.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/group-celebrates-kenyas-religious-diversity-painting-religious-centers-yellow-180960539/#y0W3EpBKtk5bA6zS.99
