VULNERABILITY AND RADICALISATION OF THE KENYAN YOUTH.

                               VULNERALBE KENYAN YOUTH AND RADICALISATION

In 2009, a bitter leadership feud erupted at the Riyadha Mosque in Nairobi’s Majengo area when young Muslims violently took over the management of the mosque and several-income generating ventures, ousting a committee of elderly people. The leader of the young people who led this takeover was later to go underground and resurface in a video recording sent to a local media house claiming to have joined al-Shabaab.There were allegations that the government turned a blind eye and gave a deaf ear to complaints by parents that their children were being radicalised at the mosque then.

In May 2012, men dressed as police officers arrested Samir Khan,a deputy of Aboud Rogo,and his mutilated body was found days later in a national park.Rogo met a similar fate in August 2012 when he was shot by unknown assailants. In both incidents the Kenyan security forces were accused of extra-judicial killings.

In November 2012,Kenyan non-muslim youth rioted in response to a grenade attack in Eastleigh,attacking Muslims and their businesses.Then lately on 2^nd February  this year,we witnessed police officers perched on a mosque’s minaret with guns, battling  it out with youths  following claims of a radicalisation session that was going on that Sunday at the Masjid Musa mosque in Majengo.Hundreds were arrested including minors.We were shown weapons including a gun  allegedly recovered.Sadly,deaths occurred.

 

 After the latest incident in Majengo, Mombasa, the expected responses by the police on the one hand and the muslim community on the other hand followed. The police were defensive and tried to justify why they resorted to the use of force to disperse the young men from the mosque.The muslim community mainly condemned the police for committing a sacrilegious act of storming the mosque with their dirty police boots.At the same time,there were denunciations of radicalism and a call for the government to go after those preaching extremist jihad ideology.There was talk of freedom of religion as well.

 The above few examples highlight the Kenyan government’s approach to the problem of the vulnerability of Kenyan youth to radicalisation and extremism, the perception of the muslims by the non muslims in Kenya and the approach of the various organisations representing muslims in Kenya to this menace of radicalisation.

None of the parties attempted to identify the drivers of radicalisation and offer a solution.Questions such as what causes the youth to be susceptible to radicalistaion,and what can be done to end it.These are seemingly  simple questions yet they require brutally sincere answers that can only be answered if there is an open debate by both parties,that is the government and the larger muslim community through its organisations like the National Union of Kenya Muslims,the Young Muslim Association,the Islamic Foundation,the Muslim Education and Welfare Associatipon,the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenyathe National Muslim Leaders Forum,and the umbrella body the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims.

The starting point obviously is by the muslim community accepting that there is radicalisation going on in some of the mosques as evidently pointed out in the media when rowdy vulnerable youth took over the Masjid Musa mosque to propagate their extremist jihad ideology last year .The government on its part must acknowledge that its approaches have been so far counter-productive and should change tact.

The next step would be to identify the causes of radicalisation.An interplay of political,social -economic,personal identity,Kenyan identity and religious factors lead the vulnerable youth to radicalisation. For instance,the  history of Kenya as a nation has contributed to the radicalisation that leads many youths to to join exterimist groups. The MRC at the coast and the atrocities committed during the Shifta war come to my mind.Political marginalisation is one of the problems being exploited to fan radicalism. Unless everyone feels a part of this nation through politics of inclusion then the problem will not go away.Any real or perceived inequality in terms of distribution of resources and availability of employment opportunities have also significantly contributed to radicalisation.

Although it has been found that not all who become radicalised come from poor backgrounds, poverty is a motivating factor that is used by the radical preachers to recruit the vulnerable youth.A government that does not provide the basic needs of healt,education,security and shelter cannot have the support of its citizens it has neglected.The radical preachers through dubious charitable organisations provide the basic needs and fill the void left by the government. Poverty is then politicised to the advantage of the extremists.

Prison has also been found to be a recruitment ground and it is imperative that even as the government takes the youths to court with a view to convicting and eventually sending them to prison, it should note that most of them might come out more radicalised and even leave prison with converts. There is need therefore to monitor those radicalised inmates and even after they serve their sentences.

Also, even as it seeks to have them prosecuted in court it should always ensure that due process, rule of the law and constitutionality are upheld. Otherwise the police will fast become part of the  problem.

And to all those who run to the constitution, they must know from the outset that there has to be distinction between people who are genuinely worshipping in mosques and anywhere else for that is their constitutional right, and those people who are motivated by extremist agenda and want to exploit such places of worship for their own selfish agenda including recruitment.

And as noted by Anneli Botha in her publication in Institute for Security Studies paper 245, we must hear the candid and forceful voice of the moderate Muslims; otherwise the general perception among the non-Muslim society will be that the acts of the extremists represent Islam. The Kenyan non Muslim society like the world over views Muslims as ‘’terrorists’’, this has led to the marginalisation of the muslim youth who are guilty of terrorism until proven otherwise, this has led them to have no option but to join the extremist movements since they have already been labelled as ‘’terrorists’’. There must be change in attitude for those of us who do not understand Islam as a religion.