Kenyans are more tolerant than their government and Al-Shabaab
What you need to know:
- I have often wondered what would have happened if an attack such as the one that took place at Garissa University College earlier this year had taken place in the United States or Europe.
- The tolerant attitude of the vast majority of Kenyans is in sharp contrast to that of the government, which shows that a country’s people can display more maturity and compassion than its political leadership.
- The Muslim passengers on the bus showed much higher levels of solidarity than the State, which appears to have resorted to retaliatory “collective punishment” against Somalis and Muslims in its efforts to counter terrorism.
The heroism displayed by Muslims travelling on a Mandera-bound bus that was attacked by Al-Shabaab militants last week shows that the terrorist group’s attempt to divide Kenyans along religious lines has largely failed.
According to news reports, when the militants attempted to separate the Christians from the Muslims, the Muslims refused to be separated. The terrorists had asked the Muslims to board the bus, but they did not, thus daring the terrorists to kill them all or to leave them all alone. The terrorists fled, fearing being attacked by nearby villagers.
This and other incidents have shown that while Kenyans tend to be ethnically divided, they exhibit remarkable religious tolerance. I do not know many countries where churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples can be found on the same street and where everyone is free to practise what they like, even if it is atheism.
Not even Somalia displays this level of religious tolerance; Somalia’s new constitution states that “Islam is the religion of the State”, that “no religion other than Islam can be propagated in the country”, and that “no law can be enacted that is not compliant with the general principles and objectives of Shari’ah”.
Kenya’s majority Christians too must be lauded for not succumbing to religious paranoia despite bearing the brunt of Al-Shabaab’s attacks. I have often wondered what would have happened if an attack such as the one that took place at Garissa University College earlier this year had taken place in the United States or Europe.
By now the backlash in the form of Islamophobia and xenophobia would have reached fever pitch, as it did after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. There might even have been Donald Trump-like calls to shut down mosques. This did not happen.
The solidarity displayed by the passengers on the Mandera-bound bus probably also had something to do with the fact that terrorist attacks in the northeastern region have led to a mass exodus of teachers, nurses, doctors, and other professionals and businesspeople from Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, and other towns, which has adversely affected health and education in the region. The exodus has threatened to further marginalise and impoverish a region that has already suffered from decades of government neglect.
The tolerant attitude of the vast majority of Kenyans is in sharp contrast to that of the government, which shows that a country’s people can display more maturity and compassion than its political leadership.
The Muslim passengers on the bus showed much higher levels of solidarity than the State, which appears to have resorted to retaliatory “collective punishment” against Somalis and Muslims in its efforts to counter terrorism.
For example, the attack on Westgate mall was followed by a rounding up of several hundred ethnic Somalis in Eastleigh. Shortly after the Garissa attack, Deputy President William Ruto issued an order for all refugees in the Dadaab camp to return to Somalia despite the fact that in 2013 Kenya signed a tripartite agreement with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the government of Somalia to facilitate the voluntary (not forced) repatriation of Somali refugees.
In September this year, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission released a report that showed a significant increase in extrajudicial killings and disappearances of ethnic Somali youth in Mandera, Garissa, Wajir, and Nairobi after the April attack on the Garissa University College.
The report documented more than 120 cases of human rights violations that included 25 extrajudicial killings and 81 enforced disappearances between 2013 and 2015.
Reports of extra-judicial killings were probably the reason an amnesty offered to Kenyan Al-Shabaab recruits by the government this year did not yield the desired results.
According to the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims and the International Organisation for Migration, as many as 700 former Al-Shabaab youth from the coastal counties of Kwale, Kilifi, and Mombasa returned home this year but were afraid to join the government’s rehabilitation programme as they feared that they might also “disappear” or be killed.
The #ManderaHeroes rose above both Al-Shabaab and the government; they definitely deserve a medal for not succumbing to their divisive tactics.
