Only religious leaders, not government, can contain the wave of youth radicalism

The documentary "On the Heels of Terrorism" by the Kenya Police Service made a strong case for using force to contain rising cases of terrorism by depicting the problem as a product of criminals exploiting religion to foment trouble.

While this line of argument justifies use of force, it was clear from the same documentary that the police are only addressing the symptoms rather than the fundamental causes.

A revealing moment was an interview with an alleged terrorist at Shimo La Tewa Prison, who was accused of bombing a popular club in Mombasa. The suspect described how his disillusionment was triggered by sights of women in miniskirts and uncovered hair contrary to the Muslim faith.

While the documentary’s producers considered such views extremist, it was obvious that the young man was expressing views that are very dear to his Islamic faith.

The fact that the views sounded extreme in a world that has accepted the mini as a symbol of women’s freedom does not mean his views are not valid.

If anything, the failure by the producers to appreciate the young man’s point of view illustrated the cultural insensitivities that are radicalising youth.

OLD VALUES AND NEW VALUES

Indeed, according to one school of thought, the rising religious fundamentalism in the world is a product if this type of alienation. One of the pre-eminent voices of this school of thought is Prof Samuel Huntington who in his book, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order, predicted that, after the end of the Cold War, the next generation of world conflicts will be the result of a clash of values as exemplified in the documentary.

Huntington’s argument is best illustrated by the story of the three blind men whose concept of an elephant clashed because they had different references of how an elephant looks.

According to Huntington, future world wars will be a product of a clash between old values and new values as old civilisations such as Christianity and Islam face off with emerging secular religions such as liberalism.

The decision by the young terrorist to sign up as a fighter for his faith because of the moral pollution he saw all around him and the failure of the documentary’s producers to appreciate his revulsion validates Huntington’s thesis.

Nothing, however, illustrates the irreconcilable philosophical differences between liberals and Muslims than the diametrically opposing positions each takes in relation to gay rights.

For Muslims, homosexuality is considered unacceptable because it goes against teachings of the Qur’an. Like Christians, whose values are based on biblical teachings, the moral foundation of Islam is God’s sacred words as written in the Qur’an.

While Islamic values are God-centred, liberal values are man-centred in the sense that values are weighted on their ability to enable the human spirit to grow.

POINTS OF CONFLICT

Accordingly, liberals will reflexively defend gay rights because individual freedoms are indispensable to life. As the father of liberalism argued, just as human beings grow their muscles through exercise, they develop their faculties by exercising their freedoms.

This fundamental ideological difference is not only a constant source of conflict; it has been associated with such spectacular terrorist attacks such as 9/11.

With the pervasive spread of democratic values, the points of conflict have multiplied to the extent that some Islamic leaders such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of Iranian Islamic revolution and Sayyid Qutb, the alleged ideologue behind the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, have even argued that democracy is not compatible with Islam.

Given ample evidence that today’s conflicts stem from a clash of religious values, it is clear that the strong-arm tactics have been adopted by the government to address youth radicalism will not succeed.

Similarly, bombing churches or the destruction of a thousand World Trade Centres will not stop the spread of liberalism or the ongoing secularisation of society.

What we need is for religious leaders to go back to the basics to evaluate the place of religion in a changing world and how disparate religions will co-exist in a world that is increasingly becoming secularised.

Mr Kimari is a consultant in financial services. ([email protected])