Freeing the youth from jaws of fierce religious intolerance

Nayim Awadh Salim gives Muslim children leaflets branded with peace messages during Maulid celebrations in Mariakani, Kilifi County. [PHOTOS : OMONDI ONYANGO/STANDARD]

By BENARD SANGA

Mombasa, Kenya: “It has ripped the social fabric of our once peaceful region and ushered in a season of religious unrest for this community,” says Nayif Awadh Salim to a cluster of youths listening to him.

For these Muslim and Christian youths, this session at Masjid Safina, situated in a far-flung village in Kwale County, is an opportunity to address the rising tension that has affected social events such as their cherished football tournaments.

The tournaments are now a thing of the past, with increased suspicion between former friends, because of their different religions. The youths see the sessions organised by Salim as efforts to revive the sport.

According to Ramadhan Kaindi, who attended the session at Safina Mosque during the Maulid celebrations, the few tournaments still going on in the area do not end up well as some games degenerate into a religious fight. It has got to a point where some do not want to be on teams with those from a different religion.

“You find a Muslim player refusing to join a team because most of the team mates are Christians and vice versa. Some games don’t even end as players play a rough game because of the tension,” says Kaindi.

Assassination of leaders

Father Wilybard Lagho, responsible for interreligious dialogue in the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, says the problem had been compounded further because there has not been any successful prosecution of suspects who have committed any of the crimes in the country.

However, Salim views the sessions from a broader perspective: an opportunity to tame Islamic radicalisation and religious intolerance that has escalated over the past few years at the Coast, leading to the assassination of religious leaders and the burning of churches.

The effort has already started to yield fruits, according to Kaindi, as some Christian youths honoured the invitation to join their Muslim colleagues for the celebrations and “we are sharing the sinia (large plates) of pilau”.

In the last two years, religious and political leaders in the region have continued to raise a red flag over religious radicalisation and intolerance. They have called for concerted efforts including financial assistance from the Government to combat the vice.

According to Khalid Hussein,  the executive director of Haki, a human rights organisation, the killing of two Christian pastors and seven Muslim clerics in the last two years at the Coast has continued to strain the relationship between members of the two religions.

Although social experts have been rooting for inbuilt conflict resolution mechanisms within their religious community, it has remained just that – talk.

But 31-year-old Salim has taken the bull by the horns and brought together religious leaders from 86 mosques and 82 churches in Kwale and Kilifi counties in a platform meant to preach peace among the youth.

The Nayif Awadhi Salim Foundation (NASF) was established in 2011 during the height of religious intolerance in Garissa that led to the burning of churches.

“We knew that the seed of intolerance would also be planted in other Muslim dominated areas. In Coast region, where you find a family with members from the two religions or a village that had co-existed in harmony, it has become a family issue,” says Salim the NASF founder.

He said during its inception the foundation had 47 imams from different mosques and 32 pastors in Kilifi. The group has since grown by leaps and bounds, bringing together 87 mosques and 82 churches.

The foundation has continued to move to different primary schools distributing exercise books branded with the message of peace to pupils for free.

NASF Chairman Bishop Antony Charo says the foundation has distributed over 10,000 exercise books to the schools in Kwale and Kilifi counties and held peace building meetings where they have sensitised youths on the need for peace.

 “We’ve also distributed farm inputs to the locals regardless of their religion, and relief food – where pastors distribute to Muslim homes and imams take to Christian homes,” says Bishop Charo, adding that they were financing the activities themselves.

On December 30, NASF organised a meeting that brought to Chonyi, Kilifi County , leaders from communities in the region to propose how best to tackle the religious intolerance.

Last year, during the Madaraka Day celebrations in Kaloleni, the organisation was feted by Government administrators.

“Everything is looked at suspiciously. Some big banks refused to open accounts for us and we had to go to a smaller bank, but we are also facing financial challenges.

“Still we believe even with our shortfalls that if we stick together, we can defeat the enemy that wants to divide us,” said Salim in an interview last Sunday.

The organisation is now targeting youth activities and has bought  local  football teams.