Tension in Coast as leaders seek reconciliation

An attack on a church in Mombasa. The war on terror has split Coast leaders and residents along religious lines (Photo:File/Standard)

By BENARD SANGA

Recent events around the war on terror have intensified tension and suspicion between Muslims and Christians in Mombasa.

As leaders across the religious divide work on pacification, radicalism is getting entrenched, thereby threatening the hitherto peaceful co-existence between the two religious communities across the Coast region.

Coast’s religious and political leaders find themselves trapped in the rising distrust. “I have Christian friends,” says Muslim lawyer Yusuf Abubakar, adding: “Sometimes they accuse me of siding with Muslims just because I have raised certain issues.”

He told The Standard on Sunday that people in Mombasa were becoming intolerant because: “Christians believe Muslims are targeting their places of worship and that is why they are calling for government to protect them.”

On the other hand, he argues, Muslims believe Government is siding with Christians in its alleged discrimination against people who profess Islam. According to Catholic priest Gabriel Dolan, although Muslims and Christains have co-existed peacefully there is “growing discomfort” between the two groups.

Dolan’s concern is that recent happenings have created a big divide even though people are afraid to talk openly about it, moreso because of utterances by politicians in support of sectarian positions.

Random street interviews with Christians and Muslims on how the two sides can promote peaceful co-existence showed hardening of positions. Muslims argued that “police should have stopped the jihadist convention at Masjid Musa before it convened” but Christians played down the “desecration” claim saying the mosque “became a crime scene” when people entered it with weapons and killed a policeman.

Abubakar claims a Muslim woman was recently denied a job in a Christian agency as a result of growing tensions and adds that utterances by Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa calling for shoot-to-kill orders have sharpened divisions.

And Fr Dolan further argues that whereas Christians overwhelmingly support police protection of churches, “Muslims do not want police anywhere near the mosques” and suggested that apparent police insensitivity to handling of Muslim women suspects angered them. Although both sides allege the rise of a right-wing Christian constituency, Fr Dolan questioned why mainstream Christian and protestant churches have not issued statements on recent events suggesting they need to speak out to calm tensions or risk being suspected to condone Government policies opposed by Muslims.

“We need leaders who speak the truth for everybody,” says Dolan in reference to local politicians who have openly sided with Muslims or Christians in recent disputes.

Christian political leaders have supported Marwa’s shoot to kill order, sparking tension. Save for Mombasa Governor Hassan Ali Joho, seen as a moderate, most Muslim leaders have not visited Christians or churches under attack.

Eagerness to appease

Christians make up 59 per cent of Mombasa County’s population and there is talk among a section of this population that they would teach some “radical Muslim sympathisers a lesson” during the next elections. “There is no doubt the region has been polarised but we know that people will rise against the forces out to divide us,” said Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir in an interview.

Nyali MP Hezron Awiti alarmed Muslim MPs last week when he declared that: “We have been patient enough and will not sit back as terrorists come into our churches to kill our wives, children and mothers.”

The statement appears to have unsettled other political leaders in the county. Changamwe MP Omar Mwinyi told The Standard on Sunday that “such statements could fan tribalism.

Abubakar says key actors in Government appear eager to “appease Kenyans who are not Muslims” using the current security operations. Fr Dolan says Government is exploiting Christian stereotypes against certain Muslims but adds that Muslim leaders are also fanning counter-propaganda against Christians and the Kenyan state.

In a past interview, Fr Dolan said Muslim leaders in Mombasa ought to be sensitive to Christian sensitivities and vice versa. Marwa has dismissed his critics, saying: “Some human rights groups are quick to condemn police action against terrorists to attract foreign funding. Does it mean the baby who was shot does not have human rights? Or the pastor who was killed does not have human rights or the Asian who was shot and killed in town does not have rights? Is it only Muslim clerics who have rights?”

Marwa was responding to calls by a Muslim rights group for a demo last week over the killing of Makaburi. The demonstration was later called off.