What drives Muslim youths to radicalization in Kenya?

There is no contradiction between being Muslim and being a Christian, Hindu, or even a pagan. My religion is as much as part of my identity as being a Somali, a proud Kenyan son. Faith aside, I probably have more in common with a Kenyan in Kenya than with a Somali in Somalia. To me and other Somali Muslims like me, our identity is clear in Kenyan soil. But for many younger people an identity crisis isn’t uncommon, regardless of their religion. Some teenagers react by rebelling; others, more extreme, will turn to crime and gangs.

Many second- and third-generation Muslim children may be raised believing that their heritage is of one or both of their parents. Sometimes when these children visit their villages of their parents, they find they are teased because they don’t fit in society. That yearning for a clear identity can leave them facing a personal crisis, vulnerable to radical exploitation in person or online. In the simplest sense, Islam teaches us that our lives are a struggle, or jihad, to live a good life and refrain from bad deeds. At the end of our lives, we will be judged on whether the good deeds outweigh the bad. Those who seek to radicalize scare these young people by saying they can’t win that struggle while living in “decadent” modern Western culture. The radicalizers anger the youths by showing them propaganda and images of Muslims being killed by Western forces in Middle Eastern conflicts. Then they convince them that there is a shortcut to paradise by taking revenge in the name of God.