Senegal
How stable is Senegal’s moderate Islam?
Islam in Senegal is supposed to be particularly open-minded, peaceful and tolerant. Since the attacks in Bamako and Ouagadougou takes but even there the fear of extremist currents.
More than 900 people, the Senegalese police last weekend checked. The deployment was part of a responses against the impending terror threat, the authorities declared. The security forces reacted thus certainly to the Islamist terrorist attack in the burkinabé Ouagadougou in mid-January. Everywhere in the Region are now more stringent safety rules. In Senegal forms the police currently have more than 1000 new employees – even for the Anti-Terror use. It was just the Senegal as one of the Vorzeigeländer
for a tolerant and peaceful Islam.
Boukary Sambe from the Gaston Berger University in Senegal’s Saint Louis has to be home for a long time as the exception in the Region is perceived: “The Senegal in the past few years an island of stability,” he says. An island of stability in an ocean of uncertainty, to the West Africa has become. “This Situation is the influence of the sufistischen brotherhoods thanks, managed to have a peaceful Islam and to propagate and to maintain,” explained the political scientist. But now everything was different, ” he says. “I believe that the recent
Assassinations in Ouagadougou
the end of the exceptions in West Africa have instituted.”
Dakar, Senegal: a Large-scale police checks
Discontented Intellectual
Extremist currents, there in Senegal, but since the 1950s, experts say. Saudi Arabia influences has created new, stringent alignments. While
the Wahhabi and Salafists
in the past, but peaceful with the traditional sufistischen brotherhoods in Senegal have lived together, is rising now, the fear of radicalisation.
Ute Boncandé is a research associate at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Dakar
Ute Gierczynski-Bocandé by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Dakar observed an ever-increasing gap between the Poor and the rich. At the same time, deteriorating the educational system. More and more young Senegalese diverged on madrassas or the Arab University. The result: miserable chances on the labour market, where knowledge of French is usually a prerequisite.
“This creates not only dissatisfaction among the poor, but also among the intellectuals and this is dangerous,” said Gierczynski-Bocandé. Since a few years observe an increase in young people, not in the traditional brotherhoods want to insert. Instead, they felt the Islamists attracted to them can also be a social network.
Problemviertel Pikine
Illiteracy, Floods, Overpopulation – it describes Daouda Gueye the problems of the suburb Pikine. More than two million people live here close together on the outskirts of the capital, Dakar. Gueye leads the Radio Oxyjeunes, a station that is mainly targeted at the young people in this area applies. He observed among the young people here of a religious change: “In Senegal, there is still the Sufism, the tolerant Islam, but we have now found that in Pikine, young people from the doctrine of the Salafists are attracted to.”
Pupils of a Koranic school
Radio Oxyjeunes attempts, therefore, pressure on the government to help you in Pikine in schools is investing. Gueye sees education as the key against Islamism. Fear of Terror but he didn’t: Religious intolerance there is in Senegal no. “Our Salafists are level-headed and non-violent. The proof: thus Far, there is in Senegal no assassination attempt!”
The political scientist Bakary Sambe is more sceptical. He sees urgent need for action to fight terrorism in Senegal: “Today we need a real de-radicalisation through prevention,” he says. At the same time, should the country but also the root causes of Terror fight: poor governance and social injustice.