Description
The aftermath of the Westgate terrorist attack in Kenya in 2013, steered changes in the countering terrorism (CT) discourse with swift government responses leading to strengthening legislations on CT, closing space for dissent and advocacy against government CT measures, and regulating civil society organizations in the CT space. Responses on civil societies included freezing accounts of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), labeling CSOs as funding or aiding terrorism and blaming CSOs as disrupting the government-led counter-terrorism initiatives led to the narrowing of the CSO space. Based on in-depth interviews with key informants from twenty-two CSOs working on CVE and eighteen community leaders, the chapter intends to investigate the implications of the securitization of the civil society space in countering violent extremism in Kenya. The article traces the evolution of securitization of the CSO space; the intersection of global politics in shaping the Counterterrorism (CT) discourse with the War on Terror in Kenya, donor alignment with government policies and vice versa; the causes for and against the securitization wave; the push for softer approaches – Prevention/Countering Violent Extremism; and, the resulting division in the civil society organizations within the CT realm.
