Managing dissent or creating it? Cameroonian Muslim youth, secularism, and securitization in a time of terror

Abstract

ABSTRACT The rise of Islamic extremist movements in the Lake Chad Basin has become one of the most important security issues in Africa. Research on these conflicts has focused primarily on the extremists themselves, and far less on the conflict’s wider effect on social relationships between Muslims and state authorities. Based on extensive fieldwork on Cameroonian university campuses, we argue that the Cameroonian “war on terror” has contributed to the ongoing “securitization” of Muslim youth experiences. Although the treatment of educated, internationally connected and outwardly pious Muslims as security threats is not a new development, the current conflict has opened new areas of contestation and conflict between Muslim youth and state authorities. It also challenges the legitimacy of Cameroonian secularism, which appears increasingly non-neutral and unequal to Muslim youth facing suspicion and surveillance.