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| Title: | 'Brown sugar' or Friday prayers: youth choices and community building in coastal Kenya |
| Author: | Beckerleg, Susan |
| Year: | 1995 |
| Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
| Volume: | 94 |
| Issue: | 374 |
| Period: | January |
| Pages: | 23-38 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | Islam social change Swahili youth organizations drug use prayer revival & reform |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/723912 |
| Abstract: | This paper describes a village community which has undergone rapid modernization through the growth of a mass tourist industry. Changes engendered by tourism have contributed to the strength of a localized religious revival. The village of Watamu is at the heart of the tourist boom in Kenya, and over the past twenty years has gained a reputation as a place where most of the community checks on personal conduct no longer apply. In this paper the pressures threatening the disintegration of the Swahili community are analysed, and drug abuse, particularly heroin ('brown sugar'), is found to be making a significant contribution to the chaotic conditions within the village. Although the Swahili community in Watamu is, by definition, Muslim, Islam is one of the issues which has in the past divided the village. Moves are now being made by the reformists (supporters of the 'Tabligh' Islamic movement) to unite under Islam, but as one rift is mended, another opens, as new poles representing extremes of Swahili life emerge. Young people can choose one of two extremes: strict Islamic observance, or heroin misuse. The study is based on research in Watamu in 1986-1988, and on visits there in 1991, 1992 and 1993. Ref. |
