tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-320600702024-03-18T18:48:22.124+03:00Gathara's WorldFreshly squeezed brain juice.Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.comBlogger645125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-42805443215876898362020-11-18T15:09:00.003+03:002020-11-18T15:09:42.783+03:00America's Colonial Election<p> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The political stalemate in the United States challenges many of
the commonly held notions about democracy in the nuclear-armed, north American
nation of more than 330 million people. The incumbent, authoritarian president,
Donald Trump, at 74 already one of the oldest leaders in the G-20, is clinging
on to power and refusing to accept defeat by the even older opposition leader,
Joe Biden.</span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In advance of the election, Trump built a barricade - a
"non-scalable" wall - around the presidential palace, officially
known as the White House<b>, </b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">in the country’s
coastal capital of Washington DC</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, </span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">which</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> only</span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> added to concerns that he may not give up power if he lost.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">For the watching world, the question is how did it come to this?
How could a country that promotes itself as a model democracy across the planet
- "the shining city on a hill" - be so bad at conducting elections
and containing a rogue president?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Strategically located between two of the world's largest
economies, Mexico and Canada, America is a country of deep contrasts - of
breathtaking natural beauty, natural resources and friendly people, but also of
ethnic divisions and massive inequality and poverty. It is a country that leads
the world in scientific and technological discovery, yet is ruled by a corrupt,
rapacious elite and struggles to come to terms with the legacy of its racist
and colonial past.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Similarly, while Trump and Biden have much in common - both are
wealthy and accused of corruptly exploiting public office to corruptly benefit
themselves and their family members - they represent very different visions of
the oil-rich country, long </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">regard</span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">ed an island of stability
in a troubled region.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Four years ago, frustrated by a political elite that had presided
over years of declining fortunes and betrayed hopes, a section of the American
society, primarily made up of members of the ethnic white majority living in
the vast rural interior of the country, turned to Trump, a political outsider
with a hateful message which exploited ethnic divisions, demonised immigrants
and refugees and promised a return to a mythical great past.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Yet Trump has achieved the opposite - by wrecking the nation's
traditional alliances and exacerbating its internal divisions, he has weakened
the country and lowered its esteem in the eyes of the world. Even </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">the</span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> economic successes</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><b>, </b>the foundation for
his </span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">re-election</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> campaign</span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, have been blighted by
his mishandling of the global pandemic which has so far led to the needless
deaths of nearly a quarter of a million of his fellow citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Biden has </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">now </span><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">been elected by the other
half of Americans, a coalition of ethnic minorities and moderate whites, also
on a platform of a return to a mythical past, only a more recent one. He has
been essentially charged with undoing the chaos of the Trump years and healing
the divisions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">However, the idea of a pre-Trump utopia is fiction. The fact is
Trump is a symptom, not the cause of America's problems; he simply exploited
what existed long before he appeared on the scene. Fixing the country will take
more than replacing him with a member of the ancien régime.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">One might say that the problem is both camps are not looking back
far enough. As the political unrest that swept the country in the months
leading up to the election indicated, the issues plaguing the US date back to
its founding as the first English colony, the genocide that accompanied the
conquest of the native population, the enslavement that allowed the
exploitation of its resources and the discrimination that legitimises to this day
gross inequality and allows the few to profit off the labour of the many.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">As with other countries struggling with traumatic pasts, the US
needs to come to terms with the legacy of that past which continues to poison
ethnic relations between its citizens today. Here it could learn from other
former colonies, such as South Africa and Kenya, which have experimented with
truth and reconciliation commissions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In addition, the US will need to examine and repair the systemic
faults with its democratic arrangements. Although the country likes to think of
itself as having escaped the clutches of colonial monarchy after securing its
independence, the truth is just like many former colonies that retained
colonial states after securing independence, in the US, the monarchy was
reincarnated in the form of its powerful presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Over the last two centuries, Britain's first-born has continued to
increase the power of that office while simultaneously untethering it from
constitutional restrictions. Where democracy was once thought of as a way for
the people to rule themselves, the country has transformed it into a mechanism
for basically appointing a king.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In the mould of their former colonial masters, Americans have come
to treat their presidents like greater mortals and saviours, ascribing to them
messianic qualities, carving massive monuments to them on mountains and
treating their words as pearls of wisdom from on high. Vice President-elect
Kamala Harris's description of Biden in her acceptance speech is in the same vein:
"We have elected a president who represents the best in us. A leader the
world will respect and our children can look up to. A commander in chief who
will respect our troops and keep our country safe."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">It is this path that has led the country inexorably to Donald
Trump. In order to reverse course, the US will need to pursue reform of its
system, to reintroduce accountability and to pare back some of the powers of
the presidency. Rather than focusing on choosing rulers, it has to encourage
the participation of its citizens in the governance of their state.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span lang="en-KE" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">One
hopes that the political impasse and rising tensions in the country will be
resolved peacefully since the American people deserve better. However, they
must keep in mind that the election of Joe Biden is just the first step on the
long road to democracy.</span>Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com89tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-31459720133900232682020-08-24T00:02:00.000+03:002020-08-24T00:02:00.189+03:00Is Traditional Medicine Africa's Secret Weapon Against COVID-19?<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">Covid-19 infections </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1b3274ce-de3b-411d-8544-a024e64c3542" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">across
Africa are on the rise</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">. Although the confirmed number of infected
people on the continent is still about 5 per cent of the global total, and
the </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53181555" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">rate of increase seems to
be slow</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">ing, hopes that Africa would escape the pandemic relatively
unscathed are fading.</span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">In many countries, especially those south of the Sahara, already
creaking public health systems will struggle to cope with an influx of
critically ill patients needing intensive care. T</span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://ysjournal.com/the-critical-shortage-of-healthcare-workers-in-sub-saharan-africa-a-comprehensive-review/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">his
region hosts just 3 per cent</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"> of the world’s
conventionally trained medics, who face one-quarter of the global disease
burden armed with just 1 per cent of its financial resources for healthcare.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even so, the continent does have resources that can help it
cope. Not only has it had extensive experience battling epidemics of infectious
disease, such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the Aids and cholera pandemics,
it also has a wealth of traditional medical expertise that it has barely begun
to exploit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">Talk of indigenous medicine is often greeted with condescending
colonial stereotypes of witch-doctors peddling snake oil. This is not helped by
the ridicule inspired by leaders like former Gambian strongman, </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42754150" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Yahya Jammeh</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">, who claimed
to be able to cure Aids using massages and a herbal concoction, or by the
attempts by the regime in Madagascar to market an unproven and similarly </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/nigeria-madagascars-herbal-drink-cannot-cure-covid-19/1915948" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">ineffective
cure for Covid-19</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">. Back in 1969, Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2018/12/28/doctors-without-orders-why-kenya-should-give-traditional-medicine-and-healers-a-chance/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">condemned
traditional healers</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"> as “lazy cheats who want to live on the sweat of others”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">Yet while quacks and fraudsters doubtless exist, there is
compelling evidence that the majority of practitioners are skilled and
experienced, and that their herbal prescriptions can be effective. As </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468227620300983" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">one
recent study notes</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">, scientific research “continues to validate therapeutic claims
on medicinal plants made by traditional practitioners”. The Kenya Medical
Research Institute also rejects the notion that they are inferior to
conventional remedies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">Recognising this, the World Health Organization and the Africa
Centre for Disease Control </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/who-africa-cdc-form-covid-19-traditional-remedy-panel/1918964" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">are
collaborating</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"> in the use of traditional medicine as a basis for
potential remedies for Covid-19. Indigenous medicine can also help offset
manpower shortages where there are very few conventionally trained healthcare
workers. Across Africa, there is </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/92455/9789241506090_eng.pdf;jsessionid=FF83EF8A0B9EC8E4F63160360CD90A69?sequence=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">one
doctor for every 40,000</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">, but one traditional healer for every 500.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By integrating their expertise and knowledge into the existing
national health system, with appropriate safeguards, countries can bolster the
deficit in medical personnel. This eases the burden on the public health
system, freeing up resources to be employed in dealing with emergencies like
Covid-19.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Three years ago, Kenya’s parliament adopted<strong> <a href="http://www.kenyalaw.org:8181/exist/kenyalex/actview.xql?actid=No.%2021%20of%202017#part_X"><span style="font-weight: normal;">a new health law</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></a></strong>requiring the
government to do just this. To date the law remains unimplemented. Apart from
depriving the country of a valuable asset in the war against Covid-19, the lack
of official recognition leads to continued stigmatisation of traditional
medicine and makes it difficult for the public to distinguish between
fraudsters and genuine practitioners. It starves the sector of the investment
needed to translate indigenous knowledge into cheap, standardised and
accessible medical services and products.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">The problem exists across the continent. While most countries
had by 2018 developed national or state level laws and regulations to govern
traditional medicine, only
three</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222;"> African states</span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;">, Benin, Ghana
and Mali, </span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.who.int/traditional-complementary-integrative-medicine/WhoGlobalReportOnTraditionalAndComplementaryMedicine2019.pdf?ua=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">reported
having an existing national plan</span></a></span><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"> for integrating it
into their national health services. Such plans should be an urgent priority.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span lang="en-KE" style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To tackle Covid-19 effectively, and ensure that it is able to
provide affordable and sustainable medical services in the long term, Africa
will need to mobilise all its resources. It would be a tragedy if, in this
fight, the continent failed to use its most effective weapon: its people and
their knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-KE"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></p>Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com152tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-14119189705579611982020-05-13T08:58:00.001+03:002020-08-24T01:09:24.687+03:00Our Worst Foe Is Civilization<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In November of 1871, the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, contracted typhoid fever, a deadly disease which at the time was blamed on sewer gas, a noxious vapor which arose out of the modern conveniences that were a feature of middle- and upper-class homes. Water closets had been heralded by sanitary science as the safest and most efficient means for disposal and, despite the foul smell they were associated with, having one was still considered a privilege. “The pestilence that walketh in darkness” t<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1871-12-07/9/4.html?region=global#start%3D1785-01-01%26end%3D1985-01-01%26terms%3DIt%20is%20a%20more%20terrible%2C%20more%20constant%2C%20and%20far%20more%20insidious%20danger%20which%20now%20occupies%20the%20foreground%20in%20public%20anxiety%26back%3D/tto/archive/find/It+is+a+more+terrible%25252C+more+constant%25252C+and+far+more+insidious+danger+which+now+occupies+the+foreground+in+public+anxiety/w:1785-01-01%7E1985-01-01/1" target="_blank">he Times called it</a>, declaring that “our worst foe is Civilization”.<br />
<br />
Today the world is stalked by another pestilence, one that does not spare the wealthy and has already afflicted the current Prince of Wales. In the words of the Times 150 years ago, "it is a more terrible, more constant, and far more insidious danger which now occupies the foreground in public anxiety”. Much of the concern is driven by the fact that Covid-19 is not just a disease of the poor. As Prof Alex Broadbent of the University of Johannesburg <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-04-08-is-lockdown-wrong-for-africa/" target="_blank">asks</a>: “Would we care about the increased risk of fatal pneumonia that Covid-19 might cause in Africa, if it did not also greatly increase the risk of fatal pneumonia for prime ministers, business people and university professors, including those in countries where infectious disease and its terrors are supposed to be of historical interest only”? As sewer gas did, coronavirus has “shifted the focus away from the fever dens of the poor to the bedchambers of princes and, more frequently, "ordinary middle-class houses" as sites of disease and death”.<br />
<br />
The pandemic is devastating more than just health systems. It is also shattering the illusion of safety engendered by systems which for centuries have concentrated global resources in a few societies, families and individuals while leaving many across the globe without access to basic life-sustaining necessities. And once again, the blame is being laid at the door of “Civilization”, this time in the form of globalization. "It's globalization that has allowed covid 19 to spread around the world at such incredible speed" <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/made-in-germany-a-stricken-economy-is-globalization-to-blame/av-52803972" target="_blank">declares Deutsche Welle</a>, decrying how reliant the West has become on cheap medicines and products from China and India. illustrating just how dependent the world has become on just one economy, China. declares John Gray.<br />
<br />
The coronavirus has hugely increased, at least in the short term, the costs of global inequality and exploitation. The question is whether “civilization” will win out as it eventually did in London, where following the Prince's recovery, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602365.2014.908589?journalCode=rjar20" target="_blank">sanitary reform</a> became a national priority. Will the global pandemic pave the way for reform of the global system to make it more equitable or is John Gray right when he <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/04/why-crisis-turning-point-history" target="_blank">declares in the New Statesman</a> that “the era of peak globalisation is over”?<br />
<br />
Undoubtedly, continuing along the same path would entail the powerful accepting vulnerability as the price of inequality. After all, while the poor are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/12/paraguay-coronavirus-hungry-social-inequalities" target="_blank">paying a steep price</a> for a disease that the wealthy are primarily responsible for spreading, Max Fisher and Emma Bubola note in their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/coronavirus-inequality.html" target="_blank">piece for the New York Times</a>, that “in an epidemic, poverty and inequality can exacerbate rates of transmission and mortality for everyone”. Therefore in the absence of a vaccine (and a viable one is reckoned to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/19/coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19-nhs" target="_blank">12-18 months away</a>), as long as the poor continue to get sick, so will the rich and powerful. How those at the top of the global food chain, be they the citizens of the global North or elites in the global South, act to reduce that vulnerability will depend on the extent to which they are willing to share the wealth along with the diseases.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">On the other hand, while it is true that economic globalization has been <a href="https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/media/press-releases/2019/10/weaker-world-trade-slowing-globalisation.html" target="_blank">taking a pummeling</a> of late, a significant retreat as Gray prophesies seems unlikely. Already, there is talk of reopening economies and resuming normal life. Yet without globalization and the accompanying “worldwide production and long supply chains”, the new normal would be an expensive one. It is questionable whether countries like the US and Germany could afford to produce goods and medicines at the cost that they import them from countries like China and India. Or whether their citizens would be willing to forgo access to cheap iPhones to protect the one-percenters.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The other option open to the rich and powerful to reduce their vulnerability is to reform the global systems rather than retreat from them. That will require recognition that their privileged lifestyles are underwritten, as Umair Haque, the London-based consultant and author, <a href="https://eand.co/will-coronavirus-really-change-the-world-77d16e860996" target="_blank">notes</a>, by “centuries … of colonialism, capitalism, supremacy, patriarchy”. That has created a world where Europe, which grows no coffee, can make <a href="https://howmuch.net/articles/world-map-of-coffee-exports" target="_blank">5 times more</a> from coffee exports than sub-Saharan Africa which does. The global vulnerability to diseases like covid 19 rests on such distortions and inequalities.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Changing this will be impossible if the mold is not broken. And building a world that works for everyone will require more than just tinkering at the edges. As Haque puts it, “without building global systems, nothing much will change”.<br />
<br />
At the close of the 19th Century, the scourge of sewer gas was not resolved by reducing the number of flush toilets within individual homes and retreating back into a world of cesspools and outhouses. It was ended through improvements in the unseen plumbing and infrastructure that ensured the sewer system worked for everyone. Not only did London get a new sewer system but in the 1870s and 1880s, <a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=6eOlhNkjXaAC&pg=PA517&lpg=PA517&dq=The+Prince%27s+water+closet:+sewer+gas+and+the+city&source=bl&ots=sA8p6RA4-7&sig=ACfU3U1Ei7U-0gMY5vtND0an8YRyj05BkA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj63pPns_voAhVT5eAKHRdZCnoQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=The%20Prince's%20water%20closet%3A%20sewer%20gas%20and%20the%20city&f=false" target="_blank">hundreds of patents</a> for sewer trap designs as well as water closets and flushing devices.<br />
<br />
Similarly, the coronavirus pandemic can provide an impetus for a flood of ideas on how to construct a better global order, rather than for retreating from it. Doing so will not be easy or cheap. But it can be done if the West is willing to invest the resources that it has taken from the rest of the world. And to stop taking a dump on them.<br />
<br /></div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com103tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-72086791978451785922019-06-23T15:36:00.000+03:002019-06-23T15:37:26.383+03:00Press Freedoms Under Threat In Kenya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001330592/blogger-alai-prison-officer-detained-for-two-weeks-over-wajir-attack-photos"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">arrest and detention</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> of two Kenyan bloggers, Robert Alai
and Patrick Safari over pictures of dead Kenyan security officers that shared
on their Twitter timelines has once again shone the spotlight on government
threats to media freedom in the East African country. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
pictures posted by the two showed some of the bodies of 12 police officers </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2019/06/twelve-police-officers-dead-one-injured-after-ied-attack-in-wajir/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">killed</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> when their vehicle ran over a
landmine suspected to have been planted by members of the Somalia-based Al
Shabaab terror group. The bodies had been piled in the back of a government
pick-up in a disrespectful manner. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
government, perhaps predictably, took a dim view of his actions, with the
National Police Service and the National Cohesion and Integration Commission </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019-06-17-alai-lands-himself-in-trouble-with-ncic-over-gruesome-photos/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">both urging</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> the photos to be taken down the
pictures. The police declared in a statement that the bloggers had chosen to “callously
disregard common decency of showing respect to the departed and their families”.
The NCIC chimed in claiming that the pictures would cause despondency among the
country's armed forces and could be construed as “propaganda for war which is
not protected under the constitution”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both institutions
seem apparently oblivious to the irony of claiming that it is not the actual
treatment accorded to the officers’ bodies that showed disrespect but rather
the reporting of it that was the problem. It is however not surprising. Such
attempts at shaming Kenyans into silence are always employed whenever the
government wishes to hush up criticism of its apparent lack of regard for
officers and troops.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In January
2016, after nearly 200 Kenyan soldiers were killed in an Al Shabaab attack on
their base near the Somali town of El Adde, the government also attempted to
suppress any images that would highlight the scale of the failure, even going
as far as to </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2016/01/yassin-juma-also-arrested-for-blogging-kdf-photos/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">arrest and question</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> a number of bloggers and
journalists who posted pictures of the attack (though not necessarily of the
dead) on his Twitter timeline. The government-sponsored hashtag
#HonourOurHeroes was deployed to suggest that those demanding the truth about
how many people died and for senior officers to held to account were somehow
the ones dishonouring the troops, not the clumsy </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/31/africa/kenya-soldiers-el-adde-massacre/index.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">attempt at a cover up</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Earlier
this year, on the third anniversary of that massacre, Al Shabaab militants </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46888682"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">attacked the DusitD2 hotel complex</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> in Nairobi, killing at least 21
people. The New York Times published pictures which showed bodies of some of
the dead, sparking a wave of online outrage from Kenyans on Twitter, calls for
the deportation of their incoming bureau chief and threats of deregistration by
the Media Council of Kenya – a state-funded body which regulates media in
Kenya. At the time, while agreeing with the general consensus that the NYT was
wrong to publish the pictures, some, </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/columnists/2019-01-28-patrick-gathara-take-down-photo-for-press-freedom-sake/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">including me</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">, warned that allowing, and even
encouraging, the government to get involved would establish dangerous precedents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Today, those
chickens are coming home to roost. The legitimization of the use of state power
to intimidate and threaten the media has further emboldened those who are wont
to shut down dissent. It is worth remembering that the Kenya government has had
a long-standing ambition to censor the publication of pictures from terrorist
attack. One attempt in 2014 sought to amend security laws to criminalize the
publication of photographs of the bodies of terrorism victims without the
consent of the police. It was fortunately </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/106083/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">declared unconstitutional</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> for violating the guarantees of
freedom of expression and of the media. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
government is well aware that the High Court in that judgment clearly disagreed
with the idea that “images of dead or injured persons” even those “likely to
cause fear and alarm to the general public or disturb public peace” amounted to
propaganda for war. Though it is yet to state what laws the two bloggers are
supposed to have broken, following </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/video/news/4146788-5163438-3n2ygz/index.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">a court appearance</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">, they will however be jailed
without charge or trial </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001330592/blogger-alai-prison-officer-detained-for-two-weeks-over-wajir-attack-photos"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">for at least two weeks</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> while the police apparently
investigate “claims they might have received the photos from an Al Shabaab sympathizer”.
This despite the fact that a police officer has reportedly been arrested on
suspicion of being </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001330592/blogger-alai-prison-officer-detained-for-two-weeks-over-wajir-attack-photos"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the source of the images</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">. The point of all this seems less
to secure convictions than to harass and intimidate citizens and journalists
into silence. It is little more than an abuse of both police powers of arrest
and of the court process. In addition, the whole saga may also be a ruse to
distract from </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/uhurus-armoured-vehicles-protect-kenyan-officers"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">uncomfortable
questions</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">
regarding the whereabouts and quality of armored and mine-resistant vehicles
that the government </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2017/01/500-police-vehicles-commissioned-kenya-gears-poll/"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">procured for the police</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> three years ago to protect officers
form exactly this sort of attack. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The media
in Kenya should be very afraid. In essence, the government is looking to </span><span lang="en-KE"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Blogger-Robert-Alai-may-face-terrorism-charges/1056-5162962-3kogl7z/index.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">punish reporting</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> that paints it in a bad light. If
this sort of harassment is allowed to stand, it will not be long before regular
journalists find themselves similarly treated when their stories rub the
government the wrong way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br /></div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com147tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-35887907369475777402019-06-20T15:56:00.000+03:002019-06-20T15:56:12.412+03:00BLACK, RED AND GREEN: The story behind the Kenyan flag<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fifty-six years
ago, on July 26, 1963, the national flag of the soon to be newly independent
state of Kenya was unveiled. The standard was typical of the country that had created
it – cobbled together by an elite but imbued with pretensions at unity and
forging common cause with common folk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In those heady
days, as Kenya geared up to party, one could be forgiven for ignoring the
tensions bubbling underneath. The country was in transition and the previous
two years had been marked by political crisis, brinkmanship and even threats of
war and secession. As described in 1964 by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Guardian
</i>journalist Clyde Sanger and former official in the Kenyan colonial
administration, John Nottingham, “During this period Kenya first experienced six
weeks when neither [of the two major political parties, the Kenya African
National Union or the Kenya African Democratic Union] would form a government
and [Governor Patrick Renison] told visitors he was prepared to rule by decree;
10 months in which K.A.D.U., with backing from Michael Blundell's New Kenya
Party and Arvind Jamidar's Kenya Indian Congress, carried on a minority
government sustained by more than a dozen nominated members; and a year in
which K.A.N.U. and K.A.D.U. uneasily joined in a coalition which was as full of
frustrations as it was of intrigues. The politics of nation-building could not
even begin until K.A.N.U. had fought and won a straight democratic election”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today, the messy
story of Kenya’s struggle for independence has largely been swept under the symbolism
of the flag, yet the contradictions and disputes that gave rise to it continue
to haunt the nation as they were never fully resolved. The tale of the flag
itself is a manifestation of these issues.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Historically,
flags were linked to conflict. “The primordial rag dipped in the blood of a
conquered enemy and lifted high on a stick – that wordless shout of victory and
dominion – is a motif repeated millions of times in human existence,” wrote Whitney
Smith in his book </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flags-through-ages-across-world/dp/0070590931"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Flags Through the Ages
and Across the World</span></i></a></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">.</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> Modern flags evolved out of the battle standards carried into war by
ancient armies and “were almost certainly the invention of the ancient peoples
of the Indian subcontinent or what is now China” according to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Encyclopedia Britannica.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In battle, flags
were both symbolic and practical. They provided mobile rallying points for
soldiers engaged in combat, could be used to signify victory or even, in plain
white form, a truce or surrender. In the days before radio communications, they
were also ways of communicating across vast distances, especially by sailors.
In the modern age, they are still carry powerful symbolic significance. “Show
me the race or the nation without a flag, and I will show you a race of people
without any pride,” Marcus Garvey was reported to have declared in 1921.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the African
continent, almost all the current national flags were created in the years
following the Second World War and in the run-up to the demise of colonialism.
Many still bear hallmarks of that colonial past. According to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, the ensigns of
countries that had a common colonial past “bear strong family resemblances to
one another”. It distinguishes two major categories: those former French
colonies which “tend to have vertical tricolours and are generally
green-yellow-red” and those of the Anglophone which “have horizontal tricolours
and often include green, blue, black, and white.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kenya’s standard
also carries this history. It can be traced directly to that of the Kenya
African Union, which was founded in 1942 under the name Kenya African Study
Union, with Harry Thuku as its president. The flag of the KAU (the word “Study”
was dropped in 1946) adopted the Pan-African colours pioneered by Garvey’s Universal
Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League 25 years before –
red, black and green, which respectively represented the blood that unites all
people of Black African ancestry and which was shed for liberation; the race of
black people as a nation; and the natural wealth of Africa. (It must be noted,
though, that some have suggested that when Garvey proposed the colours, he
meant the latter two to reflect sympathy for the “Reds of the world” as well as
the Irish struggle for freedom.)</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, when
originally introduced on September 3, 1951, according to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, KAU’s flag was
only black and red with a central shield and arrow. The following year, the
background was altered to three equal horizontal stripes of black, red and
green with a white central emblem consisting of a shield and crossed spear and
arrow, together with the initials “KAU”. At the time the black stood for the
indigenous population, red for the common blood of all humanity, green symbolised
the nation’s fertile land while the shield and weapons were a reminder that
organised struggle was the basis for future self-government.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Jomo Kenyatta took
over the presidency of KAU from James Gichuru in 1947. Five years later, as
reported by Karari wa Njama, a Mau Mau veteran and alumnus of Alliance High
School, in the book </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mau-Within-Analysis-Kenyas-Peasant/dp/0853451354"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Mau Mau from Within</span></i></a></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">,
</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Kenyatta’s
explanation of the significance of the KAU flag had changed. “What he said must
mean that our fertile lands (green) could only be regained by the blood (red)
of the African (black). That was it! The black was separated from the green by
the red: The African could only get to his land through blood.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kenyatta was speaking
in Nyeri as the Mau Mau uprising was gathering steam. Though billed as a KAU
meeting, Karari says that “"most of the organisers of the meeting were Mau
Mau leaders and most of the crowd Mau Mau members". <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Yet Kenyatta himself
had little to do with the Mau Mau. On the contrary, he consistently denied any
involvement with them and is, in fact, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1952kenyatta-kau1.asp"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> – on the same day – as having distinguished the KAU from the uprising
and having disavowed the use of violence. “He who calls us the Mau Mau is not
truthful. We do not know this thing Mau Mau…K.A.U. is not a fighting union that
uses fists and weapons. If any of you here think that force is good, I do not
agree with you: remember the old saying that he who is hit with a rungu
returns, but he who is bit with justice never comes back. I do not want people
to accuse us falsely – that we steal and that we are Mau Mau.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">However, Karari’s recollection
is important given that the red in the Kenyan flag would later be </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.kenyaembassyparis.org/about-kenya/national-symbols"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">claimed</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> to reflect “the blood that was shed in the fight for independence”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">By 1956, the Mau
Mau revolt had been brutally quashed and gradually the restrictions on
political organisation were eased. In 1960, the eight-year State of Emergency
was lifted and the ban on colony-wide African political parties relaxed. KANU
was founded on May 14 of that year and, as Charles Hornsby writes in his book </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kenya-History-Independence-Charles-Hornsby/dp/1780765010"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Kenya: A History Since
Independence</span></i></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">,
“its name, black, red and green flag and symbols were chosen as a direct
successor to those of KAU”. At some point, the cockerel and battle axe were
introduced as symbols of the party. A month later, on June 25, KADU was formed.
John Kamau, an Associate Editor with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily
Nation</i> has </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/analysis/Remove-Kenyatta-mischief-from-flag/539548-1738618-phnuwtz/index.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">written</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> that the “Kanu and Kadu flags were similar in design. Both had three
horizontal bands and two similar colours, black and green. The difference was
only in the third colour, red for Kanu and white for Kadu.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">KANU was dominated
by the large agricultural communities – the Kikuyu and Luo – while KADU represented
smaller, mostly pastoral ones, which feared domination. KANU won the 1961
election but refused to form a government before Kenyatta, who had been detained
in 1952, was released. KADU, after extracting some concessions from the
British, which included building Kenyatta a house in Gatundu and moving him
there, formed a minority government with its head, Ronald Ngala, as Leader of
Government Business and later as Chief Minister.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was only in
September, after it had been in power for five months, that KADU begun to
foster an issue that would come to define the conflict between the two parties.
KADU espoused Majimbo, or regionalism, in opposition to KANU’s preference for a
highly centralised post-independence state. KADU was egged on by the white
colonial establishment to adopt this stand.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As explained by
Sanger and Nottingham:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">“Majimbo's origins should be traced further
back, to Federal Independence Party formed in 1954 by white farmers, who saw
that political control would one day pass into African hands and wanted to seal
off the 'White Highlands' from an African central government and save the great
wealth of the Highlands for those considered had been solely responsible for developing
it.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">“Indeed,
regionalism really goes much further back than this. </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elspeth_Huxley"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Elspeth
Huxley</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">recalls </a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">that the F.I.P. was only proposing to 'develop
the "white island" idea … to carve out a small territory, about the
size of Wales, comprising present areas of the Highlands. In this area they
would exercise self-government; so would the Africans in other areas; and Kenya
would become a federation of three or four smallish states, in only one <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">of </a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">which would the colonists have political
control. Here they would entrench themselves.'”<o:p></o:p></span><br />x</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is interesting
that devolution, which is rooted in the Majimbo debates, has become a pillar of
the 2010 constitution. Many Kenyans do not realise just how much current
political debates are a reflection of much older, and not always innocent,
proposals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">KANU, in
opposition, was vociferously opposed to Majimbo, which it saw as entrenching
tribalism. And by the second Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, which
lasted from February to April 1962, both sides seemed, at least rhetorically,
firmly entrenched in their positions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">But it was mostly
for show. As Prof. Robert Manners </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4184349"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">wrote</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> at the time, “The contesting parties are less
divided by issues, programs, and even concepts of political structure than they
are by competing personal ambitions.” He added that he had spoken to several
within the KADU camp, including two front benchers, who told him that they were
not really afraid of KANU domination but rather, were cynically hyping up fears
for personal benefit. “In short, it is fairly certain that KADU's leadership
does not share the ‘tribal’ fears they have helped to arouse in their
followers. They have employed some ancient anxieties and provoked a number of
new ones with the apparently calculated intent of prolonging in some measure
and for some time the freakish position of power with which they were endowed
when KANU refused, in April 1961, to form a government.” Sound familiar?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Regardless, the
outcome of the conference was a coalition government led by both Ngala, the Minister
of State for Constitutional Affairs with special responsibility for
administration, and Kenyatta, who had since been released and was now the Minister
of State for Constitutional Affairs with special responsibility for economic
planning and development. Each declared victory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">This “nusu mkate” government
was a fractious affair from which Kenyatta’s Number Two in KANU had been
excluded at the insistence of the Colonial Office. In his book, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Not-Yet-Uhuru-Autobiography-Oginga/dp/0435900382"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Not Yet Uhuru</span></i></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">, Oginga Odinga speculated that “Governor Renison
persuaded the Colonial office that my visits to Socialist countries made me
unfit to take Cabinet office”. He was also aware of “behind-the-scenes
discussions in London in which some Kanu men hinted that I would be
unacceptable not only to Kadu but even to some groups in Kanu”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, the
coalition held till the elections in 1963, which KANU again won handily and
this time they got to form the government, with Kenyatta as Prime Minister. In
June, Kenya attained self-government and arrangements for independence began in
earnest. Among the issues that would need to be settled was the question of a
political union with neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania. As late as July, the
idea of an East African Federation was still being taken seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">A month before, on
July 5, Kenyatta and his Ugandan and Tanganyikan counterparts, Milton Obote and
Julius Nyerere, had issued the </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=gqTjUjdvTQwC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=We,+the+leaders+of+the+people+and+governments+of+East+Africa%E2%80%A6+pledge+ourselves+to+the+political+federation+of+East+Africa.+Our+meeting+today+is+motivated+by+the+spirit+of+Pan-Africanism,+and+not+by+mere+selfish+regional+interests.+%E2%80%A6+We+believe+that+the+East+African+Federation+can+be+a+practical+step+towards+the+goal+of+Pan-African+unity.+We+share+a+common+past,+and+are+convinced+of+our+common+destinies.&source=bl&ots=AuncP6nAsC&sig=2uM1JciBcLFXyeZP9J4MQONw1uQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil1oOQhMHcAhWKyYUKHWxGD94Q6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=We%2C%20the%20leaders%20of%20the%20people%20and%20governments%20of%20East%20Africa%E2%80%A6%20pledge%20ourselves%20to%20the%20political%20federation%20of%20East%20Africa.%20Our%20meeting%20today%20is%20motivated%20by%20the%20spirit%20of%20Pan-"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Declaration of Federation</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">, in which they committed to establishing a
political federation by the end of the year. This was another idea with a long
history, pioneered by the white colonial settler establishment who, as far back
as the 1920s, were ready to establish a federal capital in Nairobi in order to
reduce the influence of London in the region. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The region was
already tied together by a network of more than 40 different East African
institutions covering areas such as research, social services,
education/training and defence. As Nyerere had observed in March, “A federation
of at least Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika should be comparatively easy to
achieve. We already have a common market, and run many services through the
Common Services Organisation…This is the nucleus from which a federation is the
natural growth.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">When the issue
came up for </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1963/jul/15/kenya"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">debate</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> in the UK’s House of Lords on July 15, Francis Twining warned of the
difficulties of federation since it involved the loss of sovereignty which “these
new countries value … above all else. They jealously prize their status
symbols, such as national flags and national anthems”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">And, as Nyerere
himself would </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://gathara.blogspot.com/2010/02/towards-united-states-of-africa.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">admit</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> 34 years later, flags and other national symbols, rather than tools to
rally unity, had become tools of personal aggrandisement and actually stood in
the way of such unity. “Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and
national passports, seats at the United Nations, and individuals entitled to 21
guns salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers, and envoys,
you have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping
Africa balkanised.” Across the continent, attempts at political federation met
quick deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">As Kenya moved
towards independence, some within Kenyatta’s circle wanted to use the KANU flag
as the national flag. This was not without precedent. As Tom Mboya, the
brilliant young Justice and Constitutional minister, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/political-mischief-Kenyan-flag/1064-4231568-sg3i6i/index.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">noted</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">, “It is not without significance that our neighbours, Tanganyika and
Uganda, both saw it fit to use the ruling party flag simply as a basis for the
national flag.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, Mboya
cautioned against simply adopting the KANU flag, warning that it would further
polarise the country. He managed to convince Kenyatta, who formed a small
committee chaired by Dawson Mwanyumba, the Minister for Works, Communication
and Power, to come up with the national colours. Doing so was not difficult
because he was not really looking for national colours but rather a political
compromise everyone could live with. So he did the obvious thing and combined
the colours of the KANU and KADU flag by introducing the white fimbriation. The
flag retained and updated the elements of the KAU flag, such as the shield and
spears. The KANU cockerel and axe were omitted from the flag but made it onto
the coat of arms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When the flag was
shown to the cabinet, the meaning of the red colour matched what Karari had understood
Kenyatta to say over a decade before. Rather than simply including KADU, the
white fimbriation was said to symbolise a multiracial society but the cabinet
changed it to “peace”, perhaps a sign that while racial minorities would be
tolerated in the new Kenya, their integration was not necessarily on the agenda.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">But there were
other issues related to minorities to be settled. In the northeast, the Somali
population was in open revolt.</span> <span style="background-color: white;">A 1962
survey had found that 85 percent of Somalis preferred to join Somalia. However,
in March 1963, Duncan Sandys, the Colonial Secretary, under pressure from
Kenyan ministers, supported a Kenyan future for them. This sparked mass protests,
an election boycott, calls for armed secession and attacks on government facilities.
By November, the so-called Shifta war was raging, with audacious attacks by
rebels armed and trained by Somalia.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Nairobi, Mboya pushed
an amendment to the National Flag, Emblems and Names Act to outlaw the display
of flags purporting to represent Kenya or a part thereof. This was meant to
stop the Somalis flying the Somalia flag in the Northern Frontier District. But
it also had other targets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">At the third and
final Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, held between late September
and mid-October 1963, tensions were so high that KADU leaders Ngala and Daniel
arap Moi, who had been elected President of the Rift Valley Region, threatened to
secede from Kenya, with Moi releasing a partition map and threatening a
unilateral declaration of independence. (Again, sound familiar?) </span><span style="background-color: white;">There were
even suspicions of an alliance with the Somalis in the NFD, which were fueled
by a cable from Jean Seroney, at the London talks, to Moi: “Dishonourable
betrayal of majimbo agreement by Britishers. Alert Kalenjin and region and Kadu
to expect and prepare for worst. Partition and operation Somalia only hope.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mboya’s motion was
thus not just aimed at the Somalis; the threats of secession by KADU regions
had to be put down and one way was to deny them the right to fly flags
purporting to represent an autonomous, or even independent, part of Kenya. Local
councils, though, like the Nairobi City Council, were allowed to have their own
flags.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There would be
more drama surrounding the flag on independence day. The symbolism of lowering
the Union Jack at midnight right before the Kenyan flag went up was profoundly
discomfitting to the British. They determined that their flag would not be
raised for the event after it had been lowered, as was customary, at 6pm.
Kenyatta, who by now was their reliable lackey, was happy to go with it but
when he presented the plan to the Cabinet, it was shot down, largely thanks to
Mboya. So another plan was hatched with Arthur Horner, the former Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Works and then the head of the Independence
Celebrations Directorate (the body charged with organising the event), who secretly
ordered to put out the lights as the British standard came down and switch them
back on as the Kenyan flag was raised. It was a ploy the Brits had pulled
before, in both Uganda and Tanganyika.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On 30<sup>th</sup>
July, just a few days after the national flag had been introduced, Kenyatta had
given a ministerial statement on the independence day celebrations in which he bemoaned
the people’s penchant to fly party flags wherever and whenever they desired,
declaring it illegal. The national flag, he declared, would only be flown by
“Cabinet Ministers and other authorised persons” and its reproduction, along
with that of Kenyatta’s own portrait, would be strictly controlled. In this
way, under the guise of honouring it, the flag was shielded from the masses and
reserved for the glorification of the ruling elite. The flag, and the state it
stood for, became the property of a few, not of all Kenyans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After
independence, this “protection” of the flag from the people, who were deemed too
unclean to handle it, continued with frequent debates in Parliament about who
could and who couldn’t fly it. Under Jomo Kenyatta’s successors, the law and
the policy has remained largely unchallenged.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">But the last two
decades have seen the beginnings of a popular movement to claim the Kenyan flag.
It has become ever more present in Kenyans’ lives – from activists like Njonjo
Mue, who in 2004 scaled the walls of Parliament and </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Njonjo-Mue--Activist-election-petition/1064-4177542-dshul7z/index.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">ripped the flag off a cabinet minister’s ca</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">r as a way of demonstrating the government’s loss
of moral authority to govern, and who more recently has been charged with flying
the flag on his own car, to the many Kenyans brandishing it during public
rallies and sporting events (it even famously made an appearance at the World
Cup) it seems that, as Kenyatta feared 55 years ago, “every Tom, Dick and
Harry” is flying it. He must be turning in his mausoleum. Good.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, besides
reclaiming the use of the flag, Kenyans need to also consider what it means
today. If it is not to be a tool of personal aggrandisement or unthinking and
enforced veneration of the state, then what should it be used for? Who or what
does it represent? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the years since
independence, it has been a symbol, not of Kenyans and their struggles against
oppression, but of Kenya and the power the continues to be wielded against them.
The rituals associated with the flag and other symbols such as the national
anthem, both reinforce and, paradoxically, disguise this. It is clear in the
common statement that “Kenya is greater than any one of us” which at once distinguishes
Kenya from Kenyans while also proclaiming the myth that the state is something
more than a largely self-serving political arrangement between elites competing
for power and prestige. Kenya, we are rather told, is a divinely-ordained an
eternally established ordering of Kenyans to which we all owe allegiance and
subservience. It recalls a time in my childhood when I was informed that
suicide was illegal because it deprived the state of taxes, as if Kenyans were made
for Kenya and not the other way around. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the week where
we mark the anniversary of Kenyatta’s “Tom, Dick and Harry” statement to the
House of Representatives, perhaps we could all take some time to remember all
the history – good and bad – that the flag represents, as well as reflect on
what else it could stand for. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We can choose, and
many are choosing, to reinterpret its design and colours to suit, not the
ambitions and egos of politicians, but the realities and aspirations of
ordinary Kenyans. As it did for Karari wa Njama all those years ago, it should
today serve as a reminder of the need to continue the struggle to free ourselves
from the existing colonially-inspired order – that despite 55 years of
independence, the black is still separated from the green.</span></span></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-38062738493614783792019-02-01T12:27:00.000+03:002019-02-01T12:27:59.887+03:00Matiang'i: Uhuru's Middle Finger To The Constitution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">President
Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent elevation of Fred Matiang’i to “chief” of the Cabinet
Secretaries has been widely interpreted as a swipe against his deputy, William
Ruto. While there may be some truth in that, it feels like once again the
country is missing the wood for the trees. The appointment is also a swipe
against the constitution itself, part an unrelenting assault that the President
and his party have mounted on the document since their campaign for office in
2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To
understand why this is the case, one needs to think back to the illegal
deportation of Miguna Miguna, the self- declared “General” of the National
Resistance Movement. Many will recall that this action, which came in the
aftermath of Raila Odinga’s mock swearing in at the end of January,
precipitated standoffs between the Executive and the Judiciary, with the former
disobeying multiple court orders to produce him in court and return his Kenyan
passport.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In
December, the High Court ruled on Miguna’s constitutional challenge to the government’s
action and agreed in toto with him. In fact, Justice Chacha Mwita found that
Matiang’i, as well as the Inspector General of Police, Joseph Boinnet and
Immigration Permanent Secretary, Gordon Kihalangwa, had violated the rule of
law, the constitution and that their conduct amounted to abuse of their office.
The constitution prescribes that such conduct is grounds for removal from
office, not promotion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the
context in which we should understand President Kenyatta’s actions. He has
basically flashed the constitution his middle finger and, by so rewarding,
rather than firing, one who has so callously violated it, demonstrated his own
contempt for the document and the institutions and standards it establishes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This
contempt has been on display even before he became President. It was his and
Ruto’s candidacy for the highest office while indicted for crimes against
humanity at the International Criminal Court that made a nonsense of the
constitution’s prescriptions on leadership and integrity. Today, he appears completely
oblivious of the irony when he says that no person charged or implicated in
corruption will get a State appointment until they are cleared, as a measure of
dealing with graft.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But it is
not only the President who is at fault. The constitution give Parliament the
duty of oversight over Cabinet Secretaries and MPs can initiate a process for
removing those that are guilty of gross misconduct. Yet to date, there has been
no attempt to probe Matiangi’s conduct or even calls for his resignation or
removal. Neither has any of the MPs raised their voice in protest at his
elevation except in as much as it concerns the fortunes of Ruto.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The media,
too, has not shown any particularly interest in rocking the political boat,
instead preferring to let the politicians take the rudder. As always, the press
has been entrance by the drama of of our personalized political contests (and
especially the fate of Ruto’s ambitions to succeed Kenyatta) and are blind to
the substance of the issues such contests skirt around. Quite the contrary, the
media has been only too keen to lionize Matiangi’ and to present him as the
savior of the wananchi, rather than the dangerous lawbreaker he is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And we have
been here before. In 2004, it was the late John “The Crusher” Michuki who was
all the rage, the media again doing little to question his methods and
motivations. They would pay dearly for that when he would authorize the 2006
raid on the Standard premises and order a news black out in the wake of the
violence that followed the 2007 election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finally,
failed by their representatives and kept singularly uninformed by the press, Kenyans
have also been unable, even unwilling, to recognize the threat that allowing
the several arms of government to subvert the constitution poses. After more
than a century of governmental repression both before and after independence,
the arrangements and duties in the 2010 constitution were primarily aimed at
achieving one thing that its predecessor had failed to do: to bring the Leviathan to heel. That failure inaugurated half a century of brutal, murderous and kleptocratic
regimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet nearly
a decade after Kenyans voted overwhelmingly to adopt it, the constitution faces
a similar fate: amended or simply ignored into irrelevance. And with no one to
stand for it, this is a fight the constitution cannot win.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-80733859747647911422019-01-19T10:14:00.000+03:002019-01-19T10:19:33.660+03:00Kenya vs NYT is not about press freedom. But it could be.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The New York Times decision to publish graphic images of victims of
Tuesday’s terror attack at Dusit D2 Hotel in Nairobi and the </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Twitter-storm-after-NYT-publishes-bodies-of-Dusit-attack/1056-4936838-102d3fyz/index.html">backlash</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> it has engendered online
have sparked furious debates about everything from the perceived racism of the
foreign press, to media ethics and the limits of press freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Many shades of opinion have been expressed with some seeing the
photographs and the NYT’s refusal to take them down as a continuation of
violence against the victims and their families, and as evidence of </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-photographs-of-dead-in-nairobi-terror-attack-failed-journalism-and-dishonoured-victims-110010">racist
double-standards</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> in the reporting on terrorist atrocities. Others have opposed the
torrent of personal abuse and </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.change.org/p/media-council-of-kenya-journalism-in-kenya-must-protect-human-dignity">calls
for deportation</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> visited on incoming NYT bureau chief, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura
following her </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://hapakenya.com/2019/01/16/why-kimiko-de-freytas-should-not-be-allowed-to-continue-reporting-in-kenya/">initial
tone-deaf and seemingly dismissive responses</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> to complaints on social
media. Now t</span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.pulselive.co.ke/news/media-council-of-kenya-issues-24-hour-warning-to-new-york-times-to-remove-photos-of/57tqmc2">hreats</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> by the state in the guise
of the Media Council of Kenya to revoke or suspend her and her colleagues’
media accreditation if the Times did not remove the images and issue an
unconditional apology have also opened up a regulatory can of worms.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Photographs of deceased victims of terror attacks strike a particularly
sensitive chord in Kenya and it is not just the foreign media that has found
itself on the receiving end of a social media backlash. Following the 2013
attack on the Westgate Mall, in which 68 people lost their lives, the Sunday
Nation was </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.imediaethics.org/gory-front-page-photo-of-mall-attack-kenyas-the-nation-apologizes-ny-daily-news-runs-same-front-page-image-graphic/">excoriated
and forced to apologize</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> after it published on its front page a gory photo of bloodied and
screaming woman. Three years ago, the government arrested and threatened to
prosecute bloggers for circulating pictures of dead Kenyan soldiers following
the overrunning of their base in Somalia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">While extremely sensitive, it is not one that lessens Kenyans’ general commitment
to press freedom. Fifteen months after Westgate, many were outraged when the
government </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Chaos-as-MPs-pass-contested-security-laws/3946234-2561728-gw33mez/index.html">rammed
through Parliament</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> amendments to security laws that included a prohibition on the
publication or broadcast of images of terror victims without the consent of both
the police and the victim. The law was later struck down by the courts which </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/106083/">ruled</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> it infringed on the
constitutional guarantees of press freedom and freedom of expression. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Media editors also have to contend with evolving community standards and
attitudes as well as social media’s empowering of audiences to forcefully
express themselves. Two decades ago, in what seems a completely different era,
graphic images of victims of the 1998 bombing of the of the US Embassy in
Nairobi in which 224 people died, caused little uproar. And while </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/06/18/conflict-over-cause-of-death-of-protester_c1371126">pictures
of victims of state violence</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> do not always attract the
same umbrage, the traumatizing and, in many ways, uniting effect of terror
incidents gives their expression particular force.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It is within this context that we must understand the reaction to the
publication of the photographs. The New York Times </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/new-york-times-responds-to-concerns-raised-by-the-media-council-of-kenya/">claims</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> it was motivated by the
need “to give our readers around the world a clear picture of the horror of an
attack like this”. However, many are not buying it, pointing out that, despite
the paper’s assertions to the contrary, similar standards are rarely applied to
white and US victims. In a telling </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/reader-center/nairobi-kenya-photo.html">interview
explaining the Dusit D2 decision</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">, Meaghan Looram, the NYT’s
director of photography admitted that she could not recall seeing pictures of
victims of school shootings in the US and the need to abandon historical
notions that “may have applied different standards to material from locations
broadly thought to be remote or “over there,” rather than close to home.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">But it is these same racist notions that have seen the paper refuse to bring
down the offending photograph despite </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/over-14k-people-sign-petition-to-have-nyt-remove-gory-dusit-images/">over
14,000 people signing a petition</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> for it to do so. That this
demand is being made by ordinary Kenyans is what should matter. It is not about
censorship by the state. Rather, Kenyans are demanding that the folks
at the New York Times choose humanity over their editorial policy. It should be
a no-brainer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019/01/18/dusit-attack-mck-fires-back-at-new-york-times-justification-response_c1880295">stand-off
with the MCK</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> is thus unnecessary. But it does have rather toxic implications for
press freedom in Kenya. Not only does it make it easier for the state to
isolate and target the foreign press corps, something </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://nairobiwire.com/2014/12/full-text-al-jazeeras-response-to-kenya-governments-threat-of-legal-action.html">it
has previously done</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">, but giving the government a taste of the power to decide what content
media can carry could whet its appetite for more. As was demonstrated with the
2014 security laws amendments and again with </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/government-ends-media-shutdown/">a
shutdown of local private broadcasters</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> for a week last year, this
is no idle threat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0C00; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, for the sake of humanity and press freedom, the Times must take down
the photo. And an apology would be nice too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-23730550538195493382019-01-15T22:37:00.000+03:002019-01-15T22:50:18.926+03:00How to Talk About Terror Attacks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The attack on the Dusit D2 hotel complex seems frighteningly familiar. From the images of people crouching along flower beds as gunshots ring out, to the smoke billowing from the top of the building, to the report of people hiding in rooms from terrorists, it feels like a rerun of the attack on the Westgate Mall in September, 2013.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are crucial differences though. The government's response was much faster and appeared much better coordinated than it was at Westgate. The government communications are also much better managed, if not exactly more informative - at least the confusion of five years ago has not been repeated.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, some things have sadly remained the same. The media coverage, for example, has largely consisted on regurgitating the government line and especially urging Kenyans to desist from sharing information that the state has not verified. This has been taken to ridiculous extremes, with analysts on one TV news station warning that terming the attack a terrorist act before the government declares it to be one is aiding the terrorists. On social media, there is talk of the circulation of fake pictures and news as well as constant admonitions against sharing anything. As KTN's Lindah Oguttu put it, "the less you say, the better". </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Given the country's long familiarity with attacks, especially since 2011, you would think that Kenyans would have figured out a way to talk about and around ongoing operations against terrorists. Yet across both mainstream and social media, the message is the same - follow the government's lead. This is despite the state's equally long record of lying and obfuscation during and after terrorist attacks. Rather than keeping the public informed, its primary goal has been to deflect any criticism and pre-empt any calls for accountability.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For example, nearly everything government officials said about Westgate turned out to be false. In fact, while the attack itself was done and the attackers either dead or had escaped by the evening of the first day, the security forces maintained an elaborate fiction of fighting terrorists while they systematically looted the mall for three days.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today's attack comes on the third anniversary of the sacking of a camp manned by the Kenyan contingent of the African Union Mission in Somalia during which at least 173 Kenyan troops were killed. Once again, the government's rendition of the facts surrounding the attack turned out to be largely a work of fiction. To date, it has refused to disclose the exact number of casualties and its initial descriptions of facing 3 massive truck bombs and "truckloads of suicide bombers" were designed to exaggerate the scale of the attack in order to explain away the fact that the camp had been overrun.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is thus clear that the government cannot be trusted to provide accurate information on terror attacks. While it is equally true that the unmitigated spread of information among citizens, especially through social media, can harm security operations, when the government makes appeals for restraint, it is hard not to think of its past lies and to wonder what it is trying to hide this time.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus a discussion of how better to report on, or speak about, ongoing operations against terrorists must begin with addressing the state's mendacity. For as long as the government refuses to consistently deal truthfully and honestly with its citizens, it will be folly to ask them to ignore their suspicions of its motives. In any case, the idea that following an attack, citizens must suspend their thinking faculties, and blindly and unquestioningly support the government's every whim, is the very definition of being terrorized.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And it is not a very smart thing to do either.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-37655640431784196572019-01-10T23:27:00.001+03:002019-01-10T23:27:28.025+03:00WHAT IS YOUR TRIBE? The Invention Of Kenya’s Ethnic Communities <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">David Ndii’s decision
to </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidNdii/status/970311931285340160">publicly renounce
Kikuyu ethnicity</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> last year and adopt a “Jaluo” one may spark a long overdue
debate about the nature of ethnicity in Kenya and in Africa. For many people,
both on the continent and outside it, the idea of tribe - with its connotations
of strong, primitive, primordial ethnicity and ancient cultural traditions - is
an indispensable part of African identity. The makers of the blockbuster
superhero movie, </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Black Panther</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, who
imagined the fictional African state of Wakanda as the most technologically
advanced nation in the world</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and one that retained its essential character</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, still felt
constrained to organise that nation into tribes. Africans are first and
foremost seen as tribesmen or tribeswomen and tribe is taken for granted as the
best explanation for their actions. This idea is so deeply ingrained that few
ever bother to question it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet question it we
should. For rather than something indelibly encoded into the African genetic
make-up and over which one exercises little choice, tribe turns out to be
largely an artificial construct. The fact is, there is a marked difference
between how ordinary Africans, including Kenyans, think of tribe and its
origins and what history and social science has to say about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To begin with, just
what is a tribe? Even this question turns out to be not as straightforward as
some would have us believe. “Tribe has no coherent meaning” wrote Dr.
Christopher Lowe of Boston University in his 1997 paper “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.colby.edu/academics_cs/courses/HI398/upload/Talking_About_Tribe.doc">Talking
about ‘Tribe’: Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis</a></i></span>”. “If by
tribe we mean a social group that shares a single territory, a single language,
a single political unit, a shared religious tradition, a similar economic
system, and common cultural practices, such a group is rarely found in the real
world,” he wrote. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What? But people do
identify as Kikuyus or Luos, no? And they have done this for ages, haven’t
they? Well, yes and no. People have always banded together in groups in search
of security. As they grew, such groups, initially defined by kinship relations,
developed common ways of responding to and relating with the world around them,
as well as systems to manage relations within the group. But since the world
kept changing, so did these groups. Some were subsumed into others, some got
separated and developed along different paths, others disappeared altogether. Customs
and languages changed. The idea that our current ethnic communities have
survived unchanged from ancient times is plainly false. As Prof. Scott
MacEachern of Bowdoin College in the US <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Scott_Maceachern/publication/12278428_Genes_Tribes_and_African_History/links/09e41500ed80c3c494000000/Genes-Tribes-and-African-History.pdf?_sg%5B0%5D=PvvKrrbP1fOUPPxlmlMWG1msQGVRZP8b0Oai1fbtvmOO1fMwsz-chEEhfumOgQus-vPx_0teZSG5Agi3piBOXA.WJoIVvuc2JEqRvuzPEPF5CgKr7kR2q5gihUMRb7XDAvTtSAEniPjwNQnu5ABVxrTabW8EhxVyyvZs9mutfFD5g&_sg%5B1%5D=HeGFYeVVndfmLzkeG6wq3lLXBHwL-ehmJTsWi-uMqUwFhdokoVoquYgdeBs0gBD8VMGmC6bdo2AvRGf2OywpwwtJe6QfPteDltbW6iuD1ERu.WJoIVvuc2JEqRvuzPEPF5CgKr7kR2q5gihUMRb7XDAvTtSAEniPjwNQnu5ABVxrTabW8EhxVyyvZs9mutfFD5g&_iepl=">says</a></span>,
“‘Tribal’ and/or ethnic identities have never been primordial and immutable, in
Africa or elsewhere.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">In fact, our current
ethnic formations - some of which did not even exist a century ago - and our
understanding of how they relate to each other, are the products of much more
recent events. “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #333333;">What
is a tribe?” </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n17/mahmood-mamdani/what-is-a-tribe">asks</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #333333;"> Mahmood Mamdani, the Executive
Director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research. “It is very largely a
creation of laws drawn up by a colonial state which imposes group identities on
individual subjects and thereby institutionalises group life… Above all, tribe
was a politically driven, totalising identity.”</span><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The politicisation of
ethnic identity began with the colonial experience,” says Prof. Kimani Njogu in
the recent Africa Uncensored documentary titled <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubeb3-VQjew">In Tribe We Trust</a></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> According to the book <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://open.bu.edu/bitstream/handle/2144/23137/ethnicitypolitic00youn.pdf?sequence=1">Ethnicity
and African Politics</a></i></span> by Crawford Young, “although the ethnic
labels… have pre-colonial origins, they became comprehensive and rigidly ranked
categories only in the colonial period; they were heavily influenced by
imperial codifications and further transformed by politicised actions in the
last half-century.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;">Clearly, pre-colonial peoples had their ideas as to who they were and how
they related to the world around them. But what we call tribes</span><span lang="EN-US"> today bears little semblance to the ever-changing aboriginal
identities they fashioned and would probably be completely unrecognisable to
them. In any case, the idea that today’s ethnic communities necessarily grew
out of kinship relations is bogus. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">In pre-colonial
societies, as Young explains, ethnicity was a fungible cultural artefact, one
that was not necessarily encoded into one’s genes, attached to particular
homelands or imbued with ideas of political sovereignty. Individuals and even
entire societies could navigate in and out of them. In fact, even the ideas of kinship
and shared ancestry were “notoriously malleable to serve contemporary social or
ideological purposes. But once rooted in the social consciousness, mythology
convincingly impersonates reality.” For example, a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://web.artsci.wustl.edu/tparsons/tparsons/journal_articles/parsonsbeingkikuyuinmeru.pdf">study</a></span>
by Timothy Parsons of Washington University details how the colonial government
once urged </span><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Meru</span><span lang="EN-US"> elders to accept anyone willing to bow to their authority as Meru.
He further states that “Kikuyu” was more an expression of agricultural
expertise than a coherent or bounded ethnic group.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, for a colonial
administration that required order and control in order to facilitate its
extractive aim, such inexactitude was unacceptable. Confronted with the reality
of the diversity on the African continent, the European colonisers tried to hammer
it into compliance with their preconceived ideas. Much of this was accomplished
using administrative measures and backed up by brute force. Young writes: “The
task of the colonial state was to discover, codify, and map an ethnic geography
for their newly conquered domains, according to the premise that the continent
was inhabited by ‘tribal man.’ This ethnic template, as imagined by the coloniser,
became the basis for administrative organisation.” Parsons adds that “faced
with a confusing range of fluid ethnicities when they conquered Kenya, colonial
officials sought to shift conquered populations into manageable administrative
units.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">Thus colonialism
imposed its own version of order, superimposed its idea of tribes bounded
within district boundaries on this ethnic patchwork, and even created an
entirely new “</span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">traditional</span><span lang="EN-US">” administrative structure in the form of tribal chiefs who were
actually state employees. Young writes of “the illusion that colonial ethnic
mappings were historically authentic”. In this way, the state created the tribe
which, in turn, became, as Parsons states, “the basic unit of government,
education, labour, law, and most importantly land tenure.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The late Prof Terence
Ranger, in his famous 1983 essay on <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/20121/files/3452640/download?verifier=e7tRI1MQ6ymmESI8n7UuA2aCSKHgburL78Wd3TN5&wrap=1">The
Invention Of Tradition in Colonial Africa</a></i></span>, shows how invented
traditions, both European and African, were a crucial plank in allowing colonial
settlers and administrators to “define themselves as natural and undisputed
masters of vast numbers of Africans.” Which meant reinventing colonials as
feudalistic patriarchs and the African as the tribal savage. Though many “found
themselves engaged in tasks which by definition would have been menial in
Britain and which only the glamour of empire building made acceptable” they
were still proud to belong to “an aristocracy of colour”. Echoes of this remain
today in the deference with which European “expatriates” are treated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ranger also notes that “since
so few connections could be made between British and African political, social
and legal systems, British administrators set about inventing African
traditions for Africans… transforming flexible custom into hard prescription.”
So successful was this effort that “many African scholars as well as many
European Africanists have found it difficult to free themselves from the false
models of colonial codified African ‘tradition’.” As he would <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://ojs.ruc.dk/index.php/ocpa/article/download/3604/1786">more
recently summarize</a></span>, the colonial period was marked “by systematic
inventions of African traditions - ethnicity, customary law, ‘traditional’
religion. Before colonialism Africa was characterised by pluralism,
flexibility, multiple identity; after it African identities of ‘tribe’, gender
and generation were all bounded by the rigidities of invented tradition.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">However, it is
important to note that while tribe and tradition were built into the very
foundation of the colonial state, the people were not just passive victims. Just
as they had been doing for eons, they both resisted and reacted to the
impositions, inventing and discarding identities and traditions of their own. At
the outset of the colonialism, some identities, like Kikuyu, were already in
the process of being created though, as <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/485216.pdf">described</a></span> by Prof
Bruce Berman, were not yet stable nor traditional; they hardened in response to
the colonial state. Later, similar innovations like Gusii, Luhya, Kalenjin and
Mijikenda appeared in the years between the two World Wars to essentially beef
up numbers for the negotiation of status within the colonial state. What John
Iliffe said of our neighbours to the south in his book, </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/A_Modern_History_of_Tanganyika.html?id=m0dalboHfXgC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">A
Modern History of Tanganyika</a></span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">, was true in
Kenya: "The British wrongly believed that Tanganyikans belonged to tribes;
Tanganyikans created tribes to function within the colonial framework."
Such ethnic and cultural refashioning continues to this day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">The important takeaway
is that rather than ancient “</span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">nations</span><span lang="EN-US">”, today’s ethnicities are a creation of the
colonial era - “state-sponsored tribal ethnographies and romantic essentialised
notions of tribal culture”, as Parsons describes them. </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-color-alt: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Writing a decade ago as Kenya threatened to descend
into ethnic carnage, American historian Caroline Elkins, author of </span></span><span class="Hyperlink0"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0070c0;">Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya</span></i></span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0070c0;">,</span></span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404300.html?hpid=opinionsbox1">noted</a></span></span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-color-alt: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> that</span></span><span lang="EN-US"> “Britain's
famous imperial policy of ‘divide and rule’, playing one side off another, …
often turned fluid groups of individuals into immutable ethnic units, much like
Kenya's Luo and Kikuyu today. In many former colonies, the British picked favourites
from among these newly solidified ethnic groups and left others out in the
cold. We are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today's conflicts in
Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial
phenomena.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition to creating
and freezing tribal identities, the colonial state discouraged and outrightly
forbade political organisation across the district lines they had drawn up.
This meant that tribes were not just administrative and geographical entities;
they were also set up as units for political mobilisation. Tribes were, therefore,
state-mandated political identities that substituted for authentic cultural
expression. “The structure of tribal administration enabled the ruling British
elite to deny any representative character to the troublesome urban
nationalist, while claiming for itself just that,” wrote Talal Asad,
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York in his essay “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/194323782/Political-Inequality-in-the-Kababsih-Tribe">Political
Inequality in the Kababish Tribe</a></i></span>.” “Thus ‘the tribe’ and the
‘tribal system’ from being a means of efficient administration became the
justification for perpetuating colonial domination.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the bulk of the
colonial era, competition for state power was conducted along racial lines (race
being <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/01/racism-science-human-genomes-darwin">a
similarly artificial construct</a></span>) while resistance to it was channeled
along the tribe. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Legislative
Council, for example, had a racial make-up, with representatives of Europeans,
Arabs, Indians and eventually Africans. However, as Barasa Nyukuri of the
University of Nairobi <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.596.7855&rep=rep1&type=pdf">observes</a></span>,
“The early political parties in Kenya that championed the nationalist struggle
against colonial establishments were basically `distinct ethnic unions'.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As independence approached, feuds over the
state that the British would leave behind were transferred to the tribal arena.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">This understanding
provides a different perspective to the essentialist arguments offered by David
Ndii about Kenya </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/Kenya-is-a-cruel-marriage--it-s-time-we-talk-divorce/440808-3134132-154vra2/index.html">being
a marriage of tribes</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US">. The reverse is actually
true. The reality is that Kenya created tribes and then based its governance
arrangements around them. And this is the primary reason why tribalism continues
to infect our politics – as the Kenyan investigative journalist John Allan Namu
declared, “Kenyan politics, by design, was always meant to be tribal.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly, despite their
relatively recent colonial origins, tribal identities have proven to be all too
enduring and ingrained. In the post-independence era, the ruling elites who inherited
the colonial state from the British largely maintained its extractive nature
and divide-and-rule character, even further entrenching ethnicity while paying
lip service to the need to eradicate tribalism. As noted by Professor Daniel
Branch in his book<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Kenya: Between Hope
and Despair</i>, “elites have encouraged Kenyans to think and act politically
in a manner informed first and foremost by ethnicity, in order to crush demands
for the redistribution of scarce resources.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">The consequences have
been predictable. Rather than tools for common advancement, the state and the
resources it controls have become prizes in a bitter, no-holds-barred, ethnic contest
for supremacy. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">The “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">totalising identity</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">” of tribe has meant that
Kenyans are unable to conceive of themselves otherwise, and thus are unable to imagine
a different basis for political engagement. The zero-sum nature of the
competition for power further reinforces and hardens tribal affiliations,
engendering a with-us-or-against-us mentality with those who resist it branded as
“ethnic traitors”. This all creates a vicious spiral at the bottom of which lie
brutal conflagrations, death and displacement. Floating above the melee, just
as the British did, is the political class that incites and is then able to continue
its thieving ways with little fear of retribution.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Basing a state on the
idea of tribe has also led to the perpetuation of regional inequalities as
communities “not in government” are either neglected or, worse, treated as
enemies of the state. It also drives corruption as public office is seen as an opportunity
for tribal “eating”. Which is why the ethnic affiliation of the head of a
public institution is always a good indicator of the ethnic composition of its
employees. It is also the reason Members of Parliament feel constrained to
defend public officials who suffer disciplinary action, as was the case recently
when Lily Koros, the CEO of the Kenyatta National Hospital, was <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/03/03/rift-valley-leaders-want-knh-ceo-lily-koross-reinstated-read-malice_c1724065">sent
on compulsory leave</a></span> after doctors at the hospital performed a brain
surgery on the wrong patient. As Jerotich Seii <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/JerotichSeii/status/969883777261596672">observed on
Twitter</a></span>, “If Lily Koros was, say, Mjikenda, not a peep would have
been heard from these Kalenjin MPs. Ok, perhaps from Mjikenda MPs. And therein
lies the problem. We defend tribe and not competence.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The tribalisation of
governance also fosters development strategies based on false ideas of ethnic
characteristics, such as the one that some groups are not as suited for
modernisation as others. Further, as Mamdani explains, the idea of unchanging tribes
leads to the deification of fake, colonially-articulated, “traditional” culture
and values, as well as the externalisation of social progress as “Western”. That
has real consequences for social policy, for example <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2014/01/gay-bans-in-africa-are-about-control.html">on
gay rights</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">It will be impossible
to eradicate tribalism without undoing the colonial state on which our current
ideas about ethnicity are founded and whose logic of extraction sustains them.
As </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy_power/kenya_ethnicity_tribe_state">John
Lonsdale puts it</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US">, “There are, then, two very
different dynamics currently at work in Kenya: internal ethnic dissidence and
external tribal rivalry. Neither can be disarmed without rewriting the rules of
political competition for the power of a rather different (‘post-post-colonial’)
state.” Tribes today exist primarily as vehicles for capturing the state rather
than as celebrations of diversity – which they, in fact, try to rub out. They
exist to safeguard elite extraction and to prevent us from imagining different
ways of being. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">Kenyans today have
perfected the curious art of decrying tribalism even while accepting the
validity of tribe. Following the colonial template, the 2010 constitution institutionalizes
ethnic formulations as the basic unit of government via </span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">the creation of counties based on colonial
administrative districts and the </span><span lang="EN-US">safeguarding of
“ethnic diversity” </span><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;">in public
jobs</span><span lang="EN-US">. Today’s social justice activists railing against
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.theelephant.info/radio/2017/08/07/the-ideology-of-uthamaki/">uthamaki</a></i>”
– <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the skewing of state appointments towards
particular groups – and demanding "regional balance" seem incapable
of comprehending that the construction of the state around the idea of tribe is
itself the problem. In a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.sde.co.ke/thenairobian/article/2001271742/boniface-mwangi-some-kyuks-think-kenya-is-their-goat">recent
article</a></span>, for example, Boniface Mwangi seems unaware of the irony of
establishing his Kikuyu bona fides - “I am as Gikuyu as Gikuyus come”- before
launching into a screed against Kikuyu tribalism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">Recognising that the
tribe was a colonial-era invention is empowering because it means it can be
disinvented or reimagined; tribe is not destiny. Many look to Tanzania as an
example of how the </span><span class="Hyperlink0"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25054263.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:63732b308c72e24bdb7c9c7739f5b42e">adverse
effects of tribe can be ameliorated</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US"> through
public policy. Young also cites Kenya as an example where this has been
attempted via constitutional design through devolution, the proscription of
ethnically-based political parties and the requirement for presidential
candidates to garner 25 per cent of the votes in a majority of the counties.
However, this retains – rather than challenges – the idea of tribe and only
seeks to manage relations between tribes, which means the potential for harmful
political mobilisation of tribal affiliation remains. As Young acknowledges,
“while constitutional engineering is of substantial value, it cannot alone
respond to the challenge of accommodating cultural diversity”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The only way to
completely eliminate real and potential inter-tribal tensions is to eliminate
tribes. And the only way to do that is to eliminate the colonial state that
created and nourished them, and to construct a different state and identities,
even a national identity, on different foundations in its place. The problem is
less the politicisation of ethnicity and more the ethnicisation of politics – the
assumption that ethnicity is destiny without interrogating how ethnicity was
and still is manufactured.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kenyan social and
political scientists can and should lead this effort. For too long we have left
it to the politicians who have an interest in maintaining the status quo. Many
Kenyans will understandably be scared of the idea of letting go of the ethnic
brands that have defined them their whole lives, regardless of how hollow or
counterproductive that branding may actually be. Providing a language to deconstruct
the state and the tribe, as well as developing a basket of alternative, homegrown
and much more authentic and beneficial political identities, are the overriding
challenges of our time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no point in
pretending that this is going to be either easy or straightforward. Or that
such a project would not itself be vulnerable to capture by a ravenous and
oppressive elite seeking to legitimise its rule, as has happened in Rwanda. But
we can begin a national conversation about who we really are as people and how
we build a Kenya for Kenyans and an Africa for Africans. That itself means
beginning to see ourselves not as the “tribes” of Western imagination strait-jacketed
by concocted traditions, but as free and thinking human beings with varied and ever-changing
ways of being, and who are capable of imagining and bringing to life new worlds
of our own. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px;">
<i>A version of this article was first published in The Elephant.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-90490606818928685952019-01-04T22:28:00.004+03:002019-01-04T22:28:56.370+03:00The Outlook for Kenyan Politics in 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For
Kenyans, 2018 begun on a knife edge. The final months of 2017 had been
dominated by a dispute over the annulled August presidential election and the
repeat in October. After President Uhuru Kenyatta was controversially sworn in
for a second term in November, his rival, Raila Odinga promised to have a
parallel inauguration ceremony, which after being put off twice, was slated for
end of January.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Odinga
finally took his oath as the “People’s President” on 30 January, unleashing a
wave of government repression, including the shuttering for two weeks of
private media stations who covered the event live, the arrest and illegal
“deportation” of the self-styled “General” of the National Resistance Movement,
Miguna Miguna, as well as the prosecution of Lawyer and MP, Tom Kajwang, for
administering the oath. The stage was set for a continuing gargantuan struggle
between the two Presidents for power and legitimacy – each had one and craved
the other. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet as I
write this, all that seems to have been nothing more
than a bad dream. The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/15/dont-believe-the-kenyatta-odinga-handshake-hype-kenyans-are-still-on-their-own/">Handshake</a></span>
of March 9 completely scrambled the political picture, yoking Kenyatta and
Odinga together in a political deal that was reminiscent of other deals the
latter had forged with the former’s predecessors whom he claimed had stolen the
Presidency from him: Mwai Kibaki in 2008 and Daniel arap Moi in 1997.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The deal
conspicuously left Kenyatta’s deputy and presumed successor, William Ruto, out
in the cold and set up an interesting historical dynamic. Since independence 55
years ago, Kenya’s ethnically-charged politics have been dominated by the
shifting alliances and conflicts between 3 of its 44 officially recognized communities:
Odinga’s Luo, Kenyatta’s Kikuyu and Ruto’s Kalenjin. In 1963, the independence
party, KANU, was essentially a coalition of Kikuyu and Luo, and the Kalenjin,
led by Moi, were in the opposition. Within a year, the opposition party, KADU,
had been folded into KANU. By the close of that decade, following a falling out
between Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga (Uhuru’s and Raila’s dads), Moi was
Vice President and it was the Luo’s turn to be cast out into the cold. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2002, a
coalition of Luo and Kikuyu elites, led by Mwai Kibaki and the younger Odinga,
took over from Moi, who had been in power for nearly a quarter of a century,
following Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978. This however, was not to last. Kibaki
and Raila fell out and the latter joined hands with Ruto, the new Kalenjin
kingpin, to challenge for the presidency in the 2007 general election. That
bungled election, and the violence it precipitated in early 2008 forced all
three together in a Government of National Unity. In a repeat of what happened
in the 60s, this was followed by another Kikuyu -Kalenjin alliance which swept
to power in 2013 and retained it in 2017 with the Luo again left in opposition.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Handshake has reshuffled those alliances again, and William Ruto is now very
much of the defensive. The President’s renewed and seemingly vigorously
prosecuted war on corruption, which kicked off with the hiring of a new
Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, and threats of lifestyle audits,
has been seen by some as an attempt to clip his deputy’s wings. Given recent <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2018/12/ruto-should-retire-after-2022-murathe/">comments</a></span>
by the ruling Jubilee party vice chairman David Murathe, to the effect that
Ruto should retire from politics when Kenyatta’s final term ends, and despite
the President’s <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/12/28/uhuru-distances-himself-from-murathe-on-ruto-retirement-remark_c1870607">protestations
of innocence</a></span>, Ruto’s fate and ambition will be a defining issue for
politics in 2019.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly,
Kenyatta will be under pressure in the coming year to begin to show tangible
results in the corruption fight in the form of convictions. He has staked his
legacy on the ability to bag the “big fish” – corrupt senior government
officials - but so far, has only an empty net to show for it. The wheels of the
Kenyan justice system grind very slowly indeed and it won’t be long before
public confidence the DPP and the President begin to wane. They will need a few
quick wins early in the year but it is unclear whether the courts will oblige.
It is a problem of Kenyatta’s own making as in his rhetoric he has <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2018/06/28/wag-the-dog-war-on-corruption-or-a-power-grab/">repeatedly
emphasized convictions</a></span>, rather than an actual reduction in the
prevalence of corruption, as the measure of success. He has failed to
articulate a comprehensive policy beyond prosecutions to seal the loopholes
that provide opportunities for the pilfering of public funds. And now, he is
trying to set up the judiciary to take the fall, suggesting in his Independence
Day speech that judges were offering easy bail terms to suspects and
deliberately slowing down cases. This will be an interesting and continuing
flashpoint throughout the coming year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A final
theme to watch in 2019 will be the issue of the national debt and the
increasing skepticism with which ordinary Kenyans view the country’s relations
with the largest holder of that debt – China. At the end of 2018, debt
repayments and IMF conditionalities for new loans, have seen taxes raised on
basic commodities like petroleum. The President’s upbeat rhetoric on the
performance of his signature project, the Standard Gauge Railway, is undermined
by seemingly <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001294667/worry-as-china-puts-sgr-funding-on-hold">waning
Chinese confidence</a></span> in the project and reports, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/business/Port-is-safe-from-SGR-loan--China-now-says/996-4912882-e8vkpz/index.html">denied
by both governments</a></span>, that China may take over Mombasa port if Kenya
failed to keep up its payments. With the government now reduced to borrowing
from Peter to pay Paul, 2019 is set to bring even tougher <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Kenya-growing-debt-pain-to-be-felt-from-2019/2560-4900778-xn5mfb/index.html">economic
hardships</a></span> for Kenyans than 2018.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Happy New
Year!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-26677593622469006142018-06-29T07:59:00.001+03:002018-06-29T07:59:34.235+03:00Protecting Kenya's Civic Space<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This wasn’t how things were meant to turn out. It was so
very different 16 years ago, when we sang of how Unbwogable we were and dreamt
that Yote Yawezekana Bila Moi. Across the entire governance space, the state
was in retreat. By 2002, a true civic space had been created which was
evidenced by the flowering of music and arts. Organized civil society could indeed
claim a lot of the credit for it through their efforts to advance political
rights and freedoms as well to broaden the democratic process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fast forward 16 years and the situation is reversed. To
understand what went wrong, we have to look back at our history.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to Wikipedia, “civic space is created by a set of
universally accepted rules which allow people to organize, participate and communicate
with each other freely and without hindrance and in doing so, influence the
political and social structures around them.” From colonial times to the
present, organized civil society has played a prominent role in the
struggle to create and protect this space from the predations of the state. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, civil society groups were the forerunners of
political parties. It was folks like Harry Thuku and organisations like the
Young Kikuyu Association and later the East African Association who early on articulated
the political visions and programmes, and defined the goals, values and
principles that would drive political action for a generation and beyond. Their
significance for the civic space lay in the fact that their struggles often
went beyond the acquisition of power to encompass respect for fundamental
rights, social and economic justice as well as the freedom and dignity of Kenyans
as human beings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After WWII, with a broke Britain beginning to retreat under
pressure of such organizations, many in civil society -from journalists to trade unionists to activists- transformed into politicians. By
the time independence arrived, civil society organisations had taken back seat.
Politicians and political parties were doing the driving. And very quickly, they
constricted the space for citizens to communicate freely and influence politics.
It would be a pattern with which Kenyans would become familiar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the first decade-and-a-half of independence, politics and
governance were for the most part left to the politicians. However, the 1980s
and 1990s, as donors increasingly conditioned their support on governance
reform and democratization, civil society became more vocal. Outfits like the National
Convention Executive Council and religious organisations under the Ufungamano
Initiative refused to leave constitutional reform to the state. Others, like the
local chapter of Transparency International, were determined to hold their own
against the government in the anti-corruption space. By the 2002 elections, Kenyans
had clawed back many of the freedoms and reclaimed many of the spaces that the
colonial state had denied them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sadly, though, we made the same mistake we had made 60 years
before. Many of civil society’s leading lights switched sides and became
politicians, ran for office and actually won. Others were raptured into
government via appointment. Organized civil society was effectively decapitated
and went quiet. Once again, the civic space was slowly constricted. Soon the Mwai
Kibaki regime was sending GSU into the Bomas of Kenya to stop debate on a new
constitution, sending masked police into The Standard, teargassing
demonstrators and stealing elections.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The same happened in 2013 and 2017. And every time civil
society has retreated, the state has expanded with the consequent loss of civic
space and the threat to civic freedoms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our history has shown that the state will not be reformed
from within. Rather it will only be kept accountable by citizens interacting with
each other freely within a civic space. The guardians of that space are organized
civil society – churches, NGOs, media, trade unions, academia and other
institutions citizens establish outside the state. We should thus be worried when
civil society stalwarts troop to the state. Journalist-turned-politician,
Mohamed “Jicho Pevu” Ali, and his Parliamentary colleagues, Charles “Jaguar” Kanyi from the musical world and trade unionist Wilson Sossion are walking a path many have trod before them. And we
now know what comes after.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Holding the state requires powerful actors outside the
government and able to challenge it. We should therefore urgently find ways to
incentivize the habitation of non-governmental spaces. We must also work to
protect the existing spaces where citizens today can congregate and freely
interact - especially on the internet and on social media – from a state that
is keen on policing them. The fox must not be left to watch over the hen house.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-61699675459500131612018-06-25T22:31:00.004+03:002020-08-28T12:30:46.775+03:00Why Prosecutions Won't End Graft<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anti-corruption crusader and Publisher of The Elephant, John
Githongo, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theeastafricanreview.info/op-eds/2018/06/16/kenyattas-war-on-corruption-words-wont-cut-it-the-budget-is-the-corruption/">writes</a></span>
in the E-review, “Corruption in Kenya isn’t about greedy procurement officers,
fiddling civil servants, crooked businessmen, shady bankers, thieving
politicians … these players are born of a system of politics and governance
that is itself inherently corrupt; one in which the thieves and those who
facilitate them thrive.” Understanding this is the key to solving the
corruption riddle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many times, it has been suggested that graft is a cultural
problem that grew out of a supposed “African” tradition of gift giving. Now, it
is a good practice to be skeptical every time someone uses the word “African”
to imply a uniformity on the continent – and here a healthy dose of skepticism
would be justified.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Joe Khamisi’s history of corruption - </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kenya-Looters-Grabbers-Corruption-1963-2017-ebook/dp/B07BTZWRCH/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529514667&sr=1-1&keywords=Looters+and+Grabbers">Looters
and Grabbers</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> – demonstrates, corruption was the gift of colonialism.
It was, and still is embedded into the very fabric of the state the British
created. The logic of that state was to legitimize the stealing by the few from
the many and that is evinced throughout its design.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, Kenya was corrupted even before it became Kenya. By
1907, 13 years before the territory officially became a colony, bribery was
already a feature of the nascent state. Khamisi cites Hugh Cholmondeley,
popularly known as Lord Delamere, a leader of the British settlers, describing
the relations between the public and the new rulers: “Time and time, I have had
a native say they were stopped by an Indian policeman. When I asked them how
they got away, they always said, ‘Oh, I gave him something.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Khamisi also describes how corruption seeped from the white
colonial establishment down to its African enforcers, the appointed chiefs and
policemen. A state built to steal was itself peopled by thieves. As David
Anderson says in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Histories-Hanged-Dirty-Kenya-Empire/dp/039332754X">Histories
of the Hanged</a></span>, “Europeans were as guilty of corruption and
malpractice in colonial Nairobi as anyone else, and Africans at the bottom of
the colonial racial hierarchy were most often its victims”. The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/CommissionReports/Report-of-the-Commission-of-Inquiry.pdf">Rose
Commission</a></span>, which was established in 1955 to look “into alleged
corruption or other malpractices in relation to the Affairs of the Nairobi City
Council” found that “the practice of City Council servants demanding or
accepting, and of contractors offering, bribes or, if you prefer, money
presents-for services rendered or to be rendered, [was] by no means uncommon”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Corruption was baked into the state and its templates were
established from early on. At the top, the white elite ripped off the state
through public projects such as the railway and the construction of public
housing, while at the bottom, poorly paid chiefs, members of African courts and
police supplemented their incomes by extorting from the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Khamisi puts it, citing David Leonard’s <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/African-Successes-Public-Managers-Development/dp/0520070763">African
Successes: Four Public Managers of Kenyan Rural Development</a></span>, “Through
corruption and bribery, chiefs were transformed into willing agents of
colonialism and were “implicitly encouraged to use their positions to amass
wealth and demonstrate to all and sundry that it paid to cooperate with
Europeans.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this manner, corruption became institutionalized as a way
of doing government business. And when those chiefs and their kids inherited
the state from the British, they really did not know any other way to be.
Following independence in 1963, the civil service was massively expanded. But
the Jomo Kenyatta (Uhuru’s dad) administration was not keen on paying for it.
Following the colonial model, in 1971 </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/CommissionReports/Report-of-the-Commission-of-Inquiry-(Public-Service-Structure-and-Remuneration-Commission)-1970%20-1971.pdf">the
Ndegwa Commission</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> recommended allowing them to supplement their
wages with private business, which had the effect of legalizing corruption. The
looting ramped up and it has been escalating ever since.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Understanding the systemic roots of corruption would allow Kenyans
to see that successful prosecutions, while a necessary part of a credible
anti-corruption strategy, will not fix the problem. Deterring and punishing the
corrupt is no substitute for fixing a system that not only permits, but also
rewards graft. Convictions, even in the unlikely event meaningful ones were
secured, would be ineffective so long as a third of the government’s budget, </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/03/10/sh608-billion-of-kenya-budget-lost-to-corruption-every-year-eacc_c1310903">some
Sh600 billion according to the EACC</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, continues to be available to be
stolen every year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact is, the rewards of corruption far outstrip Kenya’s
capacity to punish it. The country’s energies would be better spent in holding
political leaders accountable, not just for delivering convictions and harsher
sentences, but for shutting down the gravy train. And that will require
reforming how the Kenyan state works.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-24575162998218730182018-04-21T09:58:00.001+03:002018-04-21T09:58:56.973+03:00A Tribute To Kenya's Forgotten People<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last week, the country lost a great
patriot, one, however, whom most Kenyans had probably never heard of. My
grandmother, Eunice Nyawira, passed away in her hospital bed after a long
illness. Born at the dawn of the colonial era, she lived to see Kenya gain her
independence and the subsequent betrayal of their hopes. She is part of a
generation that is dying out and with them goes a great deal of history, not
just of our family, but also of the nation they leave behind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These are the ordinary people whose
passing goes unlamented for the most part in a country that reserves its
adulation for its politicians. I did know a great deal about my cucu and I took
her presence for granted, assuming she would always be there to tell her story.
It is something I will regret for the rest of my life. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The current hagiographic
memorialization of Kenneth Matiba and the angst over the fate of electoral
commissioners just makes this loss seem even more severe. History has always
been presented as the tale of a few powerful men and Kenyan history in
particular revolves around the fates of Big Men like Matiba. In this telling,
the experiences and acts of a humble peasant woman in a nondescript corner of what
is now Nyeri county hardly seem to merit more than a few lines in the obituary
pages. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, it is on the backs of people such as Cucu Nyawira that this
country was built. It is their numerous small acts of resistance – such as when
she confronted colonial officials in Nyeri to get my late mum admitted into
Ngandu Girls, or when she organized food for Mau Mau fighters, for which she
was briefly arrested and detained - that provided the podium on which the Big
Men stood. An illiterate woman who bore and educated 10 kids, who organized her
community to build schools, to create better housing as well as water storage
is exactly the sort of everyday Kenyan we should honor and celebrate daily.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are millions of unsung heroes
and heroines like her across our land. Ordinary Kenyans who did and continue to
do extraordinary things. They are the rocks upon which families, communities
and nations are founded. Their stories deserve to be collected and shared,
their lives celebrated. They are a valuable store of history and with each loss
of one of their number, that store is irredeemably diminished. While they are
still with us, we should have a nationwide project to collect and document
their stories and their lives. And not just the elderly generation, but all of
Kenya’s generations. Rather than Kenyan history being the story of its Big Men,
we should make it the story of all its people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I imagine this being a collective
and collaborate effort. No one person or even one organisation could do it. The
Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission took years to interview 40,000
Kenyans. To build a database of the stories of millions would simply be
overwhelming. However, we do have the internet and the unlimited resources that
it provides. If we could get Kenyans to contribute their own stories and those of
their relatives and friends, then we could begin to assemble a massive popular
archive. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And the stories needn’t be solely about superhuman exploits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the most important contributions
would be the tales of everyday living and survival that would shine a light on
who the Kenyans are and how they experienced history. <o:p></o:p></span></span> I, for example, remember Cucu Nyawira's delight upon learning that Egypt, where, according to the Bible, Jesus' family had fled to to escape persecution, was actually in Africa. Also her patient skepticism when informed that people had walked on the moon. She also told me of granaries Kikuyus used to set aside aside after the harvest specifically for the poor and the disabled, challenging the idea that charity is a thing we learnt from the West.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It would undoubtedly be an extremely ambitious undertaking but one
that I believe would be worth every effort. “In my culture, when the elderly
die natural deaths we throw a big party and sing and dance and trade stories
about the life they lived and the lives they touched,” tweeted political
analyst and author, Nanjala Nyabola, recently. Nothing would be a more fitting
tribute to Eunice Nyawira and the unseen millions like her to whom Kenya owes
everything. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-1995136796588202122018-03-23T10:59:00.000+03:002018-03-23T12:53:24.906+03:00The Lies That Bind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/How-Cambridge-Analytica-influenced-Kenyan-poll/1064-4349034-le7xbuz/index.html">recent
revelations</a> about the role played by British spin doctors, Cambridge
Analytica, in Uhuru Kenyatta’s campaigns during the last two elections in Kenya
have caused a bit of an uproar. Though long rumored -and hotly denied by
Jubilee Party mandarins – the confirmation delivered via hidden camera was
jarring not only for the extent of their involvement, but also for their
underhand methods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, the fuss around Cambridge Analytica has tended to
obscure the fact that, even without their involvement, spin and deception have
been made into a way of conducting the nation’s business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Take, for example, the recent online proclamations by the
ever publicity-seeking Kenya Film Classification Board that it had bagged a
global award, the grandly named Arch of Europe. According to <a href="https://twitter.com/EzekielMutua/status/975660497268813824">the citation</a>,
the award was in recognition of the KFCB’s “immeasurable contribution to the
business world” and its “high outstanding professionalism demonstrated by
prestigious performance”. Sounds good, eh? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, a little digging turns up some unsavory facts that
the Board’s CEO, Dr. Ezekiel Mutua, would rather you didn’t notice. The
organization issuing the award, the Madrid-based Business Initiatives
Directions, along with six other organizations, had been <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/2662-what-price-honor">investigated
in 2014</a> by the Center for Investigative Reporting of Serbia (CINS) and the
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and their awards found
to be, in many cases “bogus, sold by unscrupulous organizations that prey on
human vanity”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The investigation found that “giving” awards had become a
lucrative enterprise. “The organizations that provide these awards are nearly
always based in European Union countries and mostly market their awards to
developing countries”. And the clue is in the word “market”. As the report
states, while the organisations claim to do their research to find the best
awardees “in reality in most cases they send out hundreds of email invitations
and some even allow applicants to nominate themselves on organization websites.
Anyone who replies, shows interest and agrees to pay gets an award.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Basically, KFCB may have simply bought itself an award
and then taken to Twitter to parade it as a marker of excellence. And in case
you were wondering, the CINS/OCCRP report found that such awards do not come
cheap. “In Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, around 50 public institutions
received these awards. Some paid for multiple awards at prices that ranged from
€ 2,000 to more than € 7,000 (US$ 2,500-9,300) per prize.” That means close to
a million of your tax shillings may have been expended in assuaging the egos of
the folks at KFCB.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lest one thinks that this is a unique case, a public
statement has just been released by the Hamburg Media School, makers of the
Oscar-nominated Kenyan film, Watu Wote, which apparently gives the lie to the
KFCB’s and Dr. Mutua’s <a href="http://kfcb.co.ke/kfcb-attends-the-90th-oscars-academy-awards/">assertions</a>
that the latter attended the 90th Oscars Academy Awards ceremony in the US earlier
this month. “Dr. Mutua was not in attendance at the ceremony and did not
participate in the Oscars with us. He never received an invitation,” says the statement,
which was <a href="https://twitter.com/Watu_Wote/status/976905238509735936">posted
on the film’s Twitter account</a>. It also says that a KFCB-sponsored screening
of the movie in Las Vegas, again trumpeted by the Board as highlighting “opportunities
available for investments in the film industry in Kenya”, was actually done in
violation of the school’s copyright and without their permission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps Dr. Mutua has picked up this habit from his boss. As
the saying goes, the fish rots from the head. Many will recall the
"Mandela Prize" that President Kenyatta was <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001264453/magufuli-bags-mandela-peace-award-uhuru-the-democracy-one">awarded
last December</a> for apparently demonstrating a true spirit of democracy when
he accepted the Supreme Court to annul the August 8 election. “To put it
simply, ‘the Mandela Prize’ is bogus,” concluded <a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmobile.ledesk.ma%2Fdesintox%2Fque-vaut-le-prix-mandela-decerne-mohammed-vi%2F&edit-text=">a
2016 investigation</a> by the Moroccan news website, Le Desk, after Mohammed VI,
King of Morocco, “won” it that year. It is not to be confused with the legit <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/prize.shtml">UN Nelson Rolihlahla
Mandela Prize</a>, which awarded once every five years as a tribute to the
outstanding achievements and contributions of two individuals from each gender.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kenyatta’s “Prize” also came from a fishy outfit, the Paris-based
Mandela Institute, which, despite its name, has nothing to do with the late
Nelson Mandela other than the claim that its Honorary President, Olivier Stirn,
was his friend. Stirn himself has <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-06/news/mn-138_1_french-political-system">a
chequered past</a>, having been forced to resign in disgrace from the French
cabinet in 1990 after he was caught hiring unemployed actors, students and day
laborers to pose as an audience for senior Socialist Party speakers at a
sparsely attended conference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">More recently, during the President’s state visit to Cuba, his
spin doctors announced that the Cuban government had honoured his late father,
Jomo Kenyatta, “as a towering figure in African and Caribbean liberation
movement” by placing his bust at the Park of African Heroes in Havana. However,
what they did not mention was that, as Dr Wandia Njoya has <a href="https://twitter.com/wmnjoya/status/974767542643363841?s=19">pointed out
on Twitter</a>, the plaque on the bust doesn't mention fighting for freedom
and, perhaps more importantly, that the busts there are sometimes <a href="http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2016-10-04/eternal-gratitude-to-the-cuban-people">donated
by African governments themselves</a>. Crucially, there was no mention of who
was paying for this particular bust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So as we express our outrage at Cambridge Analytica’s
corruption of our democracy, we must not deceive ourselves that what they were
doing is somehow different from the everyday actions of our public officials.
From <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/Corruption-Government-Kenya/440808-2766476-sjbriyz/index.html">fake
wars against corruption</a>, to <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2018/03/05/what-is-your-tribe-the-invention-of-kenyas-ethnic-communities/">our
invented ethnicities</a> to the <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001263300/head-of-state-commendations-bring-dishonor-to-those-who-rightfully-deserved-them">farcical
Head of State commendations</a>, Kenya is a state that was built on, and that is
largely sustained by, lies and deceptions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-48890910692299974772018-02-18T17:46:00.000+03:002018-02-18T17:48:15.579+03:00Innocent Victim? Not Exactly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The last few weeks have been rather trying for Kenyan media.
The government’s criminal overreaction to the mock swearing in of Raila Odinga did
not end with the shut down of the three leading television stations for over a
week. Even after they were allowed back on air, the Uhuru Kenyatta
administration has continued to throw a tantrum, with the President chasing
journalists out of one of his official engagements and the state singling out
three from the Nation Media Group, Linus Kaikai, Larry Madowo and Ken Mijungu,
for special attention, forcing them to seek protection from the courts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Faced with this onslaught, the media has been quick to don
the costume of public interest and proceeded to play the part of innocent
victim. In <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/09/africa/kenya-press-freedom-madowo/index.html">a
piece published on the CNN website</a>, Madowo condemns the “shutting down [of]
networks that have such a massive following [and] public trust … by a rogue
government.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Our job as reporters is to record history, whether the
government of the day approves of it or not,” he continues, declaring Kenya “one
of Africa's beacons for vibrant media [which] should not be dimmed out by an
administration intent on censorship of independent voices, reducing the country
to just another African dictatorship where critical journalism is outlawed and
reporters constantly fear for their lives.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Madowo deserves an Oscar for that performance. For while the
government’s actions have been completely illegal and anti-democratic,
outrageous in the extreme and deserving of full condemnation, Kenyan media has
not behaved much better. The fact that he was forced to hawk his piece to CNN
is telling. “This week, the @dailynation refused to print my column for the
first time in nearly 4 years,” he had tweeted in explanation. In fact, a few
days later, his column was to be cancelled entirely. And he wasn’t the only one
targeted by the supposedly “vibrant media” which now seemed eager to do the
government’s dirty work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the eve of Odinga’s “inauguration”, <a href="https://businesstoday.co.ke/state-house-ntv-deal-collapsed/">a leaked
internal memo</a> from Nation Media Group (NMG) Editor-in-Chief, Tom Mshindi,
suggested that he and Kaikai, NTV’s General Manager, were “aligned” on not
providing live coverage for the event. That was before Kaikai that evening, in
his capacity as Chairman of Kenya Editors Guild, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/01/30/editors-guild-alarmed-by-state-house-secret-orders-to-media_c1705824">blew
the lid</a> off a secret meeting at State House between of “a section of media
managers and select editors from the main media houses” and President Kenyatta,
his deputy, William Ruto, the Attorney-General as well as Cabinet Secretaries
for Interior and ICT. It was at this meeting that the media was ordered not to
cover the Odinga event live.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ultimately, NTV did cover the event precipitating its being
illegally switched off by the Communications Authority along with KTN and
Citizen all of whom continued to stream their coverage on the internet. Kaikai
would pay the price for his defiance as a quick reorganization at NTV has
reportedly seen him sidelined on decisions regarding what content is broadcast
and now even seems <a href="https://businesstoday.co.ke/fresh-twist-linus-kaikai-lands-top-job-royal-media/">set
to leave the group</a> along with Madowo. At the moment, the two along with Ken
Mijungu, the very people police were seeking to arrest, have been effectively banned
from going on air and Madowo’s political talk show, Sidebar, appears to have
been cancelled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All this is part of a trend. Kenyan media houses have become
adept at sacrificing top journalists to appease the government. Just as. in the
current crisis, media owners and top management have been happy to throw journalists
under the bus, so in 2014, The Standard fired 3 of its journalists after top
editors were similarly summoned to State House over a <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000106828/how-government-spent-millions-on-luxury-retreat">story</a>
the government disputed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2015, NMG fired world-famous cartoonist, Godfrey GADO
Mwampembwa, after his cartoons drew the wrath of the Kenyan and Tanzanian
governments. In 2016, Denis Galava was fired from his post as the Daily
Nation’s Managing Editor for Special Projects, after he penned a New Year’s Day
<a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/oped/editorial/Mr-President-get-your-act-together-this-year/440804-3018414-12i2x61z/index.html">editorial</a>
that was, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/01/20/nation-fires-editor-galava-over-editorial-criticising-uhuru_c1280305">according
to The Star</a>, “deemed critical of President Uhuru Kenyatta's administration”.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Madowo’s notion that Kenya’s “vibrant” media conducts “critical
journalism” is also quite misleading. We are talking here of establishments
that are content to unquestioningly run <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/author/PSCU">press releases from State
House as news</a>, a habit which left the media badly exposed a few weeks ago
after a <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Uhuru-appointed-Unicef-global-champion-youth-empowerment/1056-4270354-3vu7ic/index.html">claim</a>
by the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit that Kenyatta had been
appointed a UNICEF global champion for youth empowerment turned out to be <a href="https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/955617843311243264">false</a>.
Further, many will not have forgotten that this same media houses were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/08/11/kenyas-elections-show-how-the-media-has-sold-its-soul/?utm_term=.ac9316b78f33">happy
to pocket millions of public shillings</a> for running illegal government
advertisements during the campaign period. Or the role it played in allowing,
and even encouraging, the delegitimization of civil society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All this explains why many Kenyans have been ambivalent
about supporting the media during the present onslaught. Poetic justice, some
have called it, wondering why they should stand up for a media that does not
stand up for them. There is a lesson for the media in all this. Protection does
not come from courting the government, but rather from courting the people. In
the end, as the Daily Nation’s own public editor <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/Public-support-best-protection-for-press-freedom/440808-4287886-e4lenx/index.html">wrote</a>,
it is the public that is “the best protector of press freedom”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">x</span></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-44769987008123811012018-02-02T22:41:00.000+03:002018-02-02T22:48:50.399+03:00Kenya's Future Increasingly Looks Like Its Past<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">In early 1965, after just a year of
independence, Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta suspected Vice
President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was planning a coup against his government. Deep
divisions within the ruling Kenya African National Union - between those wanting
radical and populist change to the inherited colonial system and those who were
intent on consolidating it and seeking more gradual change – had been
exacerbated by the murder of radical Nominated MP, Pio Gama Pinto in late February.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Determined to eliminate the threat, Kenyatta sent the paramilitary
General Service Unit of the Kenya Police Force into Luo Nyanza to look for
weapons and to intimidate Odinga’s Luo base. As related by Charles Hornsby in his
opus, <i>Kenya: A History Since Independence</i>,
“there was a press blackout on their activities, which included house searches,
beatings and rapes, which were only made public at the end of the month, when
angry Luo MPs raised the issue in Parliament”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Within a year, Odinga had been forced out of KANU and had set up his
own political party in opposition, the Kenya Peoples Union. As Hornsby states, Odinga
was betting “that Kenyatta and KANU would play by the rules and that the West
would ensure they did so.” However, Kenyatta’s patrons were silent during the
next three years which witnessed “more serious abuses than were conducted
against a political party at any time before or since in Kenya’s history”. These included changes to the electoral system on the eve of, and rigging during,
the Little General Election; branding Odinga as a threat to “national stability”; the mangling of the 7 year-old independence constitution to concentrate power in the
President and eliminate all checks on it; the reintroduction of colonial-style detention
without trial; and intimidation of both the judiciary and the press. The period
ended with the murder of Tom Mboya, Kikuyu oathing, a massacre of Odinga
supporters in Kisumu, the banning of the KPU and detention of Odinga and his
allies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fast forward half a century and Jomo’s son, Uhuru Kenyatta, is President
and Jaramogi’s son, Raila Odinga, stands accused of attempting to stage a coup.
Once again, the latter has been demonized by the ruling party and dozens have been killed beaten and raped by the GSU in Luo Nyanza. The
media is silenced, the courts ignored, the state accused of electoral
malpractice including engineering last minute changes to electoral laws and a
round up of Odinga’s allies is under way. A new constitution enacted just 7
years ago which imposed serious limitations on Presidential power is roundly
ignored and institutions meant to be a check on it, including the parliament,
are completely servile. All the while, Western powers are silent. Just as in
the 60s, they have opted to side with the Kenyattas whom they consider the best
bet for preserving the colonial system that safeguards their interests above
those of ordinary Kenyans. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how will this end? Is it likely that Kenyatta will have Odinga
arrested for treason? After all, his allies have been charged with abetting
treason and the courts may have a hard time convicting them if the person
accused of actually committing treason is allowed to wander freely. But perhaps
the intention is not to seek convictions but rather to send a message. Still, history
suggests some action may be taken though it might not be as drastic or as harsh
as a treason charge. The senior Odinga was subjected to two years in detention
by the senior Kenyatta and then house arrest by Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel
arap Moi. The latter has already been bandied about as a possibility by Jubilee
hardliners.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Any arrest of Odinga would undoubtedly spark massive unrest in Nyanza
but, just as in the 60s, the Kenyatta government has shown that it is not
averse to killing large numbers of citizens in order to cling to power. Further,
the likelihood of the international community interfering to stop such is
miniscule. Rather than an ideological battleground of the Cold War of
yesteryear, Kenya is today on the frontline of other wars against terrorists
and Chinese domination. These concerns outweigh Kenyan lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Kenya has basically regressed 50 years in the last 7 months and the
2010 constitution’s promise of a democratic renewal is fast fading. If extinguished,
history suggests Kenyans may be in for decades of brutal and kleptocratic rule. It will be a steep price for the country to pay for not learning from its past.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-29239851707545910962018-01-19T15:17:00.002+03:002018-01-19T15:23:09.792+03:00Why Trump's "Shithole" Comments Are Nothing New<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ADDwhaA7U4/WmHjFHQV7UI/AAAAAAAAGFQ/_q9hOqj3_6s4yG5zueA9M9pglfMvr5qKACLcBGAs/s1600/gathara140118_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="800" height="544" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ADDwhaA7U4/WmHjFHQV7UI/AAAAAAAAGFQ/_q9hOqj3_6s4yG5zueA9M9pglfMvr5qKACLcBGAs/s640/gathara140118_small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eric Kiraithe, must really be well paid. Being the official
spokesman of the Kenyan Government, is, in the words of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6TiA4_7Rto">Jerry Maguire</a>, “an
up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege” that I’m sure he will never fully tell us
about. We got a glimpse of what the job entails when the government sent him
out this week to defend the indefensible: US President Donald Trump’s description
of Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “shithole countries” and his declared
preference for immigrants from Northern Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Kenya-no-problem-Trump-racist-remarks/2558-4269154-3226b0z/index.html">mental
gymnastics Kiraithe had to engage in</a> were a spectacle to behold. No doubt trying
to curry favor with the famously petty and vengeful Trump, he declared that Kenya
had no problems with African countries being called “shitholes” but nonetheless
supported the African Union in condemning the comments whose context, he
claimed, the government was still studying “to see whether it is worth the
attention”, even though it had already determined that they were not directed
at Kenya.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, there perhaps was an easier, and perhaps less humiliating,
way for Kiraithe and his minders to extricate themselves from the bind. Trump may
be an ignorant, racist, pathetic excuse for a human being but if we are honest,
his sentiments are not dissimilar to attitudes held by many of the
“respectable” people lining up to condemn him in the West and even here in
Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As any African applying for visa will tell you, the
indignities visited upon us in the process make it plain that we are not
exactly welcome. It is humiliating to have to demonstrate to strangers that one
is not about to abandon one’s family and nation to live on the streets of
Europe or America, to have them stand in judgment over your acceptability as
human being. And that is just how the system treats those seeking a legal route
for a temporary visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The reaction to the so-called European migrant crisis which
saw more than a million unwanted migrants and refugees from the middle east and
Africa cross into Europe in 2015, shows the extremes that will be considered in
order to turn them back. “Europe has decided to cooperate with Libyan
authorities, knowing the kind of torture, abuses, detention that migrants and
refugees are exposed to in Libya,” Amnesty International’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/europe-migrant-crisis/4177103.html">Maria
Serrano told Voice of America</a> last month. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, the idea of a crisis is not extended to the
nearly 12.5 million Europeans who are resident in a country not their own
within the European Union, even when 95 percent of these are hosted in just six
countries. It is only a crisis when they come from “shithole countries”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And it is not just Europeans. Israel’s Prime Minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Kenya in November declaring how he loves
Africans, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-Time-to-increase-deportation-of-African-migrants-514604">seems
to only love them when they stay at home</a>. Back in Israel, he has taken to
branding African asylum seekers “infiltrators” is deporting thousands of them.
In Libya, slave markets have re-opened with many of the same Africans Europe is
turning away being treated as commodities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But African citizens do not even need to try to leave the
continent in order to experience the dehumanization associated with
immigration. Kenya’s <a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2014/04/somalis-in-kenya-are-available-for.html">abysmal
treatment of refugees from Somalia</a> -who are crammed into crowded camps,
forbidden from seeking work, regularly demonized as terrorists and even illegally
forced back into the war zone across the border – is no less humiliating.
Neither are the hoops Kenyans themselves – as well as other Africans - are
forced to jump through when attempting to visit South Africa, formerly the
continent’s largest economy, are no less humiliating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, Africans don’t even need to try to go outside their
countries’ borders to be insulted or have heir humanity questioned. Hollywood as
well as Western aid agencies and media regularly does it right in the comfort
of our homes with their portrayal of Africa as a troubled, exotic paradise
peopled by childishly simple, naïve beings unable to deal with the challenges
of life and who need white saviors to rescue them from other white devils or
from themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rounding out the parade of insulters are African elites,
especially in the media and in politics, who have become our very own Uncle
Toms, loyally regurgitating and fleshing out the worst stereotypes that the
West has of us. Having opted not to reform the racist, extractive colonial
states they inherited in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these elites have
trouble seeing the humanity of the masses of citizens they prey on. So, like
the Europeans before them, rather than fix dehumanizing political and economic
systems, they try to beat and shame the natives into compliance with them, into
accepting the space that the world has allocated to them at the back of the bus
- which is the reason so many try to leave in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This brings us back to Trump and his comments. So should
Kenyans be offended by them? You bet they should. But no more so than by the
treatment and representations Africans have to endure every day from a world
that has decided that they come from “shithole countries” and so must be shitty
people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And the supreme irony of it is, up till less than a century
ago, Africans were quite content to stay on the continent. It was shitty people
from other places who came here and forced them out. It was shitty people who took them to places
like Haiti, where, after they fought for and won their freedom, more shitty
people blockaded and invaded them and created the very conditions today that a
shitty American President, blissfully unaware of this, today disparages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, it is an irony that is completely lost on Kiraithe
and the folks he speaks for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-90930217924673494712018-01-12T14:05:00.000+03:002018-01-12T14:05:22.383+03:00SportPesa: Kenya Should Stop Betting On Devils<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In his <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/sports/talkup/Gor-Mahia-AFC-Leopards-and-begging-bowls/441392-4252552-k9o13nz/index.html" target="_blank">piece in the Daily Nation</a>, Roy Gachuhi speaks of how
the failure to build strong institutions in Kenyan sport has left even the most
successful teams vulnerable to the financial shocks caused by the withdrawal of
a major sponsor. He is referencing the troubles caused by sports betting firm
SportPesa’s pulling all its sponsorship of local and national teams following
the failure of its legal challenge against the government’s move to raise taxes
on betting profits. It is a move that
may ground a large number of the country’s favorite sports brands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Fifty years down the line, AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia
should be evaluating the suitability of the many organizations lining up to associate
their brand with them,” Gachuhi says. He also reminds us that “Kenya’s sports
politics closely mirror our national politics”. One obvious similarity is the dependence on the
dirty money that is generated by selling false dreams to poor people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">According to Moses Kemibaro, a digital marketing
professional based in Nairobi, SportPesa, the largest of them all, <a href="http://www.moseskemibaro.com/2015/05/27/sportpesa-is-blowing-up-as-kenyas-largest-online-sports-betting-service/" target="_blank">rakes in over Sh300 million a month</a>. A GeoPoll survey of youth between the ages
of 17-35 in sub-Saharan Africa found Kenya had the highest number of youth who
were frequently gambling and that they spent Sh5000 a month on the habit, the
highest on the continent. This in a country where, <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Number-of-Kenyans-earning-more-than-Sh100-000/3946234-2901806-3pjv15/index.html" target="_blank">according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics</a>, three-quarters of those in
formal employment earn under Sh50,000 a month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So the sponsorships whose loss many are bemoaning are a
small fraction of the billions being taken from millions of poor people who are
fed the illusion that sports betting is, as SportPesa’s slogan goes, “Made of
Winners”. Only the betting companies make money when bets are lost, not when
they are won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But what they make is a pittance, and the suffering they
cause is negligible, when compared to the outrageous fortunes and misery
generated by the, to borrow Hilary Clinton’s phrase, “basket of deplorables” to
whom we’ve mortgaged our national political life. They have taken to a whole new level the art
of throwing around a relatively tiny bit of cash in exchange for the chance to
make gazillions. Presidential election campaigns <a href="http://www.africapedia.com/2017/06/13/campaign-financing-africa-kenya-election/" target="_blank">spend an estimated Sh5 billion</a> which, including all the other races down the
order, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000074352/campaigns-could-cost-sh36-billion" target="_blank">could add up to Sh36 billion</a>. This is undoubtedly a lot of money. But considering
that the country is estimated to lose Sh600 billion from corruption each year
and that a large chunk of that is pocketed by the politicians in power, you can
see how it works out to be a good deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Why must we feed the
baser natures within society in order to be allowed a few crumbs for its better
sides? Why is it necessary to procure resources for our sport from industries
that sacrifice millions of youthful futures? Or to offer up our sovereignty,
wealth and even lives to scoundrels in return for patronage posing as
“development”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think it is actually a good thing that SportPesa has
pulled the sponsorship. A deal with the Devil is not how we should seek to
support our sportspeople. And maybe once the band aid is removed, we can we
will be able to see and deal with the real, festering source of our public
woes. The money that companies like SportPesa pump into sport tends to paper
over the state’s under-investment in sport as well as its preying on athletes as
was graphically illustrated <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/The-scandal-of-Kenya-s-Rio-Olympics/1056-3343980-kvao27z/index.html" target="_blank">during the 2016 Olympics</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But there again, our deals with devils, this time within
government, stand in the way. Sadly, we won’t be exorcising the demons in
Parliament or in State House anytime soon. And even if we did, there are others
pretending to be angels of light waiting to take their place. Like with
SportPesa, we need to change the terms of the deal and radically raise the bar
for what is acceptable in terms of governance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No more false promises. We must
demand tangible action, whether it is to improve the lot of the sports
fraternity of to reform the electoral system or to implement the report of the
Truth Justice and Reconciliation Report. To do this, we must be willing to risk
the political class withdrawing the few parochial benefits it offers just as
SportPesa has done. But if we are firm and refuse to succumb to the blackmail,
the rewards would be much greater than what we have become accustomed to
settling for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now that’s a gamble worth taking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-4585452725890590502018-01-05T11:09:00.000+03:002018-01-08T22:08:03.390+03:00Kenya's Road Deaths: It's The System, Stupid.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kenyans can be amazing in their self-contradictions. Take matters
death, for example. When our politicians pass on, they are immediately raptured,
in the popular imagination, into a heavenly pantheon and cleansed of all
earthly sin. Not so regular folk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Following the spike in road crashes in December which have <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/12/31/bloody-december-36-perish-in-another-salgaa-accident-on-new-years-eve_c1691164">claimed
over 200 lives</a>, many have not been shy about placing the blame on those who
have perished, either labeling drivers drunk, undisciplined or careless, or
branding passengers as silent lambs willingly going to the slaughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have often wondered about this seeming compulsion to blame
ourselves for the misfortunes we endure, even when it is manifest that their fundamental
causes lie elsewhere. When the politicians in government steal from us, we
blame ourselves for electing them in the first place, as if the act of voting then
justifies stealing. When the same politicians use the police or militia for
violence to secure their positions on the bargaining table, we blame ourselves
for our tribalism and bloodthirst. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly, when the state <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2017/11/14/the-black-spot-why-the-kenyan-road-system-is-designed-to-kill/">designs
and maintains a murderous road transport system</a>, we blame ourselves for its
very predictable consequences. It is our failure to obey its dictates that is
to blame, we are told, even though we know that following the rules still gets you killed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">TV presenter and columnist, Larry Madowo, ably demonstrates
this confusion in <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/dn2/I-am-terrified-of-driving-at-night-/957860-4249526-t6oljjz/index.html">his
latest offering</a> on the dangers of using public transport for long-distance
travel at night. After acknowledging that he is one of a privileged minority
that does not need to do this he adds that “for millions of Kenyans for whom
that is not an option, they are unknowingly putting themselves in danger every
time they board a bus or a matatu and hope they get to their destination in one
piece.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sounds reasonable, no? Then a few lines later, he hits us
with this: “Taking any public transport in Kenya is to knowingly put yourself
in danger.” Huh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He proceeds to reel off a list the usual suspects, from
tired, drunk and unqualified drivers trying to meet impossible targets to
matatu crews colluding with gangsters to rob passengers, to mechanically
defective vehicles and their owners - the very cops turning a blind eye. He
notes that there are no regularly enforced “minimum standards for crew
discipline, vehicle maintenance and roadworthiness” and few consequences for
anyone failing to play their part. It is as close a description of a shattered
system as you are likely to get.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet despite this, Larry still seems to believe that the
system is fundamentally sound. “All this carnage can be eliminated without
introducing a single new law but simply enforcing the existing ones and
shutting down all the avenues for bribery.” Once again, the problem, as he sees
it, is the failure to beat the native out of the Kenyan, to force him to comply
with a broken system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This kind of thinking has very colonial roots. The British
proclaimed that they came on a civilizing mission and used extreme brutality to
try to beat the natives into shape. For example, in his book Kenya: A History
Since Independence, Charles Hornsby describes the European settler view of
roots of the Mau Mau war as “unrelated to economic or political oppression …
they lay in the Kikuyu’s inability to adapt to the demands of modernization”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawyer Pheroze Norwojee says "tyranny is very
unoriginal". Those who inherited the colonial state after them, retained
the same view of the sanctity of even oppressive rules and of Africans as the
problem. As Jomo Kenyatta asked Kenyans in the lead up to independence, “if you
cannot obey the present [colonial] laws, how will you be able to obey our own
laws when we have them?” Thus, instead of reforming the oppressive regime, they
tried to force the people to comply with it. As quoted by Hornsby, the late Masinde Muliro described it thus in 1967: "Today we have a black man's Government, and the black man's Government administers exactly the same regulations, rigorously, as the colonial administration used to do." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is this approach that has created the predictable
consequences and contradictions evident in our political system today, for our
humanity will not simply fade away quietly. Similarly, the attempt to force
road users to comply with a horrendous road system will continue to generate
seemingly chaotic and suicidal, but always very rational, behavior. In the end
blaming Kenyans, rather than the system, will always lead to oppressive
responses that try to fix Kenyans rather than policy fixes to the system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the fact is we need comprehensive change, both in the
institutional design of how we manage road transport as well as in the rules
those institutions are tasked with implementing and enforcing. That will require
new thinking, new systems, and yes, Larry, new laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">New laws on who can own matatus, for example. New laws on
how we respond to road crashes, perhaps a requirement that they all be
investigated and lessons learnt. New laws to prevent the National Transport and
Safety Authority understating the extent of the carnage on our roads, which
they do <a href="http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/countrywork/ken/en/">by
nearly 80 percent</a>. Most importantly, new laws on whom we hold accountable for
the failures on our roads. Simply blaming the dead and dying victims on our
roads will not do.</span></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-87920964312640440942017-12-02T20:22:00.002+03:002017-12-02T20:22:24.989+03:00Mugabe Is Gone; Mugabeism Remains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Africans a-liberate
Zimbabwe<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'n'I a-liberate Zimbabwe.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So sang the late, great, Jamaican reggae star, Bob Marley in
1979, just a year before the country was finally won its independence from
white rule. Today, with Robert Mugabe forced to resign as President after being
fired by his party and with Zimbabwe inaugurating a new leader, the
questions many will ask is whether this is another moment of liberation – only
this time liberation from the erstwhile liberator of 1980- and what a
post-Mugabe future might look like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon we’ll find out
who is<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The real revolutionary<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the last 37 years, under Mugabe’s Presidency - who at 93
was the world’s oldest head of state and second only to Teodoro Obiang Nguema
of Equatorial Guinea as its longest serving non-royal ruler- Zimbabwe has gone
from being southern Africa’s bread basket to the region’s basket case. Mugabe
himself, once an icon of anticolonialism and, with his seven degrees, great
hope of African renaissance, has become the butt of continental jokes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The path the country and its former ruler have trod is
depressingly familiar. An independence hero who proceeds to govern his country
as a personal fiefdom, enriching himself and his family, destroying all
internal opposition, impoverishing the population and committing many of the
same abuses the anti-colonial struggle was meant to put an end to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In his early years in power, initially as Prime Minister,
Mugabe was widely praised for expanding social services, including building
schools and hospitals. However, <a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2017/11/the-55-year-fight-for-kenya.html">like
others across the continent</a>, his government failed early on to deal with
the legacy of the country’s colonial past and the issue of whether to reform
the state they inherited or whether, as Panashe Chigumadzi put it in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/opinion/behind-the-comparison-of-zumas-south-africa-and-mugabes-zimbabwe.html">her
article for the New York Times</a>, “conform to the historic compromises that
brought them into power”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, like his counterparts, Mugabe opted to shelve the
issue and concentrate on consolidating his own grip on power. Facing internal
dissent, he launched a brutal crackdown in the predominantly Ndebele speaking
region of Matabeleland, most of whom were supporters of his rival Joshua Nkomo,
in which according to some estimates <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-18-mugabes-hand-in-zim-massacres-exposed/">more
than 20,000 people were killed</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The unresolved colonial legacy - especially over the starkly
unequal distribution of land - would prove a useful tool in later years. In the
1990s, he would successfully divide the opposition by offering veteran of the
independence war tracts of land and demonizing civil society and labor unions,
as tools of the West. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a strategy he employed again in the late 1990s and
throughout the 2000s to buff up his revolutionary credentials by launching a
disastrous land redistribution programme which targeted the country’s tiny land-owning
white minority. Officially sanctioned land invasions, violence and continued
government threats forced most large scale white farmers off the land and agricultural
production plummeted<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873296">. The country went from being a net
food exporter to </a><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/zimbabwe-pleads-1-5bn-food-aid-prevent-mass-starvation-1542917">requiring food aid</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the average Zimbabwean has <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/world/2017-08-24-grace-unplugged-zimbabwes-imploding-world/">continued
to suffer the effects of economic decline</a>, there has been continued
splurging on a small coterie of officials and ruling party loyalists. Last
year, the government <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/28/africa/mugabe-92nd-birthday/index.html">reportedly</a>
spent $800,000 on festivities to mark Mugabe’s 92 birthday and his family <a href="http://www.africametro.com/news/first-lady-grace-mugabe-wealth-exposed-mansions-farms-overseas-villas">has
done very well for itself</a> over the years. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873342">His wife,
40 years his junior and who has earned the nickname “Gucci Grace” for </a><a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/grace-mugabe-on-r100m-spending-spree-7217505">her lavish shopping sprees</a>, made no secret of her desire to keep the
presidency within the family when he eventually passed on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I don't want my
people to be tricked <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">By mercenaries.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Will the intervention by the Zimbabwean military -the coup
that was no coup- change this? <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/zimbabwe/2017-11-17/mugabe-gone-zimbabwes-dictatorship-will-remain?cid=int-now&pgtype=hpg&region=br2">Not
likely</a>, despite the military’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/15/the-situation-has-moved-to-another-level-zimbabwe-army-statement-in-full">declaring</a>
its intention is to “pacify a degenerating political, social and economic
situation”. It claimed to target, and has been rounding up “criminals around [Mugabe]
who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the
country in order to bring them to justice”. Yet the same army was solidly
behind Mugabe throughout his years of abuse - it was the North Korean trained
Fifth<sup> </sup>Brigade that was responsible for the massacres in Matabeleland
locally referred to as “Gukurahundi” (a Shona term that loosely translates to "the
early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains"). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, this was largely an internal struggle within the
ruling party, ZANU-PF, over who is to succeed the aging dictator. the immediate
spark for the current crisis was Mugabe’s decision to fire his long-time ally
and now replacement as President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, from the vice presidency,
to pave the way for his wife to succeed him. The military seemed reluctant to
openly intervene, its head, Gen Constantino Chiwenga, and 90 senior officers
initially only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/13/zimbabwe-army-chief-warns-military-could-step-in-over-party-purge">demanding</a>
a halt to the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-politics/zimbabwes-mugabe-widens-purge-clearing-wifes-succession-path-idUSKBN1D726I">purge
of Mnagangwa’s allies within the party</a>. Mnangagwa himself is no angelic figure,
attracting the moniker "The Crocodile" for his actions during the
independence struggle and as a reminder of his alleged role -which he denies- in
the Gukurahundi massacres, as Minister for State Security and Chairman of the
Joint High Command, and in masterminding attacks on opposition supporters after
2008 election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873379"><br /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873379">This then is a dispute, not over how
Zimbabwe is run, but over who runs it. </a>In June, University of Zimbabwe
Political Science lecturer, Eldred Masunungure, <a href="http://harare24.com/index-id-opinion-zk-63371.html">when asked about the
possibility of military coup</a> if Mnangagwa did not succeed Mugabe. He
responded thus: “It will be restricted to the elite level. This level does not
involve you or me or the 13 million Zimbabweans. It is an elite struggle.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The people now jostling to replace Mugabe have been more
than content to benefit from the policies he has pursued, even when those came
at the expense of long-suffering Zimbabweans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is instructive too that the record of military takeovers
in Africa and across the world gives little cause for hope that this particular
one will quickly lead to a restoration of genuine democracy in Zimbabwe. From
Nigeria to Egypt to Burma, the record shows that once military generals get a
taste of power, they are loathe to give it up. Further, they tend to govern as
badly, or even worse, than the civilian despots they overthrow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Amid talk of the military setting up a transitional
government to return the country to civilian rule and prepare fresh elections, one
senior opposition politician <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/17/africa/zimbabwe-unrest/index.html">told
CNN</a> that “this takeover was planned a long time ago by Emmerson Mnangagwa
and secret discussions did take place with opposition about a succession plan
including forcing out Mugabe… What you saw yesterday at State House [published images
of Mugabe speaking with military chiefs] was acting." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This ties in with <a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/zimbabwe-mugabe-farming/">a
Reuters investigation</a> in September that found that Mnangagwa and other
political players, including former prime minister Morgan Tzivangirai, with had
already been positioning themselves for this possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The report, which cites “politicians, diplomats and a trove
of hundreds of documents from inside Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence
Organization (CIO)” says that in the event of Mugabe’s leaving office, “Mnangagwa…
envisages cooperating with Tsvangirai to lead a transitional government for
five years with the tacit backing of some of Zimbabwe’s military and Britain.
These sources leave open the possibility that the government could be
unelected.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This unity government would pursue a new relationship with
thousands of white farmers who were chased off in violent seizures of land
approved by Mugabe in the early 2000s. The farmers would be compensated and
reintegrated, according to senior politicians, farmers and diplomats. The aim
would be to revive the agricultural sector, a linchpin of the nation’s economy
that collapsed catastrophically after the land seizures,” it continues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873430">Once again, the focus would appear
to be on appeasing the country’s former colonial rulers at the expense of its
citizenry. </a>Rather than seek to comprehensively restructure the state so it
works for all its people, Zimbabwe’s would-be rulers seem bent on resuscitating
the same “historic compromises” that have been at the root of the country’s malaise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">We'll 'ave to fight
(we gon' fight), we gonna fight (we gon' fight),<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">We'll 'ave to fight
(we gon' fight), fighting for our rights!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than an agreement to restore the power of elites, any
transitional government should pursue a genuine broad-based national reflection
on the nature of the Zimbabwean state and force the country to face up to the
demons of its past, rather than hide from them. For all his many faults, it
must be acknowledged that Mugabe’s attempts at redressing historical injustice,
though pursued for less than noble reasons, struck a chord with many ordinary
Zimbabweans (<a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/mugabe-hero-of-african-liberation-1525765">and
many ordinary Africans beyond</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873497"><br /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk498873497">Apart from restructuring the state,
Zimbabwe will also need to build the necessary infrastructure to keep it
accountable to the people. </a>This includes a free and independent media -it
has been great to see international networks allowed to report openly once
again- and <a href="http://www.osisa.org/openspace/zimbabwe/civil-societys-present-and-future-role-zimbabwe">a
vibrant civil society.</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The current situation, while not ideal, thus
still offers a valuable opportunity for Zimbabwean leaders to do right by their
people. Whether they will take it remains to be seen.</span></span></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-75737912818149964872017-11-04T11:50:00.000+03:002017-11-04T11:50:13.711+03:00The 55-year Fight For Kenya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two elections in two months has not settled Kenya’s
political crisis. But the impasse is not really about who will sit in State
House. It’s a deeper question: it’s about who owns Kenya – its citizens or a
historically entrenched political elite. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
President, Uhuru Kenyatta, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001258851/uhuru-kenyatta-wins-repeat-election-with-7-4-million-votes">won
the second edition easily</a> after his main opponent, Raila Odinga, withdrew
from the race citing the inability of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission to carry out a credible poll. In fact, the reason the election was
being done afresh was that the Supreme Court had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/kenyan-supreme-court-annuls-uhuru-kenyatta-election-victory">annulled
the August 8 version</a>, accusing the IEBC of acting as if the Elections Act
and the Constitution did not exist. His refusal to participate in last
Thursday’s contest has now precipitated a deep political crisis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some have proposed that it is nothing more than a dispute
between two of Kenya’s <a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2016/09/mali-ya-kuuma.html">famously
gluttonous and power-hungry politicians</a>, each accusing the other of trying
to get power through fraudulent means. Others <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/in-kenya-politics-split-on-ethnic-divide/a-37442394">blame
the ethnicization of Kenya’s politics</a> and the deep tribal faults within
Kenyan society. Still others maintain that the country’s winner-take-all
political system, which does not allow those rejected by voters <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/10/31/ncck-proposes-creation-of-prime-minister-opposition-leader-posts_c1661983">a
cushy and safe landing</a>. In all this, the fate of individual politicians and
of the country’s constitution takes on huge importance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet all these diagnoses fail to identify the central conflict
that lies at the heart of and connects all these issues – and that is the
struggle to bend the country’s colonial and extractive state to the whims of a
new and progressive constitution.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a war that has been silently waged for at least 55 years.
In the run up to Independence in 1963, the two main African parties, the Kenya African
National Union (KANU) and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) premiered
the main themes and power conflicts that were to dominate Kenya’s attempts to
deal with the colonial state. <a href="https://learning.uonbi.ac.ke/courses/GPR203_001/document/Property_Law_GPR216-September,_2014/Articles/Okoth-Ogendo_Constitutional_Change_in_Kenya_since_Independence_nnnnn.pdf">According
to the late Prof Hastings Okoth-Ogendo</a>, KANU, the more popular of the two,
prioritized the transfer of power over reform of the state, while KADU, which had
already lost an election to its rival, was more focused in the limitation of that
power in the interests of ethnic minorities. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1962, at the second Lancaster House constitutional conference,
KADU <a href="http://www.katibainstitute.org/Archives/images/banners/further/MAXON-Constitution-Making%20in%20Contemporary%20Kenya.pdf">insisted
on a constitution</a> that was broadly similar to the one the country was to adopt
48 years later. It established a Bill of Rights, created regional assemblies
and government in an effort to devolve power from the center. KANU, on the
other hand, reluctantly acquiesced, reasoning that when the party inevitably
won power through the ballot box, it would be free to change the constitution. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that’s what indeed happened. In less than a decade after
independence, the constitution would be so mangled through amendments that in
1969, it was officially recognized as a different constitution.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Writing in 1992, current Attorney General, Prof Githu
Muigai, <a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2009/08/do-we-really-need-new-constitution.html">explains</a>:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The colonial order had been one monolithic edifice of power
that did not rely on any set of rules for legitimization. When the Independence
constitution was put into place it was completely at variance with the
authoritarian administrative structures that were still kept in place by the
entire corpus of public law. Part of the initial amendments therefore involved
an attempt - albeit misguided - to harmonise the operations of a democratic
constitution with an undemocratic and authoritarian administrative structure.
Unhappily instead of the latter being amended to fit the former, the former was
altered to fit the latter with the result that the constitution was effectively
downgraded.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In short, under KANU, the colonial state and its logic of
extraction of resources from the many to enrich the few -initially British
colonials, but now a similarly tiny African political elite -prevailed and
undid the constitution. What followed was an “eating” binge as politicians and
senior officials and their families and friends grabbed whatever they could lay
their hands on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the late 1980s, the looting and oppression had sparked a
reaction from citizen groups, media and churchmen which featured <a href="http://mobile.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/Ghai-unites-factions/1950774-2058244-format-xhtml-iddy03z/index.html">a
persistent push for a new constitution</a>, even in the face of violent government
crackdowns as well as state-led attempts to co-opt and hollow out their
demands. The popular agitation came to fruition in August 2010 when the current
constitution was promulgated which essentially was a reset to 1962.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet the colonial state did not just fade away. It had to
contend with this new challenge and, at least initially, the political elite
was happy to pretend to play along for as long as their position at the top was
not seriously challenged. The more egregious aspects of the state that the
constitution now abolished, were simply renamed and allowed to hide in plain
sight: the hated provincial administration rather than being abolished, simply <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Constitution-Provincial-Commissioners-Governors/1056-2849094-bjd894/index.html">changed
titles but was retained intact</a>; the police, though nominally declared to be
operationally independent, never actually behaved like they were -they still
remained “a citizen containment squad” as <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/245815329/Ransley-Report">the Ransley report</a>
had described them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Though cloaking itself in the cloth of the constitution, the
state refused to reform. Under Uhuru Kenyatta, it retained its authoritarian
character but with a fresh, likable face. But all through, its violence was
never far below the surface as was witnessed in the aftermath of its bungled
responses to terrorist attacks such as the on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in September
2013, when the government <a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2014/04/somalis-in-kenya-are-available-for.html">scapegoated
entire communities</a> to cover up its failures. and, more recently, in the
brutal crackdown on people protesting the two elections in which nearly 70
people have died.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On August 8, the elite embarked on what they assumed would
be another coronation of their chosen one. Everything was in place, <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/State-to-deploy-180-000-police/1064-3919494-115rga2/index.html">including
180,000 policemen</a> to take care of troublemakers in opposition strongholds
as well as a carefully constructed plot and narrative. It wasn’t the first time
they were doing this. As Stanley Macharia, proprietor of the largest broadcast
media network in the region, <a href="http://www.kdrtv.com/sk-macharia-claims-that-raila-won-the-2007-matiba-in-1992-but-denied-their-victory/">told
the Kenyan Senate</a> last year, in all five elections held since the return of
multiparty competition, in only one -in 2002- had the presidency gone to the
person with the most votes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Supreme Court annulment of the August election,
therefore, came as a real shock to the elite and was the first real attempt to
use the 2010 constitution to challenge the power and status of the elite as the
ultimate owners of the state. The response was quick and effective: legislative
changes to virtually <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/09/29/jubilee-tames-supreme-court-iebc-in-amended-law_c1643921">make
it impossible for the Court to nullify another election</a>, threats to the
judges, and a sham election to sanitize what the Supreme Court had impugned.
Soon Uhuru Kenyatta’s supporters were <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/09/30/be-a-dictator-to-save-kenya-jubilee-vice-chair-david-murathe-advises_c1644625">extolling
the benefits of a “benevolent dictator”</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is within the context of this historically frustrated
effort to bring the colonial state to heel that we must locate the current
political impasse. It must not be made out to be about the Luo vs the Kikuyu
(although there is an aspect of that) or Kenyatta vs Raila (although that
matters too) or election winners vs election losers (a much less convincing
argument).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The real question is whether the wenyenchi (the owners of
the nations) will give up their control of the state to the wananchi (the
people of the nation); whether they will allow the constitution to dismantle
and remake the colonial state into one that works for all Kenyans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
History does not offer much encouragement. However, as the
low turnout (even the highest estimates come in at under 40%) for the repeat
election suggested, there is broad agreement across the country on the need for
elections to adhere to constitutional standards of being free, fair, simple,
verifiable, transparent and credible. One <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2017/09/84-pc-kenyans-want-polls-october-17-infotrak/">poll</a>
showed that even in Kenyatta’s heartland, more than half of the people were
happy with the Supreme Court’s decision to annul the poll.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The politicians are out of touch with the people. Their
brinksmanship demonstrates that they are yet to learn the lessons of the 60s
and that they cannot be trusted not to repeat the same mistakes their fathers’
made.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which leads us to the question of what should happen now.
There is undoubtedly a need to resolve the immediate political crisis and
generate consensus on how to address the longer term issues. Talks, as have
been proposed, between Kenyatta and Odinga would be critical to this but, as
noted above, cannot be left solely to them. the involvement of other sectors of
society such as civil society, the media and the religious establishment both
as mediators and participants in their own right would help lay a framework
that is not solely dictated by the interests of the two main protagonists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The goal should be to establish a roadmap to a resolution of
the crisis including an agreed forum for a comprehensive national dialogue
which would address not just the immediate manifestations of the crisis but,
more importantly, deal with the unfinished business of reforming the colonial
state and addressing its legacy of abuse, marginalisation and impoverishment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kenya faces much more than an electoral crisis. For over
half a century, the contestation over who controls the state has been allowed
to take precedence over the need to reform that state so it works for not just
a few, but for all its citizens. That must now change.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-63025033585043248512017-09-01T23:05:00.000+03:002017-09-05T23:02:10.272+03:00Why Kenyans Must Keep Their Feet Firmly On The Ground<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Kenyans are given to bouts of
euphoria. Once ranked as the most optimistic people in the world, it is a
society almost congenitally programmed to look on the bright side of life and
to seek out silver linings on even the darkest of clouds. It is famously the
land of “Hakuna Matata”, which for anyone who’s watched Disney’s The Lion King
can recite, is “a problem-free philosophy”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Our irrational exuberance is once
again bubbling up to surface in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict that
annulled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s barely three-week old re-election. In a
sense, it is understandable. It has been a tense time, filled with trepidation,
after yet another rapturous voting day, invested with all the hope for better
days the country could muster. This is despite the knowledge that although the
country has held regular elections throughout its 50 years of independence,
they have never resulted in truly meaningful, lasting change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Even the 2002 election – perhaps
the most ecstatic of them all, given it was bringing the curtain down on the
24-year despotic and kleptocratic reign of Daniel arap Moi – only inaugurated
Mwai Kibaki’s turn to eat. Pretty soon, the Kenyans who had been going around
effecting citizen arrests on corrupt cops in the belief all had changed, were
treated to a rude shock when reports of grand corruption at the highest level began
to surface with increasing regularity. So much so, that the President’s own
anti-graft czar had to flee the country. Corrupt ministers are "eating
like gluttons" and "vomiting on the shoes" of donors, </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3893625.stm"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">declared the
British High Commissioner, Edward Clay</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Anyway, back to the Supreme Court
ruling. Similarly to the 2002 poll, the election that the court has just voided
was manifestly full of irregularities. However, 15 years ago it did not much
matter. The vote against Moi’s handpicked successor – ironically the current
incumbent – was so overwhelming that the regime had little choice other than to
concede. In any case, electoral reform at the time had mainly consisted of a
“gentleman’s agreement” that allowed the opposition to nominate some of the
members of the electoral commission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The integrity of the process today
matters much more than it did a decade and a half ago. Elections are much more
closely fought and the electoral infrastructure is much more elaborate. Methods
for stealing them have also become more intricate and difficult to detect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After a dispute over the 2007
presidential election led to violence that killed over 1300 people and
displaced hundreds of thousands more, a commission led by South African judge
Johann Kriegler proposed a raft of reforms to the electoral system, including
the electronic transmission of results from polling stations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Five years later, despite a new
constitution, few of those reforms had actually been implemented. During the
election, a hastily and dubiously procured system for biometrically identifying
voters and electronically transmitting results failed (or was made to fail)
across the country. Further, there were allegations that the election had been
hacked. If that sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the same thing
happened this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">However, by the time Kenyans went
to the polls nearly a month ago, laws governing the electoral process had been
passed and largely clarified by the courts. On voting day, the biometric
systems seemed to have worked but not the electronic transmission. As counting
proceeded, figures started scrolling across our TV screens courtesy of the
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) headquarters. Figures seemed
to show a constant and consistent lead by President Kenyatta over his closest
rival, Raila Odinga. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The figures, which the IEBC would
disown as mere "statistics" when their validity was questioned, were
the first sign that something had gone seriously wrong. Thereafter, </span><a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20170901-kenya-court-ruling-election-observer-industry-missions?ref=tw"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">despite
the verdicts of international observers</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">, led by former US Secretary of
State, John Kerry, when the IEBC could not produce the scanned forms on which
the results were based, it became clear that the election was far from credible.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The appeal to the Supreme Court in
2013 had been dismissed in its entirety, with the court establishing </span><a href="https://www.theelephant.info/future/2017/08/24/the-supreme-court-versus-the-court-of-public-opinion-why-raila-odingas-second-petition-matters/"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">an
impossibly high standard of proof</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> which seemed to ensure a
presidential election would never be reversed. Four of the six judges who
issued the widely-rubbished, unanimous judgment, are still on the court. Perhaps
this is why the opposition initially said that although it wasn't accepting the
results, it would not be taking its case to the court. Following a change of
heart, they did file a petition, which to everyone's surprise, was upheld.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The annulment is a very big deal
and definitely worth celebrating. Along with overturning an injustice and
reinforcing Kenya’s democratic credentials, by cementing the Supreme Court’s
credibility, it has made future 2008-type post-presidential-poll violence much
less likely. For once, Kenya the state has stood up for Kenyans, and that is
huge. But we should be careful not to get carried away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">First, there were problems with
the court declaration itself. One of the allegations that had been put forward
by the petitioners was that the incumbent had abused his office by using public
resources and officials to campaign. The judges seemed to gloss over this when
they found no evidence of wrongdoing despite glaring proof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Further, the pronouncements of
Kenya’s accession to the league of mature democracies were not only premature
when the now disgraced Chair of the IEBC made them as he declared Kenyatta the
president-elect; they are premature today. The judgement is a giant leap
forward but one decision does not a democracy make. </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It just creates possibilities for a better, more accountable electoral system. However, Kenyans have a tendency to want to persist in these giddy moments of possibility rather than to do the hard work of translating them into reality. Sadly, as we have seen with the 2003 election of Kibaki, can, if not seized, also inaugurate a much less desirable state of affairs.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Of immediate concern is the
potential for a backlash from an Executive stung by what it considers to be a
judicial uprising. </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">"If you rattle a snake, you
must be prepared to be bitten by it," the late authoritarian Cabinet
Minister, John Michuki, warned us, after the government </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4765250.stm"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">raided the country’s
second-largest media group</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> in 2006. Kenyans cannot afford to
be complacent. President Kenyatta has just been rattled and he is threatening
to bite. Already, he has taken to calling the Supreme Court judges
"wakora" or bandits and his lawyer has described the ruling as a
judicial coup. "[Chief Justice David] Maraga and his thugs have decided to
cancel the election. Now I am no longer the president-elect. I am the serving
president... Maraga should know that he is now dealing with the serving
president," he </span><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41123949"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">reportedly</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
threatened on Friday. “We have a problem with our judiciary but regardless we
respect [their decision]. But we shall revisit,” he declared ominously a day
later. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Whether it’s Kenyatta or Odinga
who gets elected in two-months’ time, the independent judiciary will probably
itself be the target of an Executive branch used to getting its way. However,
with his Jubilee party in control of both houses of Parliament, Kenyatta will
pose a particularly grave threat. History has taught us that great gains can be
quickly reversed. Kenya still has a long way to go before it can get rid of its
entrenched culture of impunity and become a society that truly caters for the
needs of all its people, not the desires of a few at the very top.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Finally, another election has to
be held within two months. Kenya is </span><a href="https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/22299-kenya-and-2-other-countries-which-have-nullified-presidential-election"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">only
the third country in the world</span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">, after the Ukraine and Austria,
to have the courts annul a presidential election. In the other two repeat
elections, the incumbent won. Now, that itself is not a problem. The Supreme
Court has rightly said, who wins matters less than how that win is secured. There
is little time to make significant changes to the electoral infrastructure
which means there are few guarantees that the same illegalities and
irregularities that led to the annulment won't crop up again. Ensuring that Kenya
does not end up where it started will require vigilance from all players,
including any egg-faced internationals returning to observe and report on the
election. The media should set up independent tallying centres and be prepared
to call the election, rather than simply regurgitate the numbers and
"statistics" coming from the IEBC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Kenya is not out of the woods yet. The passions and terror that have been on display over the last few months have not gone away. They continue to simmer away just below the surface. While the Supreme Court has reduced the risk of a violent explosion, it has not completely eliminated it. That can only be accomplished through honestly addressing the the problems of our past and finishing the task of implementing the constitution. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">The judgement shows what that constitution makes possible but it would be grossly unfair to heap the burden of actuating it on the shoulders of seven judges. Kenyans must demand that the other independent state agencies, from the National Police Service to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, start to behave and conduct themselves in the manner envisaged by the constitution, not as lackeys of the Executive. Kenyans must realize that the people are the ultimate custodians</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> of the supreme law and even as they celebrate, they should be rolling up their sleeves.</span></div>
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Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-58368532562122700012017-08-31T20:00:00.000+03:002017-08-31T20:00:53.217+03:00Why Kenyan Supreme Court Judges Should Avoid Sausages<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being
made” is a quip regularly and mistakenly attributed to Otto von Bismarck, the
famous Prussian statesman and architect of German unification. However, the
Iron Chancellor, who died in 1898, was not associated with the quote until the
1930s. In fact it was the American lawyer-poet, John Godfrey Saxe, otherwise
famous for publicizing the ancient Indian parable about Blind Men of Hindustan
and The Elephant, who more inelegantly said: "Laws, like sausages, cease
to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As I write this, oral judgements have been completed at the
Supreme Court hearing of Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka’s petition against
the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta. It has been 4 days of riveting
presentation, argument and often, comedy, as one side prosecuted its case and
the other tried to rubbish it. The main bone of contention appears to be about means
and ends: whether the way the election was carried out matters or we should
only concern ourselves with whether the results declared matched how the
electors had voted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a sense, it could be said that President Kenyatta and the
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) appear to prefer the
Bismarckian formulation that it is better to focus on the final product and not
peer too closely at the inner workings of the electoral system. After all, they
argue, the whole point of an election is to express the sovereign will of the
voters. So, a simple check of the forms prepared at the polling stations (where
all the voting and counting happened) should suffice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The petitioners on the other hand, are more in line with
Saxe. They say that the more we actually learn about how the election was run,
the less reason we will have to respect the result. They point out numerous
irregularities and outright illegalities in the conduct of the poll which they
hold undermine any confidence, not only in the veracity of the announced result,
but also in the authenticity of whatever documents the IEBC might produce to
support it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have been somewhat mystified by the way in which these
arguments were framed. Throughout, voters have been portrayed as passive actors
upon whom elections are visited. The lawyers in the room, including the
Attorney-General, behaved very like the blind men of Hindustan trying to define
the elephant that is the people’s sovereignty. There seemed little recognition
that sovereignty does not start and end with the casting of ballots and
determining of who becomes President. Citizens do not become sovereign when
they transmogrify into voters. They are always sovereign in a democracy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Further, as I have written before, voting in an election is
not – as one of the lawyers unfortunately declared – the foundation of
democracy. How much ordinary citizens can contribute to everyday political
decision-making and their ability to hold public officials to account are the
true measures of democracy. Thus, if elections are about the sovereignty of the
voter, as another averred, then constitutions are about the citizen. And the
entire corpus of law, the foundation of which should be the constitution and
citizen participation in governance, is an exercise in sovereignty.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Protecting the expression of sovereignty therefore entails
more than singularly ensuring the correct result was announced. It also means
ensuring that the process prescribed by the law was adhered to. It is not a
choice between respecting one or the other. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, after dominating TV screens for nearly a week, the
process of adjudicating the petition moves into the shadows as the judges
retire to consider their verdict. Four years ago, after a similar week of TV
drama, they reappeared with a sausage of a judgement, with only a short summary
of the decisions delivered in open court but eventually revealed to consist of
a messy and unhealthy cocktail of poorly-reasoned arguments.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is proper that the judges should concern themselves with burdens
and standards of proof and with the attendant requirements of who should prove
what to which degree of satisfaction. In exercising its delegated sovereignty,
the court is subject to the constraints of evidence. What is true and what can
be proven not necessarily being the same thing, courts only concern themselves
with the latter. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The upshot of this is that the court cannot tell us whether
the election was stolen, just whether Raila and Kalonzo can prove it. That
means, regardless of what the courts rule, it will still be up to each citizen
to decide for himself or herself whether they believe the election was credible
and whether the IEBC and other arms of government have properly carried out the
mandates given to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Still, this does not mean the Supreme Court’s judgement is
irrelevant or unimportant. It will decide the legal validity, if not exactly
the legitimacy, of the poll and the government it births. It is hoped that the
judges will each prepare individual judgements, clearly detailing the reasons
for the conclusions they have come to and that each will get to read his or her
judgement in open court. The truth is, elections and court judgments should be
nothing like sausages. The more one knows how they were made, the more they
should command respect and be savored.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-6513536714963056932017-08-24T23:47:00.000+03:002017-08-24T23:52:40.585+03:00The Marital State: Why Divorce Won't Solve Kenya's Problems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">David Ndii is at it again. In the aftermath of the election,
he has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_n6-pDVB8" target="_blank">revived talk of his incendiary proposal for divorce</a>. Basically, he
postulates that Kenyan ethnic communities are in “an abusive marriage” and if
they cannot come to an accommodation, they need to consider going their
separate ways. Despite being one of Kenya’s foremost public intellectuals, he
is demonized by many in the ruling establishment and among their rabid
supporters.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Although the proposal far preceded the elections, Ndii’s most
recent comments were made and will be understood in the context of the election
and especially the contested presidential poll, which is now the subject of a
Supreme Court petition. The root of his argument is the perceived domination of
Kenyan political life, and the opportunity to “eat” the national cake, by a few
large tribes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The current focus of the griping is the Kikuyu-Kalenjin axis
inaugurated by the alliance of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William
Ruto. But the narratives of domination, by either a single community or an
alliance of a few of them, and resistance to it are as old as the country
itself. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The logic of oppression and extraction was built into the
state by our founding fathers, the British colonialists.
They created a structure of government that was meant to entrench their
lordship over all they surveyed and to facilitate extraction from natives.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Local communities didn’t take too kindly to this and
eventually ganged up to demand their independence. However, their inheritance
from the departing and receding British was the colonial state, which they
failed to fundamentally reform and instead fell into squabbling over who would
control it. And always, behind this, was fear of domination, which is really
fear of the state.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In the run up to Independence, the Kenya African National
Union (KANU) party was created, almost overnight, as the vehicle for what was
largely seen as a Kikuyu-Luo alliance to take over the state. It was
immediately opposed by the rest of the “small” tribes who majorly ganged up
under the auspices of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The deck was shuffled again after KADU was swallowed up by
KANU and the Luo jettisoned soon after. Though Daniel arap Moi, with his
Kalenjin bloc, was nominally the number two in the party and in government, it
was clear that for all intents and purposes the state now belonged to the
Kikuyu elite. This was to continue until shortly after the death of Jomo
Kenyatta. Now it was the turn for the Kikuyu elite to be tossed out into the
cold where they joined their Luo counterparts to oppose the Kalenjin (Moi’s) state.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This alliance eventually forced Moi’s retirement and the
re-enactment of history as the Luo were once again double-crossed – this time
by President Mwai Kibaki – and kicked out of what again became the Kikuyu
state. The violence that followed the 2007 election gave rise to the first
all-inclusive government where elites from all communities got in on the
feeding frenzy. The 2013 elections again saw the Luo shut out by the current
Kikuyu-Kalenjin alliance. A partnership that is perhaps slightly more equitable
than the version between the current President’s father and Moi.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">What I’ve detailed above is a very simplified and simplistic
model of Kenya’s history. However, it has the distinct advantage of helping us
appreciate a fundamentally important fact that explains why Kenya is where it
is today and why we go round in circles. The problem that we have been skirting
for all these years is the state itself as a tool for domination rather than an
expression of the people’s aspirations. We are fighting over who becomes the
next oppressor, rather than trying to uproot oppression.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Which brings me back to Ndii’s argument. Last year, in
response to his <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Kenya-is-a-cruel-marriage--it-s-time-we-talk-divorce/440808-3134132-2i7ea3/index.html" target="_blank">abusive marriage thesis</a>, I wrote that Kenyans are actually in
<a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2016/03/kenyas-flight-from-theory.html" target="_blank">an abusive relationship with their elites</a>, rather than with other tribes. The
extraction that the state facilitates, and that is the real prize the elites
are battling over, is from all Kenyans regardless of ethnicity – we all pay
whoever gets to be the piper, some more than others, but that doesn’t mean we
get to call the tune or avoid the rats.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In fact, the whole talk of ethnic domination is a device to
hide state domination by the elite of all tribes, which has led to a situation
where <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/22575" target="_blank">8,000 individuals own 62% of everything</a>. Dismembering the country will
not fix this.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Clearly, as Ndii holds, there is in principle no reason why
a discussion on secession or mutual separation cannot or should not happen. We
should not fetishize Kenya since, as we have seen, it was not created for our
benefit but rather as a tool for robbery. Think of that next time you feel
compelled to sing its songs, salute its flag or declare its eternity. For most
of the country’s existence, it has been little more than a mostly illegitimate
political and administrative arrangement that we have been struggling to master. The
2010 constitution gave us a chance to begin to get to grips with that challenge
and provides an agreed upon vision of how it can be made to work for us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Part of that vision is decentralization as a cure to the
overbearing central state. Since before independence, majimboism or its current
iteration -devolution- has been at the crux of the struggle between those who were
seen as domineering and the rest. It was one of the major issues that
divided KADU and KANU. Although a pillar of the Independence
constitution, which created 7 regional governments and assemblies, it was
undone by KANU in the 60s which, among other things, simply <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/national-parliaments/kenya.php" target="_blank">starved the regional governments of revenue</a>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Today, devolution remains at risk. The fact that the vast
bulk of the tax money is controlled and retained in Nairobi, where the elite
congregates, rather than disbursed in the counties where the people are
dispersed is in itself telling. There is a deep need to ponder the continuing centrality
of the national Presidency in our politics (it was, after all, largely modelled
on the colonial Governor-General) and the fact that it remains a potent symbol,
not of unity as envisaged in the constitution, but of domination.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Simply put, the work of implementing the constitution is not
done. It has only begun but the night is here and it is full of terrors. Only
by doing the hard work of facing up to our history and rebuilding the state
from the bottom up, not as a tool of oppression, but as a means to enable
popular aspirations, can we hope to extricate ourselves of the vicious cycle.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We therefore must, as Ndii says, not shy away from scary
discussions about the means we use to compel those in power to abide by the
constitution, or even the possibility of separation if that fails. But we also
must not be seduced by the easy, tribe-based formulations he offers, that only serve to mask the
real nature of our state. However, the only way to truly appreciate what Ndii gets
wrong, is to seriously engage with what he gets right.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32060070.post-18390680130028073372017-08-20T01:31:00.000+03:002017-08-20T01:31:16.024+03:00Betrayal in the Kenyan Media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Francis Imbuga’s 1976 play,
Betrayal in the City, the Kenyan playwright and literature scholar describes
life in the fictitious, dystopian, post-colonial state of Kafira. One of the
characters, a university don jailed for speaking his mind: "We have killed
our past and are busy killing our future".</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I write this, Kenya is busy killing
its future. Once again, a disputed presidential election has put the country on
edge. After a week of building tension and deserted streets and people stocking
up on food, and water, protests have erupted in parts of Nairobi, sparked by
the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as winner. Gunshots and police choppers are being
heard in Kibera, one of the capital’s largest slums and a bastion of support
for his bitter rival, Raila Odinga, who claims he election has been stolen. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">Many had already fled their homes in
expectation of violence and in the capital city, Nairobi, many have not gone
back to work since voting </span><span style="color: #222222; margin: 0px;">on Tuesday</span><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">, leaving its normally bustling and
noisy Central Business District feeling like a ghost town.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">Small protests had been breaking out
in several parts of the capital and in other urban centres, throughout the
week, which had led to clashes with police and, regrettably, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/895642142013390848" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">at least
5 deaths so far</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">. Given the ongoing unrest, that figure is set to
rise even further.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, you wouldn’t know this
watching most of Kenyan media -considered by some as one of the most vibrant on
the continent. TV screens are full of pictures of celebrating Kenyatta
supporters and political pundits analyzing the election outcome. Kenyans are
having to turn to international media and to friends and family to get a sense
of what is happening. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">Throughout the week, while dutifully
covering the complaints of election hacking and rigging raised by Odinga, as
well as the responses from the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission
(IEBC), the media was in the main determined to avoid any mention of trouble.
Instead, it has opted to regale the country with </span><a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Githeri-Man-Kenya-Elections-Martin-Kamotho-Njenga/1056-4052976-ryxffp/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">colorful stories of the Githeri Man, Kenya's new
internet sensation</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">On social media, the usually
irrepressible collective that calls itself Kenyans On Twitter (#KOT) is
similarly subdued. As they have been doing the whole week, gangs of twitterbots
are trolling the online streets looking for any reports of protests, branding
them either “fake news” or evidence of a nefarious plot by foreign
correspondents to incite violence for the sake of boosting their career
prospects or securing book deals. There have even been </span><a href="http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/08/10/outcry-after-police-block-journalists-from-covering-kisumu-demos_c1614476" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">reports</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"> of police preventing journalists from
covering the demonstrations, confiscating equipment and deleting footage and
even threatening to shoot them.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">Much of this is reminiscent of what
happened in the 2013 election. Four years ago, as the country again hang on
tenterhooks as politicians bickered over another presidential election, </span><a href="http://gathara.blogspot.co.ke/2013/03/the-monsters-under-house.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">I wrote of a compact</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"> that
had developed between the media and the public: “Kenya would have a credible
election, no matter what.” Back then, it was thought that the way to avoid the
sort of violence that had nearly torn the country apart in 2007, on the back of
yet another disputed presidential election (hope you are noticing a trend
here), was to not ask uncomfortable questions about it.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today, the reasons for silence are
considerably more sinister. In the run up to the election, there was great
public resistance to “preaching peace” as a means of pre-empting violent
protests in the event the election was disputed. So out went “peace
journalism”. But in place of a compact with the people based on the mutual fear
of anarchy, the media appears to have made a deal with the government based on
a mutual interest in plundering the public.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">By law, the government is forbidden
from advertising its achievements in any media during the election period.
However, this did not stop the Kenyan media houses pocketing millions in the
weeks before the election for broadcasting </span><a href="http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/07/20/kra-boss-pss-could-be-jailed-or-fined-for-engaging-in-politics_c1599651" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">blatantly illegal advertisements</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"> from
the President’s Delivery Unit, some of which even bore the tagline “Jubilee
Delivers” and “Uhuru 2017” (Jubilee is the political party of incumbent
president Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking re-election).</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In return, it seems the media has sold
its soul. The first sign came very soon after the closing of the polls when one
TV channel, KTN NEWS, gave the results of what it called an exit poll. The
curious thing about that poll was it does not seem to have asked the voters how
they voted, which one would assume is the point of an exit poll.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 31px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">But worse was to come. Going to bed
with government seems to have led to a wholesale abandonment of their
journalistic duty to independently verify the results of the election announced
by the IEBC. </span><a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/presidential-results-ruling/1064-3983598-ydcmepz/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; margin: 0px;">A Court of Appeal decision</span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"> in
June had made it clear that results of the presidential election declared at
polling stations and constituency tallying centres were final and could not be
altered by IEBC mandarins at the national tallying center in Nairobi. That
opened the door for the media to run independent tallies and, despite largely
empty </span><a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/CS-Mucheru-sends-warning-to-media-houses/1056-4038724-q5f3a8z/index.html"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">government threats of having their licenses cancelled</span></span></a><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;">, even
call the election. And indeed, many already had this capacity. In January,
Samuel Macharia, the owner of Kenya’s largest TV and radio network, Royal Media
Services, told the Senate that his network had independently tracked records at
every presidential election since 1992.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet, it appears that this did not
happen. Today, all the press is crowded at the national tallying centre at the
Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi, hanging on every word that issues from the IEBC.
They have been content to run its unofficial tallies rather than get the
official counts and tallies from the lower levels. And worst of all, as the
politicians and IEBC officials haggle in Nairobi over which numbers are
correct, the media is happy to play along rather than spare us the drama by
simply heading down to the 40,000 polling stations where, even now, the
official and final results are posted outside for all to see. </span><span style="background: yellow; margin: 0px;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than preaching peace, the
Kenyan media has been earning its 30 pieces of silver by ignoring and editing
out citizen frustrations in order to maintain a façade of normality. But
there’s nothing normal about this silencing, the delegitimization of those,
however many or few they may be, who feel the need to express their discontent
through peaceful marches, or by ignoring of those who have died at the hands of
the police.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Imbuga’s play has an ignominious character who uses
his closeness to the supreme leader to secure corrupt advantages and to sell
out his countrymates. At the end of the play, Mulili’s duplicity is laid bare
and he is executed, signifying the passing of the oppressive order and the
birth of new hope. Similarly, Kenya’s media needs to get out of Kenyans’ way so
they can get down to the business of saving their future.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="color: #555555; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/08/11/kenyas-elections-show-how-the-media-has-sold-its-soul/?utm_term=.2034642d135e" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This piece was first published in the Washington Post.</span></a></span></div>
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Gatharahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05615274760892257015noreply@blogger.com1