Kenya: There Is No Peace. There Will Be No Peace.

Let's get one thing straight. Whatever happens on or after August 8, Kenya will not have peace.

Regardless of whether either it is Uhuru Kenyatta or his main rival, Raila Odinga, who is declared the winner of the presidential election; whether the election is stolen or is free, fair and credible; whether people stay in the streets or go out to protest the result; the country will not know peace. We will not have peace because we have not earned it, because we do not deserve it.

"Peace is not simply about the absence of violence. It is defined by the presence of fundamental liberties and the prevalence of economic opportunities. We will not settle for a perfunctory peace that is disrupted every five years by an election cycle." So declared President Kenyatta in his inaugural address four years ago following yet another divisive election. Yet, as the all-pervasive fear shrouding us today reveals, we did settle for "a perfunctory peace" which is no peace at all.

We have done none of the hard work required for peace. We have not secured the fundamental liberties or economic opportunities that he spoke of. We have rather been only too willing to trade those freedoms in for an elusive safety from terrorists. We have been only too content to celebrate economic growth that does not produce jobs or create wealth except for a very few at the very top. We have refused to demand accountability for the many times our military and civilian security bosses have failed Kenyans in places like Westgate, Mpeketoni, Garissa, Mandera, El Adde, Kulbiyow and most recently, Pandanguo.

More importantly, we have failed to that which the President was careful not to mention: deal with the ghosts of our past. Over the last four years, we have been content to let the sleeping ogres lie. The report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission has been allowed to gather dust in Parliament, the interrogation of the last hundred years of Kenyan history it was meant to spark, smothered. We have been afraid to clean our wounds, to take the bitter medicine, instead allowing them to fester and the infection to spread.

So today we will pray for peace but peace will no come. We will feverishly pray for healing for our diseased body politic, but healing will not come. The best we can hope for is "the absence of violence" and the extension of the fragile ceasefire.

Therefore, the current debate over whether we should prefer peace to the injustice of a sham election is somewhat misplaced -peace is not on the table. This is not to say the election is inconsequential. For many ordinary Kenyans, disputed elections imperil and already imperiled existence. Kenya is an incredibly violent place at the best of times. Wananchi have to endure the violence of poverty; of hunger; of state incompetence and oppression and murder and disappearing; of terrorism. The added violence elections bring exponentially increases their hardships and suffering while only slightly inconveniencing those in whose names the fighting is done. So, yes let' demand a credible election. But we shouldn't delude ourselves that this will preserve peace.

There is no peace to preserve. There is not even "absence of violence" for most. Let's not talk about peace unless we really mean it. Not unless we are serious about addressing, not just the potential injustice of a rigged poll, but all the injustices of the past whose bitter and painful consequences Kenyans are forced to live with every day. Let's not talk about peace unless we are ready to confront the injustice of inequality, of poverty, of hunger, of dependence on handouts, of the deprivation of rights, of the institutionalizing of ignorance through the public education system.

No, my friends. Let's not talk of peace. Let's say what we really mean. We want calm. We want life to go on pretty much as it has over the last four years and over the half-century before that. And that is not peace. This election cannot bring peace. Only our commitment to working hard every day, election or no, to confront and undo injustice, and to demand accountability, can. And there is precious little evidence of that.

So don't tell me about peace. There is no peace. There will be no peace.

Peace For Our Time

On 30 September 1938, British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, walked the steps of a plane at the Heston Aerodrome in London brandishing a piece of paper, the result of negotiations he had had with the German Chancellor. “I believe this is peace for our time,” he would later say, a phrase he would come to regret. For a world still traumatised by the Great War which had ended just two decades prior, the news of an agreement between the British and the Germans averting another catastrophe was welcome.  “Good man,” US President Franklin Roosevelt telegraphed from the across the Atlantic.

The Munich Agreement would turn out to be nothing more than a temporary stay and within a year the globe would be consumed by an even greater conflict. Three quarters of a century later, Kenyans find themselves at a similarly pivotal moment. Like the British at the time, memories of a recent conflict are still fresh. Like them, our overriding objective is to avoid a repeat. We too have been guilty of selling out the weak in the course of doing so.

Today, all eyes are on the Supreme Court. With bated breath the country awaits its decision on the petitions challenging the outcome of the election. The court’s decision may resolve the question of who becomes the next president of the republic, but like the Munich Agreement, it will only be a balm on a festering wound. It will not address the feelings and emotions tearing at our hearts, the underlying currents rending our national soul.

The fixation with who becomes president is diverting our energies from more fruitful pursuits. More important than who moves into Statehouse after its current tenant vacates is what that person does. And we should give thought to a post-election agenda to tackle the issues that have been highlighted by the election.

The urgent priority must be to begin the process of healing the country following a bruising election. The president, whoever it is, must recognize that half the country voted against him. This is not a time for chest-thumping and claiming wide ranging mandates. It is rather a time to reach out.  Also, there is an urgent need to build bridges between our polarised communities and begin to address the root causes of that polarisation. We cannot afford to spend another five years burying our heads in the sand. Our ignorance has not brought us bliss, and it is unlikely to.

The work of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission will be crucial to this. The Commission’s report is due out in just over a month’s time and should cover gross violations of human rights, economic crimes, illegal acquisition of public land and the marginalization of communities. That report can form the basis for a national catharsis. For the first time, the country can bare its soul and confront the past. It must be made public and not be hidden like other reports that have gathered dust on the presidential shelf. Victims must be given the opportunity voice to their pain, families to grieve and sinners can seek penitence.

According David Tolbert, president of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, “truth commissions work more effectively when they complement the work of criminal justice, reparations programmes and institutional reform.” If the TJRC will have done a thorough job, and it is hoped that it will, then its report should make for uncomfortable reading for many of our most powerful and long self-serving public officials. The TJRC may not have the power to prosecute, but it can recommend prosecutions, reparations for victims, institutional changes, and amnesty.

The implementation of these recommendations will fall squarely on the incoming administration and its leader must be seen to act quickly and to act comprehensively. It will not do to repeat the pattern of the past with the charade of half-hearted prosecutions. If it is to be a credible exercise, the justice must be real. There must be no return to business as usual. Necessary reforms must be undertaken to prevent future injustice.

If this is done then Kenya will be well on its way to a real recovery. Defending the rights of the weak and the marginalised, not ignoring them, is the true path to a genuine peace.