THERE BE DRAGONS

In medieval times, areas known to be dangerous or uncharted were often labeled on maps with the warning: “Beware, here be dragons.” That is surely how mapmakers would be labeling the whole of Kenya today.

After the onset of the Hague trials, it was reasonable to be, at worst, agnostic and, at best, hopeful about the prospect of this country making the difficult transition from autocracy to democracy. But recently, looking honestly at the country, one has to conclude that the prospects for stable transitions from a country that reeks of executive impunity to a properly functioning democracy anytime soon are dimming. It is too early to give up hope, but it is not too early to start worrying.

Lord knows it is not because of the bravery of the PEV witnesses, and many civil societies, who set off these awakenings, in search of dignity, justice and compensation. No, it is because the staying power and mendacity of the entrenched old guards and old ideas in these countries is much deeper than most people realize and the frailty or absence of democratic institutions, traditions and examples much greater.

“There is a saying that inside every fat man is a thin man dying to get out, We also tend to believe that inside every autocracy is a democracy dying to get out, but that might not be true in Kenya.

It was true in Germany in 1989, but there are two big differences between Germany and Kenya. Germany countries had a recent liberal past to fall back on — after the artificially imposed Nazi communism were removed. And Germany also had a compelling model and magnet for free-market democracy right next door: the European Union. Kenya has neither, so when the iron lid of impunity comes off they fall back, not on liberalism, but sectarianism, tribalism or military rule.

To be sure, we have to remember how long it took America to build its own liberal political order and what freaks that has made them today. Almost four years ago, they elected a black man, whose name was Barack, whose grandfather was a Muslim, to lead them out of their worst economic crisis in a century. they’re now considering replacing him with a Mormon, and it all seems totally normal. But that normality took more than 200 years and a civil war to develop.

We in Kenya are in our first decade. You saw in 2007 how quickly the regime and dark forces turned the democracy push into a sectarian war. Remember, the civil societies and the opposition in Kenya began a largely peaceful, mass demonstration, movement for accountability and a vote recount. But it was deliberately met by security forces and tribal militia with murder and sectarian venom. They wanted to make the conflict to be about tribe A versus Tribe B as a way of discrediting the opposition and holding base.

As Headstart Africa, a think tank group on the conflicts on the horn of Africa wrote in a recent essay: “Rather than reform, the regime’s default setting has been to push society to the brink. As soon as protests started ... state media showed staged footage of  jubilant citizens celebrating as the president was hurriedly sworn in whilst the information PS declared a blanket ban on live broadcasting ... this was an attempt to erect a mini-caliphate. This manipulation of Kenyans meant the regime was confident that the threat of civil war would force citizens and outside players alike to agree on preserving the existing power structure as the only bulwark against collapse.”

You see the same kind of manipulation of emotions in our country today. Elections were bundled and citizens demonstrated peacefully. Thousands were killed and hundred thousands displaced — and not even a single government leader, even our MP’s, dared to stand up and say: “Wait, this is wrong or dared to resign or even go to the international community to petition for justice for the victims. Every week we hear of the Attorney General forming a committee to look into modalities of having the jurisprudence of the cases referred back to Kenya— and there’s barely a peep. Yet the mere confirmation of charges against the ocampo suspects sparks outbursts and killings. What does our reaction say about us?” we need to have this conversation.

The Kenyan awakening phase is over. Now we are deep into the counter-revolutionary phase, as the dead hands of the past try to strangle the future. I am ready to consider any ideas of how we can help the forces of democracy and decency win. But, ultimately, this is the citizens’ fight. We have to own it, and I just hope it doesn’t end — as it often does in the land of dragons — with extremists going all the way and the moderates just going away. We’ve won the dance now we need to win the prize…

FREEDOM IS AROUND THE CORNER

To observe the democratic awakenings happening in a Country like Kenya is to travel with a glow in your heart and a pit in your stomach.

The glow comes from watching people lose their fear and be willing to take enormous risks to assert, not a particular ideology, but the most human of emotions: the quest for dignity, justice and the right to shape one’s own future. I was skimming through the various social sites on Tuesday morning — just as the medical workers strike was gathering momentum. Despite the fact that medical services minister issued an ultimatum that all workers return to work. A simple rule: Whenever 120,000 people gather to rally for rights — and they don’t fear being sacked and rendered jobless — take it seriously.

The minister and govt. spokesman were predicting that only a small crowd would brave going against the grain. They were wrong, and it underscores something that a lot of cynics regarding these awakening movements and strikes just don’t get. They’re like earthquakes or volcanoes. They are totally natural phenomena, and they emerge from a very deep place in people’s souls. Those mounting them are not sitting around calculating the odds of success before they start. They just happen. Anyone who thinks that workers representatives could have cut a deal with the medical services ministry without consulting the workers is as delusional as anyone who thinks COTU is behind the workers protests against the Government. We’re all spectators, watching an authentic human wave.

But that pit in the stomach comes from knowing that while the protests are propelled by deep aspirations for dignity, justice and self-determination, such heroic emotions have to compete with other less noble impulses and embedded interests in these societies.

Take KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation alias Kazi Bila Chakula). I have no doubt that many of the journalists mounting the uprising against the management — which is dominated by political appointees and demagogues — are propelled by a quest for an independent and pluralistic state broadcaster . But have no illusions: Some are also working at the behest of their political masters seeing this as their chance to have government machineries and parastatals at their machinations. Where win-win democratic and right aspirations stop in Kenya and rule-or-die sectarian fears begin is very hard to untangle.

With good reason. There is a lot of pent-up anger there. The Wealthy elite has run Kenya as a protectorate since pre-colonial at the behest of poor workers.

Does it have a future without them? Can this multi-sectarian population democratically rule itself, or does it crack apart? No one can predict. The kenyan workers are divided, by sects, by politics, by region, by insiders and outsiders. We need to support them, provided they come together on a pluralistic reform agenda. Political leaders owe that to the brave unions who have taken on the government bare-handed. The only chance of the government agreeing to some kind of meaningful remunerations, and not payment of peanuts, is if it is faced with a real united workers union. It’s also the only hope for stabilizing the weakening shilling and an economy sliding into recess.

This will be hard. You can’t have a country without workers , and you can’t have workers without trust — without trust that everyone will be treated with equality under the law, no matter who is in power, and without trust in a shared vision of what kind of society people are trying to build.

Kenya is not vis-à-vis to America; America has that kind of trust because the country started with a shared idea that attracted the people. The borders came later. In most of the African states awakening today, the borders came first, drawn by foreign powers, and now the people trapped within them are trying to find a shared set of ideas to live by and trust each other with as equal citizens.

Nigeria shows how hard it is to do that — the Christian-Muslim divide still cuts very deep — but Nigeria also shows that it is not impossible.

We often forget how unusual Kenya is as a self-governing, pluralistic society. We democratically removed a regime that had been in power for twenty four years then replaced it with one we had trust in, and now we are considering replacing it at a time when ethnic animosity is rife. Who in the world does that? Not many, especially in Africa. Yet, clearly, many people here now deeply long to be citizens — not all, but many. If the government has any hope of a stable future, we need to bet on them.

WHO THREW KENYA UNDER THE BUS???

Once upon a time a Kenyan man named Kenyatta was accused of participating in treason against the country. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his arrest and ultimate detention was fabricated, that he had in fact done a lot to emancipate, emasculate and empower his county from colonialists. Nonetheless, the public understandably wanted to know both how much he loved the country  and what vision he had for the country; he obliged by releasing extensive information about his struggle for independence.

But that was 50 years ago. And the contrast between Jomo Kenyatta and his son Uhuru — a contrast both in their political careers and in their willingness to come clean about their crimes — dramatically illustrates how the Kenyan political landscape has changed.

Right now there’s a lot of ruffled feathers and buzz about the visit by the ICC Chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, who is leading prosecutions against the younger Kenyatta who has been accused of heinous crimes against humanity. Let’s talk about what it meant to be charged with a criminal offence during Jomo Kenyatta’s Kenya, and how it compares with the situation today.

Which ‘crimes’ did Jomo Kenyatta commit? The answer is a no-brainer: he was indicted with five others on the charges of ‘managing and being a member’ of the Mau Mau society which was a radical anti-colonial movement. The defense, led by British barrister D.N Pritt, argued that the white settlers were trying to scapegoat Kenyatta and that there was no evidence tying him to the Mau Mau.

While contemporary opinion linked Kenyatta with the Mau Mau, historians have questioned his alleged leadership of the freedom movement. At a time when Dedan Kimathi, General China and the other Mau Mau fighters were busy waging guerrilla war against the colonial government in the forest, he was busy marrying the daughters of colonial chief’s.  This fact is also attested by his dismissal and scant treatment of Mau Mau fighters after he came to power coupled with the fact that after independence his allies were mainly former colonial collaborators. Was he a project and stooge of the British colonialists? Was he a bootlicker? Was he a turncoat revolutionary?

Upon his ascendency to power he pursued a moderate pro-western, anti-communist economic philosophy and foreign policy. He helped stabilize Kenya with the help of the British but his reign was bequeathed with a score of myriad litanies which continue to haunt our country and threaten our existence as a people.

Kenyatta ruled with an iron fist. He made himself rich amassing large tracts of land; encouraged the culture of wealth accumulation by public officials using the power and influence of their offices; unfairly resettled his kikuyu tribesmen in rift-valley province.

And he fought very gallantly to consolidate his position by amending the constitution to expand his executive powers thus ruling through a clique of his relatives who plundered the country’s resources to become the most powerful and wealthiest. It is this clique that has been blocking reforms, change and ultimate liberation of the country in order to continue bleeding the country to death.

I may not have the brains of Archimedes or Pythagoras but I can’t fail to figure out that 1 + 1=2. The candidature of the younger Kenyatta is that of self-preservation and maintaining of the statuesque. My gut feeling is that Uhuru is keener on protecting his fathers’ name and wealth than acknowledging his failed policies. Surely nobody expects him to bite the hand that fed him by reprimanding the unbridled atrocities committed by his father. Is he scoring an own goal when he says that he will address historical injustices mostly land alienation? Yet he is the major beneficiary. My crystal ball tells me that Uhuru will govern the same way his father did and go even a step further, that’s my clairvoyance.

The rich vultures are circling in on Uhuru’s candidature to protect the haves from the have-nots...most of the Kenyan people. He is on record suggesting that the charges of crimes against humanity he is facing at the ICC are politically instigated by western forces, is that really true?  My cue, it’s not my call; its Bensouda’s and the ICC’s… May justice be served.

The main thing that we have to worry about with a potential President Uhuru is that Uhuru seems to have almost a psychopathic obsession with accumulating money. It's like he's some kind of addict, chasing quarters in the gutter. All the offshore accounts; the bizarrely 80 million lost in a briefcase at the airport which he had withdrawn from his Swiss accounts fearing that they might frozen. That’s just the icing on the cake. The infamous kshs. 10 billion budget error, it’s one thing to flip flop about the ICC but attributing a budget that is scrutinized by top ministry of finance technocrats to a computer error is sheer malice and taking Kenyans for imbeciles. To add salt to injury, that same year it emerged that the ministry of finance had under reported the tax collected by KRA by kshs. 105 billion, KRA backed this by showing records of what it had collected the previous year and remittances to the finance ministry. Uhuru has remained tight lipped up to now and the issue still leaves black holes. It is also in the public gallery that uhuru necessitated the transfer of Prof. Sam Ongeri from the ministry of Education to that of Foreign Affairs after Ongeri confronted him about the ksh4.6 billion which disappeared before reaching the ministry of Education. What about the errors amounting to kshs. 89 billion cited by mars group?

What are his track records? Where are his priorities? What does he envision and present? Is he really the change we want? Is he a re-incarnation of Jomo?  I have no doubt that he would sell out this country in a heartbeat if he could barter it for a few dollars more.

Uhuru has taught Kenyans a viable lesson the hard way; that life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain. Any middle-class Kenyan who votes for this nice but dishonest multi-millionaire votes against their own interest. And that's the truth!