The Kenya We Want!

You haven’t heard much from me lately because I have been working very hard over the last two weeks. I have been starting work at 9am, leaving the office at 7pm, only to continue working at home from 9pm again! It has certainly restricted my writing time. But when the muse visits there’s no alternative but to write, write, write!

This particular blog was promising to be something of an Epic Tale. But it seems that the tale of intrigue I was hoping to write simply refuses to resolve itself (and remains intriguing!). It will have to wait until the time is right. And so, I have to desist to the will of the gods and leave that blog alone for now. It will out when it will.

Meantime, with my proposal-writing at work, my little recent exposure to Kenya’s news media, and my observation of local distaste in the mouths of many, I have been led to even more sober thoughts about Kenya.

First up is my recurrent concern for the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

FGM was outlawed in the Sudan last week sometime (see blog: “Two Things That Bother Me”).

Hongera (congratulations) Sudan, for entering the 21st Century! I am sure there are a lot of young girls breathing a very deep sigh of relief in your country right now – although the extent to which the banning will be enforced remains to be seen.

But I mention the Sudan’s brave action here, only because we need to know that FGM is definitely not outlawed in Kenya yet!

In a speech marking Jamhuri (Independence) Day, on 12th December 2001, President Daniel Arap Moi, Independent Kenya’s second-only President, declared the ‘circumcision’ of girls under the age of 17 unlawful, punishable by at least a year in jail. However, for girls over 16, it remained a ‘matter of choice’. Moi did at least give the girls some measure of legal protection and promised the support of the law for those ‘who do not wish to be cut’. Yet despite the start of some moral opprobrium, the practice remains widespread. I have already blogged the fact that no less than 260 girls absconded from a village near here in December, simply in order to avoid ‘the cut’.

A 1998 Kenya survey found that 30% of women between 15 and 49 had been ‘cut’. That is nearly one in three (even with likely significant under-reporting of its incidence by victims)! And it doesn’t seem to be restricted to rural areas either.

Thankfully, various Christian organisations and NGO’s are working towards its eradication, but this in the rural areas mainly. And quite a lot of anti-FGM work is being conducted among the Maasai, in an effort to end its widespread and enduring practice within this ‘preserved’ tribal group. And I hope soon to be able to schedule a trip to Arusha (‘homeland’ of the Maasai), allied to another piece of social research we have proposed. This should give me some space to gauge what is actually being achieved in terms of its eradication among the Maasai people (if we get to do the proposed research that is).

As I mentioned in a brief note the other day, my research team has also just written a (very good) proposal for the conduct of large-scale research into FGM and into the potential means of its stigmatization and eradication in Kenya. Obviously, I seriously hope we get this work too. Actually, so confident am I that we will get the work that I have just employed an M.A. in Gender Studies to take over the study (and some of the other ‘social’ research that we are increasingly being asked to propose). So, if circumstances (not circumcisions) permit, we are certainly going to do our little bit to have this gender-outrage depart the East African region for good.

From increasingly vocal accounts, it certainly seems that the time for the end of this ‘idea’ has come. I have no doubt that the practice imposes severe suffering and, I suspect, subjugation, among its hapless victims. It is high time for this practice to go, whatever the cultural and historical reasons for its entrenched and continued practice…

That’s my bit, yet again, on the subject of FGM in Kenya. Yet however passionate I might be about it, the issue of FGM is not in the very dim spotlight of Kenya’s civil society.

The importance of FGM eradication, as might otherwise be espoused by Kenya’s intelligentsia, is insignificant in their view. They seem more ‘concerned’ – nay, almost exclusively concerned - by the pervasive corruption that is eating away at every facet of Kenyan politics and that infests just about every government department. Almost every day there are corruption charges, or rumours of corruption, mentioned in the press.

But Kenyans actually have little to add once the press is done with their one-day coverage of some new corruption innuendo. And with this being the case, if there is actually any spotlight being wielded by civil society in Kenya, I believe it should first be set to highlight Kenyan civil society’s own apathy and lack of political resolve…

Almost every mature, educated and ‘concerned’ Kenyan I have met (and I have met a few now) exudes an entrenched air of gloomy resignation about the current, and future, of Kenyan politics. No-one (that I can see, at least) is standing up to say, “We want change, and we want it now”. Everyone just seems to mutter under his or her breath about the evils of local corruption and incompetent governance.

But where’s the activism in this country? Where are the people who are willing to make sacrifices, and suffer a bit, for the common good? Where are the idealists and quiet revolutionaries? Where are the Sarafinas and the Hector Petersen’s (although I don’t think it’ll ever need to go that far in Kenya)?

Is everyone perhaps just a little too comfortable in the warm glow of the status quo? If we can claim that there is a problem here (is there, folks?), I believe a large part of it lies at the feet of Kenyans themselves! Kenyans are simply too happy, or, at least, satisfied, with their lot. On the whole, they would rather go out and have a good time than get involved in the potential threats inherent in local politics! Politics they leave to the aged, old-school geezers of their fathers’ era.

So far, the only significant statements of dissatisfaction, or even knowledge, of the sorry state of State corruption have had to come from mzungus. Past British High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay took the initiative a while ago and accused the Kenyan government of behaving “like gluttons”, eating the money meant for the Kenyan people, and then “vomiting on the shoes of donors”. This caused a huge furor and placed Sir Edward seriously in it. He apologized, saying something to effect of not meaning any insult. I wonder what he might have said if he did mean an insult? His Liberal Party successor, Sir Jeffrey James, followed suit with musing and muttering, only to be accused by President Moi, upon his retirement, of being a ‘meddler’ in local politics.

At a recent ‘briefing’ on East African politics and economics at the stunning Serena Hotel in Nairobi, Jane spoke warmly and easily with Sir Jeffrey. He is currently ‘on business’ in the East Africa region and is apparently still on the Kenya government’s list of ‘undesirables’. I would love to have had a word with him about the unhappy state of this nation but I didn’t get the honour of an introduction to his esteemed person. I waited in the wings until Jane was finished and then we filed into the dining room for lunch…

So far (to my limited knowledge) it has only been these two mzungu expats who have had anything significant to say about the government’s hungry disposition in Kenya. For the rest, there’s been a deathly silence. The Americans seized the opportunity that Kenya’s spat with Britain had created and quickly strengthened its trade ties!

So, on a day-to-day basis, one might see a few column-centimeters of coverage on some alleged corruption in one or all of the daily papers. Then it disappears from the pages of the press. If the scandal is big enough, the government will waste no time! It will appoint a commission, comprising those responsible for the corruption, with the task of investigating it!

But one has to ask, are there reasons for a lack of activism here? Official stats tell us there’s a ratio of one policeman for every 1000 Kenyans. That’s a lot of policemen. And considering that most of the Po-Lease force is probably located in the urban areas, that is a very lot of policemen! You see them all over; walking with their machine guns slung casually over their shoulders or held over their arms. But, again, you generally don’t get the impression of living in a police state as one once did in South Africa. But if called upon, I guess that a large scale mobilization of the said force in the cities would produce a very significant show of strength, and enough to quell just about any insurrection of ‘concerned’ Kenyans. That’s probably the real reason they are so evident on the streets. But I doubt the show of strength will ever really be needed…

The Kenyan police are certainly a source of derision (for never wanting anything else but a bribe), but they are also the object of fear and loathing. I haven’t got the details but the latest is that some of their number have been caught trigger-fingered, taking the (lack of rule-of-)law into their own hands. They have been gunning down innocent people. I have previously remarked on the fact that the police here shoot to kill and many a ‘suspected’ gangster has met his untimely demise at the smoking end of an AK47 (or similar). Ever since the Minister of Security gave permission for the police to fire at will, and with lethal intent, upon members of the notorious Mungiki gang (who, incidentally, number 2 million!), I fear that a lot of fairly innocent dissenters have lost their lives. But we’ll never know, will we? But there is a fresh scandal brewing if I am to believe the news I heard in Kiss FM today. Watch this space!

But, again, it seems to me that Kenyans of all shapes and sizes, all classes, and all measures of political influence, are so mired in apathy and borderline depression that really not much is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. It’s a sorry state of affairs and I think it’s going to be decades before this country is “free at last”. If you spend a little time with people of standing and influence in this society you hear the same gripe about government corruption, over and over. But you hear of no-ones plans or dreams of changing it all. There is nothing but a gloomy resignation and cynicism everywhere.

The role of the media in effecting social change has so far not been highlighted by anyone within civil society either. There aren’t any political ‘agitators’ within the journalist class that I know of. No-one ever appears in the media with a voice of proper dissent or opposition! Certainly, there’s no one that I see ready to stand up and be counted on the issues of importance to Kenya right now. It seems that the only true statements on the uneasy state of Kenyan politics came from the two mzungu expatriates!

Remember in South Africa how the birth of the Weekly Mail sparked a vision among the country’s journalists that then led to the publishing of the New Nation and then, later, Die Vrye Weekblad? They were all newspapers openly devoted to the subversion and ultimate toppling of the Apartheid regime. They made no bones about it and published what they could under a much greater threat of individual persecution and business closure than exists here. The papers had their tribulations and dissenters. The New Nation didn’t survive the onslaught. But the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian) did, and survives today, rather unfortunately, as a rather dry and academic paper. But it certainly did serve its purpose, along with the others at the time.

And I can’t help but think that, with Kenya’s Media Amendment Bill currently in for revision, now is surely the time for the media to start agitating about something. Anything! While it is being amended, one could surely make the constitutional argument that there exists a de facto suspension of some, or all, of its clauses? Yet the media bosses will say that they can’t say anything, despite their intimate knowledge of what is actually going on right now. Aside from random expressions of audience disillusionment on only one radio frequency (to my limited knowledge), there is no campaign of any description that might permit Kenyans to get more than the government they currently deserve! (Who was it that said every country gets the government they deserve?)

Kiss 100 are doing a bit of agitation but so far it’s the only medium I have heard or seen doing anything at all about the perilous state of media and public freedoms in this country. On the morning show, the two presenters are not particularly scared… (and it’s heartening to hear!)

In response to the resistance of MP’s to pay tax, they say things like;

“I’m so-and-so (female ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer!”

“I’m so-and-so (male ‘morning drive time’ presenter) and I’m a tax payer”

“The TAX PAYERS ARE IN THE HOUSE!”

It’s a small something, but I respect and admire the little bit they are trying to do to conscientise the Kenyan public. But aside from what’s on Kiss in the morning, there is NOTHING being said anywhere else!

Where are the Kenyan Leaders? Among locals, their deep-rooted cynicism gets excused as ‘past experience’, ‘hard-earned knowledge’ and the like. Some of society’s leaders and agents of change have indeed been harassed and persecuted. But so what? Kenya needs more people standing up, making at least some noise! Unless someone takes an initial firm stand on the way things should be – or at least what needs to stop – nothing will ever change in your country, people of Kenya!

You have such a beautiful country, with such lovely people! This is not how it is supposed to be for you now, in a world where freedom is breaking out everywhere, unchecked!

And as for your ‘new’ constitution … It will land up being nothing but a rehash of the old. Let’s face it; you’re not likely to see any radical – or even ‘new’ - clauses being introduced while the current government is in charge of its drafting.

But Kenya, your government has better strategies than you think! The upcoming conference on the “Kenya We Want” is being hosted by the same government that is so much in dispute. Who is ever going to raise the real issue at this meeting? Must I come along and have a say in your stead, people of Kenya? Do I need to give new meaning to the term “lip service”? I hope it will not be necessary. I need my job.

But I guess Kibaki’s government has hatched a clever strategy to subvert the influence of anyone else in matters of free, sound governance. The “Kenya We Want” conference is, at least, being handled by the significantly more open-minded Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. But as we know, he’s paid from the same account as any other minister (to the tune of Kshs 1.4 million a month). And so Kenyans, you’ll be stuck with the same old, same old. It’s coming (or not coming, as the case may be?), and then you’ll be moaning for the next twenty years!

Until someone actually does something and stops just moaning about the way things are, nothing will change. A critical mass of dissent needs to be formed. Now! While everyone is sitting tjoep stil (dead quiet) on the issues, nothing will happen. The time is now, Kenya! Kenya Awethu!

Democracy is supposed to be government ‘for the people, by the people’. Not here, folks. No sirree. Kenya’s government is a carefully orchestrated symphony of cabalism where only the elite know the tune of the day, the secret handshake, the true meaning of the conductor’s baton-swing!

Kenya, a new world is possible for you! But only if you take a few tentative steps, at the very least, towards it realization.






Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Arundhati Roy, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003

Peace and love everyone.


B-)