2007 violence, a gift or a curse for Kenya?

By Muriithi Kagai

The Kenyan political landscape is complex and to an extent intriguing at least in my view. We know things are bad, where and why they are bad, who is making them bad, etc. Why then can we not fix them or at least work towards fixing them? A fundamental step towards addressing our problem is to understand that the situation / system is a design by a clique of a few people and it is not in their interests that a permanent solution is found. This system ensures survival of bad leadership and since most of our leaders are really bad, we must understand that they are okay as long as the situation does not degenerate in total chaos. Remember that they were okay as Kenyans continued to butcher each other until they were told that Kenya will be taken over.

Kenya after 2012 is going to be a different country. It is in most times difficult to maintain truth and reality when talking about political matters in situations where the level of democratization is low and where ignorance is high. In these cases, cheap politics demands that you focus on what is popular rather than right. The popular thing might be a lie or a misrepresentation of facts or issues and cheap politicians will go to any lengths to pursue lies just because that is what is popular. This is the reason why you hear politicians making promises that are unrealistic and promises they know they cannot fulfill under any circumstances. They know that they are lying to themselves BUT they know that they are addressing people who can be taken advantage of. Call it deceit or what ever you want to but they will tell you that it is being strategic and what counts is not what you say or stand for BUT a win.

A principled woman or man will tell you that they would rather loose than win through deceit. We have many principled men and women who cannot set their feet in parliament as MPs under current politics. Many cannot dare try while those who tried got rude shocks. Others learnt the trick and traded their principles with mediocrity and sycophancy and they are now in parliament not as principled men and women but politicians of deceit. You know who I am talking about, don't you? They were very vocal during Moi's rule - fighting for "justice" and now that Moi is out of power and they are in parliament, injustices are not issues anymore. Or could they have been pretenders or hypocrites; I don't know. No wonder Kenyans are starting to think that Moi was better.

The real problem

While Kenyans are fed up and ready for change, the ruling elite always takes advantage of such situation by re-inventing themselves so that they look different thereby hijacking the process to maintain themselves in power. If you want to check this fact, check who has worked with who and who has been a student of who in Kenyan politics from the 60s and you will see that they are the same people we are recycling. Then look at elections in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 and tell me who was spearheading the change in all these elections. It is the same people being recycled. If we ever expect change from these sort of games, WE ARE IN A BAD DREAM AND WE BETTER WAKE UP.

What we have in Kenya is recycling of bad leadership. Its not rocket science that bad people do bad things and good people do good things. To expect bad people to do good or be held accountable is pure wishful thinking.

How do you expect someone who has made a career through corruption or other criminal acts to fight his livelihood? Can you imagine slapping yourself very hard on your face? I think we need to wake up to the world of reality. Kenyans are not poor because of ethnic issues. It is years of bad governance. The less than 10% who own more than 50% of the country are not one ethnic group. How this less than 10% is spread over ethnicity is a different matter and I think focusing on that is diversionally. How they love to say that it is one tribe eating when they own posh properties all over and are driving the latest Toyota Prados, Hammers, Pajeros etc. We need to sponsor inter ethnic exchanges so that Kenyans from different communities can see for themselves how other Kenyans are suffering all over in the same way to
expose these liars.

The future of Kenya:

Step 1: A lot has been said and there is probably nothing new coming out of these articles including this one. The problem is reasonably understood especially by the middle class but also among other levels. What is missing is action. Each one of us talks and writes but we somehow think that someone somewhere will take action so in the end no one takes action. Inaction promotes the status quo and we continue talking and talking. Its time to walk the talk at individual level. We need to take action and there is a lot we can do at individual level starting with educating ourselves and those being manipulated. I wish we know how much we can achieve in our own individual ways if we resolved to take action without waiting for someone somewhere someday.

Step 2: Confront the truth and reality and understand that we have bad leadership that has perfected the art of manipulation and reflect at individual level whether you want to face the truth or bury your head
in the sand. Make a decision and take action.

Step 3: Find out what others are doing and link up with them. Fight detractors who have already been misled and are acting as sycophants of the oppressors and do not let them derail you. They are the minority and should not carry the day although they represent the powerful and the rich. Nothing can defeat the power of the people if the people resolve to go forward.

Important tips:

Focus on rural communities, the youth, the low income and other marginalized groups. They are more prone to manipulation and they have year after year been manipulated through violence, intimidation and bribery. We have relatives, friends, civil society groups etc we can reach to at personal level to build communities' resistance against manipulation. People can take money because it is stolen from them anyway BUT they should not sell their country. Vulnerable people think they owe their votes to those who bribe them and this is a problem we must fight individually and collectively. We have a parliament comprising of people who purchased their way up there and we are asking them to be accountable. What a fallacy?

The diaspora should deny these people platforms because they are not worthy being listened to.

Given our stage of democratic process, giving liars a platform is a big mistake we must not continue making. By giving them such platforms, we are endorsing them among foreign governments, our foreign friends, among fellow Kenyans in the diaspora and most important, we are endorsing them back home and consolidating there base of political deceit. The diaspora is revered back at home and endorsing the wrong people amounts to misleading people who do not have the same level of knowledge. We are at least morally obligated not to mislead an already vulnerable population and if we do, we should not complain that our people are making mistakes when we have ourselves misled them and endorsed their mistake. It is also some sort of hypocrisy and deceit and we must come out clean.

Our media must stand up and be counted at this hour of need. Mistakes they made in the run up to the past general elections especially the 2007 election should not be repeated. The media is one of the most fundamental tools for achieving change and we must use the media positively to help achieve national healing and reconciliation knowing very well that most of current leaders are not committed to healing and reconciliation. We must create a strong and sustainable base on which we can anchor the change that we so desperately need. Kenya has many and better men and women who can lead the country and the media should promote a message of alternative and better leadership.

Our development partners must join the oppressed not the oppressor. I will stop here on this one. They know what I am talking about.

At the grassroots, the people contesting local authority and parliamentary seat must meet the standards of a people driven criteria. We must know where they went to school, where they went to work and what kind of adults they grew to be. What do they own and how did they acquire it. Who are their references? Potential leaders must start addressing public rallies from these points of integrity and people must pay attention to this.

As an individual you can educate people on these things and we know men and women of integrity who must stand for local government and parliamentary positions. Forget the presidency and just focus on the local and parliamentary positions. There is no president or prime minister who can mess a country if surrounded by a clean parliament. He or she would be digging his or her own grave. Next presidential candidates should seek their votes and leave us to decide on councilors and MPs because we need to deny them the license or blank cheque to preside over a government of misrule. Given the way these oppressors have ethicized our politics, change can be tricky if we focus on the presidency and here in this article, I argue that the presidency is not important. If we ignore the presidency, this amounts to killing two birds with one stone. We avoid opening wounds of tribal sentiments since we are not talking against any presidential candidate. We would also manage to get change because we would have a clean parliament that would hold the president accountable as well as all other arms of government including supporting economic development because such a parliament would understand that development is a private sector affair and an enabling environment is crucial.

Kenyans should start to prepare to submit their candidature for local government or parliamentary positions and ignore the presidency for the time being. Others should nominate those they think should be our councilors and MPs.

Good professional men and women should now understand that there is a good chance to be in parliament or in a local authority without having to join unprincipled people with questionable backgrounds. You do not have to join these people to be in parliament and it is time for the principled to state that if you can't join them, you can leave them on matters of principle. If good people do not offer themselves for elective positions, from where do we expect voters to get good leaders?

I submit that while we need constitutional reforms, we must understand that bad people will manipulate and even ignore the best constitutions. What can you do when the law is broken by its upholder? I would rather have a weak constitution but good leaders than a very good constitution and bad leaders. We have a chance to have a better constitution and good leaders. If the process of constitution making is sabotaged, we will be okay if we get good leaders because they will later give us a much better constitution.

Make at least 10 of your friends understand this with an obligation to make their 10 different friends understand the same. In this era of technology its amazing how much this can achieve. There are lots of initiatives going on among Kenyans with or without the support of true friends of Kenya. Great ideas start small and in a very humble way.

If we act at individual level, Kenya is not going to be the same again after the 2012 election. It is time to reconcile ourselves and restore our country because the problem is not between Kenyans but between Kenyans and a clique of oppressors and their tricks are now coming to an end. With good leaders, we can begin the process of undoing the evils that have made Kenya to be what it is or should not. Kenya is a country that has all the potential to become a developed country and we will stop at nothing but making it exactly what it should be. 2007 was a gift for Kenya. It has made Kenyans to wake up. We now know that none of us can be safe if the country goes to the dogs. We also know that the oppressors do not care about deaths of innocent people. They only care when their power bases are threatened and that is why they had to listen and talk when they were told by the international community that Kenya will be taken over. So they listened as the country was put under a humiliating experience where we had to be told what to do by foreigners. Before that, our so called leaders could not talk no matter how many people died. It was shocking and it reminds me of the story of Israelites under mercy of a heartless Pharaoh. 2007 revealed how heartless and cruel our so called leaders are.

But it was not in vain that it had to take innocent lives for us to wake up. The many Kenyans who died plus hundreds of others suffering as a result of this violence have woken up the rest of us from a deep and bad slumber. They are the real heroes and heroines. In their tribute, we must change Kenya in 2012 and say never again should we allow our country to sink that low and go through such humiliation.

Read Hon. Gitobu Imanyara's Bill for a Special Local Tribunal here