Our economy is on the back foot. Our confidence in the Kenyan promise has tanked more than at any other time. The citizens are scarred and scared. Nobody feels safe. Everyone is wondering if they are next. The schism between the government and the people continues to widen. “We are dying” seems to be the collective wounded cry of a generation. We decry very high taxes, broken public healthcare system, broken public transport system, broken public school system and the broken politics is the icing on this cake of sorrow.
In a bid to prick the conscience of those in power, the people, in their infinite wisdom resorted to take refuge under article 37 of the Constitution; to exercise the right to assemble and picket, demonstrate and present petitions. At least 19 families are mourning their loved ones, most of them killed by police bullets. There are so many injured, so much property destroyed. The least talked about, but equally disturbing, is number of women and girls who have been sexually assaulted.
If you thought that we have a young and urbane Cabinet Secretary for Interior, who is a former law lecturer, woe unto you. Like Minister for Internal Security John Michuki who directed police to “gun them down”, Mr Murkomen has ordered police to kill. When the young people cry, “serikali inatuua” (the government is killing us), it is true.
It’s imperative to note that away from all the talk that Kenya is, to quote former American ambassador Meg Whitman, a shining city upon a hill, we score very highly on the Fragile States Index. The evidence is glaring. If it’s not the bandits terrorising the North Rift, it’s the government suffering from trust deficit since many people view this administration not only as corrupt but also oppressive and incompetent. This informed the Gen Z to demand in 2024 that Cabinet be dissolved. But most of those faces made it either back into the Cabinet or were appointed to other senior positions in government. The legitimacy crisis deepened among the youth and the urban poor.
The question on the mind of many is, should the protests cease or should they continue? As someone whose instincts find their expression in the life’s work of Martin Luther King, I would say please stop. But as a citizen who places premium on active citizenry as the critical first facet of democracy, I say to cease without a way forward would be to surrender our voice and power to the merchants of impunity. If anything, Thomas Jefferson famously remarked that the tree of liberty is watered from time to time by blood of tyrants and patriots alike. For avoidance of doubt, this is not a call unto violence. It’s a pragmatic appreciation that the people cannot make any decision based on fear.
So back to the elephant in the room, should we cease protests or not?
My first instinct is that protest is the most effective tool in political aerial bombardment of the bases of purveyors of political disillusionment. As such, it can not be abandoned simply because the state deploys massive doses of violence or on the basis that the state is willfully unwilling to guarantee the safety of its own citizens. So as it is used, of course very prudently, a transition within the meaning of article 38 must kick in.
The persistent question on the lips of government apologists is, “What is the end game?”
The chants #Ruto must go#Wantam#SiriNiNumbers are all just slogans. I don’t think it’s the central ask of those young people who flood the streets. While Kenya is not yet a failed state, these protests are calculated at the people–led restoration of a state that can govern effectively. The three critical areas are governance legitimacy, economic inequality and an end to police brutality. I hope the political class steps down from their high horse when there is still time to do so.
Mr Kidi is the convener of Inter-Parties Youth Forum. [email protected]
By Kidi Mwaga