The flawed election in Kenya was a catalyst

These days as in the Moi days, you have to read foreign newspapers in order to get accurate non edited information on Kenya. I’m now read Ugandan and Tanzanian newspapers than Kenyan. Journalists on the other side write without fear of intimidation. Our journalists have coiled back into their shells and just pretend to report. Even our TV stations which used to be bold have been cowed and forced to heavily edit in favour of the government. Have a look at this: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/607824

The explosive situation that plunged Kenya into a blood-bath early this month took many by surprise. Kenya was the stable democracy, the one everyone pointed to when they wanted to show what African countries mired in civil crisis were capable of becoming when they reach political maturity.

There was absolutely no indication that there was an underbelly to the calm, a dark side capable of exploding at any time like a volcano. So, what went wrong, they asked themselves, why such deadly expressive fury with no apparent parallel in the immediate history of democratic process in Africa. But those who will take the time to analyse in great detail the events in Kenya in the early part of 2008 will notice that there was certain logic to the illogical violence that followed the election. No violence could ever be condoned, and the killing of scores of innocent Kenyans must be condemned in the strongest terms, and the perpetrators, if known, should face the full weight of Kenyan law. Nonetheless, we must try to understand the thinking that came into play when the killings began. The flawed political process was only a catalyst for the fury that swept through the once peaceful country. But was everything really okay until this moment of insanity? Not at all. The combination of factors includes extreme poverty, media, education, and a system operating out of time with the rest of the world. Kenya is not a very poor country by all standards, but there is a growing populace that feels poverty in its own skin. The biting unemployment is partly due to many moving from the countryside into poor slums, hoping to find jobs that are not there. Meanwhile, the economy is not responsive enough to give hope to those who are marginalized, who feel hopeless and, at times, even helpless. Yet against this is an education system that continues to churn hopeful graduates from primary, secondary and university, promising them a piece of the pie if only they work hard enough at school. Put aside all the petty urges you feel now for a bigger reward at a later date, it says. Adult literacy is now kicking close to 75 percent, clearly one of the highest on the continent. Yet, despite what many have been conditioned to believe is the gateway to prosperity and the good life, education cannot deliver. Here’s where the media comes into play. I am not talking about political talking heads that are ever so eager to pounce on everything that anyone says to fan the flame of discord. I am talking about media in general as avenues of knowing more about the larger world out there, how other people live. The expansion of print, radio, television and other form of information technology has only sharpened the appetite of the literate Kenyan (read that as African) to think beyond his or her immediate border or town. Think about it—here is someone who has been taught to read and who has access to multiple sources of information, including the venerated mobile phone, and can instantly find out what is happening in one area of the country or the world within a minute—how is such a person supposed to live the life of extreme poverty with little hope for tomorrow? Many of those graduates who have bought education’s pie-in-the-sky dream have had a rude awakening, pounding the streets hunting for jobs that do not exist. Frustrated, many begin to erroneously believe that to get ahead you need to know someone or that you need to belong to the right ethnic group to get that choice job. While there will always be instances of nepotism and ethnic-based favouritism in deciding who gets what and when, this does not explain the scores of unemployed young people of all ethnicities pounding the streets of Nairobi and other urban centres in the country. There is no way all of Kenya’s whopping 40 percent unemployed people can come from just one ethnic group. Yet within these oppressive conditions for the educated poor, the political elite has continued to operate out of time as if it were back in the 1940s when the African was a porter for the colonial master and only knew how to say “Yes Sir!”, “Right away Sir”. When blatant lies and propaganda are peddled, the thinking is that the masses will swallow it hook, line and sinker. The problem is that the masses are already aware, and politically savvy enough to distinguish what Americans refer to as “bull****”. These cocktail of realities (and I am sure smarter people than me will find more) collided with deadly effect for Kenya.

The election was not just flawed; it was stolen by the ruling elite, sending those already marginalized by biting poverty into frenzy. Now, they knew why they were poor, sick and stuck on the unemployment line. They would be damned to stand by idly while the very thing they had hoped would change their lives was taken away from right under their noses. Never mind that unemployment would have likely remained just as high if the ODM had assumed power on January 1, 2008. But that’s neither here nor there—for many, the Kibaki government had acted with such pure malice akin to jabbing them with spears. They will show them—the problem is that “them” became innocent Kenyans who had nothing to do with the chaos. And so, without stopping to think that the very people with whom they were suffering, and with whom they would continue to suffer, friends began targeting friends. Those guilty by association, in this case, by ethnicity became the enemy. When the only crime they had committed was really to be poor and Kikuyu (if they were rich, they would not be anywhere near the epicentre of the bloody chaos). The lesson for the rest of Africa aspiring for democracy is very simple. Education without the improvement of standard of living for the populace is an empty promise. Secondly, old political machination will not work very well anymore in Kenya or elsewhere on the continent.

The African has arrived at least on one point—that of being sufficiently educated to read between the lines to know when he is being taken to the cleaners. He will not suffer fools for anybody. Now, if they have not figured it out yet, Kenyans will find out that ethnic politics does not explain why they are poor and hungry and disillusioned. A corrupt, cynical and negligent political system does.