The Meaning of Peace in the Kenya 2007 Elections: Reflections

December 21, 2007 11:49 AM
By Mukoma Wa Ngugi

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Then he [Solomon] said, Get me a sword…Let the living child be cut in two and one half given to one woman and one to the other. Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two. Then the king made answer and said, Give her the child, and do not put it to death; she is the mother of it. (1 Kings 3)

Introduction

Martin Luther King Jr., in A Letter from Birmingham, contemplating the role of the
Clergy in the US Vietnam war writes that “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”

Elsewhere he reformulates philosopher Spinoza’s dictum -- “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust and justice,” thus indicating that peace cannot be defined by its opposite, but rather by what it contains: justice.

We hope that this December, which is election time in Kenya, will not be marred by violence. And that whomever we vote into office will guarantee peace in the future. Steve Biko once said you have to ask the right question to get the right answers. In order to find out who is the right candidate for the job, there are some fundamental questions to be asked. Because peace needs justice to exist– what exactly is justice in our Kenyan context? Where do the candidates stand on issues of equality? In short, what are the candidates’ visions for Kenya well into the future?

We need to know whether they are for peace with justice, or merely for a democracy without content. We need to know their stand on majimboism, and how they will deal with colonial atrocities and the legacy of historical inequalities, the post independence crimes against the Kenyan people, the drastic social and economic inequality and the role of Kenya in international affairs just to name a few areas, once they are in office.

Future Peace and Ethnic Division

It is quite clear to me that majimboism masks a dangerous cynicism that says
Kenyans can only understand the language of ethnicity. It masks serious economic inequalities and the existence of several Kenyas: one for the black elite, one for the former white colonial settlers and one for the struggling poor. And it is an attempt to legitimize ethnic politics.

Even under the banner of democracy, Kenyan politics remains a numbers game, in which presidential candidates make promises and alliances based on ethnic numbers. Thus Kibaki will count on a solid Gikuyu vote, and Raila on a solid Luo vote and the rest of the ethnic groups will be wooed and divided up according to who is most likely to vote for whom.

All too often, then, we in turn do not vote for a Kibaki or a Raila because of their political platform, or personal principles, or their political parties – we vote for them because they are Gikuyu or Luo. The candidates’ ethnicity has become the primary political platform. We have succeeded in making democracy work for tribalism. Majimboism, instead of doing away with ethnic politics once and for all, will only succeed in making ethnic politics into the law of the land.

In Kenya today, over half the population lives in abject poverty, including the majority of both Kikuyus and Luos. And the reality of it is that the Gikuyu elite have as much contempt for the Gikuyu poor as the Luo rich for Luo poor. For a poor person, it is much easier to marry across ethnic lines than to marry into a rich family. There is more social interaction between the Gikuyu and Luo wealthy in country clubs, than there is between the elite and the poor of each ethnic group. To lose sight of this rather obvious fact is to fall prey to the sort of political machinations that, under the British, had another name, namely “divide and rule,” a strategy inherited and practiced with astonishing skill by authoritarians Kenyatta and Moi, and perhaps destined to continue well into our national future.

In a country where the Delamare and the Kenyatta families own thousands and
thousands of acres, and the Moi and Odinga families own factories and industries worth millions of dollars, the problem here is not ethnicity but that a small elite owns the vast majority of the country’s wealth. It is therefore not by mistake that neither the sitting government nor the opposition have touched the nerve of social and economic equality, or land redistribution: they all speak the same language of wealth. For the elite, democracy means security for their investments, freedom means that their money moves freely, and justice signifies that there will be no prosecution for crimes committed in the past.

Recall the Rwanda genocide, which pitted Hutus against Tutsis. In real terms, it was a fight over resources, tragically expressed along ethnic lines. In countries where the majority live in poverty and the national dialogue focuses on ethnicity instead of on economic conditions, ethnic violence is the result. This is a lesson for Kenya but also a warning: Be wary of politicians in the Kibaki and Raila camp who play the ethnic card at the expense of real social change.

Democracy that does not improve living conditions is meaningless to the poor: it has no content. So let this be stated boldly: As Steve Biko said of South Africa, because of the vast and drastic inequality that exists in the country today, Kenyan democracy will have to be redistributive in nature. Instead of playing the ethnic card, we should demand that our politicians concretely address how they will relieve us of the burden of poverty.

Historical Legacies

We are living in an era where our political drama is connected both to the history of our own country and to the present international political context. Candidates in the political arena would do well to consider these contexts as they articulate their visions for a national future.

Our colonial history will continue to haunt us unless we demand the truth from the British. For example, Dedan Kimathi remains buried in an unmarked grave at the Kamiti Prison grounds where he was hanged by the British – ironically the same detention facility to which the Kenyatta and Moi governments sent activists opposed to their own governments. The candidates should tell the Kenyan people when and how they plan to pressure the British government to reveal the exact location of his grave, so that as a nation we can mourn him properly.

At the time of writing this, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) is
preparing to sue the British Government for torture meted out to Mau Mau detainees during the state of emergency (1952–1960). The political candidates should tell us how they will support this effort once they are in office. We cannot fully recover our national pride without holding the British government accountable for torturing and killing Kenyans during its colonial rule.

As part of national healing, the candidates should publicly recognize we owe our
existing democratic space to the cumulative sacrifices of Pio Gama Pinto, J.M.
Kariuki, Bishop Alexander Muge, and Karimi Nduthu (to name but a few of the
people believed to have been killed by the Kenyatta and Moi governments) and also to those who were tortured and detained without trial.

It is bad enough that former president Moi was not brought to trial for injustices
committed by his regime, but it is an insult to those that suffered and died under his rule that he remains a national political figure courted by both the Government and the opposition. Under Moi, major atrocities took place, including the rarely mentioned 1984 Wagala Massacre that left thousands of Kenyans dead. For the sake of future peace, Moi and those responsible should be held accountable. We should demand that the presidential candidates tell us how they will deal with our recent history.

If we are to heal, we have to forgive, and we cannot forgive without knowing exactly whom to forgive and for what. But ultimately the best recognition we can give the anti-colonial war veterans, and those who sacrificed for a democratic Kenya in the Kenyatta and Moi years is making the Kenya they were fighting for possible.

Kenya in International Affairs

Finally, the political candidates rarely mention what their foreign policy will be. It is as if Kenya existed in a vacuum. But we as a country have to situate ourselves in world affairs and understand what is our stake there. The biggest threat to world peace right now is the United States’ war on terror. Iraq is a killing field. Afghanistan is barely limping along. The US hunger to attack Iran is palpable.

The US has already been implicated in the unfolding war in Somalia, and what happens in Somalia and Ethiopia has direct consequences to Kenya. As Kenyans, we should oppose the US militarization of Africa through the African Command Center.

In the same way that we need to resist the politicians who play the ethnic card, we should resist the attempts by the United States to divide the world along religious lines. We cannot allow a fault line to develop between Kenyan Muslims and Christians – otherwise peace will be undermined.

We must not allow our government to be pressured into passing draconian anti-terror bills that undermine the sovereignty of our country. No Kenyan should be detained without trial or handed over to a foreign nation to be tried in its military tribunals. International peace can only be guaranteed through sovereignty and respect for international law. We need to ask our candidates how they will safeguard Kenyan sovereignty.

Conclusion

Democracy is not just a question of the vote, it must deal with the content of justice. And if we are to have justice, the next government should not, for the sake of creating balance among ethnic groups make us forget questions of equality.

We need to ask ourselves what democracy for an egalitarian Kenya will look like. Can democracy exist in a country where a former colonial settler owns 83,000 acres of land? Can peace exist in the future when only a handful of families own and control the politics of Nairobi? Can democracy that is dependent on Western
Countries be viable? Let the political candidates answer these questions, and when they have settled them we can move on to matters of equal trade, privatization of water, African unification and other issues relevant to Kenyans.

If we are to build a livable future, democracy and equality have to go hand in hand. Peace is not just the absence of violence. Peace is the presence of justice.


This article was initially published in the WAJIBU JOURNAL Volume 22. No 4
(November - December 2007.
(November - December 2007)