Is activism dead? No one is talking about the coming political tsunami
I have been waiting with bated breath for our leading intellectuals, writers, religious leaders and civil society activists to voice their opinions on the political developments in the country, but so far they have all fallen short of my expectations.
While there are some published analyses of individual presidential candidates and political parties, there is almost no discussion on what the future of Kenya might look like after the 2013 elections.
What will messy and opportunistic coalitions offer deeply divided Kenyans? If the outcome of the next election leads to isolationist policies, how will this affect the future of Kenya? What does Ngugi wa Thiong’o think about what is happening in this country?
What about church leaders? Is partisan politics impacting their Sunday sermons? Do we have a Gandhi-like leader who can bring sanity to the country if things fall apart?
I think not.
Perhaps the reason there is hardly any discussion among our intellectuals, activists and religious leaders about the political tsunami headed our way is because they have lost their independence.
Most cannot hold objective opinions because they have been employed by political parties or politicians to write speeches and manifestoes. They have become an integral part of the propaganda machinery of political parties. Their silence has been bought by politicians, and their views are shaped by the parties that pay them.
It is also entirely possible that our intellectuals and activists have remained silent because, deep down, they are ethnic chauvinists, and so have formed their opinions about the forthcoming elections along ethnic lines.
Those working for civil society organisations and NGOs are dependent on donors or foreign-based institutions, which often demand that these organisations remain non-partisan and apolitical.
Donors like to believe that they are promoting civic education through these organisations and that an educated population will make the right choices.
They chant the mantra of “good governance”, yet this means nothing in a country like Kenya where governance is not predicated on shared core values, and where leadership is defined by short-term selfish or ethnic-based interests, rather than by national interests based on a vision or ideology.
The reality is that short-lived, ideologically bankrupt coalitions have defined our politics since the 2007 elections. These coalitions are nothing more than marriages of convenience set up to dupe ordinary citizens into believing, once again, that when “one of our own” is in power, the whole tribe will benefit.
Javas Bigambo, writing in Kenya Today, says that the civil society activists of the 1980s and ’90s who took to the streets were different because they had unity of purpose and were willing to make personal sacrifices.
Today’s civil society activists, on the other hand, “sit in offices . . . enjoy foreign trips to present ‘research findings’, write emails laced with titles, fall over each other to speak at press conferences, and have no recollection about when they really worked for the less-fortunate without money in their own pockets”.
Many of the yesteryear activists who are not donor-funded are now working for government. The Kibaki administration absorbed many of those who agitated for the “second liberation”. Their voices are now muted.
As political analyst Karuti Kanyinga has noted, one of the consequences of this development is that civil society has become weaker as the “co-option of civil society into the new institutions reduced the sector’s ability to play a watchdog role”.
Although a new Constitution and a cleansed Judiciary promise to protect the rights of every citizen, many of the candidates vying for political office have, by virtue of their candidature, already shown contempt for the constitution that Kenyans fought so hard for.
Their integrity is questionable and their leadership threatens to undermine the very essence of the Constitution. They cannot, therefore, be entrusted to protect it.
Unfortunately, our writers, intellectuals, activists and religious leaders have failed to show the way forward in these turbulent times. Let us hope that the price of their silence will not be paid by ordinary Kenyans in the forthcoming elections.
