Beyond My Dress My Choice campaign lie vital issues that should concern us all

How Kilimani Mums grew from a club of women whining about their maids, philandering husbands, teething infants, and disloyal friends to become a gathering that marshalled resources for a protest march is a great story that we must tell some day.

But today, let us examine how this protest represented the victory of a predatory political system, a system that succeeds in diverting the attention of intelligent women from the real culprit, the political economy, to the sideshow that is the moral economy.

Here we are in a city of perpetually interrupted water and electricity supply, a city of potholed streets with no social amenities or affirming recreation for our children.

A city of over-flowing garbage heaps, choking public toilets, scant sidewalks, and polluted highways with lunatic drivers and pedestrians who cross eight-lane highways as steel footbridges loom large over their heads.

We march into this insane city to hand to the Chief Justice (CJ) a petition over our right to walk half-naked as the governor twiddles his thumbs across the street, drawing a fat salary and inspecting a guard of honour mounted by kanjo askaris. What is wrong with us?

I know. Little freedoms matter — like the miniskirt and the strapless handkerchief over my breasts. Those I must get right away even if my garbage has not been collected for two weeks.

I want to walk uncensored on Moi Avenue in a petticoat but the governor can get away with unlit, filthy streets and allied economic failure?

Why would women go to the Supreme Court to preach to the choir (no pun intended here about Diana Ross and the Supremes)? This choir of custodians of law and order is not about to wantonly reward those who forget the boundaries of their power to the point where they run around stripping women.

Of course they might have a small crisis of legitimacy should that aptly named organisation, MAWE, decide to run to court and obtain an injunction against the importation of miniskirts.

Still, running to petition the CJ and the Inspector-General of Police was the easier thing to do. The harder thing was for the rightfully outraged women to see the touts and allied members of the Strippers Union as victims of a bigger evil.

This is the evil that takes taxpayers’ money and then — with no sense of apology, shame, or fear — refuses to use it to provide the services that every resident of the county needs.

RIGHT TO WALK NAKED

So, as we congratulate the women who stood up for their right to walk quasi-naked — if it pleases them — let us also recognise that they are victims of a bigger injustice.

They have been debased by a political system that does not allow them to see that the touts they jeered and booed have more in common with them than their receding hemlines.

I do not intend to rain on their parade but, in truth, they succumbed to the all-consuming heat that is ignited by the moral economy; we find it more tantalising to argue among ourselves than take on the real challenge — our leadership.

To whom is it not clear that living on garbage-filled streets with nary a toilet to relieve themselves in dignity, dehumanised touts find it easy to attack the easiest target?

They would rather take on a half-dressed woman than face Governor Kidero and his mounds of human and other waste on the dark, unswept streets.

Our stinking streets mirror the stench from our souls. We have been raided and taken over by the ethos of chicken thieves and allied networks of corruption. These people who drive around looking cool while at the same time living on the proceeds of a greedy sleight of hand have become our role models.

We have a problem. For all our vetting and parliamentary watchdogging, we are unable to rid our country of this crippling ethos. Instead, we turn on each other and spend days arguing about hemlines and peeking breasts. Good grief!

At any rate, can we try to do both? Can we enjoin the governor in this Union of Strippers? By failing to provide what we need to feel human and dignified, he has surely ripped the decency from our backs and turned us into tortured savages.

Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst. ([email protected])