Why we must stand consistently and firmly against all forms of prejudice
One of those arrested during a swoop at Nairobi's Eastleigh estate carries a plate of food at Safaricom Stadium, Kasarani where they are being held as they are screened, April 9, 2014. EVANS HABIL
What you need to know:
- It is fine if prejudice does not touch me, my family or ethnic group. It is fair game if it targets the rest.
- Precisely because of our selective hate of prejudice, we have allowed government to thrive in its bad habits by dividing and ruling us.
Governments everywhere in the civilised world pretend or actually pay attention to citizen opinion on governance.
Not in Kenya, where the Jubilee Government has emptied targeted estates of so-called suspected terrorists. What started in Eastleigh has moved to South C. The police target persons who correspond to a specific ethnic and religious identity.
Amidst this emptying, there are widely reported complaints of bribery and vile abuse of basic rights. In fact, the abuse has attracted so much attention and provided fodder for rumour and exaggeration of the actual nature of police actions.
The condemnation of the operations and the identification of reasons why there is a better way of doing this has not attracted due attention from the government. It has proceeded undeterred and dismissed human rights actors as weird people who know nothing about security.
Such dismissive reaction to valid concerns about prejudice is indicative of how the Jubilee Government governs.
Public opinion matters to them only if it is from a favoured constituency or if it confirms their views. And we are most likely going to see more of this. This approach is, however, also facilitated by other factors, two of which merit highlighting.
There is a connection between our elections and governance. In Kenya, that connection defies the usual logic in which the government, attentive to consequences at the next elections, pays attention to key opinion constituencies.
But the Jubilee Government has a sizeable captive and ethnic voting constituency. That ethnic constituency is spiced with an alliance of smaller groups that can sustain the Coalition in power.
Precisely because of this alliance, Jubilee feels comfortable to run roughshod on everyone else with impunity. This is why the Somali have become expendable.
NO COMMON RALLYING POINT
Second, there is a sizeable population in Kenya that is insufficiently educated about how prejudice works. This population feeds into Jubilee actions.
They will complain about Jubilee’s discriminatory acts against some ethnic groups and list names on social media to show the ethnic homogeneity that makes Jubilee Government. But they instantly forget this discrimination when it is directed against so-called aliens.
That these two labels are in reality translated into targeting of the Somali does not bother many Kenyans.
In other words, most Kenyans are selective about the problem of prejudice and discrimination. It is fine if prejudice does not touch me, my family or ethnic group. It is fair game if it targets the rest.
Many among the Somali are not immune to this selective hate for prejudice. This point was brought home last week when Kwamchetsi Makokha wrote a satirical piece that effectively captured the hypocrisy of Kenyans where the Somali question is involved.
The article sarcastically exposed the way misguided Kenyans think of the Somali as alien, uncouth and terrorists. It intelligently turned that lopsided thinking on its head to laugh at, mock and deride the foolhardiness of government approach to insecurity.
But the response to this article was overwhelmingly negative with many not seeing the satire in it. Mr Makokha had to write a follow-up piece almost retracting his satire.
What struck my attention was that for eight years or so, Makokha’s satirical column has touched almost all Kenyan identities, mobilising the hidden prejudices people hold to laugh at and mock our hypocrisy.
Not once before have I heard loud complaints from those who found his satirical column on the Somali offensive. The question then becomes: why is satire affecting the Somali more offensive than satire affecting any other person?
This selective hate of prejudice is what ails Kenya. We have no common rallying point. We do not see prejudices as wrong, we only see it as wrong when it is applied or affects us.
And precisely because of our selective hate of prejudice, we have allowed government to thrive in its bad habits by dividing and ruling us.
