Citizens must hold government to account for its actions in Eastleigh

What you need to know:

  • If, as the government and the security services suggest, there might be answers to the terrorism conundrum within the community, they will not be volunteered.
  • Many people understood the attempt to parody the emergent xenophobia and discrimination being meted on Somalis in Nairobi’s Eastleigh.

Over the past eight years, I have had the singular privilege of writing a satirical column for the Saturday Nation. It is a special place that relies on the journalistic tenets of accuracy, truth, independence and promotion of freedom of expression while employing literary devices such as parody and mimicry, lampoon, hyperbole, irony and sarcasm to speak truth to power.

Some of the time, the satire works; on other occasions, the intention does not succeed. Still, the multiple readings of these columns by people with disparate experiences and from variant backgrounds do generate debate and a re-examination of current affairs beyond the didactic and pedantic.

Last week, the Saturday Nation’s ‘Turning screws on Somalis will force them reveal terror attacks’ was written in similar vein. Many people understood the attempt to parody the emergent xenophobia and discrimination being meted on Somalis in Nairobi’s Eastleigh.

A significant number at home and abroad were offended that the inane sentiments that have come to characterize national discourse on the security operation in Eastleigh was seemingly receiving endorsement from a national newspaper. Nothing could be further from my true intention.

All week, security forces have moved into Eastleigh to question the citizenship of those who live and work there. Many people have been arrested, detained and ill-treated under the pretext of hunting down terror suspects. Terror is a serious challenge facing Kenya and the world, but it is unlikely that mass arrests, ethnic profiling, extortion of bribes and deportations will yield intelligence on past, present or future activities.

The ill-treatment of Somalis in Eastleigh and in Kenya in general fits into an official pattern of harassment and profiling of the community as not fully Kenyan and therefore warranting suspicion and differentiated treatment. Their religious and cultural identities enjoy equal constitutional protection as those of all other communities in Kenya.

In the past week, this constitutional principle has been observed more in breach than in practice. The result – from the Daadab refugee camp to Eastleigh to the former Northern Frontier District – has been systematic abuses and violations of human rights ranging from extortion and harassment to rape, torture and murder.

The government has been keen to whip up public anger against the Somali, profiling them as the enemy within, even as it targets them for rights violations and abuses. The rising justification of violations against a section of the Kenyan population is not only illegal, it is bound to be counterproductive.

It will likely alienate Somalis and other communities that feel excluded from mainstream Kenyan society by systematic discrimination. If, as the government and the security services suggest, there might be answers to the terrorism conundrum within the community, they will not be volunteered.

It is remarkable that after the swoops, arrests and deportations, no terrorist cell has been exposed, no explosives or weapons have been revealed and no connections have been made from the latest security expedition to the objectives of defeating terror.  Citizens have a duty to support the government as it seeks to assure the country’s security, but they must also be vigilant in holding it to account for its actions in Eastleigh and beyond.

Twitter: @kwamchetsi