The triple heritage of Kenya’s alcoholism crisis

Alcoholism is a real threat to an Africa rising in the 21st century.

Enraged by the heavy human cost of alcoholism, pundits and activists are abetting policies akin to the “revolutionary chaos” of the 1966 Chinese Cultural Revolution to nip the problem.

But the problem of alcoholism in Kenya is squarely one of a national moral fabric that has held our society and civilisation together decaying faster than mushrooms.

To be sure, alcoholism bespeaks the moral decay of the extant neo-liberal order. A recent report on global additions, published in the Journal of Addiction (2015), has revealed that around 43 pc of adults globally (about 2.1 billion people) drink alcohol while 4.9 pc of the world’s adult population (240 million people) suffer from alcohol disorder.

Alcoholism may be lowest in Africa (1.1%) compared to America (eight pc), Britain (12 pc) or Eastern Europe (11 pc), but it is growing fast, and furious.

Today, because of the human costs of ethyl alcohol, the drinkable species of alcohol, the fortunes of alcohol have swung from warm embrace as an indispensable social lubricant to moral vilification and condemnation as an agent of destruction.

Yet alcohol has been the beverage of choice for much of human history, praised in the Middle Ages as aqua vitae (“water of life”). “Beer is living proof that God loves us, wants us to be happy,” said Benjamin Franklin.

The American archaeologist, Patrick McGovern, posits that “beer gave us civilisation.” The thirst for alcohol inspired our ancestors to start growing crops, thus igniting the agricultural (Neolithic) revolution and our civilisation.

TRIPLE HERITAGE

In Africa, the practice of alcohol drinking has a triple heritage. First is a more pristine African heritage of drinking honey-beer, grain-based beers consumed during occasions and governed by clear norms and etiquettes of drinking. Children were prohibited from drinking and women’s alcohol consumption greatly regulated. Alcoholism and related psycho-social problems, infertility or deaths, were extremely rare.

The second is the “wet” heritage of wine drinking identified with the Mediterranean belt. Here, wine was accepted as a normal part of the daily diet, generally consumed with meals, and children are often given diluted wine with meals.

Here, wine was seen as a lubricant of intellectual and decision-making processes. “In vino veritas” (“in wine there is truth”), goes the Latin saying.

The Greek historian, Herodotus, recorded that if the Persians made a decision while sober, they made a rule to reconsider it when they were drunk.

And the Roman historian and senator, Gaius Tacitus, described how the Germanic peoples always drank while holding councils, believing that nobody could lie effectively when drunk.

The Romans “democratised” wine-drinking by all classes, including slaves, peasants, women and aristocrats. The taking of sacramental wine obtained from grapes and drunk during celebration of the Holy Communion by Christians of all walks of life in Africa today is part of this legacy.

But discipline, order and moderate consumption of alcohol is the enduring legacy of the “wet” drinking culture.

The third, and most pervasive in Africa, is the “dry” heritage of drinking grain-based beer and spirits in northern Europe. Here alcohol consumption is marked by extremes of heavy drinking and abstinence.

HASTENED SUBJUGATION

As in traditional Africa, alcohol is often consumed on occasions and laws prohibit children from drinking. Here, drinking for the purpose of getting drunk as well as public drunkenness are common. So are alcoholism and related psycho-social problems.

The renowned African theoretician, Frantz Fanon, shows how this northern European drinking culture was imported into Africa where it fostered a self-destructive homo consumen among the oppressed.

Elsewhere, alcohol hastened the subjugation and destruction of native Americans. It was a potent tool in the triangular Atlantic trade in African slaves, which financed Europe’s Industrial Revolution and economic take-off.

African slave dealers exchanged slaves for rum. Slaves were exported to the Americas where Europeans obtained cheap molasses for distilling more rum to buy more slaves. African slave dealers were induced to drink so that better bargains could be struck. Tragically, those African merchants who got drunk were themselves sometimes kidnapped!

Alcoholism has exacted a heavy toll on Africans globally. For centuries, the “dry” drinking culture, in the context of racism and unbridled capitalism, has sustained the auto-destruction of black communities. In South Africa, alcohol induced black-on-black violence has outlived apartheid.

Many young people in Kenya are killed in alcohol-related causes, including car crashes, homicides, suicides and alcohol poisoning.

Policy responses have been knee-jerk and populist. On May 14, 2015, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law the Alcoholic Drinks Control (Amendment) Act 2o15, that recognises alcoholism as a disease. The Ministry of Interior also cancelled licences for a wide range of alcohol brands.

In the face of women-led grassroots protests against illicit and toxic alcohol accused of causing male infertility, blindness and death, President Kenyatta directed leaders from the Mount Kenya region to deal with the problem head-on within four days. The “revolutionary chaos” approach may succeed in removing toxic brews from the market, but it is unlikely to end the desire by Kenyans to lighten their heads with civilisation’s oldest beverage.

We need affordable clean alcohol and moral regeneration to nurture disciplined and moderate consumption habits.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute and former Government Adviser.