Mindless violence at the Coast as much ‘our’ problem as it is ‘theirs’
What you need to know:
- It will get worse as income from tourism evaporates; the Coast economy is very dependent on it. Hotels are reporting daily cancellations and no fresh bookings. Quite a number have closed down. Many others face the same fate. Staff have been laid off.
- Roadside shootings are happening almost daily in Mombasa. There have been frequent assassinations of imams––both extremist and moderate. In Lamu, something like an insurgency is brewing in a very bloody way.
The attack last Sunday in Likoni in Mombasa revealed a crude twist to the psychology of the violence spreading at the Coast.
From the leaflets that were left behind, it seemed there was a deliberate attempt to plant the notion that it is upcountry antagonists who are fighting it out at the Coast.
That attempt didn’t wash.
But it should be a wake-up call for any politicians in Nairobi who thought they could gain some mileage from the mayhem. This mindless violence is the sort that backfires indiscriminately on everybody, locals and non-locals alike.
Quite simply, the Coast has gone to hell. The myth of a tranquil and peaceful region with polite and gentle souls who speak delightful Swahili has been destroyed for good. In the course of a few months, the violence has brought out an ugly, repulsive side.
Roadside shootings are happening almost daily in Mombasa. There have been frequent assassinations of imams––both extremist and moderate. In Lamu, something like an insurgency is brewing in a very bloody way.
Clueless and ineffective
Meanwhile, the country’s top security establishment is clueless and ineffective. Instead of doing the obvious, the political masters look paralysed and lost. Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa is the only person showing any focus.
As explanations go, everything is murky. First, there is the al-Shabaab narrative. It makes sense only up to a point. The attackers, in Lamu at any rate, showed a high degree of sophistication in their selection of targets. It is inconceivable that could happen without embedded local collaborators.
But who are they? Self-styled officials of the Mombasa Republican Council have denied any connection with the attackers. However, one can never rule out other groups sharing MRC’s separatist sentiments acting in a different guise.
Then there is the jihadist fringe in Mombasa. This group ends to be more pre-occupied with breeding turmoil in mosques. The actual terrorist cells linked to these jihadists or to al-Shabaab prefer to throw grenades or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) into buses and shops and churches.
The latest breed of killers at the Coast is armed with automatic weapons, and they move in groups.
Sure, there is the deep poverty and sense of national alienation. Then there are the pockets of religious fanatics and the “Pwani Si Kenya” dreamers. It all makes for a toxic mix. There is plenty of outright criminality as well. The attack last Monday on Sega Bar in Mombasa can’t be described in any other way.
It will get worse as income from tourism evaporates; the Coast economy is very dependent on it. Hotels are reporting daily cancellations and no fresh bookings. Quite a number have closed down. Many others face the same fate. Staff have been laid off.
Choices, indeed, have consequences. In Kenya, everybody has an outsize grievance these days about something that he thinks merits nothing short of divine priority. Often, the media make matters worse when acts of political intolerance and violence get sanitised through amorphous justifications of historical injustice.
Countries, like families, break up from time to time. Some fare better than others. Some fail completely. South Sudan has not known peace since it separated from Sudan.
Elsewhere, Scotland is set to vote on independence from the United Kingdom in a September referendum. They are not fighting each other with bayonets as yet. If you have to divorce, do it civilly without making everybody else’s life hell.
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I would urge caution in pushing the directive for schools to hand over examination certificates unconditionally. I have served in a couple of school boards and I know from close up the parlous state of many public schools’ finances.
They are almost invariably running deficits. The schools rely on fee obligations from parents which are rarely met on time. Holding school certificates is the only form of insurance for the head teachers.
It is not that the school boards and the head teachers are vindictive. Far from it. They very carefully go on case-by-case basis and know exactly which families simply cannot pay their fees arrears, and which could if they wished to.
[email protected] Twitter: @GitauWarigi
