Kenya: Let Us Not Find Revolutionaries Where There are None

by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

This article originally appeared in Pambazuka News,

"A people power movement would have directed its energies
and anger at the state, not at another ethnicity."

One cannot fully grasp what is happening in Kenya and Africa
without considering the changing nature of opposition movements and the
differences between a people powered movement, or a democratic revolution, and
a plethora of movements that consolidate democratic institutions for
international capital while flying under the radar of democracy. KenyaOdingaOrangeCrowd

Even though here below I am mainly speaking about Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM), I could just as easily be speaking about Mwai Kibaki and the Party of
National Unity (PNU). It is only
because ODM has actively courted the image of being a people powered movement
engaged in a democratic revolution that I draw your attention to it. Amilcar Cabral once
said "tell no lies, claim no small victories."
It is in that spirit that I write.

KenyaKibakPartyRally
Let me begin by pointing to the question of ethnicity and
say this: In the same way you ought to
be surprised to meet a white American denying the existence of racism in
American politics, so should you be when you meet an African denying that
ethnocentrism is deeply entrenched in African politics. Racism is a historical creation that serves
a function - so is "tribalism." In the same way that leaders in the West
manipulate race and fear for political goals, so do African leaders.
Ethnocentrism can be benign or extremely vicious depending on its conductor.
Ethnocracy, like a racist power structure, exists to the extent it is able to
obscure for the victim and the activist the root causes of economic, political
and social exploitation. It
misdirects.

"Racism is a historical creation that serves a function -
so is "tribalism."

Let us also consider Kwame Ture's (Stokely Carmichael)
reminder that we should not mistake individual success for collective
success. The majority of Kenyans --
Luos, Kikuyus, Luhyas etc -- are poor.
The 60 percent of Kenyans living under two dollars a day cut across all
ethnicities. The Kikuyu elite live at
the expense of the Kikuyu poor; it is the same for other ethnicities. There is much more in common between the
poor across ethnicities, than between the elite and the poor of each ethnicity. Racism, nationalism, and ethnocracy all ask
that the poor die in the defense of economic and social structures that keep
them poor. It is no surprise that those who have been both dying and doing the
killing in Kenya in the past week are the poor. Yet they are killing along ethnic, not class, lines.

And in the same way that over time western political parties
come to represent different and contradictory positions, so have African
political parties. In the dictatorships
of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the opposition parties were the good guys. Progressive international political analysts
are still working with that framework, which has blinded us to glaring
present-day contradictions. The assumption that opposition immediately means
people-power cannot be sustained by an analysis informed by the complex shifts
in African politics in the last two decades.
Take Zimbabwe, for example. The
opposition Movement for Democratic Change is a neo-liberal party. Calling it
revolutionary or anti-imperialist would be wrong. In Kenya, both the sitting
government and the opposition exchange members fluidly as they position and
reposition themselves, eyes on the national cake. William Ruto, a top leader in
the ODM, was previously a treasurer for the KANU Youth Wing - a political thug organization created by
former dictator Moi, who is now in Kibaki's camp. And the recent church
killings that claimed over 50 lives took place in Eldoret, which William
Ruto has represented in parliament for many years.

Therefore not all opposition parties are anti-imperialist or
opposed to the move by global capital to consolidate the world. At a time when the rich nations and their
elite are getting richer, and the poorer nations and the poor within them are
getting poorer, some opposition parties will choose the side of global
capital. ODM is composed of some of the
wealthiest people in the country. For
example, the Odinga family owns Spectre International, a molasses company in
conjunction with a multi national petroleum and diamond mining company. The international press, which refers to
Raila as a "flamboyant millionaire", is not entirely wrong.

"The 60 percent of Kenyans living under two dollars a
day cut across all ethnicities."

KenyaArrest
With the above said, analysis of what it means to be a
people powered movement is crucial. For
people-power politics to be effective, solidarity has to be across ethnicity,
not along it. In other words, a people
power movement has to at its basis be informed by the consciousness of a
collective oppressed. Because it has no real grass roots developed over years
of working with and for the people, ODM can only rile up discontentment by
pointing to one ethnicity rather than organizing the whole country against
elite exploitation. Like any populist movement it takes the worst fears of a
people (fear of Kikuyu domination, for example) and plays them out in the
national stage. A people power movement
on the other hand peels away these fears to reveal how power and wealth are
being distributed. Because ODM has not
done this, its supporters have identified their fellow poor Kikuyu as the
enemy. A people power movement would
have directed its energies and anger at the state, not at another
ethnicity.

A people power movement declares its solidarity with other
marginalized peoples across the world. It is third-worldist in vision. A people
power movement, because its vision grows organically from its struggle and
engagement with the people, exhibits a stand against exploitative international
economic arrangements because its constituents are impoverished through
them. ODM cannot be termed as radical
pan-Africanist or third-worldist, rather it has a populist consciousness.

Also, the shell - the façade - of a people power movement
can be used by a national elite to seize power for international capital.
Rather than use the term populist/people power to refer to ODM, it is
appropriate to borrow a term from the International
Republican Institute. The term the
IRI uses is "consolidating democracy," referring to a technique it used in the
Ukrainian Orange Revolution and in Haiti against Aristide. Consolidating
democracy translates into bringing together civil organizations (religious,
universities, local NGO's, women's organizations etc), and uniting various
opposition factions into one large electoral force. The sole purpose of consolidating democracy is to remove the
sitting government. There is no
coherent underlying ideology in this goal - no interest in empowering the
people, or returning economic and political institutions to them. Rather than develop real roots with the
people so that when in power ODM becomes an extension of them, ODM has taken
the easy route of consolidating democracy following the IRI model.

"Not all opposition parties are anti-imperialist or
opposed to the move by global capital to consolidate the world."

We urgently need to distinguish between people power
movements (such as those we have seen in Latin America), populist movements,
and neo-liberal opposition movements that consolidate democratic institutions
for global capitalism. People power
movements are a fifth force usually in opposition to legislative, executive,
judiciary and military influences. When
they seize power through democratic means, they immediately attempt to
transform the other four forces into revolutionary instruments. Laws nationalizing resources or
redistributing land and resources are passed. The army is transformed from an
instrument of intimidation into one that helps in times of disasters - in short
a people power government places the people at the center of the state. When a movement that has been consolidating
democracy gets into power it does the opposite, and the democratic structures
become instruments of global capital and US Foreign policy. (Liberia, for example, after working with
IRI is one of the few countries to open its national door to the US African
Command Center). If missionaries paved
the way for colonialism, evangelists of western democracy like IRI pave the way
for US foreign policy.

KenyaKidSpear

We should at least consider that the ODM has in the last few
weeks not been engaged in the last phase of a people power revolution but
rather in the last stage of consolidating neo-liberal democracy - using the
people as the battling ram against the state.
This is where the neo-liberal party calls for millions to take to the
streets with the hope of immobilizing the state. Because consolidating democracy requires the ebb and flow of
violence from the state and protest from the people, Raila could cynically tell
a BBC reporter when asked whether he will appeal for calm that "I refuse
to be asked to give the Kenyan people an anesthetic so that they can be
raped."

In case you are wondering, let me say this: for
progressives, Kibaki is not the answer.
Before the elections, the Kenyan Human
Rights Commission released a report implicating the Kenya police in
extra-judicial killings of close to 500 young men, all from poverty stricken
areas such as Kibera and Mathare, slums currently up in flames. This is a stark reminder that the 6 percent
economic growth was not trickling down to the people. Also that vote rigging
took place is almost certain. Enough
doubt has been cast by the electoral commissioners to make a recount, a
reelection, or another suitable solution a matter of democratic principle.

"Whatever process or option is used to adjudicate this
must be one that leaves Kenya standing for generations to come."

If the country is to heal, reconcile and find justice,
progressive voices should call for a UN probe into the December - January
post-election ethnic cleansing in Eldoret and other areas. There should be calls and support for a
United Nations probe into the non-electoral extra judicial killings of the 500
young men last year; the 1994
Rift Valley killings in which a reported hundreds of Kikuyus were killed
and thousands displaced during Moi's regime, and the Wagalla Massacre of
1984 (again during Moi's regime) in which hundreds of Somali Kenyans were shot
to death.

KenyaMap
Progressives should also call for the crisis to be resolved
within democratic structures. When Bush
won an election that the rest of the world understood as rigged, we did not ask
Al Gore to try and overthrow the government through an Orange revolution, we
did not ask him to divide the country across racial lines, blacks pitted
against whites, whites pitted against Latinos; we asked him to find redress
through peaceful and democratic processes.
And for that, the United States remains standing, in spite of Bush. Al
Gore did not ask for a recount of all the votes, or for a re-election. But both Raila and Kibaki can form a united
government; ask for a recount, and even a re-election. Whatever process or option is used to
adjudicate this must be one that leaves Kenya standing for generations to come.

My plea to you is this: Let us not find revolutionaries
where there are none. International solidarity should be with the Kenyan people
and not with individual leaders. A whole nation is at stake. The best thing for
Kenya right now is a return to a non-violent path governed by principled
democratic structures that will outlive both Raila and Kibaki. It is this that will make possible a people
powered government through a democratic revolution.

Mukoma wa Ngugi is co-editor of Pambazuka News, author of Hurling Words
at Consciousness and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa
Magazine.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories