Simon Gikandi, “Let moderate voices be heard in this din of hate,” Business Daily Africa, 4 January, 2008.
January 04, 2007: In regard to the current crisis in Kenya, let us start by disposing off the blame game. There is too much of that to go around: A government that has failed in its obligations to uphold democratic practices and the rule of law.
An opposition for whom nothing, except the smell of power, has appeal or makes sense. A media, whose interests are closely bound with those of the political and economic elite and, in some cases, have become willing chaperones of violence and destruction.
And worst of all, institutions that were intended to shepherd the cause of reform and the protection of human rights but have increasingly become institutionalised, funded by international organisations and confined to a narrow view of what constitutes human rights outside political practices and institutions.
There is, of course, the populace, willing canon fodder, putting their lives on the line in the name of chimeras which, as experience has shown, will not be realised. All these are issues worthy of debate and they have preoccupied us in the last few days of crisis.
But in the midst of the cacophony that informs Kenyan political discourse, something important has been lost—a serious commitment to the ideals of human rights and the sanctity of human life.
If a few weeks ago, anyone had suggested that Kenya had the potential for a cataclysm equal in velocity and scope to the one witnessed in Rwanda in the mid 1990s, one would have been laughed off as a holy fool. After all, this was one of the most sophisticated polities in Africa, the centre of a thriving capitalist economy, and a deep sense of cosmopolitanism.
But as we witness the senseless killings taking place in the country, Rwanda comes to mind in frightening ways. Consider the following:
In Rwanda, a political event—the shooting down of the president’s plane by unidentified forces, provided the perfect alibi for those who had been planning a final solution for the Tutsi minority.
In Kenya, political wrangling over an election has created the perfect scenario for ethnic cleansing. Among the mobs that have taken on the onerous task of deciding the fate and future of the country, one’s right to life or death has come to depend on one’s name and heritage, real or imagined.
In Rwanda, as the American reporter Phillip Gourevitch reported in his award winning book, “We Wish to Inform You…” when the call went out for Hutus to kill Tutsis, “Neighbours hacked neighbours to death in their homes, and colleagues hacked colleagues to death in their work places.”
In Kenya, the people killing each other, often the urban and rural poor, have lived together for generations and have often inter-married. According to news reports, the young men who burnt the church in Eldoret knew their victims by name, but as they sought to avenge or secure the losses and gains of the political class, such intimacies did not seem to matter.
In Rwanda, leaving aside the abysmal failure of the international community to intervene to stop the mass slaughter of innocent people, the major scandal of the genocide was the moral cowardice of those entrusted with the work of sustaining communal bonds to live up to their moral duty.
As killing became a project of community building, Gourevitch reports, “Doctors killed their patients, and school teachers killed their pupils.” Priests, who were expected to provide sanctuary to those under threat, walked around with guns, helping the militias cleanse Rwanda in the name of God.
In Kenya , mobs have started burning churches where displaced people have sought refuge and one wonders how long before the priests, ministers, and bishops, key allies of the feuding political class, will open the gates of sanctuaries to the murderers.
In Rwanda, genocide was facilitated by the electronic media. Calls to kill the Tutsis were broadcast on the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines whose sounds of hate provided inspiration and direction to the militia.
In Kenya, a discourse of hate has preceded the current political crisis. It can be heard on vernacular radio stations. It is passed through text messaging, and it thrives in the blogs of the Kenya diaspora for whom hatred of one group is often the only measure of a secure identity in the cold and unwelcoming spaces of Europe and North America.
In Rwanda, genocide was preceded by the systematic elimination of moderates, including the prime minister, Madame Agathe. In Kenya, there are few of those left and they are isolated. In fact, moderates are treated with contempt because they derive their identity from refusing to bite the poisoned apple of politics.
Thus, no sooner had retired Generals Opande, Sumbeiywo , Wachira, and Ambassador Kiplagat, veterans of peacekeeping in African trouble zones tried to mediate in the conflict, than they were summarily dismissed with contempt.
Those who refuse to align themselves with power, whether it came from the governing class or NGOs are the only ones who have the moral authority to mediate in this crisis, but they are sadly very few. They are also a vulnerable group.
I have spent the last 10 years researching the language of hate and the role of the intellectual class in creating the conditions in which genocide and mass murder takes place. From my research, it has become apparent that what the French philosopher J. P. Sartre called the etiology of hate cannot handle reason and lives in fear of rational conversations.
My fear is that in the midst of the current crisis and its aftermath, the extremists on all sides will emerge stronger-—the infamous Kalenjin Warriors will become the protectors of the Rift Valley and the Kikuyu will seek shelter in the bossom of the equally infamous Mungiki.
In the mean time my heart sinks every time I read the pronouncements of old intellectual colleagues and mentors, now become the voices of sectarianism. In times like these, the true measure of our human capacity becomes imperative. Let the moderates be heard.
Gikandi is Professor of English at Princeton University, USA.
