I am writing this column because I am still alive. Sounds obvious, but many are no longer alive to read these words. The insane crime wave that has gripped the country over the past few weeks has taken many casualties. We, the survivors, are able to talk about insecurity and feel outraged by it. Those who didn’t make it have no such opportunity. For them, that’s it. Full stop. A life extinguished, curtailed. And all because we can’t be bothered to manage crime.
I am writing these words and you are reading them. And yet it could all have been very different. Either or both of us could have been on the wrong road at the wrong time, and this interaction would not have been taking place. So, even as we discuss this matter, let us reflect for a moment that the people most awfully affected are no longer here to discuss it with us. Let us be silent for a moment to think about the families those brutally murdered have left behind: the fractured lives, the terrible memories, the scarred futures. And don’t be too comfortable as you sit there; it could be you, or me, next.
It’s just a lottery, after all. We have conceded whole towns, roads and times of day to criminal gangs. They rampage with utter impunity. They are armed with the best weapons and reportedly protected by bulletproof vests. They appear to have no fear of arrest. They walk into shops and homes when they feel like it; they stop your car and strip you of valuables routinely; they kill you or your loved one on the slightest provocation. Whether you live or die in this lottery is a matter of pure chance.
You draw your own conclusions as to why we are in this situation. I have drawn mine. I watch the utter disregard displayed by those empowered to deal with this, and I surmise something. I listen to the obfuscations and excuses deployed by those who are supposed to protect us, and I infer something. Something is very rotten in the state of Kenya, when we cannot distinguish law-breaker from law-enforcer.
As before, the fear of being the next target is in every heart. Whether you are a quiet villager worried about the next attack by a political gang, or a mother worried about the spate of kidnappings of schoolchildren, you are now ruled by fear. You have no space for positive emotion, for fear has its cold fingers inside you. I watch people cutting out going out after dusk completely, and I wonder what will happen to the economy. I see investments postponed, and I ask: was the current recession not deep enough for our leaders, that they had to add this to the mix?
Actually, I have written about this problem at least half a dozen times on this page over the past few years. Nothing changes. The causes of chronic insecurity are well known to all of us. We even know exactly what to do about it; a set of actions has been spelled out here many times. I am not going to repeat all that. What intrigues me is why nothing, absolutely nothing, is done about this problem, and why we keep having this discussion every two years or so.
Here’s something I do know. Suppose you had the power to really do something about insecurity. Suppose you could do ONE thing that would make a difference. Stay in fantasy-land with me for a moment, and I will tell you what that one thing is.
Here’s what you would do. You would take away all bodyguards from all leaders. You would confiscate all their weapons. You would cancel all the security arrangements in all their homes and offices. You would force them all to drive around in white Toyotas every evening.
Let me tell you this for certain: all our security problems would evaporate within a few weeks. The reason insecurity is tolerated is simply that our leaders don’t personally encounter it. Sure, once in a while an MP gets car-jacked, or a technocrat gets shot. But, by and large, decision-makers are insulated from this problem. They do not get dragged out of their homes and beheaded; they do not watch their womenfolk getting raped before their eyes; they are not humiliated every day by thugs as they walk home.
In short, this is a wananchi problem, not a wadosi one. And the way to solve it is to make it a wadosi one. We were, of course, fantasizing: we are never going to make the leader class bear the brunt of the crime problem. But my point to you is simple: this is about mismanagement and corruption. There is nothing natural about the levels of crime we encounter in this country. It is a problem with straightforward solutions. So, as we work our way through the latest wave, stop for a moment to think why we still have this problem.
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10 Responses:
July 13th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Florence:
The gentleman in question was critical, but seems to have come out of it. Good wishes to him.
Almost all the victims are decent, ordinary folk going about their daily life. Then their lives are ruined by goons. All this while our leaders watch, or sleep, or worry about envelopes, or whatever.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Hey Dipak,
Yes, we have to say Enough is Enough.
By the way, did I read in the news that the head of the parklands neighbourhood watch was killed last week?
When will this ever end? He was just a good man, doing a good deed (helping some guys whose car had broken down) and then they shoot him dead! The details are hazy as I write this so excuse me for that but I was so unhappy!
Ali MUST resign. I was an admirer of his but not any more. He seems to have lost control. I think the noble thing for him to do is call it quits.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
An interesting document I found whilst researching the pay grades of the Kenyan Police, effective 1st Jan 2008 – (note, this may take some time for slower connections) New Salary Scales for Disciplined Services
This ranges from KES11,010pm, for the lowest in Job Group PG1, to KES61,000pm, for the highest in Job Group PG10.
If the people tasked to protect the public are hardly acknowledged, financially, for doing so, and they find it practically impossible to feed their own families, all the while watching many, many of the same public driving around in brand new 4×4s and spending the equivalent of a month’s salary on a single restaurant meal, it would take a person of great, unshakeable principle to look the other way while his family starves.
My point here is that although poverty and inequality are the usual suspects, they affect the police (but probably not the judiciary!). If a change is to come from the people then many of them must first acknowledge that they are part of the problem – every time I visit Kenya I see increasingly blatant displays of wealth, pretty much rubbing it in the faces of the 65% who live below the poverty line. Certain groups of people need to be on the same side to effect any kind of real change.
July 4th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Chandesh:
Good points, but I think poverty and inequality are part of the ‘usual suspects’ in Kenya. They contribute, but our bigger problem is the total lack of credibility of the police and judiciary. They are part and parcel of the problem. When you can’t trust the police, nor differentiate them from the thugs that terrorise you, you are left helpless. The car-jackers are operating with utter impunity now, hitting a dozen or more cars every night, seemingly unafraid of arrest.
Dipak is right: it is time for the people to make a stand. Not to fight the thugs, because they can’t, but to say enough is enough and they will not accept this kind of governance.
July 4th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” but as has been pointed out how does one identify the ‘good men’ in this day and age?
Dipak points out the danger of standing up to the criminals, as minor as they may be, and it is the same situation here in the UK with kids carrying knives and stabbing anyone who looks at them ‘wrong’. Being a ‘good man’ can be highly detrimental to your health in such an environment.
The breakdown is global (haven’t heard of student shootings in the US yet this year but summer isn’t over), the only difference being that in Kenya poverty and inequality are the cause and in the West it’s largely poor parenting and education.
The solution? This article is the start to finding one.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:36 am
As you are all identifying, this is not an isolated problem, nor is it caused by the usual suspects. There is a systemic breakdown here. When can’t tell the difference between police wars and crime wars, we are in a lot of trouble.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Florence the reason no one would attempt to chase the goons is they are always armed with knives and not worth the risk of getting stabbed.It’s time we all got together and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and have to force people in the security docket to resign.
We cannot afford to face this kind of trauma nor let our children be traumatised at such a young age.
We need to stratagise and start a forum and get people together,because it’s totally gone out of hand.
Sunny can you assist and through your forum, so as to form a mass movement to stop this maddness.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I have put off giving my comments on this article about crime since Sunday. Then, yesterday, something happened and I must submit my comment.
I must say that I have tried to be as optimistic as one can possibly be under the circumstances but its not paying off. Really. Before one thinks that I am being defeatist, let me explain. on the 22nd of May, somewhere in Ngara, I experienced a very horrifying incident. Bundled with my three kids in the car, I was on my way to the Ngara City Council market. I was driving my sister’s car, and though it was a Mazda Demio, whose side lamps are a priced item, I had a false sense of Security because as my sister put it, nobody was ever going to manage to steal her side lamps. She had them fastened by the guru of light fastening….(nowadays, you either fasten them with rivets or you will buy a new set every day).
Just as I was approaching the round-about, there was banging all around the car and alas! some mean looking guy was trying to remove the lights. Somehow, I did not panic and I accelerated, all the while turning the wheel towards his direction and I believe I hit and injured his leg (hope I did!). So, I survived the ordeal, the light did not “go” but I was pretty shaken. The kids were screaming in the car and I was so hurt!
On 4th June, another incident. Same car, a friend of mine, myself, two of my kids and two of hers. Place: Near Consolata Shrine Westlands. On our way to Parklands Baptist Church for a wedding rehearsal. We spot two men walking along the road, all the while looking our way. I told my friend with all confidence, ” those guys are eying these side lamps. They will not succeed. This ones are secure like you cannot imagine. EXactly two minutes later, a repeat of the Ngara incident. This tiem they were two, they were determined and they were bigger. And this time, the side lamps cooperated. I lost them. Shaken children, shaken mothers a traumatised lot. All this happened in broad daylight. As all other motorists looked on. Nobody offered any sorry or dared chase after the goons. Infact, they walked away leisurely. I was as mad as I have never been. Yesterday, my friend, who was with me on 4th June had the same experience along Uhuru highway, between the Museum round-about and St. Paul’s University Chapel. She is almost one hundred percent sure its the same guys. She too is angry, wants the first plane out of this country…to….I don’t know where!
You know what makes me feel
so defeated? When driving from Westlands, I see the fellows sitting on the patch of grass between the highways. Unafraid and unashamedly strategizing on how to rob and cause misery to motorists. Is it possible that no police man knows about their activities? Or, maybe my question should be: do we have a police force in this country? Does anyone care? I have fantasized on mobilizing all my big bodied male friends to drive along with me in three different cars, we set a bait on the goons, catch them throw them into the boot of one car, drive to a police station and beat them to a pulp…but that is criminal…we can never win! I will not even mention the bigger things innocent Kenyans are being subjected to every day. Now children are being kidnapped. Yesterday on the news, I saw they are using petrol bombs to terrorise Juja residents.
What are we going to do? If the Police force cannot protect us, or seem to try to do so, then, I give up. They should resign. WHO WILL SAVE THIS COUNTRY???? Who cares??
Then, Masinga Dam has been shut down………..lets see whats next.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:29 am
If such cases happened in other countries,the police commissioner and Internal securitity minister would have been forced to resign.
I think we kenyans are too meek.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Let’s look at the bottom of this and you will find that this is happening due to Arms & Ammunition which is fallen in wrong hands.
1. Where do the gangsters get’s arms from ?
2. Need to track down from the root the key source of arms been smuggled and to block that entry point.
Once this is under control then to get control on thugs will not be difficult.