If indeed civil society is evil, then I am a proud member of that “evil society”

By Makau Mutua

Twitter@makaumutua

Last week, a trashy semi-literate online rag, speculated that I was in Arusha, Tanzania coaching witnesses for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The gutter publication, which savagely attacks anyone critical of the Kenyatta regime, has purported to out ICC witnesses. It regularly refers to me as the “ICC mole”. It’s infamous for primitive attacks on what it calls Kenya’s “evil society”. Let me confess for the avoidance of doubt – I am a proud member of that “evil society”.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t waste a column on some deranged online peddler of lies and uncouth attacks. But this is different. Why?  Because the publication simulates attacks by the Jubilee regime on its critics. Often, it posts “news” from the state before it becomes public.

The implication is that it’s got an inside track with the powers that be. It regularly predicts, sometimes with accuracy, what’s happening in the corridors of power. It’s steeped in the schemes of intriguers and government propagandists.

Everyone now and then, the rag will put out diversionary alerts to confound critics. Which begs the six million dollar question – who’s behind the Daily Post? Methinks Parliament, or the Media Council of Kenya, should investigate.

Government by propaganda, disinformation, and media manipulation is nothing new. It was the Third Reich’s Paul Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda – who taught states how to lie effectively. The evil genius famously said that, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.

He said that the “truth is the mortal enemy of the lie,” and added, chillingly, that the “truth is the greatest enemy of the state”. The gutter publication isn’t brilliant, nor is it even thoughtful, but like Minister Goebbels, it prides itself on channeling the bald-faced lie. The most important and destructive of these lies is that Kenya’s “civil” society is indeed the “evil” society.

A little lesson is in order here. Civil society is the necessary cartilage between the state and the people. It’s the “independent eye” of the people that stands between the tyranny of the state and liberty. No society can be democratic without a civil society. Ask Kanu. Its demise was brought about largely by civil society.

The 2010 democratic Constitution – that everyone Kenyan now swears by – was civil society’s baby. The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHCR), whose board I chair, and which was run by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, UN rapporteur Maina Kiai, writer Muthoni Wanyeki – and countless others – was the early and relentless instigator of the struggle for a democratic Constitution. Other Kenyan NGOs were equally valuable in this fight.

That’s not all. The key institutional democratic framework is the handiwork of civil society. Think of police, prison, and other justice reforms, including constitutional commissions. The truth commission, which the political class has mangled, couldn’t have been possible without civil society.

Civil society has provided basic services where the state’s writ and ability have collapsed.  Ask folks in Northern Kenya the value of civil society. It’s civil society that’s trained thousands of Kenyans about their rights, especially how to defend them from a predatory state. Civic education on the electoral system couldn’t be possible without civil society.

In short, Kenyans would still be in bondage today but for civil society. We make no apologies for confronting tyranny and autocracy.

Where does one get the gall to call civil society evil? How can those who’ve dedicated their lives to eradicating the evils in our society be themselves evil?

I am glad the Bill to neuter and destroy NGOs was defeated, thanks to CORD MPs. This is the question – why does the state want to hogtie NGOs and muzzle the media?

The state can’t have its cake and eat it too – it can’t pretend to support democracy and then kill the institutions that make democracy possible.

The state and its social acolytes – who operate anonymously – must stop demonising Africog’s Gladwell Otieno, International Commission of Jurists’s George Kegoro, Inuka’s John Githongo, Ms Wanyeki, feminist Betty Murungi, KHRC’s Atsango Chesoni, Mr Kiai, Prof Karuti Kanyinga and human rights advocate Ndung’u Wainaina.

I want to end by turning wisdom on its head.  Yes – I belong to the evil society. I am “evil” because those who don’t believe in freedom and liberty see me – and my colleagues in civil society – as evil. To them, we are “evil” because we oppose the vices that they practice.

We are “evil” because we hate kleptocrats and impunity. We are “evil” because we believe in democracy and human rights. We are “evil” because we support justice at the ICC. “Mimi ni member.”

Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.