Jubilee taking Kenya on a dangerous path

State House responded to opponents of the Security Laws Amendment Act 2014 by branding them unpatriotic and terrorists sympathisers.

With the statement on December 16, targeting CORD leader Raila Odinga, Jubilee confirmed fears that the laws will be used more expansively than the drafters anticipated. They ought to have a provision to determine that they are being used consistently with stated intent.

Jubilee’s response was, however, expected. Regimes that cannot explain their anti-people actions take refuge in patriotism and labeling of opponents.

The response made it clear a new era of McCarthyism is at hand. The country is going to be more divided between tribes, parties, “patriots” and “saboteurs.”

When the late American Senator, Joseph McCarthy, burst into prominence with a list of 205 “well known communists working in the State Department,” he had nothing to back his claims.

His only refuge was patriotism. Those with questions were simply labeled communists. For four years, McCarthy made wild accusations and destroyed other leaders, all in the name of fighting communism, until the Senate decided its honour could no longer put up with McCarthy’s abuse of his legislative powers, and censured him.

McCarthy borrowed from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) created in 1938 to uncover US citizens with Nazi ties. HUAC became known for investigating alleged disloyalty and subversive activities of private citizens, public employees and organisations suspected of communist ties.

Their equivalent in independent Kenya is the Kanu disciplinary committee of 1980s. Demagogic, reckless and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of opponents were the hallmark of McCarthyism, HUAC and Kanu disciplinary dommittee. It is what the Jubilee is falling back on.

McCarthyism begins as some benign action to save a nation. It ends in a good deal of trauma.

At their peak, HUAC and McCarthy investigators had names in lists of communist sympathisers who in turn could not be employed, were monitored daily and could not be allowed to pursue private businesses.

In Many Are the Crimes, McCarthyism in America; Ellen Schrecker writes; “There was a lot of human wreckage. From Hollywood to Harvard, the anti-communist crusade blighted thousands of lives, careers and marriages.

Some folks flourished, others were destroyed. Most managed to survive. They all experienced stress.

There were a handful of suicides.” She records journalist Carl Bernstein’s mother appearing before HUAC, after which his best friends were told not to play with him while his younger sister was expelled from nursery school.

A law that gives the Government far too much power than it truly needs to fight terrorism ought to be marketed better than questioning the patriotism of opponents.

Our hard won Constitution contains the basic privacy protections. It requires that before the Government can invade the privacy, it should have at least a reasonable basis to believe that we have done something wrong.

The law destroys that basic structure. It allows Government access to a person’s private details without having to show a reasonable suspicion that the person has violated the law or associated with terrorists.

It is possible that the Government will run people’s names against a secret terrorist watch list, which the individual citizen will not see, before a person is able to do basics like buy a house, secure a mortgage, get a passport or a loan.

People will be having their bank accounts closed, their credit denied, their job applications rejected, because of erroneous information, gathered without their knowledge.

Banks may simply close people’s accounts out of fear that because a person travels too much overseas or makes donations to foreign entities, they might at some point appear on some “terrorist list.” These have been the trends in jurisdictions where such wide-ranging powers have been granted to institutions and individuals.

It never stops once it starts. We are on that path. These are simply far too vague and absolute powers for the government.

This is one kind of law that ought to incorporate a sunset clause, providing that it will go out of existence after a certain period of time. The fact that opponents are being labeled is enough reason to oppose it more.