By Peter Kagwanja
On the prism of democracy, Kenya and Egypt are light-years apart, but cyber-activists and sections of Kenya’s political class are drawing false parallels between the two and nudging for protests in Kenya.
The concept of ‘cyber-activism’ has entered Kenya’s public sphere, riding on the wave of protests awash over the Arab World — which has so far ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
In her recent visit to Kenya, Hilary Clinton, encouraged the Kenyan youth to employ the use of social media — Twitter, Facebook and blogs — to air their grievances and participate in national debates.
But an incipient debate in Kenya’s cyber-space reveals fragments of the country’s activists and political class are pondering using social media to emulate the Egyptian-style protest perhaps to coincide with the third anniversary of the 2008 post-election mayhem.
"Kenyans may borrow from Egypt by staging a "sit in" in all towns," says one blogger. "But there has to be enough public outrage to achieve and sustain momentum," he adds.
Those positing that Kenya is ripe for a cyber-driven ‘revolution’ view the deadly mix of coalition tussles particularly over the ICC and the nominations to the Judiciary as providing potent wedge issues to trigger and sustain an Egyptian-style protest. Indeed, one article titled "Revolt in Egypt carries vital lessons for Kenya" (The Standard On Saturday, February 12) cites "the latest episode...to stunt institutions" as evidence that Kenya is hurtling down the Egyptian route.
Also in the list of ‘wedge issues’ is the festering public discontent over the internally displaced persons, the naming of ‘Ocampo Six’, corruption, spiraling cost of living and youth unemployment.
Kenya’s elite
Even though the Tunisian and Egyptian protests have been ‘leaderless,’ Kenya’s elite are putting various spins on the events. It may not be patently clear how rival political formations in Kenya’s Grand Coalition Government are hooked to the cyber-drive, but the factions of political class will have no qualms riding on the wave of protests to upstage their adversaries.
However, a pervading view is that Kenya’s ingrained ethnic schisms and sensibilities and a largely conservative middle class minimise the chances of success of an Egyptian-style revolt. But some insist public "outrage will finally trump the tribal card."
Be that as it may, drawing parallels between Kenya and the Arab World is a gross misreading of history, a reflection of the paucity of Kenya’s intellectual and political classes.
Kenya is not in the same league as Egypt in regard to the stage and trajectory of their democratic progress.
Egypt had a serious democratic deficit recently compounded by the military junta that has taken over from Mr Mubarak. Hopefully, the recent revolt in Egypt that began on January 25, 2011 is the third in a series of the country’s civil resistance aimed at installing democracy and people’s power.
This follows the first ‘revolution’ or the 1919 mass uprising against the British occupation, which ended with the unilateral grant of independence in 1922 and the implementation of a new Constitution the following year. Britain’s refusal to remove its forces from the Suez Canal Zone triggered the second revolt, culminating in the 1952 ‘Egyptian Revolution’ led by Gamal Nasser.
The military coup by President Anwar Sadat and the ascension of Mubarak to power in 1977 after the assassination of his predecessor entrenched a totalitarian regime that has dominated politics for the last three decades.
Egypt, like much of the Arab World, escaped the ‘third’ wave of democracy that washed over Southern Europe (Portugal) in the 1970s and over the rest of the developing world from the late 1980s in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Communist Empire in Eastern Europe and of the Berlin wall.
Expectedly, the protests signify a delayed response to Egypt’s democratic deficit: legal and political issues, including police brutality, state of emergency laws, lack of free elections, and freedom of speech and corruption.
A series of protests in Kenya from the late 1980s, triggered by the 1982 declaration of a de jure one party state and the 1988 protests against lack of free elections and the introduction of queue voting, culminated in the push for multi-party democracy after the historic Saba Saba revolts in 1991.
Kenya has toed a strict legal path to democracy, which paid off in the peaceful transfer of power after the 2002 elections. The 2008 post-election violence forced Kenya’s democracy into a retreat. But the promulgation of a new Constitution in August 2010 has provided a solid foundation for democracy.
For Egypt and Tunisia, the real work on democracy has just begun. The transition period will decide whether the countries sink into the abyss of anarchy or rise and join Africa’s burgeoning, albeit fragile democracies.
Kenya may be battling with issues of constitutional implementation, but the country is in no way in the same league as Egypt and Tunisia. Cyber-activism must eschew anarchist revolts and focus on consolidating Kenya’s nascent democracy, including the implementation of the new Constitution.
The writer is a policy advisor and President of the Africa Policy Institute.
