Is it democracy or 'digital dictatorship'?

When you are sick, doctors look out four vital signs - heartbeat, breathing rate, temperature, and blood pressure – to assess your physical functioning. Analogically we can also try and gauge the health of a nation on the basis of some vital signs.

Yes, of late I have been getting enquiries on whether we are headed to a more open democracy or ‘digital’ dictatorship’ that is so smart and suave in courting you to surrender your rights, because as the old saying goes, “a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.”

My answer, like those of many Kenyans, often depends on who is asking and his or her possible political leanings given your basic understanding of their genealogy. Yes, in a tribal set-up you must understand the basic rules of getting along well with one another.

But on a serious note, maybe we need to consider the following ten ‘vital signs’ and decide for ourselves where we may probably be headed.

Executions and unexplained killings: This is the age-old symptom that should get us all off our shoes. It starts probably as a temporary experiment but when it seems you can get away with it and the public is pacified or cowed, the appetite for more eliminations rises.

It starts with such a simple matter as Jihadist clerics then slowly moves on. No one knows how to do this more than the police.

Corruption and more corruption: Politics runs on the fuel of money and the engine of power idles on the strength of more and more money. When you think it will end, graft starts sprouting in every corner, even nearly forgotten grounds like land grabbing.

If you want to know the scale in our case consider the fact that the President met his top enforcers last week and demanded action on the corrupt. I guess they include those he confessed to us are at Harambee House!

Tribal cartels and kitchen cabinets: The more and more you see junior guys, including Senator Mike Sinko who has the audacity to call the President in public on his mobile phone, display unexplained source of power and move around as if they are a law unto themselves, you get to know there is more than you are seeing.

The more power slips away from legitimate holders or the more those who rightly wield it ‘share’ it with ‘outsiders’, the more you need to be very afraid.

Overt war on media and civil society: Every government demands responsibility from the media and professes respect for the right of free speech and press.

But scratch beneath the surface and the murk left on your fingernails tells you the dirt runs deep. Yes, there is total war going here by way of a myriad of legislation and decrees, all anchored to the war on terror.

In fact the President last declared he was ready to barter the gains of democracy in exchange for extermination of terrorism. Yes, there we go, it is up to us to try and decipher where the excuse lies!

General feeling of siege mentality: A people begin to feel helpless, that nothing can be done and that the leader(s) will anyway, have their way, because their path is paved with gold and diamonds.

Call it tyranny of numbers or whatever you want, but all of a sudden, the opposition starts withering, the few green leaves are plucked away, and the tree of liberty stands forlorn and in a laughable state.

Few speak but even those who do are shouted down by the majority and so the slide to personalised rule continues.

Rise of sycophancy and death of logic: There emerges a group of tight-knit ‘political elite’ and technocrats whose sole duty is to twist every developing ‘news’ against the subject and in favour of the state, more or less like the YK ‘92 team did.

Their role is to stifle any debate by subduing it with tribal and so-called non-patriotic overtones.

In short, an industry of sycophancy grows and you know it is not philanthropic activity here and again, it cannot thrive without the blessings of the big guys because the professional sycophants, some hiding behind the digital walls, have mouths and families to feed.

Militarisation and aggressive streak: We may have learnt this from Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, wherever there was national tension like when JM Kariuki was killed, the military would be brought to the streets to display their might and menacing hardware.

Then Mzee would say he would crush you like boulders into pebbles. That is what probably military uniform and appointments mean. Yes, it helps to kill two birds with one stone; scare the terrorists and at the same time instil fear in your critics.

Industrial unrest and so many hungers around: Apart from the prevailing harsh economic conditions, one could argue that through history, especially the French Revolution, one vital sign of a society stifled and starved through concentration of the national harvest in the kraal of the royalty, are demonstrations and industrial strife.

Well this may not be Jubilee’s making, but again if you do not stop wastage, bake a bigger cake for all, and show compassion for the poor and the poorly paid, what follows?

In a sense, these actions are a product of age-old disproportionate distribution of bread among Kenyans and is an indictment of current and past regimes.

Facing East while charming the West: Everyone knows that after the end of Cold War era so many African leaders were left stranded on the junction leading to either of the blocks with a begging bowl in their hands.

 

The European/American rivalry against China was good ground to get aid and freebies for our leaders. Today the re-emergence of the same rivalry albeit on economic grounds, is good fodder to play the two blocs against each other so that you reap double.

In so doing you hope to succeed in making them pay less attention to prevailing domestic rights issues. But wait for a moment, China actually doesn’t care!

Flourishing of cartels and rogues: When a junior politician can be driven through town flashing big guns while pushing the rest of us off the roads you know something nasty is coming.

When rich individuals try and overshadow government and even provide its services, friends please remember someone called Pavlo Escobar and his Columbian ‘friends’. As they say there is nothing like free lunch.

Finally, friends, I hope I am wrong for the sake of Kenya.