There is more to police brutality during demos than meets the eye

Henry Giroux, an American cultural critic observes: “Young people mobilising against oppressive societies all over the globe are being met with a state-sponsored violence that is about more than police brutality. This is especially clear in the United States, given its transformation from a social state to a warfare state, from a state that once embraced a semblance of the social contract to one that no longer has a language for justice, community and solidarity - a state in which the bonds of fear and commodification have replaced the bonds of civic responsibility and democratic vision.”

Excesses

Indeed, the bestiality witnessed in Kenya following the Supreme Court’s nullification of the August 8 presidential election goes beyond mere police brutality. It is about entrenching a Jubilee leadership that professes the democratic right of the people of Kenya to choose their leaders through the ballot, yet has unjustly appropriated the party’s top leadership till 2032 through the archaic hereditary handing over formula in a boardroom.

By hook or by crook, a cabal of people are determined that their schemes must see light of day even if it is over the dead bodies of innocent Kenyans whose only crime is to demand accountability and a responsive, representative government. The right of Kenyans to live anywhere in the country notwithstanding, Kenyans are living in a state of fear, thanks to the myopia that assails our leadership. An apolitical Kikuyu in Nyanza is a harassed man, as is the apolitical Luo eking out a living in central Kenya, all because they are victims of unflattering stereotypes.

Those stereotypes did not just happen; they were created by people in influential positions of leadership. Those who, from a privileged point, by harping on the bogeyman narrative, have managed to indoctrinate masses, subjugate and propagate a culture of pilferage. Kenyans have woken to this day with trepidation. Many are aware death lurks in the shadows as those who take to the streets to demand change that the authorities are not comfortable with will have to contend with the belligerent, often brutal police.

This shines the spotlight on Acting Internal Security Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, a man who is executing his mandate with unmatched zealousness. This has revealed a side of the minister those to whom he had endeared himself, like me, as the no-nonsense Education Cabinet Secretary, find hard to accept. It is a delicate balance for Matiang’i choosing between doing what is morally and professionally right and what is expected of one in return for a favour given. Understandably, he has a job to keep that is adjudged on performance and he must, therefore, deliver, not to the masses, but to his benefactors.

The delivery is counted in how many of the oppressed he manages to subdue, often violently, by deploying the police. Matiang’i has not debunked claims that he bragged about his ability to employ the proscribed Chinkororo terror group against the Opposition at a time when there are concerns that there is a revival of the other proscribed group, Mungiki.

As former American police officer Redditt Hudson opined, “On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 per cent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen per cent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 per cent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.” Matiangi is depending on the 15 per cent amenable to abusing their authority and the robotic 70 per cent. The police have been repeatedly accused of killing, then making perfunctory investigations.

There seems to be too much misplaced trust by those wielding power in the ability of the police to keep the country calm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The police have never been the instruments by which peace is made in situations of war, and given the political happenings in the country lately, today’s impugned presidential election could mark the crossing point into that phase of uncertainty that could launch a state of anarchy.

The truth

The police can only fan existing chaos by pandering to the whims of one side of the divide. The obnoxious apartheid regime in pre-independent South Africa tried to subjugate the black populations through police intimidation to no avail. The 1902 Leliefontein and 1960 Sharpeville massacres, among other brutal actions, only hardened the resolve of the black movement in South Africa.

Police brutality in the United States did not stop the black civil rights movement’s forward match, attestation to that being the elevation of Barack Obama, a black man, to the highest office of the land in January 2009. A couple of decades back, that was unimaginable. Leaders must dialogue. Police brutality is not the magical wand to remove the problems bedevilling this country.

Mr Chagema is a correspondent. [email protected]