How the State manufactured consent to murder protestors

Youths during the Gen Z anniversary protests in Kisii town, on June 25, 2025. [Sammy Omingo, Standard] 

In these days of rapid movement building, we can fail to notice how language and propaganda might be used to derail a movement for progress. In Kenya’s case, the youth are bogged down with trying to survive, mourning their dead peers, keeping track of government activities and organising the next mass action. The government, on the other hand, is infinitely resourced, capable of clamping down on movement building from several directions. One effective way to ensure there is little to no progress in building a movement, is creating confusion.

Take, for instance, this year’s protests, which have come with the deployment of State-sponsored militias. As soon as this deployment happened the first time, prominent accounts online announced that “goons” had infiltrated the protests, stealing from protestors and destroying property. This word, goons, slightly inaccurate in description, nevertheless gained massive traction, and no conversation online on the protests could be had without the mention of goons, even as their actions became worse with each protest.