Do you ever consider Kenya a predatory society?

By Zacharia Chiliswa

How can criminal gangs organise and execute indiscriminate attacks on innocent people in spite of active presence of security agents? Does it mean that our security mechanisms are ineffective in dealing with organised criminal gangs?

One might wonder how these criminal groups seem to operate freely and in what appears to be well-co-ordinated attacks. In some parts of this country it is said, young men are recruited into gang groups right at the door steps of schools and homes.

Some of the upsetting reasons put forward by those in charge of security and residents in the crime-prone areas include laxity and/or poorly equipped police service to respond to the distress calls; lack of co-operation from the affected communities and cartels of powerful shadowy characters raining the terror.

In many cases when police are finally deployed in the aftermath of the terror, not much has been achieved other than pointing fingers at the political class.

The presence of vigilante groups and terror gangs in our society might be revealing of how levels of mutual security among communities breeds a predatory culture. Or else, how could criminal gangs be operating in our midst unchallenged? Or does it mean these predatory cartels have overwhelmed the moral duty of the State to provide security for her citizens?   The recent wave of violence in the counties of Bungoma, Busia and Mandera seems to suggest that there are untouchables in our midst and/or the inability of security agents to tackle crime.

However, there is a deeper level of national insecurity, which must be addressed — the low levels of social and political trust among many Kenyans. The presence of organised criminal gangs operating freely at different levels of the Kenyan society could be pointing to the fact of how social fragmentation along tribal lines undermine the rule of law.

Suspicion and uproar

Since independence, the Kenyan nation has struggled to define her national identity. The meaning of how to be a Kenyan citizen remains elusive. The talk of patriotism in many cases remain empty and without meaning to those born in abject poverty and crime-badgered neighbourhoods.

How could such conditions promote mutual security between and among communities? For instance, during competitive political process and/or public appointments, some communities coalesce around one of their own.  Whether this has anything to do with their fair representation, one needs to examine trends and patterns that have been established over time in the way public goods are shared out, to understand such levels of suspicions and uproar. 

A numbers of things could be observed from the escalating homeland insecurity. First, the lack of trust in the “other” and seemingly trapped populations in the self-seeking predatory relations of “our people” has insulated the Kenyan society from encountering the other.

Already, some counties have experienced uneasiness from the members of the public concerning the way appointments are being done. Perhaps revealing how unsustainable purported inter-ethnic pacts are.  One of the single most social challenges many multi-ethnic counties will have to deal with is how to balance ethnic representation and remain effective in service delivery.

Second, what happens to a people not to be trusting towards a neighbour? What would suffer in a nation when citizens have no trust towards their fellow citizens?  When community and national relations are encumbered by social mistrust, the nation’s social capital suffers; where social groups are usually formed along similar identities.

And this is made worse when sharing of the common good in a social set up is explicitly among the ‘familiars’.

The sense of belonging of the “other” is difficult to negotiate, as their space to be part of the active civic life is dried-up and/or obliterated.

Third, how can people remain to be part of a democratic society, where their will is upheld by those they entrust with the care of common good when leaderships seems to thrive in greed and sowing seeds of divisions and suspicion?

At the core of national security is mutual security among communities. When people cannot trust their fellow citizen leave alone their leaders, and those in power take advantage of the vulnerable in the society, it’s a difficult nation to build. And it is tragic when those elected and appointed officials to public service become patronising, self-seeking and irresponsive to the aspirations of their people.

Civil agitation

It helps to buttress ethnic patriotism and create layers of clientalistic social relations where criminal gangs thrive.

The persisting social fragmentation along tribal lines poses new challenges for county governments.

Finally, because social trust has severely been affected by pervasive corruption in public sector and tribalism, politics of out-bidding the “other” might run over social accountability, especially in the counties. In fact civil agitation for improved living standards might be interpreted in tribal terms; where representation of social issues would no longer be seen as working for common good but ethnic interests.

In modern societies, the effects of political authority is exercised through public institutions, such as the security agents, and impacts on how people relate and view these institutions. 

Writer is Programmes Co-ordinator, Jesuit Hakimani Centre.