Why we must jealously guard artistic freedoms

Butere girls high school students performing a play at Kakamega high school on March 25, 2023. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard] Kenyans across the political divide have condemned the Ruto Administration for tear-gassing students from Butere High School and scuttling their submission to the Kenya National Drama and Film Festival 2025. Many critics were outraged by the blatant violation of freedom of speech and the primitive use of brute force against schoolgirls. In a country with a robust bill of rights, many could not understand how any self-respecting administration could blatantly violate the rights of children, frustrate their artistic aspirations, and use tear gas on them to boot. In defence, government apologists claimed they were compelled to stop the play to protect the children from toxic politics being advanced by the play director. Attempts to sanitise the blunder, however, did not go down well with the public either because even if the government was acting in the interest of the children, the harm to the girls far exceeded whatever good the administration was aiming to achieve. Even if one conceded that children should be protected from harmful influences, then in fairness, all political presentations should have been censured in the same way. Since only Cleophas Malala's play 'Echoes of War' was singled out, the government appeared to have engaged in double standards by victimising the girls to settle political scores with the playwright. Besides the unwelcome politicisation of the drama festival, the assault on Butere High School girls came at a time when Kenyans were increasingly getting concerned about the human rights record of the Kenya Kwanza administration. Unease about the government's commitment to freedom of speech was heightened by increasing cases of abductions of young people, sabotage of mainstream media, and silencing of Parliament. These developments were surprising because Kenyans assumed the nation had made a giant leap forward in its democratic journey after the promulgation of the Constitution in 2010. The return to the dark days of repression was a wake-up call that our leaders had yet to internalise the moral imperatives that undergird the Bill of Rights. In the wisdom of an old saying, we are repeating historical mistakes because the Kenya Kwanza administration has not learnt from our past. A look at our history, for instance, shows that Kenyans paid a steep price due to human rights abuses by previous regimes. In the period immediately after independence, popular themes in African literature focused on decolonising the minds of Kenyans to undo the cultural harm caused by years of colonialism. While political independence was an important first step in the liberation struggle, it was widely acknowledged that cultural emancipation was indispensable towards the realisation of a thriving democracy. Government interference with artistic freedoms not only stifled creativity, Kenyans lost an opportunity to processing the social changes taking place in the post-colonial period. Similarly, as Africans settled in leadership positions and the shadow cast over the land by colonial empires receded to the background, the spotlight naturally shifted to the quality of leadership in the country. An important question was the appropriateness of adopting a capitalist system when socialism appeared more consistent with African cultural heritage. The need to correct the ideological mistake became even more urgent when the African elite with middle-class values started to emerge. Criticism of the new ruling elite became more strident as corruption and unapologetic materialism became more pronounced. Inevitably, rising criticism goaded a panicked and insecure administration to clamp down on dissenting voices, bringing Kenya's renaissance period to a close. The consequence of the clampdown was to prevent the resolution of the emotive debate between modernity and tradition. To this day, Kenyans are still confused over whether to revert to their traditions or give way to modernity. Politically, the interruption of ideological debate aborted the birth of issue-based politics so that our elections are today nothing more than an ethnic census. In economics, a triumph of the communal socialist mindset left unchallenged the belief that the best way to allocate resources is through the visible hand of the government. The combined effect of stifling artistic freedoms was to create an unstable democracy that is always at risk of disintegrating at every election cycle. The threat to our democracy posed by the assault on Butere High School girls must be seen from this historical perspective. In the finest tradition of African literature, Malala's play focuses Kenyans on the emerging clash between the values of a youthful digital generation and a conservative and traditional older generation. The play draws timely attention to our changing social landscape and especially the rise of a generation that describes itself as tribeless in an ethnically fragmented society. An important question is whether the militancy of the young is driven by a generational sense of entitlement to national loot or a product of genuine change in national values. This pertinent question must be given full hearing for our democracy to evolve to its full potential. The writer is a political Analyst

Why we must jealously guard artistic freedoms

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