As our politicians behave badly, scholars imagine a better Kenya, world

A section of Westlands in Nairobi. [File, Standard]

Despite depressing political hullabaloo in July 2026, in which policy makers including ministers displayed loss of maturity and self-dignity, there are those who showed ability to think in positive ways. They are found in think tanks and universities which appear to compete to hold symposia and conferences on topical issues. Among the topics is one on whether Kenya matters in the peace and security reality of the East African region, on global geopolitical realignment, and on possible decolonisation of the Criminal Justice System. The growing number of think tanks and universities that entertain questioning minds provoke captivating ideas.

Kenya’s seeming weakening as a regional peace and security player attracted such think tanks and universities as the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), the Horn Institute, and Mashariki Institute, University of Nairobi, Riara University, and the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A). Kenya, they diagnosed, was an anchor state that is strategic first to countries in the region and second to extra-continental players who use it as a gateway to Eastern Africa. Although Riara’s Winnie Rugutt explained Kenya’s global activities as ‘strategic hedging’, the country had seemingly undermined its credibility as regional mediator/negotiator. Kenya’s internal contradictions and dissonance, mainly between its comfortable rulers and its suffering public, tend to erode its claims to regional leadership. While it is good at mediating and proposing solutions, it is very poor at following or benefitting from its successes. As a result of failing to own the processes, it ends up surrendering its success to other countries, especially extra-continental players.

Despite appearing to lose regional pre-eminence, the feeling at Zetech University in Ruiru was that Kenyans still command admiration in Africa and elsewhere partly because Kenya’s neighbors perform so poorly. Scholars had met to think of global geopolitical recalibration beyond the usual thinking. The Iranian ambassador to Kenya, Ali Gholampour, was Chief Guest in his two capacities, as university scholar and as ambassador. Gholampour had chosen to come to Kenya rather than other stations, he said, because of Kenya’s friendly environment and people. He then ventured to explain that Iran survives, despite heavy American and Israeli bombardments, because Iranians are resilient.

The fact that Iranians continue to survive American and Israelis bombardment raised the question of conflicts between ‘brute force’ and the ‘power of reason’ in international relations. The US and Israel use of ‘brute force’ proved to be ‘powerless’ as long as Iran survives through resilience, common sense, and power of reason. Subsequently, Iranian common sense and reason in confronting US-Israeli ‘brute force’ elevated Iran to the level of a serious determinant of geopolitical reconfiguration. Iran, therefore, joins US President Donald Trump, China’s Xi Jinping, and the global ‘de-bordering’ forces led by ‘Cyber’ technology as a determinant of global geopolitical realignment. This was partly because Iranian resilience planted many doubts into two US alliance systems. Neither the Conceptual West which is disuniting nor the Arab countries are any longer willing to follow the American lead blindly. Previous certainty and self-confidence is evaporating.

At USIU, simultaneously with Zetech, Joyce Muchemi’s Criminal Justice Department organized a conference on ‘decolonising criminal justice’ that had continental and extra-continental participation. Chief Guest PLO Lumumba waxed eloquence with brilliance on post-colonial judicial institutions as relics of their colonial constructions. The judicial systems, along with the teaching curricula at various law schools, he argued, need overhaul because they do not serve the African purpose. Such colonial laws as ‘loitering’ serve to harass the poor for being poor and, by incarcerating the poor with actual criminals, turn the poor into criminals. The intended ‘decolonisation’ of criminal justice is therefore of the mind, mostly at the policy level.

Reexamining Kenya’s domestic, regional, and global standing reveals a disturbing pattern of decline that calls for institutional overhauls. This is a challenge to policy makers who continue to uphold colonial relics. They then plunge countries into disaster by reportedly ignoring questioning minds.