Opinion: Resistance with no persistence just lets off steam

Raila Odinga spent last week speaking in elite universities in England on the merits of his March 9th handshake with Uhuru Kenyatta.

He may have been more successful in convincing the Diaspora than he has been with his followers at home who remain baffled about its meaning, value or future. Despite initial excitement about the ceasefire, caution - if not outright scepticism - about benefits of the handshake has emerged.

However, what is most disturbing is that the opposition’s voice on the NYS looting, disaster responses and on pending legislation has been reduced to a mere whimper.

They may take delight in shouting matches with William Ruto but are currently giving no leadership on matters of national importance. We may even witness them voting with the government on bills before the legislature.

The handshake signified death of the ‘Resist’ campaign although it was on its death bed anyhow as it never got beyond fancy baseball hats, military fatigues and well publicised treks to Airtel.

When campaigns are personalised rather than based on decency and public issues, they are destined to fail. The NASA Resist Campaign not only failed miserably it also left the public cynical and negative about the effectiveness of any future large protest movement in Kenya.

APPEAL TO THE EMOTIONS

The public of course already are sceptical about protest movements because of their inability to convert anger and rage into a people’s movement that can appeal to the emotions and hopes of the masses. Stories of NGOs paying protestors abound. When protest is commercialised we have reached a new low.

When protests become elitist and funded from abroad they have no hope of success. When ‘We the People’ meet in expensive hotels you wonder when the grassroots communities voice will be heard.

When protests become like carnivals or street parties, you ask what you are celebrating. The American Pastor and Leader of the ‘Poor People’s Campaign’ Rev William Barber keeps reminding protesters to be authentic and focused when he says, ‘I bury people because of bad politics and that is not funny.

But people are hipping and hopping and jumping around like everything is okay. We didn’t come here for partying; we came here for consciousness.’

Put another way if a people’s movement is to emerge to challenge the rottenness of public life in Kenya, they must be brave enough to recruit people willing to do civil disobedience, go to jail and cry real tears over the way Kenyans are being treated by their government; not to recruit people with free T Shirts and travel allowances.

That is not to dismiss Kenyans tendency to take to the streets spontaneously and in large numbers to protest over police killings, harassment, unfair land allocations and denial of job opportunities.

But most protests are one day events and lack persistence and leadership. Folks let off steam but those in authority know that it will be business as usual the following day. Resistance without persistence and sustenance is just letting off steam.

But the need and right to protest, march and petition is guaranteed in the constitution. Article 37 states, ‘Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities’.

That article is not understood or owned by most Kenyans because government propaganda intimidates its citizens into thinking that every protest will end in violence. They of course don’t acknowledge that 90 per cent of violence comes from the state machinery. The January 30th event went off peacefully because the police for once kept their distance.

Organised and sustained protests impact because they disrupt the status quo and unsettle the powerful. Protests however must be focused and be a movement just like that of Rev Barber. They can then send a message and disturb the arrogant while offering a marginalised population an opportunity to influence policy and change.

Fifty years ago Martin Luther King Jr. was mowed down at the tender age of 39. Yet his march on Washington and his ‘I have a Dream’ speech have inspired billions across the globe.

In 1997 the weekly protests of the 4Cs in Kenya led by Kivutha Kibwana almost brought the despotic Kanu regime to its knees before it was hijacked by the political elite that gave Kenyans the IPPG package and returned Kanu to power. The endemic, state corruption has the capacity to mobilise millions of Kenyans to shake the nation to its foundations once more. Are you ready?