Obsidian from the blood of 10 million beggars (The Cull of Duty)

“Kenya will become a country of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars” - member of parliament J.M Kariuki ‘s criticism of the Moi administration before he was arrested and found murdered a few weeks later-1975

October 20^th is a national holiday in Kenya and all the schools and businesses, including my priceless cybercafe were closed. The hospital of course, remained open to take patients. The holiday is Jomo Kenyatta day and celebrates the first Prime Minister/President of Kenya after it gained its independence from the British in 1963. This is one of 2 holidays in October celebrating past presidents, the other being Moi day on October 10^th. Now call me a cynic, but I happen to have this theory that if you have the same person on ALL of your currency, this is probably not the type of government that allows dissent. Of course, Kenya is not at all like that-there’s 2 men on the currency-Kenyatta and Moi (the first and second presidents respectively).

When I first was flying into Kisumu, I was given a newspaper with the days news on the plane. That morning on the way to the airport, the cab I was in was by a suspicious police blockade, and I was told to shut my mouth and stay low while they inspected our vehicle. I was already suspicious of the police here and the newspaper, although obviously favoring the sensationalism of your Sun or National Enquirer was filled with stories about senseless police brutality as seen in the headlines below.

Over time here in Maseno, I began to piece together the history of Kenya from its English speaking residents (both at the hospital and the nearby Maseno University). Keeping within my head the numerous tribes of Kenya (there are over 30-each with distinct culture and language) was difficult, understanding how the government operates was also difficult. I didn’t think much of it until I had a friend from Maseno University over for dinner (Jackson-the student from “a night at the opera”) we talked for hours about Kenya’s fragile political structure and how tribalism was being used to create the social strife necessary to keep the politicians in power. I had to know more from this point eventually dived into my own research, grabbing any books I can find with Kenya’s history and downloading wikipedia articles at the cybercafe to read later at home. What I will give you is a super quick summary of what I have learned of recent Kenyan history and why this is all very relevant to what I do every day here and draws considerable parallels to recent US history.

Kenya’s freedom from the British was the result of a long a bloody revolt in which the Kenyans actually lost. The Mau Mau Rebellion was started by the Land and Freedom Army, which itself was composed of Kenyan World War II veterans who were trained in guerrilla warfare after Vietnam-esque Jungle campaigns in Burma. The LFA were able to get a following since after so long being denied any rights in the government, having all their land given to foreign settlers, being heavily taxed, and even being required to carry passports in their own country to track their movements. While the rest of colonial Europe dissolved after World War II, Kenya was still tightly in the hands of the British and Kenyans were not given the same rights other allies in World War II had earned. Violent revolt was almost inevitable as Africans were denied seats in government and treated as worse than second hand citizens (slaves from India shipped in to work on the railroads had more freedoms and government power). Mau Mau was a terror campaign, small attacks on white settlers and pro-colonial Africans with a special emphasis on complete barbarism. The idea was to make the deaths so horrible that while 10 people die, 1000 people will be scared. Victims were decapitated, their genitals removed and scattered and displayed for others to see while the perpetrators (mainly the Kikuyu tribe) slipped back into the Jungles. Their fear campaign was so effective that British came in, declared a state of emergency, and began arresting suspected rebels or simply shooting you on sight if you were in a prohibited area with known rebels. The British eventually captured almost every Kikuyu (over 1 million) and put into internment camps, much like what we did with the Japanese during World War II to prevent sedition. Despite the elusive nature of the guerrillas, their leader was eventually captured by the British and executed-the Brits won the conflict and maintained an iron grip over Kenya for another 8 years.

The British control began to crack when the press learned that the internment camps never really stopped functioning after the Mau Mau conflict ended. A scandal of Guantamino bay proportions erupted at Hola detention camp where it became known that groups of prisoners were regularly being beaten to death by the British guards. The African Kenyan politicians before this time were already organized into something similar to the NAACP in the United states to help unite the tribes to gain rights in Kenya-but there was a large schism in these groups-radicals who wanted an independent Kenya and those who wanted the protection of the crown but without the restrictions I mentioned before. The radial tribes (mainly the Kikuyu and Luo) were the ones however responsible for the insurgency and held the playing cards to keep the British in fear of another large scale rebellion. Using this fear, politicians were able to gain seats and power in the Kenyan parliament and Jomo Kenyatta, a Nelson Mandella like figure who was able to inspire tremendous nationalism from his literary works he wrote while being in prison (ie Facing Mount Kenya) and after Kenya gained independence he quickly rose through the ranks to become the first prime minister (the queen was still technically the ruler) and eventually declared independence from the British in 1963 with Kenyatta as the first president.

Now getting back to my original point of why there is only Kenyatta and Moi on the currency, it actually makes a good deal of sense because there have only been 3 presidents since Kenya won its independence in 1963. Kenyatta, Moi, and the current president Kibaki. Moi was Kenyatta’s VP and succeeded him after his death, and Kibaki was Moi’s vice-president and succeeded him after Moi was president for 34 years! Open elections did not even happen until 1992 and prior to that Kenya had a single political party-the others being absorbed or made illegal outright.

Any good conspiracy theorist should be able to rattle off numerous conspiracies surrounding the World Bank and the IMF, but Kenya’s political sandbox is like a conspiracy theorist’s ultimate fantasy. Kenya was pressured by Western and European governments to become multi-party when the World bank and IMF threatened to denied Kenya money until they started other political parties and privatized their utilities and railroads. This ended up being a failed experiment as the single party was seen as necessary by the African founders to keep the 30+ tribes of Kenya from splintering off into their own parties to push their own interests. When the utilities were privatized, much of infrastructure was scrapped and left to rot, such as the case of the railway that used to run through this country. This privatization also lead to the telecom nightmare I have talked about numerous times - landlines are non-existent in more rural areas, and now numerous companies are all trying to get high speed internet wiring here, but without government involvement, the process has taken so long that the rest of the civilized world is several steps ahead in every area of technology.

While some commentators I have read consider Kenya to be a “stable” country compared to its African neighbors because they aren’t currently engaged in civil war and have political stability, I have serious problems with this statement. Kenya has too much political stability and far too much power in the office of the president. In fact, I was able to learn much about Kenyan political history in it’s post-colonial area in a relatively short time because so few people have been allowed to have power. Even the dissenters that managed to live long enough or not be jailed to cause any significant notice are extremely few and far between. A similar analog in US history is William Jennings Bryan or Eugene Debs who ran for president over and over on losing platforms. Once you lose once, why would people vote for you a second time? This is not true in Kenya, Raila Odinga and his father have been since the beginning the same “voices of dissent”, and Odinga got 3^rd place in the election in 2002 but ran again in 2007-this time getting 1^st place...yet the president right now is the incumbent Kibaki. Confused yet?

When I went to the orphan program last week and stood in front of that 8^th grade class, I asked and then pleaded over and over again what those kids would do to make their country better place. I wanted so badly in my heart to hear just one voice of hope in that class, and instead I was received dead silence. One child in the back said so quietly that few could hear him “Bring the people together and rise up and overthrow them ”. I was so shocked I walked up to him and foolishly asked him who “them” was...and was met with the same deafening silence and glares from the teachers. How could these kids be so quiet after the country was rocked the previous year from the 2007-2008 election?

Remember the shock the nation felt when Al Gore lost the election to George Bush? In the 2007 Presidential elections, the incumbent Kibaki was getting killed at the polls compared to Odinga and the polling stations reported a victory for Odinga and so did the news. Suddenly though, Kibaki jumps into a HUGE lead, the voting is stopped and Kibaki is immediately sworn in!!! The rub salt in the wounds, the US almost immediately calls and recognizes and legitimizes his win. A fury and brutality that had been brewing in the people of Kenya since the days of the Mau Mau was unleashed, their freedoms stolen like they were by the crown some 40 years before and the country exploded. Massive riots erupted in every major city when the results were released, the brutality of the Mau Mau had come full circle as the Kikuyu (Kibaki’s tribe-and those blamed for keeping the power, land, and fortune to themselves) were targeted for death. Kikuyu were locked in their homes and places of worship and burned alive. Any efforts for the people to organize and peacefully rally were met by riot police and Kibaki’s General Service Unit-a group of highly armed shock troopers which beat and murdered the protesters. Eight hundred people are killed in the brutality nationwide, and over half a million refugees are displaced from their homes and live in government settlements. Today I heard on the radio that the president considers these camps an “eyesore” and plans to displace all the refugees soon.

You might be asking yourself what this brief expository has anything to do with my trip to Kenya. It has everything to do with my trip to Kenya. I feel the same fear that many Kenyans do when the police come by with machine guns. Today, one of my patients had to sit for the Kenya equivalent of the SAT despite the fact he was in the hospital with a 40C fever (the test is only administered one day). To make sure he didn’t cheat, a guard armed with an assault rifle watched him as he took the test. This is not made up. In Maseno, order here is upheld by private security firms and occasional mob justice. In the rural communities of Kenya, witches are still burned alive and no one goes to jail for this.

Unemployment in Kenya is endemic, but the odds of escaping poverty here once already in it are nearly impossible. I have had numerous people here personally tell me that when they have applied for jobs that it is common practice to pay an “application fee” or bribe to even be considered for the job. This bribe is never any small amount either, usually 2-3 weeks pay for Kenyans (US $25-$50). Now imagine if you are educated, but poor and unemployed-there’s no way to ever climb the social ladder. The sad reality is people do what they can to earn pennies-they plant crops or live in the cities toxic garbage dumps sorting recycling. On the way to Kisumu, alongside the roads, you will see dozens of men sitting on a pile of small rocks chipping away day in and day out. These folks are hand carving gravel for roads and sit on their pile until it can be sold for a few shillings in an attempt to make a living. Meanwhile, at the current rate of inflation a coke and a loaf of bread cost more than what the employed Kenyan earns in a day.

The solution and the end of the 2007-2008 election violence only occurred after Odinga was promised a spot as the Prime Minister of Kenya-a position which was designed to limit the president’s power but has not done this in any way.

What this all boils down to is this. The politics of Kenya are soaked in blood and corruption, and any factions that form opposed to this have been made illegal to be a part of-you can be arrested for being in any organization the government considers anarchistic. Even now, firearms are being imported at an alarming rate for the 2012 election when this is expected to reoccur. What hurts me so much is how many of the children I see every day, smiling into my camera lens and joyfully repeating the only phrases they know in English to me, will have to have die the next election? How many of them would stand up for what they believe in when the dissenters are killed?

What I envision will happen here is that when enough blood is spilled, it will begin to boil with the anger trapped inside it-eventually transforming it into something useful-a weapon-an obsidian spearhead to end the corruption, greed, disease, and poverty instead of maintaining Kenya in a de facto state of emergency like the British did. The revolution is coming, and this country of immense natural beauty will be cut and scarred forever for it.

(I invite all of you to research the Mungiki (literally meaning “the masses”), which is a secret shadow organization with apparently millions of members, seen by the many I talk to here as the “Kenyan Mob”-but have definite socialistic goals here. They have successfully destabilized major cities and have fought Kibaki’s special forces...they might be the best hope at change)

Learn Swahili! Despite the fact that all government business is in English which only the most educated and fortunate are taught in Kenya!

Askari waliowanyanyasa washukiwa walishikwa

Police who harrased the victims were arrested (I think they meant the victims are arrested)