Kenya: How Close to the brink we all are

By Prof. Tazoacha Asonganyi

Following the ill-fated general elections in Kenya, the people went on the rampage and left over 1000 dead! The politicians had pushed the people to the brink so often that when they got over the brink, they did not pay attention to the complete and angry rupture that had resulted! Contempt of death became the order of the day for the people, and rendered the unjust regime helpless.

This happens to be the collective fate that lays in wait for Cameroonians. Fuzziness usually percolates reporting on Africa related to such ruptures: a particular pattern of behavior is taken to demonstrate the existence of a particular political culture, and is then explained by that political culture. Ethnicity is assumed to be the source of all evil and used to explain all failures. Wrong conclusions are reached using a faulty methodology based on the false premise that certain values are foreign to Africa and therefore their mere practice is always a giant step on the road to democracy. And so the biased reporting, that Africans are much comfortable with chief-like leadership, ethnic tensions and divisions, and such thrash.



This was the fate of the Kenyan debacle. Journalists from countries where millions of souls have been sacrificed to defend human dignity (the rule of law, freedom, liberty, justice ...) suddenly turn around and report angry reactions in Africa to the violation of these values with disdain that smacks of racism and arrogance. Yet, most of them have a long experience of life in multi-ethnic nations where people of many heritages and faiths live and prosper in peace, because they live in freedom, liberty and justice. History has never been kind to nations that flouted the rights and aspirations of their people. Such nations may present a calm and tranquil landscape, but it is rife with subterranean discontent. They are littered with governments that are not committed to the most deeply rooted popular aspirations.

In spite of repeated calls for identifying and institutionalizing values that enable democracy to withstand the onslaught of usurpers and tyrants, they prefer to fabricate false majorities to manipulate the daily lives of the people. In the process, a material basis for complete rupture with the regime in our country has been provided, whether knowingly or not.

Revolutions, it is usually said, always have a material basis. The call to change the constitution of our country to allow a single individual to perpetuate his reign has emerged as the basis for its advent! It has emerged to channel the discontent that many Cameroonians feel against the regime into civic activism. The call has not only disillusioned people of good faith, but has alienated members of the regime that were preparing to take over in 2011. They will support this civic activism, not because they like it but because they want to take advantage of it to push their sit-tight man out to create the space they are longing for.

It is certain that getting over the brink may lead to some terrible evils, but there are worse things, including the permanent refusal of all that makes life relevant. Freedom, justice and democracy cannot be bargained away at any cost because no people can afford to be exempt from them in our fast changing world. The impending debacle engineered by the regime may be made
worse by appeals to ethnic, religious and traditional bonds to confuse and dampen the people’s anger and revulsion. But revolutionaries are never political virgins: they are aware that the rights they fight for serve to preserve both diversity and unity.

When there is total rupture, everyone will invoke peace as if it is an absolute that is not conditioned by some contracts. Peace is not enough without freedom and justice... History has repeatedly demonstrated that in some circumstances, it is necessary to sacrifice peace if freedom and justice are to prevail. There will also be efforts to prevent people from letting out their steam through peaceful democratic actions, but this will be in ignorance of human nature, which is not quite that simple!

The carnage in Kenya started slowly, with ruthless repression by the regime. But it is the regime that ended up on its knees, not the people. If the ideas being totted around as justification for a
constitutional amendment were so good, the regime would have introduced them long before. Their only intention is to permit Paul Biya to hang on after2011. They will succeed only at the risk of pushing us over the brink.