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Kenya: This Policeman Has Shown
Us the Way
The Nation (Nairobi)
COLUMN
27 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008
Philip Ochieng
Nairobi
Every crisis creates a hero. And, almost always, he elbows his way
into history from an unexpected direction. A junior military
officer called Napoleon emerged from the backwaters of Europe to
spellbind that continent for decades.
My hero is not likely to stun Kenya. But he is in some ways
reminiscent of the Corsican midget. A junior police officer
produced a method of handling the mob that went completely against
the grain and shattered my stereotypes about the police.
The footage remains indelible in the mind. With a handful of
uniformed constables, he managed - I don't know how - to force a
large group of Lumpenproletarians in Nairobi's Eastlands to listen
keenly to him.
Said he: "Listen, my brothers and sisters. This is our country. We
have built it together for many arduous years. What can we
possibly gain by destroying it with the same single 'stroke of
havoc' with which uncaring people once 'unselved' the poet Gerard
Manley Hopkins' "aspens dear'?"
The words are mine. But the message was the policemen's. I
chortled at the idea that lyrical poetry had become the mode of
tuition at the Kiganjo police training school. For you do not
expect such social awareness - such logic - from a policeman.
From a "cop", you do not expect any kind of reasoning with
suspects.
How do we explain his reflexive thought, his concern for social --
not to mention environmental -- conservation and sustainability?
For whenever a police officer comes upon any mere suspicion of
felony, we have come to expect only the bludgeon, teargas and
bullets.
And it showed that the mob is not always completely deaf to
reasoned appeals. As soon as my hero finished his words, I saw the
crowd balk and turn back. I saw a number throw away their "crude
weapons" - their faces the personification of Prof Clement
Oniang'o in front of his philosophy class.
For this was a new philosophy of policing which not only policemen,
but all of us in authority must emulate. Which provincial
administrator, headmaster or parent is not in the habit of rushing
to a deadly punitive instrument at the expense of didactics?
This was where the political leaders themselves let the nation
down. Of course, they could not have predicted what went on at the
KICC on the night of December 27-28. Therefore, riots and
destruction may not have crossed their minds in advance.
The story that some of the murders and arson had been planned is
just that - a story. I continue to think that the upheavals were
entirely spontaneous. However, if the leaders had made their
appeals as soon as the news reached them, much of the tragedy
would have been averted.
Even when they finally made the appeal, it left a great deal to be
desired. For, as I say, appeals which are not didactical are
almost always worthless.
An appeal must be explanatory. It must teach Kenyans why it is
useless and dangerous to kill one another for the sake of
parochial politicians.
The reason we kill one another as tribes at critical political
moments is that none of our institutions of governance and moral
upbringing has done anything serious to demystify and demonise the
tribe as a vehicle of politics.
We usually lay the blame on the Government, the Church and the
university.
We should. But, in my opinion, the living room is the chief
culprit.
It is there that we introduce our children to some of the most
grotesque tribal stereotypes. As they say, prevention is cheaper
than cure.
The Government, the shrine and the classroom can only try to cure
the disease. They cannot prevent tribalism.
By the time a patient reaches an administrative, religious or
educational doctor, the disease may already have embedded itself
too deeply in the mind to be cured. But if we had applied the
methods of prevention, this curative expense would have become
completely unnecessary..
All the manifestations of chauvinism which often make the human
habitat so nasty to live in - racism, sectarianism, sexism,
fascism, tribalism - can be prevented at the level of the parent.
It is parents who feed their children's minds with so much drivel
about how "different" and how "evil" the other tribe is.
Parents are squarely to blame for the tragic fact that Kenya's
multi-politics will always generate into tribal war-formations. I
am not surprised that, when I warned about it in 1991, people who
condemned me most vehemently are today's chief perpetrators.
As tribes, we gain nothing - but merely play into the hands of
greedy politicians - whenever we pursue one another like cheetahs
after gazelles.
A junior policeman has shown us that we can solve our differences
just by listening to one another. That is what I call heroism.
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