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02 @ MarketingAfrica MAL66 / 25 ISSUE
Marketing Africa
FIRST WORD
On Regional Fracas
In the eighteenth century, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the seminal remark that‘ Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains’ in his work‘ The Social Contract’. His thoughts helped shape democracy as a pact between the ruled and the rulers.
We are in the twenty first century and astoundingly we seem to be grappling with the same issues that those who lived in monarchies of yore faced. Democracies seem to be morphing back to pseudo monarchies led by America.
The basic concept in democracy that the will of the people is paramount has been usurped by the executive which has undermined the role of the legislature and the judiciary to nullify the time-honored concept of checks and balances.
The endless rout of the government institutions whose tenure was permanent to shield them from executive interference has ensured that these institutions, like the electoral commission is an extension of the executive.
That Kenya finds itself in a government of thugs, by the thugs and for the thugs is testament of the erosion of the social contract. If the government has gone rogue and threatens the general will then the people have the moral right and obligation to change or banish it.
But Kenya has an existential problem in the region. Kenya is surrounded by neighbors who all claim to be democracies and as such periodically carry out regular election pantomimes where the candidates are selected not elected.
The new constitution gave Kenyans the freedom of expression, a fundamental principle in democracy, one which is severely curtailed in the region and is often attacked by neighbors as a show of weakness. These attacks undermine Kenyans achievement.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. who said that if one person or group is oppressed, then free people cannot stand by and be indifferent because allowing that oppression actually diminished the freedom of all.
If Kenya stands by and decides that the shenanigans in the neighboring countries are none of its business, then a day will come when the regional warlords will gang up and silence the annoying Kenyan voices that still believe that democracy is a viable system.
So, when Kenyan activists went to Tanzania to witness the trumped-up treason trial of Tundu Lissu, they were actually sending a message to their leadership where abductions and extra-judicial killings have become a usual modus operandi by the government.
Lissu is a lawyer and a prominent politician whose antics as an outspoken critic of corruption in the Tanzanian political system has put him squarely in the crossfire of the supposedly very stable Tanzanian government that does not tolerate opposition.
To be accused of treason is a serious charge since it suggests one is attempting to kill or overthrow the sovereign or government. Two former chief justices from Kenya tried to attend the proceedings since the charge was alarming and an affront to democracy.