Zaya Yeebo
3 July 2009
opinion
While acknowledging that Kenya's Grand Coalition Government (GCG) has given rise to much debate and commentary, Zaya Yeebo argues that civil society's ability to influence change without violence is often ignored. Though other African countries see their people's voices expressed through groups such as trade unions and youth organisations, Kenyans' voices are muted by the noisy contestations of the country's political elites. The tendency of the last few years to 'franchise' the role of civil society out to international NGOs must be challenged, Yeebo contends, and Kenyans must look to the recent examples provided by Ghana, Sierra Leone and South Africa of how people power can bring about change. But while Kenyan civil society can draw inspiration and even support from outside, it alone must work to stoke popular pressure if effective and lasting political reform is to be achieved, Yeebo concludes.
Kenya is at a crossroads of history. A lot has been written and said about the effectiveness of the African Union-led coalition government. Undoubtedly, the success or otherwise of the Grand Coalition Government (GCG) will determine where Kenya goes from its current flip-flop of collation politics. First, we have to discount the doomsday analysts who preach a more severe crisis for Kenya. I think this is over-hyped by vested interests. The coalition government, despite is shortcomings, will succeed, mainly because Kenyans want it to succeed. In the same vein, let us also discount those fly-in experts who claim to have an antidote to the current political impasse stalling the work of the GCG. Threats by foreign ambassadors with dubious interests will not lead to the collapse of this experiment.
However, what we cannot discount is the reality that there is too much suffering and too much uncertainty among the wananchi, and that the government has to find effective ways of reassuring the population. Impunity is real, while disadvantaged and vulnerable groups suffer from the lack of activity from 'office bearers'. What is becoming apparent is the total lack of popular participation and the lack of political will to implement reforms, which will affect vested interests.
Look at the scenario: students have rioted, the Mungiki have risen to the occasion with murderous rage, while ordinary people have also responded in the only way they know how - murderous rage. Youth who are impatient at the government's perceived lack of interest in protecting national boundaries have resorted to removing railway lines. Civil society has also responded, especially human rights groups, with demands for structural reform in the judicial sector. National and local peace movements and initiatives are springing up everywhere. Yet sometimes the impression created by the international media is that Kenyans have become passive; some even claim that the only 'opposition' in Kenya today is the US ambassador to Kenya. Is this deliberate mischief-making or ignorance? I will go for the latter.
Should reform be undertaken because Kofi Annan threatens to present some envelope to the International Criminal Court (ICC), or because it is in the interests of Kenya to have these reforms? In every country under transition, reforms are necessary, and will be undertaken because it is in the national interest to do so. The youth were calling for reform, women's groups have called for reforms, and political parties are calling for reform. Religious bodies, businessmen and women, and indeed the body politic is interested in reform. Reform will come not because Kofi Annan or US President Barack Obama threatens hell and brimstone, but because Kenya needs it. The constant haranguing by ambassadors from so-called 'powerful' countries is not only counterproductive, but has implications for the sovereignty and cohesion of Kenya.
However, this question leaves out another. What is the real chance of civil society contributing in an effective and open way to and leading these reform agendas that Kenya needs so badly? What are the chances of the coalition government working hand-in-hand with civil society to bring about structural reforms that will push Kenya forward? While so much attention has been paid to the GCG, what is often ignored is civil society and its ability to influence these events without resorting to threats and hectoring. It is not comforting to think that what passes off as civil society in Kenya today is restrictive, closed and self-serving.
In some African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria, at moments such as these the voices of the people are expressed through trade unions, journalists' associations, teachers' organisations, civil servants' unions, market women and traders' associations, youth organisations, chiefs and rural development organisations. In Kenya however, such broad voices are lost in the cacophony of contest between politicians, elite groups and ambassadors' foreign missions, who behave like colonial overlords. Sometimes it appears as if social commentary has become an end and not the means to an end, the preserve of the few, leaving the resulting action to the most frustrated and those who feel abandoned or betrayed by the political system in the country.
It would also be churlish to suggest that the GCG is not interested in engaging with civil society in its current form. The Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector (GJLOS) reform programme was founded as a partnership between government and civil society to push for reforms, partly in recognition that in some cases governments need a push from below to implement changes. Of course, any impression that the state defines the role of civil society will defeat the very notion of civil society itself, and will horrify civil society activists. However, the government of the day defines development priorities and attempts to deal with issues of human security, including the protection of vulnerable people from abuse and deprivation. In the same way, the government and civil society must agree methods of cooperation and engagement.
On the flipside of the coin, civil society has also to define its role in these broad parameters, ensuring that the voice of the voiceless is heard. In any society, developed or developing, the role of civil society, including all third-sector organisations, is to plug the gaps in development left by government - human rights protection, micro-credit, children's rights, women's rights and access of services. Sometimes, it achieves this by helping vulnerable groups to access justice and welfare. This is where the synergy between government and civil society becomes apparent. Indeed, the two are not on a collision course, but working hand-in-hand to promote social development and bring about improvement in the lives of ordinary Kenyans.
In the last 20 years, it appears that both governments and civil society have allowed the agenda for development to be dictated and defined by external forces and external interests. What we see is no longer solidarity between the peoples of Europe-America and Africa, but an attempt at what some people referred to as 're-colonisation' through the backdoor, using financial aid and donor money to leverage influence and in fact in some cases even 'regime change'. In this process, the role of civil society has been franchised to international non-governmental organisations, leaving very little for home-grown solutions and strategies for collaboration with governments and the private sector.
This process has led to a widening gap between government, the private sector and civil society, to the extent that some civil society organisations think that adversarial advocacy is one of their roles. This view is reinforced by some donors who preach the gospel that all African governments are bad, self-serving and corrupt. Now we know that corruption is not an African problem, but a global one. Yet African civil society is yet to make this ideological paradigm shift in thinking and engagement.
While Kenyans and Kenyan civil society argue and fret about the lack of reforms, there is a lot they can learn from world events. Recent events in South Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone and even the United States of America demonstrate two things. Firstly, the power of the vote and Africans' capacity to organise and run clean and effective elections. Secondly, the power of the movement from below. President Obama owes his rise to the most powerful position in the world to the power of the grassroots movement in America. In Ghana, Professor John Atta Mills defeated an incumbent party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP). In South Africa, Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress (ANC) won the recent elections in spite of negative campaigns against them from all kinds of hostile groups, most of which were directed at now President Jacob Zuma. In all cases, they triumphed in spite of adversity and hostile internal and external forces with vested interests because they believed in the power of the people to bring about change.
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