South Africa

Is there hope for an abatement of political violence in Kenya’s ongoing crisis? Despite more deaths in clashes between protesters and police, allegations of banditry, and fears of ethnic cleansing, guarded optimism may be in order as international appeals coupled with Kofi Annan’a active intervention appears to have led to an agreement between President Mwai Kibaki, whose dubious victory in a highly contested election fueled the current nightmare, and the opposition and its leader Raila Odinga. (The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful background primer on Kenyan politics.)

But the emphasis should be on “guarded.” Leaders who allow violence to be unleashed oftentimes find that their ability to marshal that violence becomes limited if nonexistent. Anarchy as a method of control, so popular among Big Men, has a way of spiralling out of control. Once convinced that one group of people is an enemy and violence is the only course of redress, even the most ardent followers will be tough to convince that violence should cease if the alleged enemy is still among them. Demogoguery, cult of personality, the unleashing of terror (and not the hackneyed “tribalism” that some are so quick to attribute when things go awry in Africa) — these things tend to get away from those who choose to use them as means and methods.

As Kenya entered the New Year much of the country was on the brink of the very chaos so many hoped that it would avoid as the country continues its tentative but measurable transition to liberal democracy. Even as President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over challenger Raila Odinga, despite the incumbent having been behind in the polls by most estimations, allegations of vote rigging grew and violence expanded. The death toll  continues  to  rise. 

 Meanwhile, in some of the most irresponsible Africa coverage I have seen in some time, The New York Times fell back on hoary old Dark Continent tropes to address the Kenya crisis. The Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman chose to depict what is in reality a confluence of divisions – regional, ethnic, rural/urban, and of course above all political, among others – as the result of age-old “tribalism” marked by “atavism.”:

With the president, Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu and Mr. Odinga a Luo, the election seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya but until now had not provoked widespread mayhem. 

 This story grossly warps the realities on the ground in the service of fueling stereotypes that Africanists have been fighting for more than a generation. “Veins of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya”? Please. That this nonsense comes from the Old Gray Lady, the “Paper of Record,” makes it all the more galling.  

Kenyans went to the polls yesterday to vote in an election in which the battle is both metaphorical – the election has and is going to continue to be closely fought – and literal, as fears of violence pervaded the day yesterday and will hover over the country until and maybe even after the results are known.  Exit polls conflict over who leads the presidential tally, incumbent Mwai Kibaki or his challenger Raila Odinga. What appears clear, however, is that a number of incumbents, including Vice President Hon Moody Awori and several ministers, are likely to lose their seats in parliament.  If Odinga does win, and if peace and stability hold, the Kenyan elections will mark a crucial moment in contemporary African history and democracy.

Tomorrow Kenyans go to the polls. In what is becoming an increasingly intense campaign (in what has almost certainly been the most open election in Kenya’s history) it appears that the opposition, led by 62-year-old Raila Odinga — a  businessman and former political prisoner, is pulling ahead of President Mwai Kibaki, who has held office since 2002, and may well win. Both men are vital figures in the history of post-independence Kenya, and Africa observers are watching closely, even as evidence of strong-armed machinations emerge, to see if the election goes smoothly, and if the loser and his supporters go down without fomenting violence. Certainly it appears that a new, more sophisticated, money-driven politics has emerged in Kenya. It remains to be seen if this has a deleterious effect on the country’s political culture.

There is a subtext to this election, and to the political situation in Kenya generally, which is that as with much of the region, Islam is playing an increasing role in politics. Not problematic in and of itself, the rise of Islam nonetheless has seen accompany it strains of radical Islam, which does warrant scrutiny. Thus the west, and especially the United States, will likely be paying increasing attention to events in Kenya and elsewhere.

The problem is that when the United States and the rest of the West intervenes in Africa out of self interest African interests almost always fall by the wayside. This is yet another reason why many of us wish the United States would develop a comprehensive policy toward Africa, and not one based merely on self-interest, temporal concerns, piecemeal approaches, and half-baked understandings. That is unlikely to happen, of course, and so one can imagine sloppy, divisive, detrimental US policy emerging in response to the perceived threat of Islam in Africa that will inevitably do more harm than good and that will do little to address legitimate dangers of radicalism.