Advertisement

City shut down, was that god who came to town?

Saturday July 25 2015

The city shut down. Companies told their employees to stay home. Half the city’s arteries closed. Taxi drivers bemoaned the lack of business.

The new surveillance cameras peering down on those city arteries had nothing to capture their imagination except the awful billboards showing the beaming faces of the Kenyan president and his American counterpart.

Behind the seeming calm, however, was a fervour of excitement. Those Kenyan private sector superstars speaking at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit all had their day in the limelight.

How are Africans making money? How can others help them make more? Those discussions eclipsed, unfortunately, by the discontent that followed the release of Obama’s plans.

Parliamentarians were annoyed he wouldn’t address them from the floor of the House but comforted themselves that they were still on the “in” list given their receipt of invitations to the “public” address at Kasarani.

Then the discovery that obtaining the formal invitations for the “public” address meant trekking across to Kasarani — on the very day the main city arteries were closed — IDs and passports in hand. Some made the decision then and there — the man is not a god, we can watch on television.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, another controversy raged over invitations to the State House dinner. Those deemed Jubilant detractors — however illustrious—were immediately tossed off the list.

Civil society went into a huff. The LSK invitee posted his invitation on social media, confirming his belonging to the “in” crowd. The still-besieged Haki Afrika and Muslims for Human Rights admitted when asked that they’d be going. Good.

A gesture towards American acknowledgement of two civil society concerns — shrinking civic space and human rights in the context of counter-terrorism. Those not on the list went ballistic.

Civil society letters circulated. What everybody wants raised by or with the American president. The new and slick authoritarianism. The counterproductive attempts to get to grips with our insecurity. And so on.

The “government’s non-governmental organisations” hit back. Its social media trolls (unusually) forced to project American-Kenyan “reconciliation,” it fell to the GONGOs to counter every single issue that (serious) civil society raised. Nobody really listened.

It was all a bit farcical. A sad illustration of how little power we have in the global scheme of things.

Flip the script and imagine Washington DC’s roads shut down for the arrival of a Kenyan president. Or Kenyan security personnel taking over for the duration. Or said Kenyan president inviting the Congress and Senate to hear her speak at an American football stadium. Or receiving petitions from Americans about American problems that Americans want the Kenyan president to make her counterpart address.

Sad. About us. About power. No wonder some Kenyans (the wet blankets) finally decided to take off and enjoy the weekend far from the madding crowd. Pretending we do have agency and power. Knowing our little illusions will be able to reassert themselves on Monday.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

Advertisement