Which way forward, Jakom?

Sound economic tenets, not the promise of tribal alliance largesse, are Raila’s only recourse.

By Arkan Uddin

So it is said, 

               “Know the enemy,

                Know yourself,

                And victory is never in doubt,

                Not in a hundred battles.”

                “Know Heaven,

                Know Earth,

                And your victory is complete.”

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I will not cloak my words in politically correct speech or camouflage my proposals in academic garb; I will speak the truth as I see it, plainly. The situation demands it.

First I will speak to “knowledge of SELF”, then to “knowledge of adversary”, then to “Heaven & Earth” — i.e. the political medium — in no particular order. Then I will leave it to you to decide.

It is said “one is their own greatest adversary”; conquest of self is the greatest battle one can ever hope to win. I have addressed “Political Self” in a previous piece, “Raila vs. Raila”, in the Nov 2020 Edition of this magazine. That piece offers vital background to this letter.

On the watershed of March 9th, 2018, in one political action, Raila contradicted his entire political philosophy and negated the public persona he’d painstakingly built over decades. He, all at once, torched “el-libertador”, the greatest source of his appeal, and ensconced himself in the object of public disdain. 

To correct this contradiction, Raila cannot simply shed the March 9th 2018 toxin he ingested via the “Handshake”, like a snake moults it’s skin. The toxin of political contradiction sinks gene-deep in the body politic, and therefore grants no such favour. It is not possible to purge this foreign essence without destroying his current dysfunctional SELF. Politically, he must purge the Uhuru alter-ego, for it is the cause of his current “illogical disorganized thoughts”. He must seek political ruqiya (exorcism) or continue to suffer endless political neurosis. Organizationally speaking, the Jubilee-ODM Political Party chimera must undergo meiosis or die. Chimeras generally have low life expectancy; it is just the way of creation. Nature favours specialization. In short, if he is to live much longer politically, Raila must undergo a total political metamorphosis.

And it is here that my submission truly begins.

First of all, Raila must terminate his attack on the Constitution of Kenya 2010. This is not a naive call for him to believe in the Constitution. No; it is advice that the attack is foolhardy. The political class cynically engineered and instrumentalized a constitution-making process purely as a tool to aid in its ascent to power. For this reason, the political class remained blind to the actual social transformations that took place as the new Constitution was being socialized and institutionalized.

For politicians, the quest for a new constitution, just like the quest before it for multi-party democracy, was, as the late Minister and colonial era District Commissioner John Michuki gingerly confessed in his famous “…holding power is like holding a liver” TV interview (while safely in office), “…just a way to acquire power or share in it”. For the political class, it was all just a ruse to ascend to the throne not a genuine quest for political rights and justice for all. We have no delusions about the political class’ beliefs and values.

Yet, in spite of the political class’ cynical agendas, the method by which the constitution-making process was conducted, being sociologically correct, unwittingly created socio-political consensus that was very real, and, consequently, a very real nation of believers. 

In spite of the political class’ cynical agendas, the method by which the constitution-making process was conducted, being sociologically correct, unwittingly created socio-political consensus that was very real, and, consequently, a very real nation of believers.

What does this mean?

For an amorphous group of primitive tribes fenced into the same territory, brutalized for decades by colonial and neo-colonial regimes, communities whose social fabric was torn asunder by British internment in concentration camps before they could evolve political centralization or socio-political identity — that is, to know who they were — this was the first time anyone bothered to involve these tribes in a socio-political effort to chart their own destiny. And this “involvement”was not by the meaningless act of inserting a “ticked” form into the mouth of a box that disguises the large and corrupt bureaucracies of democratic politics, whose specific raison d’être is to usurp real political process and engagement. This “involvement” was by the sublime process of negotiating “a social contract” i.e the Constitution we promulgated in 2010.

The amalgamation of primitive tribes native to the British East Africa Protectorate, for better or for worse, in reality or in imagination, acquired a “political book of beliefs”; the process of constitution-making had constituted into the disparate tribes, one vital element of nationhood i.e. a common law they believed in.

Now, this is something the political class could not understand, because when this conversation was happening, it was busy jostling for personal gain and deceitfully manipulating this all-important socio-political process for expedient advantage. For this reason, the political class ultimately did not, could not adopt “the book of political beliefs” that was the outcome of the promulgation process, because for them, the substance of the constitution and the details of the process were all just a game.

Human beings believe in earnestness, not in jest.

This was why, to the great chagrin of the 2017 “election loss complainants” or “election theft victims”, no amount of arson could trigger the societal “forest-fire” sought, and the masses successfully compelled the complainants or erstwhile victims to take their case to court (to their great surprise).

While the entire political class was not looking, the political medium had changed. The 2017 political medium was not the 2007 political medium, therefore 2007 instigation tools and techniques could not work in 2017. The 2007 political medium was a pre-CoK2010 low-entropy medium where sociological anarchy reigned. But post-CoK2010, the process of negotiating a social contract had created a high entropy political medium — a stable one.

Post-March 9th 2018, in a case of the blind leading the blind, the political barons, aided by their obsequious intellectuals, proceeded to launch the most vicious attack the new nation’s newfound book of political beliefs had faced so far, the Building-Bridges-Initiative Constitutional reform process.

Lost on the entire megalomaniacal political class and it’s rapacious technocrats was the idea that it was addressing a completely different mass public. Every home in the country now had the little green book called “The Constitution of Kenya 2010” on a shelf in their sitting-rooms, right next to their spiritual books of belief.

In the British East African Protectorate, where there formerly existed only two intertwinned socio-anthropological categories — a Muslim Nation (Ummah) which is a millenium old, singular, with one culture and one book, and a multitude of tribal groupings which are a few centuries old, with no “books”, with disparate cultures and different histories — a third category emerged, enmeshing itself into the other two: “The Constitution of Kenya 2010 mass public”, which is the youngest of the three at approximately ten years old. It was a book with no culture.

It is the homes cited above, homes that harbour this new book of political beliefs on their private shelves, that raise the young men who populate the Protectorate’s police force, Imperialism’s armed serf forces, and the ruling comprador class’ administrative bureaucracy. For this reason, no amount of carrot or stick could be used to lead the natives into participating in shredding “their” painfully-earned CoK2010, and all continued attempts will fail. This is why “presidential-term extension”, “the postponement or suspension of the 2022 election” and all other such proposals for open constitutional violation are the sycophantic delusions of political dinosaurs.

The postponement or suspension of the 2022 election” and all other such proposals for open constitutional violation are the sycophantic delusions of political dinosaurs.

The comprador elites and their lackeys who surround Raila cannot see in the new political medium. They confuse their ability to abuse executive discretion commiting economic crimes, maiming and killing natives in absolute impunity, with sovereign writ. This is the source of the political class’ current state of “BBI dissonance”. Just like America can use its powerful military to successfully invade, pillage, plunder and kill in Muslim nations but cannot successfully recruit the believing Muslim masses to tear up their political book of beliefs, the Holy Quran, and join them in advancing their global secular agenda, the comprador ruling class can use its sociopathic police force to terrorize, brutalize and murder natives in villages and towns across the country, but it cannot get them to violate their new-found book of political beliefs, the CoK2010.

Therefore, Raila must not lust for military takeover, or government blackmail of the native masses; none of these organs or techniques will work to undermine the native’s CoK2010 social contract. The top police officers and military generals would, of course, potentially give such ideas consideration, but the rank and file, while completely capable of criminality, still believe in CoK2010. A putsch, which is the highest form of attack on constitutional order, would implode under the weight of internal & external contradiction in no time. That said, CoK2010, for all it’s good, was a poisoned chalice. The Kenya pseudo-state is still a single loose thread away from balkanization. 

I implore you, Jakom, do not pull that thread.

Raila must not lust for military takeover, or government blackmail of the native masses; none of these organs or techniques will work to undermine the native’s CoK2010 social contract. A putsch, which is the highest form of attack on constitutional order, would implode under the weight of internal & external contradiction in no time.

While still on the martial, it should be stated that any malicious plans targeted at the Election Process, Election Oversight body, Electoral Body Commissioners or Personnel, are misguided and would also all ultimately end in failure, just as the malicious Judiciary “revisit” over the last few years upto including the BBI assault on the CoK2010 have yielded little. They would fail primarily for the reason cited above — that the political medium has changed. But in this case, the plans would also fail because of “how” the political medium has changed. To “get away” with an election victory acquired through successful manipulation of the process in today’s highly complex socio-technical ecosystem requires singular unyielding will, intricate planning, massive social engineering, unrivalled organization and impeccable technical execution — all abilities that the endemically corrupt, ideologically-bankrupt and politically-inept kleptocracy that governs the territory sorely lacks. Strangely, today it makes more sense to invest in an honest effort to win over the masses in order to win an election, than otherwise.

So, cease the BBI attack on CoK2010, Jakom; it leads to nowhere but hell. There may be value in mentioning, that worse still as fate would have it, such ungodly creations are just like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster; they famously have their creators as their first victims. The post-Constitutional order of a BBI tyranny would first have devoured it’s creator before turning to ingest the shoal of fish that is the masses and then everything else before collapsing in on itself. Such can be the only end for the insatiable satanic monster of Shaaban Roberts Kusadikika.

Do not also bet, Jakom, on the infamous “Kikuyus-for-rent” treachery; it is a fallacy. The fallacy is built atop an error made by many, of attributing the characteristic chicanery of Kikuyu political elites with the entire Kikuyu tribe, and the helpless silence of the Kikuyu base in the face of the treacherous behaviour of the Kikuyu political class in the past. This is explained in “Raila vs. Raila”. The “Kikuyus-for-rent” just as in America, Britain, Somalia, South Africa, Pakistan and “any and all” tribes or nations of the world plagued with “Capitalist Democracy”, are the political-class within them, not the ordinary people.

Do not, I implore you, Jakom, perceive the Kikuyu tribe through the Luo lens. The Kikuyu tribe is not a monolithic whole. The Kikuyu and Luo have different histories and evolutionary paths, and are, therefore, of different nature that cannot be elaborated here. Suffice it to say, colonialism destroyed the original Kikuyu native customary socio-political structure and imposed a false elite order which essentially divided the Kikuyu into two groupings; the infamously treacherous and highly organized rent-seeking “home-guard” who cooperated with the colonialists, earning the reward of the reigns of colonial power which they have wielded over the entire tribe since, and the industrious but powerless and disorganized politically-naive natives, who were totally decentred by colonialism and sociologically remain lost in the open ocean that is humanity. The two tend to be conflated because the histories of native tribes are neither researched, studied nor taught. 

The post-colonial Kikuyu, like the American Negro, do not have an authentic culture, a history, a native organic elite or leadership structure; these were decisively erased by Imperialism. Kikuyu voting patterns, compelled by the necessity to survive, concealed this deep fissure and leadership vacuum for a long time. This fissure is now manifesting itself, and for lack of awareness of this history, the non-Kikuyu tribes on the outside looking-in cannot know what to make of it.

For our purposes, let us make it clear and simple: there is nothing for you, Jakom, in the Central bloc. You missed your chance in 2007 when, instead of pressing your claim to the Kikuyu base after ex-President Kibaki betrayed the now infamous “Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)” (as your former ally has currently done), you instead switched to the also now infamous “41 against 1” siege attack as we explained in “Raila vs. Raila”. The rest, as they say, “is history”. 

Do not also presume you are in Mt. Kenya when surrounded by it’s treacherous political class. If Mt. Kenya is a peasant farm, while your former lieutenant is tucked safely in the protection of the humble and honest peasant farmer’s home, you crawled into the snake-pit on the farm. That’s that.

Moving on, the “Hustler narrative” cannot be met with more economic promises. First of all, the masses have been lied to so often; skepticism abounds. But more importantly, Capitalism as an argument, cannot stand against the promise of Socialism, and that is all you are promising — “more capitalism”.

Secondly and more importantly, the “Hustler narrative” is not fundamentally about economics, it is a reactionary call, a grievance against the litany of police killings, property destruction, evictions, general brutal oppression and endless injustice meted out on the natives over the last 10 years by the comprador ruling class — your newfound allies. This is the true heart and real energy source of the “Hustler narrative”. No one, neither the “Hustler movement” protagonists nor the followers, believe the hypocritical and contradictory mishmash of “State-sponsored Grameen-model capitalism cloaked as Socialist concern and delivered via class-war dog-whistling”, because it is irrelevant to the problem. 

Economic revitalization is not what the “Hustler narrative” is about; it is simply a socio-political tool victims of oppression are using to organize themselves to rout the oppressors. One cannot worry about food or future when one is being bludgeoned with a club and cut with a sword; one instinctively first moves to protect their life then later thinks about food and future, which is what economics is about. The “Hustler movement” primarily is the masses assuming a defensive posture. Therefore, economic counter-arguments to the “Hustler narrative” are moot. In any case, given the neocolonial administration’s jolly penchant for police brutality and extortion, economic tyranny and all other manner of malfeasance, especially now using Covid license, it is safe to say the future of the “Hustler narrative and movement” is not only bright, but also secure. Like America’s actions in Vietnam created, grew and continually strengthened the Vietcong, the neocolonial government’s war against the working class will ensure the continued resolve and growth of the “Hustler movement”. 

Thirdly, given the “Hustler narrative” is reactionary in nature, in philosophical terms the “Hustler narrative” is and can be nothing more than a tagline. It is not a comprehensive worldview like “Socialism” or “Secular Capitalism”; it is not a policy position like the “Arusha Declaration”. It is an antithesis, therefore a shadow. It will be anything anyone decides to anyone. It will be everything anyone decides to everyone, all at once. Any attempt to counter it directly is futile shadow boxing; the “Hustler narrative” will not just adapt every minute to every attack, it will fatigue its attacker while drawing his strength. This is why all efforts so far have been equivalent to slashing at weeds: they have taken it from strength to strength, the narrative being further pollinated and spread by the very effort to clear it.

But then again, the “Hustler narrative” powered by the “kumi-kumi tribal covenant” and driven by your former ally, a disciplined and seasoned politician, has managed to capture the mass mind and therefore its political consequences are as real as the brutality and oppression it is a reaction to. It must therefore be engaged, and it is here your intellectual odyssey begins.

There exist three primary ideological doctrines: Capitalism, Socialism & Islam. These doctrines’ bases cannot be elaborated here so I will get straight to the point. Capitalism can never defeat Socialism’s appeal to the landless, disenfranchised masses. Socialism too cannot appeal to the ambition in man, only to his fears. Only Islamic economic tenets empower the weak, landless and disenfranchised without disenfranchising the strong or crippling the ambition of man. In simple terms, in this war of ideologies, Islamic economic tenets are Raila’s only recourse, as counter to a Socialist call, not the promise of tribal alliance largesse. 

We are now fully in the domain of ideological politics. 

This is why every “heavy machine” you, Jakom, have assembled so far has crumbled in the face of the “Hustler narrative” juggernaut. Tribal politics are orders of dimension below ideological politics, and given ideology is underpinned by beliefs, and beliefs cut across all tribes, “politics of tribe” are butter in the face of an ideological knife. Beliefs easily tear through self-interest deceptively cloaked in the garb of tribal-interest. Material interests and genealogies are limited; ideologies and values are unlimited. Material interests and genealogies divide, ideologies and values unite. In the theatre of ideological war, anyone waging a campaign based on material and tribal-interests is self-administering Thallium.

With respect to Islamic Economic Policy, one may frame a proposition built atop two of the five elements of Islam’s system of values; the penultimate property – land, and the fundamental unit of society – family. Land and natural resources will comfortably fund free healthcare and free education, which are the two biggest weights on the backs of natives. This is by the institution of “Land Productivity based Tax” instead of the current “Labour-based taxation” model; minimization of taxes for family-owned family-run small and medium size businesses to release economic potential in trade, currently hampered by the burden of heavy licencing, regulations and taxation. The concept of a “free market”, for your information, originated in Islam. 

Jakom, campaign on a platform to reconstruct bonds of marriage and kinship, which have been severely damaged by the destruction wrought by the vassal prince through tyrannical Covid regulations that impoverished an industrious and self-reliant people in a record-breaking 10 short years. By rigging national policy with the Islamic socio-economic tenets that incentivize marriage, nurturing of the elderly and weak by their children and family members, you would create a uniquely unifying call with a clear roadmap to a socially, mentally and economically strong, healthy society. 

For instance, end the current economically meaningless and socially valueless “proof of youth” for access to funding and government business opportunities. Link tax reprieve, financial support schemes, government unskilled labour employment and business opportunities to “proof of family guardianship”. This would have far greater social impact and endear you to a society with marriages and families torn apart by imposed destitution. Cut deeper by creating a system that reconstructs the clans and tribal institutions that served as a social safety net for all members of society for centuries, before invasion and destruction by colonialism. An “Ardhi na Ndoa” social movement so to speak.

Engineer Food security by supporting and incentivizing farming of unutilized State land. The Government cannot farm, as Galana Kulalu and a host of other initiatives have historically repeatedly proven. Farming just like commerce, by its nature, is an affair of individual will, not state writ. Such policies would at once solve the problem of food security and poverty, in one blow.

The Hustler narrative is a contradictory mishmash of “more free-market capitalism” bizarrely cloaked in the socialist call of “class war”. “Free-market capitalism” is now clearly understood by the masses, to be only free for the “Owners of Capitalism”, not for the “Hustlers”. Although, as with all promises of democracy in election season, it’s substantive truth is inconsequential; it’s appeal is all that matters. Islam’s call to individual and family well-being i.e. health, wealth, companionship through bonds of kinship, is the only available counter-argument to class war, which divides all of society by an ever-moving line. How does-one can-one define a “hustler”? Maybe we should ask the Cheka. 

The Hustler narrative is a contradictory mishmash of “more free-market capitalism” bizarrely cloaked in the socialist call of “class war”. Whereas Capitalism as an economic system expropriates through usury, Socialism, which is potentially where the “Hustler narrative” may snowball to, expropriates through law. 

Whereas Capitalism as an economic system expropriates through usury, Socialism, which is potentially where the “Hustler narrative” may snowball to, expropriates through law. How else can it’s promise be fulfilled? Both ideological systems claim democracy as their political method, and by its nature, Democracy must divide in order to rule. Islam’s economic system rules by uniting the rich and the poor using land policies that encourage dependency between the wealthy owners of capital and the working class, therefore ensuring social harmony. This is because the poor must leverage the wealthy’s capital, vision and general management ability, while the wealthy must utilize the working class’ labour and skills to maximize return on investment in any form of large-scale farming. If Secular Imperialism could adopt aspects and tenets of Islamic legal theory, Islamic economy and Islamic finance to order  aspects of its society and prosper, why not us? Why not us?

I’ve previously submitted, in a separate piece, Mock treason, failed coup or real revolution, that whereas for Europe, Otto von Bismark suffered a 3 out of 5 power equation, Kenya suffers a lower order 2 out of 3. Whoever yokes 2 out of the 3 major regional blocs, enjoys stable rule. Given Raila’s former lieutenant has successfully locked 2 out of 3 blocs, he (Raila) can only then reorder the medium and its nature to undermine the advantage the Kikuyu tribe was given by the British, in order to serve in the role of territory taskmaster. The Kikuyu tribe is the only voting bloc, whose 8 million plus population is wholly located within the territory created in 1902. 

Reorder the medium how?

The Kikuyu suffer land, its loss and love. Colonial and neo-colonial expropriation and enclosure, pogrom and population growth all conspire against the tribe; it is now a molotov cocktail. Instead of climbing into it, why not diffuse it’s contents, “or miscontents” for that matter, by pouring them all over the map? The Kikuyu, like all 21st Century peoples, are economically mobile. Institute an “Islamic Land Policy and Tax Framework” that will, in one stroke, unlock potential and alleviate the pressure they are all under from historical political injustices, current political demands and natural population growth processes: their landless, their internally displaced, their unemployed disillusioned and property-less youth, their single unwed mothers need political leadership. In other words, a movement joining the political class with the Muslim and Christian spiritual leaders to resolve the specifically Kikuyu and wider general social crisis we all face, with a single dual-pronged Islamic socio-economic policy tool, “Land Productivity Tax & Guardianship Marriage”.

Reorder the medium’s nature how?

To the West, you can relocate the entire 8 million plus strong Luo peoples dislocated by Order No. 15 of the Uganda Protectorate Order-in-Council document by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1902, back within the British East African Protectorate territory using “policy and propaganda” means. And the whole of the Maasai people for good measure. Be warned, however, only the ideological appeal of the Islamic “Land Productivity Tax and Marriage for Guardianship” would ensure the new immigrants are beholden to you. Of interesting note also, is that if it succeeded, it would irreversibly alter the political medium; Kisumu would be the new de-facto capital of the territory.

We have addressed the need to “Know thyself” by reading “Raila vs. Raila”; we have addressed Raila’s adversaries by elaborating the “Hustler narrative”; we have addressed “the Earth” by explaining the nature of it’s terrain, and proposed how you can reorder it to Raila’s advantage without attacking the natives or their social contract. We must now turn to “the Heavens”.

We are living in the age of anatomical imperialism; this is to say, the gods of imperialism, having occupied all land, all economies and all cultures, have now set their eyes on the occupation of the human body as the new frontier. They occupy all lands by method of enclosure, exploit all economies by imposition of usury, dominate all cultures by way of education; they now intend to yoke all bodies by creating lifelong dependency on synthetic drugs for entire populations, as they have created lifelong economic dependency through debt for entire nations.

Just as in previous imperialist initiatives, the natives most able to facilitate it’s nefarious agenda were rewarded with rich concessions, large tracts of land in the case of land imperialism, oligopoly in the case of economic imperialism, and vitally, power over the native colony in all. If you are to be granted vassal status by the suzerain, you must be the most ruthlessly efficient in screwing the yokes into our bodies. You must devise vaccination policies and programs that pale Benjamin Netanyahu’s Covid Vaccination Program in tyranny. The gods of imperialism just need a compelling reason to install you in rule: can you give them reason?

In conclusion, Jakom, are you the healer of broken marriages, families and tribes? Are you the causal agent that will reunite the 8 million plus strong Luo nation divided in 1902, under one leadership? Are you the one to unite the disparate tribes of the British East African Protectorate under Luo political leadership and liberate the sincere but naive Kikuyu natives from the unholy covenant the vassal prince expediently locked them in – then later disavowed? Are you the vassal that will chain all natives in a vaccination yoke for the suzerain?

Let this be the era of Luo hegemony by method of Islamic economy and kinship; it is time. Lead us to Andalusia.

You have six months. Allah gives power to whom He wills.

medium.com/@ArkaNudDin

Next month: Hustler King! August Scimitar, Decade of Daggers.