According to French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the world operates on the basis of a duality of opposites — the good and the bad, the fresh and the stale — or what he called in his book, the raw and the cooked.
Politicians and police honchos appeared to be applying this duality last week when they mobilised goons and motorcycle taxi operators to counter the protests organised by Gen Z over the killing of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang.
It was, to say the least, the height of contradiction, to see the goons and law enforcement officers “policing” the streets of Nairobi like they were cut from the same cloth.
The danger with deploying lawless goons ‘to enforce security’ and neutralise demonstrators is too dire to contemplate in the medium and long term. First, the raw rogues have in them the potential to turn into a vigilante that will be difficult for both the police and politicians to manage especially as Kenya inches towards elections.
And because they enjoy political patronage and are shielded from prosecution, there is a serious risk that they will commit crimes against public morality. We saw, for instance, motorcycle taxi operators attacking a pedestrian and robbing him under the glare of security cameras. None has been brought to book for that violent robbery.
Emboldened by such impunity, they are likely to progress to more serious assaults against law and order. Left unchecked, they risk imposing governance by lawless mobs.
The job of enforcing security, law and order is the prerogative of disciplined forces. Under the law, all citizens agree in principle to give up their right to self-defense on the understanding that the police, military and such other agencies will protect all without fear or favour.
When the police, therefore, appear to be ceding this monopoly to mobs, they lose their moral authority, including the authority to arrest offenders. Is this a route that the leadership of the police service wants to take in a politically volatile theatre prone to outbreaks of cyclical violence?
In my view, the repugnant idea of police using the raw to neutralise the cooked smells to the high heavens and must be stamped out before it catches fire.
It is surprising that the police, and their strategists, are either unwilling or unable to learn from past experiences when they managed protests without killing or injuring citizens. All they are being asked to do now is to borrow the template that worked in the past and use it on June 25, when the Gen Z return to the streets.
First, they must work with protest organisers to map out the routes that they will use. Any gathering outside these routes should, therefore, be discouraged before it takes place and punished if it does.
Secondly, the protesters should be required to state the times they intend to start their demonstrations and when they intend to end them. That way, the rights of other citizens — for example to earn a livelihood from operating their businesses in the Central Business District — will be respected. Violations should be similarly punished.
Lastly, the police must require the protesters to have clearly identifiable marshals, who will work with officers on duty to isolate law breakers and infiltrators so that these can be arrested or removed from the protest routes. This will ensure safety and security of all. Of course, all care should be taken to avoid shooting incidents except in instances where such response is required or inevitable.
mbugua@nairobilawmonthly.com
Email your news TIPS to Editor@nairobilawmonthly.com, and to advertise with us, call +254715061658 anytime of the day
