For how long will Jubilee, NASA instill fear in us?

Kenyans have slowly and methodically been minced into a worried lot by Jubilee and NASA. As Jubilee visits state terror on one half the citizenry, NASA is unleashing product boycotts. We are besieged. State terror is scary because it is an open and explicit display of might while sub-rosa terror is potent because of its subversive and covert nature. Either way, the net effect of the events of the last two or so months has been devastating to every Kenyan.

State terror is that which is ostensibly prompted when civil discord sprouts in various hotspots in a country. Whenever the state moves in to pacify emergent restlessness, it usually does so with ferocity intended not only to affirm its capacity to maintain law and order but also to discourage possibilities of imitative recurrence elsewhere within the boundaries. 

Violent or forceful repression of dissent and unrest by the state is expressly authenticated by the fact that it is carried out by veritable instruments of force such as the police or the quasi-military GSU.

It must always be operationalised by a legitimate wielder of authority such as the Inspector General of Police, the minister in charge of Internal Security or the Head of State himself. This makes state terror appear corrective rather than offensive and renders it legally acceptable despite its measure of brutality.  The implication of excessive force by state security agencies is that it alienates the population leading to an unenthusiastic relationship with the state. This in turn inculcates a sense of victimhood that easily radicalises that section of the citizenry. Soon, nationalistic altruism is replaced by regimented and methodised resentment of statehood leading to the popularisation of such militarised slogans as ‘RESIST’.

The most fearsome social consequence of state terror however remains the fact that it breeds sub-rosa terrorism. The operational definition of sub-rosa terrorism differs slightly from that of elemental terrorism as we know it. The standard definition of terrorism points to the clandestine application of random violence on the civilian population and the indiscriminate destruction of non-state installations and national icons as a method of systematically provoking the state into a reaction. The prime objective of sub-rosa terrorism is to call the state to attention vis-à-vis existing or emergent injustices that may be real or perceived.

Unlike elemental terrorism that is perpetrated by shadowy and covert alliances of subverted personalities, sub-rosa terrorism is actualised by disgruntled segments of the population in broad daylight. Such acts as barricading of roads, arson, looting or verbal profanity against the state and its leaders qualify as sub-rosa terrorism. Whereas elemental terrorism strikes fear into the general citizenry, sub-rosa terrorism causes similar grief among neighbours, business persons or school children who have hitherto coexisted peacefully.

Allow me to submit that this is exactly NASA’s game plan. Raila Odinga is well known for his political craftiness. Sometimes, he may feign engagement in acts that may appear self-defeating by cursory observation such as calling for a consumer boycott but upon deeper examination, he is actually reinventing the wheel.

Terrorism is not confined to politics. In fact its most perspicacious variety is emotional terrorism. Emotional terrorism is that which pierces the soul and forces one to lie on a bed of existential trauma. This is exactly what NASA is doing to Kenyans by stealing the thunder of state terrorism from under the noses of Jubilee and replacing it with the lightning of sub-rosa terrorism. If I were President Uhuru Kenyatta, I would be a very worried man. In Raila Odinga today, we have a man whose speech has all over sudden transuded from the politically virulent to sea-code variety.

Raila knows for example that it is utter nonsense to purport to victimise a private company for making a political choice. It cannot be lost on Raila’s razor sharp mind that if he were living in the USA for example, he would by now be sweating in court over a seven figure lawsuit for pretending to be the decider of who a family business should back politically.

Safaricom’s is a battle lost from onset because even Raila’s most ardent gate men are not about to stop transacting on MPESA. But on Brookside and Bidco, Raila has unleashed unbridled capitalistic terrorism. This is a variety of sub-rosa terrorism that is as enterprisingly injurious as it is economically retrogressive.

On the political chessboard with Jubilee however, Raila knows that knocking down the castles is the surest way to checkmate the Queen and trophy the King. So what he has done is to ring-fence Jubilee into a corner where it has to strenuously defend its own otherwise legitimate use of force to maintain law and order while letting Raila get away with sub-rosa terrorism.

The reason President Uhuru must rethink his strategy is that whatever the Jubilee government does now always seems to be a reaction to Raila’s own move. The President must take the game to Raila and keep the man busy. Presently, it is Raila who is keeping the President busy.  

-The writer is a senior Sociologist at the University of Nairobi