You cannot, must not remain silent as repression takes root

Ababu Namwamba

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“First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me…”

Inspired by the chilling holocaust and other unspeakable tyranny of Nazi Germany, these stirring words have since become humanity’s most famed recorded rebuke to foolish inertia. The words are attributed to Martin Niemöller, a German pastor born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. An anti-communist theologian who in fact supported Hitler’s rise to power, Niemöller became deeply disillusioned when the Führer insisted on the supremacy of state over religion, and became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937, he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. Released in 1945 by the Allies as the curtains came down on the horrors of Nazism and World War II, Niemöller continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after the war. His poignant words, which continue to ring through the sands of time, were first published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, and remain a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy.

This “Niemöller experience” bears some telling parallels for Kenya. Today we start our golden anniversary week, celebrating a landmark half-century of self-rule. Ours has truly been a chequered history, a dizzying yo-yoo odyssey of ups and lows. In 1963, we broke free of seventy years of imperialist chains, emerging from harrowing colonial rule with electrifying national pride and infectious dreams. But no sooner had we said “freedom” than we became victims of a new form of imperialist tyranny; only that this time it had nothing to do with skin colour! The Kenyatta-Moi despotism is well documented; suffice it to say that somehow we survived to tell the tale! Most significantly, three years ago, we enacted a new Constitution to shield present and future generations from any other round of state-sanctioned debauchery.

That is why the latest attacks on the Bill of Rights by the Jubilee administration in this year of Jubilee are incomprehensible, reprehensible and absolutely abhorrent. The vile efforts by the Uhuru government to neuter civil society, mute the press and muzzle alternative any voice must be resisted by every sensible citizen at all costs. All libertarians and progressive forces are well advised to learn the Niemöller lesson: He supported Hitler to rise to power. He remained silent as he watched others around him, one by one, fall victim to Nazi terror, remaining aloof because it was not “me”.  And when “they” finally came for “him”, he was all alone! But he had the courage to admit his folly, rise against the Führer, pay the heavy price of incarceration, and ultimately share his experiences with humanity for posterity.

In 2002, the civil society literally went to bed with Kibaki’s Narc regime, and has struggled to regain its mojo ever since. More recently, large swathes of the Kenyan media have hobnobbed with and pandered to the whims of Uhuru’s Jubilee government, and the consequences have been swift and painful. It is a lesson best typified by the antique epigram of the lady of Niger: there was a young lady of Niger, who smiled as she rode on a tiger, they came back from the ride with the lady inside and the smile on the face of the tiger!

This later-day imperialism reminds us that we are not out of the woods just yet. We must remain vigilant, alert, twenty-four-seven. Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States loved to chide that to remain silent when you must speak makes cowards of men, and believed that “our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.”  It is the spirit that should define our golden Jubilee…and our celebration of the life of Africa’s favourite son, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Sleep well, scion of Gadla Mphakanyiswa, son of the Thembu, of Qunu. Rest, Tata Madiba …you have earned the right to walk with the giants of all time, for eternity.