It's no longer tenable to sit by and watch

Pick a problem, any problem which Kenya is grappling with Thursday, and you will find that the biggest obstacle to overcoming it, is most unfortunately, the Kenyan people.

Whereas much is accurately said of Kenya's often poor leadership, at the core of our continued underdevelopment is the people themselves; tribal, corrupt, ambivalent, individualistic, oblivious that poverty and inequality are no natural phenomena.

Despite a geographical and geo-political advantage, relative security and stability, a youthful population and a progressive Constitution, Kenya continues to lag behind– let down by continuous poor leadership, and most importantly, a populace willingly participating in the maintenance of the status quo.

When The Guardian newspaper reported the siphoning of over GBP1 billion out of Kenya in 2007, I thought this is it, we the people will rise up in anger and demand change. We didn't. Instead, similarly grand corruption scandals not only mushroomed as if on cue, but also acquired the status of fables and legends - eliciting awe rather than the attending anger they deserve.

MPs pay rise

When MPs decided to hike their own salaries in 2013, in complete disregard of the status of the economy and the struggles of average Kenyans, I expected to see a nationwide protest. There wasn't one. Instead, we spectated from our homes as Boniface Mwangi led a handful of protestors at Parliament, with expectedly little success.

Today, the MPs are at it again, claiming they are the social net of their constituencies, when it is precisely their job to make socially inclusive laws that improve quality, accessibility and affordability of health, education, and all public services!

When nine Kenyans were beheaded by Al-Shabaab in Lamu in July this year, I thought finally, finally the people will rise up to demand justice! We didn't. Worse, we didn't even mourn them, didn't even hold a vigil.

Instead, the media ran wall-to-wall coverage of a politician's death and its implications on the upcoming elections, and we the people ate it all up because, well, we couldn't let such minor details as beheadings subtract from the serious politicking we had to do.

Three more people were beheaded in August, and we were predictably just as untroubled. To-date, we know neither the names nor the faces of those who lost their lives in the most heinous of ways. But, hey, at least we know the names of all who won and lost in the elections.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us," stated Pogo, the main character in the American daily comic strip of the same name, created by the cartoonist Walt Kelly. It is a statement that we Kenyans continue to live up to, unashamedly.

Even in churches, ostensibly the holiest of places, one too many self-proclaimed prophets have been exposed as pure frauds, yet we the worshipers continue to attend their summons - dispensing with common sense and blaming Satan for such outrageous revelations. This is not to mention the mutually reinforcing, unhealthy relations between the Church, tribe, and politics in the country, succinctly explained in Dauti Kahura's article on The Elephant.

Naturally, the elite has figured out that we Kenyans can take just about anything, ergo, they can get away with just about anything. They can refuse to show up to debates, ignore court orders, disregard independent institutions, or arbitrarily hike their own salaries - and we the people will be either too ambivalent or too tribal to chastise, or in any way punish, them.

Accordingly, the elite have divorced the people from governance, relegated us to the periphery, occasionally giving us the illusion of control through "public participation" or "elections" - just enough control to lull us into a false sense of relevance.

In truth, all democratic and development undertakings in Kenya are largely the product of elite consensus. They meet at Bomas and decide Kenya needs a new constitution; sit in a conference and decide a new railway is a good idea; or meet in Parliament and decide a Sh50 billion election is just what the doctor ordered.

Meanwhile, we the people are but secondary beneficiaries, incidental to the processes, benefiting only by accident.

No threat

But why wouldn't the elite exploit the people, when we have never demonstrated enough national unity to threaten the status quo? Why wouldn't they take advantage of a people with little social solidarity, whose defining feature is – as aptly put by the Guyanese historian Walter Rodney - the worst form of capitalist individualism, with no sense of social responsibility?

So, yes, we Kenyans have met our worst enemy, and he is not mysterious or foreign. He is us. Our ambivalence, passive participation, and ethnic-fuelled disunity is painfully ineffective in promoting the change we need and deserve. Real progress can only come when we are angry enough and united enough to actively protest when our money is stolen or our countrymen are killed.

We must demand the change we want. We must claim our position as the main stakeholder in Kenya's development. It is no longer tenable to sit on the side-lines and watch the elites agree on where Kenya goes next.

Mr Wainaina is a social critic and political commentator. [email protected]