Kenya has suffered a number of terrorist attacks by al Shabaab over the past year. The September 21 Westgate attack and June 15 and 16 Mpeketoni attacks particularly shocked the nation. The impact of terrorism is far reaching. The perpetrators of these heinous attacks understand this and calculate their strike to achieve massive destruction. Fighting terrorism is a difficult task. No one in the world has won the fight yet. However, if we are to win the fight against terror as a nation, we should not and must not politicise terrorism.
When Westgate happened, the pro-government side theorised that the US organised the attack to overthrow the Jubilee government while anti-government theorists’ speculated that the state orchestrated it so its head could escape trial at The Hague.
Just before Cord leader Raila Odinga's homecoming on May 31, TNA activist Moses Kuria posted in the social media warnings seemed to be directed at Raila to the effect that he cannot organise terrorist activities in Kenya from Boston. He warned that they will deal with Raila the same way they did with the colonialists, or more recently, his supporters in Naivasha during the post-election violence. Kuria has been questioned by authorities over this statement and he is the TNA candidate for the Gatundu South parliamentary by-election.
During his homecoming rally at Uhuru Park, Raila asked the government to stop the harassment of Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. It was wrong of him to try to make political capital out of the government’s attempt to fight terrorism. Raila followed this up with a curious visit to Eastleigh.
Two weeks after his arrival, Raila addressed another rally at Tononoka Grounds in Mombasa where speakers obviously did not shy away from the plight of Muslims. In my opinion Raila politicised the fight against terrorism but also fell into a trap.
A day after the Tononoka rally, terrorists raided Mpeketoni in Lamu and killed 52 people. The government through it informal strategists such as Mutahi Ngunyi and officials such as Interior Secretary Joseph ole Lenku took a surprise position. It absolved al Shabaab of wrongdoing and blamed political incitement for the attack.
From this point it became clear that Kuria’s communication was not purposeless. The government’s political divide had hatched a grand scheme to end the political career of Raila by portraying him as a terrorist. The social media took over the script actively and creatively portraying him as a terrorist. There was one al shaBABA and a canine rendering of Raila’s physiognomy labelled ‘Mpeketoni Baba is back’.
The mainstream media and security agents also participated. For instance one update on Facebook read ‘WE HAVE TO THANK NIS: The operator Twitter handle that claimed its al Shaabab who attacked Mpeketoni has been arrested at Majengo. ISHMAEL OMONDI is the person who has been using al Shabaab Twitter account’. The mainstream media carried this story too. The suspect was later released without charge but the damage had been done. Predictably, the Kikuyu quickly saw Raila as their enemy, their killer and tension rose to he point that we were on the brink of war.
The strategists on the government’s side could have achieved a major feat if they portrayed Raila as a terrorist. President Yoweri Museveni succeeded with this strategy by ostracising Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Similar tactics had been used successfully against the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) in Sri Lanka.
In Kenya such a situation will be too dangerous. By using the ‘Ishmael Omondi’ tactic to frame people politically associated with Raila as terrorists, the government will be inviting them to start sympathising with actual terrorists. The government would have widened the military scope of its enemies and spread the war till it becomes difficult to win.
But I still strongly believe that the solution to terrorism lies in politics, good politics. Terrorism is inherent in modern capitalism. Capitalism is a ruthless structure of accumulation that excludes others from economic resources.
Al Qaeda and its derivatives came into being when the US and the West went to exploit the oil in the Middle East in collusion with the ruling class and exclusion of the rest society. The al Qaeda elements had all intentions to sabotage this economic project but, looking for support base and legitimacy, had to present the US as satanic and anti-Islam. Hence, while the reason for the war has always remained economic, the propaganda facade is religious. It is easier to mobilise fighters and moral support through religion. Others have done the same using race or ethnicity.
Human beings strive to exploit economic resources; war is rarely fought over any other issue. Deciding who benefits from what resource is a political process. In most cases the process is not all-inclusive. There are many ways for those in power to socially profile the others to rationalise their exclusion from resources. The colonial European, for instance, presented the African natives as uncivilised, inferior, ungodly to justify the annexation of their land and impose slave labour on them.
As long as we continue excluding others from economic resources using state power, then there will always be terrorism as a backlash against capitalism.
In Kenya we need to ask ourselves a few questions. For example, would an underpaid policeman stop a terrorist ferrying explosives and refuse a bribe if offered one? What's in it for him? What's in it for the corrupt immigration officer? What have you done to make the street child patriotic so al Shabaab won't buy him for 25 cents? Should the majority be patriotic so that some favoured minority can benefit from this patriotism? These are simple but basic political questions that may lead us to the solution to terrorism.
The writer is a Research Fellow. [email protected]