For the second time this year, American news and commentary websites are full of stories announcing, “the end of the American empire”.
Some write about “the end of the American century” tracing the ascent of America in global affairs to its successful intervention in World War 1 (in 2017) which put an end to American isolationism.
The first time such predictions were made this year, was after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 by a mob of Trump supporters who managed to overcome the policemen who were guarding this building and moved in to desecrate what many Americans consider to be a sacred building.
Then too there were cries that this surely marked the beginning of the end for America’s greatness.
Now more recently, beginning mid-August, it is the chaotic evacuation of Afghans seeking refuge abroad following the return of the Taliban to Kabul, which has led to these same declarations of despair and anguish.
What these two events have in common is high drama. In one case, American lawmakers running as fast as they could from their offices and debating chambers, as the hooligans closed in.
And in the other, desperate Afghans clinging to air force planes that had already closed their doors and were preparing to take off, with some of these people falling to their deaths in the process.
But despite these humiliating and tragic events, America still remains as powerful as ever, and those predicting the end of American dominance in world events are really just speculating.
While it is true enough that no global superpower can expect to remain at the top forever, nobody really knows when exactly this dominance will end.
Rather, it is basic human psychology that when something happens which was unpredictable, and also seems unprecedented and overwhelming, there is a tendency to judge that shocking event as having immense symbolic significance, and in some way marking the end of an era.
In Kenya, it was the post-election violence of 2007-08, which delivered an epic shock to the nation. And then too, there were widespread judgements both from within and from outside Kenya to the effect that this marked the end of Kenya as we had known it.
For Kenyans had previously associated such extreme inter-communal violence with “those other countries” – Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda or DRC Congo. Kenya, the diplomatic and commercial hub of the entire Eastern Africa region, was assumed to be immune to such extremes of violence.
Yet there we were reading reports of the slaughter of innocents every single day, until at last the leading politicians of the time found a way to work together and formed a coalition government.
I mention all this because we are now fully into the 2022 general election campaign season – in reality if not officially. And with any Kenyan election comes the fear that there may be a return to such election-related violence. We no longer think that this kind of thing only happens in other countries – we know very well that it can happen here.
So, do I think we are heading for yet another existential crisis, which will be announced in a political explosion that scatters dead bodies all over? I believe it all depends on whether or not we will be lucky.
Remember that following the last presidential election, after Uhuru Kenyatta had been sworn in as the duly elected president on November 28, 2017, we subsequently had yet another “presidential swearing-in ceremony”. This was on January 30, 2018, when Raila Odinga was declared “the people’s president”.
In some African countries this would have ignited a civil war. But in Kenya, all we saw was Raila’s thousands of supporters peacefully heading home for a late lunch after the “swearing-in” at Uhuru Park.
So, if we are lucky, there may be plenty of high drama, but there will be little violence. But if we are unlucky, then there is no telling what may happen.
For just as nobody knows when “the American empire” will finally collapse, so too do we not know whether or not we will have election-related violence in Kenya in 2022.
