The Fairground Park Pool was built in 1919 in St Louis, Missouri, and was the largest in the country.
It was built during a pool-building boom when cities and towns competed to provide their citizens with public amenities that promoted civic pride, and symbolised a perk of the American dream. The pool had a sandy beach, an elaborate diving board, and could hold up to 10,000 swimmers. It also was a Whites only swimming pool.
Thirty years later, a new administration took over the reins of power. They changed the policymaking it an offence to deny Blacks access to any of the city pools.
Their justification was that public recreation, that was free from discrimination, could foster more friendships among the different races. Subsequently, the Fairground Park pool became the first integrated swimming pool.
Sadly however, this change in policy did not have the intended effect. Instead, it ended in bloodshed when a mob of White residents surrounded the pool with bats, clubs, bricks and knives and attacked any Black person that attempted to swim.
To quell these riots, the new administration reverted back to the segregation policy using public safety as a justification. But the civil rights movement through the NAACP successfully won a lawsuit that challenged this policy.
Subsequently, the pool was reopened to all. However, only seven Whites and three Blacks dared to swim. The Black swimmers were heckled by a mob of White protesters, and these jeers continued for many days. It discouraged people from swimming, both Whites and Blacks, and eventually, the administration closed down the pool, drained it and filled it with concrete.
Draining public swimming pools to avoid integration was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1971. Their argument was that robbing the entire public from access to this service was spreading equal harm.
This has since become known as the drained-pool politics. Its underlying principle is if “they” can also have it, then no one can.
This week, President Uhuru Kenyatta extended the Public Order Act #4 for 60 more days. This included the respective curfew hours in hotspot and non-hot spot counties, restriction of numbers in places of worship, funerals and weddings, and prohibition against all public gatherings.
The justification for this extension was the increase in Covid-19 cases in western Kenya, which has been said to be experiencing a new wave. It has been reported that out of every five positive cases, two are from the Western region, with a positivity rate of 21 per cent compared to the national average of 9.1 per cent. And this is indeed a worrying trend.
Like night follows day, it is hardly surprising that this unfortunate outcome has been experienced after the recent Madaraka Day celebrations, graced by President Kenyatta, held in that region, and attracted large crowds of people.
It is also not lost on the public that the much-touted World Rally Championship in Naivasha also attracted many people, including most prominent politicians. Pictures taken during the event showed social distancing, as a measure to prevent Covid-19 spread, remained only as a prescription in the Public Order Act.
Other displays of lack of social distancing have been witnessed in the Kiambaa by-election campaigns, where crowds of voters have been congregating around those campaigning for the Jubilee and UDA candidates, and in Nakuru and West Pokot where Deputy President William Ruto attended social functions that equally attracted large gatherings of people.
Given that this Public Order Act #4 was an extension, implies that the older Orders were still in force, yet we still went ahead and held the Madaraka Day celebrations, the World Rally Championship, and the social turned political rallies.
It can therefore be deduced that those who authorised, organised, and attended these public gatherings knowingly flouted the existing Public Order Act. Your guess is as good as mine on whether they will face any legal consequences.
Begs the question, is this extension of the Public Order Act #4 a drained-pool politics tactic? Is it a dog-whistle message that if “they” can also have it, then no one can? How much suffering from this Covid-19 pandemic are we as a country willing to tolerate, for selective political gains?
Dog whistle is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different and more specific resonance with an intended targeted sub-group.
The analogy is drawn from ultrasonic whistling sounds that are heard only by dogs but are inaudible to human beings. The key feature in dog whistle politics is plausible deniability. The dog whistler can always later say, “I didn’t mean that, I meant this instead”. Those that are not the intended audience of a dog whistle take the statements or phrases at face value and do not perceive the layered or multiple meanings.
I submit that we are in the silly season of political chicanery, and hence the idea that this extension could be a drained-pool politics tactic, is not outside the realm of possibilities. But to say so with absolute certainty would be to erroneously hypothesise. But we cannot wish away the reality that we practice our politics as a zero-sum game, where if things appear to be having a favourable outcome for our opponent, then it must be at the expense of his competitor.
However, the litmus test on whether this extension is a drained-pool politics tactic will be if the planned upcoming presidential tours to Lower Eastern and the Rift Valley regions will materialise within the duration of the extended Public Order Act.
A dilemma, however, is occasioned by the Elections Act that allows a period of political campaigns for a by-election. What it does not explicitly provide for is the mode of the political campaigns. This provision being open to interpretation could therefore mean campaigns in the form of public gatherings. And given that both the Elections Act and the Public Order Act have equal force, are we therefore staring at a scenario where those with the legitimate monopoly of violence will be motivated to uphold one law over the other, thus disenfranchising voters that support the candidate that is deemed not to have State backing?
Finally, my unsolicited advice is to Uhuru. Nemo Judex In Causa Sua. This is the rule against bias. It means that no man shall be a judge in his own cause. This is the minimal requirement of the natural justice, that the authority giving decisions must be composed of impartial persons acting fairly, without prejudice and bias.
Likewise, it is our collective expectation that there shall be no sacred cows in the enforcement of the Public Order Act #4 that you so judiciously presented to the nation.
The road to political power is paved with hypocrisy and casualties – Frank Underwood, House of Cards.
