In Kenya, the election season is often accompanied by the season of maandamano – or public protests.
Many times these are linked to disputes over changes to the election laws and regulations and led by opposition politicians and civil society activists against intransigent incumbents intent on stealing the poll.
The demonstrations can be disruptive, even violent, and invariably attract a brutal response from the police. Dozens, including children, were killed by the police in 2016 and 2017 during public protests over the preparations for and conduct of the last elections.
And six months to the next general election, and with proposed changes to the election rules once again the focus of political angst, one can reasonably expect history to repeat itself.
People taking to the streets in demonstrations against governments and policies they do not like is considered a legitimate expression of popular sovereignty.
In Kenya, the right to protest and picket is protected by the Constitution as it is in many self-described democracies around the world.
People Power has been cheered ever since three days of demonstrations in the Philippines capital, Manila, forced out long-time dictator Ferdinand Marcos after 36 years,
In places such as the Ukraine and Sudan, popular revolutions have achieved much the same result. Around the globe, from time immemorial, campaigns of civil disobedience and direct action have elevated leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King Jr into global icons.
Yet recent attempts at “People Power” revolutions in North America have not met with similar applause. In the US, the storming of the houses of Congress by a mob of protesters angered by the conduct of elections and egged on by the incumbent President has been branded an insurrection and attempted coup (though the opposition far-right Republican Party have claimed it was “legitimate political discourse).
In neighbouring Canada, the government has invoked emergency powers, threatened to arrest protesters and freeze their bank accounts and deployed police to clear the streets after anti-covid demonstrations outside the country’s Parliament by truckers morphed into wider anti-government protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a power-sharing government. Police were also deployed to quell similar protests in New Zealand.
In fact, in 2020, protesters in Guatemala, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Germany, Lebanon and Serbia, attacked or attempted to breach Parliament and government buildings. So what is the difference between an insurrection and a people power revolution? When are demonstrations of popular sovereignty directed at intransigent authorities deemed illegitimate? The answers are not as clear cut as one might imagine. And legitimacy is, in any case, largely in the eyes of the beholder.
According to William Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, “direct action” which he defines as “disruptive activism carried out with the aim of obstructing or deterring contentious practices that are opposed by activists” can be justified provided that it is as far as possible non-violent and targeted at “the most serious and urgent cases of perceived wrongdoing”.
Smith also distinguishes direct action from other demonstrations which may be aimed at capturing public attention and influencing debate. “The principal rationale of direct action is not to initiate a process of reflection or reconsideration, but to achieve preferred outcomes through altering the cost-benefit calculations of the relevant actors”.
Disadvantaged and outnumbered groups with little access to mainstream press to articulate an agenda, as well as groups faced with urgent and imminent harm may be justified in taking such actions. They may struggle to get the rest of society to agree with their justifications but, as Smith notes, this does not automatically render their protest illegitimate.
That public protests will cause unwelcome disruptions goes without saying. But they are something that democratic societies must learn to live with, if not exactly normalize.
However, the justification for the use of direct action tactics is perhaps something to be negotiated between citizens rather than to be adjudicated by the governments that are the targets of the actions. Governments can and should act to minimize disruption and facilitate the airing of views. They should engage with the concerns of disaffected citizens, especially those whose politics they do not like.
Allowing them to criminalize direct action and punish protesters because we do not like what the protesters say opens doors to oppression that may be difficult to close later.
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