Typical human rights 101 lessons starts with conversation on the circumstances leading up to global agreement of states on the protection of human rights called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). We are reminded the global community was shocked by the devastation and atrocities of 1939-1945 World War II and declared that henceforth, all human beings shall be treated with dignity and their rights and fundamental freedoms shall be protected.
States have domesticated these agreements. Kenya, which emerged from a repressive dictatorship and the devastation of the 2007 post-election violence, introduced a whole new Chapter 4 in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution to protect people from the excesses of the state. Kenyans have since 2010 selflessly guarded their supreme law because they know the value of constitutionalism for a functional democratic society.
Of all the fundamental rights ever codified with respect to how a society can craft and reshape its affairs, the right to protest is the alma mater of popular sovereignty. It would be right to say Kenyans are alarmed an aspect of this proposition is slowly sinking back into the national psyche. In the last few days, the country is abuzz with what is largely christened the Generation Z Revolution.
In stride, young Kenyans have been mobilising across the country to protest this year’s Financial Bill (just passed by the National Assembly) and condemn the overbearing tax proposals in the budget. Through protests, they are exercising one critical right to participate in governance process – when their votes and their representatives do not represent their interests, they can exercise their right peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, demonstrate, picket and to present petitions to public authorities. And then, they can vote their “servant leaders” out.
What has been interesting, though, is that this new generation of protesters is being collectively regarded like a new discovery!
Indeed, they are. The country, despite eons of public discussions of its pyramidal demography and the attention its youth bulge deserves, including the need for swift expansion of economic opportunities for stability, it appears key decision makers have often ignored this imperative. For starters, the Constitution clearly recognises the exclusion facing the youth, women and persons with disabilities and requires affirmative action to address them, something casually ignored.
It is apparent too, Kenyans generally have dismissed this generation to a point that scant attention has been directed to its independence of thought, growing proclivity for political self-determination and the power to organize for their own interests.
This can be an ideological debate but nonetheless the country is currently swept off its feet by the fervent countrywide show of young people that they have a political stake in the affairs of the country. Their mobilisation acumen, strength in numbers, and their disconnection from vices that have crippled similar past initiatives: namely tribal affiliations, cash handouts, and so on have caused discomfort for bearers of power.
Whereas the state machinery has always prepared itself for the subjectively partisan and jaundiced stereotypes of politically led demonstrations, it has been fazed by having teenage girls asking for tax relief on sanitary towels and baby formula for their children; or up and coming tech honchos grimacing at high taxes on telecommunications data and mobile gadgets, or wananchi bemoaning taxes on money transfers among other issues about the proposed higher cost of living. Police officers across the country have faced situations where they must confront agemates of their children, rather than the poor urban hoodlums hey have been used to chasing down the alleys with sympathy as skimpy as the clothes on their victims’ backs.
The Law Society of Kenya rose up this time, too, to help protesters trapped in retrogressive implementation of the public order legal framework, which sanctions the right to lawful protests and demonstrations. Across the country, volunteer lawyers have been trooping into the police cells to assist some demonstrators held over the demonstrations; businesspeople freely shared food, water and respite spaces, while medics came closer to the people to the streets to treat those injured by the police who unleashed brute force against peaceful protests.
More than 400 young demonstrators found themselves locked up in the capital city’s police stations, mainly Central police station, Parliament police station, Railways police station, and Kamukunji police station.
The situation was replicated in other towns as well. The swift action by the LSK leadership and its membership nationally has been laudable. Even more important is that the Gen-Z community sacrificed their meagre incomes to support each other when in distress.
In all the Financial Bill demonstrations, Gen Z – aware that Article 37 of the Constitution guarantees the right to assemble, demonstrate and picket while observing peace and nonviolence – has literally knocked on doors of political ambition to reorder the country in their own image and vision.
Kenya has not yet apologised to some these young boys and girls who were tear-gassed or watched their colleagues suffer at Lang’ata Primary in January 2015 to protect their school. They have also silently witnessed time and again their parents’ agitation for expanded democratisation and a new Constitution, after the turn of the millennium.
They were born into a socially liberal but hugely divisive debilitating political culture, as the 2007-08 post-election violence in Kenya evinced. It is now clear to many the youngsters have been struggling with history.
The demonstrations have condemned the appeals to ethnicity, patrimonialism and gerontocracy of the local leaders in all their dimensions. This generation of Kenyans may have taken longer to comprehend what the founding fathers like Jomo Kenyatta, Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya, Gideon Ngala, Kungu Karumba, Pinto Gama Pinto and Bildad Kaggia were about and their vision for the country. But they have showed their zeal to craft a country in the image of fairness, justice and progress as these patriarchs wanted.
It also means the flavour of history does not in any case perish with time but rather comes to fruition. It is all too clear the civic education aspirations founded in that period of time, about the same age as they are, have blossomed and the race to re-order Kenya’s political affairs is on.
The baton for change is flaming. This is fair to say because songs, slogans and philosophies that underlined the people’s movements of the period, buoyed by civic groups such as the National Constitution Executive Committee (NCEC), the Citizen Constitutional Change Committee (4Cs) as well as the Release Political Prisoners (RPP) led the charge in the several demonstrations across the country. These songs, mainly inspired by the tunes from the South Africa anti-apartheid clarion anthems, have been emphatically sung in the assemblies escorted with the reminder of bado mapambano that they would definitely have heard the first time as children.
In the multiple police stations, the recent handling of the ‘unlawful assembly’ and ‘rioting’ suspects over the period, the youngsters have shown that their voices can no longer be swept under the carpet. Their high-tech coordination and mobilisation cut across social privileges, gender and other superficial political cleavages. They have showed that the youth is a generation hungry for change.
Finally, it is interesting how several theories have been crafted and spun to discredit the current political awareness of a young generation. Old and tired phrases used by colonialists against our grandparents who fought for our independence, such as “like terrorists”, unappreciative of development or too black (replace with young unformed brains) have been thrown right left and centre. Others have blamed civil societies for alleged funding of protests. This language has been used in the past.
Our forefathers that we celebrate today for their bravery that secured our independence, democratic space and progressive constitution were themselves branded as terrorists. Such profiling, intimidation and hollow propaganda can only convince those who are too comfortable to fathom the pain and suffering of our young people who have a future to protect.
We owe it to the Gen-Z for being true to our laws and Constitution. They exhibited discipline despite provocation, courage and clarity of their love for their country and fellow citizens. We must give kudos to the young demonstrators for educating us about our rights and how they should be exercised with humility. It is unfortunate that two young people were killed and several others injured. Sincere condolence to the families. It should never have happened.
Is this the generation of change-makers that the country has been waiting for? Views may differ, but this has been a loud announcement of the arrival of the new face of change in the country. The answer, surely, may be beckoning.
As youngsters we stood up with Young Turks, ushering in multiparty democracy in 1990s; in June 2024, Kenyan Youths have taken up the constitutional challenge to peacefully protest nationally for their future. May their wishes for a better future be honoured.
Aluoka is advocate of the High Court of Kenya and Ngugi is the executive director, Defenders Coalition (Kenya)