Following a disputed election in 2007, Kenya has been the site of alternating periods of reform and violence; however, in recent weeks, violence has won out. On Sunday, the Kenyan military sent 3,000 troops into Somalia with orders to target the Shabab militant group, who, in turn, have threatened to strike back with suicide bombings in the Kenyan capital.
In order to understand this latest move by the Kenyan government, Daniel Branch would have us look to the state’s often tumultuous past. In his new book Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011, Branch explores the history of the country from its birth as an independent state to its position in the present day, highlighting episodes that illuminate today’s headlines.
The hope of Branch’s subtitle began with Kenya’s independence from Great Britain in 1963, which was celebrated with banquets, sailing races, and fireworks. Yet even in Kenya’s first years of freedom, tensions arose. Protesters questioned the decisions of the new government, economic growth was unequally distributed, and a multiplicity of ethnic groups made for difficulties in forming a nation. Indeed, corruption and unrest have plagued the country since the time of independence, and Branch argues that the latest developments in Kenyan politics are part of a tradition of political violence whose cure has proved elusive.
“So long as thugs and criminals are privileged in their efforts to win seats in parliament or on local councils by the inability of the courts and police to arrest and prosecute, thuggery will remain an essential part of political life,” Branch writes, noting that although peace and equality have been the goals of the last forty-plus years of government, “Kenyan politicians have by now proved that they are utterly incapable of halting political violence or stopping corruption.” Branch calls for the removal of these politicians, and a real reform of a system that seems to rest on “the banality and normalisation of violence,” asserting that only when these goals have been achieved can “Kenya finally enjoy the fruits of its independence,” won almost fifty years ago.
A quite apt reading of the Kenya postcolony. Lots of opportunities lost in banal politics and otherising ethnic nationalisms! As the country approaches 50 years as ‘neocolony’, you are tempted to pose, ‘And so what is there to celebrate?’