Why are our street demos less effective than they used to be?

Since the turn of this decade, protests in Kenya can be personified into one man —Boniface Mwangi. I’ve known Mwangi for more than half a decade now and we regard each other as good friends.

I have seen his transformation from his silent days as a photo journalist, later an active businessman operating his photo studio in town, to his current (side) occupation of being a social-influencer (I stutter to use the term activist which I reckon to be a bit too mainstream to describe the otherwise outlier personality that is Mwangi.)

One thing will strike you the moment you get acquainted with him—his relentless passion in whatever he decides to fix his mind on.

Such is his single-mindedness in the pursuit of his objectives that it is no wonder that he has caused such ripples numerous times to the regime of the day and his charm managed to attract many young people who joined him to voice their concerns on various issues.

It caught me by surprise earlier this year when he came out to announce his “retirement” from activism, adding, tongue-in-cheek that Kenya was “too selfish a country to die for”. I didn’t take his words seriously.

Activism is not a calling. It has no sell-by date. A natural activist is one whose blood boils at any subjection to perceived injustice. It was just a matter of time before I knew I would be seeing him on the streets leading another demonstration. Luckily, I didn’t have to choke on my words.

This week we all saw Mwangi in his element as he resurfaced to lead this week’s #OccupyHarambeeAvenue protest against rising insecurity in the country after the killings in Mandera.

The protests were primarily calling for the President to act by sacking the top officials in charge of security and like many other demands before, I feared that none would be met.

I could understand why Mwangi felt the compulsion to hang up his boots in the first instance – such is the state intransigence he is facing that his attempts are probably being viewed by the government’s top honchos with disdain and his protests dismissed as simple middle class nuisance that can be safely wished away.

Knowing the almost purist Marxist thinking of Mwangi , it will be hard to convince him that his style of protests motivates the more bourgeoisie of the society ( in this instance all the middle class twitter/Facebook obsessed crowd- with which he admittedly shares little love) rather than proletariat inclined ( in this instance the poor majority— many wondering where their next meal would come from and would not see a need to gather in town to protest about miniskirts or lack thereof.)

The debate aside, one sad conclusion is that “the Kenyan version of modern day protest” is simply not effective enough to achieve the desired results.

This is sad because some of the organisers and even participants are some of the staunchest patriots I have come across.

Most of the time people like Mwangi have a selfless agenda and sincerely wish to see a better governed country with greater citizen rights.

It is therefore sad that despite all these good intentions, we are yet to see positive outcomes of these protests —beyond the melodramatic entertainment value that they provide.

Firstly, let me make this clear —I absolutely feel that the action of protest or demonstration against any injustice, real or perceived is an inherent right and should always be an option available to a sovereign citizen.

I agree with Mahatma Gandhi’s words that “silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the truth and acting accordingly.”

I personally, during my university days as the Organising Secretary of SONU, actively participated in organising and leading many protests and sometimes I am surprised at how I have quickly settled down into silent corporate life.

Further, it is well documented that the reform movement in Kenya that started in the 1990s and culminated in Constitutional change in 2010 had protest as a central facet.

The Saba Saba riots of 1990 are partly responsible for deletion of Section 2 (a) to transform Kenya from a de jure one party state into a multi party democracy.

The mass riotous protests and demos in 1997 culminated in the IPPG talks that created the first of the many electoral reforms.

It however took the 2008 post-election violence to shake this country to the core and force us to rethink our whole constitutional dispensation, hence the 2010 Constitution.

There is one common thread you shall notice among most successful protests in this country.

Although, they have been peaceful, they have always been violently broken up by the authorities. This aspect of violent crackdown tended to infuriate the demonstrators even more and even emboldened them.

In a way, it was the violent resistance by the State that ironically made the civil resistance movements a wild success.

The 1990s was a time when protest in this country was a great risk and not simple self-indulgent act of personal and collective therapy where you sought to throw public tantrums of self-righteousness seeking to elevate topics such as miniskirts to national dialogue status, equal in importance to national security and each deserving an equivalent protest.

Today though, protest is a walk in the park. Motivated by the hashtag movement, our brand of protest is slowly losing its punch and imagination and hence becoming increasingly colourless and meaningless.

It is not because their leaders like Mwangi lack organisational skills to make them effective— it is because the perceived antagonist is too calm and makes the protesters look dull. You don’t kill a dead lion.

Our protests have become the first victims of our increased democratic space and for this, we should be forever grateful.

The fact that we hold our protests and the authorities, instead of cracking them down, offer us licence and protection and some elected leaders even join in these protests means that we lose the single most important aspect of a protest — an effective antagonist.

For as long as our protests remain peaceful ( as they should) we can be sure of one good thing—it is a sure sign of an active democracy and one bad thing — the protest remain meaningless.

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