By MACHARIA GAITHO
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I HAD A RINGSIDE SEAT AS violent drama unfolded on the streets and alleys around Jamia Mosque last Friday. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sick comedy playing itself out. Wherever he was locked up Jamaican preacher Abdullah al-Faisal must have been laughing his head off at our antics.
He must have been very satisfied, indeed, that without putting in any particularly effort, he had managed to provoke just the sort of conflict he craves.
And the world keeping up with events from Nairobi on television and Internet must have been both amused and shocked at the capacity of Kenyans to turn every discussion into a violent confrontation.
Even now, after a weekend of reflection, I just can’t comprehend how events unfolded the way they did.
What I know for certain is that the police and other authorities messed up big-time, and some of those responsible for national security should either be promoted to starring in slapstick TV comedies or jailed for dereliction of duty.
They are becoming the best recruiters for a small band of extremists out to promote a violent agenda that should be totally unacceptable in Kenya.
This does not suggest forever appeasing a small bunch of extremists, but about tackling them with some intelligence.
If Sheikh Faisal is as dangerous as he is billed to be, then one must wonder why he is not on the CIA-FBI-Interpol wanted lists. And if he is as dangerous as we are being told, then it is scary that he was able to enter Kenya legally and with all his papers in order.
Anyway, sometime after the incendiary preacher entered the country, the security and immigration decided that he was too dangerous to be allowed to stay. The next act in the drama surely came when Muslim activists started agitating for his release. The first attempt at a demonstration could hardly raise a quorum.
Then came the proper notification to police. In the usual ham-fisted fashion, the police declined to allow the procession, proving again that they still live in the stone-age of the Kanu dictatorship when any activity that was not praise-singing for the regime was automatically unlawful.
Kenya’s law allows peaceful demonstrations. The police are notified only as a matter of courtesy, and not because of any licensing requirement.
Consultation with the police is also required so that the organisers and the authorities can jointly review the route and time to ensure it does not clash with any other event or unduly disrupt traffic.
Anyway, by purporting to deny permission for the demonstration, the police sowed the seeds of the violence that was too occur.
WE HAVE SEEN TIME AND AGAIN over the past decade and more that any time a group feels sufficiently strongly about something to want to vent their anger on the streets, the best strategy is to let them go ahead.
We saw it with Mungiki and various illegal and legal movements and with opposition groupings during both the Kanu and post-Kanu era.
Allow a group to demonstrate, and it will make noise until it gets tired and disperses without attracting too much attention. However, bring out the truncheons and teargas and the Robocop outfits, and that plays right into the hands of the most insignificant group craving for attention.
The end result is violence that assumes much more impact than would have been achieved in the first place.
Then anarchy comes to reign when criminal elements take advantage of the situation to go on looting and mugging sprees.
But this one came with a strange twist. It was not looting that caught attention, but the fact that police allowed groups of unidentified civilian mobs to wage war against the Muslim protestors.
Even if we presume that the mobs represented civilians angry with Muslim extremists, it is inconceivable in a normal society that police will sit with arms folded and allow civilian mobs to wage battle on their behalf. That is gross and criminal dereliction of duty.
It is also the kind of posture that is serving to fuel anger and resentment within the Islamic community.
The authorities have played right into the hands of an extremist fringe that caught much more attention than it deserved, and thus played a big role in fuelling the sense of alienation on which extremism feeds.
Check out the chatter on the Internet right row, and you will be shocked at the extent to which the young and educated Muslim youths are being radicalised. Our authorities are doing their best to stoke the fires.
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