Hello world! Because 140 words won’t cut it.

More than a Playground was grabbed.

If you weren’t suffocated with moral outrage over the teargasing of the Langata school children, you’re missing a part of your humanity. In what can only be described as a tragic convergence of reckless overzealous activism and poor police training, Kenyans were left struggling to understand how primary school children were subjected to the brutal force that is synonymous with the quelling of riots.

The use of teargas is ironically prohibited in warfare but allowed in riot control to bring calm to violent crowds that might be a danger to society. The rationale being, protecting the masses outweighs the potential dangers of teargas to the rioters. In keeping with this persuasion, how the police saw it fit to use teargas, on what would be universally accepted as a harmless group, (even in the largest of numbers), falls to reason.

One cannot condemn enough the brazen acts of the policemen involved and the government has reflected these sentiments in reprimanding the concerned individuals. This article does not lend itself to the extensive inquiry required to address this issue, it instead looks at the latent objectives and subsequent culpability of the architects of the demonstration, on what was fittingly coined, ‘a dark day’.

The Organisers

In Kenya, civil society loosely translates to; self-proclaimed custodians of morality, whose intent is underpinned by their fatalistic cynicism towards government, as opposed to their mandate to manifest the interest and the will of the citizens. This is evinced in their reticence when democracy is systematically ridiculed by bickering factions occasioned by ‘men in black’ within the opposition. They inadvertently perpetuate the somewhat out-dated narrative of the West, that ‘Africa needs more democracy’ whilst receiving donor funds to blind and deflect their attention from the real ailments suffered by citizens as a result of unfair international policies by the West.

The Opposition (if you can call it that), is merely a crutch to see its leader Raila achieve his lifelong dream of getting to statehouse. They have failed to provide an alternative budget for two consecutive years. Their approach is mono-pronged and consists of the relentless denigration of the current government in an attempt to hinder progress and then point fingers. They offer no viable alternative in their unremitting criticism and will jump at every chance to condemn and use any apparatus that affords them the opportunity to do so.

There’s no doubt that the grabbing of the children’s playground struck a moral chord with every virtuous individual in the country, including the coordinators of the demonstration. The public chorus of disapproval was tacit. And even I was amongst the support for the planned demonstration to speak truth to power. As I realised the students would be involved, I was excited, excited to see such young people protest for what was rightfully theirs. The right for children to picket, according to me is more sacred than that of adults, as kids, without the ballot box, simply do not have a voice.

The thrill was hastily allayed as images of children engulfed in foggy low laying clouds, screaming and visibly bewildered by the events unfolding before them, started to air on the news. Social media platforms reaffirmed what was undoubtedly an aspect of disbelief to the public at large, that indeed the police had used teargas against children. The shock was, to a certain extent mollified by the relief that there had been no fatalities and with that, the blame game discourse began to surface.

The maleficent duplicity of the organisers was not immediately palpable. Not until one read the messages on the placards the children were carrying. These were not the sentiments of any 6 year old, 12 year old, or any child for that matter. Engaging Freudian techniques of feeding into the inner desires and whims of the children, (which in this case, did not extend beyond the need for a playground), the opposition cultivated a medium to push their agenda.  The children’s sentiments were repackaged to echo those of the opposition, essentialising the children as an instrument to further propagate the incessant criticism of the Jubilee Government. The organisers, having little or no regard for the potent violence that could erupt, insouciantly placed children in harm’s way in a bid to tug at the heartstrings children inevitably strum.

The children were merely unwitting pawns in the assiduous tactics of the opposition to sully the government. Pawns that the organisers knew would receive unbiased support from the public.  Pawns through which, seemingly law abiding citizens, could vicariously break the law and display dissent through disruption and destruction. Through carefully crafted messaging on placards, the children were not just asking for their playground, they were accusing the government of protecting land grabbers, amplifying synonyms of revolution and in some cases, bringing to question the democratic choices of their parents. The latter, illustrating the ingenuous nature of the children’s demands and in turn their roles as pawns. Any enthusiasm (from the children) for these petitions on the placards would have been uninformed and manufactured in the midst of the unfamiliar hysteria.

Fundamentally, these were simply not the voices of the children! They had not been consulted beforehand, there had been no efforts to erudite the students on the spirit of the demonstration and were consequently non cognizant of the fact that they were being used to propagate a prefabricated narrative. The organisers had roped in ‘play-grounders‘  into their political shenanigans.  Activism was abusing its power, abusing the resolute trust of the children. Exploiting an already exploited and vulnerable group without their informed consent.

Regrettably, the reasonably foreseeable violence that is axiomatic in poorly planned demonstrations, actualised.  A stampede ensued and the police at hand, released teargas canisters.  Literally gassing the motif of the organisers and bringing to tears the innocent children. In the backdrop of the public outcry, the political vehicle that was the children, morphed into a runaway train whose momentum the opposition leaders harnessed and capitalised on to sling mud at the Jubilee government from as far away as India.

Parallels were drawn with the egregious Soweto massacre. Visuals were juxtaposed to entrench in our minds the similarities of a violent apartheid regime with that of our democratically elected government. The opposition were having a field day whilst, in essence, modulating the systematic racial abuse of generations in South Africa. Given the overarching goals of the organisers, a more apposite parallel would be that of the binding of Isaac at the altar, only Abraham had no political mileage to fuel, and the divine wisdom of God intervened and stayed the hand of Abraham from child sacrifice.

The modus operandi of both civil society and the opposition is currently limited to defamation, disparagement and deprecation of a legitimate government.  An approach, which not only produces an unbearable ennui (even for those in the middle ground like me), but invariably perpetuates a debilitating negativity countrywide. With a political strategy restricted to a framework of smear, slander and slur, a picture of desperation begins to emerge, a desperation that understood that children would make for a captivating audience in their quest for political mileage. It is said, a society is ultimately judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. Children fall squarely into this group given their dependence on adults and society as a whole for a hierarchy of needs ranging from the basics for survival, through to the complexities of moral guidance. This is often illustrated by the resolute trust that children habitually place on adults. It is this very trust that the organisers of the demonstrations channeled to play their ‘gotcha’ politics.

It’ll be interesting to observe the endurance of the apocryphal ‘best interest of child’ sentiments of the organisers. Will they, for instance lobby for, and help finance the much needed psychological counselling for the traumatised children? Or will they be otherwise occupied with yet another barrage of condemnation for government?