This is our time

Kenya's Second Liberation has been seen as an overtly political event, ignoring the changes, some of which were against received orthodoxy, that have taken place since at least the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, especially the changes wrought on an unprepared nation by the mandarins of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

The Government of Kenya has been complicit in keeping Kenyans' eyes on the political arena and away from the economic and sociocultural liberalisation that accompanied the political changes that have taken place. With the ratification and Promulgation of a Constitution after a Referendum in 2010, the political project is on course to further liberalise the politics of Kenya as never before. However, it is in the economic and to some extent the sociocultural spheres that the lives of ordinary Kenyans have been greatly affected and our failure to examine and re-examine these changes has contributed significantly to the uncertainty and turmoil hat we are facing today.

September 2011 will certainly go down as one of the bloodiest in Kenya's history, the bloodshed not being the result of civil strife or political turmoil. The month has exposed the failures of the liberalisation that has taken place in Kenya since the 1990s. While the markets and the economy were opened up to competition from within and without, the political structures needed to ensure their successes have been wanting. The Kenyan State still remains fundamentally unreformed, with the changes that have taken place over the past fifteen years being concerned with ensuring its efficiency and not its efficacy. 

The Government has consistently failed in its liberalisation - failing to ensure peace and order, the rule of law, eradication of corruption or stable fiscal and monetary policies. As a result, the sociocultural and economic turmoil has not kept pace with the optimism engendered by the freedom agenda of the Second Liberation. Indeed, it could be argued that freedom came to Kenya too early and we are now paying the price for not keeping our eyes on the ship of state as it navigated the non-political waters of the economy or the sociocultural ocean.

With the explosion of the internet and mobile telephony, many urbanised Kenyans have access to information and ideas at a rate that is unprecedented, but with the unremitting hand of the state on their backs, it has been impossible for Kenyans to wean themselves from the "tunaomba serikali" mindset that characterises their day-to-day lives. As a result, what we would think of as a liberal economy is in truth an economy that is overly reliant on the government to do or not do certain things. This, to a large extent, explains why it is impossible for the people to pay for their basic needs or to afford the luxuries of life. 

Where trade with the government is prioritised over trade with other citizens or foreigners, there is no chance that the economy will be able to survive manipulation by a well-connected and informed elite. Rent-seeking is the natural result of the government being the predominant player in the market-place, and only those with strong ties to the ruling elite will have access to the best information or the opportunity to exploit this information for profit.

The Second Liberation is far from over and it behooves Kenyans of all stripes to participate in the transition from an oligarchic system to a truly liberal one. The advent of devolved government offers many an opportunity in making decisions that will have far greater impact on their economic lives than at any other time in Kenya's history. If we allow the devolution model to be hijacked by a political class that is still wedded to the halcyon days of the KANU Era, poverty, ignorance and disease will continue to stalk large swathes of this benighted country.