Pressure.

There is a disturbingly large number of Kenyans with a surprising degree of sociopathic tendencies, and who seek opportunities daily to express themselves in violent ways. A large proportion of these sociopaths work in the "transport industry" and when they are not busy killing us, deflowering our daughters or trafficking in substances of dubious provenance, they engage in Saudi Arabian levels of moral policing that would make the House of al Saud's mutawa'ah proud. That these sociopaths are both male and female should go without being mentioned, I hope.

There is a psycho-social pressure building up in Kenya. Our psyches are being enflamed by social and economic pressures over which, it seems, we are powerless to intervene. The poverty trap is increasingly real for larger numbers of working Kenyans. We are likely, today, to be felled by a bandit's bullet as we to be felled by a policeman's. We cannot even trust that life-saving vaccines are safe when the State and the Church have violently divergent opinions on the matter. We watch in horror as godmen rob us of our money and our dignity. There is this insidious encroachment of the public commons - pavements, parks, pubs, markets, schools - by armed men and the spies who report to them in the name of national security. We are told to spy on each other in the guise of community policing. And we wonder why sociopaths are taking it to the next logical level: enforcing the law in the manner they believe is best for society.

Take Nairobi as an example. On one side of Moi Avenue is a haven of relative civic peace, where the hoi polloi are encouraged not to visit. If they do visit, they are encouraged to conclude their business as quickly as possible and hightail it out of the area. It is done in subtle ways, this exclusion. There are no benches for them to rest weary feet. Even fast food joints are frequently out of their wallets' comfort zones. They are not encouraged to walk either; barriers are thrown up in their way to make the walking experience as unpleasant as possible. And they are monitored with great suspicion by armies of police and private security wherever they go. The pervasive sense of hostility is deliberate. The message is clear.

On the other side of Moi Avenue, on the other hand, the hoi polloi don't see themselves as such; they see themselves as hustlers in the same league as the most famous hustler of them all. They do not put on airs. They are in a hurry to get to the other side of Moi Avenue. But among them are the ones for whom the pressure of the hustle proves too much. They have been priced out of the housing market. Many of them can't square expenses with even two meals a day. They are left to police themselves; all the police are on the other side of Moi Avenue keeping the hustlers out. It is inevitable that these pressures will find violent expression in assaults of all kinds. That poor woman who was stripped naked by Embasava SACCO thugs is not alone.

The irony of a largely peaceful general election leaving a persistently violent aftermath is not lost on me. Since #TeamJubilee was sworn in, Kenyans have been at the receiving end of an unrelenting wave of violent attacks, some spectacular and others not. It is one of the most violent political epochs in a very long time. The last time this many Kenyan lived in stark fear was when extra-legal means were employed to control the Mungiki, including executions and murders for hire. You cannot trust the police; wasn't one of the explanations for Kapedo that the ambushing party that murdered twenty-three police thought they were ambushing Kenya Police Reserves belonging to the "other side"? You cannot trust the army; after Kapedo, we sent in the army to disarm but now the army is being accused of unfairly disarming one side and leaving the other side defenceless. You cannot trust the godmen either; Prophet Dr Kanyari is not an anomaly. You cannot trust anyone. This poisonous atmosphere will continue to manifest itself in violent outbursts: murders of police and stripping naked of "loose" women.