For a "religion of peace", founded on God's love for mankind that led him to allow an act of great cruelty, Christianity is ill-served by hateful men and women. "39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also", so it is written in the Gospel according to Matthew. And yet, even the Archbishop of Nairobi, the Prelate of the Anglican Church and the Secretary General of the National Council of Churches of Kenya have called on the State to curtail our freedoms in the "fight against terrorism."
OK. They didn't really call for the deletion of Chapter Four of the Constitution, but their ever shriller demands, echoed by pastors, reverends, bishops, apostles and prophets alike, for ever "tougher" laws and "tougher" law-enforcement is jarring. It is astounding that the men of the cloth cheered the war-fighting in Somalia. I don't know why but the idea of a militaristic church in Kenya bods ill for the future.
It was inevitable that David Kimaiyo and Joseph ole Lenku would follow in the footsteps of Michael Gichangi. Their being in the securocracy was increasingly untenable to the President, their colleagues in the securocracy and to the people. It is, however, notable that so long as the President seemed to repose faith in them, so too did the upper echelons of the church in Kenya, never mind what members of their congregations thought. It is now complete, the coup launched by the political class against the church. The church has become a valuable cog in the political affairs of the nation, especially the political affairs of the Jubilee government.
The creeping militarisation of public safety has proceeded without a watchful caution from the church leadership. What seemed like a faint spark across the Atlantic in the United States after 9/11, has spread like the Ebola virus to Kenya. Militaristic American preachers advocating war against "enemies of Christianity" have become the mentors of hateful preachers in Kenya, who have in turn inspired hateful Muslim preachers alleging a "war against Islam." The cycle is vicious.
Kenya is now in the grip of competing hateful speeches every week, from one side or the other, with the State busily enacting an insidious plan to militarise policing and public safety, enhance the militarisation of State security, limit the application of Chapter Four of the Constitution, and borrow money with the reckless abandon of a seventeenth century pirate on shore leave in the Bahamas. John Githongo, Boniface Mwangi and their civil society industry colleagues are distrusted by both their churches and the State; theirs' will be voices in the desert. They will almost likely be ignored by the same people who will face the full brunt of these changes.
Kenya will not become a totalitarian country the same way Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Uganda, Ethiopia or Libya did. It will do so by the insidious hollowing out of the institutions of State that we have attempted to build since 2010. Parliament has proven pliant; the national Executive has seen to it that tune to dance to is its very own. Willy Mutunga has proven that he is no pushover. The plan, therefore, might to wait him out and replace him with a more malleable man. (Make no mistake; the next Chief Justice of Kenya will be a man.) It will be too late when detentions without trial become pronounced, shoot-to-kill policies apply even for petty offences, and show trials are the order of the day. Don't say you weren't warned.
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