{UAH} WBK/Pojim: Kenyans retreating ‘home’ from Kenya, what a shame - Comment

By L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Posted  Saturday, November 29  2014 at  13:21

Where, really, are we heading? Yet another attack, attributed to Al Shabaab, in northern Kenya. Commuters heading "down-country," to "Kenya," pulled off a bus.

Separated according to their ability to profess the Shahada. Those who couldn't killed. Including civil servants posted "upcountry" coming "home" for the holidays.

The aftermath: An implausible story about the army's supposed search and destroy mission. Tales of 100 or so attackers killed, accompanied by supporting photographs dated two years ago. While the president sought views on combating terrorism from two Gulf states not known for anything approaching an open democracy.

Interspersed with time at the races.

Meanwhile, an exodus of civil servants has begun, encouraged by their unions, outraged at their lack of protection. People are camped at the airstrip, waiting for evacuation; others are leaving by road.

Mandera Governor Ali Roba has called — in vain — for health workers, teachers, to stay. What, he asked, will come of the hopes of devolution, of increased social investments in his utterly underdeveloped county?

We thought 2007-8 was the defining moment of our retreat to our so-called ethnic enclaves, our "homelands." But the defining moment was the general election of 2013. Meant to herald in the new order promised by our Constitution.

But only ushering in an even more definitive retreat from the idea of a cosmopolitan, secular state. The size of the "badlands" is ever increasing. Eastleigh in Nairobi was forcibly emptied.

Parts of the Coast are now no-go areas. All of the north, from west to east, is steadily depleting. Not just of those from down-country who no longer feel secure serving there.

But also of those resident there, tired of the commercialised stock theft framed as inter-communal tits-for-tats. And scared of the military operations in response.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the more moneyed classes have adjusted too. Those ever-more ubiquitous shopping malls are less busy than before. In-and-out is the operative mode. Get what you need quick and leave.

At night, the bars and restaurants more populated are those that are standalone. The city centre had already deflated years ago. Now all the shopping malls outside of the city centre seem deflated too. Another retreat. Not to the homelands but quite literally to the home.

Kenya's response to Al Shabaab is directed at its external manifestations. Kick it back into Somalia and set up a so-called buffer zone. Destroy what is deemed as being its recruiting base here.

Ignore the ways in which setting up that buffer zone complicated the debate on regionalism within Somalia and tilted the balance of power against the nominal government of Somalia.

Ignore the ways in which our own security services undermined the aim of destroying its financial base by turning a blind eye to the continued charcoal exports from Kismayu port. Just stay focused on external manifestations, a projection of force that not a single rational Kenyan truly believes in.

Kenyans retreating 'home' from Kenya, what a shame - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Kenyans-retreating--home--from-Kenya--what-a-shame-/-/434750/2539360/-/sunt4gz/-/index.html

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