“…for no good reason.”
(Notes on the Next War) Ernest Hemingway
War in upon itself, like killing, or any other form of creation or destruction or action for that matter is neither good nor evil.
Good or evil is determined by context and moral basis.
We are now in the second decade of the undeclared unacknowledged Third World War. A war with no clear aggressors, no clear definitions or descriptors/descriptions, no law (George Bush 42, President of its primary antagonist America abrogated the Geneva Conventions), no clear protagonists or antagonists, vague groups with ever-changing causes and theatres of operation, states with ever-suspect motives but permanent imperial interests.
This Orwellian dystopia has necessarily given rise to characteristic institutional and individual behaviour.
From the global surveillance panopticon nativized in Safaricom Kenya’s Telecom Giant, the Kafkaesque legal system and it’s bizarre show trials, to the global gulag archipelago of secret Guantanamo bay prisons which exist outside of the law, and therefore outside of civilization, the actual reality of living through this darkness cannot be synaesthetically captured in writing,
The assaults exist at macro and micro-scale, they are physical and incorporeal but most importantly given they are systemic, they are inescapable.
The value system has become inverted, privacy is a privilege, systemic and individual intrusion is now legislated right. And mandatory intrusion spoken to here is both corporeal and incorporeal. Security guards have the right to demand cell phone laptop passwords, perform penetrative cavity searches at airports, peep in purses, grope gonads, pinch tits, and caress trunks and hips, all without probable cause. Horrifying videos of grandpa security guards groping teens in presumed physical security searches litter the internet. The comments communicate a public that is legitimately horrified but is helpless to do anything under the weight of the “It’s for your own good” argument of the Police State.
We are oppressed in so many ways and on so many levels, our being is assaulted and attacked externally and internally from so many directions, we have to stop feeling for our minds to function, we have to stop thinking for our bodies to function.
We have been turned in to zombies. Unfeeling, unthinking.
Do not say, it is for no good reason.
Every single day as a student or employee you are assaulted by guards in the name of security searches every time you change lecture rooms, as an employee every building you enter.
We woke up on the morning of September 12 2001, and the entire world was at war.
We were told who our enemies were. We were told who our friends were. We were told which songs we needed sing to be classified as friends, and who we were to curse in order not to be classified as enemies. We were told who to dance with and who not to play with.
In true Orwellian fashion, we were given our 2 minutes of hate and a series of convenient hate figures.
In time we have come to intuitively understand, what questions not to ask. We are self-censoring now.
Our public discourse has been reduced to nonsensical inanities. Our mind having been battered to a pulp, jest became the only intellection we are capable of, clowns and jesters have become our prophets. We tune in weekly to their shows, now ironically formalized as an industry, “the laugh industry”, for them to interpret for us our reality.
This was us as individuals, and us as nations.
But as time has passed, this war has started to sound more and more like a certain old war. Eerily familiar.
Are all wars the same? Or is it that this is same war?
The language sure sounds the same, the voices are without a doubt the same
According to The New York Times, in the mid 20th century, September 18, 1952, p. 28, then it was “The Mau Mau Rebellion,” of irrational hordes snuffing out the “Christian light” that imperialism made possible. It stated:
We live in a tortured period of history when strange and primitive forces are coming into their own again. Our civilization often seems but a veneer covering dark abysses. Now and then the surface is pierced and we see frightening things . . . If we who comfortably read this newspaper over breakfast table here were living in East Africa these thoughts could have a terrifying meaning. Little items have been appearing in recent weeks, coming from Nairobi, the capital of the British Crown Colony of Kenya. One day it is about Christian missionaries fleeing for their lives. Another is about men being struck down on lonely farms or roads in the night… It is the Mau Mau which is causing all this trouble and anxiety — not very serious trouble, but there are alarming signs of a concerted and organized effort at terrorism, which is linked to political, social and racial aspirations. The Mau Mau is a secret society formed from the Kikuyu tribe whose millions or so members live in the fertile highlands around Nairobi . . . It is inevitable in our time that the white missionary should be tied to a hated imperialism. In turning on the missionary the rebellion soul rejects the Christianity which the missionary brought. In Africa this does not seem to mean falling back on atheism or agnosticism; it means a return to paganism — to the “leopard man,” to ritual murders, to primitive magic and terror. That is how the Mau Mau works.
And the same New York Times later on March 29, 1953.
A gang of Mau Mau terrorists killed at least twelve pro-British native Home Guards in a night attack on an African village near Nyeri, it was announced today. The killings followed the massacre of at least 120 loyal natives near Nairobi Thursday.
Early reports from Nyeri, sixty miles south of Nairobi, said the gang of about 100 terrorists was armed with pistols and rifles. The attack was made in the Chinga location, in the south Nyeri reserve.
Troop reinforcements are to be flown from Britain to aid the anti-Mau Mau campaign. There has been no announcement of the total number of troops, who will begin to arrive Tuesday.
A thousand Kikuyu tribesmen have been taken into custody for screening since the Thursday massacre at Lari. Police and security forces have between 200 and 300 of them identified as having taken part. Six known terrorists have been killed.
When Oliver Lyttleton visited Kenya in May 1953, he commented he had never before ‘felt the forces of evil to be so near and so strong as in the Mau Mau.[1]
Today, the same New York Times but now the early 21st century July 20, 2008 “terrorists” abducting Aid workers, undermining the forces of “Democratic light” Imperialism makes possible.
Since January, at least 20 aid workers have been killed, more than in any year in recent memory. Still others have been abducted.
The government admits that it desperately needs peacekeepers. But it denies that it is attacking aid workers to get them.
“It’s obvious who’s doing this,” said Abdi Awaleh Jama, a Somali ambassador at large. “It’s hard-liner Islamists who hate the West. They are forces of darkness, not forces of light.”[2]
Washington Post of October 16, 2017
Attacks against Somali troops and those assigned to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a force numbering about 22,000, have grown more spectacular as al-Shabab’s territory has shrunk, Jones concluded in a 2016 report on the counterterrorism campaign there.
In June 2016, for instance, 30 Ethiopian soldiers were killed — along with 150 al-Shabab militants — in an attempt to overrun a base some 200 miles north of Mogadishu.
The group has been dangerous to U.S. troops, too. Navy SEAL Kyle Milliken, a senior chief petty officer, was killed in May during a mission described as “behind” Somali troops but later revealed as a mission shoulder-to-shoulder with them.
And in AlMasdarNews
The Al-Shabab terrorist group announced via their official media wing that their fighters had killed U.S. and Somali soldiers at the Baledogle Military Airbase in the Shebelle province of southern Somalia on Friday morning.
The terrorist group claimed that their bombing had killed at least three U.S. Army soldiers and 5 members of the Somali Special Forces.
The people occupied and expropriated by imperial forces can never be soldiers, only terrorists. Those who dare resist the total annihilation of their tribes and way of life, are “forces of darkness” resisting the light of Civilizing Christianity in the age of British colonialism, Secular Democracy in the age of American imperialism. The natives are militants, the invaders are peacekeepers in this Orwellian doublespeak.
Same producer, same script, same cast. Different century, different title.
So too is the Kipande (Identity) system as a system of control for movement and labour, replete with its intrusive searches. Just as movement and employment was curtailed and controlled by use of Identity papers, our space to move without identity papers of one form or another is, our ability to get employment is completely dependent on our identity papers.
But with the Kipande system, while the Producer and script in the play of individual control is the same, the Director is indeed different, he is native.
The panopticon. Gone are the garrisons, they have been replaced with a more pervasive more intrusive digital panopticon. But in the killing of vocal businessman Jacob Juma, the truth that the digital panopticon like the physical garrison panopticon is wielded to protect the natives whom imperialism chooses to privilege, while enabling the hunt of those it does not grant favour remains the same. Again, same producer, same script, but while the Director is different in melanin content, the casting of the good guys role and bad guys role remains the same.
But in this bizarre “truth is stranger than fiction” Orwellian theatre, we the audience are not only underwriters of this sadistic play, we have also been involuntarily cast in it, in the role of eternal sacrificial lamb.
And so goes the judicial trials of the “terrorists” who resist imperialism. Franz Kafka captures the psychological torture by “convoluted process” they are subjected to best, in his classic — The Trial. From special laws to special courts, even as times have changed, everything has remained the same.
First they create laws that instantly criminalise any and all actions the victims of expropriation may take to correct the injustice against them.
The Societies Act of 1948 and its infamous Cap 108 declared not just Mau Mau but:
- Kikuyu Central Association (1938), also known as the Kikuyu Central Association.
- The Ukamba Members’ Association.
- The Teita Hills Association.
- The society commonly known as Dini Ya Jesu Kristo.
- The society or societies commonly known as the Kipsigis Central Association, Dini ya
- Mbojo or Dinit ap Mboyet.
- The society known as the Bataka Party of Uganda, or the Bataka Party.
- The society commonly known as the Uganda African Farmers’ Union.
- The society commonly known as Mau Mau.
- The society commonly known as the Kikuyu Karing’a Education Association.
- The society commonly known as the Kikuyu Independent Schools’ Association.
- The society commonly known as the Kenya African Union.
- Dini ya Mariam.
- Dini ya Mumbo.
- The Gikuyu Land Association.
- The society known as the Kiama Kia Muingi or the Kiama Kia Hathara.
- The Kikuyu Central Association (1938), also known as the Kikuyu Central Association.
- The Ukamba Members’ Association.
- The Teita Hills Association.
- The society commonly known as Dini Ya Jesu Kristo.
- The society or societies commonly known as the Kipsigis Central Association, Dini ya
- Mbojo or Dinit ap Mboyet.
- The society known as the Bataka Party of Uganda, or the Bataka Party.
- The society commonly known as the Uganda African Farmers’ Union.
- The society commonly known as Mau Mau.
- The society commonly known as the Kikuyu Karing’a Education Association.
- The society commonly known as the Kikuyu Independent Schools’ Association.
- The society commonly known as the Kenya African Union.
- Dini ya Mariam.
- Dini ya Mumbo.
- Yomut.
- The Gikuyu Land Association.
- The society known as the Kiama Kia Muingi or the Kiama Kia Hathara.
- The societies commonly known by the following names:
- Kenya Land Freedom Army.
- Kenya Land Freedom Party.
- Kenya Parliament.
- Rift Valley Government.
- Rift Valley Province Parliament.
- Thirikari.
- Kiama Kia Itu.
- Mbutu Cia Ita.
- Njamba Cia Ita.
- Kiama Kia Mbara.
- Kiama Kia Hunyu.
- Mutangiri.
- Kiama Kia Ndundu.
- Land Freedom Army.
- Dini Ya Musambwa, otherwise known as Dini Ya Msambwa.
- The Kenya War Council.
- The Ex-Freedom Fighters Union.
- The Sabina Church.
- The Kenya Master Aid Society.
- The Mwangi and Maina Social Club (Kenya).
- The Walioleta Uhuru Union.
- The Mahoya Ma Jehova Church.
- Kenya Peoples Union and all its branches and sub-branches…
…all to be Societies Dangerous to the Good Government of the Republic of Kenya (sic).
In other words, any independently organised extra-imperial group or other form of organized social effort by the natives, for any purpose at all, was simply — illegal.
In our 21st century version of the play, Kenya’s Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA) 2012 rev 2015 Article 12D reveals the true spirit of this modern Societies Act Cap 108:
12D. Radicalisation.
A person who adopts or promotes an extreme belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty years.
This poorly concocted mishmash of fallacious and baffling concepts like “ideologically-based-violence” coupled with conflation of broad, undefined and generally legally-undefinable terms like “extreme”, “belief”, “system” reveal the true intention of the writers. Their purpose was clearly neither good prose nor coherent legislation.
And they cannot be faulted, as how does one write a law that on the one hand is not visibly seen to negate Freedom of Speech, while at the same time successfully making it illegal to speak out or organize against a status quo which is oppressive and expropriatory, all the while without revealing your cloven hoof?
The Student Lawyer website on the 7th October 2013 interestingly notices that the Act does not define what terrorism is.[3]
This lack of precision, though partly a necessary outcome of the false and hypocritical basis of upon which the entire edifice is built, is also a positive fallout for the imperialist system as it makes it possible to bar entire swathes of space in the theatre of political discourse.
This was witnessed in the case of the Pangani 6, when the Government of Kenya used the very same terror incarceration laws to hold troublesome Members of Parliament in police cells indefinitely. As expected with native politicians, when released they never saw the error of their ways in passing the heinous law, and made no attempt to correct it.
The net effect of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) 2012 legislation, like the Societies Act Cap 108 is not only to stifle descent, but to make any attempt to organise against the oppression and oppressor illegal. Very simply, suffocate political activism and discourse.
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence”, the words of Mahatma Gandhi in his books Non-Violence in Peace and War.
Laws being the program code for the social organism — society, it followed, from this genetic instruction set rose vicious malevolent institutions. In the political space, the notorious colonialist Special Branch in the year 1950 with its mongrels the Homeguards, and it’s proportionately violent modern successor of the year 2003, the Anti-Terror Police Unit and its jackals the Rapid Response Team.
In the judicial space, in 1953 the colonial administration created Special Emergency Assize Courts with special acting judges with full powers of a Supreme Court Judge. There were to be no preliminary hearings for Mau Mau suspects, their cases would come straight to this Special Assizes.[4]
The modern embodiment is far more insidious, as it is covert.
The former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga during his reign stated during a press conference that he initiated a meeting between the Judiciary and Security Organs on May 29th 2014, that was attended by the entire leadership of the National Security Organs, Cabinet Secretaries for Interior and Defence, Inspector General of the Kenya Police, Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, Director General of the National Intelligence Service and representatives from the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Then Chief Justice Willy Mutunga revealed, “This meeting is a culmination of several conversations between myself and various security agencies that have been going on for two years. These meetings are based on the understanding that when it comes to issues of security and welfare of citizens, the three arms must coordinate and collaborate closely.”
He went on to address and clothe what he as a jurist realised to be obvious contradiction of key tenets of “Separation of Powers” saying “Although the various organs of State are independent, the Constitution also requires them to be interdependent”.
Setting the stage for suspension of the Constitution by concluding ominously, “Terrorism is a war by unconventional means… we must be imaginative in fighting this war”.
For “Terrorism” suspects, “creativity” and ”imagination” was to be applied in adjudication.
Consistent with the basis of injustice the unjust laws set, just as arrests would be unjust, prosecution and adjudication would stay true to this theme.
The most famous case during British colonialism was of one, Gatenjua Kinyanjui, who was charged with the murder of a male child. His alibi was that he had been under arrest and in Police custody in the period before, during and after the crime had taken place. He was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to hang. He was later released on appeal, after the appellate Bench found the evidence to possibly have been concocted.
Turning the imperial reel to the 21st century, the never-ending reports of cases against suspects of “Terrorism” collapsing led rookie crusader Deputy President William Ruto to criticize magistrates and judges for releasing terror suspects on bond and impeding the war-on-terror saying “we call on all players in the justice, law and order sector to stand with Kenyans” and presumably lynch terrorism suspects[5].
A close look at the so called “Terrorism” prosecutions, or even a quick conversation with the lawyers defending the suspects one will quickly conclude, it is nothing but public persecution by prosecution. Even the lawyers for “Terrorism” suspects are routinely harassed and intimidated by the Courts and Security services. Just as CMG Argwings-Khodhek, another one of the many uncelebrated heroes of the struggle against Western imperialism, was arrested at Uplands as he while attempting to visit his clients in 1953, on September 15, 2010, Lawyer Mbugua Mureithi and Human Rights Activist Al-Amin Kimathi were arrested upon their arrival at the Entebbe international airport by Ugandan Government agents as they also attempted to visit suspects of the Kampala terror bombing.[6]
It is the same old war, the war of Imperialism.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The only aspect that seems to change is the property being expropriated. In the 15th century to the 18th century, it was people. From the 18th century to the 20th century it was people’s history and their land. Now, in the 21st century, it seems Western imperialism, is set on expropriating the religion of a third of the people of the world, Islam, in addition to their minerals.
One strange new development though, is that the term Western imperialism may now be in need revision.
There is a new gang of imperial expropriators in town. An interloper from the East. One that does not suffer the Islamic proselytization fervour of the Ottoman Caliphate of yester-era, or the vile hypocrisy of insidious British Christendom of yester-century, or the divisive and antagonistic class-struggle of Russian Marxism, or the weight of the duplicitous mask of American Democratic values and Human Rights.
A gang with no morals, no qualms, no religion, no god, no ideology. Natives will taste the whip of capitalism unadulterated by the impurities of any human values, even the occasional invocation of Confucius. This is not the Ming Dynasty, this is Red China without the Red, China without the Hammer & Sickle, this is 21st century China, configured with post-Marxist State Capitalism, Atheist without Humanism, a China of the almighty Dollar.
There is reason for spiritual return to the old ways of divination for natives. The situation is critical, answers are needed urgently.
Why, would their gods, after plaguing them with four centuries of chattel slavery, followed by three centuries of territorial occupation and serfdom by oppressors professing Christianity and bearing the cross of St. George; half a century of economic extortion and deliberate promotion of social rot by a tyrant evangelizing human rights while flying a star-spangled banner soaked in humanity’s blood; why after centuries of such rape, pillage and plunder, of peoples and of nations, would their gods curse them with an imperial master who does not only fail to feign pretence to spirituality, but officially rejects the existence of God?
Of all masters to be cursed with, to be yoked to, a master without spirit, a liege without soul?
Their spirits should answer them, for such torturous existence, cannot be explained by knowledge from this domain.
To imperial subjects, Tommy Atkins and G. I Joe,
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway,
Notes on the Next War
[1] Lyttleton, Memoirs, 380.
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/world/africa/20somalia.html
[3] http://thestudentlawyer.com/2013/10/07/fifth-in-the-humanitarian-series-nairobi-attacks/
[4] David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 152.
[5] 26th May 2014 Cyrus Ombati, The Standard Newspaper.
[6] https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/uganda/Arrest-and-arbitrary-detention-of,8514
