Mazrui Backs Call for Mass Protests

The Nation
September 19, 2000
Edmund Kwena And Damson Onger
Nairobi

Kenyans were yesterday urged to resist poor governance through civil
disobedience. Civil disobedience is necessary if vices such as corruption and
poor infrastructure are to be eradicated, Prof Ali Mazrui, an eminent Kenyan
scholar long resident in the United States, said.

"Civil disobedience is a necessary evil to make the government into taking
seriously problems that afflict the people," he said.

The call was echoed by outspoken Ugenya MP James Orengo. He said Kenyans
faced an indefinite economic crisis and there was no hope unless President
Moi was dislodged from power.

"My cry is that Kenyans rise against the government and express their outrage
that this is not what they deserve," Prof Mazrui said.

The don, a director of the Global Cultural Studies at the State University of
New York, told a press conference at a Mombasa hotel that it was necessary
for Kenyans to rise and go to the streets even if at the expense of losing a
life or suffering broken limbs.

"I have visited Nigeria, Libya, Zimbabwe and now Kenya since August and I
have noticed that whereas the other countries have taken positive goals to
improve the status of their people, Kenya is going in the opposite
direction," he said.

He added: "Kenya is the only country I have visited recently that things are
going from bad to worse. The country lacks political direction and national
purpose."

Prof Mazrui said Kenya was faced with seven national crises which called for
mass protests.

He named them as management by crisis, corruption and erosion of law
enforcement, power and water shortage, decline in production, the stalled
constitutional review, poor planning and a mediocre education.

On the constitutional review, Prof Mazrui said whereas Parliament was legally
supposed to review it, Kenyans had lost faith in MPs because they had shown a
tendency to be bought by the Executive.

"Actually, I am torn between the faiths-led approach and Parliament's," he
said.

He disagreed with the call for a boycott of the next General Election.

"The opposition have every right to field one candidate to remove Kanu from
Power, but the problem is that there are too many presidential aspirants and
they should not boycott the election because this will be stifling
democracy," he said.

He said opposition unity had led to the removal from power of benevolent
dictators such as Kenneth Kaunda and Kamuzu Banda.

He said that in view of the failure by the opposition to come up with a
working method to remove Kanu from power, they should not try to boycott the
poll.

Prof Mazrui said that whereas Kenyans had boasted of having a robust economy,
the country was now performing the shadow of its neighbours like Uganda and
Tanzania "which had caught with us and even surpassed us in many aspects."

He said the classical example of management by crisis was when in mid 80s
Kenya's population was recorded as being the highest in the world and yet the
government never took any steps to put into place mechanism to cope with it.

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