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. llllllllll ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------