In Kiswahili Maandamano It means protest, but it is also the name used to refer to the mass mobilization that has been blocking Kenya every Tuesday for weeks.
Over the past month and a half, the most important country in Central and Eastern Africa has been shaken by large-scale protests that have degenerated into violent clashes with the police, causing at least 40 deaths and 360 injuries.
It all started with the approval of the new budget law, voted on second reading by Parliament on June 20. In 2023, interest payments on Kenya’s internal debt reached $5 billion and the Government, to comply with the stringent directives of the International Monetary Fund, significantly increased taxes: 2.5% on fuel, 16% on bread, 25% on vegetable oil. The executive also announced that transaction costs would increase on M-Pesa, the mobile banking system that Kenya pioneered and that is widely used even in slums.
From the slums to the center
“The situation continues to be hot, very hot,” says Abraham, a pastor in the Ngomongo community and local representative of Una Mano Per Un Sorriso, one of the few organizations operating in the huge slums on the outskirts of Nairobi. It is from these shantytowns that the protests start in the morning, before heading towards the financial district in the center.
Actually, they start on social media: TikTok, Instagram and X, where the hashtags #RejectFinanceBill2024 and #OccupyParliament were launched. Protesters also use social media to raise funds for medical or funeral expenses, and chatbots for ChatGPT that can be consulted by anyone to monitor the transparency of political leaders.
The great novelty of this mobilization is linked to those who are animating it: it was not launched by the opposition as in the past, but by ordinary citizens. Many of them are categorized in Generation Z (those born from 1997 onwards) while others as Millennials (born after 1981). Those who will inhabit this country and this planet in the coming decades smell the acrid odor of an increasingly burning economic and environmental situation.
It is the youth of the suburbs and slums, where social media and the results of the European football championship reach but running water does not, who see the cost of milk increase from 45 to 70 shillings and bread from 50 to 75. “They don’t want my son to eat chapati or mandasi,” says Gladys, 26, already angry about the rising cost of diapers, in a country with a birth rate of more than three children per woman.
But they are also educated young people, who are finishing high school and aspiring to go to university. Until last year, the state financed 22,000 of the 55,000 shillings of the university or high school fees, and the NHIF, a health care for those who could not afford it. The government has removed both, causing school dropouts and exasperation. “The deputies who voted for the budget law will not be affected: they have the money to eat, to get medical care, to pay for their children’s schooling. We, on the other hand, are poor,” say David and Bryan, 18 and 17.
Step back
Part of the population, exasperated by the effects of the pandemic, the high cost of living and the consequences of the floods that in May caused 250 deaths and 150,000 displaced people, clashed with the police, who showed all their brutality using bullets, water cannons, tear gas without filters. One of these hit Auma Obama, half-sister of the former president of the United States. A man who was with her held up a sign that read “Colonialism never ended in Kenya”.
The demonstrations began on Tuesday, June 18, but escalated the following week, when the most adult and violent part of the protesters managed to reach Parliament and set fire to part of the building. On the evening of the following Tuesday, when police fired on the crowd and at least 9 protesters were killed, President William Ruto addressed the nation, promising a “full and effective response” so that “people who threaten national security” would not be allowed to create panic again, “at any cost.”
The next day, the Nairobi High Court accepted an urgent appeal filed by the Law Society of Kenya, ordering the government to halt the deployment of the army (KDF) announced by Ruto.
The president then returned to speak on unified networks with very different tones: if immediately after the protest he had accused the demonstrators of betrayal, in the new speech he gave in to their demands. “After listening carefully to the people of Kenya, who have said loud and clear that they want nothing to do with this budget law, I bow my head and will not sign it, so it will be withdrawn,” said Ruto, who promised to open up to dialogue with the youth.
The weight of the under 35s
The two challengers in the 2022 presidential elections were Raila Odinga (who had collected 49.5% of the votes) and William Ruto (50.5%).
The first, who has a strong electoral base in the west of the country and who was a protagonist of the protests last summer, does not seem to aspire to have any role either in this new mobilization or in the next elections; he prefers to remain on the sidelines to obtain the support of the executive for a prominent position at the African Union.
The second, on the other hand, is already looking ahead to the 2027 elections, and knows full well that he has no hope of being re-elected without the support of at least part of the younger electorate.
In the 2022 presidential election, 18-35 year-olds accounted for 40 percent of eligible voters, with nearly 9 million registered voters, including 2 million Gen Zers. In three years, there will be 14 million eligible Gen Zers alone, and if young people could identify and support a candidate who represents them, they could essentially elect them themselves.
“I will not vote for Ruto,” says Sharon, who points out the doubled price of sanitary towels.
David still supports Odinga, the opposition leader, while Bryan says he will not vote. He has lost faith that institutional politics can change things: “Ruto – he observes – promised our parents that if they voted for him he would reduce the cost of living, but he is doing the opposite. Odinga is quiet, he only wants a seat at the African Union”.
In fact, Kenya is in pole position to express the president of the African Union in 2025, which would confirm its path of political and economic ascent, despite the debt to Western countries that surrounds it.
“For every 100 shillings we receive in taxes, we pay 61 shillings in interest on the debt,” Ruto recalled in his speech, somewhat apologetically.
Kenya is a country with great economic potential. It is prosperous at its outlets to Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean, but inland it suffers the worst consequences of the climate crisis, despite being little responsible for it: 85% of its electricity is produced from renewable sources. It is besieged by drought in the north, especially towards Somalia and South Sudan, where Dadaab and Kakuma, two of the largest refugee camps in the world, are located.
Swahili, spoken mainly in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, aspires to become a pan-African language.
In addition, Nairobi is home to the United Nations Environment Programme, as well as their headquarters for the entire Global South. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was among the first to say he was “deeply concerned” by the violent clashes.
Tense climate
The widespread feeling of exasperation that brought tens of thousands of people to the streets also played a role in the terrible floods that devastated the country just over a month before the protests began.
The government has ordered the demolition of all houses that were within 50 meters of the river courses, generating further precariousness. The slums that have developed around the small tributaries of the Nairobi River are precisely those in which they represent the only source of running water.
The water exceeded the containment level of the dam from which the Mathare River begins, and the slum of the same name was hit by waves of over two meters.
The heart of Mathare has been taken away; hundreds of its houses now resemble those of Pompeii, only with more furrows. Walking through Korogocho, Kibera, Mathare or Githurai it is easy to see people carrying away bricks and tiles in good condition from their razed homes, or windows and furniture from those that will soon be razed.
“The demolitions, which came without warning, have taken out more homes than the flood itself, adding to the pain,” says Kasee of the Mathare Social Justice Center. The center is a group of active citizens who have engaged segments of the community most associated with criminal or drug dealing activities in waste removal, land remediation and the creation of green spaces in the slum. “The planting of bamboo is particularly important because it counteracts river pollution, soil erosion and the impact of a possible new flood.”
The seed of protest has sprouted, and its first fruits have been the withdrawal of the budget law, the dismissal of 22 ministers and the start of consultations to form a new government. But the street protests have not stopped, not even in the days of late July when the police formally banned them (a decision later suspended by the High Court of Nairobi) and continue every Tuesday.
The voice of Generation Z has become the voice of all the people, demanding that corruption be curbed, that the interference of the International Monetary Fund be stopped and that President Ruto resign. The youth of Kenya, who share the same concerns – of an entire generation of Africans and citizens of the world unemployment, precariousness, restriction of rights, environmental emergency – are sending an incontrovertible message to Kenyan and global institutions.
#Gen #change #Kenya
