The case of the Kenyan church leaders opposed to the adoption of the draft constitution still does not make sense. In fact, one gets dizzy trying to follow their arguments because the leaders keep the shifting goal posts with fallacies, outright distortions, political blackmail and spiritual ultimatums. It is as if the leaders have decided to wear Kenyans down into voting against the draft.
Their behavior is not different from that of the colonized intellectual in Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. During decolonization, the colonized intellectual forgets that the purpose of the struggle is the overthrow of colonialism and is instead paralyzed by a "curious obsession with the detail." He offers specialized academic knowledge and Western ideals camouflaged as universal principles. This tunnel vision makes him try to negotiate peace between the colonist and the colonized when the reality is that neither the settler nor the colonized are interested in such an arrangement.
Similarly, the church leaders against the constitution are raising red herrings that temporarily prevent us from dealing with reality, which is two things: (a) Kenyans have paid with their blood, sweat and tears since before independence for us to have a constitution in which the state is a creation of the people instead of the people being subjects of the state, and (b) Kenyans hated and killed each other in 2007 under the current constitution and need a different one before the next elections.
But instead of addressing these realities which the constitution will tackle as just one of the many tools needed to transform our country, the Christians against the constitution take us round and about and overload us with details.
Ever since it was pointed out that the constitution does not legalize abortion, the church leaders have shifted to saying that the problem is that the constitution stipulates that international conventions must be adopted without legislative debate, which means that if an international convention legalizes abortion, so will Kenya. But at least that argument is better than that of a Christian lawyer who said on radio that abortion could be interpreted as legal based on the position of a comma in the clause!
The church leaders have also toned down on Kadhi courts because really, there is not much more to say than what they have already said and moreover, they are offering no alternative. Sure, we could replace Kadhi courts with the phrase "religious courts" to allow the possibility of Christian courts (ha!) but what good will that do? There will never be a "Christian" court because the secular law is based on Judeo-Christian principles. That's why Christians marry in church and divorce in the government courts, unlike Muslims who marry and divorce according to Islamic law. And so "religious courts" in reality will still be Kadhi courts.
The clause on Kadhi courts was out of recognition of Muslims as human beings who follow Islam, not to entrench Islam. To reduce people to their religion, as if they do not think, breathe, go to work, go to school and raise families like everybody else, is as dehumanizing and racist as reducing black people to their skin color.
As the church leaders march on, they are confronted with another, more embarrassing reality. They are on the same side as landlords opposed to the draft, and some churches like the Catholic Church are huge landowners. So now the platform has shifted to equal rights. They are now claiming that the right to free speech protects Kenyans' right to support or oppose the draft, which is a back door way of accusing those who support the draft of suppressing the opposers' right to free speech. Imagine that - we have reduced a discussion of what we want Kenya to be to the question about whether one has the right to vote yes or no.
Under the same principle of equality, some Christians argue that Kadhi courts make Muslims superior to other Kenyans. But ironically, by threatening to shoot down the draft by virtue of numbers, the Church leaders are confirming exactly why Muslims needed protection from a marauding and illogical majority in the first place. The constitution is supposed to protect minorities, not to serve as a weapon of the majority. That argument is so similar to the American right-wing cries against affirmative action as discriminatory against whites when the reality is that blacks remain disproportionately disempowered. Besides, we could use the same argument to claim that women are being made superior to men, the youth to adults and the physically challenged to the unchallenged since these groups also receive special attention in the constitution.
The men of the cloth also suggest that they are also concerned about the use of taxpayers' money. They say that the government should not use tax payers' money to campaign for the constitution, forgetting that the government is under obligation to support the constitution as part of the conditions of the National Accord that brokered peace in Kenya when the church had absconded from public view.
And now there is an added spiritual detail. According to Bishop Oginde, God is asking Kenyans to choose whom they will serve, and like Joshua in the Old Testament, he and his house will serve the Lord. However, I am not sure that the context in which Joshua (not Moses, as the Bishop said) made that speech applies to Kenya. The Israelites were in Canaan where they arrived from Egypt, yet Kenya has not entered any promised land. In fact, the old constitution is the Egypt we have been trying to leave since the liberation struggles of colonial times. We have "not yet uhuru," as Jaramogi said, yet it seems that the church leaders would have us remain in Egypt. Ultimately, they are not really saying that they are the Lord's side but that the Lord is on their side. And a Lord who can be under the control of one group can't be the Lord after all.
All these theatrics are designed to obscure the question the church leaders are repeatedly asked but still will not answer: if Kenyans reject the new constitution, then what? Are we going to go to the 2012 elections under the one we have now, after all the chaos we went through in 2007?
And surely, the referendum is for making political choices, not spiritual ones. Israel was not faced with a referendum organized by a political government which was asking a spiritual question, so that Joshua had to choose one side. To equate the referendum to a spiritual choice is equivalent to King Ahab coming to the temple to ask Elijah and the prophets of Baal to decide whether Yahweh or Baal was God.
The only referendum that I know of occurred was when the Israelites asked for a king. Even though God was not pleased with their choice and advised them on the implications, the choice was the people's to make. And God conceded to their "yes" vote and even chose who was to be anointed king, gave them victory in battle and blessed them with wealth and power. And when Israel was sent into exile, it was not because of the corruption of their kings (and God knows they were as evil as today's politicians), but because they oppressed the orphan, the widow and the alien, and then went to the temple to bribe God with sacrifices. The church failed to protect the poor from propaganda and war and now they are trying to bribe God with the "No" campaign.
I don't even know why I am going into the Bible when the truth is that those who are supporting the church leaders against the draft are not doing so on biblical principle. In the conversations I have had with Christians against the draft, I have whittled away at every argument and arrived at the bottom line which is this: they argue that "the church needs to make a difference" and "this is the time for Christians to stand up for what is right." All the other arguments amuse me, but this one I find disturbing.
It is disturbing because it is based on willful delusion, and people whose beliefs run contrary to reality are dangerous because they can resort to violence in order to force reality to coincide with their beliefs. The Christians for "No" have convinced themselves that they and their leaders are courageous when in fact they are cowards. Standing up for what is right always comes at a cost, with Jesus Christ being the embodiment of that cost. The church leaders are conveniently finding their voice now when they can have rally at Uhuru Park this Saturday with no fear of the police, tear gas and bullets which other people braved - some at the cost of their lives.
Did I say no cost? Sorry, the "No" campaign will cost 10 million shillings.
The money points to the crux of the matter, which is that those who are opposed to the draft are the bourgeoisie who have nothing to lose under the old constitution. In fact, they have benefitted enough to commit a huge sum of money to politics and not to the people battling with floods and mudslides. And looking at the healthy church leaders in royal purple shirts and crucifixes dangling on their bellies, one can tell that they did not lose much during the violence when others lost their lives, homes and property.
And by issuing threats against the government about rallying Christians to reject the draft constitution, the anti-reform pastors are behaving like the colonized bourgeoisie whom Fanon described as mere opportunists trying to secure their place by telling the colonialists that they were best placed to negotiate with the colonialists since they alone had access to the masses agitating for freedom. Due to their intellectual laziness and moral bankruptcy, the anti-reform church leaders have taken on the role that Fanon so despised of being self-appointed intermediaries between the government and the people, and between Kenyans and Western Christianity.
The question facing Kenyans at the referendum is whether they want the draft constitution or the current one. All the other issues are just details to make us forget that the goal is to avoid a repeat of the 2007 chaos and the decades of exploitation of the poor that were responsible for that chaos.