GITHUA KIHARA - Microplastics: the Destruction of Marine Life and the Blue Economy | The Elephant

2022-09-24 00:42:12 By : Mr. Kevin Chan

Even as Kenya’s land-based resources continue to shrink because of a rapidly growing population, microplastic pollution of Kenya’s Indian Ocean is putting in jeopardy the country’s maritime resources.

Five scientists, Joyce Kerubo, John M. Onyari and Agnes Muthumbi from the University of Nairobi, Deborah Robertson-Andersson from the University of Kwa Zulu Natal, and Edward Ndirui Kimani from the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), undertook a research study last year that returned a harsh verdict of a high presence of microplastics (MPs) in Kenya’s Indian Ocean.

MPs are plastic pellets, fragments, and fibres that enter the environment and are less than 5mm in dimension. The primary sources of MPs are vehicle tyres, synthetic textiles, paints, personal care products, and plastic products that have disintegrated into tiny particles because of environmental turbulence.

The study by the five scientists, Microplastic Polymers in Surface Waters and Sediments in the Creeks along the Kenya Coast, Western Indian Ocean (WIO), identified four polymer types in Kenya’s Indian Ocean. High-density polythene is the most abundant at 38.3 per cent, followed by polypropylene (34.6 per cent), low-density polythene (27.1 per cent), and medium density polythene (17.1 per cent). The research findings were published in the European Journal of Sustainable Development Research on 18 October 2021.

The concentration of MPs in the surface waters along the Kenyan coastline was higher compared to other parts of the world, the study warned. The findings of the study also confirmed those of previous studies on the presence of MPs in Kenya’s Indian Ocean.

The scientists also cautioned that the documented information on the specific polymeric composition of these particles in seawater and in the sediments along the Kenyan coast was insufficient. The findings, the study offered, demonstrated the extent of exposure to MPs in Kenya’s ocean ecosystems, therefore justifying policy intervention in the management and disposal of plastic waste, and the protection of the ocean’s rich biodiversity for sustainable development.

It drew testing samples from three creeks: Tudor and Port Reitz in Mombasa County and Mida in Kilifi County. Tudor Creek covers an area of approximately 20 square kilometres and is fed by two seasonal rivers—Kombeni and Tsalu—that originate around Mariakani, about 32 kilometres northwest of Mombasa. The two seasonal rivers collect runoff containing plastic and other waste from the mainland and discharge it into the creek.

Surrounding Tudor creek are several densely populated informal settlements that include Mishomoroni and Mikindani that may add MPs to the ocean. According to the study findings, the majority of the MPs were fibrous materials from textiles and ropes, probably from wastewater from washing clothes and from fishing activities.

Other key facilities that could contribute to the pollution include shipping activities at the Port of Mombasa, meat processing at Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), Coast General Hospital, Container Freight Stations (CFSs) and Kipevu Power Station. Before it was rehabilitated, Mombasa County Government dumped a lot of waste at Kibarani, near the two creeks and just next to the ocean.

Tudor Creek recorded the highest pollution, also as a result of rain runoff from Kongowea market and Muoroto slums, and Mikindani sewage effluent. Moreover, according to the study, which could, however, not determine the proportions, many industries on Mombasa Island release their effluent into the sea, increasing MPs in sediments.

Mida Creek was used as a control in the study as it does not have river inflows. In addition, the creek is in a marine reserve that forms part of the Watamu Marine National Park and Reserve. However, MPs from different polymers were found in sediment and surface water samples from all the sites—including Mida Creek which is within Watamu National Marine Reserve—which the researchers had thought to be safe from pollution by industrial effluent, sewage disposal, and fishing activities.

Many industries on Mombasa Island release their effluent into the sea, increasing MPs in sediments.

The study attributed the pollution at Mida Creek to high tourism activities, boat and dhow fishing activities, densely populated villages such as Dabaso, Ngala, and Kirepwe and the mangrove vegetation cover of tall trees that binds soil particles thus favouring the accumulation of MPs.

According to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released in March 2019, plastic—which makes up a sizable proportion of marine pollution—can now be found in all the world’s oceans, but concentrations are thought to be highest in coastal areas and reef environments where the vast majority of this litter originates from land-based sources.

In Kenya, daily plastic consumption is estimated at 0.3 Kilograms per person. In 2018, Kenya imported between 45,000 and 57,000 metric tonnes of plastic.

Earlier in 2020, KMFRI had carried out its own study—Microplastics Pollution in Coastal Nearshore Surface Waters in Vanga, Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu, Kenya—that painted an even gloomier picture of MP pollution.

The four sampling locations represented the South coast, Mombasa and the North coast of Kenya’s coastal nearshore waters, and looked into considering fishing, recreation, and industrial activities, as well as the municipal effluent that finds its way into these target areas.

The objective of the study was to assess the abundance MPs and their composition in Kenya’s coastal near-shore waters during the two rainy seasons at the Kenyan coast: the north-east monsoon which runs between November and March, and the south-east monsoon which runs from April to October.

The results showed a widely varied distribution of MPs between the two seasons, with the overall highest concentrations occurring during the south-east monsoon when surface runoff from rainwater and from effluent from the major towns is high.

As confirmed in other research studies, the concentrations recorded by KMFRI, were quite high compared to other parts of the world. This provided baseline data for MPs, showing that population, anthropogenic activities and seasonal variations a play key role in influencing pollution by MPs.

Total MP concentrations in all the study areas during the north-east and the south-east monsoon seasons ranged between 83 MPs/m³ and 8266 MPs/m³ and between 126 MPs/m³ and 12,256 MPs/m³ respectively, with a mean of 3228 MPs/m³. The highest microplastic levels were found in Mombasa at 12,256 MPs/m³ during the south-east monsoon season, where runoff and effluent due to heavy rains are thought to be the primary source. The next highest levels were found in Malindi, occurring during the south-east monsoon season, because of inflows from River Sabaki.

Boat activities and tourism during the north-east monsoon season and runoff from the town during the south-east monsoon season mostly affected Lamu, while fishing activities, as well and runoff from the town, could be responsible for the abundance of MPs recorded in Vanga.

Solid waste management remains an enormous challenge in coastal towns, with Mombasa County facing the biggest challenge due to a burgeoning population. Although most of the solid waste generated in the county is organic—largely from households, hotels, restaurants and agricultural produce markets, the largest being Kongowea and Marikiti—plastic takes up a significant share.

In its County Sessional Paper No 01 of 2019, Mombasa County estimated daily waste production at 2,200 tons, 68 per cent of which is organic. Approximately 18 per cent of this waste is plastics, cardboard, paper and metals.

Other inorganic waste such as e-waste, construction waste and junk makes up an estimated 14 per cent of the waste generated. Public and private health facilities generate an estimated 2 to 3 tonnes of biomedical waste daily.

Solid waste management remains an enormous challenge in coastal towns, with Mombasa County facing the biggest challenge due to a burgeoning population.

Most of the solid waste generated is disposed in undesignated open grounds—in VOK, Kwa Karama, Kadongo, Junda, Saratoga, and Mcheleni. It is disposed in the same form as it is generated without being recycled or reused. Disposal of solid waste in the open has continuously had a negative environmental health impact through the contamination of water sources.

Moreover, with the limited investment in solid waste recycling and recovery systems, disposal methods in the county have been a contributor to public nuisance.

There are two designated dumpsites, namely Mwakirunge in Kisauni and Shonda in Likoni. However, these dumpsites are poorly managed and do not respect the prescribed environmental health standards while Mombasa County government’s budgetary allocation for solid waste management is not sufficient to meet the desired results.

MPs are harmful to human health, experts say. The ingestion of MPs by species at the base of the food web causes human food safety concerns, as little is known about their effects on the food that finally lands on our menu.

The minuscule size of MPs renders them invisible to filter-feeding fauna, leading to unintentional ingestion. In a study published in December 2020 in the Africa Journal of Marine Science, W. Awuor, Agnes Muthumbi and Deborah Robertson-Andersson confirmed the presence of MPs in marine life. The study investigated MPs in oysters and in three species of brachyuran crabs.

They did sampling in eight stations distributed between three sites—Tudor, Port Reitz and Mida Creek—in January and February 2018, during low spring tide. The sample comprised 206 crabs and 70 oysters.

The study identified MP fibres of different colours—red, yellow, black, pink, orange, purple, green, blue—as well as colourless ones. Colourless fibres were the most prevalent, comprising at least 60 per cent of the total MPs. The mean lengths of the MP fibres were between 0.1 and 4.2 mm.

The study exposes MP pollution along the Kenyan coast and its uptake by marine fauna, and thus strengthens the case for better control of plastic waste in the ocean. “Marine plastic litter pollution is already affecting over 800 marine species through ingestion, entanglement and habitat change,” said the head of UN Environment’s coral reef unit, Jerker Tamelander, in 2019.

“Waste continues to leak from land, and coral reefs are on the receiving end. They also trap a lot of fishing gear and plastic lost from aquaculture. With the effects of climate change on coral reef ecosystems already significant, the additional threat of plastics must be taken seriously.”

According to UNEP, there remains a significant lack of knowledge on the true impact of plastics on the reef environment, including the level of concentrations of MPs across coral reef eco-regions in order to understand the scale of the issue in a standardised manner.

“Marine plastic litter pollution is already affecting over 800 marine species through ingestion, entanglement and habitat change.”

Concerns about ocean pollution have been raised at a time when the country is looking at the Blue Economy as the country’s next economic growth frontier. In effect, Kenya’s land-based resources have been shrinking because of a rapidly growing population and it is therefore prudent for the government to shift the focus to the country’s ocean resources spread over an area of 245,000 km², or 42 per cent of the country’s total land mass.

Kenya has from the outset not been keen on growing the maritime sector. Even Kenya’s first independence economic blueprint, African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya, published in 1965, failed to anchor the Blue Economy in the country’s economic growth agenda, despite its significant role in transporting 95 per cent of the country’s global transactions.

The Western Indian Ocean has resources worth more than KSh2.2 trillion in annual outputs, with Kenya’s share standing at about 20 per cent of this figure. The marine fishing sub-sector alone had an annual fish potential of 350,000 metric tonnes worth KSh90 billion in 2013. However, the region only yielded a paltry 9,134 metric tonnes worth KSh2.3 billion during that year.

In 2018, the then Agriculture Cabinet Secretary, Mwangi Kiunjuri, said that by failing to fully exploit the Blue Economy, Kenya was losing over Sh440 billion annually. But if the opportunities offered by the Blue Economy are to be exploited, a policy intervention in the management and disposal of plastic waste is urgently required to protect the ocean’s rich biodiversity for sustainable development.

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Meriem Naïli writes about the continuing struggle for the independence of Western Sahara. Occupied by Morocco since the 1970s, in contravention of the International Court of Justice and the UN. The internationally recognised liberation movement, POLISARIO, has fought and campaigned for independence since the early 1970s. Naïli explains what is going on, and the legal efforts to secure the country’s freedom.

The conflict over Western Sahara can be described as a conflict over self-determination that has been frozen in the past three decades. Western Sahara is a territory in North-West Africa, bordered by Morocco in the north, Algeria and Mauritania in the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. A former Spanish colony, it has been listed by the UN since 1963 as one of the 17 remaining non-self-governing territories, but the only such territory without a registered administrating power.

Since becoming independent from France in 1956, Morocco has claimed sovereignty over Western Sahara and has since the late 1970s formally annexed around 80% of its territory, over which it exercises de facto control in contravention of the conclusions reached by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its advisory opinion of October 15, 1975, on this matter. The court indeed did not find any “legal ties of such a nature as might affect the application of resolution 1514 (XV) in the decolonization of Western Sahara and, in particular, of the principle of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory” (Western Sahara (1975), Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1975, p.12).

On 14 November 1975, the Madrid Accords – formally the Declaration of Principles on Western Sahara – were signed between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania setting the conditions under which Spain would withdraw from the territory and divide its administration between the two African states. Its paragraph two reads that “Spain shall immediately proceed to establish a temporary administration in the territory, in which Morocco and Mauritania shall participate in collaboration with the Jemâa [a tribal assembly established by Spain in May 1967 to serve as a local consultative link with the colonial administration], and to which the responsibilities and powers referred to in the preceding paragraph shall be transferred.”

Although it was never published on the Boletin Oficial del Estado [the official State journal where decrees and orders are published on a weekly basis], the accord was executed, and Mauritania and Morocco subsequently partitioned the territory in April 1976. Protocols to the Madrid Accords also allowed for the transfer of the Bou Craa phosphate mine and its infrastructure and for Spain to continue its involvement in the coastal fisheries.

Yet in Paragraph 6 of his 2002 advisory opinion, UN Deputy Secretary General Hans Corell, reaffirmed that the 1975 Madrid Agreement between Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania “did not transfer sovereignty over the Territory, nor did it confer upon any of the signatories the status of an administering Power, a status which Spain alone could not have unilaterally transferred.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (POLISARIO) is the internationally recognised national liberation movement representing the indigenous people of Western Sahara. Through the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), it has been campaigning since its creation in May 1973 in favour of independence from Spain through a referendum on self-determination to be supervised by the UN. A war broke out shortly after Morocco and Mauritania’s invasion in November 1975. Spain officially withdrew from the territory on 26 February 1976 and the Sahrawi leadership proclaimed the establishment of the SADR the following day.

In 1984, the SADR was admitted as a full member of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union), resulting in Morocco’s decision to withdraw the same year in protest. Morocco would only (re)join the African Union (AU) in 2017. The admission of the SADR to the OAU consolidated the movement in favour of its recognition internationally, with 84 UN member states officially recognising the SADR.

In the meantime, to strengthen its colonization of the territory, Morocco had begun building what it later called “le mur de défense” (the defence wall). In August 1980, following the withdrawal of Mauritanian troops the previous year, Morocco sought to “secure” a part of the territory that Mauritania had occupied. Construction of the wall – or “berm” – was completed in 1987 with an eventual overall length of just under 2,500km.

A “coordination mission” was established in 1985 by the UN and the OAU with representatives dispatched to find a solution to the conflict between the two parties. After consultations, the joint OAU-UN mission drew up a proposal for settlement accepted by the two parties on 30 August 1988 and would later be detailed in the United Nations Secretary General’s (UNSG) report of 18 June 1990 and the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution establishing United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

Since 1979 and the surrender of Mauritania, around 80% of the territory has remained under Morocco’s military and administrative occupation.

The Settlement Plan agreed to in principle between Morocco and POLISARIO in August 1988 was submitted to the UNSC on 12 July 1989 and approved in 1990. On 29 April 1991, the UNSC established MINURSO in resolution 690, the terms of reference for it being set out in the UNSG’s report of 19 April 1991. The plan provided for a cease-fire, followed by the organisation of a referendum of self-determination for which the people of Western Sahara had to choose between two options: integration with Morocco or plain and simple independence.

In this regard, it provided for the creation of an Identification Commission to resolve the issue of the eligibility ofSahrawi voters for the referendum, an issue which has since generated a great deal of tension between the two parties. A Technical Commission was created by mid-1989 to implement the Plan, with a schedule based on several phases and a deployment of UN observers following the proclamation of a ceasefire.

Talks quickly began to draw up a voters list amid great differences between the parties. POLISARIO maintained that the Spanish census of 1974 was the only valid basis, with 66,925 eligible adult electors, while Morocco demanded inclusion of all the inhabitants who, as settlers, continued to populate the occupied part of the territory as well as people from southern Morocco. It was decided that the 1974 Spanish census would serve as a basis, and the parties were to propose voters for inclusion on the grounds that they were omitted from the 1974 census.

In 1991, the first list was published with around 86,000 voters. However, the process of identifying voters would be obstructed in later years, mainly by Morocco which attempted to include as many Moroccan settlers as possible. The criteria for eligibility had sometimes been modified to accommodate Morocco’s demands and concerns. Up to 180,000 applications had been filed on the part of the Kingdom, the majority of which had been rejected by the UN Commission as they did not satisfy the criteria for eligibility.

Consequently, the proclamation of “D-Day”, to mark the beginning of a twelve-week transition period following the cease-fire leading to the referendum on self-determination, kept being postponed and eventually was never declared.

Following the rejection by Morocco of the Peace Plan for Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara (known as Baker Plan II) and the complete suspension of UN referendum preparation activities in 2003, Morocco’s proposal for autonomy of the territory under its sovereignty in 2007 crystallised the stalemate [the Peace Plan is contained in Annex II of UNSG report S/2003/565, and available here].

The Baker Plan II had envisioned a four or five-year transitional power-sharing period between an autonomous Western Sahara Authority and the Moroccan state before the organisation of a self-determination referendum during which the entire population of the territory could vote for the status of the territory – including an option for independence. It was ‘supported’ by the UNSC in resolution S/RES/1495 and reluctantly accepted by POLISARIO but rejected by Morocco.

The absence of human rights monitoring prerogatives for MINURSO has emerged as an issue for the people of Western Sahara as a result of the stalemate in the referendum process in the last two decades. MINURSO is the only post-Cold War peacekeeping operation to be deprived of such prerogatives.

Amongst the four operations currently deployed that are totally deprived of human rights monitoring components (UNFICYP in Northern Cyprus, UNIFIL in Lebanon, UNDOF in the Israeli-Syrian sector and MINURSO), MINURSO stands out as not having attained its purpose through the organisation of a referendum. In addition, among the missions that did organise referendums (namely UNTAG in Namibia and UNAMET in East Timor), all had some sort of human rights oversight mechanism stemming from their mandates.

On 8 November 2010, a protest camp established by Sahrawis near Laayoune (capital of Western Sahara) was dismantled by the Moroccan police. The camp had been set up a month earlier in protest at the ongoing discrimination, poverty, and human rights abuses against Sahrawis. When dismantling the camp, gross human rights violations were reported – see reports by Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme (2011) and Amnesty International (2010).

This episode revived the international community’s interest in Western Sahara and therefore strengthened the demand by Sahrawi activists to “extend the mandate of MINURSO to monitor human rights” (see Irene Fernández-Molina, “Protests under Occupation: The Spring inside Western Sahara” in Mediterranean Politics, 20:2 (2015): 235–254).

Such an extension was close to being achieved in April 2013, when an UNSC resolution draft penned by the US unprecedentedly incorporated this element, although it was eventually taken out. This failed venture remains to date the most serious attempt to add human rights monitoring mechanisms to MINURSO. Supporters of this amendment to the mandate are facing the opposition by Moroccan officials who hold that it is not the raison d’être of the mission, and it could jeopardize the negotiation process.

At the time of writing, the people of Western Sahara are yet to express the country’s right to self-determination through popular consultation or any other means agreed between the parties. The conflict therefore remains unresolved since the ceasefire and has mostly been described as “frozen” by observers.

On the ground, resistance from Sahrawi activists remain very much active. Despite the risks of arbitrary arrest, repression or even torture, the Sahrawi people living under occupation have organised themselves to ensure their voices are heard and violations are reported. Freedom House in 2021 have, yet again, in its yearly report, rated Western Sahara as one of the worst countries in the world with regards to political rights and civil liberties.

Despite a clear deterioration of the peace process over the decades, several factors have signalled a renewed interest in this protracted conflict among key actors and observers from the international community. A Special Envoy of the AU Council Chairperson for Western Sahara (Joaquim Alberto Chissano from Mozambique) was appointed by the Peace and Security Council in June 2014. This was followed by Morocco becoming a member of the AU in January 2017.

More recently, major events have begun to de-crystalise the status quo. The war resumed on 13 November 2020 following almost 30 years of ceasefire. Additionally, for the first time, a UN member state – the US – recognised Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over the territory. Former US President Trump’s declaration on 10 December 2020 to that effect was made less than a month after the resumption of armed conflict. It has not, however, been renounced by the current Biden administration. As this recognition secured Morocco’s support for Israel as per the Abrahamic Accords, reversing Donald Trump’s decision would have wider geopolitical repercussions.

In September 2021, the General Court of the European Union (GCEU) issued decisions invalidating fisheries and trade agreements between Morocco and the EU insofar as they extended to Western Sahara, rejecting Morocco’s sovereignty. This decision is the latest episode of a legal battle taking place before the European courts.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), had previously reaffirmed the legal status of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory, set by the UN in 1963 following the last report transmitted by Spain – as Administering Power – on Spanish Sahara under Article 73 of the UN Charter. The Court rejected in December 2016 any claims of sovereignty by Morocco by restating the distinct statuses of both territories.

The last colony in Africa remains largely under occupation and the UN mission in place is still deprived of any kind of human rights monitoring. In the meantime, the Kingdom of Morocco has been trading away peace in the form of military accords and trade partnerships. This situation must end – with freedom, and sovereignty finally won by Western Sahara.

This article was first published by ROAPE.

There are parallels to be drawn between the colonial measures of regulation, control and containment imposed on Africans and those imposed on today’s refugees and migrants.

Brexit Britain’s dismal plan to export its “immigration problem” to Rwanda through the forced deportation of asylum seekers is in some ways redolent of how, more than a century earlier, Kenya Colony dealt with its “native question”. That centred upon how to control the “natives” in a white European colony.

Some of the same buzzwords can be heard again this time around. Morality, betterment, economics, labour, containment, segregation and deterrence. Africans (and migrants of other ethnicities) must be contained in the equivalent of “native” reserves so that states can better control them. Moving them into reserves (aka migrant hostels, barracks, camps or detention centres) is for their own good. They will learn to give up whatever they were doing and labour for the white man (or in Rwanda’s case, industrious black and brown people). They will learn by example to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as if they had never worked hard before. They will be mighty grateful for the opportunities offered – or they damn well ought to be. Saviours, of whatever colour, will save the lazy “natives” from themselves – or in the case of cross-Channel migrants, from people smugglers. Morally, it is the right thing to do. Civilisation will rub off on them. But whether the deported migrants will be treated as citizens or subjects in their new “home” remains unclear.

Writing in The Times in April, the then Home Secretary Priti Patel, chief architect of the UK-Rwanda deportation scheme, said, “We can provide legal, safe, orderly and controlled ways for people to better their lives, flee oppression, persecution or conflict and enjoy new opportunities” (emphasis mine). This ignores the fact that forced deportation is itself oppressive, and a form of trafficking. The “best interests” argument was regularly used by colonial administrators, in Kenya and in other British colonies, to justify forced removals and other oppressive measures against Africans, such as the Maasai removals and the Talai resettlement (discussed below).

Continuities in the colonial treatment of mobile Africans, and the modern-day treatment of refugees and asylum seekers (both African and other non-whites), are plain to see. Scholars Hanna Brankamp and Patricia Daley write of labourers, migrants and refugees, then and now: “Colonial biopolitics dictated that nonwhite bodies only move at the behest of capital, colonial authorities, and certainly never of their own volition”. Discussing both colonial migrant labourers and post-colonial refugees and migrants, and historical trajectories of migration control, their term “racialized subjects in need of spatial fixation” is a useful one. They draw parallels between measures of regulation, control and containment that are still in vogue today.

The goal of ending unfettered immigration to Britain lay at the heart of the Brexit vote in 2016, when a slim majority of British people voted to leave the European Union (EU). Those voters, known as Brexiteers, seem to forget that 47.5 million people did not vote to leave. Though this figure includes 13 million people who did not vote at all, those who voted to stay in the EU are called Remainers. The country formally left the EU in January 2020. But Brexiteers are furious that Brexit has not delivered what they expected, or were promised. In particular, they rage at what they see as out-of-control immigration, and the spectre of “hordes” of young men “of fighting age” from Africa and the Middle East arriving on our beaches. The majority are wrongly assumed to be Muslims, who are believed, in the wake of several terrorist attacks by young Muslim men living in Britain, to pose a terror threat. Immigration, especially by cross-Channel dinghy from France, aided by people smugglers, has soared under successive Tory governments; 28,500 migrants crossed the Channel this way in the past year, treble the figure for the previous 12 months. More than 20,000 people have crossed since the start of 2022. Crossings have continued since the Home Office announced its deportation plan, which indicates that it is not a deterrent. Some 1295 people crossed in one day (22 August), a record for 2022 so far. The fact that the migrants are escorted ashore by Border Force officials, housed in hotels, fed and watered, and “paid” £39 a week, all at taxpayers’ expense, only infuriates Brexiteers more.

“Colonial biopolitics dictated that nonwhite bodies only move at the behest of capital, colonial authorities, and certainly never of their own volition”.

Gloating over this fiasco is the divisive figure of Nigel Farage, an éminence grise obsessed with immigration and the EU, who has never managed to get elected to the British parliament, despite seven attempts. He was, nonetheless, the driving force behind Brexit, when leader of the fringe UKIP (UK Independence Party) and Brexit Party. Farage continues to whip up anti-migrant sentiment on right-wing broadcast channels such as GB News, but also in the pages of serious national newspapers. If one person is single-handedly responsible for the anti-migrant rhetoric, it is Farage. Shamefully, the two final candidates who fought to succeed  Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, parroted Farage in their frantic attempt to appeal to Tory Party members who chose the new PM. As predicted, Truss won.  (The British electorate as a whole was not allowed to vote.) At an earlier stage of the contest, all the candidates said they supported the Rwanda deportation plan – despite the fact that several of them are, like Patel and Sunak, the children of immigrants to the UK. (Sunak’s parents were born in Kenya and Tanganyika, Patel’s are from Uganda.)

Fear of a mass invasion by Africans features in much of this rhetoric. Online comments contain hysterical claims that “the whole continent” is headed for Europe. “Most of Africa would prefer to live in Britain”, posted a reader at the Daily Telegraph on 22 June, one example that stands for many. In fact, the top countries of migrants’ origin include non-African countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The deportation plan can be seen as the culmination of the Tories’ hostile environment policy towards immigrants, which was first introduced ten years ago. In 2012, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced a strategy aimed at tackling “illegal” immigration by making life so unbearable for certain migrants they would voluntarily choose to leave. May herself used the words “a really hostile environment”. (Ironically, she now criticises the Rwanda deportation policy.) However, the opposition Labour Party first coined the expression in 2007. The then Labour immigration minister Liam Byrne referred to the desirability of creating a “hostile environment” in a consultation document that year, although the policy was not implemented. He has angrily denied May’s claims that Labour invented it.

Switching my focus to Kenya and the deeper historical context of forced migration, many of the internal relocations that took place in colonial Kenya (and the British protectorate that preceded it, before 1920) involved coercing Africans into leaving home to labour for white settlers. They moved seasonally in large numbers. “Squatters had not looked for work; [Lord Delamere] had sent for them, fetching their families and flocks by train”, writes historian John Lonsdale. However, not all displacement was coerced; this denies African and Asian agency, and overlooks all the other reasons why men, and women (often ignored in migration studies), moved as individuals in search of work.

The deportation plan can be seen as the culmination of the Tories’ hostile environment policy towards immigrants, which was first introduced ten years ago.

Norman Leys (a medical doctor and rights activist) reported how many colonial district officers initially refused to comply with demands from settlers and other private employers to use their influence and procure labourers. “Then an agitation began in Nairobi and in London. As a result of that agitation instructions were sent to district officers that, while no compulsion was to be used, ‘moral suasion’ was to be resorted to, chiefs were to be ‘encouraged’ to persuade their people to leave home to work for Europeans.” Then as now, Anglican bishops issued a statement condemning the plan. “We believe that ideally all labour should be voluntary. We recognise that, at present, this is impossible … [But] we are of the opinion that compulsory labour, so long as it is clearly necessary, should be definitely legalised.”

Under colonial vagrancy laws, it even became impossible for Africans who were not in employment to move around the country. The raising of the hut and poll tax also “encouraged” (Leys’ word, he was being ironic) Africans to seek wage labour outside their home areas. Settler estates depended on African labour to function, but recruitment proved difficult. Some settlers resorted to “exceptional violence” in order to get labour, in the words of scholars Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale. “The ferocity and unpredictability of the settler assault on the African population threatened to undermine the whole apparatus of colonial control”. The state had to step in to control labour supply, and did so after World War I when mass forced conscription into the Carrier Corps was seen to have been a “success”. (Some success; 95,000 African porters died.) It was a matter of carrots but more often sticks, as this appalling statement exemplifies:

I always treat my natives the same as I treat my children, I try to be kind to them, and to advise and direct them, but when kindness has no effect you have to do the same as they do in the public schools at home and throughout the empire – cane them. (Lt. Col. J.G. Kirkwood, Legislative Council member, Legco debate, 28 November 1941).

The language of infantilization persists today in the narratives around migrants.

Although the state, including the railway, was the largest single employer in the country at this point, thousands of men moved seasonally between the settler estates and African reserves, where their families tended to remain on the land. But over time, whole families moved to live on settler estates as squatters, and were initially allowed to bring their cattle with them. They grew subsistence crops, while women and children also provided labour to settlers during peak harvest and planting times. By 1931, the number of squatters in the highlands had risen to 113,176, the majority Kikuyu. They occupied one million acres of settler land, some of it land that the Maasai had formerly occupied. Although this arrangement brought some benefits for squatters (for one, it allowed them to expand beyond crowded Kikuyuland, creating a toe-hold that lasts to this day), harsh new laws forced African compliance with government. One of the most hated was the Registration of Natives Ordinance of 1915, which forced all males over the age of 15 to carry a form of identity called the kipande. 

Over time, settlers became alarmed about the large number of squatter stock on their land, and fearing the diseases that this stock allegedly carried, began forcing squatters and their stock off farms. Resentment at this was among the issues that sowed the seeds of Mau Mau (aka the Land and Freedom Army). “The squatters saw their economic deprivation as linked to their political subordination and it was these two problems that they hoped to eradicate when they took the oath and swore to support the Mau Mau movement,” wrote Tabitha Kanogo in her ground-breaking book Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau.

Some communities were forcibly moved in their thousands, to become internally displaced in other parts of colonial Kenya. The most infamous forced migrations were the Maasai moves following two treaties or “agreements” made between Maasai leaders and British protectorate officials in 1904 and 1911. The moves were ordered to make way for white settlement, first in the central Rift Valley, later in the highlands of Laikipia. Maasai from certain socio-territorial sections (not the Maasai as a whole) were initially moved into two reserves, one in the north, the other in the south on the border with German territory (later Tanganyika and Tanzania).  In 1904, the British promised the Maasai they could keep Laikipia for ever. But only seven years later, under pressure from settlers, they broke their pledge and moved the Maasai again, this time at gunpoint, into an enlarged southern reserve in what is now Narok County.

It is estimated that the Maasai lost up to at least 50 per cent of the territory they had once used, but the figure could be nearer 70 per cent. The losses did not just involve land, but included the loss of good grazing, access to water sources and sacred sites, and the fatal exposure of both humans and livestock to diseases like East Coast fever and malaria, which were unknown in Laikipia in those days. The ripple effects of these events continue to the present day, in agitation by Maasai for the return of lost land or compensation. Neither is likely to materialise, for a variety of reasons.

The language of infantilization persists today in the narratives around migrants.

Fears about Maasai warriors and the assumed threat they posed to Europeans in the early years of colonial rule were remarkably similar to the current rhetoric in Britain, centred on the irrational fear of “hordes of young men of fighting age” arriving on our shores. Not only is their potential (but unproven) violence feared, but also their perceived sexuality – “Lock up your daughters!” is the cry of the anti-migrant Tory right. This is obviously part of a larger racist trope, referred to as the “black peril” in the scholarship on settler colonies, but also prevalent in the USA, especially in the formerly segregated Deep South.

British administrators saw the warriors as a dangerous standing army, which could let rip at any moment. In a discussion of the merits of confining the Maasai to reserves, Protectorate Commissioner Sir Charles Eliot (the equivalent of a governor) wrote to the Foreign Office in 1903: “[Maasai] simplicity, loyalty, and soldierlike qualities inspire a sympathy which makes people forget that a race which regards fighting and raiding as the only occupations for a young man of honour can never be anything but a dangerous race.” He also condemned the warriors’ alleged “immorality”.  In fact, as other officials who knew the Maasai better than Eliot were constantly telling him, they had never attacked Europeans and posed no danger. “And they are not likely to,” wrote Deputy Commissioner Frederick Jackson, “so long as they are treated fairly”. On the contrary, several administrators sympathetic to the Maasai feared that racist South African settlers in the Rift Valley might attack the Maasai if they were not physically separated. For these and other reasons, they were forced into reserves.

Today, the Maasai are not alone in their grievance with historical injustices. The Talai clan of Kericho County, part of the Kipsigis community, has for years sought reparations for forced resettlement. The British evicted them in 1934-36 from the Kipsigis Reserve to an allegedly mosquito-infested valley at Gwassi near Lake Victoria, where they stayed, under supervision, until the mid-1950s. They claim to have been moved to make way for tea plantations, some of which are still owned by UK-based multinationals. A group of Talai wrote to Prince William (elder son of King Charles III) in May this year seeking an apology and his support for reparations. The letter says: “We inherited the pain, you inherited the profit.” They hoped for sympathy from Will “because Kenya is special to him”. Earlier appeals to the British government appear to have received no reply.

Some communities were forcibly moved in their thousands, to become internally displaced in other parts of colonial Kenya.

Historians who have researched Talai history, most particularly the role of ritual leaders or orkoiik, say there is in fact no evidence that the Talai were evicted from land that became tea estates. But they were certainly evicted under colonial laws, said one leading scholar, and “unquestionably have a case”. UN human rights rapporteurs investigated the case and found for the Talai in 2021, which the community hailed as a great victory. However, the UN may have “ordered” the British government to apologise and pay compensation, but that does not mean anything will happen. The Tory government has been a tad preoccupied since Prime Minister Boris Johnson was ousted, and a bitter struggle ensued to replace him.  And since Prince William has no political power or influence, all he can say is pole sana.

The Rwanda scheme is becoming more bogged down by the day. It recently emerged that British ministers who backed the plan were warned months ago, by the government’s own advisor, that Rwanda tortures and kills political opponents. The government wants to keep these comments in a Foreign Office report secret, partly in order not to offend Rwanda. Media houses, including the BBC, are challenging this. The doomed flights are postponed until after a judicial review of the policy at the High Court, London, which began on 5 September and is expected to last five days. President Paul Kagame has also thrown a spanner in the works by announcing, after pocketing the £120 million down-payment, that Rwanda will only take 200 migrants – a drop in the ocean. Patel and the Home Office she previously headed (she resigned on Monday 5 September, hours after Truss’s victory) made a major mistake by not specifying, in the MoU with Rwanda, how many migrants Britain planned to deport. Some of us suspect that our government never intended to carry out the policy in the first place. It was simply red meat thrown to Brexit voters.

This article is part of a series on migration and displacement in and from Africa, co-produced by the Elephant and the Heinrich Boll Foundation’s African Migration Hub, which is housed at its new Horn of Africa Office in Nairobi.

Hubris got us here. Not only the hubris of our nobles who felt entitled to choose leaders for us from amongst themselves, but also from the scholars who have excelled in law, history and political science, but choose to serve the nobles rather than apply the knowledge to our human conditions in situ.

​The period immediately following the 9th August general elections in Kenya was a rude awakening for many. In any contest where there’s only one winner, and so there the contrasting feelings of jubilation and disappointment are no surprise. What would shock a keen observer is the visceral negative reaction shock amongst a section of the supporters of the Azimio la Umoja side. The reaction went beyond disappointment; it was grief that quickly deteriorated into recriminations against any individual or group perceived not to have ‘given their all’ in support of Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga’s candidature.

This is Mr. Odinga’s fifth stab at the presidency, so the spectre of disappointing results is not totally new to his supporters, particularly those over 40 years old. Disappointment and even certain levels of anger have been de rigueur in past elections, but the inexplicable grief and recriminations have been unique to 2022. One unique feature of this year’s elections is that the narrative has portrayed those perceived not to have supported Raila not as competitors or rivals, but as evil saboteurs.

The result was a barrage of vitriolic abuse directed at Kikuyu people on social media, much of it written in Dholuo, which few Kikuyus can read or understand. We certainly hope that the Azimio running mate Martha Karua was somehow shielded from it because a significant proportion of the diatribe is sexist as well. However, those who are shocked and wondering just what happened in 2022 are deluded, because the question is guided by their powers of perception (or lack thereof) rather than by the sequence and consequence of events.

The primitive and flawed history of our electoral structures certainly don’t provide any reason to believe otherwise. However, Kenya is also a nation founded on the dishonesty of colonialists, so we Kenyans still struggle to internalize the truths of political history, including those we have lived through and witnessed. The Luo nation is no exception to this rule, despite boasting several renowned historians and political scientists. The Luo nation has long lived with the well-founded belief that they (through the person of Raila Odinga) have been victims of electoral malpractice in the past.

When the much-vaunted ‘handshake’ between the Rt. Hon Odinga and former President Uhuru Kenyatta took place in 2018, the Luo nation greeted it with unbridled joy at the prospect that ‘one of us’ would finally ascend to the highest office in the land. It was almost comical to see the jubilation that greeted the symbolic launch of Kisumu port where Mr. Odinga was flown to Kisumu in a Kenya Defence Forces aircraft, a very potent (and deliberate) subliminal message, which they tried to actualize through the legally ill-advised “Building Bridges Initiative” (BBI).

In a conversation on the Maisha Kazini YouTube channel, we discussed at length how this project (which failed) was an attempt to entrench feudalism in our formal government structures. In a startling show of cognitive dissonance, the people who had fought so long for democracy and electoral justice mentally crowned Uhuru Kenyatta as a ‘King’ whose reign was ending and had magnanimously designated their leader as the crown prince. ODM leaders, notably Dr. Oburu Odinga crowed about the Uhuru’s endorsement and about the support of “the system” being a sure path to State House for Raila Odinga.

Sadly, this dissonance was so convincing that the people believed them, culminating in a toxic mix of relatively lackluster campaigns, while followers remained inexplicably assured of victory. The people who had steadfastly cast their votes for generations and fought for justice somehow discarded that legacy and internalized the belief that victory would be delivered by a combination of expected injustice and support from the alleged erstwhile perpetrators thereof. A mind-boggling conundrum by any measure.

It would be difficult for any mortal to derive reason from such a bizarre far-flung psychosocial situation, hence the extreme bitterness at the absence of a unanimous support for Mr. Odinga from Kikuyu voters (the decision of other Kenyan voters is not on the table). The Odinga supporters saw the failure of certain areas of Kikuyu land to support Odinga as a betrayal, and rather than recognize the significant number of votes that accrued from the Mt. Kenya region up from virtually nothing in 2017.

How can we explain this avalanche of opprobrium?

This reaction betrays the logic of the whiteness that is rooted in the coloniality of power in Kenya. Underlying the offence was the perception amongst the Luo proletariat that their Kikuyu counterparts had the temerity to reject the Luo liege, even after Odinga’s pact with his Kikuyu peer. Lack of attention to history blinded Odinga’s supporters, both in Luoland and the larger Kenyan intellectual class, to the fact that the Kikuyu proletariat did not view the handshake in the same way as the Luo voters did, nor did they relate to Uhuru the way the Luo did to Raila.

This oversight blinded them to the reality of the Mt. Kenya’s region’s rejection of Uhuru’s political machinations, as opposed to the rejection of Mr. Odinga himself. It was far from automatic that the Kikuyu would blindly follow Uhuru into the handshake. Mt. Kenya has had a fractured relationship with the Kenyattas from the very beginning. At independence, Jomo Kenyatta suppressed Mau Mau history and left Mau Mau veterans landless. Twice before, Uhuru Kenyatta had been rejected at the ballot by the Mt Kenya region: in 1997 when he contested as MP for Gatundu, and in 2002 when he contested to presidency. The rise of Uhuru’s acceptance in Mt Kenya was linked to the trauma of the violence against the Kikuyus in the Rift Valley following the botched elections of 2007, a violence which many Kikuyus attribute to Raila Odinga himself, since the violence stopped when Raila shook hands with Kibaki.

It was this trauma, and Raila’s perceived or actual responsibility in it, that Uhuru exploited in 2013 when he hired a British PR firm which rode on the ICC indictments to present Uhuru as an anti-imperialist freedom fighter. It was not tribal adoration that got Uhuru president, that is if he even won the vote. It was trauma, money and gas lighting by a heavy bureaucratic and intellectual artillery that later included the manipulation of social media by Cambridge Analytica.

The second issue that was overlooked was the anger of the Mt. Kenya region at the collapse of the economy. In his hubris, Uhuru failed to realize that huge infrastructural investments would not pacify ordinary people whose businesses were suffering as the Kenyatta empire grew. The milk industry, for example, is a case in point, where the Kenyatta family dominance in the milk industry was seen as the reason for the drop in the prices ordinary farmers were fetching for their milk. By the time Uhuru and Raila were proposing BBI, people in central Kenya, especially the youth, were saying they did not care for more power-sharing deals when they were not able to earn a living.

The failure to notice the cracks in the deal, due to casual attempt to merge political views of Mt. Kenya and Nyanza region, is linked to the fact that coloniality and whiteness manifested in completely different ways in the two regions. In Kikuyu land, coloniality was imposed through extreme violence, leading to the familiar stories of a society riven between the Mau Mau resistance and colonial collaboration. The Kikuyu have memories in form of living survivors and the trauma of the victims.

By contrast, coloniality in the greater Nyanza region, which included the Luhya regions of the northern Lake Victoria shores, was imposed by co-option through government bureaucracy, colonial education and conversion to Christianity. In Nyanza, there was no conventional rebellion warfare, and the only contact with the rebellion was in the person of the detainees imprisoned at Mageta island. And so coloniality was experienced as psychological more than material. The Africans who became the ‘whites’ were those who became educators, administrators, colonial apparatchiks and clergy. Their descendants still occupy high political offices and are much-admired personalities, such as outgoing governor Cornel Rasanga and Dr. Patrick Amoth of the Chief Amoth Owira family; Prof Peter Anyang Nyongo and the late Prof. Aggrey Nyong’o of the Canon Hesbon Nyong’o family; and the numerous political and business players across both Kenya and Uganda who are descendants of Canon Jeremiah Musungu Awori. Many songs praise men as ‘chal gi mzungu’. Many non-Luos may hear Luos refer to each other as ‘Odiero’ and think it is a very common name, but it is actually an honorific that means ‘white man.’

The only aberration in this historical link was brought about by the fallout between Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi and the consequent odium faced by the Odingas. This brought in the suffering narrative as an additional ingredient into Luo nobility. Up to the elections, the answer to any questions on Odinga’s leadership qualities invariably included references to how much he has suffered or sacrificed. With the passage of time and the monumental legal changes in Kenya, however, individual suffering was becoming a less “accessible” qualification, which placed Mr. Odinga on something of a pedestal. Others therefore could only seek distinction through the competence with which they served him and the conspicuous manner in which they displayed this service or consumed the proceeds thereof.  Philosophy scholar Joe Kobuthi recently identified this as a form of masculinity that is defined by conspicuous consumption, belying the casual humorous term ‘ujaluo’ used by less erudite people to describe it.

By contrast, whiteness in central Kenya was mostly defined by collaboration against the rebellion. The reward in Mt Kenya for collaboration was entry into government, and access to government contracts and title deeds as a way of climbing the social ladder. In central Kenya, people who pursue school education do not enjoy the same clout that is enjoyed by people with access to wealth. A prominent example was Prof Wangari Maathai who won the 2004 Nobel Prize but lost her parliamentary seat in the 2007 elections. Her international accolades did not win her a free pass to parliament.

Within this matrix, it was difficult to notice major forewarnings that the Odinga bargain was likely to collapse. In January 2021, news broke surrounding a leaked letter allegedly from then Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata to president Kenyatta, which warned that BBI was deeply unpopular in Kikuyu areas. During this time, Babu Ayindo prophetically penned this tweet that escaped attention: “@RailaOdinga, I am prepared to believe that Sen. Irungu Kang’ata deliberately misaddressed that letter. Ja’kom, that letter is yours. Please read what the letter is saying and, more importantly, what the letter is saying without saying.”

Many observers will have noticed the lyrical sob stories that were circulating on social media following the initial announcement of the results, treating Mr. Odinga’s apparent loss like some kind of Greek tragedy. Those familiar with the strong African traditions surrounding death will be uncomfortable with the reference to a living person in language and tone more appropriate for mourning at a wake. It is an unexpected manifestation of ethnic chauvinism, because the personal grief stems from the belief that there was some kind of “queue” for leadership and the “white” Luo candidate was the next in line, having been ‘anointed’ by the sitting president. The usurping of this coronation by a ‘black’ candidate with no known lineage is anathema to all feudalists, including the oppressed vassals.

Such hubris was largely facilitated by Kenyan intellectuals in media, education and cultural spaces, who failed to do the work of unpacking political relationships beyond the usual narrative of tribal quirks. Yet underlying these tribal mathematics was the matrix with which the colonialists ascribed certain vocations to certain ethnic groups to protect colonial interests. For instance, because the colonial interests and African resistance in central Kenya centered on land, the British concocted an elaborate scheme called the Swynnerton plan, where the route to social mobility was joining government to help suppress the resistance, and after independence, getting access to government contracts through feudal networks.

This difference would also explain why the British and Americans would look at Jaramogi as a “communist” when Jaromogi’s flirting with the communist block was more about strategic political muscle against the US-supported Jomo Kenyatta, rather than a reflection of Jaramogi’s economic thinking. Jaramogi’s entrance into politics was on the back of the colonial restrictions on African trading and financial credit in Kisumu. He was therefore more of an indigenous capitalist than a communist. With his lack of direct experience with the land conflicts and colonial violence in central Kenya, it is also understandable that Jaramogi was adamant about the release of Jomo Kenyatta as a condition for independence discussions, while other Kikuyu politicians were more willing to negotiate with the British on their own while Jomo was in jail. After independence, it was Jaramogi who joined forces with Bildad Kaggia in advocating for fundamental land reforms that would give land to Mau Mau veterans, while the Kikuyu politicians – led by Jomo Kenyatta himself – enriched themselves in their newfound status as the new black settlers.

However, this collaboration failed to address the economic logic of the colonial Kenyan state, and the way it was intertwined with ethnic stereotypes. As such, the stereotypes of Kikuyu strength as that of business while Luo strength as that of academics, and similar prejudices about other Kenyan ethnic groups, continued to dominate Kenyan political life. In Kikuyu land, the Kenyatta family would stoke ethnic bigotry to claim unique rights of Kikuyus, and would use ritual, such as the cutting of Field Marshal Muthoni’s hair by Uhuru’s mother, Mrs. Ngina Kenyatta, as a spiritual tool to enforce Kikuyu compliance.

Other ethnic groups outside the two main protagonists are relegated to the stereotypes of witchcraft, docility, cultural stagnation and even terrorism, and rarely do Kenyans interrogate what these stereotypes mean politically. Often, the effect is reduced to that of numbers, but nobody questions why prominent national politicians like Kivutha Kibwana and Ekuru Aukot are often ridiculed for aspiring for the presidency. In many areas in Kenya, people cannot aspire for any office because they are denied identity cards in the name of not belonging one of the 45 or 46 tribes.

This election has therefore been a watershed moment, where the less obvious and more psychological implications of coloniality have been exposed, now that the legal and administrative hurdles associated with elections are decreasing in importance. This psychological dimension of coloniality was hidden from Kenyan politics through the use of ethnicity as a zero-sum narrative to explain Kenyan political life. The Kenyan intellectual class, especially in the media and the education system, covered up this decadence by rebranding tribal parochialism as the irredeemable nature of Africans, and by making hollow calls for Enlightenment style human rights. They therefore had no conceptual framework with which to understand the dynamic nature of Kenya’s politics and the importance of class and economics, especially since the promulgation of the 2010 constitution.

Hubris got us here. Not only the hubris of our nobles who felt entitled to choose leaders for us from amongst themselves, but also from the scholars who have excelled in law, history and political science, but choose to serve the nobles rather than apply the knowledge to our human conditions in situ. When our elite acquire journalistic and academic expertise which does not address what ails us, then we are stuck with “competents” as opposed to educated people. From now on, let us normalize ignoring any purported “expert” who cannot unpack this watershed moment for us. That failure should suggest to us that the “expert” is either part of the mess, or not courageous enough to help our nation move on from it. That’s the definition of deadwood, which can only slow down the growth of our society.

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