Spending time in Kenya for the third time has been as much a learning experience for me as it has been a time of teaching. Of course being here for only a few months does not in any way make me an expert, but mine is much more the view of an outsider looking in.
Some things that I have seen have impressed me, either positively or negatively. One of the latter things is the high rate of crime, the corruption even among law enforcement, and finally, just recently, the phenomenon of lynching – unlawfully taking someone’s life amidst some misguided form of “mob justice”. It happened last weekend at a nearby university, but apparently it isn’t newsworthy; at least I saw no mention of it except on social media.
Dr Robert Guy McKee has written an interesting report based on his study of what he calls a “human rights scandal”. In his paper he makes the following seven assertions about modern day lynchings in Kenya, that lynchings (1) are common, (2) are cruel, (3) are committed for numerous alleged reasons—mostly for alleged crimes—but very rarely for reasons related either to race or to sexual orientation or gender identity, (4) are rarely prosecuted, (5) appear to have inequitable access to basic resources as one contributing cause, (6) are a major human rights scandal, and (7) will, until they become the exception rather than the rule, hinder Kenya’s development in the twenty-first century.Now lynching is not unfamiliar to North Americans. The sad so called “frontier justice” of the 18th and 19th century are a dark chapter in our history.
While North American lynchings were usually carried out by hanging or shooting, in Africa the methods are even more cruel: stoning, beating to death, or dousing a victim with gasoline (“petrol” here) and setting them ablaze. By whatever method, lynching is just wrong because it denies the victim all of the fundamental rights of justice: the right to due process, the right to face one’s accusers and challenge the evidence that the accusers bring, the right to offer one’s own evidence of one’s innocence etc. In a lynching, the mob that carries it out are the de facto prosecutors, judge, and executioner. Because that is not justice, I will refrain from the term “mob justice” and just say lynching.
What particularly disturbs me also, are the outrageous number of lynchings that take place. Between August 1996 to August 2013 a total of 1,500 persons were reported lynched in Kenya, as many as 543 in one year !
More disturbing: the reported “reasons” for lynching. The victims are people who are accused (not proven!) to have committed some type of crime: in the case of the lynching last weekend, the victim was accused of theft. Lynching is all about anger and revenge. In cases where a family suffered the murder of someone, and it is felt that the criminal justice system did not apprehend or did not seem to deal with the perpetrator appropriately, the family and or friends take matters into their own hands.
In my mind, there are questions that I cannot answer. One is, how this human rights scandal is possible in a country like Kenya, that likes to number itself among the civilized nations of the world. Kenyans like to claim that 80% of the people are Christians. That is a number that is most certainly grossly inflated, unless you define “Christian” in the loosest of terms. But if you define the term Christian the way Jesus does, “my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me” (John 10:27) then this number is not accurate notwithstanding the number of churches on almost every corner.
My second question is why the criminal justice system in Kenya is not able to stamp out these blatant crimes, for indeed lynching, the unlawful taking of a human life, is a crime. Politicians have denounced this practice, but still it prevails. I have some possible answers to this second question, and one of them is the wide-spread corruption that runs through virtually all levels of society, including the politicians, and the criminal justice system. There is a saying, that I have heard often repeated here: “Kenya is 80% Christian, but 90% corrupt”. There is something wrong with that picture, and I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth to the saying. The President of Kenya has made it a priority to stamp out corruption, but I wonder how much of that tough talk is like what our own politicians in Canada do: to appear that they are doing something, while in fact doing very little.
Those who take the teachings of Christ seriously, will want to heed what He said about anger, that is at the root of lynching: “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matt. 5:22 NIV). And certainly for the follower of Christ, revenge will not play a part in his life. In Romans 12:19 Paul says, Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.