Hiiraan Online

Human beings are basically apes - just like orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees. The only difference - if indeed it is a difference - between us and our close cousins is that we consider ourselves to have a developed brain.

Unlike the orangutans and other ‘great apes’, our brain is supposedly capable of abstract reasoning, speech articulation and moral conceptualisation. Physiologically, we also walk upright on our two feet while our ‘cousins’ use their four limbs. However, considering how agile and nimble the ‘great apes’ are, I actually think using two legs might be more of a liability than an asset.

Thanks to our ‘developed brain’, we believe that we have ‘a conscience’ – a sense or consciousness of right and wrong; an ability to empathise and appreciate one’s own conduct, intentions or character.

We, the homo sapiens have for centuries claimed that we have a unique ability to appreciate and ensure fairness and/or justice for each other. More recently, and more specifically in western societies, there are serious attempts to extend this homo sapiens’ appreciation and consciousness about fairness and justice to other animals.

The homo sapiens – especially in the west - have always been dishonest and hypocritical on this great moral consciousness. That’s why they go to great lengths of trying to protect dogs, cats, whales, dolphins, bears and other “endangered species” while they pay scant attention to the massive poverty, homelessness, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and other preventable or curable illnesses that continue to decimate millions of people.

In other words, in many respects, the overwhelming majority of human life has become less valuable than those of both domestic and wild animals.

Through the ‘achievements’ of the human brain, we have been able to explore the earth, make discoveries of things we didn’t know previously and tame the environment for our convenience.

However, based on our unmatched (historical) record of wanton destruction of the environment, of other species and of each other, I am not sure that all the claims we have advanced about our superiority are true. For centuries, we have generally prided ourselves as being “more advanced or developed” than any other species that ever inhabited the earth.

The most egregious excesses in Kenya in recent years vindicate my view that despite the claims to the contrary, we are nothing but primitive apes. With the possible exception of the extinct dinosaurs, there is no other species that has caused as much destruction to the earth as human beings.

Over the centuries, the homo sapiens have massacred hundreds of millions of its own without much justification. We have conquered. We have enslaved. We have colonised. We have brutalised. We have degraded. We have discriminated against. We have isolated. We have stigmatised. We have oppressed and suppressed.

Rather than share and utilise material and human resources equitably, we have consistently pillaged, plundered, squandered and hoarded the scarce resources we are meant to share with one another.

Let’s not quibble around these important issues: Kenyans are as savage and barbaric as Nigerians, Congolese, Sudanese, Somalis, Chileans, Mozambicans, Angloans, apartheid South Africans, Sierra Leoneans and Liberians.

We laugh and rejoice at our fellow citizens’ misfortunes. We are quick to rip each other off. We look the other way when government agencies brutalise unarmed and defenceless civilians.

We encourage and thrive on sectarian and jingoistic culture. In fact, my unscientific assessment is that on the issue of runway looting, plunder and inability to punish crime, Kenya holds the gold medal.

Our rapacious greed, brutality, dishonesty and selfishness are unmatched. For me, there is no significant difference between a typical Kenyan and a primitive ape.

Don’t get it wrong: I genuinely adore our country. I’m a proud and patriotic Kenyan. However, when I see my fellow citizens extra-judicially mowed down in the streets by security forces who are supposed to protect them, I cringe and recoil in shame.

When heavily armed and menacing police officers wantonly and arbitrarily round up, beat up, torture and brutalise Somalis under the pretext of war against terror, I shudder in anguish.

When the government inhumanely detain members of the Somali community in their thousands because of vague and undetermined immigration and terrorism allegations, we have a moral duty to question why.

Unless we are rapacious dinosaurs wearing human attire, there is no justification for any country that purports to be democratic, respects the rule of law, has a vibrant bill of rights and a supposedly ‘reformed judiciary’ to profile, target, scapegoat, mass arrest and intern only poor members of one ethnic group from specific estates.

If the raids, mass arrests and detentions were legitimate, why haven’t the few wealthy Somalis living in Muthaiga, Lavington, Runda, Karen, Nyari, Roselyn, Kyuna, Ridgeways, Kitisuri and other posh neighbourhoods in Nairobi also been targeted?

If we are serious about fighting terrorism, crime and insecurity within our borders, we would focus first on the proper training of our security forces on modern investigative techniques and use of advanced technology.

We would also ensure that these well-trained officers can infiltrate terrorist cells and organised criminal groups, gather credible and reliable information, arrest people involved in crime based on either reasonable suspicion or tangible evidence, have them tried fairly, convicted and sentenced to long jail terms.

If we fail to do this, we will end up creating widespread resentments and breeding grounds for terrorist recruitment, in addition to fermenting disaffection and ultimately more vicious attacks.

Is Kenya is a barbaric wasteland? During the two most tragic and destructive wars which European inappropriately referred to as “First and Second World Wars,” homo sapiens committed barbarous acts against each other which outraged the conscience of the world, thereby compelling the United Nation General Assembly gathered in Paris on December 10, 1948 to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The UDHR recognised that the foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world is the recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.

The UDHR provides that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. It guarantees everyone the right to life, liberty and security of the person. It also guarantees everyone the right against slavery, slave trade or servitude; torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 7 of the UDHR provides that everyone is equal before the law and is entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

Kenya ratified – and is therefore bound by - the UDHR on July 31, 1990. We also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1976; the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990; and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in 2000.

By ratifying these international instruments, Kenya undertook to respect, uphold and adhere to all individual and group rights and freedoms enshrined in them.

But even more significantly, the Bill of Rights enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 entrenches and guarantees all the rights in these international instruments. It guarantees and entrenches the right to life; equality and freedom from discrimination; freedom and security of the person; freedom of conscience, religion, belief, expression and opinion; freedom of association, assembly, movement and assembly; and access to justice; et cetera.

It’s not even five years since we ratified the Constitution, yet, like a primitive ape, Kenya has all but forgotten and buried these rights and freedoms. Every day, the media publishes without any criticism, dozens of cases where security forces brutally murder suspected robbers and thieves – even those alleged to have snatched Sh1,200 mobile telephones.

What is the work of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Judiciary if every suspected criminal is summarily executed by the police and no action is ever taken against the perpetrators of this egregious crime?

Do Kenyans seriously believe that extra-judicial killings are the answers to rampant insecurity? Are all the victims of extra-judicial killing presumed guilty? Even if they are, is each case of alleged crime a capital offence?

When did we amend the Constitution and authorise extra-judicial killings by the police? What happened to the presumption of innocence, the right to procedural fairness and natural justice? Don’t Somalis and Muslims have these rights as well?

Why hasn’t the judiciary, media, Law Society of Kenya, Constitutional Implementation Commission, human rights organisations and other rights groups embraced and insisted on the primacy of upholding and enforcing the Bill of Rights?

Despite widespread and very serious human rights abuses especially by the Kenyan security forces against Muslims and Somalis, in particular, even the judiciary seems to have forgotten that the centrepiece of any constitution is how robust its Bill of Rights are adhered to and enforced. And since we can’t even rely on the so-called reformed judiciary for protection, would it be fair to say that we are worse than primitive apes?