The Unfitness of The Country’s First Line of Defense is Alarming
Following the June 25th nationwide demonstrations
The first number is 25.
Google Photos sent me a reminder photo of last year, the 25th of June, when Kenyans boldly seized the constitutional power they never knew they had. A year later, we commemorated that day.
The second number is 24.
For 24 years, the second president of the country controlled every major unit with an iron fist. On his right hand, he always wielded a club, perhaps serving as a symbol of the swift swing of the force with which he struck his enemies.
The third number is 23.
This number is often covered in mystery. On July 19th, the Mechanized Infantry Battalion (MIB) was formed. Similarly, a battalion of armed anti-riot officers was deployed to control the crowds intent on storming the cities and major towns in the country.
The next number is 22.
Kenyans were in a catch-22 situation. It was either they shock the regime or continue suffering under its tyrannical rule. We chose the former.
The next one is 21.
The only way Kenyans could honour the fallen who fought for their country was with the 21-gun salute. The common folk didn’t have guns, but they knew what they stood for. That was their salute.
The final one was 20.
Back in high school, my physics teacher waxed poetic about the kind of surveillance system the former president, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, had. It was only bested by the Scotland Yard, he proudly spoke.
In addition, the Kenyan currency was so strong that twenty shillings was equivalent to 1 British Pound. Today, the 20 Kenyan shilling coin is known as a pound. In that regard, it seemed fit that Kenyans demand a pound of flesh.
Speaking of fitness, the former president, Daniel Moi, kept his forces on the alert. Based on the kind of resources available at the time, you could say they were fit.
However, I wouldn’t say that about the present armed personnel.
Yesterday, while the nationwide protests spread to every urban centre in the country, videos flooded the internet. Pent-up rage fueled Kenyans to hold their ground when the police launched their attacks. Others charged right back. The result was shocking.
A fraction of the people who saw the video showed concern as the multitudes injected fear into the police.
One officer was challenged by a local, disarmed, and chased back to where he’d come from, to the amusement of the recorders of the incident. The man, who looked capable as he leaped from one edge of the barrier to the next, was a different person when he tried to run back in trepidation. He slipped and evidently hit his jaw. His colleague came to his rescue, while the residents celebrated their temporary victory.
Another recording showed a lorry ferrying the police from the point of danger. In panic, the driver left one of them, who was left gasping for air, chasing a vehicle that had already left. The recorder predicted the inevitable: one of the residents charged from behind to knock him down with one flying kick.
Palpable from the heroic chants was something similar to what Michael Jackson sang:
All I wanna say is that, they don’t really care about us.
The first video I saw was of a fleeing troupe, chased by an angry, tear-gassed crowd, with a lady officer trailing behind. She was ensnared and received the full wrath of the mob. It must have been too grisly to view, let alone record.
While one side saw it was tat for all the tit they got and another expressed mercy, I was filled with worry. Coming days after the targeting of Iranian officials, and the online discussions rife with the potential of a territorial war (I don’t want to say World War; I wouldn’t want us to get to that), I entertained the thought of these anti-riot police being sent to the battlefield.
Summoning the call of adrenaline in such a sloppy depiction for someone who should be ready to defend the public is deeply worrying. I began questioning the recruitment process. Was it as corrupt as the other sordid systems in the country? Of all institutions, the armed forces should be like the immune system, ready and competent when terror strikes.
And terror did strike. Not using bombs. But with kicks, chants, and volcanic rage. That’s mild compared to a full battalion of armed soldiers, the likely enemy in a trench war. Worse is that the leaders have unscrupulous means of fattening their stomachs and pockets, while the army turns morbidly obese and incompetent.
Morbid may be too lenient a term. Mortally obese, because they can be easily disarmed, risking their lives.
My basketball coach insisted that we never be caught flat-footed. Ten toes to the ground, always. Fitness was essential.
I was in two school teams in high school — football and basketball. You either shape up or ship out. Assertions from our coach were as empirical as they were practical. A fit person can knock down any large-bodied, unfit individual.
In basketball, a game of only five, you run like a sorcerer is bent on squeezing all of a cat’s nine lives from you. If one person relaxes, the whole team suffers. The weakest link brings the entire team down.
These sports analogies prove insightful.
Having a battalion of officers gasping for breath after a short distance run should concern everyone whom the police are supposed to protect. Do we even have a defense system?
You may argue that we no longer fight like King Shaka with assegai and shields. But that is a feeble rebuttal.
You need fitness to move while you disarm. You need agility and strength to fight, once you run out of bullets. You need the stamina to carry your colleague from points of danger to safety. Our officers lacked all these to the level required of their position.
They resorted to the alternative and lazy option — shifting the burden to their weapons.
Systems that rely heavily on instruments can be weak systems. Emphasis, can. But if you have an unfit operator of this system, the weakest links become the wielders of those instruments.
Shifting the burden of the intervenor is an erosive system archetype. An archetype is a problematic behaviour displayed by systems that follow similar patterns. A good example is resorting to drug abuse. Rather than taking the difficult journey of addressing the precipitants and perpetuators of the habit, the drug is sought through hook and crook to numb oneself to this reality. The temporary relief or high is a manifestation of the freeing of the weight of responsibility. It is shifting the burden to the drug, hoping it will take it away. It hardly works. Unless one dies from it, a sad potential possibility.
For our unfit officials, the intervenor was the guns. Using tear gas and water cannons is a safe option. I have no qualms with that. I begin to take issue with the officials who recklessly feed a starving population with live bullets.
The other week, one such official had no right whatsoever to raise his arms against an unarmed man. Humans, keen on making the most of conflicts, would try to reap profits from the opportunity. The mighty first world does it, as does the common folk in developing countries. This guy was simply selling masks. If anything, he was an extended member of the medical profession, protecting the protesters from the harmful and potentially long-term effects of tear gas, especially among vulnerable groups.
The video shocked me. As an ICU doctor, I witness death every other time, but not like that one. With a jungle green cap and a scarf to cover his face, this official thought he was hidden from the keen eye of the Kenyan onlookers, who could resonate with Michael Jackson’s song:
All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us
I can bet he, too, is unfit, seeing how he resorted to the intervention — the gun.
Luckily, the guy survived. But brain injuries are not certain to revert patients back to their previous state. The father was supposed to be pacified by two million shillings from the government. A popular meme in circulation is that of parents wishing their children not to turn up for the protests because they would rather keep their children than receive blood money from the government.
In all honesty, how is that not blood money? It’s putting a price tag on your son or daughter, all of which are rooted in the burden the armed officials have shifted. This burden rests with the firearms, wielded by trigger-happy anti-riot police.
A simple calculation can illustrate the immense changes possible within a system. Recalling the example of a basketball team, any system becomes robust by strengthening the weak points relative to the strong ones.
Let’s use a scale between 0 and 1. Guns can take 0.9. Fitness can be 0.4. The product is 0.36. This is less than fifty percent (0.36<0.5).
Assume the defense team opts to strengthen their weapons at the expense of fitness. We can bump the value from 0.9 to 0.95. The product increases by a paltry 0.02. That is, from 0.36 to 0.38.
Consider the same changes on the weakness. Assume they increase their fitness by the same amount, 0.05. That is, from 0.4 to 0.45. The product (0.9 × 0.45) becomes 0.405. Notice the difference. The wide, significant difference.
I rest my case.
What I’m trying to say is…
You know, I really do hate to say it
The government don’t wanna see— Michael Jackson
Addressing weaknesses will always be superior to improving your strengths.
But a regime that hardly listens may not appreciate the urgency with which this needs to be addressed.
Shifting to the easiest and closest intervention only results in costly casualties and death when a more robust alternative exists.
Since the leaders don’t seem to care, the rage will continue to consume both the holder of the gun and the recipient of the bullet.
MJ was not wrong when he chimed:
All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube