A colleague recently mentioned that
during her courses in law school, the Criminology lecturer gave a
descriptive analysis of what criminals look like – red eyes, gaunt face,
square jaw and unkempt appearance. According to this particular
lecturer, all criminals are physically identified with such an
appearance.
From a very early stage in our development,
we are trained to associate certain physical traits with criminals.
Perhaps this is the root of the malaise that currently plagues the
country’s legal authorities.
In graphic novels, the
villain is always represented by gaunt and highly exaggerated features,
whether male or female; the villain and criminals are always easy to
recognize physically by their racial and facial features.
In
the last few days we have seen politically driven racism take on
shocking proportions among the general public – hateful comments made in
public forums have metamorphosed into open racial attacks against
innocent citizens of Somali ethnicity; reports have come in of Somali
people being forcefully ejected from public service vehicles.
We
are certainly a nation of bigots; this fact is displayed every 5 years
during ethnically motivated elections in which the electorate
predictably votes in ethnic blocks in a sham of a democratic process and
consistently flawed electoral process.
It is the
national narrative to segregate and even isolate millions in ethnic
enclaves leading to a national mentality of “it’s our turn to eat.”
INGRAINED AND INCONTROVERTIBLE
Political
office is seen as an ethnic entitlement especially among the ruling
elite; the very idea of an inclusive national ideology is completely
foreign.
It is an ingrained and incontrovertible
attitude; that we are not one nation with several ethnicities but simply
a country of various ethnic groups all claiming superiority.
Woe
unto the other ethnic communities that do not gain political office in
significant numbers, woe betide all those who are not Kikuyu or
Kalenjin.
Ethnic profiling, of Somali or any other
ethnic community ,is not only unconstitutional but an egregious form of
state driven discrimination, one of the worst human rights abuses that
any law enforcement authority can come up with.
It
simply means that by virtue of your god given features and being born in
a certain community you are a criminal. It is a completely irrational
line of defence to use in a war against terror and certainly has no
merit or legal basis whatsoever.
Given the national
propaganda being driven by what I consider the cheapest sort of idle
bigots among the political class, it is no wonder that any person who
stands up to this sort of tyrannical racism is branded a “terrorist
sympathizer”. Journalists, human rights defenders and clergy who have
been vocal against this sort of blatant discrimination have faced a
backlash of hatred for their stance.
When it comes to
national security, it is incumbent upon us as citizens to unite and
consider security for all while protecting the fundamental freedoms and
rights of every member of society. Ethnic profiling is illegal; using
absurd means like ethnic facial features to identify criminals is
illegal and cannot stand up in any just court of law.
We
deserve proper answers to the terror threat. It is time that the state
authorities stopped the shenanigans and produced tangible results in
terms of increased security.
Most certainly it is time
that this country learned that targeting certain ethnicities and
propagating absurd blanket stereotypes is not only divisive, petty and
immature it is an ugly approach to nationalism that leaves all of us
vulnerable to attack.
Twitter: @bettywaitherero
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