Corona pandemic was first reported in Kenya as a passing cloud from the distant city of Wuhan in China. Like in many of our stock reactions, some argued the disease was not for us, it cannot affect us. Some even blacklisted the Chinese – it was a disease among people who are known to consume all manner of living creatures. We were settled in our normal lives. Do not disturb.
Then disturbing news started filtering in. The pandemic was spreading fast in other parts of the world. Kenya was not spared. Flights from China were suspended. A security officer at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) known as Gire Ali was suspended for sharing a video on social media of an airplane that landed on 26th February ferrying passengers from China, the country then at the centre of the pandemic. The passengers were asked to go for self – quarantine for 14 days. That was when the word quarantine crept into the vocabularies of many of us.
Reactions to the pandemic by the country’s top leadership were muted at first. This too shall pass soon. God is with us. Then came the announcement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health: the country has recorded one case of Covid – 19. This was on 12th March 2020. The disease had finally struck home.
Chronicles of a pandemic
The country’s President came into the picture on 15March to announce a raft of measures to curb the pandemic, key among them: All schools and higher learning institutions to be closed. Government and business employees to start working from home, except those offering essential services. No mass gatherings, meetings – weddings, malls, night clubs, churches, limitation of visits to hospitals.
The countdown had begun. On 22, March, eight additional cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 16 nationally. Additional measures and directives were issued to reduce the spread of coronavirus in the country, including: Suspension of all international flights effective at midnight on 25 March, with the exception of cargo flights. All persons entering the country were compelled to undergo quarantine at a government facility. All bars were to remain closed from 22 March, with restaurants allowed to remain open for takeaway services only. All public service vehicles such as matatus and buses had to adhere to passenger-distancing guidelines. All public gatherings at churches, mosques, funerals among others were restricted to no more than 15 people, and weddings were banned.
Nairobi and Mombasa counties topped the list of infections. A lockdown was whispered loudly, strongly suggested by some, its offing was eerie. What came on 25 March was a nation-wide curfew on unauthorized movement from 7pm to 5am beginning on Friday, 27 March. Some measures were also unveiled to buffer Kenyans against financial hardships arising from movement restrictions associated with the coronavirus crisis.
Masses of people scamper to beat the curfew. Reports emerge of wanton police brutality in the enforcement of the curfew. Witness accounts and raw video footage, especially from Nairobi and Mombasa show excessive use of police force, including use of tear gas. Masses rushing to beat the curfew and containment by police result in many people crowding into small areas, rubbishing the curfew’s logic of increasing social distancing. On 31 March, Yassin Hussein Moyo, a 13-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet from the police on the balcony of his home in Kiamaiko, Mathare slums in Nairobi, 20 minutes after the curfew had started. More deaths of civilians from the police than from the curfew were reported.
The President announced on April 6 a cessation of movement in and out of The Nairobi Metropolitan Area for a containment period of 21 days. Other counties affected by the cessation included Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale. Matatus were required to carry only a few passengers, not more than eight for a 14 seater matatu. Fares rise, so do prices of basic commodities such as maize flour, rice, milk, bread, cooking gas, sugar, sukuma wiki and such other essential foods Many workplaces are closed, only those offering essential services can remain open. Stay at home is recommended. Ensure social distancing in public places and wear masks, wash or sanitize hands frequently. Masses of the working class do not have the wherewithal of working from home, assuming they do have a home. They live in crowded areas, mostly in the slums, where running water is a privilege. Covid – 19 regulations are alien to their survival. Unemployment soars, hunger bits. Even the middle class are not spared. They are faced by job cuts, their fortunes dwindle while incomes are on safe mode. The capitalist society is built on quicksand.
Community responses and activism
Many communities and activist groups came up with various ways of ameliorating the suffering occasioned by Covid – 19 disruptions. Civil society organisations and community advocacy groups set up various centres for response and activism referred to as situation rooms. They combine to rally against police brutality in the enforcement of the curfew. They present their cases in words and graphically: 16 people have died from police actions to “protect” from Covid – 19 against 8 deaths from the pandemic by April 11. They also mobilize provisions of basic services to fellow activists, but also to the most vulnerable in their communities, especially in the slums. Community groups also get into motion, reaching out for materials and facilitating support to the most vulnerable in their neighborhoods. The government also launches a harambee for protecting from coronavirus known as Covid – 19 Emergency Response Fund. Corporates, government agencies, parastatals, charitable foundations and wealthy individuals troop to contribute to the government’s kitty. All these efforts are a drop in the ocean. Bandage remedies and ambulance services to an already deprived and suffering population. Capitalism has wrought a bigger tragedy. Society is in ICU. Capitalism itself is on life-support. Social safety nets in an egalitarian social order would have cushioned the suffering of the people.
Normal was the problem
Capitalism has normalized the suffering and exploitation of the working class as business as usual. It is taken as normal when majority are submerged in poverty while a minority of the wealthy pilfer the fortunes of the country and live in opulence. This normal was never normal. It is not normal for millions of workers to be subjected to niggardly payments and precarious working conditions while the lords of industry and capital grow rich and powerful from the sweat of the working class. It is not normal for the majority to lack social safety nets to cushion their deprived existence. It is not normal for the peasant farmers to eke livelihoods from small parcels of overused lands for their survival and subsistence, never collectively and commercially for their common well – being, while the wealthy few own large tracks of stolen lands. This normalization of poverty and suffering to millions of people is not normal, should never be normal.
The system will put on a mask as benevolent at this time. It isn’t. It has never been. How come the escalating costs of living, the privatization and wanton exploitation of our commons, focus on maximizing profits over human life, the disregard and deprivation of the majority poor? Whose system is it that produces commodities for the profits of a few, not for the sustenance of everyone? Where medical care and drugs are out of reach of the majority, affordable only by a few? This system is wretched. Panic and fear should never be a response to alleviate the suffering of the majority, should never be normal.
Social safety nets to the poor and vulnerable are possible and can be expanded to everyone. Education can be subsidized by the state, making it free for everyone in the long run. Interest rates can be lowered. Loan demands can be waived. Police brutality can be stopped. Peasants can earn secure livelihoods and take possession of the country’s lands, our common resource and heritage. The working class can earn gainfully from their sweat. An egalitarian social order is possible. This is the just social order that the myriad people’s struggles need to forge and connect to override this system. Every cloud has a silver lining. Corona pandemic has broken the lenses of normalization of deprivation and suffering of the majority. We should not allow the system’s normal to resume. It is time for a new Normal.
