Restore Justice

Our journey as a nation began long before independence. The Europeans partitioned Africa in 1884 and the British quickly declared our land a ‘protectorate’ and later a ‘crown colony’. Years of brutal displacement and suppression of the indigenous people followed, and many across the country who resisted were killed or exiled e.g. Waiyaki Wa Hinga, Koitalel Arap Samoei and Mekatilili Wa Menza. The climax was the Mau Mau uprising of 1952-5 where hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were arrested, tortured and detained by the British Government.

That’s why our independence 50 years ago was such a time of great joy and celebration! There were high hopes and aspirations across the nation. Finally, all that had been stolen was going to be restored! But with time, it became clear in the words of the late Jaramogi Oginga Oginga that it was ‘not yet Uhuru’. The successive regimes after independence centralized power and did not place high priority on distributing land and employment opportunities for other ethnic groups except those of the leader in power.  Absolute government power, corruption, political assassinations, and ethnic animosity increasingly became the order of the day.

That brief history of Kenya that explains why today, under the surface of this blessed nation simmer many resentments. The post election violence (PEV), of 2008 was just a glimpse of the kind of ticking time bomb we sit on as a nation when we allow such inequalities to continue unabated. I recommend watching ‘Something Necessary’  to give you a glimpse of what I’m talking about.

As a result today, Kenya is ranked among the top ten most unequal countries in the world. Our capital city, (not the metropolitan area but the traditional Nairobi) covers about 700 square kilometers and houses about 4M people. There are two hundred slum villages in Nairobi. 65% of Nairobi’s population (about 2.6M) live in the slums, which cover only 5% of the land area.

The UN Habitat says that 60% of all structures in the slums are owned by civil servants, council workers, ministers, government officers, and politically connected individuals. These lands – mostly originally public lands – have been irregularly allocated to powerful people.

The total rent collected from the urban poor living in the slums (in little rooms many of which host a full family and cost somewhere between 400-2000 Ksh a month) is 4B Ksh! That’s 48B Ksh per year milked from the poor: It’s such a huge booming cash cow that the slum lords protect this business viciously.

What are we supposed to do when faced with such stark realities? It’s easy to get paralyzed and remain stuck in the past: It’s easy to go round in circles trying to figure out how to undo such layered ‘historical injustices’ (whee do you start/how far back do you go?) But I believe the God’s word has the answer for our situation.

Please read Lev. 25:8-17, as we examine the second line of our national prayer –

‘Justice Be Our Shield And Defender’. 

Every 50 years, God hit the reset button in Israel. In an agricultural nation like Israel (very similar to much of Africa today), land was the most important asset that people owned because it represented not just a place to live but a means of production: With land you could farm and feed your family. With the ability to feed your family came good health, dignity and security: You could also educate your children ensuring wealth for the next generation.

And so what God did was to limit land purchases to 50 years. Land could be bought and sold but every 50th year it went back to the family who had owned it initially. This broke the cycle of poverty and ensured that every family, regardless of why they had lost their means of production would have a chance to start again.

Justice be our shield and defender

Mention the word justice and for most of us, the picture that comes to mind is courts, judges, and lawyers. But that’s only a part of what this word means! To be just means to be fair and right; and justice is the act of being fair and right in my treatment of others. God makes it clear that He is concerned about justice in our dealings with one another.

And yet national injustices have led to Kenyan society becoming like a pyramid. 65% of our people live below the poverty line, including the 10-15% who live in what is called destitute poverty; completely helpless. Then there’s the middle class comprising 25% of our population. And finally at the top is the wealthy 10% that controls about 50% of the economy.

When you compare this most of Europe, their societies are shaped more like an egg. There is a thin margin of 5-10% depending on the country, who are immensely wealthy. 80% are the middle class. And then you have another 5-10% who are the poor – but not the destitute poverty we see here in Africa.

The foundation for justice is equity. When you have a strong middle class, you have stable nation. But as long as the middle class is small, and the poor majority feel they have no hope of advancement, justice cannot prevail in our nation. For the poor, revolution and instability is the only way available to break the status quo. “Burn everything down, let’s all start again so that we can also have a chance”. That’s their reset button!

Now I don’t believe the answer is to take away from the rich and middle class and give it to the poor for that will just destroy innovation and can create a dependence welfare-mentality which ultimately will only entrench the problem. That’s not the reset this nation needs! The answer is to break people out of poverty into a place where they own their means of production – which is what we call the ‘middle class’. That was the rationale behind the year of Jubilee.

We must move away from seeing justice as the government’s or civil society’s responsibility. We need to understand that God holds His people accountable for the practice of justice in our nation, and in God’s eyes, justice in our day-to-day dealings is even more important than our worship and prayers on Sunday.

 Prov.21:3 says, ‘To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice’. In this Jubilee year, we must engage at an individual level and make a difference to our nation. 

Justice be our shield and defender

It doesn’t matter how much God blesses our ‘land and nation’: Without justice, it won’t last! But what can you do as an individual?

What if this year, each person or family would make it their responsibility to liberate one Kenyan family out of poverty? We could move from charity to justice! What if we could move from giving a handout to giving a hand up? Imagine, if even 1000 people were to take one family each and liberate them. If the average family is about 5 people, then together we would have liberated 5,000 people! Some of us can even influence our companies to put the means of production in the hands of 10 or 20 or even 50 people. There are many ways we can do this…

§ What if you over the next few months could raise 10,000Ksh as an individual or 100,000Ksh as a Life Group to give one family or 10-15 families a means of production through Maono, a micro-finance organization started and run by people here at Mavuno?

§ What if you would not just give the money but offer to give time and skills to help the group you adopt?

§ What if you ensure that all your friends have signed up their maids, watchmen and gardeners for health insurance through NHIF?

§ What if you could support the children of those who work for you through school as if they were your own?

§ What if you could put aside something every month to in future help your house-helper start a business after they’ve been with you for a few years?

§ What if you could stop bargaining so hard when you buy vegetables from that ‘mama mboga’ who needs the money so much more than you do?

I want to challenge you that this jubilee, you will make a commitment to take one person or one family and to liberate them out of the cycle of poverty by helping them own their means of production.

I used to think that our army is our shield and defender… But come 2008, I realized that our army could not defend us – only justice can be true our shield and defender! It’s time to RISE UP and be counted. It’s time to play your part in hitting the reset button for this nation and helping us all occupy. Don’t wait until the day you ‘make it’ because by then it may be too late. If Kenya prospers, you prosper!

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