IS BROTHER ATWOLI INSTIGATING A CIVILIAN COUP IN KENYA?

Dear Sir/Madam, In an event of unprecedented import, over half a million people took to the streets of Kiev in November 2004 hoping to wrestle power from the corrupt , the Moscow backed oligarchs that had ruled the state ever since the fall of communism in 1991. And they did it. They forced the incumbent into a fresh round of elections where Yushchenko won with 52 per cent. Now, one Franco Atwoli, the undisputed leader of the umbrella of the Kenyan workers union, and who is widely travelled around the globe, and whose second home is in Geneva (by his own admission), seems to have drawn vital lessons from the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Not that he exactly said that he wants to force the Government out of power, but his body language while addressing the public in Mombasa bespeaks volumes. He envisages a vast number of Kenyan workers, including the police force, to strike, protest, and practice a peaceful civil disobedience. In simple terms he is craving for a civilian coup. The people will have spoken. The good guys will have won. And the future will be bright. Of course with Brother Atwoli enjoying the trappings of power! But wait a minute; Brother Atwoli knows too well that Kenyan politicians are highly conscious of their power and status. They are shrewd manipulators who can sway the mob to their side anytime. They are a self-serving ruling class getting off on their own acquisitive misanthropy – rather than a political community responding obediently to our loudly expressed democratic will. They are simply averse to reforms that will deny them the much coveted trappings of power. And as for the public, they know that it is shockingly complacent! So what makes him so sure that he will succeed in pulling a fast one on the same politicians? Will he triumph where ODM failed during the botched up 2007 presidential elections? Remember ODM`s much touted two million march to state house that never materialized? It will serve him good were he to consult ODM on why they retreated. And the answer is simple. They realized that Kenya is not Ukraine. They did not want a bloody confrontation with the security forces. Neither do we want this bloody confrontation now. By the way, how will he manage to unite the extremely partisan workers vide a series of public rallies and rouse them into forcefully demanding for speedy implementation of agenda four reforms from the Government? I am also curious to know just who is financing the series of rallies that he has planned countrywide. Is it from the kitty of the giant workers union? If so, does the COTU constitution give him a carte blanche on expenditure? I also wish to remind him that there is in existence a social contract between the people and the sovereign. The sanctity of this social contract must be respected by all and sundry. Hobbes in the Leviathan, published in 1661, claimed that the first and only task of political society was to name an individual or group of individuals as sovereign. This sovereign would then have absolute power, and each citizen would owe him absolute obedience. Like Hobbes before him, Locke in his second treatise of Government, published in 1690, claimed that the social contract was permanent and irrevocable, but the legislative was only empowered to legislate for the public good. If this trust was violated, the people retained the power to replace the legislative with a new legislative. From the foregoing, and for obvious reasons, Locke did not vouch for popular intervention to be commonplace. Neither do we want it in Kenya. Even his Union mate, one Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, His Excellency the President of Brazil won the presidency through the ballot not through civil disobedience. I understand and share Brother Atwoli`s frustrations but I also know that we have the rule of the law which must be followed to the letter. We must be circumspect about our stability as a nation. By engaging in subversive activities, we shall be committing a wrong just like some of our selfish legislators. But two wrongs do not make a right; instead we end up with a fiasco. TOME FRANCIS, BUMULA CONSTITUENCY.