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Kenya’s Churches and the Youth Uprising

A wind of change is sweeping across Kenya. Public protests led by youth started on June 25 and continue countrywide.

The anti-taxi protests culminated in the storming of Parliament in Nairobi. Over 41 people, mostly young, were killed by police. Several hundreds were injured, property destroyed, and billions of shillings lost.

The riots are taking place against a backdrop of an economy on the edge, following decades of mismanagement and corruption in government, a debt binge, and a shilling under inflationary pressure.

The country was barely recovering from drought — a result of climate change that had depressed agricultural output and pushed up food prices amid scarce jobs for thousands of fresh college and university graduates. An astonishing 67 percent of Kenyans younger than 34 lack jobs. Real incomes are in decline, strangled by a stagnating economy.

The quality of public services — especially in education and health — had deteriorated for years, even before President William Ruto came into office. There is a general erosion of the social contract between government and the governed.

The riots were precipitated by the Finance Bill 2024, which contained a raft of tax increases and fueled public perception that it was written in Washington by the International Monetary Fund as part of Kenya’s fiscal consolidation program. For many, the bill demonstrated the limits of relying on apolitical technical support in policy-making, which approaches the economy as merely an accounting issue and fails to approach it as an intricate political economy question.

On July 11, President Ruto sacked all but one of his cabinet secretaries, following weeks of protests. He has also dropped budgetary support toward the office of his wife, Rachel Ruto, and that of his deputy’s wife, Pastor Dorcas Rigathi. He has yielded to pressure from young Kenyans, commonly known as Gen Z, who continue to protest extravagance and the lack of accountability from government.

Before the riots, Anglican Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit had petitioned Parliament to scrap punitive taxes that directly affect the poor and vulnerable. He implored the relevant Parliamentary committee to do away with proposed taxes on bread, cooking oil, altar wine, diapers, sanitary pads, and medical dressings, among other goods.

“Additional tax burdens will push more people into extreme poverty, widening existing inequalities and entrenching vulnerabilities,” the archbishop urged.

Similarly, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops appealed to the government to reconsider the proposed taxation. The conference quoted Zechariah 7:10: “do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”

The Catholic bishops added, “It is our view that the Finance Bill 2024, if passed in its current form, will be oppressive and cause untold suffering among Kenyans.”

Despite these appeals from the leadership of two of Kenya’s single largest churches, the government passed the bill in Parliament, followed by riots across the country.

In the 1980s and ’90s, religious groups across Kenya played a constructive and important role in developing a broad-based movement for constitutional change. Without them, reforms would have been limited to politicians and legal professionals. Religious groups ensured that it was an inclusive and broad-based process.

Despite churches’ role in calling for people-friendly policies, they have been roundly condemned as being part of the problem. Youth have developed a hashtag — #occupychurch — meant to stem co-option of churches into mismanagement of stolen wealth by politicians who frequent sanctuaries and publicly donate money to support assorted projects. Youth also argue that the voice of the church has not been prophetic against ills of the political elite.

Many youth believe churches are as enmeshed in abusing Kenya’s public resources. They believe churches have become discredited as willing recipients of looted public resources in fundraisers and lacking an overarching ideology of empire.

In some ways, a 19th-century missionary logic of mission focused on capturing the native. Part of the strategy hinged on building schools, hospitals, and health centers and creating spaces for encounter and conversion. This missionary approach lingers today, with many churches investing in mega-capital projects, supposedly to support the work of ministry. To raise money for these projects, a symbiotic relationship has ensued between politicians and clergy. Political leaders have taken seriously the religious platform, applying it to considerable effect. In this scheme, the prophetic voice of the church has been compromised.

It is time churches redefined their roles in putting the government on its toes in the delivery of social goods and services.

Today’s discourse raises important questions about the relationship between mission and empire in Africa. It also shows the limitation of religious engagement in the public sphere, how religious groups could easily slip into another mode of engagement: sectarianism.

In a message to the nation of Kenya released to the press on July 19, following a house of bishops meeting of July 18, Anglican bishops announced ‘We repent of all our shortcomings and commit to always against sin and evils of all kinds”.

This pronouncement provides religious leaders, and all Christians and people of good will with an opportunity for renaissance in their mission of prophetic witness and civic duty, now belittled by so many.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Joseph Wandera is bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Mumias, Kenya.

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