It’s a matter of the personal vs. the collective. No matter what – I wasn’t going to be known only as a keyboard warrior/online activist. So despite not being a citizen, I happily and excitedly made my way to the Mandamano #RejectFinanceBill protests in Kenya the first chance I could.
I marched confidently into downtown Nairobi not fully sure what to expect, but excited nonetheless. The thrill seeker and troublemaker in me had finally found her group – and more so for a cause that deeply made sense. A few hours later, I would be running away from heavily-armed police with bullets, batons and tear gas canisters ringing in the background. I would leave with a massive bruise on my leg and narratives for days. #RutoMustGo, the youth-led revolution, was here and I was a part of it.
The senator of Nairobi, Edwin Sifuna, went viral for a clip where he criticised police brutality and responded to images of young women being brutally tear-gassed and sprayed with water in the streets, uttering the now infamous statement, “how do you tear gas a baddie?”. This word caught on and all the young women taking part in the protests proudly wore the title of ‘tear gas baddie’.
As a freelance creative, taxation and tax policies always seemed quite vague and far away to me at times. However, through online graphics and art pieces that were widely shared on X in the weeks leading to and during the protests, I was able to get a clearer understanding of what this Finance Bill would mean for ordinary residents like myself and more importantly, those with even less financial resources. As a feminist, the taxation of menstrual products (as opposed to moving in the other direction of making them free) by the same politicians who claimed to be menstrual advocates, was a hard red line. As an African, I could clearly see that these policies weren’t making our lives any better, and rather setting the situation up as worse for years to come. As a young person, with a decent amount of energy and time, I knew it was my time to shine.
I have always leaned in the direction of anarchy. Any conversation with me beyond the five-minute mark quickly shape-shifts into passionate anti-government rhetoric. Seeing the young people around me collectively rise against the government – and taking the struggle to the streets – gave me a kick and rise that are hard to replace. It was my wildest imaginations coming to life; the people collectively standing and saying, ‘Fuck the government!(and the police too).” Awakening and resistance.
Elements of fear and danger were very well alive and present. Hearing gunshots go off in the background and having previously seen footage of people losing their lives, the threat was very alive and central in my body. I understood it to be a part of the experience though, and knew that the threats of death and violence are what have kept the current power structure alive as long as it has.
Coming from a country with a long standing dictatorship, I have grown up around and witnessed how powerful of a tool fear and complacency are. In this situation, I got to witness the opposite forces; collective action and unbound courage. At the end of the day, I limped home with my knee injury, reeling off adrenaline and quite frightened at the sheer violence and merciless brutality I had witnessed firsthand. I had now earned myself the title of a ‘tear gas baddie’, and was boundlessly proud.
A few weeks later at another protest across the country, I got the news that my friend Sumeiya Omar had been arrested. She is a young feminist like me; passionate about the struggle and betterment of people’s lives. This news threw me in a loop all day and drained my energy to a state of negativity. I anxiously followed the group chat all day, awaiting news of her release. Eventually she was bailed out in the evening, but would still have a long journey of court visits and online harassment ahead of her.
“I protested to express how tired I am – of overtaxation and the fact that it doesn’t reflect in our lives on the ground. Collectively, people are tired and those in power need to hear us as we demand for good governance, accountability and that our leaders actually work for us, as opposed to simply enriching themselves. From my perspective, no one in their sane mind would’ve voted yes for that bill.”
Sumeiya was one of the first organisers of the Kwale coastal chapter of the Finance Bill protests, as she saw that no one else seemed to be standing up and so took it upon herself. She wrote a protest notice to the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) who rejected it, so she then turned to Twitter where they widely shared the poster and was pleasantly surprised when people showed up.
“It started out about taxation and good governance, but quickly grew to include police brutality and the government not adhering to the rule of law. As a woman who is already under-paid and facing the gender pay gap, these taxation policies would only make my life harder. The issue of sanitary towels also goes without saying. I work in a menstrual justice Community Based Organisation and the realities we encounter in schools break my heart. I come from a county with a pathetic health system where our public hospitals don’t even have water – which literally endangers the lives of pregnant women. It’s horrendous and pathetic. Every situation that’s bad somehow ends up being twice as bad for the women.”
On the fourth day of protests, Sumeiya was arrested alongside her friend as they were peacefully holding placards and stating their demands.
“I felt scared as there were literally three men forcibly grabbing and shoving me. I didn’t know what would happen to me after I was placed in the car. It was also embarrassing but majorly scary. I couldn’t understand why we were being met with such malice. Up to now, there have been no official charges and no case presented to court. I couldn’t sleep for days after that, but I would still go back to the streets. They were using fear and intimidation as tactics, which shows me that we were doing the right thing. I would protest again and again if that is what it takes to see results.”
“What does being a tear gas baddie mean to you?”
To Sumeiya, “Being a tear gas baddie to me equals being a “mau mau” fighter. We took them head on. Much as they dispersed us, we kept coming back. Being a tear gas baddie to me is being a hero; we might be scared, and something might go significantly wrong, but I am fighting for the right thing and so I am here. Bring it on.”
*mau mau- also known as the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, the Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist movement that originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. They advocated violent resistance to British dominance in Kenya and as a result had four years of military operations set against them. 11,000 fighters were killed and 22,000 placed in detention camps, as opposed to 100 European soldiers. In the end, Jomo Kenyatta, who had been jailed as a Mau Mau leader became prime minister of an “independent” Kenya 10 years later and the ban on the mau mau was lifted by the Kenyan government in 2003.
