Let’s reflect on peace lessons from Jesus as we mark Easter holiday 

Today’s Good Friday comes against the backdrop of a standoff between the lead coalitions with the spectre of resuming weekly protests the opposition called off only last Sunday to give dialogue a chance looming large.

Religious leaders—among other people of goodwill—had prevailed upon President William Ruto, Kenya Kwanza Alliance party leader, and his nemesis, Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party boss, Mr Raila Odinga, to initiate dialogue and spare Kenya the plunge into anarchy.

Just over two weeks ago, the British online newspaper, The Independent, reported Kenya’s Independent Medico-Legal Unit as saying four protesters had died and 50 injured as Azimio protests turned violent.

This coincides with Daily Nation revelations of a police plot to downplay deaths and injuries arising from Azimio protests, initially planned for Mondays, until Kenya Kwanza accedes to Azimio demands. At the time Azimio pronounced a temporary ceasefire to open space for dialogue, Thursday had been added to Monday as days of weekly protests.

That Azimio could escalate its weekly protests at a time Christians—estimated at 85.5 per cent of Kenya’s population of 47.5 million (2019 census)—calls for an interrogation of politicians’—and Kenyans’— allegiance to a religion whose founder, Jesus Christ, abhorred violence. Today being Good Friday—the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion and death of Jesus—what an opportune moment to reflect on Christianity’s peace tenets.

No Bible passage exemplifies this more than Matthew 26:51-53 in which Jesus, who had just been arrested, rebukes a companion for cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant. His words bear reporting fully: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (A Google search puts a legion at 6,100-foot soldiers [73,200] and 726 horsemen [8,712].

Numbers aside, the biblical significance of the above passage is Jesus’s non-violent stance in the face of his imminent death. In recent weeks since Azimio launched its protests, calls for a peaceful resolution of its grievances have risen to a crescendo, with religious leaders standing out. 

Apart from Jesus’s example as a model of peace, Islam, Kenya’s second religion by population (11 per cent of the country’s population), is also founded on submission to God, and by extension, peace. 

Stiff resistance

And yet the calls for a peaceful resolution to the Azimio-Kenya Kwanza stalemate have been met with stiff resistance.

A day after Mr Odinga said the opposition had little trust in Parliament and wants an accord similar to the one negotiated following the unprecedented post-election violence of 2008, Kenya Kwanza MPs, led by Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, dismissed Mr Odinga’s demands as self-seeking. Instead, they drafted a petition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be debated in Parliament.

It is not for yours truly to interrogate Kenya Kwanza’s holier-than-thou attitude towards the opposition. At the same time, it is not lost to the public that Azimio protesters are not innocent in regard to the violence they have unleashed on journalists they suspect of sharing their identities with the police—without an iota of evidence.

Suffice it to state that the warring factions’ intransigence doesn’t serve the principles of peace that should be paramount as Christians’ Lenten season draws to a close with the marking of Jesus’s crucifixion and Muslims right in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan.

It should also be mentioned that even the strategic stakeholders in the peace agenda are not devoid of self-interest. A statement issued by the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) was prompt in condemning the torching of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) offices in Siaya County.

However, the statement signed by ORPP registrar Ann Nderitu clearly toned down in reproaching similar acts by suspected Kenya Kwanza agents. These include the mayhem they wreaked on Northlands estate linked to the family of former president Uhuru Kenyatta and East African Spectre—a gas cylinder manufacturing company associated with the Odinga family.

In the business of promoting peaceful coexistence among Kenyans, public officers—including the police—should be guided by ethical principles not just at this time when Christians mark Jesus’s victory over death through his resurrection but always.

Ms Kweyu is Consulting Editor, The Editorial Centre. [email protected]