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DAY ONE - THE ASKARIS. AJ writes on ...
Nairobi, KENYA - My Mum and I were on the way to the mosque yesterday, near Odeon which is quite close to our mosque. As usual, there was too much matatu traffic cutting in and out of the two squeezed lanes on the narrow road. I was in the left lane since I had to make a left turn, when the matatu in front of me started collecting passengers ... right in the middle of the road (for those of you that live in African countries, you will have seen and experienced this many times - not so irritating, of course, when you are a passenger in the matatu, only when you are in the car behind it - so I changed lanes ... just as it started moving!
I tried to get back into the left lane and noticed, all of a sudden, all the cars behind me had disappeared. I quickly took the left turn and parked the car when I heard a loud sound - a mixture of growls and shouts all woven into a ball. I looked to my right and there was an angry mob of people storming down the road that I had just been on.
I pulled my Mum out of the car and pushed her into the mosque just as the group of people stomping down the street let loose some fist-sized rocks. We had barely made it into the mosque when I heard gun shots.
Fifteen minutes later, the furor had died down and I ventured back outside to collect my bag and prayer mat from the car. I had been so preoccupied with rushing to safety that all I had cared about was my two hands and feet (a Gujrati proverb which I have translated quite literally - "with hands and feet" - referring to the promptness of leaving or escaping a place quickly).
Adrenalin pumping, I trembled for a few minutes and gave thanks for the fact that we had seen that parking spot just off the road where the riot had taken place, and then I began questioning what had happened.
Apparently it had been a blow up between City Council Askaris (in a pick up truck) and the group of hawkers that frequent River Road and Odeon.
Hawkers are sellers of no fixed abode who set up a stall or lay down a mat on the footpath and pile their wares on top if it, calling out names of items and prices of goods to passing pedestrians. Kenya experienced a boom a while back when the foot paths became so filled with hawkers that pedestrians took to walking on the main road; complaints were also made about how the congestion the hawkers had caused posed a safety risk for people walking in town. The bustle also created the perfect environment for pick pockets.
Hawkers argued that they had a right to run a business, that they did not take up that much space on the footpaths and that it was better for them to live by a trade than by a life of crime.
In response, the city council formed a band of askaris (policemen or guards) who would wander the streets in plain clothes and jump on hawkers with sticks and beatings when they came across them.
I remember walking in town one day, just past Odeon and River Road, on the fringes of the city centre next to Bank of Baroda, when I heard a woman screaming. I turned round and saw that it was a woman being pulled off her wheelchair while being beaten with a stick by two or three men. She was holding a bundle of cloth in her hands, which the men were grabbing at, and as they beat her, small items from inside the bundle fell out - it was then that I recognised her as one of the ladies who sold sweets and toys on the street corner.
I thought she was being attacked or robbed and wondered why no-one was rushing to her rescue. It was when I heard other pedestrians mumble the word "askaris" that I realized why no one was rushing to her rescue.
It wasn't that the other pedestrians approved of their tactics or that they commended the three men beating a wheelchair-bound lady but that they feared for their own lives and their belongings. City council askaris are renowned for their ruthlessness.
In addition, taking on the law in Kenya is a serious issue and should only be done by those that have nothing to lose.
I suppose yesterday the hawkers had had enough of being beaten and abused and that the outbreak was a result of their having decided to take a stand. But it was a pyrrhic victory: momentary and one that would have greater negative consequences for those involved than those jubilant ones gained by a few minutes of rebellion.
I am sure a reinforced group of city council askaris will resume their ominous patrol of the streets today.
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