By Musa Maridhawa
Across Kenya, a vile tradition of self-destruction has in recent time reared its ugly head. A worrying trend of disassembling—not building—driven by modern-day snake oil merchants has opened for anarchists a window to visit terror on innocent Kenyans. In the wake of this despicable conduct, a good number of Kenyans have had their livelihoods destroyed by looters, terrorists and arsonists.
The sacred covenant of citizenship, itself the solemn recognition that the ultimate agency for peace and sovereignty resides in the collective conscience and conduct of the people. That is, in deed, the bedrock of any enduring civilization. To disregard this and allow the vital energy of dissent to curdle into destructive apathy is to court the spectre of ruin that haunts the annals of fallen empires and fractured states. History, our sternest teacher, offers chilling testaments to this truth.
Consider the grandeur that was Rome – a republic once forged in the fires of civic virtue and shared purpose. Yet, beneath Rome’s marble facades and military triumphs, a debilitating cancer sprouted when dissent channelled through the Senate and the Forum, mutated into irreconcilable factionalism. The citizen-soldier, once defending Res Publica (the public thing), became a mercenary loyal only to his general. As a result and with time, civic bonds dissolved and were replaced by the brutal logic of the sword. Rome’s descent led to the collapse of the very idea of shared sovereignty and civic responsibility. Ultimately, the citizens themselves having forgotten that they must build not burn vanquished Rome’s destiny and credentials of a free republic. Clearly, sovereignty demands active and virtuous stewardship by all citizens.
Russia’s 19th century nihilist movement whose notoriety reached fever pitch the 1860s ended up systematically eroding the philosophical, moral, and institutional pillars of the nation. Originating as a radical philosophy among disillusioned intellectuals, it championed the rejection of all unproven authorities including religion, traditional morality, and the autocratic state. As defined in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, nihilists were those who “do not bow down before any authority, who do not accept any principle of faith”. This ethos evolved from intellectual scepticism into a culture of destruction that destabilized Russia’s social fabric.
A group of protesters throwing stones inside a police station. Photo: David Nthua Source: WhatsApp
Nihilism’s core tenets—atheism, materialism, and extreme moral scepticism—attacked Orthodoxy and Tsarist legitimacy directly. These were the twin foundations of imperial Russia. By dismissing law as irrelevant compared to tradition or ideology, nihilists fostered a mind-set where laws were seen as obstacles rather than social safeguards. This attitude permeated society, leading to widespread disregard for judicial processes and enabling corruption among officials and citizens alike. As one analyst notes, this created a society where “telephone justice” and backdoor dealings replaced rule-based order.
Revolutionary nihilists escalated their dissent into violence, including arson, and the 1881 regicide of Alexander II. Though not all nihilists embraced terrorism, their negation of existing structures without proposing viable alternatives created a gaping vacuum, a void later filled by Bolshevik extremism. Ultimately, nihilism’s destructive force lay in its failure to replace what it destroyed
The sternest warning within ready recall by many is the Saba Saba maelstrom of a few days back. Some of the scenes witnessed then mirrored Kenya’s near-apocalypse of 2007-2008. Beyond grievance over election outcomes, the 2007/8 debacle was the catastrophic failure of the citizenry’s collective agency for peace. Sovereignty, wrested from colonial powers, was squandered as Kenyans allowed themselves to be splintered into warring ethnic fragments, their shared national destiny consumed by the fire of manipulated dissent and communal betrayal. The foundations of the state itself trembled on the brink. No right thinking Kenyans want to occupy that perilous precipice one more time.
Today, Kenya stands at a crossroads that demands that every citizen to a man makes peacekeeping and peace-building our eternal collective duty and responsibility. The journey to our destiny is forged piece-by-piece daily by choices of millions of Kenyans. That destiny may have many possibilities in its horizons but it becomes a fleeting appendage when we settle for stones not dialogue.
Sovereignty resides in the unwavering commitment of every Kenyan to see neighbours as co-architects of a shared future.
Let the ruins of once starring fame of Rome and the ravages of 19th century Nihilism of Russia serve as eternal reminders that when the citizenry abdicates its role as the ultimate guardian of peace and sovereign will, the edifice of the nation, however mighty it may seem, ultimately crumbles from within.
Maridhawa is a Kilifi-based ethnographer
