Government Stomach and the Hustler’s Nation

 

The middle class in Kenya has panicked. WSR is stoking a class revolution and as Kabogo would put it “Jeshi ti ngenu”.   In other words, Jeshi, aka the hustlers,  are not happy. They are the boda boda riders, mkokoteni pushers, wathii wa Mathrees, hawkers, and some layabouts. These lot have apparently got it in their heads that anyone outside this category is dynasty. This line of thought, at least, is the narrative being pushed by the middle class. They are afraid of encountering the hustlers who they say will set you on fire if you as much as sneeze in their face.  I am told the hustlers don’t like anyone who owns anything on wheels other than a wheelbarrow, a black mamba or a boda boda. Everyone else is dynasty. This includes fellows like me who own contraptions which, with a little bit of persuasion, can start in the morning and give you reasonable protection against nature’s elements as you move a long. 

The middle class is up in arms. They feel threatened but they won’t admit it.  In newspaper columns and talk shows they seek to debunk the idea that WSR is a hustler. And they have their facts. They argue that WSR is a billionaire. He is one of few Kenyans that own  helicopters fitted with infrared lights so they can fly at night. As a political scion of the late President Daniel Arap Moi, he is a beneficiary of the same people he accuses of being dynasties. One might even argue that the current position of power he holds was courtesy  of dynastic dynamics.

These critics probably have a point but they miss some key points too. Hustlers are not expected to be hustlers for ever. No hustler wants that. They want to make it one day and ride in helicopters with infrared lights and own some nice properties in some prime areas. WSR is an embodiment of  a hustler who has made it without the benefit of dynastic backgrounds. Oh ya, this is the other point the critics seem to miss.  In this debate, dynasty is not about being poor or wealthy but about being a child of privilege because of your family background. The hustlers appear convinced that three families in Kenya have made leadership in the country  a ping pong game between them since independence. This is the cycle they think WSR can help break. They are not looking to “draining the swap” by fighting corruption. They want to stake their claim to the swamp without having to seek godfathers. 

There is an interesting and perhaps positive side effect to this hustler-dynasty binary opposition politicking. It’s shifting focus from negative ethnocentrism to the real  enemy: competition for scarce resources and the need for tools of exclusion and protectionism for and by those that by some historical happenstance  have the tools of control. These are the tools the hustlers want to wrestle from the hands of the so called dynasties. It remains to be seen if hustler unity can be sustained. This is especially so given that by the hustler classification being set  so low, it  means the better endowed “hustlers” and who generally provide for the lowest of the low might feel threatened and turn against the movement.  Every worker, small and medium sized business owner or entrepreneur is a hustler. A small shock in the economy has huge repercussions for their stability and existence. In real terms, only very few Kenyans can fall outside the class of hustlers if hustler means one who lives by the sweat of their brow. It is perhaps for this reason that a hustler I encountered selling  mitumba socks chose to direct her anger at what she called “government stomach”.  We did not have time to discourse on the term but it was clear that as far as she was concerned, government stomach is insatiable and preys on the poor.