Fabricating Silicon Savannah by Michel Njeri Wahome

Author:Michel Njeri Wahome
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783031344909
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Telecoms and the Politics of Reform

The connections between democracy and ICTs are clear. The information and communications sector is tied directly to the crafting of public/political reputations and the rallying of polities. In this way, ICTs are connected to the cultivation of influence, including in the realm of electoral politics. Campaigns, propaganda and all manner of political messaging are carried through the airwaves. In addition, telecommunications technologies, digital technologies in particular, have been cast as expanding freedoms and access to knowledge. They have become implicated as tools for good governance, and digitisation and eGovernment programmes have proliferated around the world. As a result, arenas of advocacy for widespread access to these technologies are often politicised spaces. During the period that Kenyans are agitating for multi-party democracy and political reform, communications technologies are a material link to allies and supporters outside the country. Thereby, they became a point of advocacy for rights around communication and freedom of association. Local activists often aligned themselves with perspectives that were critical of the state and also provided support and resources for reform (Nyairo 2015; Throup and Hornsby 1998). For third-sector actors in Kenya, the global neoliberal project presented an opportunity to challenge the local political structure (Nyairo 2015; Throup and Hornsby 1998). Activists who might otherwise look askance at the effects of the SAPs on the local economy were allied with the related goal of pressing the state to adopt multi-party democracy. This is exemplary of alignment as a result of constrained agency. In this case, civil society actors are constrained by the parameters through which they can receive international support for local reforms.

Anti-corruption, digitisation, democracy and free markets are often connected in the discourse. Amongst those I interview, there are a number who view Silicon Savannah as inheriting this agenda for national political reform. This is in part a factor of the actors who are considered the architects of Silicon Savannah. Many of those who are implicated in the co-creation of Silicon Savannah grew up in the Moi era, as I did. Our reflections on those times will be influenced by the experiences and agitations of our parents’ generation. Reflections on the Moi era recall them as requiring courage and conviction about liberatory politics. Actors often recalled, as I do, rumours that phone calls were monitored and fears that regular citizens could be treated as official dissidents simply by expressing criticism of the government over the phone. There was a sense that it was dangerous to communicate discontent in public, or even in private. The author of the blog excerpt below describes her own experience growing up: I grew up with a father who was a politics junkie—no surprise that I become one myself. He did not live long enough to see the end of the Moi era, so most of my memories of political discussion in my household involve epithets being hurled at Moi or at the news (which especially in the 80s was really Moi). Also have memories of me helping

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