This may sound dumb, particularly to Americans, but it wasn't until a few years back in East Africa that I learnt the meaning of the word 'lynching'. Historically, lynching has been very rare in Australia, so I was unfamiliar with the term.
Staying at a backpacker hostel in Nairobi, Kenya, myself and another Aussie guy decided to go and see the World Cup qualifying match between Kenya and Guinea. Watching the match in this foreign land was a lot of fun, and it was great to see the excited Kenyan fans cheering their team on.
After the match, as we were exiting the stadium a bloody-faced man burst through the crowd, running right by us. You could see fear on his face, and before he disappeared behind us into the stadium, a nearby police officer gave him a light whack to the body with his baton. About 30 meters ahead of us outside the stadium, in the same direction the bloody-faced man had come from, a portion of the exiting crowd surged onto a grassy field. They were running, chasing. Some fist-sized rocks flew into the air ahead of the surging crowd, but why? Was this some soccer hooligan violence, or a gang fight? It didn't seem so as the crowd quickly stopped surging, and the rocks stopped flying. Intrigued, we decided to investigate the ruckus.
The crowd seemed to be encircling something. As we pushed through, we came to see the target of the rocks lying on his back, arms beside him. His face wasn't obviously bloodied like the other guy, but there was no struggle in him. He couldn't have been dead yet, as only seconds had passed, but he was unconscious. Some small rocks from the crowd hit into his limp body. Then a man, dressed in trousers and a shirt, the way many Kenyans dress, unwedged a large, half-exposed, rugby ball-sized rock from the ground. Lifting the rock with both his hands to head height, he threw it down onto the victim's chest. Too afraid to intervene, we watched in horror. This was a lynching.
We left immediately. Walking home, a man in a business suit told us that the victim was almost certainly a thief, and that he deserved what he got. He asked us if we had been the target of the thief. We hadn't. He had asked, as white faces in this part of the world mean money, and we were the only white faces around.
The lynching of thieves in Kenya is not uncommon. Kenya is poor, and with its inadequate police and judicial system, citizens often take justice into their own hands, sometimes brutally. So how unfortunate was I to see this? I don't really know, but I did meet another backpacker who'd had a worse experience in Uganda. Sadly for him and his mate, it was their cell phone that was grabbed, and they who had innocently pursued and screamed at the teenage thief, and they who had to witness a mob kill the kid. Be careful about yelling 'thief' in some parts of Africa, as you may in some small way be responsible for someone's death.
So why would anyone in Kenya risk stealing a wallet or cell phone when they could be killed? In many parts of Africa the answer is right in your face: desperation. Unless you visit Africa the '5 Star Way', the sick, the poor, people with nothing in the world, cannot go unnoticed. A couple of months earlier, not 5km from the soccer stadium, I had visited a very desperate place. Kibera is one of Africa's largest slums. In this area of Nairobi up to a million people densely live, without running water, amongst their own rubbish, sewage and shit. Maybe the lynched guy was from here.
Kibera. A quarter of Nairobi's population lives here, in less than 1% of Nairobi's total area.
Two things really struck me during the lynching, the first of which may seem weird. When the large rock came down on the man's chest, it bounced. Our air-filled lungs and cartliaged rib cage must give a lot of spring. I'm unsure why, but the bounce surprised me. The second thing that struck me, was the intense excitement. This mob, consisting mostly of men, were so excited to be killing. The only important differences between us (people from rich nations) and Kenyans are social. In different circumstances this could be some of us, or at least people we know, excitedly killing a thief. It's human. I feel lucky to live in a society where this behaviour almost never has a chance to be expressed by anyone.
To say the least, the lynching wasn't a pleasant experience, but overall my journey to East Africa was amazing. It's a beautiful, interesting part of the world, and there are loads of kind, friendly people to be met. Most importantly East Africa really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I learnt much, much more than just what 'lynching' meant.
Staying at a backpacker hostel in Nairobi, Kenya, myself and another Aussie guy decided to go and see the World Cup qualifying match between Kenya and Guinea. Watching the match in this foreign land was a lot of fun, and it was great to see the excited Kenyan fans cheering their team on.
After the match, as we were exiting the stadium a bloody-faced man burst through the crowd, running right by us. You could see fear on his face, and before he disappeared behind us into the stadium, a nearby police officer gave him a light whack to the body with his baton. About 30 meters ahead of us outside the stadium, in the same direction the bloody-faced man had come from, a portion of the exiting crowd surged onto a grassy field. They were running, chasing. Some fist-sized rocks flew into the air ahead of the surging crowd, but why? Was this some soccer hooligan violence, or a gang fight? It didn't seem so as the crowd quickly stopped surging, and the rocks stopped flying. Intrigued, we decided to investigate the ruckus.
The crowd seemed to be encircling something. As we pushed through, we came to see the target of the rocks lying on his back, arms beside him. His face wasn't obviously bloodied like the other guy, but there was no struggle in him. He couldn't have been dead yet, as only seconds had passed, but he was unconscious. Some small rocks from the crowd hit into his limp body. Then a man, dressed in trousers and a shirt, the way many Kenyans dress, unwedged a large, half-exposed, rugby ball-sized rock from the ground. Lifting the rock with both his hands to head height, he threw it down onto the victim's chest. Too afraid to intervene, we watched in horror. This was a lynching.
We left immediately. Walking home, a man in a business suit told us that the victim was almost certainly a thief, and that he deserved what he got. He asked us if we had been the target of the thief. We hadn't. He had asked, as white faces in this part of the world mean money, and we were the only white faces around.
The lynching of thieves in Kenya is not uncommon. Kenya is poor, and with its inadequate police and judicial system, citizens often take justice into their own hands, sometimes brutally. So how unfortunate was I to see this? I don't really know, but I did meet another backpacker who'd had a worse experience in Uganda. Sadly for him and his mate, it was their cell phone that was grabbed, and they who had innocently pursued and screamed at the teenage thief, and they who had to witness a mob kill the kid. Be careful about yelling 'thief' in some parts of Africa, as you may in some small way be responsible for someone's death.
So why would anyone in Kenya risk stealing a wallet or cell phone when they could be killed? In many parts of Africa the answer is right in your face: desperation. Unless you visit Africa the '5 Star Way', the sick, the poor, people with nothing in the world, cannot go unnoticed. A couple of months earlier, not 5km from the soccer stadium, I had visited a very desperate place. Kibera is one of Africa's largest slums. In this area of Nairobi up to a million people densely live, without running water, amongst their own rubbish, sewage and shit. Maybe the lynched guy was from here.
Kibera. A quarter of Nairobi's population lives here, in less than 1% of Nairobi's total area.Two things really struck me during the lynching, the first of which may seem weird. When the large rock came down on the man's chest, it bounced. Our air-filled lungs and cartliaged rib cage must give a lot of spring. I'm unsure why, but the bounce surprised me. The second thing that struck me, was the intense excitement. This mob, consisting mostly of men, were so excited to be killing. The only important differences between us (people from rich nations) and Kenyans are social. In different circumstances this could be some of us, or at least people we know, excitedly killing a thief. It's human. I feel lucky to live in a society where this behaviour almost never has a chance to be expressed by anyone.
To say the least, the lynching wasn't a pleasant experience, but overall my journey to East Africa was amazing. It's a beautiful, interesting part of the world, and there are loads of kind, friendly people to be met. Most importantly East Africa really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I learnt much, much more than just what 'lynching' meant.
