A year on from the protests that shook Kenya, families are laying flowers on barbed wire. The image is stark. A woman stoops to place white lilies against a razor-sharp coil. A child ties a ribbon. These are the rituals of grief, played out on the streets where, one year ago, demonstrators demanding lower food prices and an end to police brutality met a harsh state response.
British diplomats have issued a statement urging “dialogue and reconciliation”. It is the right thing to say. But for the families who lost loved ones, the call for talks rings hollow. They want answers. They want those responsible held to account. They want the price of bread to fall.
The protests began over a tax on bread and cooking oil. It sounds distant, a policy wrangle in a faraway capital. But it is the same story from Manchester to Mombasa. When the cost of basics rises, people push back. In Kenya, the anger was met with tear gas and live rounds. The government blamed foreign agitators. The British government, now, calls for calm.
What has changed? The price of maize flour is still high. The cost of transport is still crippling. And the sense that ordinary people are being squeezed while the wealthy dine in Nairobi’s finest hotels has only deepened. The flowers on the barbed wire are a plea not to forget. They are also a warning.
Whitehall’s preferred method is quiet diplomacy. But quiet diplomacy does not fill stomachs. It does not heal wounds. The Foreign Office says it is “monitoring the situation closely”. Meanwhile, union leaders in London plan solidarity rallies. They see the same pattern: rising inequality, state violence, and the language of dialogue used to avoid action.
The lesson from Kenya is that protests do not start with politics. They start with empty cupboards. Until the price of a loaf of bread is addressed, the wire will remain. The flowers will keep coming. And the calls for dialogue will sound like empty noise.
