Echoes of oppression: Play that ruffled government a sneak peek into current realities

The echoes of a play whose performance for a national audience aborted on Thursday has captivated the nation and exposed the fissures between the government its critics and the general citizenry, thrusting secondary school students in a complex and unnecessary power-play.

Cleophas Malala’s play echoes the Generation Z-led protests over proposals to hike taxes amid high living costs, widespread corruption and cronyism.

“We write about topical themes. The biggest challenge currently is that the country’s leadership does not want to listen to the younger generation. The leaders are stuck in their past ideologies and refuse to listen to the young people. That is why the nation is constantly tensed,” Malala says.

The former Kakamega Senator does not leave the reader guessing about his intentions, summarising the play as “a hyperbole attempt to illustrate the widening gap between two generations - the old and young”.

“There exists a natural balance between respect for the old and care for the young. Those who are old bring experience, while those who are young bring enthusiasm and creative innovation. This is the relationship that weaves together our ever evolving society,” the former Senator states in the synopsis.

“In this Kingdom, the old have quickly lost (the) trust of the younger generation. The young are agitated by the inflexible strictness of the old. The balance is an inevitable compromise.”

Undoubtedly, the most significant lesson Malala hopes to convey through the play, which should have been staged by the Butere Girls High School during the National Drama Festival in Nakuru, is about a leadership that respects and listens to the younger generation.

This message is captured as the play’s resolution, which sees Dr Ruto’s equivalent, Sultan, the ruler of the fictional Royal Velvet Emirates, learn the hard way about disregarding the youth and their aspirations but eventually seizes the chance to rally his kingdom to a more united future.

The play imagines a kingdom recovering from a civil war, where young citizens are at the forefront of rebuilding efforts, with the characters fighting for better healthcare, education, and justice systems while tackling the implications of modern technology.

The story’s protagonist, Mustafa, a fourth-year IT student, invents Telemedicine, a ground-breaking software that connects patients to doctors worldwide. His innovation catches the attention of the kingdom’s ruler, Sultan, but his past social media posts—controversial ones linked to the war—soon come to light, putting him under scrutiny.

Malala also introduces Anifa Imana, “the personification of artificial intelligence”, who goes by the initials AI. She symbolises the promise and peril of technology, particularly in unregulated spaces.

Anifa, who was an AI entity but had somehow taken on a more human-like form or influence, is the daughter of a police officer and a deeply religious woman.

She was more than just a machine; her interactions with Mustafa, a human who had somehow become emotionally connected to her, triggered an unexpected shift. Their bond created an unexpected vulnerability in Sultan’s system, as it was based on his underestimation of the emotional depth that humans and AIs could share.

The name Anifa bears a striking similarity to Hanifa Adan’s, a journalist and rights activist who mobilised monetary support for protesters killed or injured during last year’s demonstrations on social media.

Echoes of War begins with the questioning of Mustafa over recent demonstrations in the main city. Anifa’s father attempts to coerce him into admitting that he and his father, a paramedic shot in the demos, were among the protesters.

However, Mustafa insists that he had just been testing out his software, Telemedicine, which helped injured demonstrators access medical care. This mirrors the mobilization of medical practitioners on social media to offer medical services to injured Generation Z protesters.

The authorities reject Mustafa’s account, and Anifa’s father tears up the former’s statement. The play then introduces Mustafa’s mother, the community administrator, and the local Imam, who vouch for Mustafa’s innocence and reveal that he helps “in teaching the children at the Madrasa using the latest technology.”

In this way, Malala borrows from the story of Kenyans such as David Chege, a Sunday school teacher who was shot outside Parliament on June 25, 2024.

State officials

“Madam Community Administrator, your son is among the people destabilising the tranquillity of our nation!” Police, Anifa’s father, had told them. His description of the protests fit that offered by State officials. Ruto has previously termed this constitutional activity “anarchy and mayhem.”

Later, as Mustafa is being questioned, Sultan’s orderlies arrive and take him to the palace, where he is to be honoured for his Telemedicine innovation. But a discovery of his social media activism earns Mustafa a death sentence.

News of his planned hanging sees Anifa flood social media with propaganda aimed at stoking passions among key sectors of society. The most consequential one involves a fake police pay slip full of “unreasonable” deductions, which forces the police into a go-slow.

Ruto has mostly blamed last year’s protests on misinformation and disinformation and is currently leading a push to regulate social media.

Then Anifa leads the burning of an ambulance and a police station, an extreme action witnessed in various waves of protests in the country. Initially eager to crush dissent, Sultan leads a violent crackdown against the dissidents that sees them discover their hideout, where he orders security forces to open fire to smoke the dissidents out.

However, he discovers that his son, Xavier, who recently developed a love interest in one of Sultan’s detractors, was caught in the crossfire. He would have bled to death had it not been for Mustafa’s invention, which helps them connect to a doctor in China, who guides a surgery to extract a bullet lodged in Xavier’s arm.

Reckless actions

“Your actions were reckless. You cannot justify this chaos. Your intentions were noble, but your methods were flawed,” Sultan says and concedes to a compromise.

Unlike the fictional character, Ruto has faced criticism for turning a deaf ear to the demands of Gen Z protesters, which include pushing for more accountability and sterner action on corruption. He has been accused of seeking the political way out by incorporating former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his allies into the Executive to muzzle dissent.

The Head of State seemed to have grasped the concept of compromise when he fired most of his Cabinet in response to the protests and when he engaged the youth on X, but faltered by trying to reduce the issues to being about shared positions between the major political players.

Western gala

The play was removed from the Western Regional winners’ gala, but the High Court reversed a ban against its staging. The removal of Echoes of War draws striking parallels to the 2013 ban of Shackles of Doom, a play also penned by Malala. However, a successful High Court petition by activist and current Busia senator Okiya Omtatah led to a ruling that overturned the ban.

“I would love to urge those behind the ban to let the school children stage their play – which is not a bad play. They are worried that the children will highlight everything going wrong in our country. The play highlights the desires of Gen Zs, such as a functioning universal healthcare system and good governance that is devoid of corruption,” Malala said on Thursday.