Police corruption in Kenya and Bollywood

The first Thursday of every month is when the Canadian High Commission for East Africa holds a party. I met my friend Ugo after work, he’s an Italian guy working at the UN and wanted to join me for Canadafest. We went to the party and had a good time mingling with all sorts of Canadians who work here in Kenya. Its a pretty cool experience. The building is really nice, it totally feels like I am back in Canada whenever I am there.

After the party we were supposed to meet up with a bunch of other Italians at the movie theatre to watch the newest bollywood hit, Rang di Basanti. It is an Indian movie about corruption and how regular people need to stand up against it. We left the party with my driver (yup, I have a driver) and not 30 seconds down the street we were pulled over at a police check. We hardly had a chance to put our seatbelts on, fortunately I had mine on but Ugo did not. The police immediately started hassling us with dirty smirks plastered all over their faces. They told us that they would have to take us to jail for the night and that we would be able to pay the fine in the morning. A bogus threat, but in Kenya you can’t assume that the police won’t do what they can just to inconvenience you. Plus I was not really sure what the real process was and had to assume they were telling the truth. They also threatened to call Ugo’s office and tell them that he was breaking the law. Again, another phony threat, especially since no one would be there at night time. They were just trying to scare us, it was all over their faces and it wasn’t working. I asked for their id numbers and they did not like that all. They actually refused, saying that if I wanted to see their ID they would show me once I went to jail.

They clearly did not want to take us to jail, they were obviously bluffing and just wanted money. To call them on their bluff would probably take a long session of negotiation and our movie was about to start. We finally just paid them off and were on our way. 1000 Ksh is the price for freedom in this country. It really is disappointing to see just how corrupt this system really is and I am kind of pissed that we contributed to it. We were in a hurry so what could we do? I suppose it’s too common of an excuse.

The movie was really good, but given its message, it left me feeling a little guilty having paid off a cop to get there. I think thats irony, but I'm not sure.