Macabre videotapes posted on the Internet by Al Qaeda-type groups showing live beheadings seemed to be the outer edge of extremists' barbarity. But severed heads impaled on poles outside chiefs' offices, preceded by the living excision of private parts, are a throwback to medieval ghoulishness we thought we had consigned to history.Internal Security minister John Michuki should, of course, be removed for his abysmal inability to curb the horrific lawlessness that plagues every nook and cranny of Kenya.

The criminal mayhem in towns and villages, the ethnic cleansing attempts we call "clashes", carjackings and pitched gun-battles in the heart of Nairobi between police and gangsters are worse than ever.

The Minister announced a security plan on Wednesday against the antediluvian gangs, but it is definitely a bit late: they have been terrifying Kenyans with their brutality for quite some time now. Indeed, Mr Michuki confirmed while launching his crackdown that there are political leaders who promote these gangs. The beheadings should be a wake-up call for all Kenyans. We should not make the mistake of thinking that they pose only a security challenge. Nor should we allow ourselves the comfort of ascribing these beheadings to "evil" or other supernatural attributes we resort to in explaining ghastly actions we find inexplicable.

The reality is that we are producing whole new groups of disaffected, humiliated and embittered youth, who will one day turn to the extremism that we are somehow convinced Kenya alone is immune to. Recall also that Uganda's Alice Lakwena and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) had their roots in a ritualistic response to their grievances. Many Kenyans have, in fact, wondered how long our veneer of normalcy would continue as we, and indeed, the whole world, blithely go about our daily business even as a huge proportion of our fellow human beings live in unimaginable wretchedness.

From our comfortable perches, many of the more caring among us have talked earnestly for 40 years about the need to change our cruel inequities, but in the meantime, we have evolved into one the world's most unequal societies. Our good intentions do not absolve us from a share of the responsibility for the extreme travails of the poor.

We seemingly believe that the poor have an unlimited capacity for accepting their inhuman impoverishment, but make no mistake: we breed revolt and extremism especially when such impoverishment coexists with unimaginable wealth. What Hassanein Heikal, the famed commentator, said this month of his Egypt is true of us also: each giant slum has next to it the castles of the rich, but one day, the poor are bound to march on them.

In the end, it is really only the poor who can end their servitude by organising and finding leaders who will address their plight. I know a young security guard who at least can feed his family. Early last year, he rushed home with money for anti-malarial drugs his district hospital did not have for treating his cherished four-year-old Rose. He arrived too late. He and his wife were joyously waiting for a new baby this month, but the infant also died soon after birth.

He is still implacably courteous, but I imagine there is a lot of bitterness in him also.None of this is to say that we must not fight crime with the greatest determination and skill. But we must, at the same time, begin to finally address the root causes of the despair that is the seed of extremism.

We will not succeed in curbing crime unless we radically change our tactics for fighting it. Respecting the human rights of criminals is the first step. We breed contempt for human life and promote greater lawlessness when the law prescribes death for robbery even in the absence of a killing, and when we practice torture, kill suspects and harass entire communities in an attempt to please the authors of the grossly misconceived "war on terror".