In spite of his orthodoxy, it is impossible to ignore Chesterton's wisdom or the question of how these tie in with the Java case. Chesterton is however reputed to be unfailingly prophetic.

I am certainly not protesting against Nairobi's Java for being a big coffee shop. To paraphrase from Chesterton,

Twice, an editor has told me, in so many words, that he dared not print what I had written because it would offend the advertisers of his paper. The presence of such pressure exists anywhere in a more silent and subtle form. But I have a great respect for the honesty of this particular editor; for it was evidently as near to complete honesty as the editor of an important weekly magazine could possibly go. He told the truth about the falsehood he had to tell. On both those occasions he denied me the liberty of expression because I said in my work that the widely advertised stores and large shops were really worse, that they gave less value to the consumer, than little shops.

Back to old faithful Chesterton and the Bluff of Big Shops, he offers,

"If we collected all the stories from all the housewives and householders about the big shops sending the wrong goods, smashing the right goods, forgetting to send any sort of goods, we should behold a welter of inefficiency. There are far more blunders in a big shop than ever happen in a small shop."

I, even before proof of innocence of the accused owner of Java in a case in which he is said to have sexually abused children, ask Java to respond immediately, for no reason other than the fact that the firm is itself a person in our midst. I mean: Java the business is a legal person that is related to the accused. And a person in Java's sense may be a thing, a business that operates and employs my cousin, but it is also a person, since those who have a stake in holding this being together and guiding it to my benefit and that of my society are persons of a rational nature - Mr. So and So, much like you Kimani  or you Paul.

It is we who opt to do the honorable thing regardless of the law. Good faith is enough. I would be surprised, as a customer, if I entered or passed any of the Java restaurants and, instead of the good aroma of coffee, my nostrils were hit by the rotten smell of a coffee factory. I hope that not only would the owner of Java worry, but that his customers, waiters, friends, environmentalists, City Council askaris and anyone with a concern for the welfare of the public would worry too. Friends of Java in that situation should be the first to investigate the stench and ask that it be neutralized as quickly as possible - if only for appearance's sake - at least with some substance, some confection that stays the stench until it is dealt with. 

Cooperation in good and evil is not something that the church teaches because it is convenient. It is a mechanism that society itself has evolved. I want, most of the time, to feel like I am cooperating for good, that my associations are at worst harmless.  Still, and it happens to all of us, we sometimes  find ourselves to have been cooperating with, or working for the benefit of a cause we discover is inconsistent with our values. But whenever there is a whiff, the slightest suspicion of our being involved in the furtherance of an enterprise that is engaged in, or benefitting, or sustaining an immoral detestable cause, we try - or at least ought to try - to make a little effort to remove ourselves from such association. 

I feel I should do something about the image present in the mirror. And it matters not that the next place I might choose to sit and have a coffee, or buy my next basket of groceries is also implicated in some form of socially and morally questionable endeavour that I am unaware of. As soon as I am aware of it, I would - actually, should - retreat. No one told the women and men in that village I know to stop buying mandazi from the kiosk of a man who was eventually discovered to have been sodomising little boys come to him to buy a ndazi. He may have bribed the magistrate on this case, but eventually society's glare made sure he closed shop and left. That pleases me. 

When I read about Del Monte, the fruit people, in Al Amin Mazrui's Kilio cha Haki, 27 years ago, I woke up to the pain they caused. I would have nothing to do with the owners of a farm whose farm-side operations led to mothers miscarrying and little children having dogs set on them, a colossal farm on whose boundaries bodies were once regularly picked up. A farm which had an encounter with Kenya Human Rights Commission for what will remain Public Relations reasons until we hear of improvements. A farm, a corporation that still owes us answers. A farm whose precedents have led to sisal farms in the same area taking advantage of farm workers who know no reprieve on public holidays. (Do you remember that clip on Kenyatta Day last year? Was it on KTN?) At any rate, and for many years now, there has been in my spirit a firm rejection of all Del Monte products whenever I saw them.  

I am moved by GK's call for a boycott of big shops in his day. It is clear that if we came to the conclusion that big shops ought to be boycotted, and had justification sufficient for this, we could boycott them as easily as we should (I hope) boycott shops selling instruments of torture, or poisons for private use in the home. In other words, this first and fundamental predicate for the success of such an effort is not a question of dealing with the adjustments we would have to make but of will. If we choose to make a vow, if we chose to make a league, pledge ourselves to dealing only with little local shops and never with large corporations, the campaign could have every chance of success as did the Land Campaign in Ireland . It would probably be nearly as successful. It will be said of course that consumers will go to the best shop, especially the one offering the lowest price. The Irish boycotters show this need not be the case. They did not take the best offer. 

Now, when this story, the Java allegations, first came up I had expected to get e-mail from Concerned Kenya Writers on the subject or from Kenyans for Peace Through Justice (KPTJ) but I got none. I decided to do an email to CKW; I made it quite clear that I would not sit at Java and have coffee as though nothing was amiss.  I was hoping for solidarity, but still, silence.  It turned out that some people felt it was too much ado about a businessman who has not even been proven guilty; and, perhaps even unproductive - as one went on to explain, some 200 Kenyans or so working for Java would lose their jobs and then what would we have gained?

But not everyone was unmoved. Later, at a reception hosted by a women's rights NGO, I was informed that the Forum for African Women Education (FAWE), and other rights organizations, had circulated an email against Java until the matter was concluded in court. Nor was that the only step taken. A couple days later, a mobiliser for a demo against state agents involved in trafficking a little girl (for reasons yet to be understood) told me about the mention of this case on Miserable Monday (the 14th July, when the sun deserted Nairobi bila kwaheri!)

The accused appeared before the judge at the High Court, Nairobi. Activists belonging to a team called Men Against Gender Violence were present. Apparently, the case file was missing (usually a case of innocent until proven innocent) and the case was not listed on the notice board. The activists exerted pressure; the file was produced, the case mentioned. (Or so says Appolo Mwangi, who was in the group.) Afterwards, about 50 activists left for Java on Mama Ngina Street where they each ordered black coffee. Once served, they stared at the coffee and left. What puzzles them today is that neither action was reported by the mainstream media.

But still we fight, each of us in our small ways. Among oppressed people, nothing is more destructive than fatalism and the acceptance of oppressive, immoral suthority. When people in positions of moral and financial elevation are mentioned in matters like these, an immediate show of displeasure demonstrates the cohesion and solidarity in the face of oppression that destroys fatalism - the very sign, even from those with little power, that society is alive and breathing.