If you Google the term ‘goon’ and go to the image section, what comes up are illustrations of menacing, violent characters. These personas present themselves as the law unto themselves, beyond state control or sanction.

They want you to believe they are utterly untouchable and above all sanction. They are a Mafioso of sorts, though not as disciplined or organised. That’s because, in this caricature, they are savages.

Their purpose is to eviscerate democracy and the rule of law. Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti and several other countries have been marked by goon cultures.

Let me state the bottom line upfront – no one ultimately benefits from a goon culture. The ethos of goonism stands alone against all society, including the goons themselves. It’s a unique evil bent on the consumption of humans. Those who support or grow goons in the petri dish of society ultimately help to collapse society.

This applies both to those within the state who are tempted to flirt with goons and those outside the state who routinely use them. In the dictionary, a goon is a “violent person hired by someone powerful to threaten, intimidate, or harm others”.

The goon is the hireling; the master is the actual goon. Let me be clear – the goon is an oxymoron.

For the goon is an automaton. A fool. An instrument of destruction. An unthinking robotic creature no different from a drone guided by others to kill or maim. The goon is a handmaiden of power wielded by elites. In this sense, the goon is no different from a literal gun or knife.

He’s an instrument just like any weapon of destruction or harm. The goon is mindless. It goes where its master directs it and does whatever its master wants. That’s why the goon is an “it” and not really a natural person with the powers of discernment or judgement. It’s like a computer virus that does whatever its originator directs. It has no human feeling, compassion or ability to think or act rationally.

No sovereignty

That’s why societies governed through goons have no sovereignty of reason or conscience. Take Haiti, for example, or even Somalia close to home, or Afghanistan out in Asia.

These broken societies have, in this view, lost much of the social contract. In them, state institutions have suffered deep crises of legal and moral legitimacy. They exist in a subterranean space close to the imaginary hell of religion.

The only thing they crave is the blood of innocents, of which they cannot drink enough because their masters’ thirst for power and money knows no boundaries. Imagine a hell of gremlins baying ceaselessly for the blood of citizens. Their world would make William Golding’s Lord of the Flies seem like a paradise.

Let every Kenyan be warned. A goon is not your friend. They are both immoral and amoral. They eat and devour everything in their path. They consume not only your flesh and blood but your humanity too. Today they will dine on your enemies. But tomorrow they will come for you when they get a new master. Their thirst for blood is unquenchable.

They have no host or resident boss. Their boss is he who feeds and weaponises them. They only listen to the highest bidder. Politics or philosophy be damned. You are wrong if you think you can control them. In the end, they consume you if they cannot find another host. Somalia next door is the textbook example.

What am I getting at? Goons collapse societies. They have no master. Once unleashed, they go on a tear through the entire society. They are the beachhead to the end of civilisation as we know it. When goon rule takes over, there will be no leafy suburbs to escape to, day or night. Everything will go to the dogs.

Restore sanity

Remember that Haitian goon called Barbecue? He could become a reality in Kenya unless we restore sanity. Let me stipulate that societies are not collapsed by ordinary people. It’s power-hungry elites who end normalcy as we know it.

And once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s a miracle to put it back. And we all know miracles are a mirage because they don’t really happen.

Let me distinguish political competition in a democracy from a zero-sum vendetta between leaders. In my view, DCP leader Rigathi Gachagua’s politics are not those of a democrat seeking power through persuasion alone.

His rhetoric can be read as seeking to politically vanquish his enemies because he does not see those on the other side as opponents.

Those who do not kowtow to him, in this reading, are enemies, not opponents. If one can be a leader and a goon all in one, then, in my view, that’s Mr Gachagua. He is Kenya’s Goon Number One. Democracies must deal with goons, or the goons will deal with them. We have laws in this country. Let’s subject Mr Gachagua to the law.

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Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York; @makaumutua.