Illiteracy to blame for our obsession with symbols

IN 2005, WE HAD ORANGE AND Banana. The latter imploded, as the former went on to become the Orange Democratic Movement.

Now instead of littering the campaign arena with discarded orange and banana peels, the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps at the forthcoming referendum will be putting on displays of colour; green and red respectively.

Those were the colours chosen by the Electoral Commission after wisely ruling out a return to the aforementioned or any other fruits, vegetables and plant materials. They also ruled out animals, weapons, kitchen and farming implements. Most of them are already taken up by political parties, anyway.

Colours look a safe and neutral choice, traffic light green for ‘go’, and red for ‘stop’. But probably the Electoral Commission did not reckon with the brilliant creativity of our political campaign propagandists.

At the 2005 referendum, it took only a moment for the Orange team to liken itself to the Orange Revolution of the Ukraine, and to dismiss the ‘Yes’ camp as the Banana Republic.

You can be sure that in the coming days and weeks, the meanings and symbolism of the green and red colours will be keenly analysed and digested.

We will look at history, religion culture, politics, history, sports, psychology and everything else from the regional, national, continental and global perspective to give meaning to our colour of choice.

Even before the ‘No’ team were assigned the red, they had already publicly adopted it from the football field; They brandished red cards at the Uhuru Park rally to signal they had sent-off the new constitution.

Now they may have to counter propaganda that they are the ones who were shown the red card. The rival team will, also obviously try to capitalise on the traditional belief of red standing for danger.

Of course there is also the red as in our national flag representing the bloodshed in the struggle for independence.

And what is green? It could be the green of our fertile land depicted in the national flag. It could be green as the universal symbol for environmental protection. But it could also be the green of naïve, raw and unripe.

But what does that all matter? This referendum is about specific proposals in the new constitution that some strongly object to, not about symbols and colours.

THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION COULD have settled for a simple Yes and No, or a tick and an X. But as Kenya heads to a half-century of independence, we must still use symbols on ballots because a good number of voters are illiterate.

Yes, that it the real indictment. Voters unable to read the ballot paper have to have the help of a symbol they can easily understand to put their mark against.

I wish we could get rid of all this perpetual politicking and do the things we really need to do, like making sure every Kenyan can read and write.

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Zain has come up with some fantastic tariffs, as have Orange and yu. The three mobile phone companies have come up with the kind of call charges that should have everybody sprinting in their direction, and bolting away from the clutches of market giant, Safaricom.

The beautiful thing is that they are able to bring down prices without having to notify and seek permission from some lead-footed bureaucrats at the Communications Commission of Kenya.

In any fiercely competitive business environment, the players have to be fast and nimble as they try to outdo each other. One will come up with an innovative marketing strategy and the rivals will have to respond fast.

Now imagine how ridiculous it would be if Zain reduced its tariffs or came up with some promotional offer, but first had to write to CCK and then wait for permission to launch?

How sure it would it be that its secret would remain secret? Are there risks that it’s file would end up in the hands of rivals?

How long would it have to wait for permission to roll out strategy? Is there a time-frame during which it should get a response?

What if its application got ‘lost’? What if it invested so much in the campaign and then was forced to cancel or alter its marketing strategy?

Zain, Orange and yu should be thankful they operate in a free environment that allows them to design and implement marketing strategies without reference to meddlesome bureaucracies.

These tariffs they are introducing are very attractive and should have consumer thinking.

mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com