Why artists must stand up to be counted in changing Kenya

Over time, it has been generally accepted through custom and tradition that artists, thespians, musicians, poets, story tellers and painters mirror the soul of society.

This perspective is premised on the existence of respected societal values as well as some acceptable benchmarks for moderating the behaviour of a people. These values and benchmarks are not static but continue to evolve over time.

I will address the salient aspects of this view vis-à-vis the artist’s role and attendant challenges against a background of harsh economic and political onslaughts, the forces that have established a relentless hold on the people.

To mirror the soul of a nation presupposes that the artists have the capability to identify the basic diagnostic features that influence the direction that the change in societal values move as they evolve and change. It further assumes that the artist will, at any

point in time, be well armed and predisposed to focus on the critical elements of social change.

This standpoint takes cognisance of the individualistic way of operation of many artists. On the other hand, the process of social change must be one that benefits the society, not one that renders it moribund. It must be a change that we can embrace as a

tool that restores the worthiness of a people, and not just a shuffle of musical chairs. The artists have an unenviable challenge of looking at and addressing some very unpleasant truths. And historically, they have been addressing these, only that with a totally

changed mentality, what once were considered the norms have been discarded to the trash bin.

Amongst the features the artists have to focus on are the return to the sanity of the nation, re-engineering of the social values, restoration of national identity and the ever elusive concept of national character. All these are never static but continue to evolve

and develop over time, reflecting spectrum of social values that society can depend on as pillars of discipline and pride.

HOSTAGE TO MONEY

Unfortunately, the Kenyan society has become a hostage to money and its various appendages. This hostage state of existence has brought into play so many negative

forces that have unleashed a violent erosion of values and identity. Institutionalised corruption has become a standard norm that is part and parcel of every socio-economic contract negotiation.

Money has become the powerful instrument of controlling the gullible poverty-overwhelmed mwananchi. The now mythical Wanjiku has been driven into a slow motion mode of survival. The enthronement of the moneyed cartels has entered onto the stage a

ruthless zero sum mentality.

In the public service, this has led to dysfunctional bureaucracy that boasts of inefficiency and bad governance. The political class has perfected the process of commoditising the voter such that in every voting block — from the ward through the county to

the constituency, there are procuring agents, the brokers and the factors (to use Ayi Kwei Armah”s apt terminology).

They operate as buying agents at the farm gate. These are the floating agents who arrange to purchase the peasant’s produce (read votes) at the farm gate price. The price is often set by the buyer well below the cost of production. This is because it is a

buyer’s market. Pity unto the helpless out grower! Of course a poor person cannot afford to hold principles because he/she is preoccupied with the basic needs of survival — food and shelter. And we are slowly witnessing the trend towards generational

poverty.

Today we are witnessing how money is being used to return Kenya to the Moi era cronyism, reminiscent of the dawn delegations to Kabarak — mainly for handouts. Moi created a class of free loaders who were beholden to him and his surrogates.

We are now witnessing delegations trooping to Sugoi, all in the name of “seeing far like a giraffe” in preparation for 2022. Such developments constitute serious erosion of societal values and dignity.

They signal a return to the leadership of intolerance which sustains itself through a coterie of cronies, supported by assemblies of cheerleaders and hordes of free loaders.

OBSTRUCTION

At best such developments are not only a distraction from the live issues that should be addressed, but an obstruction to any effort to fix the many dysfunctional organs of governance, the ones Chief Justice Willy Mutunga lamented as being held hostage by

the mafia-like cartels.

This permanent obsession with who occupies the House on the Hill has led us to lose sight of the fundamentals of good governance. Today each public contract must have a contingency provision built into the contract equation by way of inflated mobilization costs and ambiguous variation clauses to cater for these cartels.

Unfortunately, these opiates are not limited to the public sector. No. They are rampant in the private sector, too. Remember, it takes two to tango. They are rampant in the civic bodies that are supposed to hedge the citizenry against perpetual exploitation by

the moneyed class. Every corner of the country is oversubscribed with very energetic cheer leadership, now in vogue. Cronyism had long made its way into the Hall of Fame. Picture how the men of cloth who are now “selling blessings” are up in arms

against any attempts to deprive them of their “God-given” source of livelihood. They forget, that is if ever they knew, that it was the “sale of indulgence” that hastened the coming of the Reformation and exodus of the Protestants from the Catholic Church.

So, faced with these formidable challenges, how does the artist navigate and chart out a result-oriented intervention into this perilous mine field? I will be focusing on these in the coming opinions. We will be addressing initiatives that are critical in sensitising

the citizenry on the subject of owning their social values and refusing to surrender their right in decision making process.

We will focus on how to integrate arts and cultural resources with selected civic visioning programs. In the ultimate we will explore how the artists can play their role in creating a balance of the inherent conflicting nature of the past, present and future social values.

Jared Angira is an economist and is one of Kenya’s foremost poets. He now lives in Seattle, USA. [email protected]