I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I fear for Kenya
What you need to know:
- Given the nature of our work, society also expects us to offer ideas as to where we as a national community should be going culturally, politically, economically, socially, aesthetically and otherwise.
- When shall we ever get out of this – sometimes commonplace notion in some circles – that violence is part of the equation in the political process?
- If we cannot manage the internal “democracy” of political parties, we might as well forget national democracy.
I work within an academic environment where we have people at every level from all corners of this country.
Given that it is a public institution of higher learning – and the oldest in this country for that matter – one would also have to assume that it has a history of having gone through the politicisation and, therefore, still experiences the effects of politics that all public institutions have been subjected to.
Given the nature of our work, society also expects us to offer ideas as to where we as a national community should be going culturally, politically, economically, socially, aesthetically and otherwise.
The other day I asked a friend/colleague of mine who hails from Homa Bay what is going on out there. This was in view of the botched senatorial nominations last Monday.
Given that he is from there and he is a learned person, I genuinely wanted him to explain to me this phenomenon of people who are apparently organised – that was not a spontaneous reaction – disrupting elections. He quickly took my mind back to ODM polls earlier in the year where “men in black” appeared.
To be quite honest with you, and without wanting to plant fear into anybody’s mind, I worry about our country. When shall we ever establish a stable political culture so that we can get on with matters of development?
PART OF THE EQUATION
When shall we ever get out of this – sometimes commonplace notion in some circles – that violence is part of the equation in the political process? When we passed our constitution in 2010, I thought we had begun the journey towards political civilisation. I am beginning to doubt my earlier enthusiasm. True democracy is in my view about the ability to tolerate other peoples’ ideas and the ability to articulate your own.
That I think is what any political contest should be all about. Of course the evidence I have before me – which we all share – proves that all my assumptions in this regard are wrong. A lot of “political party” nominations – in any one “party” – in this country have all been marred with arguments and counter-arguments and on many occasions violence however little or intensive.
If we cannot manage the internal “democracy” of political parties, we might as well forget national democracy.
Thursday’s performance of our National Assembly is a case in point. Where did those “Honorouble” men and women come from? Who made them what they are? The concept of parliament came from the Greek “Agora” where people argued until they exhausted the matter at hand. Apparently our parliamentarians can only do it physically.
I wish you a merry Christmas.
Father Wamugunda is Dean of Students, University of Nairobi; [email protected]
