Sometimes it is better to remain silent than engage in shouting match

What you need to know:

  • Why is it that, in politics, Kenyans are so rigid, so incapable of criticism and self-criticism, so sensitive to ribbing?

The Luo – my ethnic ancestors – had a saying for it: Ling’ Lo Duoko. It is that, on certain issues, to keep quiet is much more effective than to reply to every clamorous accusation. Quite clearly, however, Kenya’s political class has never heard of such wisdom. Otherwise, our elite would know better than to reply the way they do to certain accusations.

Typical of the Third World’s mental under-development is the habit by members of Kenya’s econo-political class of reacting with deafening noise and extreme thoughtlessness even in a situation where silence is what would work in their favour. Take this week’s uproar against the auditor-general’s latest findings.

In the developed societies, what is more likely is a reaction opposite to the kind that deafened our ears in Nairobi this week. In the West, even the most dedicated culprit, far from demanding the auditor-general’s blood, will laud him for his “brilliance”, “dedication”, “industriousness”, “eye for detail”, such like.

For, in Western Europe, North America and Australasia, the auditor-general is an exceedingly useful cog in the wheel of elite greed, high corruption and pigsty consumption. Every year, the Western auditor-general produces facts and figures about his country far more explosive than Mr Edward Ouko produces about Kenya.

But the Western auditor’s report is written in language so smooth that it will never pierce the marrow of any culprit; so that everybody — including the culprit — reads it very thoughtfully. Everybody listens to the auditor’s carefully chosen but, nevertheless, reproachful words. Yet – Like Vaska the Cat of Russian story book (and as we know from our own John Githongo) – everybody “GOES ON EATING”.

Such tolerance of criticism is one method by which a sophisticated ruling class succeeds in deflecting its misdeeds away from the public’s attention. That, indeed, is among the definitions of a developed liberal society. Elite silences – Ling’ Lo Duoko – include the deployment of false arguments which sound clever, well-informed and well-meant.

In a situation of mass economic hopelessness, intolerance even of the most innocuous critic is one method by which the Third World’s econo-political stratum immediately invites the public’s wrath towards itself. Arrogant disregard even of the most positive advice is among the causes of political hurly-burly in Africa and other Third World situations.

Any slight analysis is likely to elicit, at best, only sophistry, namely, the liberal’s preoccupation with reacting to criticism only by means of impressive but dangerously misleading words and arguments. Such were what Mark Twain — in his sardonic rejoinder to George Washington’s “I-cannot-tell-a-lie” outburst — called a “silent-assertion lie”.

It is by means of allegations much cleverer than Washington’s that a ruling elite succeeds in deflecting the public’s attention away from the elite’s own moral putrefaction.

The problem for all “silent-assertion liars”, even among the elite, is that there are always individuals capable of summoning up the ethical and intellectual courage to poke fun at such liars.

By means of creative literature and newspaper sketches, laughter at the shortcomings of one’s society was the career of Democritus of classical Athens, Daniel Defoe of England, Voltaire and Blaise Pascal of France, Okot p’Bitek of Uganda. In Kenya, Hilary Ng’weno was once the “laughing philosopher”, the Democritus, of our time.

That is the question: Why is it that, in politics, Kenyans are so rigid, so incapable of criticism and self-criticism, so sensitive to ribbing? With lampoons and what Ng’weno used to call a “light touch”, those gifted with a sense of irony would long ago have put paid to all such cartoon figures as Aden Duale, Boni Khalwale, Sonko Mbuvi and Rachel Shebesh.

But whenever a ruling class begins to react with as much intolerance as Kenya’s did against the auditor-general’s report this year, the class is trying to choke all the pores through which a nation’s frustrations can escape. The class thus also undermines its own hegemony.