Lessons from Lancaster for ODM and PNU

• Those telling us to accept a half-baked draft and change it later are lost

When I was a boy, my father was also a dictator. But he was a ‘‘religious’’ dictator. Every night, we had to say a prayer. I resisted it. As I grew older, however, I learnt to negotiate with him. I realised that during prayer, he was powerless.

To every prayer line, he responded with an exclamation “Yes, Lord!” And so I devised a strategy. In one of our conflicts, I offered to pray. My intention was to address our conflict through prayer. This way, I would say what was in my ‘‘boyish’’ heart without his interruption.

And so I accused him of all manner of things in prayer. To every accusation, he had no choice but to respond with his usual words of “Yes Lord!” I had made my point.

After the prayer, however, he chased everyone from the room and gave me a thorough beating. He did not say why, but I understood. This was my first lesson in negotiation.

I understood the following; the dominant and the dominated will always fight. In this struggle, the dominant have to ‘‘win’’. And if they lose, they will beat the dominated into submission.

For this lesson, I thank my late father. After the beating, he told me this: “... I have broken your will, but not your spirit!” With this encouragement, all was not lost.

But I must also thank President Kibaki for the lesson. In the 2007 election, Mr Raila Odinga won the argument, but lost the election. They beat his supporters into accepting the results. Now we cannot reverse the results.

The tragedy today is that we are replaying 2007 in the constitutional review process. Mr Odinga has a good argument regarding the draft constitution. I do not agree with him, but he has a right to be heard.

Unfortunately, we are beating him into accepting the dominant position. Like in 2007, he is the underdog. He has given in to every demand by PNU. But should he surrender at the retreat?

No way! He must look for the PNU prayer session; their moment of powerlessness. If he surrenders, he will be buried a coward in 2012. And this brings me to the first lesson from Lancaster.

For the sake of the young readers, allow me to explain Lancaster House. This is a mansion in the St James District of West End London. This is where our current constitution was negotiated between 1960 and 1963.

And during this negotiation, we had the dominant and the dominated forces. If ODM is the dominated group, the lesson from Lancaster is therefore this: precipitate a crisis. When the weak forces at Lancaster realised they were losing, they created a crisis. This way, they forced the negotiations in their favour.

The independence constitution favoured the minority over the dominant majority. Borrowing from Lancaster, therefore, ODM should not surrender. To emerge on top, however, they must precipitate a crisis. But can they? No idea! Or maybe their plan is to lose.

The second lesson from Lancaster is about tribe. Our founding fathers went to the negotiations as leaders of tribes. However, they negotiated as tribes, but not for tribes. And this is why we called them nationalists. Yes, their DNA was tribal, but their vision was national.

The reverse is true for our retreating MPs. Their DNA is national, thanks to the founding fathers. However, their vision is tribal. If our founding fathers were nationalists, these ones are ‘‘nihilists’’; if they were makers of things, these ones are destroyers of things. But they can change this.

A good starting point is for them to admit that they are tribal. And that this review is not about the constitution; it is about tribal alliances. If they acknowledge this, they will be liberated. Bottom-line: We should stop pretending.

The third lesson points to a Lancaster mistake. There was no agreement over the Lancaster draft. Our founding fathers adopted it with the intention of amending it after independence.

But once they started to amend it, they never stopped. Instead of treating it as a ‘‘holy’’ document, they toyed around with it. This led to the practice of “... a constitution without constitutionalism”. That is, we had a constitution, alright, but we did not respect it.

We must avoid this disease. Those telling us to accept a half-baked draft and change it later have not read history. Nations that treat the constitution as a ‘‘holy’’ document survive. Those who amend it at will perish. That is a bankable fact of history.

Allow me to give the fourth lesson by way of a story. There once lived two naughty boys aged 12 and eight. The neighbours complained about them, and so the parents decided to take them to the local priest for mentorship. The priest chose to deal with them one by one.

And so, he started with the elder brother. The little boy walked into the church and was asked a random question, “You, where is God!”. The idea was to teach him that God is present everywhere. But the boy said nothing. The priest got closer to him, raised his voice and asked again “Where is God!”

At this moment, the boy took off. He ran straight to his younger brother at home and announced; “We are in big trouble!” His brother replied, “But we haven’t done anything!” The big brother responded in fear: “God is missing, and they think we did it!”

What is the Lancaster lesson here? Our politicians are like the naughty boys. They are ‘‘sinners’’ beyond. Their fears control what they see and what they hear. Currently, they are afraid of 2012.

And this is what they are hearing: ‘‘Those opposed to this constitution will lose in 2012!’’ In my view, this is a voice of fear. In fact, the winner in 2012 could be the person who will oppose this process on the basis of principle.

mutahi@myself.com