The truth may hurt, but it will also set us free
Archbishop Tutu is on record as saying that the truth hurts. If that is so, it has started paining rather too soon for the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission – and those who want to see this nation heal in their lifetime.
Far from coming even within sniffing distance of its mission, that team now faces the threat of being disbanded altogether. It would be a shame to throw out the baby with the bath-water.
The truth can be very uncomfortable to live with for both villain and victim. But getting to the root of past injustices is not negotiable if we are to move forward as something more than a collection of ethnic communities ill-at-ease with each other.
There are legitimate questions, of course, as to whether the exercise, as it is currently defined, is ever going to achieve its objective.
The impasse over the chairman, Bethuel Kiplagat, is just the most visible evidence of the hurdles that this well-intentioned mission can expect to encounter – should it survive the politics.
The truth is a complicated concept, and even more so in the long-running soap-opera that passes for life in political Kenya. The latest episode in the drama, which is grounded in damaging choices dating back to independence is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are those who argue that our truth, justice and reconciliation model is fundamentally flawed and will never bring about the peace and reconciliation that we yearn for.
Issues of concern include protection of witnesses and victims. There are also those who argue that it does not provide adequately for putting into effect any recommendations.
But that is getting far ahead of ourselves. We are stuck right now in a battle of wills between those who want Kiplagat out and those who want him in.
He see-saws between the two camps as the commission contends with a rising chorus that it is spending millions running on the spot.
Tough situations call for hard-nosed decisions. If Kiplagat will not go quietly, the rest of the commissioners should lead by example. It is one thing to accept responsibility and another to achieve your objectives in the absence of support structures.
Pushing the TJRC agenda was always going to be an uphill task, given our propensity to turn everything into a political battle of monumental proportions. The forces of impunity, as former vice-chairperson Betty Murungi put it so delicately, are deeply rooted in the establishment.
They will not go quietly. That is what all the expensive and ultimately futile commissions are about. They are symptoms of what ails Kenya, along with the ever-shifting political alliances.
The truth and justice commissioners, many of them well-intentioned if not well-versed in the art of political manipulation, should read the writing on the wall.
There are many ways to cripple a commission. You can appoint commissioners sympathetic to your cause – ones guaranteed to cling in there, light fires all over the place, and divert attention from the task at hand.
You can also ensure that the commission does not become too big for its breeches by ensuring it has no control over its finances.
Someone in a remote location holds onto the money and gets to dole it out as and when it suits them. The commission is thus reduced to a cosmetic exercise.
The TJRC would not be the first to travel that road. Some of these things are designed to hold the baying crowds at arm’s length rather than deliver radical surgery. A good number of reports from a growing list of commissions are gathering dust somewhere in the archives.
The commissioners can hang in there and hope for a miracle. But such miracles have been too few though we are a self-proclaimed praying nation. Maybe it is a hint from higher powers that it is time we started using our intellect instead of worshipping idols with feet of clay.
Getting to the bottom of the Kenyan disease need not necessarily be a punitive exercise. Some people just want to know the truth so they can put the past behind them and chart a more meaningful way of relating to each other.
That the TJRC is already hitting landmines even before it has started its work is evidence that the night will be very long, indeed.
We can forge ahead in the hope that even the toughest resistance must falter at some point – and that we will summon the courage to put away the architects of the madness when that time comes.
We can also let the TJRC go into hibernation. Perhaps there are too many powerful forces in the political chain right now that have blood on their hands. It might be necessary to take away the immediate threat and focus more on the reconciliation aspect.
But we cannot keep postponing the reckoning and hope to get away with it. There are too many walking wounded, whose anger might one day explode and burn this nation to the ground.
