The ugly undressing of women and of Kenya
What you need to know:
- We spend millions of shillings in taxpayers’ money and donor funding to manufacture this soap to clean our institutions at home, but nothing has really been washed.
- If the charges against Smith & Ouzman are confirmed and the anti-fraud prosecutors are proved right, then we will have found the connection between stripping democracy and stripping women.
- They dare to declare in the public media that women are being undressed because they are naked, and I ask myself, what's the logic behind undressing a naked woman?
- It is as if they had been stripping women who really wanted to be stripped, and for a few hours, immorality and depravation replaced the rightful place of decency and modesty.
It has been an undressing week! Cowardly men have undressed women in town, and a court of law has, shamefully, undressed IIEC and IEBC in the UK.
It all happened before the watchful eyes of the public. They seem unrelated indignities but they all steam out of the same cooking pot —our moral rot.
The battle is not for the miniskirt. The dilemma is not to wear or not to wear, "some wear" or "no wear".
The battle is much deeper and we seem to have lost it a while ago. It is the animalisation of a society that seems to be concerned with the survival of the fittest.
It is a society where a suspected "chicken gang" composed of unscrupulous officials, in cahoots with Smith & Ouzman, rape again and again the dignity of democracy and walk away with perfect impunity, while their poorer brothers in the city rape and debase women of their dignity, and also walk away with perfect impunity.
OUR COUNTRY AND OUR MOTHERS
There is not much difference. One strips the country of its money and democratic dignity, while the other strips mothers, sisters and daughters of their human dignity. Both are real assaults against dignity and law, and both walk free, for there seems to be no one able or willing to investigate and prosecute.
In the IIEC case, linen is being washed abroad because we don’t have good soap locally. Soap, in this case, is the watchful institution capable of investigating and successfully prosecuting cases of corruption.
We created John Harun Mwau’s KACA in 1997, which mutated into Ringera’s KACC and then PLO Lumumba’s KACC. This agency was killed by a new Act, which caused its mutation into the current EACC, under Mumo Matemu.
We spend millions of shillings in taxpayers’ money and donor funding to manufacture this soap to clean our institutions at home but nothing has really been washed.
Foreign anti-fraud bodies have a duty to monitor corruption perpetrated by their own nationals. It is common practice, and they look into financial transactions and lifestyle, among other key indicators.
UNWASHED, DIRTY LINEN
When the stink of unwashed dirty linen spills over to our neighbours, it stops being a local issue. It becomes international and reveals the rottenness at both ends.
The only difference is that at one end, there is prosecution.
Impunity breaks society apart and brews a society where only the fittest will survive, a man-eat-man society. But it starts with a man-eat-woman society, and this is already happening.
If the charges against Smith & Ouzman are confirmed and the anti-fraud prosecutors are proved right, then we will have found the connection between stripping democracy and stripping women.
While some public servants may be busy misappropriating public funds and stripping Kenya’s future, some other men are doing the same to our women. They call themselves “self-appointed moralists” when they really are moral-less.
SELF-APPOINTED MORALISTS
These ignorant and aggressive men are children of our self-created impunity-laden systems. They are irrational from the start.
They dare to declare in the public media that women are being undressed because they are naked, and I ask myself, what's the logic behind undressing a naked woman?
These men-turned-beasts are hooligans. They are sexually perverted goons who are taking advantage of the absence of law and order to abuse women and then go ahead and call their sin, vices and drunkenness, manhood.
They are depraved men who have no respect for a mother, sister, wife or daughter.
As the drama unfolded, the matter was complicated more by the unwise reaction of a few women who went into town and mixed in the midst of a noble and mature demonstration.
These few women were rather scantily dressed. They bitterly claimed their absolute right to strip themselves by their own volition, and to the annoyance of almost everyone, they did strip themselves in front of the cameras.
WHO STRIPS WHO?
This awkward reaction gave the goons the upper hand for a moment. It is as if they had been stripping women who really wanted to be stripped, and for a few hours, immorality and depravation replaced the rightful place of decency and modesty.
These men and their accomplices in crime are simply imitating their role models in higher places, in business, politics or civil service. They are all raping whatever they have at hand: women, public coffers, institutions, or the country.
It is not just a matter of respect. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in his masterpiece Anna Karenina, “respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”
Respect is not good enough; what matters is love. Love of mother, wife, sister and daughter.
We are killing the future of so many wonderful children who urgently need to see in their fathers and mothers role models of decency, respect, decorum and common sense.
We have killed the present at the altar of morality. Let’s spare the future.
Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi
