Political elite a threat to national unity

The human body is, perhaps, the most advanced, continuously adaptive and self-regulating laboratory.

The epicentre of this labyrinth is our brain, arguably the most sophisticated natural integrated circuit, if ever there was one.

Over a tenth of a trillion neurons are jam-packed into our small brains to receive, process, and transmit information from and to the rest of the organs, all at dizzyingly fast speeds.

One of the most basic information processed by the brain is the ability to detect and respond to physical pain, a survival mechanism that protects us from harm or even death.

And yet some people with a specific gene mutation suffer from what is medically referred to as congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP). In other words, they cannot feel physical pain. 

CHOKING

Save for the “inconvenience” of choking, they can sit in a raging fire and burn to ashes without experiencing the excruciating pain most of us associate with intense heat!

It’s a scary prospect, and it’s not uncommon for those who have this condition to die in childhood due to preventable burn injuries or ailments that go unnoticed due to lack of pain sensation.

What is my point here? Even though the body constitutes disparate organs, as a complete package it works in amazing concert that ensures our very survival.

There is an interesting analogy between the mechanics of the human body and the dynamics of this community we call Kenya.

First, by colonial meddling, we find ourselves in a unique but fairly complex network of seemingly incongruent tribes. When positively harnessed, there is latent power in diversity beyond mere strength in numbers.

SURVIVAL

Second, we are collectively and instinctively engaged in a game of survival. We rely on one another not just to seek communal sense out of an incomprehensible universe, but to literally keep afloat. We can’t survive in isolation as tribal or racial fiefdoms.

Third, our conjunctive neurons are rapidly firing away, but unlike a healthy human body, they are sending erratic signals that are sharply at variance with one another.

Every election year, these impulses seem to get increasingly discordant, virulently feeding on our social and economic fabric. But why is our body politic inordinately out of resonance with our human body? Are we inherently incapable of or simply unwilling to display the same innate unity of purpose?

First, unlike the human body, we have installed the political class at the epicentre of our social and economic production lines.

This is not unique to us and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it, except that our politics is laced with a distinctively toxic dose of ethnicity and our politicians are primarily driven by insatiable greed.

TOXIC POLITICS

Second, because of toxic politics, we have magnified our ethnic inhomogeneity and let it define every aspect of our public and private discourse. Not surprisingly, for example, since August 8, we have channelled a lot of energy into fomenting hatred and economic sabotage instead of pooling resources to confront our most common enemies  -- hunger, disease, and illiteracy.

Last, and perhaps most important, just like congenital insensitivity to pain, our ruling elite has become completely desensitised from the daily suffering of ordinary Kenyans; I call this chronic indifference to suffering (CIST). 

Soon enough, the fibres loosely holding this country together will come undone, and the resulting chaos will be our waterloo moment.

Let us not ignore the writing on the wall, unless we envy our neighbour to the east.

Dr Ondari is a senior research chemist in Michigan, US. [email protected]