Why politicians are never polite and polished

As I have often pointed out here before, objectively representative politics requires policy, polish and politeness. Even the most casual look at those words should reveal that they come from the same etymological root.  Etymology, we recall, is the science that deals with the history of words. It is apparent to those with ears for language that even the word police belongs to that etymological family.

 The question thus stares at you as hideously as Medusa’s face. Why are Kenya’s politicians always so rude to one another and to their other critics? Why is it that, whenever a Member of Parliament — for example — is publicly censored, he or she must rush, in “reply”, to the crudest and most impolite words?

The most probable answer, it seems to me, is that most of our  politicians — especially in Kenya  and other Third World countries — are in the wrong  “profession”.

To convince his or her listeners, a true politician must use words that can immediately convince the audience.

UNPOLISHED WORDS

Linguistically alert readers can already recognise that the words police, policy, polish, polite and politics spring from the same etymological root. 

Etymology, to remind you, is the name of the linguistic science that deals with the history of words.  By their very name, the politicians should be among our most effective national teachers on these things. Yet all over the world — particularly in Kenya and other Third World countries — politicians thoughtlessly hurl the stinkiest and most unpolished words at one another.

 The question is: Why do we — particularly in East Africa — apparently find it impossible to conduct what pass as political dialogues in polite and polished language? It is because most of us have never heard of the saying by Robert Frost — the great American poet — that anything more than the truth must seem “too weak”. 

In other words, why do you, as a political chooser, allow your so called political representative to embarrass you constantly by regularly throwing untruths and other kinds of stinking cow dung at his or her opponents and critics?

LANGUAGE

The most probable answer is that you — the voter — have never given it too much thought.

Yet, at least to me, one answer sticks out like Kilindini. It is that our politicians and other social leaders know that the Kenyan voter is equally deficient of the official language and cannot be expected to feel compelled to utter aloud any complaint about the grammar of his or her so-called political representative.

In every human language, words arranged in a certain way are the medium of representation, including in the political arena. A society must, therefore, work out a system by which to force its politicians to behave in a manner representing the real and objective needs of their constituents much more effectively than in the narrow field of law-making.

The whole society must force the politician to be seen to represent his or her constituents in all set behavioral ways, including even in the propriety both of dress and of language.

Philip Ochieng is a retired journalist. [email protected]