Yes, some people know 2012 end-game

Published on 26/06/2011

By Dominic Odipo
"For his powerful style-forming mastery of the art of modern narration as most recently evinced in "The Old Man and the Sea.""The date was October 28, 1954 and the Swedish Academy was formally awarding Ernest Hemingway, the American novelist, that year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation continued:
"He possesses a heroic pathos which forms the basic element of his awareness of life, a manly love of danger and adventure, with a natural admiration of every individual who fights the good fight in a world of reality overshadowed by violence and death."

On July 2, 1961 at the tender age of 62, while at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, Hemingway shot himself while his last wife, Mary rested upstairs. In the three months preceding this tragic suicide, Hemingway had tried to kill himself at least four times.
Near tearsHe had been a very sick man for almost five years and had curiously lamented to a friend that "What does a man care about? Staying healthy. Working good. Eating and drinking with his friends. Enjoying himself in bed. I haven’t any of them. Do you understand, goddamn it? None of them."
Almost exactly 33 years earlier —in 1928 — Ernest’s father had also shot himself dead with a pistol. But, in a bizarre follow-up, Ernest’s mother had mailed the pistol to him. Was she inviting the son to use the pistol like his father had done?
If you have had the privilege and pleasure of reading any of Hemingway’s books, you will have no doubt whatsoever that the Swedish Academy’s citation of 1954 was fully deserved.
When you come to the end of A Farewell to Arms, as the tragic hero walks away in the rain, you want to weep.
Hemingway’s depiction of Pilar, the Republican heroine in For Whom the Bell Tolls is so real you can virtually smell her. And if you managed to hold back your emotions through all of the other Hemingway books, you will almost certainly weep when you come to the last page of The Old Man and the Sea" when the old man finally docks with the giant skeleton of what was certainly the biggest catch of his life.
In Papa Hemingway, a personal memoir, A. E. Hotchner, captures Hemingway, as perhaps only Hemingway himself would have been able to. You can virtually see the man as he drifts towards mental instability and death.
The Nobel laureate who fought in two world wars, hunted big game in East Africa, fished in the Caribbean and drank gallons of whiskey and wine is reduced to a suicidal wreck hanging on the edges of insanity.
The story is so real, so Hemingway, that when he finally shoots himself, you sigh with relief.
There is, however, a curious distinction that Hotchner brings out in this engaging personal memoir, which might be of more than passing interest to us Kenyans as we embrace the new Constitution and prepare for the presidential, and General Election of 2012. It is the distinction between what Hotchner calls obsessions and delusions.
Insistent logicAn obsession, according to a doctor who spoke with Hotchner, is an idea that obtrudes itself on the psyche. "The person is aware of its lack of logical basis and regards it as alien to his ego or self, but he succumbs to it in order to avoid the anxiety that he experiences if he challenges or ignores it."
A delusion, on the other hand, is "a false belief that is impervious to a logical and factual demonstration of its falsity."
In some instances, the doctor explained to Hotchner, this fine line between obsession and delusion is crossed in one way and then in the other so that there can be obsessional behaviour in one area and delusional behaviour in another.
The point is that obsessions, when they have clearly been identified as such, can be attacked and then dispelled by insistent logic, but when they harden into delusions, no amount of persuasive logic or evidence can have any effect on them.
This means that if we can establish that a person or group of persons is consumed by a delusion, there is no point of arguing with him or with the group logically or of trying to marshal and present the factual evidence that contradicts the delusion. It will all be a waste of time and resources.
Wasted millionsIs this a distinction that Kenyans, especially those running for elective office, could exploit to great advantage as 2012 looms? Certainly. It could save millions of shillings of pointless campaigns and public relations offensives that would ultimately accomplish nothing.
Take just one example. If the majority of the Kalenjin have been obsessed with the idea that William Ruto, not Raila Odinga, will take them to the Promised Land to the point of delusion, there is no point of wasting millions of shillings in campaigns or PR offensives trying to change their minds. It will not work.
One needs to find another way round such a problem! Long live Ernest Hemingway!
—The writer is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.dominicodipo@yahoo.co.uk