Control the tongue, words can inspire or destroy

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By ABABU NAMWAMBA ababumtumwa@yahoo.com
Posted  Saturday, December 10  2011 at  23:13

This past week I spent a bit of time on the Capitol Hill, Washington DC, together with other Kenyan political party leaders, for a series of meetings with a wide array of American political honchos.

In one of the illuminating sessions, former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential hopeful Howard Dean – who once chaired the Democratic National Committee – pointedly said “politicians know they can appeal either to people’s best instincts or to people’s worst instincts. Often they appeal to the latter.”

In the same meeting, Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jnr, while stressing that leadership must have the capacity to disagree agreeably and that “you cannot accomplish anything without trust... to accomplish anything you have to know and appreciate the guy on the other side,” admitted that this spirit is sorely missing in American politics today. “What is missing on the Capitol Hill today is trust. This is what has killed bipartisanship.”

Mr Fahrenkopf co-chairs the Commission on Presidential Debates and formerly headed the Republican National Committee.

Congressman James Clyburn (D-South Carolina) assured, with a deliberate light touch, that “you accommodate divergent views by love and affection,” but hastened to confess that this is one ingredient in very short supply in the blessed land.

So, yes, even the great USA is not insulated from political bile and rancour. Indeed, this is clearly manifest in the early skirmishes building up into what promises to be a bruising bare knuckle fight for the White House next year.

In a Theodore Roosevelt-themed speech delivered in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday, President Obama gave the clearest indication yet that battle 2012 certainly isn’t going be the “soft ‘n nice” gloved punching that characterised his 2008 historic triumph.

And he is merely responding to a political environment increasingly being poisoned by toxic tongues. Actually, the tone is getting quite coarse by the day.

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Father of gridlock

While the White House this week turned guns on Republican presidential ticket frontrunner Newt Gingrich, describing him as “the godfather of gridlock,” he duly returned the favour.

He said President Obama operates from “a Kenyan anti-colonial” mindset, and that he became president partly by using the organising tactics of the radical leader Saul Alinsky.

Words. They inspire. They hurt. They build. They destroy. Words. Like several of my colleagues in Bunge, I suffer the double jeopardy of being both a lawyer and a politician, where words are the stock-in-trade for both and, to make a success of it, you got no choice but to evolve into a wordsmith par excellence.

But the tragedy is not so much about our virtual dependence on the tongue. No. The mortal danger lies in the propensity – sometimes compelled often deliberate – to use the spoken word to destructive ends.

To incite. To subvert. To demean. To anger. To wrong. It is made worse by the tendency to forget the brain in parking mode when the tongue is engaged. Tragic really. And the consequences can be quite costly.

No lesser a book than the Bible has said volumes about the tongue, the “little organ with myriad problems”.

Sages and thinkers of all shades have taught about the wisdom of keeping a firm leash on the little organ between your teeth.

We have all been repeatedly cautioned that once the words are out, you cannot take them back. The remedy is to keep them under control.

It is similarly advised to be particularly careful with sarcasm: the momentary satisfaction you gain with your biting words will be outweighed by the price you pay!

In 1825, a new Tsar, Nicholas I, ascended the throne in Russia. A rebellion immediately broke out, led by liberals demanding that the country modernise, that its industries and civil structures catch up with the rest of Europe.

Brutally crushing this rebellion (the Decemberist Uprising), Nicholas I sentenced one of its leaders, Kondraty Ryleyev, to death.

On the day of the execution Ryleyev stood on the gallows, the noose around his neck. The trapdoor opened.

But as Ryleyev dangled, the rope broke, dashing him to the ground. At the time, events like this were considered signs of providence or heavenly will, and a man saved from execution this way was usually pardoned.

Bruised and dirtied

A messenger immediately went to the Winter Palace with news of the failed hanging. Vexed by this disappointing turnabout, Nicholas I nevertheless began to sign the pardon. But then: “Did Ryleyev say anything after this miracle?” the Tsar asked the messenger.As Ryleyev got to his feet, bruised and dirtied but believing his neck had been saved, he called out to the crowd, “you see, in Russia they don’t know how to do anything properly, not even how to make rope!”

“Sir,” the messenger replied, “he said that in Russia they don’t even know how to make rope.”

“In that case,” said the Tsar, “let us prove the contrary.” And he tore up the pardon. The next day Ryleyev was hanged. This time the rope did not break.