Sunday, April 8, 2012

Voters always lose for accepting to be driven into tribal partnerships


By Stanley Githunguri
It’s no secret that I have gone from being a staunch believer of party politics to a critic of the clanism over the last few years. I’m comfortable with fact-based arguments than politics of the clan and amorphous alliances.
To begin with, there is unspoken truth about partnerships of convenience and politics of the clan. As an experienced politician, I dare not divulge one. But my conscience reminds me that I am also an entrepreneur and must therefore live to the tenets of sound business practices, one of which is reasonable disclosure. Experience in politics has taught me that our elections leave the voters as the worst losers! Why? - Because we have worshiped the folklores told by the clan villains and despised the vision of the valiant.
We have accepted to be branded as overly forgetful; we accept to be hastily driven into partnerships of clan and convenience every time an election beckons! That is reasonable disclosure. When the former chairperson of the Electoral Commission was asked who won the elections, he mumbled words that did not help the political dilemma we were in at that time. Today, if the reporter repeated the same question but in different format to say, who actually lost the elections, the correct answer would be the voter! Why, because the voter accepted to help others to settle differences and fight his neighbour in the name of protecting the clan!
The great African writer Chinua Achebe, in his book Home and Exile, observed: "Man is a story-making animal. He rarely passes up an opportunity to accompany his works and his experiences with matching stories. He observes that the heavy task of dispossessing others calls for such a story... Let us imagine that someone has come along to take my land from me. We would not expect him to say he is doing it because of his greed, or because he is stronger than I.
Such a confession would brand him as a scoundrel and a bully. So he hires a story-teller with a lot of imagination to make up a more appropriate story, which might say, for example, that the land in question could not be mine because I had shown no aptitude to cultivate it properly for maximum productivity and profitability."
What is my point? Whatever the date of the next elections, reasonable disclosure demands that we remind ourselves, yet again, that this is the period for story tellers-on-hire to sell and thrive. They have seized the opportunity, are barefaced and have even changed the meaning of "persecution".
Insolently, they drive in classy, luxurious machines across the shanties, in the suburbs and the villages preaching that their principals are the "victims" who suffered fighting for the poor! We are told that tyrants impoverish their subjects and indoctrinate their minds so that they can control them. Obviously, a poor man is easy to control! Therefore don’t be lied to. These principals of tyranny and their storytellers have nothing good for the poor! George Orwel observed that most political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way.
People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes. They are telling us stories why we must resort to ethnic cocoons- despite our tragic experiences of politics of the clan and tribe.
They are reminding us that our fathers belonged to certain communities and that we must therefore cling to tribal groupings most of which shamelessly carry acronyms that only depict nothing but politics of the tribe! I ask myself, what happened to the commissions and other organs that we recently created to protect our youth and children from being indoctrinated by the preachers of hate speech and tribal storytellers?
Today, tribal chiefs have reminded us that we belong to tribal groupings. Very little good is documented about these cocoons. They have perfected the art of storytelling in religious places and funerals. Surely, how far can tyranny stretch! Listening to their public utterances, none of these story tellers show us what they intend to do when they get into power! They only tell us that it is important for the clan! Period!
We must remember the alliances of convenience of the past. In the 1960s, an alliance was formed to cut the over ambitious Tom Mboya to size, and it did work temporarily. What happened later? The country was plunged into politics of the clanism and for the first time, our people started viewing each other with tribal suspicion- suddenly, we were misled to believe that because we have the ability to speak different languages, we are very different in all aspects.
Tribal careers were even carved out for us- some were said to be better thieves, others are best cooks and watchmen! And we clapped back! This is where we lost track! Just recently an MoU was signed to remove Kanu and "Moisym" from power. It ended in political darkness, mudslinging and politics of the tribe carried the day. Partnerships of convenience have no vision!
When I was a teenager, I witnessed the clamour for independence from the imperial colonialists. From north to south, east to west, our fathers fought together. They had common agenda of one nation, one people and one voice! That was their story. It was real and genuine. After independence, new storytellers were hired- not to advance the goals of our fathers, but to divide the same people that founded the nation! But I also know that politics of the clan and tribe can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere.
Modern history tells us that politics of the clan and accompanying alliances have brought untold sufferings on African countries. As we listen to the storytellers, we need to ask ourselves: Who benefits from this supposed tribal cocoons? Certainly not the poor voter! Turning to the question of the election date, by now, Kenyans are getting bored of the theories and political conjecture regarding the date of the next elections. Personally, I have always held the opinion that a December election is the way to go. The other day, a teenage asked me- why are you people obsessed with the months of August, December and March...I thought a calendar has 12 months- why not April to coincide with my birthday- After all, everyone has selfish reasons for their arguments.
The writer is Member of Parliament for Kiambaa

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