My ethical misgivings with this ‘volatile’ Miguna book
Miguna Miguna while addressing the press on December 31, 2011. Photo/FILE
By WAGA ODONGO
Posted Monday, July 16 2012 at 01:00
Posted Monday, July 16 2012 at 01:00
IN SUMMARY
- Memoirs tend to have the sub-text of an angel amidst demons. Or dancing with hyenas. One must strain out the bias to reach the choicest nuggets.
Winston Churchill, perhaps the most quotable man who ever lived, said that “history will be kind to me for I intend to write it”. And write it he did, weighing in at 43 books.
I remembered Churchill this week as I mulled over how political writing by those in the front row of events seems like an attempt to get out your own version of history. An attempt to justify and rehabilitate. An act of self-defense.
Not to mention lucrative... if you are high up the ladder.
First of all, I am glad that Miguna Miguna’s new book, Peeling Back the Mask, was serialised in your paper of choice for you to read. The serialisation reached more people than the book ever could in such a short time and brought to the fore pertinent issues about prominent figures in politics.
Miguna is Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s game-keeper-turned-poacher after a very messy fallout. American president Lyndon Johnson’s quote on FBI boss J Edgar Hoover — “I would rather have him in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in” — seems apt in Miguna’s case.
The haste with which he has sought to burden the nation’s bookshelves with his tome so quickly after his dismissal seems a bit disconcerting.
I am not comfortable with taking down what people say in confidence and publishing it while it is still sensitive enough to get you a serialisation. The impetus to get the book out so fast seems, to me, wrong. A settling of scores. Wouldn’t a better product emerge if he had taken more time to sift through his recollections?
A memoirs of this sort is taking advantage of a privileged position one had in government.
It could, however, be argued that Miguna was a political appointee and not a member of the civil service and so is not bound to keep any secrets, and I am sure that, as a barrister, he would know.
But, still, using privileged information in such a manner is wrong. There is also a danger that in the future the past may be remembered from such recollections — in this case, views from the past that are undoubtedly refracted through a prism of anger over a recent falling out.
While this collection will be a boon to future generations in providing data and anecdotes on coalition partners and the weft of the Prime Minister’s inner circle, it will always be thought of as self-serving and score-settling due to the build up to its release.
It cannot be considered as an objective account. Someone sacked by his boss with a book called Peeling Back the Mask is anything but subjective and is not an impartial chronicler. It seems paradoxical because here we have an eyewitness who is immediately thought of as an unreliable historian.
Eyewitnesses, usually, are the most credible. Events are entirely reliant on memory. The writer remembers only what he chooses and magnifies others’ failings. But writing a book which is autobiographical will lead you to be self-conscious, and even, I suspect, exaggerate your importance in the whole enterprise.
All the flaws and blemishes will tend to land on others who are the victims of your authorial gaze. It shows how right you are and how wrong those around you turn out to be.
Some of Miguna’s accounts are accompanied by a near-delusional level of self-righteousness. Memoirs tend to have the sub-text of an angel amidst demons. Or dancing with hyenas. One must strain out the bias to reach the choicest nuggets.
The excerpts included talk of skulduggery in high places. Also, the petty squabbling amongst the PM’s avaricious inner circle. The PM turns out to be pretty bad at choosing staff — except, I suspect, when it comes to choosing Miguna.
Politicians’ nightmare
So this recollection must be counterweighted by something else. It would be hard to accept it all by itself.
Now everything that happens around politicians is being recorded. To choose to be in the public eye means that you can never leave it, even if you wanted to.
Miniaturisation has only made things worse. Recorders could be everywhere. So politicians not only have to worry about the Press but also their own cabal, who could out them.
The rule is that, now, as a politician, you must make sure that your errand boys, spanner-men and backroom wheeler-dealers sign a strict non-disclosure agreement as they sign on for their stipend.
I once said in a side piece to this column that you would rather drill a hole in your head or read the book because both would leave you with a high-pitched whine in your ears and a headache later on.
But I would read it. The excerpts were anecdote-rich. Most interesting was the vignette about James Orengo’s sartorial tastes.
Since it was released in the cold month of July, we can take it that Orange House, whose television stock footage shows a chimney jutting out, has fuel to keep them warm as they deny the allegations.
Then we can literally have a bonfire of vanities.
Is he right? Send your comments to dn2@ke.nationmedia.com
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I HAVE finally gone and done it. I have gotten myself a thing on my laptop that keeps me updated on the latest news and happenings in Kenya. So when the next grenade showers molten shrapnel on unsuspecting pedestrians, I shall be the first to publicly commiserate with the families via the curt medium of Twitter.
The next time ICC as much as coughs I shall be told.
Next time Uhuru and Ruto remind us that, undoubtedly, undebatedly and unhesitatingly, they are in the race to occupy State House, I shall be among the first to know.
It shall also tell me the next kitendawili, along with its answer, spewed in a public rally.
It also has an in-built translation feature for the President’s next meandering and tortuous ad-libbing. It even has the latest football transfer news, although, for some reason, it keeps confusing Mudavadi with Barcelona star Messi.
Constant updates are essentially a technological solution to a problem; “How is it possible for me to drip-feed into my conscience further distractions?”
What is the attraction to constantly being kept up to date with the news? It makes sense to keep up to date with news when you are a journalist or working in the media, but why would it be an attraction to constantly find out about events immediately?
Especially events that are of a depressing nature — as our news invariably are.
I know of whole Twitter accounts of individuals who spend every waking moment peddling news and accompanying photos as they happen in a sort of hyper-real, play-by-play, blow-by-blow account.
Surely you have better things to do than being the guy who went village to village announcing news. Finding out most news immediately — unless it is financial or security based — does not add to the experience in any way.
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