By ABABU NAMWAMBA
Posted Saturday, November 26 2011 at 20:00
Posted Saturday, November 26 2011 at 20:00
The North Wind and the Sun were arguing over who was the stronger when a traveller came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveller take his cloak off would be considered stronger than the other.
The North Wind proceeded to blow as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely the traveller folded his cloak around himself; the North Wind gave up the attempt.
Then the Sun shone out quietly, warmly and immediately the traveller took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.
Through the ages
This ancient Aesopian fable has had varied influence through the ages. Victorian versions give the moral as “persuasion is better than force”.
In the Barlow edition of 1667, Aphra Behn teaches the stoic lesson of moderation in everything: “in every passion, moderation choose, for all extremes do bad effects produce”.
La Fontaine’s conclusion is that “gentleness does more than violence”.
In the 18th century, Herder comes to the theological conclusion that “superior force leaves us cold, warm Christian love dispels that”, and the Walter Crane limerick edition of 1887 gives a psychological interpretation: “true strength is not bluster”.
Most of these examples draw a moral lesson, but La Fontaine hints also at political application that is present too in Avianus’ conclusion: “they cannot win who start with threats”.
There is evidence that this reading has had explicit influence on modern-time diplomacy – in South Korea’s Sunshine Policy, for instance.
Soon we will be hitting the homestretch to the 2012 battle royale.
And if experience from the recent past is anything to go by, we should be bracing ourselves for a riveting duel of mammoth proportions.
This is a succession election, and with the stakes so high, the contest is bound to be bruising, the tension palpable.
It is a virtual tinderbox setting, one that would need little to trigger implosion on a scary scale, reminiscent of pogroms whose ghosts still roam in our midst, chilling our very souls.
Anyone who cares to reflect even at the most rudimentary level will realise that the ugly aftermaths that have frequently stained electoral contests in this country have never been acts of God, really.
From the fatal scenes of the 1969 “little General Election” to the deadly spectacles of ethnic cleansing that bloodied the 1992 and 1997 elections to that 2007 grandmother of national insanity, we have pretty much been the authors of our own misfortune, wittingly or unwittingly so.
Sickening prejudice
We have often thrown caution to the wind, hurtling into the abyss as though there were no tomorrow.
We have been quick to engage the tongue into overdrive with the mind forgotten in parking mode.
Peddling sickening prejudice-laden cliches against whole communities, we have woken terrifying animal ferocity in otherwise normal humans, setting neighbour against neighbour, even ripping asunder mixed-ethnic unions.
With reckless talk such as “wapende wasipende ... lie low like an envelope ... us versus them... my people under siege”, we have beaten tribal war drums, branded, ostracised, dehumanised and disenfranchised fellow Kenyans in their own motherland. All in the name of gaining advantage in the vain pursuit of power.
And it is so very sad that we just never seem to learn. Like a doomed moth condemned to the lost cause of circling a bright light round and round unto death, we repeatedly walk the same fatal path every election cycle. Indeed, signs that 2012 is likely to be no different are already manifest.
In the run-up to The Hague hearings, we witnessed a callous attempt by some suspects to blame their woes on a political rival.Little tribal chieftains have cropped up all over the place, declaring themselves “custodians” and shamelessly laying claim to ethnic fiefdoms as if their communities were some merchandise to be packed, hoarded, peddled around and offered to the highest bidder for selfish individual gain.
Fully aware that their story was pure fiction, they nonetheless went forth to brazenly claim that this rival was sacrificing them to gain political advantage.
Stomping around the country with alarming fury, they stoked tribal embers that would certainly explode into flames in the charged atmosphere of elections.
This country has already paid heavily for this kind of thoughtless recklessness.
But those so inclined seem determined to continue, mutating from generation to another, contaminating community after community.
This leaves Kenya’s salvation in the hearts and minds of the ordinary citizen.
Albert Einstein warns us that “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything”.
ababumtumwa@yahoo.com
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