KCPE candidates at Shikokhwe Primary School in Kakamega County in
western Kenya sit their Kiswahili examinations in a dilapidated
structure. Education, which should equip us with the skills to
differentiate between fact and fiction and to apply logic in debate,
seems not to play any part. PHOTO | NMG
Let us begin by looking at a few narratives from the perspective of Jubilee and Nasa.
Jubilee
argues fervently that Uhuru Kenyatta got 98 per cent of the vote in the
repeat election on October 26. The Nasa people say that only a third of
voters cast their votes in the repeat poll.
The
opposition claims dozens of unarmed, peaceful demonstrators have been
killed since the August 8 election, and accuse the government of
genocide. The government says that only a few looters were shot dead.
Jubilee
supporters say opposition leader Raila Odinga has a history of violence
and is a danger to the Kenyan state. As key evidence of this violent
streak, they point to his alleged involvement in the 1982 coup attempt,
and his subsequent confrontations with Kenyan authorities that saw him
arrested and detained several times.
These narratives,
like articles of faith, are deeply believed in, and are vehemently
expressed at rallies, on social media and at social gatherings.
They
go to show that tribalism is not just prejudice against a person of
another ethnicity, which is immoral and dangerous enough, but that it
conditions our brains to embellish without shame, to edit out or refuse
to acknowledge unfavourable details, to mix fact and fiction, to revise
history to suit our narrative, to quote half-truths as the absolute
truth, to play with numbers to support our views, etc.
Tribal
ideology has made us lose some basic principles or values on the basis
of which we can have an intelligent and honest debate.
Where
is the truth? On August 8, about 15 million out of 19 million
registered voters cast their ballots. On October 26, only half of the 15
million voted as a result of the boycott of the elections by Nasa. So
what Jubilee fails to say is that Uhuru got 98 per cent of 7.4 million
votes.
On the other hand, Nasa measures Uhuru’s score
against the number of registered voters in order to drive the narrative
that Uhuru only enjoys the support of less than one-third of the Kenyan
electorate.
A fairer way to assess Uhuru’s win would
be to measure his numbers against the number who voted on August 8. The
truth, therefore, that these numbers tell is that Uhuru and Raila have
an equal number of supporters.
As to the conflicting
accounts of the number killed, international and local human-rights
organisations report that close to 40 people have been killed since the
August 8 poll. Some of those killed were children and even infants.
These deaths must be investigated and those responsible punished. But
these killings, as criminal as they are, can hardly be said to
constitute genocide against an ethnic group.
The Raila
narrative peddled by Jubilee conveniently fails to talk about the regime
that Raila was opposing. They forget to say that the regime almost
brought Kenya to its knees through government-aided looting.
They
also forget to say that this was a government that employed systematic
torture and assassination of opponents as part of its governing
strategy. So who was violent and a danger to the Kenyan nation. The Kanu
state or Raila?
The thing that puzzles observers of
our situation the most is that these lies from Jubilee and Nasa are
repeated by both the least and most educated. Education, which should
equip us with the skills to differentiate between fact and fiction and
to apply logic in debate, seems not to play any part.
On
television panels, top-notch lawyers or professors twist history this
or that way, choose which facts to quote or leave out in order to arrive
at a position supportive of the narrative pushed by their side of the
tribal divide. In Kenya, the blood of the tribe is thicker than the
water of education!
Of course, when on national TV,
these lawyers, professors or MPs avoid crude tribal demagoguery.
Vernacular radio and TV stations is where they come into their own.
In
these “safe spaces” they throw off their educated demeanour and get
down and dirty. They impute moral or intellectual inferiority to ethnic
communities, and advocate violence as the only way to teach this or that
one a lesson.
The Constitution we passed in 2010 is
one of the most progressive around. But not even its drafters could
anticipate that the single most serious impediment to its realisation
would be tribalism.
Maybe these professors, lawyers
and MPs can help us draw up a “Tribestitution” to replace our
Constitution. That way, we would have aligned our governing law to our
chronic tribalism.
Tee Ngugi is a social commentator. E-mail: teengugi@gmail.com
No comments :
Post a Comment