Draft law selfish, but MPs need degrees

The pretence

To borrow the words of one Cameroonian philosopher and political scientist Achille Mbembe, Kenya has become a regime in which “the people pretend to obey and the rulers pretend to believe in their obedience, resulting in an inescapable cycle of pointless violence and cynical laughter”, the same cynical laughter that the late Wahome Mutahi of Whispers gave us. I don’t know from what point things went wrong in Kenyan politics, but looking at the way our politicians were behaving at Saitoti’s funeral ceremony, I couldn’t help but realise the sentimental touch that is still true of their human component.

Speeches were given, with each presidential aspirants together with their cronies, giving clues as to which direction the voter should cast their magic wand of vote next. But when President Kibaki stood up and said boldly they were all saying the same thing, I almost wept for my country.

Exactly, Mr President! But the next question that Kibaki asked was more inspiring: if truly all those good words represented what these leaders needed for the nation, why was it so difficult for them to live up to the words? Silence!

The paradox that is Kenya’s democracy lies in our silence over the right questions. We hear good speeches, thanks to the freedom of speech, but we see no action, thanks to the freedom of greed. Our politicians have abused their freedom to lie to us.

However, time has come that wananchi spoke up as well. Next year, I want to see the meaning of what we called the ‘Third Liberation’, otherwise we will start building for a ‘Fourth Liberation’, and to say the least, it will not be another miscarriage of freedom and hard-won democracy.

{Japheth Langat, Eldoret}

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