Age myth in politics has no basis to guarantee change, good leadership

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A myth has been created that the March 4 General Election is going to be contested between two competing and different social forces: The old, represented in the CORD Alliance, and the young, represented in the Jubilee Alliance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First of all, age is not a social force: It is a demographic and static category. It says nothing about one’s ideas, strength of character or attitude towards change although it is generally believed that people tend to become more and more conservative the older they become.

But my mother, Owino nyar Amolo, who is 92, is accepted in our church as the one who always proposes the most innovative ideas. You only need to visit Ratta to see her ideas in practice.

Secondly, young people can be as fascist as old people; they can equally be even more conservative than the old ones. Hitler was obviously much younger than Mandela when he built the Third Reich in Germany. Mandela spent all his old age bringing down a similar regime in South Africa.

When Moi was perfecting the art of using the authoritarian state to oppress Kenyans, sending many of his progressive countrymen to detention or exile for calling for democratic change in Kenya, he was definitely much younger than Jaramogi and Muliro. But he called upon all Kenyans to sing like parrots following his footsteps rather than listen to the voices of reason calling upon him to change with the times and let democracy reign in our motherland.

Thirdly, let it not also be forgotten that Mahatma Gandhi made history all his life, in youth as in old age, as a humanist and freedom fighter. A mind that is bent on being creative and serving fellow human brings is not bound in time and space. Its actions spring from the soul and the inner being that transcends both.

That is why I find the Jubilee assertion that the young can do better in Kenya’s political leadership today absolute balderdash, especially when these latter day political evangelicals trying to spread this falsehood are known for their earlier proclivity towards the politics of plutocracy. They are better off looking for some better credible mobilising ideas. This one is dead well before delivery date.

I do remember that as Young Turks of the early 1990s we respected Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Masinde Muliro more for their role in Kenya’s struggle for independence and the Second Liberation rather than for their age.

We further found that they were very inspirational in their ideas. They were men who said what they meant and meant what they said. They were not duplicitous. They confronted political oppression head-on and gave the Kenyan masses the confidence that Kenya could change for the better.

We joined hands with them because we too believed that Kenya could change for the better. And that is why we are where we are today with Raila Amolo Odinga poised to become the fourth president of the Republic of Kenya in March.

Our opponents, on the other hand, did not believe then that Kenya could change for the better. They formed YK92, and Kenyans know what that organisation stood for and did. Some of them even went further than that; they messed up with the economy creating an inflationary situation from which our country has hardly recovered 20 years later.

Even more recently, as we were finally at the doorsteps of getting a new Constitution, they opposed the wishes of the Kenyan people clinging to the old order as their preferred offer to the people of Kenya. If this is what youthful leadership is all about then let Kenyans know that age alone does not guarantee much.

Politics is about ideology. Political choices are about interests. Interests are about people. People can choose to go forward, stand still or go backwards. Going backwards is usually a nostalgic and not a realistic choice; it is like reliving the past in a dream.

Those of us who have fought for, stood by and promoted the passing and implementation of the Constitution have chosen to go forward and not to relive the past.

There are our opponents who are nostalgic about their YK92 days when money and plutocratic politics called the shots. These days it has acquired a much more business like name; it is called the politics of deal making.

Its blunders have been seen. It can be likened to youthful recklessness. A modern nation, aspiring to realise Vision 2030, cannot afford such risks, such misadventures, and such politics of hubris.

Those of us who have staked our lives for the future of this nation know that our detractors have tried their best to drag our names to the dust so that we may, in that process, look like them.

But it is not difficult to mix mercury with water, nor can gold turn into iron even when phlogiston is resurrected in chemistry to accomplish this task. That is why we continue to soldier on, conscious of our mission and aware of our destiny.

The writer is Minister for Medical Services and ODM Secretary General