Repression of the right to think in Jubilee and CORD should worry us

Freedom of conscience is the mother of all freedoms. You cannot begin enjoying any other liberty if you are not free to think. It is the progenitor of the freedom of religion, association and expression.

In the late 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I of England revoked a law of thought censorship. She did not wish “to make windows into men’s souls and secret thoughts.” Yet in Kenya in the 21st century “democratic institutions” are hell bent on limiting people’s freedom to think and on zombification of citizens.

Individuals who enjoy freedom of conscience are free to hold ideas. They can consider and process facts without duress from any authority. They may draw conclusions and reach decisions, independent of other people’s viewpoints and yet be unafraid of authoritarian reprisal.

No institution can claim affinity with democracy if it does not protect individuals’ freedom of conscience. Indeed conscience cannot be institutionalised. It remains individual property. Even a democratic party cannot have collective conscience. Individuals within the party retain their right to disagree and yet remain in the party. Democratic constitutions and institutions, for their part, have a duty to protect the right to freedom of conscience. That was why Kenyans had problems with Kanu, in its heyday. The party did not allow members to think or own individual conscience. Yet this is where we are today, once more.

Liberal democracy recognises that no authority – government or any other State organ – gives the freedom of conscience. Authorities can only bear the duty of care. Their role is protection of people’s right to think. They guarantee enjoyment of this freedom by so doing. Otherwise every individual owns this freedom by virtue of being born human. It is a God given right, a natural right. In Christendom, Paul of Tarsus has said, “Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience (1 Corinthians 10:29)”?

In secular instruments, Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights guarantees the freedom of conscience. Article 19 says, “Everyone has a right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference.”

In our own Kenyan situation, this freedom is protected in the Bill of Rights. Politicians are of course aware of these facts, or ought to be aware in any event. That is why even the most autocratic of them have founded or led political parties that bear democratic tags. Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary National Socialist German Workers Party claimed it was democratic. Yet we remember it today for the most atrocious crimes against humanity, in the history of political parties. Pol Pot’s Khamer Rouge in the 1970s claimed to be democratic, despite its radical anti intellectualism in the killing fields of Cambodia.

In a word, accommodation of dissent is the hallmark of democracy. Conversely, the credo of political correctness is the mother of dictatorship, no matter how ornately it might be dressed up or disguised. If you limit freedom of thought, you should be called by your right tag. That is why repression of the right to think in Jubilee and in CORD should worry us. Is the Kenyan political top brass sworn to taking away people’s freedom to think?

 

It all begins with the flawed minimalist propaganda that political thought and affiliation in the country is binary. You belong either to Jubilee or to CORD. There are no other options! Accordingly, you have no right to think for yourself. The leader thinks for you. Your role is to follow with closed eyes. If you as much as blink, you are disloyal. You are a rebel and a traitor. This notion is of course fatally flawed. It can only lead to zombification of citizens into a pathetic mass of what Karl Marx once referred to as lumpen proletariats. Worse still we now seem to have a lumpen bourgeoisie in Kenya. These fellows have surrendered their right to think, to the extent that they are dangerous to every effort towards democratic reform. Yet they proclaim democratic slogans with glee, even as they trail undemocratic tin gods.

The ongoing political campaigns in Gatundu South by-election have been reduced to competition between a candidate considered loyal to the President on the one hand and those considered “traitors” on the other hand. The President’s home constituency is in the grip of the syndrome of political correctness. For you to be seen to be loyal you must be in the President’s party – never mind that those being labelled “traitors” belong to the President’s Jubilee Alliance. They are seen to be CORD “sympathisers.” In essence, there should only be one candidate in this race, the candidate from the President’s party.

Elsewhere in CORD the alliance has read the riot act to independent minded legislators. We are in the age of dictatorship of the political party. Dissent is a crime. Free conscience is worse than a crime in the Orange Democratic Party and in Wiper Democratic Party (The reader is reminded to note the democratic tags in the party names). A political movement that demonises dissent cannot claim affinity to democracy.

In Kenya, the Bill of Rights provides for freedom of conscience as well as freedom of association. It is tragic for anyone to label you a rebel or traitor just because you do not agree with some flawed majoritarian position that is in fact against what your party stand for. When you dissent, you are in fact the only one still loyal to the principles of the party. The rest are only loyal to a party demi god.

If political party discipline means that you are not allowed to think, the law providing for that kind of discipline is itself flawed. For, no law should take away people’s freedom to think. If the Political Parties Act says that you should surrender your conscience to the political party, then the Act is not only flawed, it is unconstitutional. The Act is accordingly null and void, for it makes windows into individuals’ souls and secret thoughts. Even Queen Elizabeth I would not have accepted it in the 16th century. Why do we accept this kind of backwardness in Kenya today?