Leaders need to slow down, begin talking to each other

NAIROBI: When CORD leaders asked for dialogue with Jubilee leaders in May 2014, they did the right thing. Their attitude was probably wrong. Their idiom was certainly in bad taste. For they told President Uhuru Kenyatta they would “shave him with broken bottles,” if he did not listen to them. They were at once menacing and disrespectful. They scorned both the Office of the President and its bearer. Perhaps they intended all along that their pleas for dialogue should be rejected? Hence they deliberately positioned themselves for rejection? They chose to anger the President and his team by open defiance and disrespect. Not surprisingly, Jubilee leaders rejected the invite. They were characteristically full of sound, fury and trademark arrogance.

We wake up each day closer to disaster and in greater need for dialogue. We say in Emanyulia that a wise man may refuse what you want to tell him. But he will never turn down the invitation to listen to you. We also say those who will not talk to one another must prepare to fight. After they have fought, they will learn the importance of talking. They could then almost just sit down and talk, amid pain, wounds and tears.