Our tragic history is repeating itself

Today, the Jubilee Party will be born. What happens after this birth is anybody’s guess. But one thing is clear. History is about to repeat itself. Georg Friedrich Hegel remarked that all great things and personalities appear twice in history. Karl Marx modified Hegel’s aphorism. Writing about the quasi-revolutionary misadventures of Napoleon Bonaparte and his nephew Louis Napoleon over the period 1792 – 1851, Marx remarked: “History repeats itself, first as a farce and second as a tragedy.”

Kenya’s farcical and tragic history is forever repeating itself. The farce of national unity began after independence. It is with us again. Writing in the volume Decolonisation and Independence in Kenya 1940 – 93, William R Ochieng recalls that Opposition MPs from Kadu and the African People’s Party “were lured to join Kanu in government. They immediately strengthened the conservative wing of Kanu.” The objective was to muzzle Opposition. National unity was the excuse rather than the reason a one party State was imposed.