Are men made chaste by observing laws?

Someone with a peculiar email has been railing at me over my opinions lately. If the email address prefaced ‘psycho’ is in any way descriptive, and given that this fellow does not challenge my opinions with counter-arguments but finds fulfilment in warning me to leave Jubilee alone, I am inclined to slight his morbid attention.

The problem with such individuals is that their views are more often than not insular, not for lack of intellect but for being a touch too emotional. Good arguments have in many instances been panned for the absence of objectivity, which makes it is easy to miss the point and dwell on irrelevancies. That way, countless progressive ideas have been lost in useless exchanges.

In light of the Anniversary Towers Monday sieges by the Opposition and the attendant developments, I wonder how such individuals would react to the full import of philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s essay ‘Resistance to Civil Government’ (1849). The operative word in this essay is ‘civil’ disobedience which, given the original meaning, does not refer to civility in the way the word would ordinarily be described in any English dictionary to imply polite disapproval.

The exhortation was to take up arms against a government. In this essay, Thoreau is categorical that individuals should never allow governments to atrophy their conscience. In essence, the implication is that citizens have a moral duty to demand, by whatever means expedient, their rights whenever need presents itself.

And that need is dictated by the very manner in which the government chooses to conduct itself vis a vis its obligations to the taxpayer. One of the means the philosopher believed citizens could employ in getting even with the government would be a refusal by citizens to pay taxes.

Needless to say, it is the taxes we pay that prop up the government. The irony however is that while we pay taxes in exchange for services, the money is gobbled by a few dodgy individuals. This helps explain why buildings are collapsing on the poor all over. One can understand why cholera, a disease that should have died a natural death decades ago, is resurgent.

It explains why malaria is still ravaging populations in large swathes of the country and also why estates in Nairobi transform into lakes within a couple of hours of heavy rains. Greed has taken over from duty.

The prevailing political environs in Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Burundi, South Sudan and elsewhere in Africa are a godsend in helping contextualise Thoreau’s principle. It is not difficult to empathise with the philosopher's contention that governments are more harmful than useful and that democracy is not the solution. Even as tenets of democracy infer that the majority must always dictate the tempo, Thoreau’s view is that ‘majorities do not gain the virtues of wisdom and justice’.

That is what the Opposition is intent on proving. One only needs to listen to some government apologists utter inanities and profanities, try and determine what a Jubilee-dominated Parliament has achieved in three years that has a direct bearing on improving the citizens lot to appreciate that it is not always that one encounters positivity in numbers.

While unemployment soars, the cost of living goes up, inflation bites, fewer children attend or complete schooling for lack of fees, more people die of treatable diseases and crime increases, government mandarins find solace in enumerating achievements in infrastructure that, like the Standard gauge railway and Lapsset, are still in the works and even then, shrouded in uncertainty.

They talk about ambitious economic growth projections that never go beyond the paper the data is written on. I wonder if anyone has noticed that those who regaled us with improbable tales of ‘double digit’ economic growth in the infancy of the Jubilee administration have long abandoned the refrain from the absurdity of it.

Even as they plunder national resources, we are constantly urged by those dining at the high table to observe the law, especially when the Opposition, once in a while, gets the Government on the wrong end of the stick. But despite all the righteous indignation in a bid to protect their vested interests, proponents of ‘sticking to the law’ cannot prove that doing so makes men more chaste.

The injustices the government subjects its citizens to are manifest in the very lackadaisical attitude to corruption the Executive exhibits. From Anglo leasing, Goldenberg, the NYS heist to Euro bond, is there anything citizens know besides the accusations, the denials and perfunctory attempts to hoodwink the public with the arraignment of fall guys in court; cases no one hears of beyond the initial say, two appearances?

Doesn’t this lend credence to Thoreau’s contention governments are verily the agents of injustices and corruption and must be resisted?