This cancerous cell of ‘get as much as you can’

By Zacharia Chiliswa

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary since Kenya became a republic, it is an opportune time to reflect on the values and principles the 2010 Constitution has put forward as the centre-piece and the driver of our nationhood.

Article 10 of the Constitution explicitly lists several national values and principles of governance as the fulcrum on which both our citizenship in private and public affairs ought to revolve. Aware that national values are fundamental to nation building, we need to reflect upon these proposals and how they inform our national processes.

For instance, how do we as a nation see and feel the value of patriotism when tribal tags define who serves us tea, organises our diary, drives us around or even prays with us? How do we encounter and appreciate the “other” when their tribe is more important than what they are in character?

How do Kenyans realise national unity when leaders wagon communities into their tribal cocoons?  How do Kenyans experience sharing and devolution of power when it is traded in exclusive secret deals?

How do people uphold the rule of law when their leaders openly disregard it? How do people value participation as a critical national value that drives nationhood when their leaders erect blockades of tribalism and politics of exclusion?

And we may also wish to ask ourselves what kind of citizens we have become as a result of previous political orders?

Could it be that the predatory culture exhibited throughout the Kenyan nation is as a result of this social order? It appears ours is a nation only defined by territory and not civic values.

The social contradictions of the systemic tribalism, nepotism and culture of corruption negate the very essence of our Kenyan state. Does it mean then that given a chance many of us will abandon Kenya?

Civic values and principles are meant to foment moral character and conscience of the citizens and that of the political authority. Let us for a moment consider the values Article 10 establishes for Kenya and if we are civically disposed to inculcate them.

Every chapter of the Constitution echoes these values and mandates every Kenyan to strive towards them.

Pay hospital bills

So, how do these values of patriotism, national unity, sharing and devolution of power, the rule of law, democracy and participation of the people; human dignity, equity, social justice, inclusiveness, equality, human rights, non-discrimination and protection of the marginalised; good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability help us share in holding public offices?

What is the moral connection between our citizenship and that of the government? In whose interest do the state officers exercise the authority assigned to them?

For instance, when members of parliament want to be excluded from the definition of state officers, Article 260, one wonders what they want to become and if they intend to make national assembly private offices for their own private good!

When MPs wanted to increase their salaries, some of them argued that they pay hospital bills, school and college fees and other huge bills for millions for deserving Kenyans to access the much needed services. Given, it’s a good act of charity. But what has created these structures that perpetuate the need?

Millions of Kenyans can barely afford to educate their children, feed them, pay hospital bills and save! Why is it that there are less and less political leaders committed to social justice despite it being a national value?

Or is the supposed act of charity meant to perpetuate the endemic clientelistic political relations? What is the difference between this kind of charity and that of fiefdoms? Individual Kenyans work harder every day to make ends meet, but where are social programmes aimed at correcting the structures of injustice from those entrusted with public trust?  

To a great extent many of those holding public offices seem to be driven by the desire to generate benefits for their families and cronies and not the common good.

This could perhaps be the insidious force behind the mobilisation of tribes around one of their own to target and keep the predatory state intact.

The spirit of nationhood seems trapped in vertical fiefdom. And what values would bind them to the rest of the Kenyan nation?

If Articles 10 and 73 did mean anything to most of us, how would nationhood built on unity, patriotism, rule of law, human dignity, social justice, transparency and accountability look like?

Zero-sum game

When state officers and the rest of us are driven by the insatiable desire to get as much one can out of a situation, faith in building public institutions for the future is lost. As such, we have helped create the notion that winning public appointments either appointive or elective means getting rich.

How then can we inculcate civic values that support vibrant democratic governance? And public leaders who work for the common good and a society that embraces the ideas laid out in Articles 10 and 73? As a nation we need to invest in restoring social and political trust among and between communities. The zero-sum game of numbers among the Kenyan tribes is unsustainable.   

However, we disagree with them in their mistaken belief that pulling Kenya out of the ICC is the best road to national healing and reconciliation while disregarding, ignoring or humiliating the other side of the political divide. That is tantamount to maiming democracy through “tyranny of numbers.”

The writer is Programmes Co-ordinator, Jesuit Hakimani Centre.