Our undoing is leadership with no moral conscience

Every nation should have a conscience. But not all nations are blessed with one. The conscience of a nation can be a singular individual – a living, breathing human. Or it can be an institution, like the Supreme Court of Kenya. PHOTO: COURTESY

Every nation should have a conscience. But not all nations are blessed with one. The conscience of a nation can be a singular individual – a living, breathing human. Or it can be an institution, like the Supreme Court of Kenya.

 But it could also be an event – like a civil war, or a constitution – that returns a people to sanity in moments of collective national madness. It could even be a prolonged struggle for social justice – like the anti-Apartheid movement – that sears into the nation a zeitgeist, or establishes red lines that can’t be crossed. Which begs the question – what, or who, is Kenya’s conscience? Are we bereft of that inner moral voice to restrain our worst proclivities?