How insults and prayers became our way of life

The first casualty in any war is always the truth. We are living in interesting times reminiscent of the times of Guardian’s greatest writer C P Scott who posited that “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”, which in our contemporary society has endured as the ultimate statement of values in a free world.

Truth becomes relative to a fact and facts become blurred lines between opinions. In the early 2000s, the Americans attacked Iraq on the flimsiest of grounds and the ludicrous of facts. All of these facts and truths were imagined realities in the mind of George W. Bush and the veracity of them was tested by the blood of many an innocent  Iraqi.

Truth versus lies

In Kenya today, the election(s) are subjected to similar facts and depending on who you ask, it was both free and fair as well as bungled and a creation of Chebukati’s imagination. This is dangerous territory; simply because there is no way both of these statements can be tried at the same time and hence our dilemma.

The second casualty of war is identity. For any conflict to exist there must exist the loss of unity and unified and acceptable world views. We quickly lose our identity as a nation, and withdraw into a religion or a tribe. This withdrawal from a national outlook leads to the profiling of a people as us versus them.

And differences as big as ideas or as small as the colour of teeth are magnified and villainised. We then proceed to blame our problems on them and define the solution as us. This dichotomy can be seen in every dispute including the ones we have in our homes.

The third loss is the loss of a futuristic, loving and caring leadership. Which is replaced with headlines and minds that don’t change. Ideas and progress in the minds of the leaders are abandoned to look backwards to settle scores and pursue historical correction. Talk moves towards how the past has to be fixed as though time travel is possible.

Wounds of real and imagined actions against gallant forefathers are exhumed out of context and presented as fact, and to the extreme, end alternative facts. The speeches move from the talk of hope and building to mourning and desperation.

The despondency occasioned is the precursor to the statement; we have nothing to lose. And in that very statement the leader becomes the only cure to a disease that didn’t exist a year ago and suddenly we can risk life and limb because apparently, they have been at risk anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the script and narrative of any conflict. Sadly, Kenya has embraced this narrative. We have taken sides on truth as though truth has any relatives. Hey! We know for fact that between our two opinions one must be a lie, or both lies but there is only one truth.

But because we rubbish and praise institutions at will and randomly we find ourselves where neither the courts or the commissions have our trust as a nation and therefore whatever is considered truth lives in the deceptive mouths of politicians.

These are the same politicians we call all manner of unsavoury names including newly coined one tumbocrats and pathological liars. We have sold our logic, donated our brains and self-reasoning for empty promises and now we lie in our beds at night and are giddy with my neighbour of many seasons or curled up on fear and tears, not because of truth but because a politician said so.

Are we bewitched?

Oh Kenya, who has bewitched you? That having begun this election, knowing what you wanted you now have sold that for the statements of funny men who would gladly abuse each other on Saturday and with the same mouth bless the Lord on Sunday.

If they can’t be faithful to God will they be faithful to you? Your trust is misplaced and as surely as leaning on a rotten post leads to a fall, so will leaning our reasoning on the politicians of false truth.

The funny thing is there are very simple, civil and effective ways to establish truth. There is dialogue among citizens and leaders, there is accommodation of divergent views, there is the seeking of answers from neutral parties and there is the best one: common sense. It is my utmost belief that a common sense approach would cure our malaria.

What is the common sense approach? Number one, doubt your politician and doubt him profusely. Doubt the leader you support. Question his words and seek personal evidence. Two: Love your neighbour despise your nonsensical and bigoted views of them.

Mr Bichachi is a Communication Consultant ([email protected])