You don’t have to be violent to be identifiedas the Opposition

 

Societies that are poorly governed get used to the culture of violence. There is a dominant heavy hand in power, often marshalling violence to keep itself firmly in the saddle. The violence assumes several guises. In its most raw and naked form, it is physical. But the violence can also be verbal, as is often witnessed in many African countries. The language of those in power degenerates to warlike idiom and other threatening words and gestures. 

Psychologists have demonstrated that physical and verbal violence quickly give way to mental and emotional violence. The oppressor does not even need to physically assault you. The very thought of him fills you up with negative emotions. You are afraid and angry. In turn your thoughts, words and actions also become violent. Scholars like Adam Tomison and Joe Tucci have demonstrated how emotional abuse is a hidden form of maltreatment. 

In the end, victims of violence lose all sense of self-worth, particularly where abuse has gone on for long without legal redress. In an essay titled “Brainwashing and battering fatigue: psychological abuse in domestic violence,” Lesley Mega, Jessica Lee and Benjamin Tamarin have argued that violence produces severe confusion in the victim’s mind. 

The victim is not just emotionally unstable, he is also easily brainwashed. He is easy to manipulate, to the extent that he is no longer sure of his own feelings about the issues that have led to the violence. “The result is that the victim’s self-concept and independence are systematically taken away.” Paulo Freire has advanced the same argument in the seminal work titled Pedagogy of the Oppressed. So, too, has Franz Fanon in the essay titled “On Violence,” and published in The Wretched of the Earth.

The only worldview that seems to matter is that of the oppressor. The oppressed waits for pointers and direction from the villain. The victim develops a convoluted love for the oppressor. He experiences confusing emotions of anxiety and happiness at the sight and thought of the oppressor. Named after an incident that happened in Stockholm Sweden in 1973, the victim is in the grip of the Stockholm Syndrome. He is eager to defend an oppressive authority that has taken him hostage and sickly happy to remain in hostage. 

In this unhealthy relationship, the victim even longs for verbal assurances of “being loved.” In the domestic context, the oppressed spouse will in the middle of tears even asks the oppressor, “Johnny, you love me, don’t you? You will not hit me again, because you love me?” And when lied to that Johnny loves her, she will smile in the middle of her crying. She may even rush to hug Johnny to declare her own love for him. She may tearfully request for physical intimacy. 

Now the wider tragedy is that these things are not restricted to domestic contexts. They happen even in broader society. A people who are used to violence get to love the political leaders who have subjected them to abuse, especially when physical violence gives way to other guises of oppression. Simone de Beauvior, in The Ethics of Ambiguity, brings the message home. Adults want to run away from freedom. They don’t want the responsibility that goes with freedom. They want to live in a child’s world, where there is excitement without responsibility. 

Accordingly, the Kenyan adult population is in the grip of the ethics of ambiguity. We are the people who refused to read two draft constitutions in 2005 and 2010 and yet we knew how we wanted to vote about the drafts in referenda about them. Our passionate engagement with the two drafts rode on borrowed intellectual fuel. Someone told us to vote one way or the other. And we agreed. We proclaimed loudly, “There is no need to read because So-and-So has read and told us that it is bad.” The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would say that we live in bad faith. There is the oppressor longing to be a god and the oppressed yearning to be an object.

Arising from our ethics of ambiguity, Kenyans have been wondering, since the fabled handshake of March 9, whether the political Opposition in the country is dead. They are not seeing bonfires in the streets and paralysis of the business community in major towns across the country. They long for darkness and wonder what happened to the Opposition, ever since the handshake took place. Conversely, others haveaccepted the handshake even without understanding it.

Either way, we are on the horns of the dilemma of the oppressed. Some of us long for darkness. Others are just happy about an ambiguous normalcy. We are the victims of a cocktail of physical and non-physical violence by dominant players in the political class. Some yearn for a return to violence so that they can say the Opposition is alive and well. On the other hand, there is a feverish desire to cuddle and kiss the dominant voices in the handshake drama.

Rumours to the effect that some people “are about to form a government of national unity” drive anxiety to fresh heights. Victims of oppression want to see their tribesmen joining the handshake. We don’t want to be left out. It is forgotten that you can oppose the government without being violent. Conversely, it has also been forgotten that you can support some government policies and programmes without craving for space in the government. 

The work of the Opposition is to keep the government on its toes, all the time. This can be done soberly, like Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party has demonstrated in the United Kingdom. Where he thinks Theresa May is right, he has stood with her, without seeking to join her government. And when he thinks she is wrong, he has said so, without jumping allover the place with burning objects and sundry mayhem. Youdon’t have to be violent so as to be recognised as the Opposition.

- The writer is a strategic public communications adviser. [email protected]