Politics is an endless conversation into which all of us are born into

UDA Secretary General Hassan Omar Hassan during a press briefing in Nairobi where he luanched a scathing attack on Kenya's mainstream media. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

Politics is the art of living together. This fact is a part of the constant alphabet of life. We, human beings, are political animals, not because we seek power, but because we cannot escape each other.

Politics begins where solitary living ends. And solitary living ends the moment the foetus departs the mother’s womb, to enter this life as a brand new baby. We are born into politics. We arrive  into families, communities, and nations. We share the environment in which we grow up, and amenities like roads, schools, and hospitals. We share hopes, fears and disappointments. That is Politics.

Omar Hassan, the Secretary General of UDA party, has unleashed an angry and rambling diatribe against the media. He accuses journalists of what he calls “journalistic gymnastics” and “outright street activism.” He says, “A majority of anchors and presenters on radio and television are actively involved in politics.” He invites them to “resign and join politics.” 

But Omar must surely know that politics is an endless conversation into which we are born. It is a discourse about how we shall order our common life. More than two millennia ago, Aristotle described the human being as a political animal “zoon politikon.” We flourish in the polis, or the community, and have a right to adjudicate the leadership. 

Not all of us can go to State House, or to Parliament. Yet, do we not have a natural right to voice our concern if State House, or Parliament stray out of order? An independent media is committed to the affairs of the community. It is dedicated to truth and accountability in the polity, but especially on the part of leaders.

If the President shall habitually promise to deliver sundry public goods “within six months,” the media has a duty to audit him. If the State becomes a serial promiser that doesn’t deliver, the media must call it out. Politicians certainly need schooling on the role of the media in liberal democracy.

There are three roles. First, is to inform truthfully. We do that in daily news coverage. Second, is to make commentaries and write editorials, Op/Eds, if you want. And the third is agenda setting. These, the Kenyan media is doing with the essential speed, spice and credence. We are careful, however, that we do not become the communications department of any political party, the government, or any faction. 

The Constitution did not create a republic of politicians, but a republic of citizens. Ordinary citizens are participants in an endless constitutional conversation. So, too, is Parliament, the Judiciary, civil society, religious entities, and journalists. But the class we call politicians conflates issues. It is in the habit of telling us to “leave politics to politicians.”

When election campaigns begin, the same citizens are told that they are sovereign. That every vote matters. Politicians speak of public participation as “the lifeblood of democracy.” Really? A citizen cannot be meaningfully sovereign only on the voting day; or say on only one day in every five years. No, politics belongs to the people. Politicians, like Omar Hassan, only hold it in trust. Whenever they mistake trusteeship for ownership, democracy begins to die.

That is where the problem resides. There are people who think they cannot be audited, because they have appropriated and personalised the political space. In point of fact, that is why they must be audited. Democracy begins to recover the moment citizens tell politicians, “Politics is our common heritage. We are born into it. You are here to serve it, not to own it.”

The duty of journalism in a democracy cannot be too strongly emphasized. Journalists must robustly pursue facts, without fear or favour. That is political responsibility in its noblest sense. The human being is not a chicken. When a chicken is slain for dinner, we don’t ask who has slain it, or why. For, the chicken is not born into our moral political universe. But when a citizen is slain, or disappears, our moral consciousness is pricked. We rise up to ask questions.

It is worth restating that politicians administer public power, but they do not own it. Nor do they own the public realm. We are a political community, and we are fully human because we live in association with others. Each one of us has a right to comment on how we are ruled by those whom we privilege to rule over us. This includes the right to say that they should go, if they have failed. These rights and freedoms are protected in the Constitution. No individual or political party can limit them.  

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser.