Tinga's final lesson dares Kenyans to step in the arena

Raila Odinga's body drapped with a Kenyan flag during a state funeral at Nyayo Stadium. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

A former American president once gave a speech titled Citizenship in a Republic which is famous for a section that talks about “the man in the arena.”

This section of the speech argues, in part, that it is not the critics who count, but those who choose to jump into the arena. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again...”

Former Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga chose to live most of his adult life in the arena. As the longest serving political detainee in the 1980s, he bore the scares of the good fight against tyranny.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, he strove valiantly in the quest for a new constitutional dispensation. As opposition leader, he did his best to champion the dream of rule of law and a better governed Kenya.

And yes, he was a man with feet of clay and therefore erred now and again. Some of those errors made him come short again and again as he tried to win the presidency.

But after all is said and done, no one can accuse Ajuma’s son of standing on the sidelines of Kenya’s history. He chose to be in the arena and until the very end never gave up on the idea of a better Kenya.

While there will be time to litigate every facet of Odinga’s political life, there are a couple of important lessons that we should all internalize about his life.

First, power is power. It is those in the arena, and especially those with power, that often can best change things. This is not to say that critics from the outside can never succeed.

Rather, the claim is that those who want change are best served by organizing to influence large numbers of people and to capture power.

Odinga understood this, and that is why he ran for office so many times and promptly chose to be in positions of influence on the inside – even if it meant collaborating with his political competitors.

He was not a performative or symbolic oppositionist. He wanted power so that he could deploy it to achieve the political ends he fought for. Those who want change but eschew the arena are doomed to be marginal. Odinga wanted none of that.

Second, he chose to practically live his politics. He was motivated by ideas. He organised coalitions.

He ran for office and led an organised political party. He stretched the rules of the system as much as he could to win power and then use it to change Kenya.

He was the man in the arena doing his best to change his Kenya the way he knew best. Not everyone has to subscribe to the same set of ideas, but the principle of action should readily be emulated.

May we all embrace the idea of stepping into the arena to fix Kenya’s problems. Rest in Peace Raila Amolo Odinga.

The writer is a professor at Georgetown University