Plato's philosopher king, African literature and the season of grand promises

The season of political chess is here. Politicians on different sides of the political divide, angling for seats from the ward rep to the big colonial mansion on the hill, are painting a rosy picture of what their administrations would actualise.

Constituents are being assured that all they need to do is believe and vote for these worthies and, hey presto, we just kissed poverty and mediocrity goodbye. That is all very well and, as always, we leave the political muck to those who are happy to roll up their sleeves, slip into mudboots and roil in the dirt of the game. As to whether those who occupy the nearly 1,900 elective seats will deliver, the jury is out.

On the literary front, you cannot resist reflecting on the Greek classical philosopher Plato’s thoughts on great leadership. In The Republic, Plato’s problem, which I think is not markedly different from our problem, is that classical Athens did not necessarily lack educated people or political ideas.

Indeed, the philosopher, whose thoughts have gone on to shape literary, legal and political thought, was less concerned with the mere existence of policies and institutions than with the kind of people entrusted with governing.

Like Kenya, which boasts a Constitution widely praised for its institutional and rights framework, besides grand visions and blueprints that often fall short in implementation, Athens had ideas about how its society ought to be ordered.

Plato’s central insight is that blueprints and ideas on their own are n********ers. They require leaders  with the courage, knowledge and political will to implement what is good for the whole society.

And Plato’s philosopher king was not defined by the ethnic arithmetic that takes precedence in electoral seasons on this part of the world. No, the philosopher king was defined by not just intellect, but much more by character.

Plato’s philosopher king was a glitch in the modern system where power is often sought for “the wrong reasons”. Plato’s ideal leader needed to have knowledge of that which is good. He also needed the discipline to resist popular opinion, appearances, appetite, fads and fashion, besides shunning greed, vanity, anger, status or the desire for luxury.

Plato actually imagines guardians living under material restrictions precisely to prevent political office from becoming a route to private luxury. To the philosopher’s way of thinking, the best rulers are those who are, like Moses in the Bible, at first reluctant to rule, not those who itch for public office. In a word, Plato’s ideal ruler is oriented towards the good of the whole society rather than the interests of a faction, or in our mucky corner, region or tribe.

The greatest weakness in this comparison is that Plato rejected democratic rule. In my view, however, his demanding criterion for the character, knowledge, discipline and motives of those entrusted with enormous public power is what our politics often appears to lack, at least judging by what has been so ably satirised in African literature.

Actually, the contrast between Plato’s idea of a true leader and what we see in African literary political satire is almost tailor-made.

In Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, we meet a counterpoint to the philosopher king. Here we find Chief Nanga, who craves power for the access to money, prestige, privilege, patronage and influence that it affords him.

Nanga’s political genius lies in his ability to package himself as a “man of the people” while participating in an environment of patronage and corruption. Achebe satirises his character by painting him as an affable and accessible leader, yet away from the public gaze he is hopelessly opportunistic and morally compromised.

Where a philosopher king would ask, “Who is best placed to do this job?”, the Nangas of this world return to the list of their campaigners to see who has not yet found a place to eat from, eventually saddling the entire system with cronies who cannot deliver.

In Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Koomson represents political power converted into material privilege. The novel places him against the unnamed railway clerk who struggles to retain personal integrity in an environment where corruption has become normalised.

The closest the characters in Armah’s brilliant portrayal of the African leadership challenge come to the Platonic ideal is the unnamed man who resists the prevailing culture of bribery and becomes, in effect, the conscience of a society struggling to find its moral footing.

Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest artistically draws a line between intelligent and wise leaders. Kongi, a dictator, is obsessed with modernising and consolidating his state after overthrowing the traditional ruler. The play satirises the degeneration of personal rule and the transformation of political power into tyranny.

Like many political leaders, Kongi may possess intelligence, political calculation, organisational ability and even a vision of modernisation, but knowledge divorced from moral restraint often becomes extraordinarily dangerous. Examples across the continent have shown that.

So, as politicians traverse the country promising new roads, jobs, funds, factories, cities, digital revolutions and new constitutional or institutional fixes, it will be curious to see whether voters end up with MPs, women reps or governors genuinely out to serve the people, or whether they will end up with the likes of the unnamed Ruler of Aburiria, who is inexorably surrounded by sycophants, spectacle and absurdity, all at the service of ego and narrow interests.

For the top seat, I leave it to Kenyans and political analysts to decide who is the philosopher king and who may end up resembling President Sam, in Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, who governs through authoritarian power and an increasingly personalised political system. Really, the question to ask is what happens when political authority becomes more concerned with preserving itself than with pursuing the public good?

The main argument as we head to the elections is that we have no shortage of ideas, experts, reports, commissions, strategic plans, or even well-tailored institutions. What we lack, in the Platonic sense, is a sufficient supply of people in public authority whose knowledge, appetites and conduct are aligned with the common good.

It is my thesis that Kenya, like other African countries, needs a critical mass of philosopher kings and queens not just at the top, but in the entire devolved structure. These leaders need to espouse democratic ideals, the rule of law and have the courage to implement good ideas that already abound.