The Standard’s editorial of November 9, 2015 titled ‘Decisive action needed to end graft, fix the economy’ is my point of concern, thought and input. I would wish to neither agree nor disagree with it, but rather offer an alternate line of thought.
The interest I have in this matter ranges far and wide, and I am open to discourse on any subject concerning humanity and the way forward.
The topic caught my eye because I felt; as you did, that enough is enough in matters concerning corruption.
Ever since my birth and development of logical thinking, corruption has been the most unsuccessfully fought vice.
This begs the question; who is fighting it and with what tactics? I have come to realise the corrupt fight corruption, thereby more appropriately leading one to assume, and rightfully so, that the fight is not against corruption rather against those who do not condone it, hence your predicament.
Selfishness, self-centredness and a myriad of other human weaknesses coupled with lack of thought ultimately lead to corruption.
There is no doubt that the lords of corruption were once wide-eyed little innocent babies who shared equally whatever resources they had.
Then came the scramble with age, to inconsiderately amass wealth whose purpose remains undefined, for those who amass it and those who aspire to.
Coming from our elected leaders, ‘Zero tolerance to corruption’ is a song without meaning and without end. It is a hoax, repeated infinitely to a poverty-stricken country whose citizens spend their only chip; the vote, hoping against hope that this time round, the leaders mean it. They never do.
Those citizens then raise their children, telling them, ‘When you make it, do not forget your own.’ And with that statement the next generation becomes corrupted.
Your own, people never realise, is every Kenyan, and according to the commandments, every living thing. Yes. Nature too, you forget to take care of it and what is happening now happens, El Nino.
If only our founding fathers tapped into the same logic of fighting for our freedoms and subsequently set in motion a clear economic structure where buildings grew as tall as the mountains and the trees followed suit, all of us would be millionaires and those who weren’t would still not be sleeping hungry. Corruption goes beyond administrations and parties.
Corruption is a vice that must be dealt with at individual levels and dealt with decisively as the editorial so eloquently put.
Why Socrates will remain a force to reckon with is because he sought only the Truth and he sought it in a just way.
“The unexamined life is not worth living,” he said.
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What he meant was that every human being must exercise ‘Hindsight, intrasight and foresight’.
When voting, forget which horse race it is, forget who is likely to win, forget who my cocoon votes for, forget who protects my monetary interests and forget what they say about people in Kenya.
Remember, what answer will I give when my conscience asks me, did I do the right thing?
A leader is one who has enough social influence to protect that society, promote it to that it wishes to achieve, defend it vigorously and in the same breath resolve all conflicts amicably applying reason, morality and Logic.
The common task of our leaders is to alleviate all barriers to corruption, subsequently magnifying their greed to levels that are now toxic to wananchi. It is a sad situation and the people to blame are you and me. If the virtuous and evil stood up and said, “Zero tolerance to corruption”, it would have meaning and effect.
In Kenya though, it is not the society that says “Zero tolerance to corruption”, rather the leaders, who in turn enthusiastically propagate the vice.
The leaders are a mere reflection of the society, and they are the crème de la crème of that society. Imagine then if who we chose to lead us is toxically corrupt, those that were never elected must be dead due to corruption by now.
Everything starts and ends with us. The leaders cannot help those who don’t help themselves. If you vote me in, I steal from you and you vote me back in, who am I to defy you and stop stealing from you?
Decisive action needed must come from the citizenry, not those corrupt comedians sitting in government offices.
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