Forget tyranny of numbers, fix cruelty of the individual

By Donald Kipkorir

We are a complaining nation. And a begging nation. We have a litany of complaints against Government. We complain when security breaks down, of corruption and absence of services in our public offices. We ask Government to intervene when both natural and man-made disasters strike. And we ask the state for intervention even for personal problems.

Amidst these complaints and begging bowls, there is absence of individual responsibility.

We are in Kenya by historical happenstance. At the turn of 19th Century, white men meeting in Berlin suddenly stopped the hunting-and-gathering and pre-industrial life of our ancestors.

They divided Africa amongst themselves and drew lines across the continent. Unlike European countries, which are predominantly mono-ethnic, Kenya like most other African countries is a patchwork of multiple tribes that share nothing in common but the colonial boundaries. But now that we are in it, we must work with it.

Now that we are here in Kenya, it is time we stopped complaining and begging and take our individual responsibility.

Our Constitution in its Article 1 says that all sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya.

And across it, it repeats that legislative, executive and judicial power belong to the people.

But that the individual is the repository of these powers, rings hollow if the individual is himself bereft of ambition, vision and responsibility. The clearest symbol of the tyranny of one is seeing motorists on the road. We have traffic lights and road signs, which are basically ornamental.

Motorists see them as nuisance to their destination. If drivers had their way, they will bend traffic rules to suit them. And these motorists who have no slight regard for simple traffic rules will be at the frontline hurling barbs and stones at the Government for all manner of real or perceived failures. We agreed to have laws and rules governing us because without them, the individual will wrought chaos on the other.

And we have agreed that we cannot all be leaders. In ancient Athens, leadership was true mob-rule. Decisions were made in an assembly of all adult male citizens. That direct male democracy has over time been replaced with indirect democracy of universal suffrage. We have surrendered leadership to one President and a few others below him.

If Kenyans take up their individual responsibility, we will turn the corner. This individual responsibility ought to be for the common good. When such happens, Government doesn’t have to impose it from above. As we are a patchwork of many tribes, we have no choice but develop common national values.

We photocopied the American Constitution, but failed to also copy American national values. There, the American values of hard work and obedience to the law are so embedded that an aberration is a big scandal. A simple example will suffice: In Kenya, to be found cavorting with a prostitute or smoking marijuana gives a leader popular appeal; in America, it is a death-knell.

We are not a nation of saints, and there is none anywhere. In his epic Sermon on the Mount by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus called on the multitude present that “… as would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise”.

Before we complain of tyranny of numbers, we have to deal with tyranny of the individual. Our leaders mirror us. The day we echo President John F. Kennedy and say, “… ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” then, tyranny of the majority will be a desired consequence of the choice of the good majority. For now, the individual should not be whining. For choices have consequences. And the majority must have their way.

Writer is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya