|
Why this
bout of generosity rings false
DAILY NATION
Story by PHILIP OCHIENG /Fifth Columnist
Publication Date: 11/20/2005
Kenya's successive presidents are a
study in comparative generosity. Daniel arap Moi's looked inborn.
But in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire warns us
against "the false generosity of the oppressor". When Mr
Moi became a tyrant, his generosity ceased to be genuine. He knew
our insatiable thirst for money and squeezed out of it every ounce
of political profit.
If you seemed to pose some
political peril, he simply called you over and shoved wads of cash
into your pocket.
Where he saw signs of dangerous
unity, he planted "seed money" and healthy saplings of
disunity soon sprouted.
Public buildings and land were
"dished out" all over. Hostile populations became docile
just because he had promoted their villages to "cities"
and locations to districts.
By contrast, Jomo Kenyatta was said
to be tight and that it would have appalled him to suggest that he
part with even pesa nane to corrupt the voter.
Luckily, he never needed to do so.
He had emerged from the independence struggle with
overwhelming popularity and rested heavily on the "nationalist"
laurel.
Mzee never pretended to pledge even
such cynicisms as "democracy", "good governance",
a "good human rights record", "war on corruption".
In a way, it was respectable. When,
under your leadership, grabbing is the done thing, you should
never promise title deeds to the landless.
Mwai Kibaki is not reputed to be
generous either. His tenure at State House is not celebrated for
visits by ethnic "spokesmen" seeking to "pledge
loyalty".
"Pledging loyalty" goes
back to Mzee's tumultuous last years. But, as a money-making
enterprise, it became established only during Mr Moi's tenure.
The difference was that, under
Mzee, you brought money as proof of your loyalty, while, under Mr
Moi, you were paid handsomely for abject kneeling.
But better to be consistently
tight-fisted or consistently forthcoming. Like a Gado cartoon, Mr
Kibaki's sudden generosity can only provoke laughter because he is
so maladroit about it.
From a natural skinflint,
liberality is like Duncan's royal accoutrement upon Macbeth. In
Shakespeare says that it looks like "a giant's robe upon a
dwarfish thief".
Like the rock, when Moses hit upon
it with his serpent-rod, a State House which had been as dry as
the Sinaitic wilderness since 2003 suddenly produced a gust of
water!
But it was not real. The nyama
choma was perhaps as "finger-lickin' good" as
Noah's "fat portions" that caused Jehovah Elohim to
salivate by Ararat.
But we have no independent report
that money changed hands. For a quid pro quo, the loyalty
pledger was given only a rain cheque, to be cashed only if he
endorses the proposed constitution tomorrow.
All will get everything for which
they have always thirsted – land, money, water, electricity.
Even the Ogiek were promised a district, and the Luo, something
really fishy!
Voters are like that. As Tennyson
says, "Their's not to reason why/Their's but to do and
die". Practically none will have asked why these things have
not been delivered before today whereas we always paid extremely
heavy taxes precisely for them.
But law has no power of its own. It
cannot force a government to deliver promises. Or else, Narc would
have delivered the extravagant election pledges it made in 2002.
Take Lands minister Amos Kimunya.
He asserts that if the new law is approved, there will be drastic
land redistribution. It is as though lack of law is the problem.
How can a responsible person play
with people's mentality like that? Was it not only yesterday that
Mr Kimunya rejected as "socialist" a legislative
proposal that a ceiling be slapped on land ownership?
But Mzee knew his weakness.
Recognising our hunger for money, he knew, too, that more generous
rivals might exploit it to his disadvantage.
So his advice was: "If they
give you money, take it. But never vote for them." It
was not ethical. But you must admit its practical wisdom: Others
spent money, but he got the votes.
That is also my advice. If you have
taken their money, don't worry. They owe it to you and this is the
only time they are ever likely to part with the peanuts.
Take their promises with a pinch of
salt and vote only according to your understanding of that
document.
|
