Prof. Ayang' Nyong'o On Otto Von Bismark

[adongo12345]

Otto Von Bismarck and other great men

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By Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o

A few people, in their commentaries in the daily papers since Mr Raila Odinga launched his vision, have voiced their concern over his quotation from the speeches of the German Chancellor and nationalist, Otto von Bismarck.

The concern revolves around the fact that Bismarck united Germany using an iron fist, and this does not augur well for a freedom fighter and democrat like Raila.

I have a soft spot for Bismarck as a nationalist since African history is woven with sinews of nationalist heroes, good or bad.

Many Christians worship Jesus Christ and in their struggle to get to heaven would love to emulate Him in all aspects of their lives. While they may be charitable to the poor as Jesus was, they cannot possibly feed 5,000 people using five loaves of bread.

Neither can they raise a Lazurus today from the dead however hard they pray. Jesus did all this in his missionary work but never empowered a single soul on how to achieve these wonderful deeds.

But Christians hardly ever accuse Jesus of selfishness or monopolistic tendencies in his missionary work. We would rather remember him for the good things that he did and the Lord’s Prayer that he taught us to "give us this day our daily bread."

Paul was a very zealous follower of Jesus and perhaps enjoys the unique quality of being passionate with his sermons and determined to ensure that those he ministered to followed his teachings strictly through the many letters he wrote to them.

Nobody in the New Testament has as a clear knowledge of his flock as Paul did. But Paul was also intolerant towards women and had a strong patriarchal streak.

But in spite of his negative qualities, Christians read Paul’s letters passionately and his many entreaties on how to be a good Christian are not only inspiring but fundamental to a faith that is the foundation of many contemporary civilisations.

Frederik Willem de Clerk, former South African president and Nobel Prize winner, says many nasty things about Nelson Mandela in his biography.

The two, apparently, detested each other passionately during those days when circumstances forced them to seek the solution to South Africa’s problems together.

De Clerk comes out as a grumpy white nationalist who was pushed by history to play the role of a South African hero.

When history comes to be written we shall remember de Clerk for his heroism in shaping a new South Africa and more or less ‘committing racial suicide’ rather than his malevolence towards Mandela.

One should now be able to see Otto von Bismarck in similar light. Nobody in his right mind would say the German Chancellor was the epitome of perfection or of exemplary humanism.

But he did do something that had eluded Germans for centuries: he brought them together as a modern nation.

We may not be able to build modern Kenya into one nation out of the many nationalities that comprise the Kenyan state today the way Bismarck did in Germany. That is neither possible nor desirable.

But we need to remember what Karl Marx said, "Men make their history but not under circumstances of their own choice but under conditions received from the past and handed down by tradition to them."

We, like the Germans of Bismarck’s time, would like to make our own history. But we can only do so if we fully appreciate and understand our own objective conditions that come from the past and are embedded in our cultural, political, social and psychic traditions.

This does not mean that we are prisoners of these conditions and traditions. It simply means that they prescribe the parameters within which we have to operate.

Thus, however, much we may admire Bismarck, our brand of Kenyan nationalism may not be promoted irrespective of the human rights gains that the heroes of the Second Liberation have managed to make us enjoy since the advent of multi-party politics in Kenya.

Pundits and sectarian reactionaries, masquerading as newspaper columnists and scholars may not of course, understand this since they never had to make sacrifices for the Second Liberation.

They will argue, in general, about bow terrible Bismarck was as an iron-fisted nationalist. We can still achieve what Bismarck did today without using the iron fist of naked military power.

The power of democratic persuasion and the politics of inclusiveness can just be as powerful.

The writer is the Member of Parliament for Kisumu Rural

[politicalmaniac]

Prof has it right.

The DMS may run aainst him
Just shows how deep the ODM bench is.

An Embarrasing plethora of qualified candidates

[job]

AO & P/M,

In a previous response to some fellas in another thread (I've pasted below) I did raise the same points by Prof. Nyong'o about this deliberate attempt to distort Bismark's legacy by knee-jerk Railaphobics, .....who seem to close their eyes when it comes to reflecting upon Bismark's positive deeds......only highlighting his iron-fist tendencies which were infact commonplace in that era anyway.

The person largely hailed for facilitating Germany's unity at a time of deep divisions was indeed Bismark. That unity laid the framework for Germany's dramatic economic prosperity. Give Caesar what is unto Caesar!

...here's my previous response....at

jukwaa.proboards58.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1179668466
......
Certain fellas have taken up the Bismark analogy with profound phobia ever since Macharia wrote his first skewed opinion on it(DN).

It appears as if the Bismark analogy was the only thing - from the vision. While choosing not to critique the weighty substance of the vision, opting instead to pick on one trivial historic reference (Bismark), ...which is in fact deliberately driven out of context .......is outrightly suspect.

Of several historic references by Raila on his vision, only this one (Bismark) is selected,.... the question of motivation becomes important therefore,.....To introduce the element of "ironman" or dictator into the usual anti-Raila phobic propaganda, ....new fodder appears to have been found,....slated to be repeated over and over again,...with the aim of peddling fear about Raila-will-be-a-dictator-like-Bismark.

The real element being deliberately ignored here, is infact the positive attribute of Bismark, who was able to unify a previously divided empire (just as Kenya is tribally divided today) into one strong economic giant. Placing this out of context is simply disingenous.


unedited
Job

[adongo12345]

politicalmaniac said:

Prof has it right.

The DMS may run aainst him
Just shows how deep the ODM bench is.

An Embarrasing plethora of qualified candidates

Pmaniac,

I am with you on this one. I am glad people like Prof. Ayang' Nyong'o are demonstrating to the nation that not everybody has to be a president or a presidential candidate to help build the country. That is refreshing.

Job,

Do you find it odd, like I do, that of all the things Raila talked about, and of all those before him he chose to quote, Otto Von Bismark seems to have struck a cord with a certain section of the media elites and their herlings?

For example, Raila talked about increasing the CDF money to 10% of the national budget instead of the present 2.5%.

I would have thought that the media and other public policy interest groups would be telling Kenyans what this could mean, good or bad. Poke the budget and give us the figures and their implications. But, no, it seems Otto Von Bismark reference is more important to some and so they hope to Kenyans.

It is NOT.

Thank you.

Adongo

[aeichener]

Bwah.
I have no doubt that Anyang' Nyong'o is one of the very few Kenyans who have a decent, even good knowledge of Kenyan history, but he has definitely shown himself to have fairly little knowledge of German history. And he has absolutely nothing understood about Bismarck - the iron chancellor would sneer in his grave reading these lines, so far away and even so directly opposed are they to his self-understanding and to his *real* role. How ignorant can one be to see Bismarck as a "German nationalist"? He was the exact opposite of that. The opposite.

Alexander

[adongo12345]

Alex.

Once again I have to hold you to account. I apologize.

First off, you are probably the only one who didn't notice that Prof. Ayang' Nyongo's piece is actually not about Otto Von Bismark, however important he may be to you personally.

My take is that Nyong'o is talking about historical contradictions and characters in the process of nation building and other historical configurations in religion and other popular mythology in human progress.

I think the professor is warning us to always distinguish between the tree and the forest. A good thing, if you ask me.

This is not about Otto Von Bismark, my friend, it is about Kenya and where to go from here. Exciting, isn't it?

Adongo

[aeichener]

It is about the potential future of Kenya, as predicted by one of the contestants' Bismarck invocation. Anyang' Nyong'o has either not understood it, or tries to deflect attention.

I have explained it before, so I'll be short this time. Bismarck was NOT a German nationalist. He was the contrary. He did not believe in a unified German nation, incorporating all tribes equally. He did not see himself as primarily a servant of the nation or of the empire. In fact, "Prussia conquered Germany", that is the usually applied term. This period of dominance over all other regions of the empire (and later the republic) lasted at least until 1932, probably rather 1945.

The embarrassment is the strongly implied tribalism. Raila may just have been honest; his disciples do not even realize what this choice of his does convey or confess to the historically knowledgeable.

Alexander

[veritas]

There are pastors out there who raise people from the dead or make abundant resources out of few, I have some tapes to prove it but it's not publicised much, the bigger the spiritual gift the more responsibilities including discretions. The reference to Bismarck in the academia would be acceptable but for a modern liberal democratic politician that's unusual, there have been many impressionable leaders from the modern era that could have been mentioned, but I guess if you observe Kenya's development stage, unification towards a modern Kenya in which Bismarck did for Germany, although debatable as some disagree, could make sense. I would prefer politicians just being politicians rather than demonstrate academic prowess, it can't be a bad thing to show sensitivity towards the general public in line with how they think. Germany may have been a personal experience for an academic but as a politician certain discretions/filtering/curbing like maintaining a consistent public image is I say political prowess because unfortunately it seems people remember exceptions, so why not make those exceptions positive rather than unsual.

[osirisisgod]

Actually quoting from Bismarck, Churchill and Mahathir Mohammed is symbolic of ignorance more than any academic prowess. The notion itself that Bismarck is worthy of praise from an African, even worse (the horrors!! ) from a socialist is shocking!! Anyang' Nyong'o praising nationalism!! Shock on me!! I thought that was DP territory.

It also presumes that German unity was/ is comparable to Kenyan unity, and that it was desirable. Even if Bismarck was (which he was not) the force behind some romantic German unification, there is no useful way in which this is an example worthy of emulation in Kenya. These are two very different kinds of unification.

[adongo12345]

Very interesting discussion. I like it.

I will be honest. Frankly I don't give a rat's tail about Otto Von Bismark. I would care less, who he was, what he did and all that. I know one thing for a fact. Otto Von Bismark is not going to solve the problems we have in Kenya. That should settle it. Right? No.

But let us get back to Prof. Nyong'o's piece. Unless I am reading a different article, Nyong'o actually is talking about Otto Von Bismark within the context of how media pundits interpret and package political discourse in the country. I actually like this part of Prof. Nyong'o's argument in relation to the Bismark story.

"Thus, however, much we may admire Bismarck, our brand of Kenyan nationalism may not be promoted irrespective of the human rights gains that the heroes of the Second Liberation have managed to make us enjoy since the advent of multi-party politics in Kenya.

Pundits and sectarian reactionaries, masquerading as newspaper columnists and scholars may not of course, understand this since they never had to make sacrifices for the Second Liberation"

My take from Nyong'o is that we should never allow partisan pundits to shape our national discource.

Let's take Raila's speech on the launching of his presidential campaign. As I said before on this thread, Raila also proposed increasing the CDF to 10% of the national budget, up from the present 2.5%. Why are we not hearing probes into this very practical proposal, we need the the media and public interest groups to probe the budgetary numbers and public grasp of such an important undertaking if it sees the light of day. Wouldn't that be a more urgent item of discussion than this Bismark fellow?

Do we really need to dig up Otto Von Bismark's bones to wave at Kenyans? Ati because Raila invoked his name in a speech. Who cares?

No. This is not about some Mr. Bismark. This is about Kenya and I for one am happy to know many things rest in our hands as Kenyans. I never knew I would love my hands so much.

Adongo.

[politicalmaniac]

I liked the way Nyongo bi@tch slapped KM and put to rest the KM insurrection against the ODM secretariat.

Way to go Prof!

[osirisisgod]

Ok, Adongo
Let's move on, but both Raila and the Professor are displaying mind-numbing ignorance here.

[veritas]

...the extraordinary political and strategic wisdom of Otto van Bismarck that has allowed the Prussian state to unify Germany with only minimal opposition from other European powers. Yet the senior military leaders of the new Reich failed to understand the complexities of Bismarck's diplomacy and strategy. ~ 1994 Murray & Grimsley in the Making of Strategy.

[aeichener]

Veritas:

you misunderstood the crucial point. Kindly read the thread again.

Alexander

[osirisisgod]

Veritas
How very erudite. A totally irrelevant quote.

[veritas]

Unless you study strategy, it's difficult to appreciate Bismarck's genius. If Raila made a speech at a tertiary institution and made reference to Bismarck it would not raise an eyebrow.

[aeichener]

It would, Veritas, it would. You still try very studiously to ignore the crucial point. Which is neither his Bündnissystem nor the Rückversicherungsverträge therein.

A.

[veritas]

actually it may, in the sense how intuitive for a politician!

Weltanschauung!