Post by Onyango Oloo on Jan 22, 2016 16:18:34 GMT 3
A version of this essay appeared in the op-ed pages of the January 22, 2016 Star under the heading , Let's not be defeatist but take charge of the nation's destiny-on page 24, underneath the piece by Musalia Mudavadi on Somalia.
By Onyango Oloo
It is barely a week into the new year, but a cacophony of pugnacious pundits are already locked in verbal fisticuffs on the radio, on television, on social media, at funerals, everywhere.
In one corner are the chest thumping aficionados of the status quo, crowing triumphant about an encore, a repeat of the 2013 poll victory that catapulted them to the State House, Parliament and a gazillion county capitals.
On the other, barely concealing their congealed ire, are the generals and apparatchiks of the opposition, warning darkly of a looming, sinister nefarious plot to rob them in advance of their long awaited coronation as the “government of good governance” with a solemn pledge to slay the demon of corrupt impunity.
Spectating from the stands are Kenya’s uncertain voters, wondering what happened over the years to the giddy expectations captured in the 2010 Constitution.
Media headlines meanwhile, blare about the Eurobond, NYS, Chickengate, Hustlergate and Bungoma Wheelbarrow scandals that have quickly eclipsed Angloleasing and other graft horrors of yesteryear.
To the patriotic idealists who toiled tenaciously against the one party state and for what they considered people-centred development the current goings on are a ready recipe for despair; to the jaded cynics who expected it to all unravel sooner or later, there is a huge bored sigh punctuated with “I-told-you-so” mutterings under unbated breath; one of the real dangers is the possibility of losing the optimism of the youth-by far the largest component of Kenya’s population.
So what do we as a nation?
Degenerate into near suicidal collective despair of a pandemonium of cynical despondency?
I think not.
In the twenty first century milieu of what the Waswahili call “utandawazi”-globalization-which allows us, via the magic of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Wikileaks and constantly breaking news delivered directly on our smart phones, we need not spent our every waking moment surfing for phone or the latest from the Premier League and the Bundesliga.
Let us tune into what is happening with Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece and the reawakening in Burkina Faso and Burundi.
Let us log on to what is happening with the economic renaissance in China and the technological revolutions not just in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley but in Bangalore, Abuja, Cape Town and not forgetting i-Hub in Kampala and right here Nairobi.
What are millions of young women saying to their societies around the world?
We need not regurgitate the clichés of “business as usual”.
A cautionary tale from Mexico.
Starting in 1929 right through to 1982, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known by its Spanish acronym as PRI) known won every presidential election in Mexico by over seventy percent of the vote-usually through rigging, corruption and other forms of electoral fraud. Its dominance was at other sub-national levels as well. Over the years PRI became a symbol of corruption. Kenyans can easily see the parallels. What Moi dreamed of KANU doing for 100 years, the Jubilee coalition is convinced it can do: Uhuru Kenyatta sees himself ruling until 2022 with William Ruto to inherit the monarch thereafter.
But just like in Kenya, PRI got a NARC like jolt when it lost its sway a few years ago when Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party won in 2000, ruling until 2006.
Nevertheless, just like our country, there was no revolutionary change in Mexico with the coming to power of the former opposition party.
In both countries, elite pacting among the political elite meant that Tweedlum morphed into Tweedlee.
Thus, despite the made for media maelstroms, the faceoff between the Kenyan mainstream political antagonists are likely to escalate the cynical fatigue for the same old electoral shenanigans come 2017 with a possible tuning out of the biggest chunk of the Kenyan population-the youth.
But we need not resign ourselves to defeatist fate; give in to the notion that two faced chameleons masquerading as our nation’s “liberators” will forever hold us in their thrall.
Over a decade ago, Evo Morales shook the Bolivians from their long lethargy in powering a grass roots based, peasant led alliance to grab electoral power with far reaching reformist implications-following in the path of next door Venezuela where Hugo Chavez parlayed that countries oil wealth to bankroll some populist social, agrarian and political upheavals.
More recently, over in Greece in southern Europe, Syriza has demonstrated to countries of the South- in Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa-that we need note take the snake oil austerity prescriptions of the powerful corporate and financial big players lying down. Her neighbor Spain has also given notice with Podemos, that the political oligopoly of one or three parliamentary parties dominating the landscape, need not be a given.
Closer home to our continent, the Burkinabe people of West Africa have shown the world, that remnants and throw backs to the ancient regime cannot willy nilly drag their citizens to the dark past through sinister military putsches or palace coups.
But the key thing is harnessing heightened consciousness into a collective will power to take charge of a nation’s destiny and right to self determination.
Can Kenyans stop wringing their wrists in frustration at rampant corruption, endemic tribalism and pork barrel harambee hand outs and start fashioning a national democratic movement for renewal and progress?
It is not that we have not done this before. In the 1950s we had the Mau Mau led war for national independence; in the early 1960s KANU helped usher in decolonization; in the mid 1960s KPU warned us of creeping neo-colonialism; in the mid sentries and early 1980s DTM exhorted us to make a clean break; in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Second Liberation foot soldiers helped to bring down the tyranny of KANU’s one party dictatorship; in 2002 NARC rallied that wananchi to end Moi’s feverish dream to rule Kenyans for eons on end.
It can be done.
By Onyango Oloo
It is barely a week into the new year, but a cacophony of pugnacious pundits are already locked in verbal fisticuffs on the radio, on television, on social media, at funerals, everywhere.
In one corner are the chest thumping aficionados of the status quo, crowing triumphant about an encore, a repeat of the 2013 poll victory that catapulted them to the State House, Parliament and a gazillion county capitals.
On the other, barely concealing their congealed ire, are the generals and apparatchiks of the opposition, warning darkly of a looming, sinister nefarious plot to rob them in advance of their long awaited coronation as the “government of good governance” with a solemn pledge to slay the demon of corrupt impunity.
Spectating from the stands are Kenya’s uncertain voters, wondering what happened over the years to the giddy expectations captured in the 2010 Constitution.
Media headlines meanwhile, blare about the Eurobond, NYS, Chickengate, Hustlergate and Bungoma Wheelbarrow scandals that have quickly eclipsed Angloleasing and other graft horrors of yesteryear.
To the patriotic idealists who toiled tenaciously against the one party state and for what they considered people-centred development the current goings on are a ready recipe for despair; to the jaded cynics who expected it to all unravel sooner or later, there is a huge bored sigh punctuated with “I-told-you-so” mutterings under unbated breath; one of the real dangers is the possibility of losing the optimism of the youth-by far the largest component of Kenya’s population.
So what do we as a nation?
Degenerate into near suicidal collective despair of a pandemonium of cynical despondency?
I think not.
In the twenty first century milieu of what the Waswahili call “utandawazi”-globalization-which allows us, via the magic of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Wikileaks and constantly breaking news delivered directly on our smart phones, we need not spent our every waking moment surfing for phone or the latest from the Premier League and the Bundesliga.
Let us tune into what is happening with Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece and the reawakening in Burkina Faso and Burundi.
Let us log on to what is happening with the economic renaissance in China and the technological revolutions not just in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley but in Bangalore, Abuja, Cape Town and not forgetting i-Hub in Kampala and right here Nairobi.
What are millions of young women saying to their societies around the world?
We need not regurgitate the clichés of “business as usual”.
A cautionary tale from Mexico.
Starting in 1929 right through to 1982, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known by its Spanish acronym as PRI) known won every presidential election in Mexico by over seventy percent of the vote-usually through rigging, corruption and other forms of electoral fraud. Its dominance was at other sub-national levels as well. Over the years PRI became a symbol of corruption. Kenyans can easily see the parallels. What Moi dreamed of KANU doing for 100 years, the Jubilee coalition is convinced it can do: Uhuru Kenyatta sees himself ruling until 2022 with William Ruto to inherit the monarch thereafter.
But just like in Kenya, PRI got a NARC like jolt when it lost its sway a few years ago when Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party won in 2000, ruling until 2006.
Nevertheless, just like our country, there was no revolutionary change in Mexico with the coming to power of the former opposition party.
In both countries, elite pacting among the political elite meant that Tweedlum morphed into Tweedlee.
Thus, despite the made for media maelstroms, the faceoff between the Kenyan mainstream political antagonists are likely to escalate the cynical fatigue for the same old electoral shenanigans come 2017 with a possible tuning out of the biggest chunk of the Kenyan population-the youth.
But we need not resign ourselves to defeatist fate; give in to the notion that two faced chameleons masquerading as our nation’s “liberators” will forever hold us in their thrall.
Over a decade ago, Evo Morales shook the Bolivians from their long lethargy in powering a grass roots based, peasant led alliance to grab electoral power with far reaching reformist implications-following in the path of next door Venezuela where Hugo Chavez parlayed that countries oil wealth to bankroll some populist social, agrarian and political upheavals.
More recently, over in Greece in southern Europe, Syriza has demonstrated to countries of the South- in Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa-that we need note take the snake oil austerity prescriptions of the powerful corporate and financial big players lying down. Her neighbor Spain has also given notice with Podemos, that the political oligopoly of one or three parliamentary parties dominating the landscape, need not be a given.
Closer home to our continent, the Burkinabe people of West Africa have shown the world, that remnants and throw backs to the ancient regime cannot willy nilly drag their citizens to the dark past through sinister military putsches or palace coups.
But the key thing is harnessing heightened consciousness into a collective will power to take charge of a nation’s destiny and right to self determination.
Can Kenyans stop wringing their wrists in frustration at rampant corruption, endemic tribalism and pork barrel harambee hand outs and start fashioning a national democratic movement for renewal and progress?
It is not that we have not done this before. In the 1950s we had the Mau Mau led war for national independence; in the early 1960s KANU helped usher in decolonization; in the mid 1960s KPU warned us of creeping neo-colonialism; in the mid sentries and early 1980s DTM exhorted us to make a clean break; in the late 1980s and early 1990s the Second Liberation foot soldiers helped to bring down the tyranny of KANU’s one party dictatorship; in 2002 NARC rallied that wananchi to end Moi’s feverish dream to rule Kenyans for eons on end.
It can be done.