THE BLIND LOYALTY TO TRIBAL DEMIgODS IN MY COUNTRY

It’s clear Kenyans are uncomfortable with laws. Its law that keeps us from returning to the jungle, where the strongest takes what they want. It’s the law that keeps us human, guiding us to realization that there are greater calling and higher satisfactions in life than constantly looking out for our own self-interest.

The moment when the community as a whole claimed for itself the right and responsibility to punish criminals, taking the role away from the injured parties, represent one of the great advances in the history of civilization.
True justice without vengeance. One measure of a civilization’s complexity is the distance between the aggrieved individual and administration of justice. The problem arise, however, when people fear that they cannot depend on society to administer justice, that the courts are slow, corrupt and unreliable or inclined to play favorites or that the law is full of loopholes that let the guilty escape as we always see in Kenya. Then we face the uncomfortable choice between letting a guilty person go free and taking the responsibility for punishment into our hands, with the bitter aftertaste and sense of moral compromise that often entails…This is why ICC is appropriate and if it fails we only condemn Kenya into a paralysis, stagnation or return to the jungle law.

Just imagine where the lie about loyalty to our tribal demigods has brought us to. Successive tribal regimes have dug in a protective system that will every now and then be manipulated by clever cons to their personal interests. That is what Uhuru and Ruto are doing now. Uhuru Kenyatta is so institutionally insulated in an impenetrable tribal human shield.

Kenyans know they are destined for better things and that is why the triumhalistic mentaliy being displayed by some communities is self-defeating. A monkey is monkey because of other monkeys, there cannot be a monkey without other monkeys. We are allowing our souls to be stunted by ignorance.There is no way we can win the war against hate and reviling as long as there are conditions that make people desperate. We cannot be human on our own. We can be human only together. There will never be PEACE without justice and safety only comes when desperation ends. It will end when we have leaders who are willing to take risks not just seeking to satisfy the often extreme feelings of their constituencies as we seeing now in our land. 

This fictional thinking has seized on the fear of freedom, fear of making choices, because the world is too complicated for us. Its hard to understand it. We do not know who to trust, so we are vulnerable to the person who says, “ too many decisions? Let me simply life for you. Make one decision, vote “jubilee” and you will never have to agonize over choosing between the right and wrong again. Uhuru and Ruto will tell you what is right and we will surround you with a supportive officials in the NIS to reassure you that no matter what the misguided souls of other communities may say you are protected and on the right path”

At its worst, this kind of vulnerability gives us an Adolf Hitler, who strode into the moral decay and economic ruin of Germany in the 1930’s and said, “ Follow me, never question me, and I will lead you out of this” We consider ourselves rid of nazism because we abhor its brutality and we did not live in the 1930’s Germany. We forget that Nazism was ultimate product of a philosophy which despised the ‘weak’ and admired the ‘strong’. In essence Nazism was a doctrine that the ‘strong’ shall rule over the ‘weak’ and that the ‘weak’ are contemptible because they are ‘weak’

Reconciliation cannot avoid confrontation. But when we merely seek to gloss over our differences or metaphorically paper over the cracks as we did after the 2007/08 PEV we must not be surprised that in next to no time we are at it again, hammer and tongs, perhaps more violently than before. True reconciliation is based on forgiveness and forgiveness is based on true confession and confession is based on penitence, on contrition on sorrow for what had been done. Equally confession, forgiveness and reconciliation in the lives of nations and communities are not just airy-fairy religious and spiritual matters, nebulous and unrealistic. They are the stuff of practical politics. Superficial reconciliation can only bring superficial healing.

+Martin Mule  Freelance journalist.(Truth needs to be shared)