By LUKOYE ATWOLI
Sunday Nation 08 November 2009
As the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations enter the home stretch, allegations of cheating and exam leakages have risen stridently to fever pitch.
Never mind that the ‘‘evidence’’ proffered this year has consisted of handwritten approximate questions rather than the full papers that have been offered for sale in the past. Indeed, one of the teachers arrested in connection with examination cheating was accused of collecting money from candidates and failing to produce the leaked papers as promised!
Allegations
Quite apart from the fact that the leakage allegations may be overrated, these allegations point to the very core of the Kenyan problem. We have never seen a scapegoat we didn’t want to blame for one thing or another. Instead of wasting time blaming the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), we should direct our attention to the real culprits in this alleged malfeasance.
The media cannot escape blame for completely missing the point and continuing to blame the examinations council without producing a shred of evidence of culpability on their part. In amplifying this non-issue unnecessarily, they have succeeded only in raising anxiety among the poor candidates whose emotions are already frayed as they face a make-or-break moment in their lives.
The press seems to have been ready to break some sort of news on an exam leakage if only to spite the KNEC after it declared that this year’s exams would be the most secure ever. In the pursuit of an exclusive story, it behoves the media to be responsible and sensitive to the needs of these young people who constitute the promise of a better future for our country.
They are the investment we make in order to enter old age with satisfaction that we have not lived in vain. Destroying their young lives in the search for an exclusive ‘‘break’’ is not only heartless, it is also extremely irresponsible. The second culprit in this saga is the cabal of greedy teachers and other examination staff who spend sleepless nights dreaming up new ways of making money from gullible parents and students by purporting to sell exam papers.
Looking at the so-called ‘‘leaks’’, it appears some people involved in the examination setting chain made educated guesses as to what questions were likely to appear in the exam, and proceeded to sell these guesses in the name of exam leakages. These individuals must be pursued relentlessly and made to face the full force of the law in order to discourage the notion that examination success can be bought.
Another group that needs chastising is that of parents who raise their children to believe that anything goes in the rat-race of life, and that buying leaked examination papers is par for the course. Prominent thieves are glorified in our living rooms and given positions of responsibility, while those that eke out an honest existence are derided as fools for not ‘‘eating where they work!’’
At the end of it all, we expect our children to import values from another planet and grow up as honest citizens building a ‘‘middle-income industrialising country by 2030’’! Given the sick society they are growing up in, it is difficult to blame the teenage students for rushing to purchase anything that would give them an advantage over their colleagues in the examinations.
But for the sake of equity in this discussion, it would be remiss not to mention them as part of the rot that bedevils our failing education system. No matter what society you grow up in, the ultimate decision to steal rests with the individual thief. Any student caught cheating must, therefore, be severely punished in order to deter like-minded colleagues, and to raise the cost of cheating beyond most potential exam cheats.
In my opinion, it is missing the point to accuse the KNEC of ‘‘not doing enough to stem cheating in our national exams’’ when the parents, teachers and students themselves continue developing newer methods of cheating! Indeed, the ‘‘leakage’’ allegations have yet to be solidly proved, given that so far (at the time of writing this) no one has produced a leaked exam paper that has been offered for sale to a candidate unlike in past years.
All there is to show are a few handwritten fragments of questions whose format and language even differs from the final product itself. For the sake of development of this country, we must start being more proactive and demanding more of ourselves before pointing fingers at others for whatever we perceive to be wrong with our society.
Indeed, in a perfect society, the KNEC would not need to make any elaborate security plans for the exams, since nobody would have an interest in gaining an unfair advantage over another by stealing the exams!
Dr Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Applauding the few brave women of Malindi
By LUKOYE ATWOLI
Sunday Nation 01 November 2009
Almost unheralded, a revolutionary act was committed by a few brave women at the Kenyan coast last week. During a Sunday sermon in Malindi, female members of the congregation protested loudly when the priest suggested that men were becoming homosexual because women ‘‘had failed to do the job that God gave them’’.
This statement was made in the context of the reported ‘‘marriage’’ between two men of Kenyan descent in the United Kingdom. The local media was awash with the story, interviewing distraught parents and villagers in a bid to contextualise the matter and, of course, outdo their competitors in the process. Some radio presenters on the more raunchy shows were heard suggesting that these (gay) guys should be ‘‘slapped’’ out of their misguided behaviour!
While everyone has given their two cents’ worth on this matter, some more passionately than others, very few have gone beyond simply expressing their disgust to examining the serious underlying issues. The Malindi priest tried to explain his ‘‘disappointment’’ especially with Kenyan women for ‘‘allowing’’ their men to ‘‘go gay’’, but only succeeded in earning their wrath instead.
Suggestions have been made that homosexuality is dangerous because it puts small boys at risk of being sodomised. Others have argued that if allowed, the practice risks spreading rapidly and interfering with the cosmic scheme of things where man (and woman!) was meant to procreate and fill the earth. The bigger issue that needs to be examined is this: are the reasons given above sufficient in and of themselves to justify the extreme outpouring of emotion over private sexual preferences of individuals? Let us examine them in a little more detail.
The contention that homosexuality puts young boys at risk of being sodomised is severely flawed, for it assumes that all homosexual men have no control over their sexuality and will prey on unsuspecting members of the public and practically rape them to satisfy their sexual urges.
Followed to its logical conclusion, however, this argument implies that heterosexuals will similarly put young boys and girls at risk by the mere fact of being sexually active! At the core of this argument is the assumption that people do not have control over their sexual impulses, an assumption that does not find support in empirical evidence.
A similar argument was exposed in Franz Fanon’s writings about the attitudes of colonial Europeans towards the sexuality of Africans, and was thought to be at the core of ideologies such as apartheid that sought to keep white women away from black men for their own protection. African men were thought to be savages with no control over their sexuality, and it seems this argument is now being applied on African homosexual men!
The assertion that homosexuality must be checked to reduce the risk of its rampant spread in this country suggests that all men are susceptible to homosexual impulses and therefore need protection from rampaging gay men who may just convince them to play ball.
The natural conclusion from an argument such as this is that those complaining loudest fear that they may be ‘‘converted’’ themselves and their protests are some sort of self-inoculation against the practice! In psychological terms, this is an ego defence mechanism known as reaction formation, implying that those feeling so strongly about the subject must first examine their own attitudes towards it before going out and causing such a ruckus.
Finally, the Malindi priest attempted to examine the causes of homosexuality among Kenyan men, and came to the conclusion that Kenyan women were to blame for not taking better care of their men. He also suggested that parents had abdicated their responsibility and were therefore also to blame for their children’s transgressions.
Homosexuality is often a very personal experience, and its prevalence in Kenyan society may never really be known as a result. Homosexuals do not clamber onto rooftops to proclaim their sexual preferences, and most practise their sexual behaviour in the privacy of their homes. The decision to practise homosexuality is therefore made privately, and has very little to do with what other people think or feel about it.
Blaming women collectively for the choices of individual men reeks of a form of parochial sexism that has no place in the sort of society we are trying to build in this century. We must therefore applaud the women of Malindi for rekindling the hope that a better future is possible if we are willing to stand up to hypocrisy and destructive leadership. Let us learn from this epochal act and start saying ‘‘No’’ to ethnic chauvinists masquerading as leaders when they attempt to herd us towards inevitable conflict. We must speak up for what we think is right, and maybe then we shall save this country from self-destruction.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine. www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday Nation 01 November 2009
Almost unheralded, a revolutionary act was committed by a few brave women at the Kenyan coast last week. During a Sunday sermon in Malindi, female members of the congregation protested loudly when the priest suggested that men were becoming homosexual because women ‘‘had failed to do the job that God gave them’’.
This statement was made in the context of the reported ‘‘marriage’’ between two men of Kenyan descent in the United Kingdom. The local media was awash with the story, interviewing distraught parents and villagers in a bid to contextualise the matter and, of course, outdo their competitors in the process. Some radio presenters on the more raunchy shows were heard suggesting that these (gay) guys should be ‘‘slapped’’ out of their misguided behaviour!
While everyone has given their two cents’ worth on this matter, some more passionately than others, very few have gone beyond simply expressing their disgust to examining the serious underlying issues. The Malindi priest tried to explain his ‘‘disappointment’’ especially with Kenyan women for ‘‘allowing’’ their men to ‘‘go gay’’, but only succeeded in earning their wrath instead.
Suggestions have been made that homosexuality is dangerous because it puts small boys at risk of being sodomised. Others have argued that if allowed, the practice risks spreading rapidly and interfering with the cosmic scheme of things where man (and woman!) was meant to procreate and fill the earth. The bigger issue that needs to be examined is this: are the reasons given above sufficient in and of themselves to justify the extreme outpouring of emotion over private sexual preferences of individuals? Let us examine them in a little more detail.
The contention that homosexuality puts young boys at risk of being sodomised is severely flawed, for it assumes that all homosexual men have no control over their sexuality and will prey on unsuspecting members of the public and practically rape them to satisfy their sexual urges.
Followed to its logical conclusion, however, this argument implies that heterosexuals will similarly put young boys and girls at risk by the mere fact of being sexually active! At the core of this argument is the assumption that people do not have control over their sexual impulses, an assumption that does not find support in empirical evidence.
A similar argument was exposed in Franz Fanon’s writings about the attitudes of colonial Europeans towards the sexuality of Africans, and was thought to be at the core of ideologies such as apartheid that sought to keep white women away from black men for their own protection. African men were thought to be savages with no control over their sexuality, and it seems this argument is now being applied on African homosexual men!
The assertion that homosexuality must be checked to reduce the risk of its rampant spread in this country suggests that all men are susceptible to homosexual impulses and therefore need protection from rampaging gay men who may just convince them to play ball.
The natural conclusion from an argument such as this is that those complaining loudest fear that they may be ‘‘converted’’ themselves and their protests are some sort of self-inoculation against the practice! In psychological terms, this is an ego defence mechanism known as reaction formation, implying that those feeling so strongly about the subject must first examine their own attitudes towards it before going out and causing such a ruckus.
Finally, the Malindi priest attempted to examine the causes of homosexuality among Kenyan men, and came to the conclusion that Kenyan women were to blame for not taking better care of their men. He also suggested that parents had abdicated their responsibility and were therefore also to blame for their children’s transgressions.
Homosexuality is often a very personal experience, and its prevalence in Kenyan society may never really be known as a result. Homosexuals do not clamber onto rooftops to proclaim their sexual preferences, and most practise their sexual behaviour in the privacy of their homes. The decision to practise homosexuality is therefore made privately, and has very little to do with what other people think or feel about it.
Blaming women collectively for the choices of individual men reeks of a form of parochial sexism that has no place in the sort of society we are trying to build in this century. We must therefore applaud the women of Malindi for rekindling the hope that a better future is possible if we are willing to stand up to hypocrisy and destructive leadership. Let us learn from this epochal act and start saying ‘‘No’’ to ethnic chauvinists masquerading as leaders when they attempt to herd us towards inevitable conflict. We must speak up for what we think is right, and maybe then we shall save this country from self-destruction.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine. www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Insecurity talk cannot be swept under the carpet
By LUKOYE ATWOLI
Sunday Nation 25 October 2009
This past Kenyatta Day, President Kibaki issued a stern warning to criminals in typically harsh fashion, promising to ‘‘crush them’’ and asking wananchi to help in the effort by revealing criminals in their midst and refraining from criminal activity.
As far as the Rift Valley was concerned, the President seemed to allude to recent reports indicating that communities in the province were rearming in readiness for the next elections when he asked residents to ‘‘discourage arms buying in families and our villages …’’
Different script
Even as the President made his very emphatic comments, some administrators and politicians in the Rift Valley appeared to be reading from a totally different script by strenuously denying the reports and going as far as calling for the arrest of the human rights activists who had allegedly originated the reports.
Indeed, a number of activists in Eldoret had earlier been picked up by police for questioning in connection with the reports, and some of them had gone into hiding fearing for their lives even on the day the Head of State was issuing the warning to criminals.
So serious is the situation in the Rift Valley and elsewhere in this country that many are afraid to openly discuss the issue without fear of reprisals.
It appears that in Kenya, the freedoms that were gained gradually since the onset of multiparty politics in the early 1990s are being eroded in the wake of post-election violence.
Last year’s conflagration is now being used as an excuse by both the state and varied groups to silence independent voices under the guise of maintaining a fragile peace.
Already the media is awash with reports that some of the witnesses who gave evidence at the Waki inquiry have had to flee the country after receiving death threats. The remaining witnesses have had to contend with extreme uncertainty, fearing that the same fate may befall them any time now.
At this rate Kenya is going to remain a homogenous nation of greedy self-seekers who see no evil, hear no evil and, above all, speak no evil!
As long as there are patriots who still harbour dreams of a future beyond the ‘‘newly industrialising, middle income country providing a high quality life to its citizens’ rhetoric as encapsulated in Vision 2030, such gagging of independent voices must not be allowed to happen.
We must not allow fear of reprisals by government or militias to silence the voice of truth for, if we do not speak now, we shall lose the moral authority to prognosticate after the fact.
Popular blogs
Trawling cyberspace recently I came across even more disturbing debates on some of the more popular blogs. Some of the sites had people (using practically anonymous avatars) issuing threats against the journalists who first reported the story about purchase of guns in the Rift Valley.
Some bloggers have dedicated themselves to unearthing the identity of the individual reporters, without disclosing the aim of such an enterprise. The degree of hate and intolerance that is being demonstrated by many Kenyans is reaching alarming proportions.
Government protestations that peace and reconciliation efforts are having effect in the clash-torn areas are easily exposed for the hot air they are when one spends even a few minutes in private conversation with an ordinary citizen.
In most ethno-politically homogenous gatherings, people are passing off ignorant bigotry as gospel truth. The larger tragedy is that in the forums they choose to spew such filth, nobody dares to confront them with a contrary opinion, for fear of being branded a traitor or some similar epithet.
Politicians have not helped the situation much by increasingly ratcheting up political talk focusing on the next General Election, in complete disregard of the plight of multitudes of Kenyans who are living in the most deplorable of circumstances.
For all intents and purposes, the country has entered another election cycle, and any hopes we may have had of institutional re-engineering are fading right before our very eyes.
As the politicians focus on the big prize of being President of Kenya, they are attempting to shift our gaze from the urgent reforms as well as the fate of the organisers of last year’s post-election violence.
Despite the ICC’s valiant attempts at bringing the culprits to justice, many Kenyans are becoming sceptical due to the disdain with which our national leadership is dealing with the issue.
Civilised society
Even if nothing further is achieved in the way of reforms in this country, all right-thinking individuals must condemn the intimidation that is being directed at the last bastions of a civilised society we have left — the media and whistle blowers.
As it is, many have already lost faith in all the other pillars of society, including our political leadership and the institutions of government!
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer at Moi University’s School of Medicine
www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday Nation 25 October 2009
This past Kenyatta Day, President Kibaki issued a stern warning to criminals in typically harsh fashion, promising to ‘‘crush them’’ and asking wananchi to help in the effort by revealing criminals in their midst and refraining from criminal activity.
As far as the Rift Valley was concerned, the President seemed to allude to recent reports indicating that communities in the province were rearming in readiness for the next elections when he asked residents to ‘‘discourage arms buying in families and our villages …’’
Different script
Even as the President made his very emphatic comments, some administrators and politicians in the Rift Valley appeared to be reading from a totally different script by strenuously denying the reports and going as far as calling for the arrest of the human rights activists who had allegedly originated the reports.
Indeed, a number of activists in Eldoret had earlier been picked up by police for questioning in connection with the reports, and some of them had gone into hiding fearing for their lives even on the day the Head of State was issuing the warning to criminals.
So serious is the situation in the Rift Valley and elsewhere in this country that many are afraid to openly discuss the issue without fear of reprisals.
It appears that in Kenya, the freedoms that were gained gradually since the onset of multiparty politics in the early 1990s are being eroded in the wake of post-election violence.
Last year’s conflagration is now being used as an excuse by both the state and varied groups to silence independent voices under the guise of maintaining a fragile peace.
Already the media is awash with reports that some of the witnesses who gave evidence at the Waki inquiry have had to flee the country after receiving death threats. The remaining witnesses have had to contend with extreme uncertainty, fearing that the same fate may befall them any time now.
At this rate Kenya is going to remain a homogenous nation of greedy self-seekers who see no evil, hear no evil and, above all, speak no evil!
As long as there are patriots who still harbour dreams of a future beyond the ‘‘newly industrialising, middle income country providing a high quality life to its citizens’ rhetoric as encapsulated in Vision 2030, such gagging of independent voices must not be allowed to happen.
We must not allow fear of reprisals by government or militias to silence the voice of truth for, if we do not speak now, we shall lose the moral authority to prognosticate after the fact.
Popular blogs
Trawling cyberspace recently I came across even more disturbing debates on some of the more popular blogs. Some of the sites had people (using practically anonymous avatars) issuing threats against the journalists who first reported the story about purchase of guns in the Rift Valley.
Some bloggers have dedicated themselves to unearthing the identity of the individual reporters, without disclosing the aim of such an enterprise. The degree of hate and intolerance that is being demonstrated by many Kenyans is reaching alarming proportions.
Government protestations that peace and reconciliation efforts are having effect in the clash-torn areas are easily exposed for the hot air they are when one spends even a few minutes in private conversation with an ordinary citizen.
In most ethno-politically homogenous gatherings, people are passing off ignorant bigotry as gospel truth. The larger tragedy is that in the forums they choose to spew such filth, nobody dares to confront them with a contrary opinion, for fear of being branded a traitor or some similar epithet.
Politicians have not helped the situation much by increasingly ratcheting up political talk focusing on the next General Election, in complete disregard of the plight of multitudes of Kenyans who are living in the most deplorable of circumstances.
For all intents and purposes, the country has entered another election cycle, and any hopes we may have had of institutional re-engineering are fading right before our very eyes.
As the politicians focus on the big prize of being President of Kenya, they are attempting to shift our gaze from the urgent reforms as well as the fate of the organisers of last year’s post-election violence.
Despite the ICC’s valiant attempts at bringing the culprits to justice, many Kenyans are becoming sceptical due to the disdain with which our national leadership is dealing with the issue.
Civilised society
Even if nothing further is achieved in the way of reforms in this country, all right-thinking individuals must condemn the intimidation that is being directed at the last bastions of a civilised society we have left — the media and whistle blowers.
As it is, many have already lost faith in all the other pillars of society, including our political leadership and the institutions of government!
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer at Moi University’s School of Medicine
www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Tribal alliance talk sets the stage for the next conflict
By LUKOYE ATWOLI
Sunday Nation 18 October 2009
A new furore has been unleashed on unsuspecting Kenyans following Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s call for an alliance between himself, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Minister for Agriculture William Ruto.
The VP’s remarks came only a few weeks after some Rift Valley politicians and their Central Province counterparts had floated the idea of an alliance between Ruto and Kenyatta, touted as the ‘‘KK’’ alliance, ostensibly bringing together the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin communities.
Kalonzo’s new alliance has already been christened ‘‘KKK’’ to bring on board the VP’s Kamba community from Eastern Province.
What this alliance talk illustrates is the peculiarly Kenyan fatuous leap of logic that misrepresents the political dreams and aspirations of individuals as the consensual positions of entire communities.
It also demonstrates the state of danger any Kenyan living in a cosmopolitan area faces every time some misguided politician opens his mouth and purports to speak for his tribe.
If they last until the next General Election, these KK and KKK alliances will become the nexus around which the next ethno-political war will be fought in this country, and the main victims will definitely be ordinary citizens from these and other communities around the country.
Going by reports of rearming of ethnic militias, it is clear that the next conflict has the potential to completely destroy Kenya as we know it today. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the war after the next will be fought with sticks and stones!
All our politicians are keenly aware of the effects of their political posturing especially in the poisoned political climate that has existed since late 2007.
In the light of this, Kalonzo’s ethnic posturing exposes him and his ilk as nothing more than wolves in sheepskin balking at nothing in their quest to rend the fragile fabric of our nation for their own nefarious ends.
Further, talk of selective tribal alliances based on personal friendships only illustrates clearly how far off course we have slid as a nation in our search for identity in the community of nations.
There is a manifest absence of a sense of history among our leaders as well as among their most vociferous supporters.
It is, therefore, right and proper for every clear-minded patriot to keep reminding our wayward ‘‘leaders’’ that some of the things they say and do are inimical to the existence of a united prosperous country.
However, the hullaballoo raised by the politicians opposed either to the idea of a KKK alliance or to the VP’s campaign talk this far from a General Election is duplicitous, to say the least. Many of the politicians accusing the VP of balkanising the country are not really sincere in their sentiment.
Recent history will remind us of the major role many of them played in the intense ethnicisation of any issue during the campaigns for the last General Election.
Many historians will eventually agree that the fighting following the 2007 General Election was not caused to a large extent by ‘‘stolen elections’’ but by politicians who have since independence framed every major national issue as a matter of one tribe (or collection of tribes) against the rest.
Indeed at the height of the post-election violence last year there was even talk of isolating Central Kenya into some sort of landlocked country akin to Lesotho, or even of secession of other parts of the country to protest at dictatorship by ‘‘one tribe’’.
The rapprochement between these three individuals should serve as a lesson to ordinary Kenyans who are still suffering the after-effects of a prolonged drought as well as the consequences of the ethno-political flare-ups of December 2007 to February 2008.
If we needed any further evidence of the depravity resident in the souls of our so-called leaders, we need not look any further than what is happening on the political scene.
The National Accord signed last year between the two principals was not an end in itself.
It was, as has been repeatedly pointed out by various commentators, a ceasefire to allow for far-reaching reforms in the architecture of the state.
After Kofi Annan’s recent visit to the country to assess progress on achieving the agenda items comprising the Accord, there is near unanimity that progress is either too slow or non-existent as far as important institutional reforms are concerned.
Instead of focusing on ways of speeding up these reforms and paving the way for a new Kenya, where the events of the recent past will become just a painful memory, these ‘‘leaders’’ are busy laying the groundwork for the next conflagration.
In the interests of the future generations that would like to enjoy a more peaceful existence, these and other tribal demagogues must be stopped before they destroy the little pride left in being Kenyan!
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine. www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday Nation 18 October 2009
A new furore has been unleashed on unsuspecting Kenyans following Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s call for an alliance between himself, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Minister for Agriculture William Ruto.
The VP’s remarks came only a few weeks after some Rift Valley politicians and their Central Province counterparts had floated the idea of an alliance between Ruto and Kenyatta, touted as the ‘‘KK’’ alliance, ostensibly bringing together the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin communities.
Kalonzo’s new alliance has already been christened ‘‘KKK’’ to bring on board the VP’s Kamba community from Eastern Province.
What this alliance talk illustrates is the peculiarly Kenyan fatuous leap of logic that misrepresents the political dreams and aspirations of individuals as the consensual positions of entire communities.
It also demonstrates the state of danger any Kenyan living in a cosmopolitan area faces every time some misguided politician opens his mouth and purports to speak for his tribe.
If they last until the next General Election, these KK and KKK alliances will become the nexus around which the next ethno-political war will be fought in this country, and the main victims will definitely be ordinary citizens from these and other communities around the country.
Going by reports of rearming of ethnic militias, it is clear that the next conflict has the potential to completely destroy Kenya as we know it today. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the war after the next will be fought with sticks and stones!
All our politicians are keenly aware of the effects of their political posturing especially in the poisoned political climate that has existed since late 2007.
In the light of this, Kalonzo’s ethnic posturing exposes him and his ilk as nothing more than wolves in sheepskin balking at nothing in their quest to rend the fragile fabric of our nation for their own nefarious ends.
Further, talk of selective tribal alliances based on personal friendships only illustrates clearly how far off course we have slid as a nation in our search for identity in the community of nations.
There is a manifest absence of a sense of history among our leaders as well as among their most vociferous supporters.
It is, therefore, right and proper for every clear-minded patriot to keep reminding our wayward ‘‘leaders’’ that some of the things they say and do are inimical to the existence of a united prosperous country.
However, the hullaballoo raised by the politicians opposed either to the idea of a KKK alliance or to the VP’s campaign talk this far from a General Election is duplicitous, to say the least. Many of the politicians accusing the VP of balkanising the country are not really sincere in their sentiment.
Recent history will remind us of the major role many of them played in the intense ethnicisation of any issue during the campaigns for the last General Election.
Many historians will eventually agree that the fighting following the 2007 General Election was not caused to a large extent by ‘‘stolen elections’’ but by politicians who have since independence framed every major national issue as a matter of one tribe (or collection of tribes) against the rest.
Indeed at the height of the post-election violence last year there was even talk of isolating Central Kenya into some sort of landlocked country akin to Lesotho, or even of secession of other parts of the country to protest at dictatorship by ‘‘one tribe’’.
The rapprochement between these three individuals should serve as a lesson to ordinary Kenyans who are still suffering the after-effects of a prolonged drought as well as the consequences of the ethno-political flare-ups of December 2007 to February 2008.
If we needed any further evidence of the depravity resident in the souls of our so-called leaders, we need not look any further than what is happening on the political scene.
The National Accord signed last year between the two principals was not an end in itself.
It was, as has been repeatedly pointed out by various commentators, a ceasefire to allow for far-reaching reforms in the architecture of the state.
After Kofi Annan’s recent visit to the country to assess progress on achieving the agenda items comprising the Accord, there is near unanimity that progress is either too slow or non-existent as far as important institutional reforms are concerned.
Instead of focusing on ways of speeding up these reforms and paving the way for a new Kenya, where the events of the recent past will become just a painful memory, these ‘‘leaders’’ are busy laying the groundwork for the next conflagration.
In the interests of the future generations that would like to enjoy a more peaceful existence, these and other tribal demagogues must be stopped before they destroy the little pride left in being Kenyan!
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine. www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Bringing home the reality of our moral vacuity
By LUKOYE ATWOLI
Sunday Nation 11 October 2009
Last week I had a glimpse into some of the things that make it hard for Kenyans to get ahead in anything they try to do collectively at the national level.
Quite apart from our pathetic politics, everyday occurrences point to the true soul of the ordinary Kenyan. By studying the motivations behind the everyday behaviour of Kenyans, it will be possible to predict what to expect in the various situations facing our nation now and in the future.
During a prime time documentary on national television, people living next to a cemetery were shown desecrating graves and building their dwellings right on top of these so-called ‘‘final resting places’’.
In another location, residents were exhuming dead bodies ostensibly to create space to bury their own, and skulls and bones littered the cemetery in a caricature of some Hollywood horror movie.
Everybody in these communities continues to go about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening around them, and they would be mystified by any fuss made over their activities.
This is a clear demonstration that we are slowly normalising events that were anathema to us only a few years ago.
In the face of many such acts of extreme moral decadence, we shrug our shoulders and blame everything on our national excuse: poverty.
We blame poverty for thefts and robberies, for violence, rapes and even poor governance! It is left to the imagination of the outsider what sort of poverty is being referred to and, after close examination of the matter, one may correctly conclude that it is moral poverty and not material poverty that is being discussed.
Civilised states
History teaches us that individuals and nations evolve from primitive to civilised states over time. Often, the evolution involves learning to understand the needs of others and taking care of the most vulnerable members of a society.
Civilisation further entails development of certain values that define the nation, a moral compass that must be followed by all that would like to be known as members of the group.
In this regard, the foundation of the Kenyan nation seems to have failed, for we gained political independence and founded a state without a solid moral background that could outlast the ‘‘founding fathers’’.
The respect of institutions and laws was left to the individual whims of the rulers, leading to a situation where a law could be interpreted in all possible ways depending on which side of the argument one chooses to endorse.
Since independence, we have been experimenting with various models of national ideology as our moral guides. We have struggled under ‘‘African Socialism’’, capitalism and even flirted with a ‘‘go East’’ philosophy. Each time we only manage to borrow the clothes of our new ideological master without his manners.
If we had managed to embrace the philosophy and morality of the socialist in the same way Tanzania did at independence, we would not have the current back and forth arguments about what system of governance best suits this country.
Borrowing the capitalist mentality together with its moral underpinnings would have ensured that we base competition on a flat platform that offers opportunity to everyone at the beginning and eliminates unfair advantage.
Even if we had seriously decided to ‘‘look East’’ and take on the values and systems of the ‘‘Asian Tigers’’ and their successful neighbours, we would also have inherited the severe moral sanctions that characterise these nations.
It would, therefore, not have been uncommon to hear of ministers who jumped off cliffs over their involvement in political violence!
Kenya perfected the art of inheriting the outward appearances of a system of governance without internalising the associated values and morals.
It is this moral emptiness that allows murderers and thieves to dine with erstwhile moral beacons like religious clergy and other national opinion leaders. Today, masterminds of ethno-political violence in Kenya sit in judgment over the survivors of their atrocious acts while mouthing off about truth, justice and reconciliation and historial injustices.
The television documentary last week brought home the reality of our declining moral standards and the elasticity of our behaviour such that nothing is impossible any more.
We can now understand the national pastime of ‘‘grabbing’’ any unsecured property, knowing that if in future one is called to account, they may fall back on their tribesmates for support, or just blame poverty for their misdeeds.
In the interest of securing a prized inheritance for posterity, all Kenyans who still nurture that vestigial moral fibre must stand up to be counted. We must reassert the superiority of the moral compass over the demands of the moment, and demonstrate that we are a nation that cares for the future generations just as much as we care about ourselves.
The alternative is unimaginable.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine
www.lukoyeatwoli.com
Sunday Nation 11 October 2009
Last week I had a glimpse into some of the things that make it hard for Kenyans to get ahead in anything they try to do collectively at the national level.
Quite apart from our pathetic politics, everyday occurrences point to the true soul of the ordinary Kenyan. By studying the motivations behind the everyday behaviour of Kenyans, it will be possible to predict what to expect in the various situations facing our nation now and in the future.
During a prime time documentary on national television, people living next to a cemetery were shown desecrating graves and building their dwellings right on top of these so-called ‘‘final resting places’’.
In another location, residents were exhuming dead bodies ostensibly to create space to bury their own, and skulls and bones littered the cemetery in a caricature of some Hollywood horror movie.
Everybody in these communities continues to go about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening around them, and they would be mystified by any fuss made over their activities.
This is a clear demonstration that we are slowly normalising events that were anathema to us only a few years ago.
In the face of many such acts of extreme moral decadence, we shrug our shoulders and blame everything on our national excuse: poverty.
We blame poverty for thefts and robberies, for violence, rapes and even poor governance! It is left to the imagination of the outsider what sort of poverty is being referred to and, after close examination of the matter, one may correctly conclude that it is moral poverty and not material poverty that is being discussed.
Civilised states
History teaches us that individuals and nations evolve from primitive to civilised states over time. Often, the evolution involves learning to understand the needs of others and taking care of the most vulnerable members of a society.
Civilisation further entails development of certain values that define the nation, a moral compass that must be followed by all that would like to be known as members of the group.
In this regard, the foundation of the Kenyan nation seems to have failed, for we gained political independence and founded a state without a solid moral background that could outlast the ‘‘founding fathers’’.
The respect of institutions and laws was left to the individual whims of the rulers, leading to a situation where a law could be interpreted in all possible ways depending on which side of the argument one chooses to endorse.
Since independence, we have been experimenting with various models of national ideology as our moral guides. We have struggled under ‘‘African Socialism’’, capitalism and even flirted with a ‘‘go East’’ philosophy. Each time we only manage to borrow the clothes of our new ideological master without his manners.
If we had managed to embrace the philosophy and morality of the socialist in the same way Tanzania did at independence, we would not have the current back and forth arguments about what system of governance best suits this country.
Borrowing the capitalist mentality together with its moral underpinnings would have ensured that we base competition on a flat platform that offers opportunity to everyone at the beginning and eliminates unfair advantage.
Even if we had seriously decided to ‘‘look East’’ and take on the values and systems of the ‘‘Asian Tigers’’ and their successful neighbours, we would also have inherited the severe moral sanctions that characterise these nations.
It would, therefore, not have been uncommon to hear of ministers who jumped off cliffs over their involvement in political violence!
Kenya perfected the art of inheriting the outward appearances of a system of governance without internalising the associated values and morals.
It is this moral emptiness that allows murderers and thieves to dine with erstwhile moral beacons like religious clergy and other national opinion leaders. Today, masterminds of ethno-political violence in Kenya sit in judgment over the survivors of their atrocious acts while mouthing off about truth, justice and reconciliation and historial injustices.
The television documentary last week brought home the reality of our declining moral standards and the elasticity of our behaviour such that nothing is impossible any more.
We can now understand the national pastime of ‘‘grabbing’’ any unsecured property, knowing that if in future one is called to account, they may fall back on their tribesmates for support, or just blame poverty for their misdeeds.
In the interest of securing a prized inheritance for posterity, all Kenyans who still nurture that vestigial moral fibre must stand up to be counted. We must reassert the superiority of the moral compass over the demands of the moment, and demonstrate that we are a nation that cares for the future generations just as much as we care about ourselves.
The alternative is unimaginable.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and lecturer, Moi University School of Medicine
www.lukoyeatwoli.com
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