Kenya: A Corruption-Doomed Nation..

I'm not addressing this to any other existing politician either, because there aren't any in high places who seem able to take on the mantle that is now required; they're all too corrupt or caught up in a dying and dysfunctional system.

 

Yet the appeal itself is still valid and must now be addressed to new leadership and conscious governance that we so desperately need. This vacancy needs filling and there are openings.

-         BRIAN O’LEARY

May 15,2011

By Sami Zayne

Has Kenya become an intellectually neutered society? These are the questions I mull over when I read scores of articles available in the press in which Kenyans continue canonizing latter day politicians. Will the populace ever learn? I ask myself these questions when the average man starts coining phrases ‘But he is our thief’ or the popular one ‘that’s all persecution for his ideology’ that has become associated with one of the modern-day demagogues.

“The average man is daft”, quipped my good friend and fellow intellect Ike, a statement I am persuaded to concur with. Isaac Asimov once wrote, "When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.". I believe we now live in precisely such a time, and this situation is particularly poignant for us Kenyans now paying for the expense of electing Baals into positions of power while feeling the pinch of economic collapse.

Modern-day politicians come into the office on the wings of conflict between their own vested interests and a public clamoring for authentic change which so many Kenyans entrust them with. They, therefore, stand in the middle of an enormous gulf of interests, and I am sure that they struggle with this conflict in their deepest heart.

It is no wonder most of the politicians crumble under this pressure which is hastened also by the intoxicating nature of power that seduces the average politician to continue monotonously with the same sing-song that has become addictive. Why you may ask. It is because we have given them an avenue oftentimes in the public agora that incentivizes them to jettison themselves into higher echelons of power. ’A game of musical chairs’ was what the articulate communications expert Barrack Muluka called it.

And still, we just silently accept this dystopian nightmare decade after decade, election after election.

 

We're not being so complacent because we think it will all someday go away, no... we're mostly just holding out long enough to get our own share of the pie or rather, ‘our guy at the top’, because everyone knows that the merits of fair play are for fools. And that’s what makes me to, unfortunately, lean towards my fellow intellect’s discourse, ‘that most Kenyans are daft’.

 

When the deputy president of a country goes live on mainstream media and brazenly tells the populace that corruption doesn’t matter, then it begs heavy questions that need to be answered. When did shit hit the fan?... Kenyans have demonstrated that if a politician is alleged to be involved in a corruption saga, then that person becomes attractive to the electorate. It is the classic tale of the nocturnal moth being drawn to the flame, that kills it.

 

To reach a point where every youth out there wants to be part of the looting or lead in the looting, if given any position of power, means that the pervasiveness of corruption has deeply degraded the very virtues that supported the fabric of our society; integrity being one of them. It exposes a festering wound in the current society whose putrefying stench will live to haunt us for eons.

 

Why in the hell then should a youth or a student, for that matter, stay in school, study and fight uphill to make something for himself on minimum wage (if lucky); when he can vie for any political position in the country and embezzle millions if not billions of taxpayers' money and then live-in leafy suburbs of Nairobi?? Remember the ’The wash wash cabal’, a term that has become synonymous, if not appealing to the modern-day youth.

 

Those are real, tangible millions - and it's so blessed easy! Whether on the street corner, campus corridors, or in the executive boardrooms high above; the promise of quick riches and a shortcut to success is all the temptation most people need to forsake any claim on integrity and follow the siren song of corruption.

 

There are of course many who never succumb to the allure of corruption at all, but instead are screaming their lungs out in the fight against it. We never actually see these folks though, being as the system routes them to the psychiatric ward straight away. They're still chasing after the slippery notion of a corruption-free society. This is the allegory of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity to always pursue the same loop.

 

Along with you can't fight the norm, we hear other mantras of conformity such as Don't rock the boat, and of course the old standard, if you can’t beat them, join them, and that’s why those who are elected on the narrative that they are going to expose the thieves, take, for example, a former investigative journalist, or the most infamous one, a certain Woman Rep who elicits hostile reactions from the residents of the county, fall deep into the abyss, because you see, it is the very nature of corruption that it cannot permit any opposing voices; because those who are corrupt know full well that money/wealth is a very effective seductress.

 

Subconsciously we use these mantras to ease our conscience each time we are tempted and tainted by corruption. We know that deep down lying is wrong and that we should never do it; yet the average person cannot get thru the week without at least a couple of little white lies tossed into the mix for whatever motivation. It has become part of our society to lie and deceive: so much so in fact that at any given time the average person is just two decisions away from benefiting from corruption.

 

In the end, I suppose it's best to join the silent majority and avoid upsetting the status quo by attempting to unify people against a soul killer like corruption. It's a complete waste of time because when you call corruption out, it fights back, and if you try too hard to rouse up your sleeping pals, you'll soon be as popular as a snake in a sleeping bag.

 

Bad way to wake up, so it's a lose-lose situation all around. Corruption appeals to many people because it plays on another basic human trait: the need to feel better or more exceptional than others.

 

Those who feel so superior also usually feel exempt from having to achieve great things in the traditional way of working hard. Being so obviously special negates the need to play by "fools’ rules" anyway, so why not jump to the head of the line any way you can? Maybe we're all mad here.

 

For the rest of us who haven't yet caught the disease, there isn't much good news, our side loses folks to the other side every day as corruption has become the de-facto currency of the entire country. Don't expect it to change, it never will.