It’s a great honour to respond to
your open letter to me on this inauspicious
day when the world
is mourning the passing of a remarkable
revolutionary leader, El Comandante
Fidel Castro.
I’ve not been to Florence, Italy. I
therefore envy your leisurely strolls on
her cobbled streets.
I’m committed to transforming
Nairobi’s dilapidated infrastructure to
the levels of those lovely streets that
only the privileged few Kenyans like
you now enjoy.
I intend to do it for Rakiel Kaoka, a
jobless graduate who stands daily in
the scorching tropical sun at the corner
of Limuru Road and The UN Avenue
in Gigiri, Nairobi, with a placard
that reads: “Jobless Graduate.
Please
help!”
Like tens of millions of other
unemployed Kenyan youth, Rakiel
isn’t just jobless; she is also homeless
and has nothing to eat. She has no access
to quality healthcare.
To women like Rakiel, a leisurely
walk on the streets of Florence is an
unfathomable dream.
Millions of Kenyans
who are struggling to feed their
families don’t define their “dignity”
based on a deliberate misinterpretation
of a satirical statement I made in
response to false allegations by some
privileged woman with enough money
and time to fly out to exotic destinations
around the world for leisurely
pursuits.
You remind me of Amilcar Cabral’s
caution: “Always bear in mind that
the people are not fighting for ideas,
for the things in anyone’s head. They
are fighting to win material benefits,
to live better and in peace, to see their
lives go forward, to guarantee the future
of their children…”
Millions of Kenyans have been rendered
destitute by “leaders” who steal
public land and assets.
These impoverished
Kenyans are the ones who keep
me awake daily. They don’t appreciate
careless statements in your letter
claiming that they are better off with
“leaders” who steal their land and assets
and render them destitute.
The dignity of millions of Kenyans
living in filthy slums is intricately
intertwined with their material conditions.
They all desire to live comfortably
like you. However, they don’t
have the luxury to engage in your elitist
quarrels over nomenclature.
Revolutionaries like me consider
Nicolo Machiavelli a reactionary philosophical
‘god’ with no place in the
pantheon where Karl Marx, Frederich
Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Che Guevara,
Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral
reign.
Machiavelli’s The Prince – like my
words with which you seem to have
difficulty – was not meant to be read.
LITERALLY.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary
states that “satire applies humour, irony,
exaggeration or ridicule to expose
and criticise people’s stupidity or vices,
particularly in the context of contemporary
politics and other topical
issues.”
The Prince was meant to be read as a satire. It was “a call for good leaders to
overcome their intrinsic weaknesses.”
I don't
subscribe to the Machiavellian
dictum that “in politics, virtue
must often be traded for some amount
of vice if one wishes to be successful.”
A society that stifles free thought,
suppresses speech and seeks to publicly
lynch those like me who use satire,
sarcasm or figures of speech,
isn’t
a free society.
A civilization based on
intellectual vigilantism cannot thrive.
Although I’ve re-read your letter
carefully, line-by-line, five times, I’m
unable to see a single word or expression I uttered that you found so offensive
that you would threaten to support
thieves, looters and drug dealers
who have messed up our country for
the last 55 years.
Words only have meaning within
the contexts in which they are used.
Your assertion that my “attitude
towards women” must catch up with
my “progressive, visionary thinking”
isn’t just unsubstantiated; it’s also internally
contradictory. A visionary and
progressive thinker like me cannot
hold retrogressive thoughts against
women as you have falsely alleged I do.
I find it distasteful that your open
letter wasn’t addressed to people looting
billions of public money; grabbing
hundreds of thousands of acres of
public land; physically assaulting and
raping women and children; and presiding
over unprecedented mismanagement
of our public affairs.
It’s unclear whom the “we” in your letter refers to since I’m certain it
doesn’t represent my daughters, wife, sisters and colleagues with whom I
work who felt scandalised when I was
falsely accused on live TV of being a
rapist by someone I have only met in
public.
When you accuse me of disrespect
of women on account of your
deliberate mis-characterisation of my
satirical response to the malicious allegation
against me, do the hurt feelings
of all the women in my life count?
Are my rights deemed inferior to a
woman’s because I’m a man?
The desperate attempt to caricature
and lampoon me will not change the
facts. I’m not going to be bludgeoned
into submission by the manufactured,
distorted and twisted slants of what I
did not say.
No, Daisy, I’ll not apologize for
speaking the truth even if Machiavelli
would disapprove. I don’t want to join
your elitist and “cultured” Florentine
dinner table.