One of the most uncomfortable things in this country is the sheer number of fools you encounter on any given day.
Whenever there is a trending topic on mainstream or social media, the sheer majority of people you meet will blubber on like hypnotised parrots, not keen to get the facts right or seek more information on the said matter.
In a way, this is the basis of all the tribal stereotypes and stigma prevalent in this country.
This past week, there was drama revolving around an alleged stoning of DP William Ruto’s convoy in Kondele, Kisumu, the proverbial belly of the beast of political campaigns.
For the DP, it wasn’t the first time to come under hostile reception in quick succession, having already encountered similar turbulence in Busia and Kieni, Nyeri county.
But you can be sure Kondele was going to be hyped louder than all of them, and you probably know why.
Let us revisit the video of the DP’s 'stoning' for a moment.
In it, Ruto actually addresses cheering youths and finishes his speech peacefully, before bidding farewell in the local dialect. He speaks from an open SUV rooftop, for good measure.
He then enters his vehicle to leave, when apparently something is thrown that sends the crowd into pandemonium.
The police explanation later was that local youths were fighting over cash handouts earlier given by Ruto made perfect sense, given the chronology of events.
If Kondele does not want a politician to speak, it does not wait until the end to throw stones.
Clearly, it was at the end of the speech that supposedly betrayed youths realised the function was ending without their cut.
With the evidence clear as daylight, it was extremely irresponsible for politicians of the Tangatanga wing to suggest it was an attack aimed at DP Ruto, or organised by ODM chief Raila Odinga.
But since lies and propaganda are a dangerous staple of the Tangatanga movement, nobody questioned them, not even mainstream media, who had clear clips, to tell the truth.
Truth be told, I am pleasantly surprised the DP gets a warm welcome in certain parts of the country.
He has a derogatory reference for each of his competitors and leads a political formation where make-believe and alternative facts find a natural home.
I have never seen anything like it in the modern era.
There have been fierce political contests in this land, but we have never degenerated to the level where other leaders are called names like mganga, which is a broad-daylight attempt to dehumanise them, and often, their communities and supporters.
This country embraces the culture of silence as a way of life, but deep down, we must surely recognise the DP’s references to the ODM boss constitute the lowest our politics has ever sunk.
In storming the former PM’s political stronghold, he must have been aware of deep-seated issues below the surface, even though typical of such politician, mganga was replaced by Agwambo as soon as the convoy entered the Luo heartland.
Over the years, the spectacle of political violence has stayed close to our campaigns and events around the lives of senior politicians.
The earliest post-Independence cases have to be the violence following the murder of Tom Mboya, including the Kisumu killings three months later, during the opening of the Russian-built hospital.
A quick glance will reveal that subsequent to that, there was heavy violence following the murder of JM Kariuki in 1975, then the 1982 coup attempt, and pro-democracy riots in the late '80s and early '90s.
But the arrival of multi-party democracy, accompanied by the evil rise of tribal enclaves, brought with it a new, murderous form of violence that involved the transfer of populations and historical claims on land.
With this, names such as Olenguruone, Enoosupukia, Molo, Burnt Forest, Likoni, Songhor, Kopere and many others, entered the national vocabulary — synonymous with tribal and political violence.
Worse was to come when the 2007 election went south, and the country went up in flames, especially the Rift Valley region.
The burning of women and children in a church in Kiambaa, and families hiding in houses in Naivasha will forever remain the true faces of the infamous violence of 2007-08.
There is no doubt that Kondele, or Kibra’s own infamy with the destruction of the rail line, remain absolutely pale in comparison to the real cases of political, ethnic and land violence that this country has had to contend with.
I have argued here before that marginalisation and ethnic stereotyping tend to hide in plain sight in our politics.
You can include the dehumanisation of entire communities. Take just two recent incidents to see how conversations were manipulated.
The first was the former PM’s own tour of Ruto’s Eldoret stronghold, where he received a rousing welcome.
Local leaders, obviously shocked by the turnout, passed it off as 'political maturity' and warned 'other areas' to drop the 'culture of stone-throwing".
The second obviously was the DP’s Kisumu visit and the derogatory lumping of the entire community as watu wa mawe.
Ironically, Ruto’s Luo Nyanza visit continued after the Kondele mishap, and the UDA brigade was happy to share videos of successful vote hunts in Homa Bay and Migori.
This was the same community whose supposed “culture of stones” was being condemned just minutes earlier.
Following disputed and vicious electoral cycles in the past, the Luo community has subsequently welcomed both President Kibaki and President Uhuru enthusiastically — a sign of its unique ability to drop it's grandstanding as soon as elections are gone.
I dare say, this may be one of the reasons the so-called deep state currently leans towards the community as the next 'ruling tribe'.
I am not sure how many communities in this land can collectively and easily be christened as 'forgiving'.
But I know for certain that in the history of political violence, even where the Luo have been caricatured as the perpetrators, the casualty list still shows them as the most numerous victims.
The type of violence is also telling, mainly stone-throwing, burning of property and destruction of the good old railways.
None of this will ever reach the levels of violence in other places mentioned earlier.
But if it is okay to attach the name Raila Odinga to the spontaneous actions of a few youths in Kondele, and label the former PM mtu wa kupanga mawe, just because it is in his stronghold, at what point do we also examine the real violence of Molo, Kiambaa, Olenguruone and other places?
Can we classify it either as mtu wa mishale or mtu wa kuchoma?
As I have stated before, there is a political formation in this country where derogatory references to leaders and communities are taken as normal.
But political probity doesn’t find a balance because other leaders choose basic decency rather than replying in kind.
You can tell dangerous politicians by how they insult competitors, then arrive in those leaders’ strongholds with totally changed talking points.
When a leader needs to compartmentalise messaging by region, the voter must stay awake.
In a nutshell though, if this country chooses to have the difficult conversation around violence, Kondele will not be the worst, even remotely.
Those waxing lyrical about a culture of violence in certain communities may find the finger pointing somewhere very uncomfortable.
(Edited by V. Graham)
