You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
Kenya last week celebrated 60 years of endless promises. Year after year. Regime after regime. Election after election.
At the end of the sixth decade of political independence, there are still more promises, carried over from 1963. The same promises – of making life better for the majority – have been made during subsequent elections and regimes.
President Jomo Kenyatta and his compatriots made glowing promises when the Union Jack came down at Uhuru Gardens. The three enemies of the new nation were named. Promises were made to crush the enemies completely, after the fall of the colonial curtain.
President Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta made more or less the same promises. They did so with the same resolve and emotional depth that made their promises swallowable to the gullible.
Yet, after 60 years of independence, and counting, poverty, disease, and ignorance still run amok, amidst the pandemonium of deceit and conceit.
The people are always willing to listen to more promises from political leaders. The masses clap and cheer, tantalised and inebriated with decibels of deceit.
Politics of handouts, and lofty promises, always blind people to reason. The promises hardly translate into tangible, measurable and sustainable actions.
The inaction, or token actions and reactions, should worry right-thinking citizens. The tragedy is that politics of the stomach swallows reason. There isn’t a critical mass of reasonable citizens to tell the difference.
Leaders are crying as they make more promises. The lowdown people are also crying as they play a cast in the vicious game of endless promises.
The promises were given to their grandparents, parents, and now their children. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States recalls, in Ronald Reagan: An American Life, the paradox of changelessness of the US civil service during the Second World War.
He writes that a government office sought permission to destroy obsolete papers to create room for new filings. The permission was granted provided copies were made, and safely kept, of each paper destroyed.
After the 2027 General Election, there will be more promises to a people who have played passive audience to endless promises. Amnesia is a way of national life. We remember only what we want to remember; we forget what we should remember.
Those who wield state power, and enjoy control of government and public resources, also claim national challenges keep them awake. They toss in bed, seeking spiritual and miraculous solutions to practical challenges.
Instead of building dams to harvest and store water for irrigation, we pray for rain. When rains fail, we play victims of a capricious god. It’s the tragedy of fatalism.
The powerful also cry as they make more promises. The vulnerable moan as they play helpless victims to endless promises. Inhabitants of this land of endless promises need mental checkup. There must be something wrong with a people who make mistakes time after time, yet still expect different results.
There are two types of tears from two tiers of people: There are crocodile tears; there are also tears of victims or accomplices of shedders of crocodile tears. None of the tears is genuine.
There are no lessons learnt from those superfluous tears of convenience and short-lived tears of afterthought.
Crocodile tears are fake expressions of remorse. They are expressions of emotions of deceit. The powerful weep for the poor, and join in sleepless solidarity with the vulnerable. But deep down, they are happy with the status quo.
William J H Boetcker once said, “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.”
Mass ignorance and gullibility of the electorate offer a fertile ground for mass deceit.
Crocodiles are known to express phoney emotions when they are devouring their victims. Crocodiles pray for their prey to continue being vulnerable to deceit so that they can eat. The paradox of the tears of victims is obvious: they learn nothing from crocodile tears.
