The horrors on Paul Makenzie’s Shakahola farm have been pressing on my mind some of the greatest dreamers I have read about.
Dreamers or visionaries are always dissatisfied with the status quo or circumstances of the times. These dreamers have faced revolting situations in three different ways.
Some dreamers conjure up imaginary life or circumstances, and create institutions in them that manage people’s lives in ways that maximise joy and minimise pain. These are mainly political philosophers, writers and prophets.
The worlds these dreamers build exist in the mind. The best known such dreamer or visionary is George Orwell. Orwell had doubts about the efficacy of communism and totalitarianism as an alternative system of government, having had first-hand experience of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War.
He wrote Animal Farm to demonstrate the hypocrisy and the degrading effect of communism and totalitarianism on society. His other great book, 1984, shows in stark terms, the full implications of totalitarian government on society.
The other big dreamer of an alternative society was Plato. He paints his imaginary state in a book called The Republic, a core book for students of Political Science in most universities.
Plato was dissatisfied with the pretension of democracy. His imaginary political system of government is based on a leadership that has been painstakingly educated into certain values and perspectives.
The other no less small dreamer was Thomas More. His dream state is found in his book Utopia. If you didn't know, it is this book where the word utopia is invoked by those who resist new ideas.
We have so many other dreamers like Edward Bellamy. His dreamland is found in his book, Looking Backward, Erewhon by Samuel Butler and News from Nowhere by William Moris.
Shaaban bin Robert's Kusadikika is another example of a dreamlike state in the mind.
We have other dreamers who didn't build their states in their minds but in the here and now.
Like the dreamers we have just related, these ones were equally disappointed with the scheme of things and migrated to build a physical utopia in the USA.
Most of the dreamers were from England and continental Europe. They independently went to the USA and set up a society, communities that they felt could provide a better life for its people.
They were dissatisfied with the growing industrialisation in England and political unrest in continental Europe. We had Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Anne Lee. They established communities with their own rules or constitutions in different parts of the USA—attracting in some cases, the sympathetic attention of leading political leaders of the day.
Another category of dreamers or visionaries is political leaders who seek, through formal political institutions, to transform their societies after their own version.
The political history of the USA is replete with such dreamers or visionaries. In many ways, the Founding Fathers of the USA were dreamers or visionaries. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were dreamers par excellence.
They were the first constellation of statesmen, in the words of The Federalist Paper Number 1 by Hamilton “decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”
The USA has had successive dreamers or visionaries in its politics. The visionaries have always sought to correct things and ensure that its government serves the people better and better.
Most of them expressed their dreams or vision about their society through speeches. Either during inaugural addresses or during turning points in the country.
Abraham Lincon’s Gettysburg Address, which redefined the Civil War aims, and the Second Inaugural Address, which eschewed reprisals to the rebellious Southern States with the concluding paragraph: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
And you have Martin Luther King Jr's vision of a nonracial USA in I have a Dream speech. There is President George H Bush's vision encapsulated in his 1989 Inaugural address: “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.”
In many ways, Moses and the major prophets in the Old Testament were dreamers of a better society for their people. And so was Jesus Christ. His Sermon on the Mount envisions a panorama of life that is inspiring away from the materialism we see all around us.
In general, dreamers are humanistic. They seek to regenerate society and its institutions. They are the conscience of civilisation. They correct or prick institutions when they become complacent or lose their nerves.
But with this spirit of dreaming, they can impact the institutions or organisations they find themselves in, years hence.
All institutions have or must have dreamers of some kind. They are useful in suggesting more effective and efficient ways of doing things in contrast to and comparison with current policies, procedures, processes, or even vision.
Joseph Schumpeter called such dreamers entrepreneurs. They bring creativity or innovation to an organisation or more especially a business. Such as joining an organisation or institution not just technical skills but dreams and visions.
Dreamers of light are very important to society.
It's very important that at some point, learners in school (primary and secondary) and university, including college, get exposed to the works of the dreamers of dreams about a better and more compassionate society.
It is from such great works that young people find meaning and purpose not just for life but for working. And with meaning and purpose, they cannot only help build society and its institutions, but resist the snare of being hypnotised by the dreamers of darkness and death.
They can also help spread meaning and purpose to young people and mentors, models and coaches.
Kenya needs dreamers of light and not darkness. The dreamers of light will make it difficult for dreamers of darkness to gain control over vulnerable youth.
