Political inclinations are superficial, as they often use simple logic to arrive at a conclusion. This way, they act as a point of reference to many no matter their social or education status. The more people believe in the logic, the more powerful is the narrative.
In this manner, a whole mass of people is herded in to a common belief and therefore controlled to procure a pre-determined outcome. This is the true essence of societal stratification that helps maintain the status quo, leading to political inertia and predictability. This way, power wielders maintain themselves at their privileged positions by manipulating the masses to self-reproduce and therefore self-serve/perpetuate.
One of the most powerful means to achieve this is usually through the media, a very powerful tool that has been used to enlighten and empower the masses since the invention of the printing press in medieval Europe. But it has also been used to suppress the true will of the people by the very forces of dominance and coercion.
It’s indeed ironical that even in a democratic country, those who get elected into power by the very masses have a propensity to work against their interests through elaborate and well entrenched elite capture schemes that don’t serve the initial purpose of ensuring equal opportunity for all.
Competing political elites no longer fight physically but use the media as a platform for engagement in their rather vicious wars. In many instances, the truth gets lost or suppressed in the process.
More than 50 years ago, Malcolm X aptly captured this phenomenon when he said: “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power, because they control the minds of the masses.
"The press is so powerful in its image-making role. It can make the criminal look like he is the victim and make the victim look like he is the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers (radio and TV) will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”.
Often, it’s those who are able to buy the media that get their stories slotted for broadcasting. This explains the reason why political news dominates our headlines at the expense of say innovation. Some people ensure certain headlines or angles to a story get to see light of day, and the version of competitors doesn’t.
The most discerning of the audience being the most educated use logic to make conclusions, depending on material evidence provided to them. That’s what we get taught in school right? The use of deductive and inductive reasoning.
However, what we don’t usually question is: Who is controlling the narrative? Who gets his version of the story published or broadcast? Who controls what I call the ‘megaphone'?
In this regard, I mean the media owners versus the editorial policy. While for a long time the two were distinct, this space has really shrunk to the point that certain people cannot be hosted in some media houses due to their political stand or persuasion.
The next time you read about say a corruption scandal, just ask who could be using the story to mudsling the competitor or to cover up for their own mega scandal or inefficiency.
Political reportage with its own version of corruption in the name of brown envelope journalism has been used to assassinate people’s reputation, especially because the majority of the masses are too busy trying to eke out a living from hand to mouth to have time to verify the facts.
The oppressor knows this too well and has mastered the art of propaganda as a means to maintain his stranglehold of dominance. Slavery never ended but morphed into specialisations like lawyering or blogging.
With similar wages to those of casual labourers who do menial tasks, the oligarch can employ peoples brains to do their bidding to deconstruct anyone who poses a threat to their hegemony and sense of entitlement to power and privilege.
Character can never be assassinated, but reputation can and as they say, if you want to kill a dog, gives it a bad name. Otherwise people shall discover the good that is in that person to the detriment of the fakery and conmanship resident in the forces of dominance and oppression.
Scapegoating is an art that has been used to divert attention from the real issues bedevilling a people or a nation. The west uses Africa to hoodwink its masses of their ignorant ‘bliss’ not to focus on the ravages of the slavery of capitalism.
In Kenya, the blame is on the politician and the tribe. Thank God we have social media that has made the franchise to be more democratic.
So don’t just believe what you are told but keep on searching for the unspoken, unwritten incontrovertible truth, since it’s only through this that it shall set us free. Susan Mugwe, I hope you get me.
