Ideological twaddle.

A few weeks ago, a Jubilee (Chupilee! Chupilee!) elected representative declared, rather grandiosely I thought, that the Jubilee coalition is conservative. He did not say what the CORD was; safe to say he did not think that CORD is conservative in any way, what with its reckless declarations of "regime change" and "dialogue."

"Conservative", as Wikipedia tells us, is "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." If that is Jubilee then a lot is clear about the decisions of its leaders, especially its leaders in the National Executive. For example, President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto have decided, against all conventional wisdom, that the security of the Republic is safe in the hands of Joseph Ole Lenku, Raychelle Omamo, Mutea Iringo, Monica Juma, Michael Gichangi and David Kimaiyo. They will not be fired nor will they be asked to resign. Jubilee, you see, is "cautious about change or innovation".

 He would have been better off not saying anything, or attempting to create that Jubilee was a political party of note. It is a coalition of interests; the jury is still out whether the interests of the Jubilee coalition intersect with those of the peoples of Kenya. Kenyan political parties, bar KANU, Ford-K and Ford-P, have pretty remarkable shelf-lives. NARC didn't even last a year before bad blood led to the Liberal Democratic Party rebellion from within. DP managed to survive until the day Mwai Kibaki decided to dump it for PNU. PICK never moved on from being proof of one man's planet-sized ego. Who is willing to put money down that TNA and URP will exist by the time the ICC Question is settled and Kenyans are gearing up for the next general election?

It takes time and determination to build a political party brand that can outlast its founder-members. A party is sustained by its rank-and-file; the leadership may provide strategic guidance but it is the rank-and-file who breath life to it, who mould its political ideology and who ensure that it can fight every election as one united and committed entity. There was a time when KANU very nearly became such a party but with the relentless assassinations of outspoken and charismatic political leaders, KANU became a briefcase for the avarice of a few.

Kenyans' disillusionment with their political leaders is demonstrated by their utter lack of interest in political parties as institutions. They have no problem turning political parties into matatus of convenience but they will not take the time to build institutions that they can be proud to be associated with long after they have shuffled off this mortal coil. Our degree of civic participation is abysmally low; we do not join political parties, we do not subscribe to political ideologies, we do not pay to support political parties and we do not care who are nominated in the political parties that we happen to be affiliated with at any one time. It is how politicians who crassly refer to foreskins become nominated by political parties today to stand in elections.

Whoever thought of comparing brand Jubilee with the Grand Old Party of the United States did his coalition and conservatism in general a great disservice: his coalition will forever fall short of  any comparison with the GOP; conservatism will have been joined by a crass upstart interested in foreskins and not much else. In the absence of ideas or ideology, it seems, foreskins define at least one party in Kenya. Tragically, the man making the bold claim to conservatism does not understand just how possible it is to mistakenly apply orthodoxy and traditional values to preventing the advancement of new arguments and ideas that may very well preserve that orthodoxy or tradition. Conservatism, quite frequently these days, is short hand for a fear of knowledge and learning. If there is a group of people who have demonstrated a pathological fear of learning and knowledge it is Kenya's elected representatives, whether they are in the Jubilee or the CORD or all points in between.

It is no that we do not have a substantial middle class but that it is substantially uninterested in anything that could threaten their little comforts, something that the travails of the tourism industry has hammered home in recent months. The ones squealing the loudest about the effect of the political noise are those whose bottom lines are shrinking every month. They are lucky that Uhuru Kenyatta's government is trying to find solutions though the ones that will work require more than President Kenyatta is able to deliver. The middle class in Kenya has been afraid of pointing out the nakedness of the emperor for as long as it has existed; in the harsh Twenty-first Century it will not stick its neck out for the good of the political system if the price of its ex-Dubai Land Cruiser is going to skyrocket or the cost of a Dirty Weekend in Zanzibar is going to put them in the poor house. They will go along in the hopes that one day they will get a fat wallet in their Christmas stockings.