The tongue has only one use, sir.

Pull your tongue out of my arsehole, Gary. Dogs do that. You're not a dog, are ya, Gary? ~ Bricktop, Snatch

Guy Ritchie has a way with dialogue in his films and in Snatch, he was in fine form. A tale about gangsters, diamond heists, and unlicensed boxing matches, it is the language and the way it is deployed in the service of the story that captures the imagination and makes for an enjoyable hour and a half. Bricktop is the homicidal gangster who has no time for anyone, including his sycophants, and Gary, he of the "pull yer tongue out of me arsehole, Gary", is fed to Bricktop's pigs.

I wonder what will happen to Jubilee's and CORD's sycophants. We have had great fun deriding their sycophancy. They have defied the laws of logic, good taste and sanity. They have deployed remarkable powers of rhetoric without considering that in Kenya, there are no permanent political enemies. One day, their utility will end and they may yet find themselves fed to the pigs.

The president, last night, laid down the law, as he saw it: there is no money; the economy cannot support it; therefore, the national government, through the Teachers' Service Commission, can't pay and won't pay teachers what they claim and what they have been awarded by the Employment and Labour Court. The teachers have been on strike since the start of the third term and they show no signs of yielding. The national government has ordered the closure of all schools, public and private, primary and secondary, for as long as the teachers stay away from work, for the safety of the children. Parents are not happy; the cost of tending to their children is high, or so they argue.

What makes this situation farcical are the sycophantic noises emanating from both sides of the debate. Pro-government voices, taking their cue long before the president made his views known, are adamant that there is no money, and that the teachers are being very, very unpatriotic. Anti-government voices, led by the doyen of oppositional agita, is equally adamant that if twenty five billion shillings can be found for the NYS and 250 billion stashed overseas, there is definitely money for the teachers, a paltry seventeen billion. The sycophants, though, don't care for the facts and figures unless they are in favour of the positions they have taken. What they really care about is to be seen to be vocally, stridently in favour of the position their leaderships have taken.

Talking heads in the morning talk shows have being reinforcing their leaderships' positions, cherry-picking where they can, facts and figures that have absolutely no relation to the situation at hand, that is, that a court made an award, that the award has not been paid, that teachers are on strike, that children are out of school, that everyone has taken a hard stance, and that the solution is no longer about the law or the budget, but about politics. Those with their tongues up their leaderships' arseholes should take a beat and consider this: Kenyans are not blind and no matter the benefits of sycophancy in the short run, eventually Kenyans will treat you with contempt if you mistake arse-licking for loyalty. One is mindless and blind; the other is reasoned and pragmatic. Knowing the difference is the difference between respect and scorn.