Mr Bindra strikes again

The cult of the Superboss makes us fixate on individuals rather than institutions. We await messiahs to haul us up instead of hauling ourselves up. We buy the myth of the super-being, and sit around waiting to be saved.—Sunny Bindra

As usual Sunny Bindra points out something that we instinctively know to be true but don't trust ourselves enough to square what we know with what we have been told. Mr Bindra is a keen student and observer of the managerial classes, and he writes about them with better clarity, wit and incisiveness than I ever will about the object of my study and observation, the political elite.

Ever since Jaramogi Oginga Odinga said "No" to the colonial government's attempt to keep out Jomo Kenyatta from the post-Independence government of Kenya, we have lived a political life of—the right president, the right MP, the right MCA, the right someone—so that the governance of Kenya can take us to that Canaan that just seems to be forever over the horizon, if only we could get to it. If you ask the question, Why is Kenya so tribalised? you will be reminded that Mzee and Baba Moi were "bad" presidents, that Mwai Kibaki tried, and that the gains made under Mr Kibaki are being lost because Uhuru is either worse than Moi or, alternatively, he seeks to restore the Moi School of Politics. What you may fail to notice is that the answer is predicated on the idea that only the president can save us—if only he were good!

It is true that every now and then an inspired and inspirational politician will get us to a place we never thought we could go. Love him or hate him, Ronald Reagan was the right inspirational US president when Mikhail Gorbachev considered glasnost and perestroika, Nelson Mandela was the right conscience of the world when he ended apartheid in South Africa, Thomas Sankara was the right revolutionary when he attempted to instil pride in the Burkinabe when he installed his revolutionary government in Burkina Faso, and so on. The right politician at the right time can create the circumstances needed for a nation to transition from one phase to another. But that is not all that goes into the making of a nation and the forging of a people into one.

The people, for whom the politician purports to speak, must believe that it can be done. In 2008, "Yes We Can" was a clarion call that captured the imaginations of millions and propelled a "junior senator from Illinois", in the contemptuous, curled-lip words of the Kenya's spokesman, to the pinnacle of world politics. It came to pass because those millions of US citizens believed in the vision that Barack Obama laid down for his fellow citizens. But Mr Obama was plowing in a fertile field; the United States, even with the tribal bitterness that prevails today, has some of the most robust public institutions: stable political parties, a remarkably pliable yet firm constitutional order, and the acquiescence of the people in the exercise of institutional power—even where they don't trust the institutions, as countless opinion polls continue to demonstrate.

Kenya does not have what the United States has and we are far from getting them if the almost absolute distrust and fear of public institutions is anything to go by. Barely three years after it was formed, Kenyans aren't sure that they can trust the repository of the rule of law any more. The Supreme Court, headed by a "superman" Chief Justice, is being seen as the epitome of hypocrisy. It is not the only one. Political parties, legislative chambers, public offices, state agencies and corporations, the police and the army all share two qualities that they should be ashamed of: they are distrusted by the majority of the people and they are feared in equal measure. All the supermen in the world will not make that which is distrusted and feared trustworthy or lovable if the ones required to trust and love don't have a stake.

The Chief Justice, no matter how much he has attempted to demystify the judiciary, is no closer to the people than his predecessors were. He lives in a world that is alien to the millions of Kenyans who were supposed to see a saviour in him. His fellow supermen—the president, the speakers, the governors—are just as removed from the people. The institutions they lead are designed to separate them from the people. They must shatter the cozy understanding of what national institutions must be. For want of a better example, they must become the Thomas Sankaras of the day giving up the trappings of power, and living the life that tens of millions live until the rising tides lift all boats. If they cannot, all their superhuman desires will fall on stony ground and will never bloom into nationhood.