If we are lucky

There are few of us who are truly privileged to have almost all, if not all, of our needs - and desires - catered for. More often than not, we always want for something - something that is just out of our reach, its scent wafting into our nostrils, enflaming our passions and, when we are careless, driving us mad with desire. It is, therefore, a test of our forbearance that for the most part, we keep our passionate desires at bay, denying ourselves the freedom that comes with the pursuit unrestrained hedonism. We learn, even when the spigots of the national treasury are thrown wide open, to temper how we enjoy the gifts that we receive.

This is not the case with those who have learnt nothing of the fatalities arising out of gluttony. Their baser instincts are so used to being satiated at the snap of their fingers that when the boom falls, the devastation it leaves behind is truly pitiable. The catastrophe is much worse when it befalls the men and women charged to govern the country. If you haven't been paying attention, in the past week, the High Court has lowered a devastating boom on the men and women top the edifice we call government. The High Court has denied them that which their political hearts desire above all else: the supine acquiescence of their subjects. The proof of the devastation is in the confused and frenzied pillar-to-post flitting by their acolytes as they attempt to set back the clock to the days when the presidential snap of the fingers led to the dismissal of bad judges.

I am most amused by the spectral whispering by their disciples in the so-called free press: editors and political journalists have spent the past week prophesying deadly outcomes if the judgment is allowed to stand. They have also amplified the voices of clever, though shortsighted, members of the Kenyan Bar who continue to make increasingly shrill observations about constitutional crises that only they can see. Few of these highly motivated sirens have bothered to take a step back and ask whether or not their sense of entitlement - theirs and those of their patrons - were ever meant to be satisfied in the first place.

The merits, or otherwise, of the appeal are neither here nor there. The highly paid legal eagles for each side of the argument will plead their case before senior judges and the best argument - or the best political argument - will prevail and the show will move on to the Supreme Court. But the question as to whether the unhappy, super-entitled men and women who disagree with the uppity-ness of the lower classes should continue to be indulged remains unanswered. The temerity with which the judges of the High Court have recklessly refused to indulge the self-centred and entitled whims of the Kenyan aristocracy has been received with shock and everything the aristocracy's loyal footsoldiers have done has represented the rage that pervades that aristocracy's psyche and salons. If the judgment is not reversed, it may very well lead to a class psychosis that shall be terrible to behold - or experience.

Kenya is yet to reckon with the existence of its aristocracy represented by its members in the political executive, the legislatures, the judiciary, business and academia and the institutions of religion that continue to offer spiritual and social solace to the lower classes. The judgment, in my opinion, is the first serious attempt to push back at the demands of the self-entitled classes. It builds on the tentative steps taken by the Chief Justice in 2017 and 2020 - the vitiating of a presidential election and the demand that parliament should be dissolved for subverting the will of the people - and, if we are lucky, the judgment might inspire us to put our foot down against the demands of the ministers of faith and the avarice of the business classes. If we are lucky.