The gods will not save us

If the Gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back. It's Baltimore, gentlemen; the Gods will not save you. - Ervin Burrell, The Wire (S3E3)

If there ever was a truth that my peoples need to learn, it is that all the demigods they have created for themselves - the preening, selfish, avaricious, malicious and vindictive men (and a few women) they call "politicians" - deserve nothing but a cold shoulder if not a closed fist. It baffles me that otherwise sensible men and women still believe that what Kenya needs is incremental tinkering with the structures of political, economic, social and ecumenical power. I think it must be the water. Or urogi. Or uchawi. Something!

Those who unfortunate enough to watch the "presidential debates" between television news anchors and presidential candidates must have seen what I saw: a conspiracy to create the impression that politicians' feet were being held to the fire while, in reality, they were receiving hot stone massages from their pet TV entertainers. For sure, the TV pets threw in a sharp-toothed nip here and there that startled the pet-owners but all in all, it was a saccharine exercise in arse-kissing that served the power-brokers and un-served the people intending to vote.

Kenya and Kenyans have a habit of tiptoeing to the edge of truly radical change and pulling back at the last moment. We had an opportunity in 1990 when section 2A of the former Constitution was repealed. We had a second opportunity in 2000 when we appointed the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission and adopted the Bomas Draft. We had a third in the aftermath of the 2007 general election, when the country convulsed itself in terrible violence, and appointed a Committee of Experts in 2008 to consolidate all the constitutional reforms in a Harmonised Draft Constitution. At every stage, when faced with the hard choices that needed to be made, Kenyans kicked the can down the road and prayed to all its demigods to save them from having to make the decision.

Well, if it wasn't clear enough, the gods will not save us.

It behoves us to admit this to ourselves. It is the only way that we can recognise the iniquity of well-paid, fattened monsters making laws over us. The televised drama of the lies the candidates were prepared to openly peddle hid a dark secret; neither the politicians nor the neutered press is remotely interested in the truth. They will serve us drama, sensationalism, histrionics and all the other spectacles beloved of the entertainment industry to lull us into a false sense of constitutional accountability. It is a well-practiced sleight of hand. Regardless of what they profess their political stances to be, the one thing they are united in is in denying the people who vote for them the truth - or any access to the truth.

The gods intend to fuck us till we are quite dead. And then they will desecrate our corpses. And dance on our Potter's Field full of graves.

Radical change - a complete tear-down of these structures of power and control and abuse - is the only solution. Radical change will not be led by the people seeking political power in the general election. Nor will it be led by the people hiding the truth about the state of things even as they call themselves "the media". It will not be led by judges and magistrates - not those people who were so aggrieved that they were denied Mercedes-Benzes that they threatened to boycott work.

No, my peoples. The gods will not save us. We have to save ourselves. Only then can we save our country.