from peter okelo

The Building of a National Culture: Reflections on the Constitution

(By Peter Okelo, Kisumu, Kenya)

Kenya stands on the verge of avalanche, a landslide of socio-political, but most importantly, a further national psychic transformation. I emphasize psychic transformation because nation building is significantly a psychological process. I do so without truncating the overall reality of cumulative nation building process, nor overlooking the practical impact and implications of the same, and hopefully emphasize the psychic without reducing this all important process to a matter of mere psychology.

The current constitutional draft and process of adopting it is part of an essential process of building and reinforcing what Frantz Fanon might call a ‘national culture’ (see The Wretched of the Earth). Our national culture has been all this time based on a document with limited collective national input, a document convenient and provisional at the onset of the nation—independence from colonialism.

There are all indications on the ground (yes, one has to keep one’s feet on the ground to make credible and legitimate judgments) that the Yes group will prevail, and that the No team, which is essentially a diluted Yes movement, a Yes with qualifications of sorts, will, if you may, not lose everything, but instead have an opportunity to raise the issues of contention they have been basing their campaign on.

In regard to religion and politics, if the church initially appeared bent on collective evangelical fervor, latter development clearly shows that not every Christian is convinced by the call for a general harmonized bleat of the flock at the command of a self-righteous priestly shepherd. The Anglican break from the earlier trend to urge members to vote as a block is one such strong indications that Christians will not vote as one obedient herd. The Catholic Church though is still hopeful that its members will vote no, with a unanimous singularity. One can only wish the Vatican well in these democratic moments.

But again, considering the fact that a significant number of Christians are young people who owe allegiance to Church and change alike; one can rely on the fact that public momentary emotional response to the initially strong evangelical opposition to the draft is not quite the same as a reconsidered solitary moment when one dialogues with oneself in the presence of the ballot box.

Similarly, there is no guarantee of mass uniform ethnic rejection of the document since there is no guarantee that the campaign flashes of red cards on TV screens will translate into individual rejection of the proposal at the ballot box. Indeed my premonition is that some of the most surprising voter support for the document will come from the Rift Valley, which, one would be humble to remember, is not a homogeneous block of people just as the Church is not a harmonized flock of similarly thinking sheep.

It is for this reason that those who rely on ethnic support will be rudely shocked by the referendum results. The meeting of Kalenjin professionals in Nairobi on the 2nd of August to discuss the constitution, just before the referendum, is part of the indicative developments attesting to the fact that even the Kalenjin community will not necessarily vote No just because they are Kalenjins, supposedly following one Ruto and one indispensable untiring nostalgic retired Moi. Mass following of the two is mostly an impression one gets from the trail of imagery on TV though.

Inflationary claims about the constitution only seem to have inflamed curiosity among the electorate about the document, with a renewed desire among people to read, even where one may not be quite able to do so, and understand. Many an electorate would find it difficult to locate the basis of some of the claims; like the claim that people will be made to give up their small pieces of subsistence land.

Indeed the constitution making process, and the campaigns in particular, raises interesting questions about literacy (and illiteracy alike), reading and comprehension, as well as deception and honesty of interpretation of the object of reading—the constitutional text. Claims by the Minister for Higher Education that the draft document should be rejected because of its ‘layout’, that it ‘cannot be read like a newspaper’, leaves one baffled about the seriousness of such claims. Has deliberately misguided interpretation been a weapon of mass deception?

The entry into the debate and campaign by the former president inadvertently lent much fuel to the Yes campaign as the group was readily presented with an easy contrast backdrop to compare the promises of the draft constitution and the symbolic reminder of the ills that beseeched a nation due to lack of constitutional checks in the first place. Indeed Moi represents the prolonged denial of constitutional change to Kenyans and Kibaki has not hesitated to seize this golden opportunity for a pragmatic distinction, wooing of votes, and a way of promoting his own new-found image as a progressive leader.

If in the past Mr. Kibaki did not succeeded in exercising an entirely effective intervening presence when such intervention had been an overwhelming collective desire—instead shrouded in a rather by-standing, removed silent academic objectivity that may have been construed by the public as bordering on indifference to collective national expectation—the constitutional debate and campaign has provided him with an opportunity to step in the midst of it all with an unusual energy and evident consistent determination devoid of a ‘wiper’ ambiguity.

In regard to outside allegations of external funding and support, rumours of support of the No team by the right-wing side of American politics that is traditionally opposed to Barrack Obama’s presidency and generally opposed to Black decisive participation in politics leaves much to be desired about such funding. One significant question that the possibility of such funding raises is whether a group opposed to progressive changes would support a group in an essentially Black country like Kenya for the benefit of the country or whether it is for the benefit of the right-wing’s militant opposition to President Obama.

One thing less unclear though is this; that on the 4th of August Kenyans, for the first time since independence, participate in a collective constitution making to reaffirm their hope of building a positive national culture that in turn becomes the basis of much desired continued national collective development. One is here reminded that a country does not develop, nor effectively provide for its citizenry, because it has gold and precious stones, much as these are important ingredients in the project of service to the nation; but instead a nation moves ahead because of its national spirit, a united national psyche, a positive non-minority-driven national culture based on a broad national consensus.

(The author is a Lecturer in Language and Communication. Write to the author: tekta01@hotmail.com)