10 January 2017 · Nairobi
So, my pen has been triggered by a few happenings within a group of friends which got me thinking....and writing. I find myself thinking about tyranny of the few. I have been attracted to think about how the minority can make the majority feel out-numbered, out-thought and out-maneuvered.
Societies are normally formed to address common societal issues, in most cases originating from a single problem that brings the people in the society together. The people are then driven to raise up their ambition, beyond a single problem, to either anticipate broader solutions or generate creative and preemptive products that avoid the problems. However, society also has the tendency to divide itself quickly along clusters that are still associated with the original problem, the ensuing cooperative arrangements, but with differentiated alignments based on various orientations. Such orientations could be the level of responsiveness (or lack of) to the problem, previous associations amongst members, perceptions and many more.
In our broader Kenyan society, we have traditionally been accustomed to the tyranny of the minority, all the way since the days of JM Kariuki. Many might recall the infamous statement of JM, about the 10 millionnaires and 10 million beggars, or the much later adage of 30 millionnaires and 30 million beggars. I think we now live in a context of 40 billionaires and 40 million beggars. But all these is besides the point. The point is not even that the more recent narrative has made us think consistently of the tyranny of numbers, where it is not really about the majority suppressing the minority, but rather a small minority coming together to form an organized majority. That, still, is a conversation for historians to record and tell future generations. The point is about what got me thinking, from my group of friends.
In the tyranny of the minority, the few powerful individuals, either by design or by default, place gas masks over their noses, start polluting the air in the common room. When a new member of the society walks in, turns nose in disgust and exclaims at the pungency, and suggests for the opening of the windows, the powerful individuals shout him/her down, claiming the pollution outside the room is risky for the occupants of the room. I got thinking, how blinded many of us are, at the pungency of our self entitlement, of our incumbency in absolute absorption of power in the name of representation of the interest of the majority and of how the few of us talk amongst ourselves and purport to be representative.
When I was younger, I was told that I was a leader for tomorrow. That was why I was given free milk at school, to make me grow strong and healthy for this future task. Today, I cringe at the fact that a good number of my peers are now entering the fray that is politics, with the tyrannical thinking of the minority for the majority. Obviously, leaders of yesterday.