Philip Ochieng
29 June 2008
opinion
Nairobi — We have just spent a fortune on elections. We have even slaughtered one another over candidates. But why do we so readily squander our meagre resources especially on Parliament?
The answer, we hear, is that Parliament is the protector of our collective interests at the Executive.
Why do we accept to be misled, especially when Parliament no longer even attempts to conceal its tyrannical contempt for the people?
How can the MPs loot our Treasury in broad daylight and then respond with chest-thumping arrogance at any mere suggestion that the loot be taxed?
How is it that, even after nearly half a century of an astronomically costly independence, Kenyans still agree to be led as meekly as the biblical Isaac to the altar of sacrifice?
Shakespeare long ago gave us the answer: If we are underlings -- if we are getting increasingly emaciated in order for a few to get fatter than shoats -- the fault is not in our stars, but only in ourselves.
Every five years, we go to the polls to elect a new lot of "representatives" knowing full well that stuffing their pockets -- not representation -- is what impels every would-be "lawmaker."
In short, the reason the MPs can rip us off and then laugh haughtily at all our protests is that they know from experience that Kenyans are not going to do anything about it. The most that we ever seem capable of after every such injustice is to whine like children.
But mere whining never killed anybody and the MPs know that, after a while, the whining will stop and Chinua Achebe's "The Honourable" -- will go on stuffing his pocket full of the metal as though nothing has happened.
What kind of electorate are we that we can so exuberate over our candidates when we know very well that our poverty and suffering will deepen just as soon as Mr Speaker swears them in? In what way are we different from "a nation of sheep"?
It is perhaps anarchistic to expect the entire mass to march upon parliament every time the MPs perform the confidence trick of arming themselves with legislative licence to enter the taxpayer's coffer. It is perhaps socially dangerous even to suggest it.
But that, we are told, is why Kenya has all kinds of self-appointed "human rights" organisations. Every day, we hear about something called "civil society."
What can such organisations mean whenever they stand in the agora to shout that the government is abusing "human rights"?
They mean merely free speech, free media, free movement, free elections, freedom from arbitrary punishment by the state, suchlike.
To be sure, to tamper with these is to abuse freedom, but anybody can see that only the politicians and the professions are likely to be denied such rights.
Objectively, however, no human right can be more important than a healthy body and a healthy mind. There is thus nothing more dehumanising than to deny any human being access to food, drink, shelter, clothing and the Three Rs.
If millions of Kenyans are illiterate, starving, naked and bedridden with disease, then our government is guilty of the grossest human rights abuse. That the abuse is deliberate is obvious.
How else can the government plead that it has no money with which to raise the minimum wage while, at the same time, it gives presidential assent to the rip-off by parliament and raises the emoluments of top civil servants by 200 per cent?
The exigencies of national reconciliation may have forced the President to increase the government's size by nearly 50 per cent. But it is a money-guzzler like no other.
And, given the attitude the government expressed on Labour Day and the spiralling costs of all consumer goods, mass poverty must deepen.
But if you imagine that a coalition of tribal chiefs at the Cabinet level is a better peace formula than a well-fed general population you are deluding yourself.
This gross abuse of the most basic human rights is what our MPs are committing by legislating hefty emoluments for themselves and refusing to pay taxes on the loot. This horrendous abuse is what the President perpetrates when he gives assent to such legislation.
The government should have rejected this parliamentary initiative right from the start. Refusal to disburse that money would have lent it greater legitimacy as a government.
By rejecting such a legislative crime, it would have protected the public interest and thus rendered parliament not only needless but an enemy of the people.
But the question is: Where is our so-called civil society?
Why hasn't it taken the initiative to organise the people to defend themselves effectively against the MPs' habit of invading their life-savings in this callous manner?
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