By Barrack Muluka
Plato famously said that if you should enter an uproarious theatre, carrying a precious message for the audience, you have three options to select from. You can assume that they will hear you, despite the uproar. In that case, you can go on to try and pass the message with a level voice.
Alternatively, you can try to scream your message above the din. But if you will not do either of the two, you may want to bring down the decibels and make room for your message. How you do that is up to you.
This is what sundry holy grounders and assorted axe-grinders do not seem to know. They are joined in this by nomadic political caddies and professional hunters of fortune. I should regret to have to teach afresh those whom I have taught journalism and those who were taught by those I taught. I have these past few days read acres of raw invective pretending to be political analysis. I have witnessed appalling and lop-sided axe-grinding rancour on TV passing off as political debate. The vituperative narrative has been directed at me with another communications professional who holds different views from mine.
They have taken us to task for what they ostensibly see as verbal altercation and “diatribe” in the place of political communications. I have even read where an expert of ambivalent background has referred to us as “amateurs.” He has even suggested that they do it better in Uganda than any Kenyan. Never mind that he is himself a Kenyan wiseacre like the rest of us.
You are worse than a madman if you should get into an uproarious theatre and begin behaving as if you were addressing a boardroom meeting.
First, let me remind us that politics is far too important a thing to be left to politicians. That is where my partner in crime and I come in. Among other things, our role is to distill and communicate messages.
It is understood that the ground will be ready for sober listening. But the ground is seldom ready for wisdom. Not even in the times of Jesus Christ. That was why John the Baptist came screaming at tax collectors, soldiers and – quite interestingly – scribes. John had to scream and call them names before they could listen. It is called “preparing the ground for the message.”
You have read where it is said that he leveled the ground: “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.” Without this, the social din could only make his “a voice screaming in the wilderness”.
Do not, therefore, ask why we “detonate.” We detonate to prepare the way for the message. That is why we have said with John the Baptist, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? The axe is already at the foot of the trees. Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” If I were to speak like John the Baptist, I would advise you to prepare for the real baptism, for what is my baptism?
A man who was called Fella Anikulapo Kuti would have put it differently. The amazing Fella was the King of Afro Beat. Born in a Christian family in Nigeria in 1938, Fella attended some of the finest schools at the time, eventually ending up in university in the UK. It was while here that the scales left his eyes. His chains fell off. His heart was free.
He rebelled against everything they had taught him, sinking into Afro Beat and –unfortunately – into some social vices too. But he remained a paragon of justice and the captain of his soul.
Fella’s life now spread between belting out one beat after the other and time in political jail. One of his producers was the legendary Chief Mashood Abiola, in his time one of the wealthiest Nigerians. Fella’s reputation and art was such that his music sold like hot cake, virtually everywhere. He minted gold, this man. He contributed quite significantly to Chief Abiola’s fortunes.
At the height of his own career, Chief Abiola contested and won the elections to be Nigeria’s President in 1993. But Gen Sani Abacha would not hand over power. Not only that, Abacha killed him. Mercifully, fate intervened. Abacha himself died from an overdose of Viagra, with half a dozen or so women of average virtue in bed.
But before trying to become Nigeria’s President, Chief Abiola had a little tiff with Fella. He would not pay him his royalties, despite the billions of Naira his music was rolling in. The bare chested amazing Fella once walked out of Abiola’s ornate offices fuming. He said something close to: “You’ve given me waste matter I will give you waste matter.” The following night, six exhausters suddenly materialised at Abiola’s residence in Lagos’ suburbia as people slept. The guards learnt that they had come to empty the manholes. But why six? “Na boss im dey done say we make am six oh!”
The guards let them in. Before you could say the words “Chief Mashood Abiola” the exhausters were roaring their way out of the residence. They had properly plastered the place with human waste in various stages of disintegration. Now that was dirty, very dirty. To date, nobody knows who was behind this Operation Exhauster.
But even as the narrative moved from mouth-to-ear-to-mouth, the bare chested amazing Fella sat in his backyard, gently fanning himself. He was lost in a trance, virtually whispering to himself, smiling. He went on and on: “Man, you give me (shall we say) exhauster stuff, I give you exhauster stuff. You play ball, I play ball.”
Hopefully we shall not need exhausters in this election season. But terms and conditions apply. Plato of the Greek academy understood this kind of philosophy. So, too, did Hammurabi the lawgiver of ancient Babylon.
The writer is a publishing editor and National Director of Communications at Raila for President Secretariat
