Universities must set agenda for national dialogue

On Monday, the electoral commission chairman declared Uhuru Kenyatta winner of the repeat presidential election. It was no breaking news. Uhuru had practically run alone after the controversial withdrawal of NASA candidate Raila Odinga. While other candidates participated in what some labelled as a coronation procession, they were also-rans.

The withdrawal of Mr Odinga and subsequent declaration of Mr Kenyatta as the winner in an election completed without the participation of about half the country poses serious challenges to the social fabric of the Kenyan state. The annulment of the elections on September 1 by the Supreme Court was highlighted internationally as a milestone for African democracy. It was a clear statement on the limits of political power and the executive in a functional democracy. The ramifications of that decision is already sending much needed ripples in similar courts in the region.

Inequality and tribalism

But did we pop up the champagne rather too soon? A day to the election, the Supreme Court failed to convene a quorum that was widely expected to reconsider shifting the poll dates. The reasons for absentation were both frivolous and sensible. Two judges were just “out of town”. The deputy Chief Justice was still recovering from shock occasioned by a brazen gun attack on her driver. He survived, thankfully. But the message achieved its aims.

The controversial poll went ahead as the country’s fault lines of inequality, tribalism and zero sum political competition widened even further. We have emerged from the polls a woefully divided people. Our image as hospitable, amiable and innovative people revealed its unsavoury opposite. Let us not pretend, we have a problem.

My argument here is that we urgently need to have a national conversation on the type of country we want to live in. I am not sure if I would like my children to grow up in such toxicity. I think the same applies to all well-meaning citizens. We need to have an honest discussion on who we are as a people, our conflicted pasts and the many ills we have done to each other, and agree on closure where necessary. We also need to reflect on the extent to which the Constitution serves our interests.

The law was made for man, not the other way round. The violence that so easily erupts in this country every election year is a form of communication and must be understood as a message. Many genuinely feel excluded from this government. If the State keeps on coming hard on its own citizens, sometimes shooting her young, raping her women and clobbering her children, then we only flame the bitterness and anger that burns in the souls of millions of Kenyans. I am actually hoping that universities can rise up and offer the most congenial platforms to sanction a national conversation.

The reason why universities should engage more in national discourse is that in the past few months we have witnessed a gradual capture, if not collapse, of institutions that would ordinarily offer or complement a national conversation.

As I mentioned, the Supreme Court, possibly the last and only bulwark against a gradual slide to dictatorship, is already battling its own internal contradictions. By failing to show up and hear arguments submitted before it, the Supreme Court judges undermined its hallowed position as an institution that provides leadership in critical issues of national discourse.

The church on its part has lately come out strongly to mainstream the debate of an inclusive government. I must emphasize that these calls from the church have been too late in the day. When the history of this country will be written, the position and role of the church will be one of awkward ambiguity. As a keen Christian, I am troubled by the over-zealousness with which church leadership seeks to please power.

While I acknowledge that the Bible teaches obedience to those in authority, it never asks us to take leave of reason. Neither does it ask us to blunt criticism and worship power. Or worse, to seek transient glory in highly politicised prayer rallies. I am still unable to reconcile the church’s latest project at calling for “more positions for politicians” with its deafening silence when infants are clubbed to death, kindergarten children teargassed and a fellow priest brutally murdered.

The other institution that took a beating, especially in the August polls, was the media. The poll revealed that Kenya’s media was on the throes of capture. Although the October poll revealed tentative steps at correcting this perception, one got the impression of a persistent effort at sustaining a hegemonic narrative.

A deep introspection within the media fraternity is both urgent and inevitable. Consumers are voting with their feet. For the first time in an election year, profits dropped significantly. If the media does not redeem itself and disentangle itself from near capture, change will be externally imposed by a ruthless media consumption pattern among Kenyans.

National conversation

As such, in this context, I should like to propose that universities and their intellectuals take an active role at stimulating a national conversation on the kind of Kenya we want. By their very nature universities are spaces where ideas, from the oddest to the loftiest, are challenged and fortified. The intellectual role in fashioning and nourishing a national imagination is not new.

It has happened before. In the early 1960s, the universities of Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam were centres of active deliberation on the kind of societies Kenya and Tanzania, respectively sought to become. With regard to the famous Kenya debates, founding President Jomo Kenyatta terminated them before they could bare fruit.

I do understand that many an intellectual have sold their soul for a bowl of soup and actively serve mammon. Some have taken to sycophancy, and take delight in the worship and praise of power. Others are simply unable to sustain intellectual debate and are just as prejudiced as the unlettered villager.

Also, this process cannot possibly be midwifed by the University Academic Staff Union (UASU), because the union has for the past two decades preferred to narrow its mandate to only bread and butter issues. However, I am hopeful that among our intellectuals in the universities, a remnant still holds out against the seduction of prejudice, loot and narrow mindedness. It is to such that this article is addressed.

Now, the opposition has proposed a people’s assembly. I do not know what this precisely meant but my understanding is that this is a proposed deliberative space.

My thinking is that our universities should play vanguard in setting the agenda of a national discourse and not leave this process to politicians. For the past two decades, intellectuals and universities have absented themselves from critical national dialogue. Times have changed. The prevailing context does not permit such disengagement.

- Dr Omanga lectures Media Studies at Moi University