Namwamba: We must not let things fall apart in this critical period

The world acclaimed poem, The Second Coming, was composed by famed Irish poet and politician, William Butler Yeats in 1919.

Considered a major work of Modernist poetry, the poem uses Christian imagery of the Apocalypse and Second Coming allegorically to describe the terrifying atmosphere of post-World War I Europe.

Yeats (13 June-28 January 1939) would go on to win the 1923 Nobel Prize in literature, the first Irishman so honoured for what the Nobel Committee described as “inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”.

I have long been enthralled by the griping allegoric power of this special poem, right from my high school days as a literature student. It is among my most cherished literary collections.

Reading the poem again this past week, I could not help but get drawn to the striking parallels between the bleakness that defined devastated post-war Europe which inspired The Second Coming, and the sense of despair and uncertainty that currently envelopes Kenya.

The country is reeling under unprecedented strain, as never experienced before in our half-a-century as a sovereign state. Kenya is so insecure that even our world famous elephants, rhinos, kudus and squirrels in the wild are running for dear life. No one and nothing is safe. The vampire of grand corruption has breezed back into town with reloaded venom and braggadocio.

Tribal bigotry and jingoism have got a new lease of life. Ethnic fissures are deepening at an alarming rate as the country veers dangerously towards fatal divisions amidst reckless political rhetoric. Add to this the incredibly high rate of unemployment and the skyrocketing cost of living; with most Kenyans struggling to put food on the table or pay fare to the limited places of work, and you have a nightmare scenario. A perfect setting for things to fall apart.

Our situation is made worse as “…the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity…” We have ignored the celebrated Edmund Burke refrain, that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” As a result, the country is getting rapidly sucked into what Mahatma Gandhi described as the “seven social sins”: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

Kenya badly and urgently needs a redemption moment, a “Second Coming”. This requires leadership. Firm, selfless, visionary leadership. Leadership that appreciates the innate timeless Martin Luther King values: that ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus; that partnership is not a posture but a process, a continuous process that grows stronger each year as we devote ourselves to common tasks; that true peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice; that the time is always right to do what is right.

It also needs a new national consciousness, a reawakening. Which must start with each one of us, for we indeed must be the change we want to see in the world.  In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the US, ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country.

We must raise country above self, tribe and region. We must appreciated that darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. We must accept that we either live together as brothers or perish together as fools!

The writer is Budalang’i MP and Chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee