Welcome to post truth era of alternative facts, nonsense, lies and exaggerations

I got injured a day after Valentine’s. It was a freak accident and luckily, I had a witness otherwise no one would have believed me. I was minding my own business, asking after a fellow who monitors my water supply when I took a misstep and landed hard banging my head on solid concrete.

Next thing I know, blood is streaming from my forehead, everyone panicking around me, as I self-administered my own first aid, channelling my inner machismo.

This was a self-involved injury and I had no one to blame but myself. I was glad it did not happen on Valentines’ day because it would have sounded like a tragically ironic and bull$#!t story. Something a man says to avoid the romantic obligations on the day named after a martyr, St. Valentine, who was beheaded. There is a metaphor in there somewhere; whatever you do, don’t lose your head.

Later that evening I had to check myself into a private clinic for a dressing. I told the doctor what happened and he had an expression written on his face that made me start to doubt my own version of the truth. He probably thought I was dishing out alternative facts. We live in a ‘post truth society’, you know.

Though he did not voice it, he did not have to. There was doubt etched on his face and I was concerned because I knew that look. It was the same look I have on my face every time I turn on the news and find Majority leader Aden Duale hyperventilating over some ‘official government position’.

I have been in the media business for so long, I can generally smell bull from a distance. I could not be hard on the doctor even though I felt slighted. I understood his position and I was not any different.

If you live in this country long enough, it behooves one to operate with a trust deficit. I have serious trust issues with public servants in Kenya and particularly around the general elections. I take every word I hear from a vying politician with a lump of salt.

One has to pay keen attention to those men and women charged with the responsibility of managing public coffers. Which means, anyone who does not have the tenacity to wade through the daily stream of bull that passes as news from ‘official sources’ will be buried in manure! Poet Kitu Sewer once said, “Propaganda, imeganda, proper”. Sometimes the choices on the ballot box are nothing but different shades of bull.

Soothing balm

It is the sensible way to live in a country where peddling bull has become an art-form in public office. Something happens to good people when they start to work for government or join the race for political power. They develop an enviable commitment to obtaining a Masters in Bull.

Place them in front of a TV camera and ask them about a matter that they are largely ignorant about and they will never admit that they don’t know the answer. Instead, they will go out of their way to generate ‘alternative facts’ and you would not be able to count to ten before the bull starts flying. Sounding clever is more important than sharing an honest answer.

On rare occasions the truth rises on its own accord.

There is a clip doing rounds on Twitter, from a NTV town hall meeting where a bunch of young people put the government spokesman Eric Kiraithe to task over the Health Crisis. A young lady asked a straightforward question, “You say the CBA cannot be funded by government, do you have a budgetary allocation for corruption such that you can finance corruption and not the CBA?

The government spokesman replied without hesitation, “Of course the government has a huge budget on corruption” and the room erupted in laughter at the comic absurdity of our national state of affairs. Spin doctors at times defend even the indefensible.

One wonders, do they just yap for the heck of it or they first engage their brain? Sometimes, the only way to deal with the lethargy of public service that has become so commonplace is to turn to humour, which serves as a soothing balm.

Two inmates found themselves in prison comparing notes. One was a doctor and the other a common pickpocket. “What did they arrest you for?’ asked the pickpocket. “Was it a political or a common crime?” Of course, it was political. I’m a doctor. They summoned me to the County Health Committee for my thoughts on the health sector. I looked at the issues and said, “Hey, the entire system is sick.” So they sent me away for 30 days.

We the people of Kenya have built a bullshit mountain and piled it so high we have lost all sight of the truth. The truth is underneath it but not enough people want to bother with wadding through the lies to find it. National priorities have been reduced to personal feuds between individuals and power has become a zero sum game where the winner takes it all.

The sky is falling and we have decided to take shelter under bull$#!t. We the people of Kenya are now neck deep in bullshitocracy, where money talks and bull thrives.