Stop emotional exploitation of gullible Kenyans by politicians

Those of us who easily clap, cheer, and praise politicians in the heat of the moment need to listen keenly to the caution not to “applaud and validate lies.” Political events can be emotionally emotive. Politicians and their supporters ride on high emotions to affirm each other. Feelings play a significant role in hyping political discourse, including lying, attacking, and rebutting. Remove feelings from political gatherings and you have no political rally. By and large, this is a political culture that negates political discourse that is sober, factually engaging, and constructively manages differences.

Our experience in Kenya is no different from many other countries. Politicians take to the podium and start generating hyped statements with emotional appeals. Some are absolutely meaningless but delivered in a way that is entertaining to attract applause. This is where the danger is.

Be very slow to “applaud or validate the lies the politicians tell them, but rather resolve to seek and be led by the truth.” This is the wisdom the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops offered Kenyans in their statement that attracted political resentment.

Let us consider this further. It seems so natural to applaud anything politicians say. As we do this, we legitimise their claims and promises without sitting back to reflect. We need to listen to the caution of getting to political rallies or spaces where political activism is high and start taking sides or just applauding narratives that take the country nowhere.

There is something more: Emotional exploitation. If there is one area that politicians have excelled, it is exploiting people's emotions. When things are going bad, politicians can whitewash themselves by condemning them. When things are going very well, they are up there, taking credit for where they do not plant, weed, or even harvest. They are smart at playing to the gallery.

Severe emotional exploitation can lead to mental health problems. A good example is the many Kenyans who stopped watching the news years ago. The politics of the 2013, 2017, and 2022 general elections left about half the country hurt. This could have been avoided by simply refining the electoral system so that the election outcome could easily be verifiable, thereby bestowing legitimacy on the rightful winner. Often, the cloud around the delayed announcement of presidential election results creates suspicion and mistrust in government systems. Due to this, people get fed up with political discourse, as it drains them mentally and emotionally. Reason? The system was tempered. Accountability and transparency became distorted. Truth suffered. Politicians thrive in this environment where people cannot differentiate truth from lies.

This leads to the following question: Has Kenya become a post-truthful society? A post-truth society is one in which one’s feelings and beliefs outweigh objective facts. It is a society where people’s opinions and positions are tied to their feelings rather than facticity. A post-truth society relativises truth as if truth cannot be established independently of one’s emotions.

Consequently, in a post-truth society, fake news, disinformation, misinformation, and the culture of lies become common. Normative culture is considered backwards, often unconsciously, and objective truths are considered less persuasive. This creates space for politicians; by virtue of the power given to their offices, peddlers of lies often using skewed data interpretation to suit their convenience.

Ethically, and as a country where God is given primacy, there is a need to respect evidence-based discourse, including political discourse. Throwing misleading narratives and numbers left and right that are largely inaccurate is a disservice to voters, but more fundamentally, it is one way of denying people their human dignity.

We have an obligation to fight emotional exploitation at political rallies and events of all sizes. When we apply and validate lies, we undermine our own existence as human beings who share the same origin and destiny. Therefore, we have to nurture a normative culture in which the values of integrity, accountability, and transparency are engrained. The media play a critical role in ensuring that the public is not enslaved in the politics of emotional exploitation. Critical voices are necessary to engage with political leaders.

Dr Mokua is the executive director of Loyola Centre for Media and Communication