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Scandal defines me. Not!

Written by Al Kags

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

I wonder if Kenyans have not developed an unhealthy disrespect for the country's institutions. When one reads the paper on a daily basis, one finds that the tone with which Kenya discusses Parliament, the presidency, the cabinet, the police, the army, the judiciary and the civil service, is distinctly flippant and - I dare say it - disrespectful. It would seem that Kenyans have decided that the few hundred thousand civil servants in various offices are lazy, nincompoops who spend their days either stealing public resources or reading the paper - or running their own businesses. There is a decided suspicion that we have cultivated a suspicious disposition towards these people, who work for the public.

Of course, there is something to be aid in that the reputation that civil service have got is earned over years of paper-reading-personal-business-running-public-resources-looting-extrajudicial-killings-perpetrating practice. But I wonder now, whether it is a majority of the civil servants, who are corrupt and lazy. I wonder if it is not the few whom we yell about and give a lot of media coverage that have slapped that reputation on the rest of the civil service who go about the business of public service with dedication?

As we focus on the elements that stole maize, I wonder if there isn't a majority there, who have worked hard, checking, carrying, storing, weighing, transporting and distributing that maize to the needy people in the way that they are supposed to without stealing and without mismanaging our resources?

As we focus on those deplorable elements in the police force that I watched in KTN last night killing a suspect in cold blood, isn't there something to be said for the anonymous copper who followed the rules and conducted careful and thorough investigations and made proper arrests - and despite the offer of a bribe did his job?

Those who work in the media will be familiar with the principle, "if it bleeds, it leads". No stories are interesting if they don't have dimensions of theft, death, intrigue - the makings of holywood movies. The news themselves are organised so that they will feed our natural inclination to see the worst in ourselves and those around us. So reporters spend inordinate amounts of time seeking the juiciest of stories, filled with intrigue and harrowing details of anguish, ignoring as they go the news that would allow us to say, this is a great country to be.

My particular line of thought at this point does not purport to defend the honour of that silent majority of the civil service who are prejudged until they do something to fit their mould. I am going through a chicken and egg argument that is trying to understand - which came first?

Through our offhand lamentations of a corrupt civil service, a political class filled with thieves and so on, even in front of children, we have inculcated in ourselves and our children such a healthy disrespect for the institutions and the offices that serve us, that it is not implausible to argue that these qualities then make the office.

A senior civil servant that I met in Garissa yesterday asked me, "I don't steal public resources and I have a lot of opportunity here in the forgotten north. But no one would believe me anyway in Kenya so why should I remain true to my calling - especially if I shall not be recognised for what I do - and on the contrary am assumed to have stolen - or to be a thief in waiting?"

Why indeed not, I wonder. The conditions in which civil servants in the north eastern province have to execute their work - providing security to vast spaces filled with armed clan feuds, little to no water, and a hungry populace is not an easy one. But then when you and I make an off-hand remark, or take the tone that "ah, civil servants are lazy and corrupt," do we not include him?

When our children grow up, and all we have told them is how not to be, neglecting to tell them to be like so-and-so, who is an upstanding politician, or civil servant, what will they do with the offices in the civil service when they get there?

Incidentally, it must be said here that all countries have their scandals - including Obama's US (remember Illiniois recently? or Guantanamo bay?) but these scandals do not come to define, the nature of whole groups of workers in the US government - in the same way that maize scandals, Anglo Leasing, Triton fuel scandals, Goldenberg, drugs scandals, and the extra-judicial murders by trigger happy police cannot define those of our people - and they are our people - who wake up at 4am because they live in housing they can afford far from their stations and brave the journey to their offices and dedicate their day in the service of all Kenyans.

No, those scandals - significant and atrocious though they are - cannot define me or my people.

Al Kags
		About the author:
		Al Kags, the founder of the Desturi Trust writes prolifically on Kenyan and global matters. He is the programme officer at the Kenya ICT Board. He publishes a poetry anthology, the Quarterly Colour Series and the Al Kags blog here .