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Re-inventing leadership when the people wake up

Written by Al Kags

Wednesday, 22 April 2009

When we were young in primary school, it was not uncommon for language teachers in those days to ensure that every day the pupils learn a new word to bolster their vocabulary. The teacher would give the meaning of the word and then make the youngsters conjure up ways to use the word by giving example sentences.

As the tenth parliament resumes, its members – and Kenyans – have a new word to learn and practice: reform. Parliamentarians shall, in the next few days at least, often be heard to ventilate their views on “the reform agenda”. They will exhort Kenyans to remain calm and patient as they discuss and commence the implementation of the “reform process”. Never mind that the word reform has many other synonyms including restructure, revolutionize, ameliorate, remodel and Obama’s catch word, change. Reform is the MPs’ new word.

But one wonders whether the same is true for the citizen. The nature of our lives in Kenya is such that we focus on the politicians so much that their areas of focus tend to be our own even though our circumstances may require our focus (and therefore theirs) to be different. Through this unbridled focus on politics, we have given the politicians near absolute power of the destiny of this country

It will not be uncommon to hear an Internally Displaced Kenyan convey his standpoint on the notion of reforms – referring here, as the politician would, to constitutional change and institutional reform. That she would have discussed the need to repatriate IDKs as soon as possible to their farms and the question of peace in the Rift Valley had he had a Public Relations consultant attending to her is beside the point.

Make no mistake, this article does not purport to take the stance that constitutional and institutional reforms (and the other items on the reform agenda) are not priorities. Instead, it proposes that while the reform agenda is and should be at the top of the MPs’ minds, the citizen has far more pressing needs that someone needs to address – and the gauntlet is placed at the feet of the citizen.

As the politicians ponder reforms in their political discourse, the citizens in many parts of the country are unable to feed their children, to find gainful employment for their youth and to make the proverbial ends meet. Farmers in many parts of the country would be happy to attend to their farms at the crack of dawn, but the rivers around them continue to run dry.

Bright and Enterprising youth are aching to create their own wealth but they have no guidance and even when they know what they want to do, they lack the capital, the electricity or some crucial resource that would enable them to define their destiny. When they do get mentored, it is on politics.

The time has come for Kenyans to reconnect with their priorities, away from politics and to begin to create an alternative reality for themselves. They are excellent organisers, where politics is concerned but these skills are needed elsewhere in their lives. The time has come for Kenyans to take charge of their destiny and organise communities to deal with the challenges that they have: food security, better housing, business in the marketplaces, education of their young and stability in their homes.

This is possible. It is well within our communities ability to rekindle the spirit of “Harrambee” and together, stabilise their environment by planting trees and harnessing water, building community food storage areas, add value to their products through processing and marketing and even build community schools and health facilities. The key to all this is simply to organise themselves in the way they organise themselves for politics and for vigilante activity.

This notion is not new. In the nineties, when the Moi government had wrecked the political and social climate in the country, all formal indicators showed that the economy went to its knees. When the regime changed, the stock and bond markets surged with new capital finding its way into the formal economy. Ask seasoned economists to explain in plain English where the money was in those tough days and they might respond as economist David Mugwimi does: “in the mattress.”

Kenyans took care of the economy, managing liquidity and capital informally until the political space was stabilized and then they came back to strengthen it.

At the end of the day, Kenyans will redefine what leadership means by redefining what is important. In the words of Nobel Laureate, writer Elie Wiesel, “It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government. But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer. Neither is resignation. Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.”

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 .