Preaching Peace is NOT Enough This Time Round

As any crocodile farmer will tell you, rearing reptiles means you must remember what cold blooded creatures they are and avoid petting them, lest you lose a limb. It’s the same principle that any right minded person would apply when dealing with the press.  Unfortunately, we are not dealing with right minded people when it comes to elections; we are dealing with politicians, a sub-human species that ultimately lacks a single mind to share between the entire genus.  

It’s about time someone just let these politicians understand the long term effects of consistent negative propaganda. The Nazis first used this technique of skewed information dissemination through the media with the distinct aim of alienating, creating mistrust and finally dehumanizing Jews, leading to a public laxity, hatred and eventual collaboration in the horror of the Holocaust. We saw it again, in Rwanda, propaganda used with the sole aim of creating a mass hatred for a single ethnic community. Despite these horrific reminders, our rag tag ensemble of reprobate politicians have never ever relented in the same barrage of selfish and misleading hogwash with the sole intent of isolating and alienating entire communities so as to gain votes from their own.

After doing this consistently for 5 long years, even after the horror of the 2008 post election violence, even after seeing the deaths of over a thousand innocent citizens, even after supervising a clear rift in our societal structure; after shamelessly feeding the public negativity through propaganda, mere days away from the election this sub-human species then decides to hold a “Peace Rally”. 

There is nothing more comically evil, insane and devilish than a praying politician. This is like the crocodile in the Mara River, praying fervently for the safe crossing of the wildebeest.  Praying for peace yet consistently pushing negative propaganda is not just the height of hypocrisy it is a real insult to just about everyone else who has a mind.

Or maybe most Kenyans also lack minds? I’d rather think with the consistent propaganda, most are simply zombies by now, their thinking faculties long deadened and all they are is reanimated flesh. Preaching peace, for two days, verses 5 years of consistent propaganda has the same effect as giving a dead person a blood transfusion.

The level of paranoia to be found among the citizenry is a clear example of just how deeply rooted the false beliefs created via propaganda are set. Yes, set, rooted and rotting within the hearts and minds of the citizenry. 

How can we have peace if we don’t have trust and if we don’t have a unifying national spirit? I suppose to the politician, peace is simply the absence of physical violence. Never mind that their propaganda has violently defiled the psychology of the citizenry, such that what can only be termed as pure racism is mildly peddled as “tribalism”. Tribalism, by the way, is not a word in the English language. It is a word in politician-speak. It means “whatever other people do.”

2008 PEV is a clear example of how quickly the citizens will indeed physically demonstrate the internal violence within them. To the politician, a dead, violated citizenry can adopt whatever they say. This is true; the people indeed will adopt and act upon everything the politician will say, EXCEPT peace. 

There can be no peace when there is no life in the person. To be filled with hatred, with a passion for power at all costs, to dehumanize your fellows in your mind and heart is to be completely dead and decomposed. The people cannot be at peace, they will simply not be physically violent.

This state is only satisfactory to the politician, such that they remain in power with an easily manipulated, spiritually dead populace. So they preach “peace” at a rally, put out music videos about not cutting each other up, and talk about holding “peaceful” elections for a few days prior to the elections so that they are satisfied their zombies won’t kill each other.

Meanwhile, democratic values, nationhood, citizenship and true peace are completely eroded in the country. These elections were already violent, there was already no peace. That is why preaching peace is not enough this time round. 

To my mind, a real message of peace would be simply this: “Vote with your conscience.” I ask Kenyans to vote with their conscience because that introspection is the beginning of real healing of a mind that has been corrupted by hatred and propaganda. Voting with your conscience is the only way, as Kenyans, we can be a peaceful nation, that is capable of holding elections without psychologically and physically being violent, just because of a few individuals. So vote with your conscience, and be at peace within yourselves so that you can also be at peace with your fellow citizen.