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Africa Magazine
00 MAL
11/16 APRIL
ON POLITICAL
INSULTS
F
ew, we believe, miss those bad old days when the
mere mention of the president’s name created
tension and disquiet. Those were the days when the
president was a demi-god and was spoken about in hush
tones and furtive looks.
Yes, there was a time in Kenya that we had even been
told it was a crime to contemplate the death of a
president, retrospectively we wonder how such a charge
would have been prosecuted and who would have been a
witness.
Those were the times that walls had ears and an
unfortunate criticism of the president would land you an
invitation to the dreaded Nyayo house to explain why
you were hell bent on spoiling and disparaging our hard
earned peace and freedom.
People who came out of the Nyayo house experience
tended to be become suddenly very quiet and withdrawn
from society, no doubt as a show of remorse for their
utterances. The unlucky ones landed in detention without
trial for unspecified crimes against the state.
That was our version of the reign of terror where you
could not trust your neighbor because every other person
seemed to work for state security. The few we believe
miss those days are the cohorts of sadists that enjoyed
torturing and maiming fellow citizens in the name of
security.
It would be wise to remember that those were also the
days when the unofficial slogan for Kenya was ‘Kenya,
Hakuna Matata’. This was possible because we lived in a
police state where all rights were curtailed and freedom
of the press was a myth.
The only problem with freedom is that our memories are
short and we so easily take it for granted when we have it
that sometimes we fail to put into place mechanisms to
protect it. Our constitution requires it but it is our public
conduct that guarantees it.
Political contests create heat, frustrations and anger and
that is why the drafters of the constitution saw it fit to
specify the rules of engagement in the august house to
allow the maintenance of decorum in house debates.