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By:
Makau Mutua | |||||||||
| Posted:
Aug,27-2021 04:49:51
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Folks on my side of the street – woke intellectuals and civil society – have woven a seductive yarn about Wanjiku, the proverbial Everywoman. Today, I am going against the grain. In common lore, Wanjiku is the hapless innocent. He, or she – or even “they” in the woke gender pronoun – is presented as a saint. A do-no-wrong Mother Theresa. One who’s always wronged by the menacing, grabby, blood-sucking elite. Of the elite, I am sure, and hold no brief for such a decrepit parasitic lot. I’ve no doubt they’ll rot in hell when their time comes. But is Wanjiku the diametric opposite of her elite number? I submit here and now that Wanjiku is every bit as vile as the oppressor.
I hear the screaming wails already. Wait – you haven’t heard the worst. Let me unplug your ears. Every country has its own “Wanjiku”. That’s the little fellow who’s the doormat for society. The exploited, the loathed, the undesirable. Some even call them the bottom 80 per cent in Kenya, or the most marginalised 30 per cent in America.
Usually, the more unequal a society, the larger the bottom of the pyramid. In Kenya, that could even be 90 per cent. Naturally, those with an instinct for social justice empathise with those at the bottom. Woke intellectuals and civil society are the most empathetic with the impoverished. But in this empathy, there’s also a lot of paternalism and sickening “otherisation”. We are dripping with pity.
This drives woke intellectuals and civil society to feel “altruistic” in defence of the “less fortunate”. We speak for them. We act for them. We lead them on their own behalf. We tell them what to think. We indoctrinate them about what’s good, or bad, for them.
We are a cottage industry that lives off their godforsaken lives. We are righteous and look at others who are not as “altruistic” as we are with disdain. We regard such unsympathetic elites as immoral, or amoral – lacking any fibre of decency.
Co-driver of our problems
We believe they are the problem. But for them, there would be no Wanjiku and life would be hunky-dory. We think they are creatures of the sewer without redemption.
I have seen the elite do very mean and inhumane things. So, I am willing to concede many, perhaps most, are brethren with the evil leviathan. Some are mini Bill Gates. Toothy and wily with creepy secret lives. The only problem is this – we never point the accusing finger at ourselves, much less at Wanjiku. Today, I want to defrock Wanjiku and expose all the nastiness underneath. Wanjiku is actually the co-driver of our problems. Of her problems. She co-creates those problems with the betrayer class. There is a symbiotic relationship between Wanjiku and her oppressor. She is cut from the same moral cloth with her tormentor. She enables the tormentor. She feeds the beast. She’s the beast.
Let me dial it down. Imagine that there were no animals of prey. Like the dik dik for which the controversial Francis Atwoli Road had been named in Nairobi. One can argue that animals exist as food for predators. If animals of prey didn’t exist then I suppose the predators would become herbivores, or go extinct. If there’s no meat, it’s better to eat grass than nothing. It’s that or starvation and certain death.
It’s Wanjiku who sustains, and often creates, the oppressive elite. In turn, the oppressive elite creates and sustains Wanjiku. It’s a co-dependent relationship that’s built on the most psychotic impulses and internalised self-hatred.
One will defend the other, although more vigorously than the elite.
Keeping her tormentors in power
In fact, it’s very easy for Wanjiku to defend the elite. These are people Wanjiku only sees on TV or hears on radio. Call one of the tormentors a name on social media and a million Wanjikus will descend on your rear like African bees. You will be stung on every part of your body until you cry uncle.
What’s interesting is that the elite subject of the attack won’t even bother to acknowledge his, or her, foot soldiers.
Nor do the foot soldiers expect recognition, let alone gratitude. They know their role is to defend “their” master. When the master calls a rally, the Wanjikus come out in their thousands. Many have been killed by Covid-19 from the rallies.
All the elections in Kenya, with the possible exception of the first one in 1963, have been primordial affairs. Wanjiku has voted strictly along ethnic lines, or as directed by her ethnic kingpin. Even the 2002 election that kicked out the Kanu-Moi kleptocracy was an ethnic election because Narc was an ethnic coalition.
In 2013 and 2017, the same patterns were repeated. Wanjiku has been happy to keep her ethnic tormentors in power. From the look of things, it seems she will do so again in 2022, the chest-thumping of the so-called Hustler Nation notwithstanding. So, let’s admit it. Wanjiku is a foundational part of Kenya’s psychosis.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School. He’s chair of KHRC. @makaumutua
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