US
President Barack Obama characterized Kenya as a country on the move. This is
evidenced by unprecedented expansion of the middle class and the associated
consumer culture that it begets; malls, fancy neighborhoods and traffic
gridlock.
However,
there are two other ways to characterize our society. We can be silent,
dreadfully and ominously silent. We can also be noisy, annoyingly bellicose,
irreverent and arbitrary. Kenyans are capable of deafening silence and hollow loudness
on critical national issues. It is possible that the path of logic, reason and
free debate in the public square is narrow path and not many of us find it.
In
The Republic Plato writes, “A ship's crew which does not understand that
the art of navigation demands knowledge of the stars will stigmatize a properly
qualified pilot as a star-gazing idiot, and will prevent him from navigating”.
These words, written circa 380 BC, ring so true in our society. In my view, we
are in the era of a dominant national culture, which scorns logic, reason and
free debate and it manifests as deafening silence and or thoughtless loudness.
The
public square is comatose. Both TV and radio talk shows trawl this land for the
least enlightened, most provincial talking heads. The universe of Twitter and
Facebook is dense with narrow tribal zealots and ethnic lynch mobs. A majority
of so-called columnists in mainstream print media are revolting in their
partisanship. Columnists who write about politics and policy abhor objective,
reasoned commentary. The National Assembly; Senate and Parliament offer little
inspiration and only reaffirm what is a full-blown assault on reason, logic and
evidence in decision-making and governance.
It
is no wonder that consequential public policy choices such as what technology
is appropriate in our classrooms, the new law on public benefit organizations,
priority infrastructure investments and models for countering violent extremism
have elicited little enlightened public debate and logical or reasoned
reflection. The economic growth and development narrative now seems to subjugate
and undermine the legitimacy honest, logical and thoughtful questioning of
public policy decisions. We have become hypnotized by the doctrine of “Maendeleo chap, chap” or development
now.
Our
exam-centric education system might explain what in my view is a dominant
culture of abhorrence of reason and intolerance for debate and evidence. Our
school system, from primary school to postgraduate level inculcates blind
obedience and unquestioning subservience to the authority of the teacher or
professor. And I do not encourage disobedience by student to the professor or
the teacher. What I mean here is the inability of students to engage with the
subject matter, formulate and argue their own points of view.
What
is lacking in our school system is a tradition of critical thinking and
analytical reasoning. Our children, and later as adults, do not have the
capacity to evaluate arguments and evidence. As young adults, and later as
leaders, they take offence at honest and fair challenge to their views and
believe disagreement is a sign of bad faith and plainly disrespectful. This
might explain why we are such a violent society. This might explain why for
instance the disputed outcome of the 2007 elections sparked an orgy of shameful
ethnic cleansing.
We
have become a rather parochial society, where single-minded men and women of
one inclination or another are the undisputed dominant voice. Ordinary
citizens, the so-called intellectuals and the political class talk at each
other, rather than with each other. I believe like Karl Popper that truth or
evidence is not manifest, but extremely elusive. Hence society need above all
things, open-mindedness, imagination, and a constant willingness to debate and
reason together. Moreover, a commitment to vibrant and varied culture of free
thought and open thoughtful public debate is critical to civility, enterprise,
innovation and democracy. We must guard against the culture of
anti-intellectualism and demand nothing but fidelity to reason and evidence
from intellectuals who occupy the public square.
As
the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, “come now let us reason together”, all
Kenyans; young and old, men and women, rich and poor, gay and straight,
Christian or Muslim or Hindu, all 42 tribes.
Now
is the time to deploy the power of collective thought and reason to confront
our most urgent challenges, including deep and worsening ethnic division, a
ponderous constitution, unbridled corruption, unemployment, mediocre public
education, poverty and rising inequality.
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