Publication date: Thursday, 29th November, 2007
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JERRY OKUNGU |
JERRY OKUNGU
An East african perspective
If Kenya goes up in smoke in the next few weeks, we shall take the blame to the doorsteps of Kenyan media. They are courting chaos and they know it.
In the name of press freedom, they are going overboard. They are accepting obscenities, insults and character assassination in exchange for cash or promises made by politicians! They have taken sides in this year’s general elections. The stands they have taken depend on which community owns or controls which media house.
Happily for some political parties, most of the media are owned and controlled by their members or persons sympathetic to them. It all started with hate blogs streaming in from bogus groups going by all manner of names both locally and abroad. Quite a number were obviously ethnic- inspired. Then they realised that the Kenyan electorate could not be reached through the new technology.
All of a sudden blogs-like materials started appearing in the alternative press before finally seeping through to mainstream media. What we are witnessing in this country is naked hatred for some tribes expressed in the crudest and loathsome language. They intend to achieve only one thing—rifts and disaffection among communities in the name of winning an election for one of their own.
As I wrote this article, numerous sms and ethnic radio stations were awash with obviously disparaging talk-shows aimed at hurting candidates opposed to their own.
Other than hate messages abetted by media houses,the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and Citizen TV have gone overboard in the past two weeks.
Under the pretext of extensive coverage of election campaigns, sometimes called ‘news extra’, they unashamedly allocate between 10 to 15 minutes in prime time for a candidate of their choice. This not withstanding the fact that both stations exist to serve the public! They earn their keep from the entire spectrum of Kenyans not just one community that they seem bent on boring Kenyans with. Hate messages sneaked into mainstream media disguised as opinion pieces or advertising material that dig up past utterances of presidential candidates is not done in good faith. They are meant to cause rifts between communities.
What these writers, who think they are masters in the game of propaganda don’t understand is that among the three top presidential candidates, none of them is an angel and if mud had to freely fly from all directions, this year’s political campaigns would be messy indeed.
It is true, Raila Odinga, Mwai Kibaki and Kalonzo Musyoka have had their share of public gaffes. In the eyes of the public, each candidate has tarnished his reputation if not bitten more than they could chew, but to assume that only Raila Odinga enjoys uncountable crimes against Kenyans is to miss the point and regard Kenyans as morons, which they are not.
Raila haters would like to remind us that he led the 1982 attempted coup in which many Kenyans died. What they forget is that the coup in 1982 was a rebellion against a repressive regime that was killing Kenyans anyway.
These people who now would love Daniel arap Moi have forgotten the 1983-1990 purges that left hundreds of Mwakenya resistant movement members hunted, maimed and dead in their hundreds.
They have forgotten the unlawful detentions of Charles Rubia and Kenneth Matiba alongside Raila Odinga, George Anyona and others that have left Matiba and Rubia disabled to this day.
They have forgotten the gruesome murder of Kenya’s Foreign Minister, Robert Ouko by agents of the state on suspicion of being groomed for president by the Americans.
As if that was not enough, they have forgotten state-sponsored ethnic clashes that rocked Rift Valley, Nyanza and Coast Provinces in the run-up to the 1992 elections.
These clashes left thousands of the Kikuyu community refugees in their own country! Raila may have signed an MoU with Kenyan Muslims but so have other candidates who have sought their support, at times wearing Muslim kanzus for the first time in their lives!
Raila may now go to bed with Musalia he once accused of being part of the Goldenberg scandal. However, how about President Kibaki who once pronounced KANU ‘dead and kwisha’ soon after winning elections?
How about Uhuru Kenyatta who vowed to end Kibaki’s government during the referendum? How about Moi who ate mud at Kibaki’s installation at Uhuru Park in December 2002? How about Kalonzo Musyoka who sat pretty as the Moi government he served as cabinet minister for 20 good years plundered our treasury, public lands, forests and real estate? Was he part of it or was he not? Did I hear something like the cabinet’s collective responsibility?
Yes, we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. If we live in glass houses, let us not throw stones at people who pass for they may just remember to throw more stones at us with dire consequences to ourselves.
For whatever reason, let the media not be part of the destruction of Kenya.
jerrypkungu@hotmail.com
This article can be found on-line at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/599667
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