My strides...

a letter to tribal leaders

And i would say

Greetings, tribal leaders and peace! I write to you because we are all liars. Deep within, we are tribal; on the surface we are Kenyan.We need to put the cards on the table. And if we do not, the March 2010 referendum will. But I have a second reason. I write to you to advice.Do not debate; negotiate. To debate the draft constitution is to exchange ignorance; to negotiate is to build Kenya.have no time for polemics. Come March 2010, we will have a ‘Little General Election’.
If tribal emotions are high, this referendum will be “bloody”. What is more: new seeds of hate will be planted. I write to you, therefore, because you must cover the naiveté of this Committee of Experts.

Like naked children, they are running around the village blindly. And they are naked because they are not even experts in constitution-making. Apart from Prof Frederick Ssempebwa from Uganda, the others are “quacks”.i thinkIn sum, they are not a committee of experts; they are a committee of interests. And if this is true, their draft can precipitate a crisis. But you can stop this. As they say, the word crisis has two meanings: danger and opportunity. You can avoid the danger, but seize the opportunity.Allow me to explain using a story. A medical professor posed a question to his class. He told them the following: “Here is the family history: The father has syphilis. The mother has TB. They have four children. The first is blind. The second died at birth. The third is deaf. The fourth has TB. And the mother is pregnant with the fifth child.The question, therefore, is this: what should she do?” The class deliberated and in a few minutes entered its verdict. The mother should abort the fifth child. And to this, the good professor responded: “…Congratulations class, with your decision, you just killed Beethoven”.

Ludwig Van Beethoven was a German musician, born in 1770 to a father with syphilis and a mother with the equivalent of Aids.One brother was deaf, the other was blind and several had died. Logically, therefore, his chances of survival were nil. And if the mother had listened to this class, she would have aborted the genius child.This is what the committee of experts is asking us to do. They have looked at our “medical history”. From this they have found out that our founding fathers had “political syphilis”. This is how they infected us with negative ethnicity, political greed and corruption. The result? Our first constitution was blind, the Bomas draft died at birth, and the Annan amendments are deaf.With this kind of history, we are like Beethoven in the womb. We have no chance of survival. Like the naïve medical class, the committee of experts had only one option; to flush the baby. And the draft they gave us is the pill that will abort it.

But like the mother in this story, you can preserve the “pregnancy”. I have two thoughts on how. And the two represent the opportunities you can seize;One, you must not lie to yourselves. This constitution is not a textbook exercise. It is about tribe, real people.Once you accept this, then you will realise the following: That all tribes must win. his is why I write to you as tribal leaders.Instead of exchanging ignorance in rallies, you must spend the time in boardroom negotiations. And while at it, discuss nothing but Chapter 12 of the draft. If you strike a compromise on the Executive, the rest of the political architecture will fall in place.If you do not, the referendum will be a mess. By extension, 2012 will make the 2007 violence look like a Sunday school picnic. Can you rise to the occasion?Two, when Coca Cola discovered that Pepsi was eating into their market share, their new boss had to devise a strategy. He was not convinced that Pepsi was the problem. And so he called his “thought leaders” and asked: when people get thirsty, what do they drink.The thinkers scratched their heads and answered: “…Well, they drink coke. But they also drink coffee, lemonade, tea, water and other soft drinks”. Inspired by this answer, the boss declared; “…Pepsi then, is not the problem”.The other alternatives were the problem. And from here on, he decided to place a Coca Cola dispensing machine everywhere with people. Even in Kenya today, you will find a Coca Cola fridge on some dingy street in Nyeri, Kisii and Malindi.he idea is, whenever you get thirsty, there must be a coke available for you. This way, the coke becomes the drink of choice; not tea, coffee or water. Instead of competing with the opponent, (Pepsi), the new boss decided to compete with the situation. He won, and won big!
you can borrow from this man. Do not compete with the opponent; compete with the situation. Do not fight the dominant, or the dominated tribe.
Fight the structures that create tribal rivalry. And as you do it, remember this: the draft constitution has only one chapter. Everything else is a detail. If as tribal leaders you crack the chapter on the Executive, we will have a new constitution in April. But can you?

posted by Turphy @ Monday, March 22, 2010