THE FUTILITY OF MIGUNA, THE PARADOX OF SPARTACUS BEFORE ROMEOfficial history forgot him for a Milenia. Our man
Spartacus the Thracian. Rome called it
damnatio memorae –---erasure from history:
O ye that are! what crime must one commit, to deserve such a punishment? –-The fate of having non existed!
(To understand the darkness of that punishment –---(erasure from existence), consider the following feats of vanity unique to humankind. The Pharaoh's bankrupted Old Egypt building pyramids. These monumental structures were merely eternal graves. They were a visible remembrance, an advertised proof of their earthly existence! And of course forever propaganda of their greatness!)
For us human beings who famously are creatures with a
sense of time, that is a consciousness of passing and having been, DAMNATIO MEMORAE is akin to the nothingness which is the mental state of vegetables. Rulers will therefore in the rule, partake to open lying, not to mention other outrageous manipulations of The Truth. Being supremely economical with the truth is thus one thing we can trust power to ever do.
Any power.
Even the Central Bank of Kenya, supposedly under a star economist, will lie abundantly over a
Eurobond, of a meagre Ksh. 2b. The Kenya Police too will be challenged to speak straight on the death of one of their own, sergeant
John Kipyegon Kenei, or the Jacob Juma's, Chris Musando's or
Erastus Kirui Chemorei's for that matter.
“I am Deeply saddened by the death of Police Sergeant Kipyegon Kenei who worked in my Harambee House Annex Office. I urge the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to ascertain the circumstances surrounding his death,”
Ruto said –---/DPPS
Of course a Kenyan politician no longer spots the human faculty of honesty. Such can no longer recognise if they were blatantly lying. Nor can they comprehend a cultural revulsion toward their fakery.
That beggars a need to develop a characterisation of this new trait, you know; the concept 'cold-bloodedness' was scholarly adapted to encompass a particular failing in reptiles, respective human morals. Of course for their biological success and the evolutionary survival of their species, cold-bloodedness is for reptiles a wonderful adaption to a harsh environment. It is a necessity in the cut-throat Darwinian struggle for existence. But how should we describe this new adaptation of the Kenyan politician where he or she is a total moral hollow?
NO GREATNESS FOR MORAL HOLLOWS
On a lighter note, these days there is the running joke about
Darayavaush, popularly known as Darius the Great. He was the third Persian King of the Achaemenid Empire. He all but usurped the throne by murder, then re-wrote the history, banning all other versions. That means he was acutely aware of the moral sensibilities of the people toward a perfidious King, however brilliant.
Howbeit human history is a battlefield where victories are seldom complete. The Truth being eternal, memories linger, the peoples Culture shifts and stores, and, over time, lies float to the top and rot into compost for humour; too, feats of heroism linger and, futile or not a their time of enactment, they birth new meanings. Once great empires collapse to dust and get lost in the blackhole of history, the stories of men and women who went all the way for an ideal, is what enters the lexicon of legends to become all the remembrance of an era. Their individual tragedy sells for ever. And sometimes the more tabloid the hotter.
This former brings me to Spartacus. Though it is equivalently the story of Jesus Christus, the crucified radical moderniser of Judaism.
Spartacus is all we know of that time now. The few names of the emperors or nobles we chance, names of those who killed him, betrayed him, 'damnatio memoraed' him, only feature as footnotes like the Iscariot Judas in the story of Jesus Christ.
I suspect over time, the story of our time will best be told in one name:
Miguna wa Miguna, oka Njugunah Njugunah. The Praetor
(or Prime Minister) Matiang'i will be a notorious footnote like the infamous Judas in the story of Jesus. The power drunk Dr. Fred wont be the Darius he thinks he is.
Fred loves his money dirty –-(Ruaraka land scam), so he simultaneously can't have his power bloody (hang Raila for a treasonable oath).He has to stew in the inertia of diversified loyalties. He is thus a proconsul unable to stand on his own feet, but always a protege, thus appearing ever shaky before the single-minded ambition of
The Hustler Singh.
And so it is to the tragedy of the Outcast Miguna wa Miguna that the ball rolls to tell the tale of our times.
Why do I think so?
Because today in Kenya, the most unconquerable, unintimidated spirit, articulate and most publicly idealistic mind of resistance is the banned man, Miguna wa Miguna. The force and passion of his rambunctious personality dwarfs anything on offer in Kenya today. Even amongst artists. The no-compromise, anti-establishment, unrelenting scorch and sting of his firesome tongue has no equal in Kenya today. It is the single-minded and suicidal passion of a Spartacus, an opposant zealot or New Deal fanatic like the later St. Paul of the New Testament. Miguna has no reverse gear. It is the tragic heroism of a man far beyond his time, a character unable to bend to the mediocrity of the contemporary Kings of Kings; but, over time, we are witnessing the creation of an eternal legend: it is the inconquerability of the human spirit in the search for freedom, and justice. It is the definition of true man: a freedom seeking missile.It is the dream of all mankind, humankind through history. The call for Justice. His battle-cry is a rally against tyrants and despots. It is the fire which always burnt beneath the breast of Africa even as Colonialism considered her pacified. The fire would later erupt as the liberation movements across the continent. That is the eternal drive that defines humanity. Slaves will continue to obey their masters. But both have their minds on the sword, hidden or not. Yeah,
the slave always weighs to wager a chance, the master ever careful to stack the odds. That is the dynamic of all oppression, rebellion and liberation.
It is the dynamic of Injustice: no military superiority, instant rebellion! Not even God can change that dynamic. No wonder Lenin defined the state as organised violence. –---Rebel and die is the message of state power. Yet, throughout the third world and much of Africa, only a handful of governments are not running scared, only a few states wholly monopolise violence in their territory! (And, having dropped MOAB after MOAB on hapless Aghanistan and reduced her to the stone age, the USA as a super power could only declare Pyrrhic victory after Pyrrhic victory, until now, stalemated to a talk!)
SOMETHING ROTTEN AT THE HEART OF THE REPUBLIC?
The Roman nature of our politics hit me on the face during the funeral rites of the former emperor
DT Arap Moi. The Tribune, which his family owns –--that is the KTN Media house which boasts the Standard Newspaper; the DN (owned by his fellow noble The Aga Khan); and the rest of the media cast owned by fellow imperial dynasts like the Kenyatta's, went into choreographed overdrive to divinise the fallen former dictator of Rome. The well-paid scribes had a bumper harvest earning bonuses coming up with competitive sycophantic pieces for public consumption.
Huraaah! Huraah! All hail Him! the god Moi. Gone, but now a star in the heavens. May he shine forever upon our land! All Hail Moi!
@MigunaMiguna
Patriots don't mourn criminals who died without paying for their crimes like Jonathan Moi. We condemn them even in death. We condole with victims of crimes; not with the families of the criminals. You have never heard of a funeral procession or a condolence tribute for Hitler! Apr 20, 2019
Oops! Wrong Moi!
Dr. Miguna Miguna
@MigunaMiguna
·
2020 12 feb.
Dictator Daniel arap Moi abandoned Lena Moi for 70 years until she died a lonely, destitute, tortured and abused soul in abject poverty. Shame on you, Gideon Moi: You were not there for your mother when she needed you most. #GoToHellMoi #DespotsMustFall
Oops, again the wrong Moi!
Ach, I don't know which one is the right Moi!
THE ROMAN CROWD IS ALWAYS IN FOR A PUBLIC PARTYOne of the great fears of authority, was the dynamics of a crowd issuing into a mob. Crowds know their place in the great game of keeping up appearances. So too do we, as the Kenyan people, know we have to majorly vote for our Tribal Kingpins in the current dispensation.
So to speak.
But what else do we know!?
We know a lot. We understand the great game of hypocrisy. We know our Tribal Kingpins. We know their corruption, greed, mediocrity and stupidity are the chains tethering Africa down for rape by any adventurous foreigner who is better organised. But a shallow analyst would miss the dynamics and start to blame the people: they get the leaders they deserve; they elect their own Doom, they worship their own tormentors (as in a trained masochist situation). Etc etc. But I shudder at the rage which seethes below the veneer of cynicism which weakly masks the revulsion of Nigerian youths at the absence of their future in current Nigeria.
Anyway, know your history. I guarantee the same Kenyan crowds waving Uhuru-Ruto and the rest of the Tribal Chiefs as the Almighty's of the land, issues easily into the mob which would use their heads for football on the bloody streets, when the dynamics change such that a dash for the sword to cut the master's head is even odds.
Currently, we all know The Kenya Army and Police are the guys in charge of the rigging of the elections. That is the peace they maintain, the streets they would sweep. It is not Al-Shabaab they have bought hardware to stay, nay, it is the Kenyan streets protesting rigged elections they are sworn to wipe, clean!
THE VOTER NB: When is the last time Kenyan voters were left to get the real choice they made for the imperial seat of President!? It was 1963, and then when Kibaki replaced Moi, 2002. –---Remember the glitch which brought us to the current
TangaTanga-Kieleweke arsonism? Well, the current president Ouru Kenyatta won elections in 2017. But they were a repeat where less than 34% bothered. Ouru is thus legitimate enough yes, to be officially referred to as Commander in Chief; yet, O Fates, H.E remains illegitimate enough to run a coalition government with Raila, the man of the treasonable oath!
Were Mr. Kenyatta foolish enough to run Kenya as an full-mandate Uhuruto complex based on that repeat election of 2017, by now the ungovernable Kenya following Agwambo's arrest for treason would have split into two republics. This fact too, is common knowledge outside the political class allied to the illusions of Dr. Ruto.
William Ruto's chief problem is he never has figured out the dynamics of those numbers upon which he and Uhuru were sworn into the second term. They are the same numbers upon which the oath of Raila Odinga as the peoples president is EQUALLY sustained. And which make him co-president above the deputy president; and create the dynamic for the usurpation by Fred Matiang'i, issuing into the executive Prime Minister. It is not Ouru Kenyatta who demoted Ruto, it is the results of the 2017 repeat presidential. The Kenyan voter did an Achebe, if you remember the hilarious short story by the maestro: THE VOTER.
These power games played by the nobility make Rome an all daggers season. But they also ever prime the crowd for mob behaviour, if not a sudden knife in the back. That is the political pathology.
And there is the clinician Miguna wa Miguna. Overwhelmed by the epidemic in real time. He wins in the long run, but looses today.
TODAY THE DEEP STATE GROOMS MOI GIDEON!
The why is interesting, but a foregone protocol.
In The Voter by Chinua Achebe we have the theme of corruption, loyalty, guilt, power, greed and tradition. Taken from his Girls at War and Other Stories collection, the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator. After reading the story the reader realises that Achebe may be exploring the theme of corruption.
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It may also be a case that Achebe is exploring the theme of loyalty. Not only do the elders accept a bribe in return for their loyalty to Marcus, but Roof too accepts a bribe to ensure that he will vote for Maduka. Even though he spends the entirety of the story attempting to ensure that Marcus will get re-elected, Roof at the end shows Marcus no loyalty. Having been swayed by the five pounds he has received in order to vote for Maduka.
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The end of the story is also interesting if not ironic. By ripping his ballot paper in two and placing half of the paper in each ballot box, Roof feels that he has honoured his commitment to vote for Maduka. However, if anything, Roof has ended up spoiling his vote with neither Marcus nor Maduka getting his vote. Despite having been bribed by one of Maduka’s men and having a sense of loyalty to Marcus, Roof hasn’t managed to vote for either man.
it is a thought, when the majority of Kenyans stayed home that fateful day, they neither voted for Uhuruto nor Raila!
I couldn't help thinking dark, of Achebe's THE VOTER, that day as I watched Wafula Chebukati go through his motions, mumbling his lines in the tragedy he had no consciousness of. Yes, imagine.
That is African letters for you. This one, the Voter, is from 1965! One year after we declared the republic, the first republic of Kenya!