Kenya’s holier-than-thou politics

   God is on politicians' lips every time they open their beaks in public  

                  By Makau Mutua  Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.

Most politics – some may say all politics – dwells in the moral sewer. Whatever the difference, most sane people can agree that most politicians are less faithful than the practitioners of the world’s oldest profession. And yet most politicians hold themselves out as people of high moral probity. They want you to believe that their coin of the realm – currency – is morality. In fact, the terrain of politics in Kenya is populated by men and women who are holier-than-thou.They clothe themselves in the Quran, the Bible, and other holy texts out there. God is on their lips every time they open their beaks in public. Today, I explore the seamy valley of sin that’s Kenya’s holier-than-thou political culture.

            To hear them tell it, no politician belongs in Sodom and Gomorrah. None are sinners, or have “fallen short of the glory of God.” In fact, the popular image of the Kenyan politician is the Bible-clutching devotee.

        The penitent quotes the Bible effortlessly, as though he’s the original author of the Holy Book. His Muslim counterpart faithfully – and without fail – prays the obligatory five times a day. Is it ritual, or hypocrisy? Do the hoi polloi know that the person wielding the holy book as a weapon is a rapist, a thief, a murderer, a liar? Do they know that politicians hold holy books as shields and weapons, not pious texts?

        It’s a historical fact that Christians and Muslims – the dominant religions – are extremely intolerant of “others.” One would be forgiven to think that Muslims and Christians were minority faiths. I think the genus of the issue is their messianic theologies. Both believe in the forcible embrace of everyone on earth. In other words, you either belong to them, or you are “the other.” They are imperial. Christians believe that you are benighted, and won’t see the gates of heaven, unless you submit to Jesus.

        Within Islam, people who aren’t Muslims are unequal to Muslims. Think of Christian Crusades and Islamist Jihads against unbelievers. Outsiders and insiders.  So, when a Kenyan politician lifts a Bible or Quran in public, or quotes it, he’s telling you that he’s an insider, not an outsider.

        He’s blessed, or sanctioned by God. Many a politician acts as though he died, went to heaven, was crowned by God, and sent back to earth on a special spiritual mission. He’s God’s chosen messenger on earth. Imagine this – Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor, the Liberian butchers of their people, were God-fearing rulers. Even Idi Amin of Uganda and Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, reputed to have been a cannibal, were “God’s chosen.” Unfortunately, too many ordinary people, and others of feeble minds, believe these political monsters. As Karl Marx said, “religion is the opium of the people.”

        There’s a reason why the Age of Enlightenment in Europe saw the demise of the authority of the Church over political society. Secularism and liberalism – and the republican democratic state – based on the popular will of the people replaced rulers “sanctioned” by God. It’s from this philosophical cradle that Kenya’s 2010 Constitution creates a secular republic.

        This doesn’t mean the most senior officials in the state can’t believe in religion, or publicly manifest it. They can, but they cannot use it as the basis, or justification, for state policy. That’s a no-no. Nor can they skate so close to that line as to create the impression that they are “sanctioned” by God, or are his messengers in the state. 

        Since the reign of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, religion has been used to calm the people down. In moments of crises, presidents appear in church clutching the Bible looking holier-than-thou. That’s not illegitimate conduct, but it crosses the line when state officers act as though they are “chosen.”

        Often the Church itself acts with obsequious subservience to earthly potentates. We saw, for example, a certain “high priest” appear out of nowhere to give spiritual protection to electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati as he engaged in questionable conduct at Bomas of Kenya. These Church mandarins are the worst corrupters of our body politic. Many gluttonously accept ill-gotten “political” blood money stolen from the poor. They serve not God, but their fat midriffs.

        Kenya should return to a sober relationship between Church and State. It’s distressing, for example, when State House becomes a pulpit for religious crusades. That’s the people’s house and shouldn’t be desecrated by the use of religion to bludgeon the opposition, or unconstitutionally fuse Church and State. Take religious crusades to Uhuru Park, or other public venues, not State House.

            The cruelest dictators in history use God, Church, and Country to commit the most heinous crimes against the people. One of the worst, Adolf Hitler, made no secret of it. Beware of those with toothy grins who come in the name of God. We all need to vanquish Kenya’s holier-than-though political culture.

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at the State University of New York Buffalo Law School. @makaumutua.

Source: Sunday Nation Today.