When sycophancy pays

  Be it via Twitter, Facebook, or the commentary on articles and blogs, there is an imaginary community emerging that’s generating opinions and shaping attitudes that serve to affirm or challenge the state of affairs in Kenya. Although at its infancy, this is in essence Kenya’s public sphere. Kenya’s equivalent to the Parisian café’s from which the French revolution sprung, a place where ideas are articulated, distributed and negotiated irrespective of our differences in birth and fortune.

The growth of this democratic polity depends on access, autonomy of the interlocutors, and the common commitment to the ways of logic from the participants. Access is growing as more and more Kenyans acquire smartphones and consume the internet. The autonomy of the citizens is however, a moot point, as is their commitment to rational-critical discourse. The latter probably reinforced by the former.

The autonomy is contaminated by the perpetual electioneering mode Kenya seems to be in. As a result, citizens’ sentiments are informed and guided by their affinity to their political party as opposed to their personal considerations on policies, governance and the state of affairs in Kenya. A simple litmus test would be to ask the most vocal within this space to define what a debt ratio is, let alone what Kenya’s debt ratio is! Furthermore, the political kinship itself is not ideologically based; it is instead rooted in the persona at the head of the party, the leader’s wealth, the leader’s history and worse of all, the leader’s tribe. This allegiance to the leaders replaces independent thinking and forms the identities of contributors, eradicating their autonomy.

 As identity politics dominates the discourse superseding dialogue and debate on the needs of society, the third ingredient for a successful public sphere, logic, diminishes. The subject of criticism becomes the participants of the space rather than substantial topics concerning governance. Opposing and potentially logically sound arguments are ridiculed and marginalised in what is a subconscious attempt to box people within the prescribed identities. ‘Sycophancy’ becomes the blanket label for those affirming positive initiatives by the government. Any success from the government is inconsistent with the Opposition’s belief as they have been indoctrinated in identity politics and in order to restore the compatibility between the contradicting opinions held within, they reject or refute the facts. On the flip side, government supporters remain silent for fear of being labelled sycophants, a term that connotes an intellectual deficiency. Ultimately, rationality is reduced to none.

It would be a shame to lose this public sphere. A space that if harnessed correctly would allow us to put the government of the day to task, it would enable us to fine tune initiatives that seem to be working and to celebrate those that are advancing our society.

 

 

More than labelling we need discussions; more than ridiculing we need understanding.

Let us be sycophantic about the space itself. Let us be subservient to the conventions that the success of a public sphere depends on. If we respect this space, if we exercise servile complaisance to this space, there is a lot to be gained.