One Daring Man

From: Robert Alai

 To be free and fair Kenya needs leadership of `One Daring Man'

Published on October 6, 2007, 12:00 am

By Barrack Muluka

From time to time, one has to come to terms with the harsh realities of life. One faces up to things and accepts them for what they are. That is why I, Joseph the dreamer of dreams, must confront the truth about the General Election. I am staring the painful truth in the eye. I see that I cannot be Mzee Moi's special project.

Poor boy, I now know Kanu Iko na wenyewe. This is to say the political arrangement we call Kanu, or Baba na Mama, has its owners. I have seen strange things these past few days. How would I have known that I would some day see Mzee Kibaki singing Kanu Yajenga Nchi (Kanu builds the country) alongside Mr Uhuru Kenyatta? Mzee Kibaki decamped from the Baba na Mama party on Christmas day in 1991.

He then went on to make a career out of blasting Baba na Mama at every opportunity. But his efforts to dislodge Baba na Mama from power had to wait for Mr Raila Odinga (Agwambo) to do the hatchet job for him in 2002.

I had hoped that since Agwambo helped Mzee Kibaki to serve Kanu a blow that left it drowsy and staggering for five years, Mzee Moi would make me his project. I imagined through me, Kanu's lost glory would be reclaimed. But I now know Mzee Kibaki is the project and Agwambo is the problem. Not to worry about that. My day will come.

I have seen when Kibaki is the project and Agwambo is the problem you look for wily ways to run the later down. You unleash upon him a mouth that can eat itself -- one that can eat anything with anybody. It should be a mouth that can successively eat with the colonial governor, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Nyayo and Kibaki. When there is nothing to eat, it can eat itself. I am learning.

Even as the reigning dreamer of dreams, I have learnt that there is no end to learning. I have been keeping the company of Mr Shaaban Bin Robert and that of Mr Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen was the great man who wrote the play, An Enemy of the People. Of course, like bin Robert, he wrote many other things. But, although they lived nearly many decades and thousands of miles apart, their minds flew crisply though time and space to find a meeting point.

Ibsen and bin Robert met at the point where they were concerned about who was the enemy of the people. They were concerned about the difference between "one daring man" and "one dangerous man". Where would you draw the line between the two? Bin Robert wrote in the novel Kusadika: "On account of our inability to see, our best friends have become our worst enemies."

But long before Ibsen and bin Robert, ancient Greek philosophers had answered the question of the dichotomy between the one daring man and the one dangerous man. They said the answer lay in the word `antinomy'.

Accordingly, two people would wrap their minds around one man and consider whether he was one daring man or one dangerous man. The one would say: "Dangerous." And the other would say: "Daring." And both would be right.

Emergence of "D" man

Both would be right because a man called Mr Isaac Newton would expound on something called "relativity". Although Newton derived his theory of relativity from the laws of physics, relativity is applicable to the daily things of life, even in a village like Emanyulia, in Kakamega. Let us take the case of notorious violent thieves who make life one living hell for the village. Everyone knows the robbers by name and by sight. But nobody dares do anything about them. For, the whole village lives in mortal fear of the robber barons. Then there emerges one "D" man who will take them head on. His "D" will be daring or dangerous to you, relative to where you are. If you are with the villagers, he is one daring man. If you are not with the villagers, he is one dangerous man.

In his time, a deadly shooter called Mr Patrick Shaw gravitated in the streets of Nairobi with several guns, all at once. Shaw was walking hell for city bank robbers. To the robbers, he was one dangerous man. But those fighting on the side of angels thought he was one daring man.

The definition depends on which side you on. That was why Mr Dedan Kimathi was one dangerous man. Once upon a time, former South African president Nelson Mandela was also one dangerous man. And, yes, even Jesus Christ was once one dangerous man.

For, as the reigning dreamer of dreams, I have read where it is written: "Then Jesus said to the Chief Priests and officers of the temple guard and elders who had come for him, `Am I leading a rebellion that you have come for me with swords and clubs?'"

As the reigning dreamer of dreams, I have also read where it is written: "And Jesus said to him, `No-one who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God'."

If I was privileged to be the one daring man in town and I had a job to do, I would get on with it, regardless that my panicky and sinister detractors were vilifying me with such appalling epithets as "one dangerous man". What did you expect, a beggar on a horseback?