“When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”
Those were the words of Kenya’s founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
With these three sentences, Kenyatta perfectly summarised Africa’s colonisation by the white man: it began with a charm offensive using religion, and ended up in the use of brute force and power to subjugate our forefathers. It’s no wonder German philosopher Karl Marx noted that “religion is the opium of the masses”.
History repeats itself. The strategy employed by the colonialists is not different from the mind games that Deputy President William Ruto has been playing to make political inroads in the Mount Kenya region. A keen observation of the friendliness that the DP has been feigning for the region unmasks his motive.
Like the colonisers, Dr Ruto is using cosmetic friendliness to subdue Mount Kenya. Camaraderie is the carrot he is dangling; the stick is surely coming.
In his seminal novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe dramatises the effect that colonisation had on the African culture – the utter disruption of our way of life and the uprooting of our social, political, and religious institutions. When the colonial invaders came to Kenya, they replaced the rebellious chiefs who stood their ground with loyal home guards. The guards were used by the white man to torture Africans, spy on suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers, and collect hut tax from the Africans.
The colonialists used religion to brainwash Kenyans into accepting the poor conditions with no complaints. In a similar fashion, Ruto has brainwashed a section of Mount Kenya leaders and their followers.
The colonialists made us abandon our culture and beliefs in favour of theirs and made Africans believe that anyone who opposed their views and rule was an enemy. They used the tenets of Christianity to justify the injustices they meted out on Africans. Simply put, they made the people hate their own ways and admire foreign ways of life.
And in similar strategy, Ruto, through his proxies, has overturned the region’s priorities. His sympathisers in Mount Kenya oppose their own and take Ruto’s word as gospel truth. One of the narratives the Ruto camp has been pushing to hoodwink the masses is the “Hustler vs Dynasties” narrative. This depicts him as a representative of the masses in an epic battle against the bourgeoisie dynasties. Never mind that Ruto is himself a member of the bourgeoisie, whichever way you look at it. Using this faulty logic, any Mount Kenya leader who opposes Ruto is accused of being a tribalist and a supporter of the so-called dynasties.
Ruto has been contributing heavily to church harambees in Mount Kenya, and that puts his intentions into question. Contributing to churches gives him the support of the clergy, who can then sway their congregants to support his bid.
Just as the colonialists used religion to teach Africans to forsake their culture, the man from Sugoi uses religious leaders to tighten his grip on Mount Kenya. The region’s elected leaders have been converted into Ruto’s yes-men to preach his gospel and disseminate his campaign agenda in the region. What Ruto has paid them or promised them is anyone’s guess.
Ruto has been contributing heavily to church harambees in Mount Kenya, and that puts his intentions into question. Contributing to churches gives him the support of the clergy, who can then sway their congregants to support his bid. However, building churches is not an economic strategy, especially in a region that has a church in practically every 200 metres. What would benefit the region are projects such as schools, hospitals and factories.
But the DP does not seem interested in initiating any real development in the region. Instead, he hoodwinks Mount Kenya with handouts. A good question for the region to ask itself during this Covid-19 period is: What if Ruto had instead donated the harambee cash to hospitals for capacity building?
He has also openly defied President Uhuru Kenyatta and lined up politicians from the latter’s backyard to openly defy and abuse him. This is basically the home guard approach used by colonialists: pick individuals who are loyal to you from the area you are targeting and use them to divide and conquer the region.
It should be of interest to Kenyans to find out why Ruto is opposed to the Uhuru-Raila handshake. It’s not that the truce was bad for the country, but simply because he viewed it as a ploy to scatter his 2022 ambitions. He was afraid the handshake would strengthen Mount Kenya since it would provide a conducive environment for business.
Prior to the handshake, political temperatures were at an all-time high, with the riots and demonstrations hitting business hard. The handshake was, therefore, a big threat to Ruto from the get-go because it would have perhaps benefited this region than any other, considering its inhabitants’ prowess in business. The Building Bridges Initiative proposals will further benefit the region, another threat to Ruto’s 2022 ambitions because he has a better chance of winning the region if they are discontented with Uhuru’s achievements.
Fortunately, Mount Kenya leaders are slowly coming back to their senses. They have realised that the president has the interests of the region at heart while the DP wants to reap from their discord. Ruto’s ship could be sinking as the region wakes up from its temporary slumber.
In future, we are likely to witness more Mount Kenya leaders decamping from the “colonialist’s” camp as reality hits home. Of course not everyone will decamp as some are out to sell the region to the highest bidder.
Ultimately, the future of the region depends on its voters. Will they do what is right or will they hand over their land for domination?
The writer is a communication consultant with interest in politics.
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