Look who is talking propaganda

Last week, I was highly amused when a Senior Counsel elevated my humble self to dizzying heights by suggesting that I am a propagandist for someone at the Office of the President. I don’t know what triggered Mr Ahmednasir Abdullahi to say such a thing, but perhaps he could have saved us all a load of trouble if he had bothered to read last Saturday’s column beyond the headline which suggested there may be a run-off after the August 9 elections.

Now those of us who frequent social media have a good idea of the kind of side-hustle the prominent lawyer engages in as an influencer and he does a creditable job of it. However, it is unfair of him to suggest that everyone who comments on political issues is in some payroll as a useful spin-doctor. I wouldn’t mind the extra coin, but I sincerely doubt that anyone in the OP knows of my existence, starting with the CEO whose views on newspapers are not very flattering.

No, Bwana SC, some of us do think independently, and if some of my opinions displease a few, that is to be expected. I do not see any reason why I should be “eternally ashamed of myself” for telling the United Democratic Alliance, which he serves with utmost dedication, that their supposed dominance of the Mt Kenya region’s politics may be built on quicksand.

But what, exactly, is propaganda? It is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”. Its step-sisters are disinformation and spin (hence the term spinmeister) and its main aim is to influence a change in opinions and behaviour regardless of the truth. Propaganda is a very powerful weapon and if used well, it can be most effective but if it is abused, it can cause a great deal of damage.

Alternative truth

Nevertheless, although it is a weapon of choice for any serious politician, it has gained negative connotations because it is littered with lies peddled so repeatedly and shamelessly that they gain currency of their own, clothed in a thin patina of alternative truth.

As the chief propagandist of the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945, Paul Joseph Goebbels had no equal. Said he: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Propaganda, he adds, works best when those being manipulated are confident that they are acting on their own free will.

Let us put it this way, I too have been listening to the ground and all I hear are monotonous repetitions of propaganda to confuse the ordinary voters in the region. Below is a list of a number, starting with the most ridiculous and ending with the most banal, but before that, perhaps the UDA strategists should realise that very few people who were adults during the 2007-2008 post-election violence are going into this thing wearing blinkers.

Empirical evidence suggests that none of the fellows now singing sipangwingwi had the vote 15 years ago, and there is very little chance that they have one today. How they intend to vote without that vital document is beyond comprehension, which is why I insist that the numbers that show up during rallies is not an indication of how people will actually vote.

The Handshake lie

Secondly, there are those people saying that this country’s economy started going south the day President Uhuru Kenyatta shook hands with ODM leader Raila Odinga and that this is when the prices of goods, especially food, shot through the roof. But others counter that actually, loan money procured at great cost and meant for infrastructure was looted by a few, meaning that we are repaying a great deal of money for no value at all. The lie that everything came to a standstill after the Handshake is just that – a big fat lie.

The third is that at 77, Mr Odinga is too old to run a country and he is just a puppet being manipulated by the Deep State. That is noisome ageism, which is blatant discrimination against the elderly. It would be naïve of me to suggest that age has no bearing on statecraft, but to say that Mr Odinga cannot be entrusted with the presidency on that account is nonsense. As former Finance Minister James Gichuru once famously said, people do not go to Parliament to play football. In any case, Mr Mwai Kibaki was not exactly a spring chicken when he became president.

The fourth one will probably get me into trouble with Kikuyu traditionalists, but I can’t help it. When the tribal oath was administered in the 1980s, I was a schoolboy and therefore did not qualify. I never really knew what it was for. The same goes for millions of younger folks in the Mt Kenya region. Who believes today that some ancient oath still binds the Gema nation in any significant way? When people give in to propaganda, they suspend common sense and reduce themselves to purveyors of clichés and tropes. That is not good for the health of our politics.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor; [email protected]