TV cameramen at a press conference in Nairobi.
There has been coordinated attacks on the media this past week, by people who have chosen to remain faceless, leaderless and, unsurprisingly, brainless. Random images were picked off the interwebs, taken to the studio for makeup, before being unleashed online in a synchronised fashion reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica 2017 campaigns brainwash.
It is not the first time the Kenyan media is on the receiving end of such a smear campaign, and you can place your kidney as collateral that it won’t be the last.
Not so long ago, one of the greatest former roadside chicken sellers to ever walk the face of the earth prophesized the coming of fake news when he delivered that all-time famous speech with the punchline, “Kenya Has Shortage of Fools.” He may not yet know it, but this eureka moment is considered the much needed generational turning point that altered the genetic makeup of Kenyan kids born nine months later.
For four weeks now, we have witnessed a terrifyingly efficient peer group picking up from where Jesus left off, stepping into the holy of holies to declutter God’s house off political filth and sending the prophets of Baal checking their heartbeats in shock.
For the first time in the history of the Kenyan church, young Kenyans have walked down the aisle to plant the national flag on the pulpit in full glare of the Jesus on the cross, before addressing the congregation in total defiance of denominational doctrine and religious dogma.
Extra winnowing
The Bible says in Psalm 20:7, that some trust in chariots and some in horses, but the Gen Z have decided to trust in the name of the Lord their God who bestowed in them an extra winnowing sieve to question the chaff State House intercessors have been ramming down their alimentary canal in the name of respecting authority. When Kenya became short of fools, it also reduced the number of timid people among the younger rank and file.
Like the human appendix, the church in Kenya is essentially vestigial. It took the Gen Z revolt to wake up an entire nation to the reality that the church serves little obvious purpose, but few think there is much reason to cut them off until they cause trouble.
That trouble came in 2022, when they collectively took the pulpit to proclaim that for the first time in the history of independent Kenya the church had a candidate in the elections. And while they have plastered and bandaged that wound with pockets of retreating statements here and there, they have never officially apologised for their contribution to the political flare-ups the country is currently going through. You will be marked correctly if you assessed that in the house of God in Kenya, only the congregation is supposed to repent for their sins while those who are called to serve God play by a different rulebook.
This week, when the media were being torn apart by those faceless social media mercenaries, the church went into hiding yet again. They have learnt nothing from their occupational forebearer, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who famously remarked that, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
The media has remained the number one punching bag for those who have something to hide, since Jesus was born. Part of the beef emanates from the bile that boils itself from the media’s role in safeguarding public interest. The remaining gripe is borne out of the realization that, for the most part, the media has refused to place their necks for the state to squeeze. Consistent attempts have been made to puncture the media’s reputation but every time it happens, the public returns with the reminder that Kenya has a shortage of fools, as was proclaimed by one of God’s prophets.
Raining blows
There is no excitement to derive from raining blows on the media, however sooty the inside of their cup maybe. Given a choice between a sinful media and no media, the public is always safer with media that has fallen short of the glory of God. A media that stumbles and falls all the time, is a media that is not only still alive but also with the ability to walk again. A media showing signs of motion is a media that can be rehabilitated back to the road to Damascus. A rehabilitated media is the holy grail of transparency and accountability.
Calling for the disbandment of a media house, however burning your fuse may be, will not boil your grandmother’s yams – it might actually harden them further, because praying that the government closes the stations down is like gouging out your own eyes hoping to improve your keenness of sight. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man will always remain king.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the public must always remember that the government is not doing them any favours when it cedes to their demands. There is nothing like government funds – only public funds. Every month, when taxpayers send their sweat to KRA at gunpoint for the police to return home with food after shooting at peaceful protestors, they do so fully aware that without digging into their pockets the government will stall and nobody wants such a doomsday scenario playing out. Whoever pays the piper must, therefore, call the tune and the government of Kenya should not be an exception.
When the media steps in to shine a spotlight on how the eating of public resources is rivalling that of menacing rodents, the least the government is expected to do is to hug them tight not blow them up. In this era of skyrocketing joblessness where first class graduates make up the highest number of interviewees lining up for blue collar jobs, whoever does your homework without asking for pay is supposed to be a dependable ally you cannot afford to cut loose.
