The shame of politics at funerals

Funerals are powerful political platforms. In history, in literature and in Kenya, funeral orations have built and destroyed many a politician. Yet the most vital question that Kenyans should now answer is whether time has not come to stop throwing mud at each other’s faces at funerals. This is because Kenya today enjoys unprecedented freedom of expression and there is no need what so ever for disrespecting the deceased people being buried by turning their final farewells into battlegrounds for political gains.

The burial of the late Vice President Kijana Wamalwa’s mother, Mama Esther Nekesa, was a case in point. Martha Karua and Bifwoli Wakoli used the occasion to attack Premiere Raila Odinga and President Kibaki for tearing the country apart. But were the furious words from the two disgruntled politicians really necessary at that time? Was the funeral of the departed soul of an innocent old woman really the appropriate place to wash dirty linen? The behaviour of Karua and Wakoli must have made Kijana Wamalwa turn in his grave because his mother, most certainly, deserved much more respect than the two politicians showed her as she was being buried.

In general, there are a lot of disgusting misbehaviors in Kenyan funerals. Some go there just to have a good time in all sorts of festivities which include dancing, boozing, feasting and, believe it or not, even fornicating. These are all obsolete primitive customs which should rightfully belong to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately Kenyan politicians will be the last to agree with me; and their motives are suspects.

There are times when funerals have to be politicized especially when the people being buried are victims of political assassinations. For this reason it would have been impossible to stop Mark Antony from talking politics at Julius Caesar’s funeral. Likewise burying Tom Mboya, J.M. Kariuki and Pio Gama Pinto had to be politicized. But Mama Nekesa was assassinated by no one; and as a mother of one of the most respected politicians, she deserved a more courteous and decent sendoff than what Martha Karua and Bifwoli Wakoli gave her.

Paradoxically, funeral orations in Kenya were popularized by Raila’s own father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, but he had a very good reason to politicize funerals because he was banned by his powerful political enemies from addressing any crowd without a licence. Being a firebrand he was, he made sure he attended as many funerals as possible to spread his anti-government philosophies. Jaramogi’s tactic worked wonders and it was emulated by all Kenyan politicians including his own son Raila who was among the people targeted for attack at Mama Nekesa’s funeral.

The politicians who attacked Kibaki and Raila leadership would have been forgiven if they had no other political platforms. Unfortunately these are the same people who make Parliament adjourn prematurely due to lack of quorum. What they were after at the old mama’s funeral was cheap publicity while campaigning for the 2012 elections. Unfortunately both the time and place for electioneering was terribly wrong.

Of the two politicians, Wakoli is likely to benefit more from his outbursts before the President and the Prime Minister. The majority of the people at the funeral came from his home area and they would regard whoever challenged the Prime Minister and the President publicly a real local hero. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about Martha Karua.

To her people of Central Province, insulting Kibaki publicly in Luhya land will be taken as a terrible mistake to make. If she hoped to become popular among the Luhya people in her 2012 presidential ambition she also made another terrible miscalculation because the most respected Luhya leader present at the funeral was Musalia Mudavadi who condemned her misbehaviour. In any case the two politicians who made fools of themselves at the funeral are in for a big shock when they seek people’s mandate in 2012.

To begin with, the majority of voters in 2012 will be the most frustrated youths in the country who will be voting for the first time. Most of them will have had some form of education but with no chance of any employment. They will also be the most erudite voters Kenya has had in history. Most likely they will not be influenced by tribalism and maybe, more than at any other time in the past, they will scrutinize party manifestos to choose the political group to back. Unfortunately for Martha Karua her party Narc Kenya is most unpopular among the people she was addressing at the funeral.

Narc Kenya is virtually unknown in the part of the world from where she was attacking Kibaki and Raila. Her aggressive verbal assault could therefore never have been intended to make any gainful benefit apart from personally injuring President Kibaki. If that was her only aim, then she succeed immensely because the President was indeed deeply wounded and his angry face could be seen by all Kenyans who heard him say: “This is now too much!”

Between the two there is no love lost. When she quit the cabinet claiming the President was not serious about reforms, she did not quite reveal what had angered her so much as to abandon one of the most powerful positions in the current Government as the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Her real reason was because she had been bypassed and overlooked when the President appointed Uhuru Kenyatta one of the Deputy Prime Ministers in Kenya. For that, she has never forgiven Mwai Kibaki and to annoy him she started moving closer to Raila Odinga without quite joining hands with him.

The shameful ridiculing of the President and the Prime Minister at Kijana Wamalwa’s mother’s funeral was also uncalled for because the two leaders deserve respect in public. The habit of recklessly heckling at politicians in public is also abhorred by the people of Kenya and that is why they refused to join a handful of hooligans who tried to do so at the Nyayo Stadium during this year’s Madaraka Day celebrations. At that time the President called the hecklers “pumbavus” and the people simply laughed the matter off. If the politicians over dramatize and politicize funeral orations, they may very well qualify to be described by the same word used by the President on Madaraka Day.