The HeMan dilemma
on Colm in Kenya (Kenya), 18/May/2010 12:25, 34 days ago
25 Years ago, a young boy woke up on Christmas morning at 4:30am, jumped out of bed and went to see what Santa had left him– a stocking full of goodies.“Yes!Match Soccer Annual, check. Tub of Fruit Pastilles, check. Satsuma orange, whatever. Five Irish Pounds, check. Ah here we go, He-Man figure– this is what I’d asked for” says the unidentified, perhaps fictional young boy.“Wait, Santa gave me one of Skelators Henchmen?A horrible cross between a lizard and Arnold Schzaneggar?Damn, I don’t want that!” says the ‘I don’t know any better’ bug-eyed, curly haired young lad.So the boy turns to the bed beside him, where his brother soundly sleeps. His innocent young eyes fall on the big red stocking full to the brim at the end of his bed.The boy takes a timid step towards the end of his brothers bed and with the skill of a MI5 agent, quietly empties the contents of the stocking.Out pops another He-Man figure but this time a good guy, some hammer head bloke with huge muscles and a cheery face.“Now, this is what I talking about Santa” he holds the figure in its plastic wrapping up close to his face. His brother is still in the land of nod (still is?), he wants this figure, know one will ever know....What to do?Amos Wako, the Attorney General of Kenya faced a similar dilemma over the last two weeks.After months of public discussion and consultation, after months of parliamentary debates, arguments and finally a vote to confirm the too-long awaited new constitution– a more equitable, modern and representative affair – was signed off and prepared to be given to the public an August referendum.And then, the‘He-Man’ moment.Wako, who has been AG for 15 years and has been embroiled is so many scandals he makes Silvio Burlusconi look like a choir boy, is currently barred from entering the US on account of his efforts to stop reform in his country and stopped the 2002 new constitution efforts, was given the document to check punctuation and grammar and make minor edits if he found any errors.He made a few minor errors which he passed by an independent body of experts and then had a day, all on his own in his evil lair before he was to send the document to the Government printers.He doesn’t want this Lizard Skelators Henchman Constitution. He wants the Hammer- Head He-Mans Buddy constitution.(Let me state that I have no concrete information to suggest this was the actual thought process of the Attorney General of Kenya.)What to do? He knows if changes the constitution and its passed, people will look at him with‘why did Santa give me the bad guy and give my brother the good guy.He must have been the better boy this year’ look.Such a dilemma. What to do?Well he changes the constitution of course and takes He-Mans buddy, prints it (wake up brother– happy christmas, oh look what you got from Santa – an ugly fat lizard and Skelators ass wipe. Nice, I got He-Mans buddy :-) ) and sends it off into the public.What did he change you ask– he just added two words which makes access to all Kenyans individual human rights dependent on whether the Head of Security does not believe that access to such rights poses a danger to national security.He did this even though thousands of experts, independent auditors and almost 87% of voting Kenyans a read the document.One of the main newspapers here– The Standard – wrote in its editorial that this episode illustrates perfectly the ‘moral and intellectual bankruptcy of those in higher office in many African countries’.Amos has been caught, not officially of course. Shit don’t stick here, unless your poor, then not only does it stick, it proves wretchedly hard to remove.So as always, the blatant screwing of the electorate in Kenyan goes unpunished (so far).The boy who got his figure did not get punished either as like Wako, it’s unlikely it will ever be proved he did anything wrong.The moral of the story of course is this“If you’re ever going to screw the little guy, always end up on the side of the good guys”No wait, that’s not right…