Why Kenya’s political landscape is an oratory desert
Today, this column is concerned with words spoken eloquently, competently and powerfully by people called orators.
When
a country lies prostrate under the crushing weight of chronic problems —
poverty, disease, corruption, ignorance and a million related ills —
inspirational oratory can play a crucial role in stirring hope, soothing
anxieties and nudging citizens forward.
Taban
Lo Liyong once famously and controversially referred to East Africa as a
literary desert. With respect to political oratory, there can be no
debate that Taban’s characterisation rings true: it is an arid
landscape. People are starved – not only of food and good governance,
but also of rhetorical nutrition. If our national burdens sometimes
appear too heavy, depressing and unbearable, it is because we are fed
some of the most boring and bizarre political mumbo jumbo this side of
speechland. On occasion, especially during election campaigns, we might
be treated to verbal antics that the untrained ear may mistake for
eloquence. Often, it is just buffoonery clothed in so much bluster.And yet it was not always like this. There was a time when the Kenyan political speechscape shook under the soaring and calibrated diction of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya and Martin Shikuku – to name just three. Mzee’s speeches, in particular, had a mesmerizing quality about them. He had a way of modulating his voice to great effect. When you heard him, you could feel in your bones the authority, admiration and – unfortunately sometimes fear – in that famous booming voice.
Down south in neighbouring Tanzania, Julius Nyerere was the undisputed master of the spoken word. Nyerere employed his unmatched eloquence to cement national unity and inspire pride in citizenship – and the results show to this day. He would also frequently harangue wabeberu na wakoloni mambo leo (imperialists and neo-colonialists) with such wit and charm that they hardly noticed the insult.
General Idi Amin in Uganda was, of course, the champion buffoon – the complete opposite of the intelligently fluent Nyerere and the authoritatively eloquent Kenyatta.
Bind up nation's wounds
But what is it about oratory that gives it such seducing power over our minds?
Words delivered by a master orator have an unmistakable potency: their echo can linger for days – even years – in people’s hearts and minds. You can feel a flutter in your heart and tears well in your eyes. Such is the power of great oratory. Consider the opening in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.'
Or the closing paragraph in his Second Inaugural Address: ‘With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nationsWhen President Obama delivered his inauguration address, the expectations were off the charts. Here was a man who burst into the national stage and onward to the presidency by sheer force of eloquence. He eschewed his signature soaring rhetoric flourishes for a more earthly and sober speech. Some were disappointed. A professor of linguistics at the Berkeley School of Information said: "Obama is a great speaker. I just don’t think he’s a great orator."
Part of the pressure on Obama comes from the legendary reputation of orators in the African American community – such as the incomparable Martin Luther King Junior.
Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, reveals the secret of African American oratory: "Start low, go slow, rise high, strike fire and sit down."
This
dictum sounds simple, but it is not. The potency is not just in the
pace and modulation of pitch. It is especially the choice of words -
delivered in a calibrated, evocative, and rhythmic flow - that really
sets the speech on fire.
What
happened to eloquence in our land? For how long shall we endure bland
blather from our political leaders? Give us stirring and uplifting
speeches, if nothing else.
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