We’re encouraged to believe ethnicity doesn’t matter much anymore; only race does. But how is the fourth estate helpful in perpetuating this narrative?
Our dailies have been awash with headlines on voter registration figures per ethnic and with predictions as to which party is favored by the stats. What is the message here? That we can only vote based on our ethnic orientation?
Associating voters to a coalition based on their tribe is fallacious; There are many sober Kenyans out there who analyze candidates and vote for them based on no other reason than their manifesto. It is therefore a grave mistake to perpetuate the old narrative where ideologies have taken the second place after ethnicity.
Voting for ideologies is the ideal situation and is what should be promoted by our media – but that’s not the case. In as much as Kenya is divided along ethnic lines, that’s not the narrative that should be perpetuated. Electing leaders on this basis kills the good ones and only the bad ones will flourish as no one cares if they speak the same language. Our kids will also grow believing in the same narrative and ideologies will have no place in our politics – thus setting our country on a dangerous path. If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth, and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma, and men will die for it.
The media therefore has a big role in all these. It is an important force in government – no wonder its referred to as the fourth estate in relation to the other three traditional estates of the church, the nobility and the townsmen, or commoners. It informs the citizenry and serves as a feedback loop between the government and voters. With this influence, imagine what the media will do to our democracy by feeding our kids on the old narrative of leaders being voted in by only their tribesmen? We must shun this.
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