Definitions: divide and rule

You use divide and rule to refer to a policy which is intended to keep someone in a position of power by causing disagreements between people who might otherwise unite against them.

I was watching a documentary on climate change and they were talking about how lobbyists work. The lobbyist who was interviewed said that all they do is create doubt in the system.

And I couldn’t help but think about how politicians in this country use tribalism to create doubt. To make it seem as though voting along tribal lines serves us, although everything around us proves otherwise. It is that doubt that they have been able to hone in on.

But let us talk about ways in which Kenyans are infantilised, taken to be idiots really:

I really don’t want to swallow my words in a couple of days but how it’s made to seem that violence is going to happen, that it is the thing Kenyans will resort to come election time is a form of infatilisation. I want to believe that Kenyans know better and are better people. That Kenyans know that these elections that only happen every five years is no reason to turn violent to their neighbours because of something a politician told them. That Kenyans now have learnt from history.

Do Kenyans know that the violence will always affect them, the “common mwananchi” and it won’t remotely affect the political class/rich? I want to believe yes.

We aren’t puppets to be used on a whim by politicians.

Our greatest issue in this country is poverty which will never be resolved by politicians because keeping people poor is how the ruling class maintains power. And that’s facts.