A few years ago, I wrote about the impending annihilation fanned by insatiable greed by our leaders.
Hate speech is indeed on the rise due to the inability of corrective structures to manage it.
Politicians are capitalising on cultural illiteracy to cement hatred among Kenyans.
Kenya is struggling to revive the economy by stabilising peace to enhance tourism, while we rally for arrests, now they have publicly stated they have loads of cash to buy freedom.
Indeed the justice system has decried the impending collapse of the country.
Folks at the top are bending the rules they have set for those at the bottom.
As we cry over the merits of harmony, it is time to address the triggers of hate speech and the resultant factors.
The contemporary proliferation of reckless talk among Kenyan politicians is soaring high.
In the recent past, a handful of the politicians have been brought to book on an account of their utterances which bordered on incitement and beating drums for war.
The trend is worrying.
The prelude to the 2007 general elections was characterised by innuendos, derogatory statements, abusive language and ethnic overtones that were peddled by our leaders in the quest for power.
Oblivious of the danger that lurked behind, their reckless utterances in the name of campaigns sparked utter violence, as their followers, gullible as they are, believed their stories as gospel truth.
This spelt doom to the country.
I fully agree with language and communication pundits who held the view that once a word is uttered, it will never go back to the mouth.
Truly, words have numerous interpretations and possible worlds and spheres of influence.
As they say, language is what makes us human; communicating the message, devoid of rabble-rousing and fabrication, should thus make us more humane.
As it is commonplace that language and language use, to a larger extent, determine thought formation, trends of ideas and the interpretation of communication situations; cultural, social and ideological dispositions, therefore, influence the understanding of the message and create avenues for multiple interpretations.
In this case, whether the message is oral, written, implied or explicit, it elicits diverse ways of encoding it.
Our leaders should embrace the eternal vigilance of their words to avert hate speeches that always fuels chaos.
The current quest for peace and reconciliation in various hotspots and the conflict-prone areas like Northern Kenya and parts of the North-rift region where ethnic violence is rife places urgency on the need to appreciate the power of the word and its functions as a tool for peace-building, conflict resolution, bridging relationships and conflict escalation and de-escalation.
The current war of words and counter-lashing out of venom dominant in Kenya’s political scene is a show of immaturity in politics, which translates to retrogressive, repugnant and anachronistic political strategies of power-hungry politicians in search of political scores.
There are more pertinent issues that the country and security agencies have to grapple with.
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission cannot work in isolation. Concerted efforts from the civil society, NGO’s, media, the citizenry and the leaders ought to come by.
Communication practitioner, regularly comments on topical issues
Edited by Kiilu Damaris