The political power elite is not listening to the vibes from the ground, especially from disillusioned youth, and the down and out.
The power elite long stopped any meaningful understanding of these constituencies.
Listening is even harder for the billionaire class because they have delegated grassroots political intelligence to their billionaire lackeys.
Both types have blocked themselves from the pain of the struggling masses.
Francis Atwoli, a fair-weather trade unionist with an acute survival instinct, told a funeral audience in Bungoma:
“ There are people who are abducting themselves so that they can get money from international organisations. Let’s not do that to incite and inflame the country.”
There was no evidence of his politically motivated rant.
Empathy deficiency is a political career killer.
Many careers, which depend on elections, would fall if politicians continue these callous celebrations.
They celebrate and cheer themselves as they pilfer to raise money for the 2027 general election.
For them, the time between elections is another occasion to advance their business-as-usual mentality.
Their unconscionable conspicuous consumption has off ended tax-burdened citizens.
This class was celebrating on New Year’s Eve, as some parents cried for missing children.
The paradox sucks.
The promises of the 2022 general election have been forgotten.
The campaign promises do not match the reality.
Perhaps any hope of illusive progress will be revived during the next election year.
These deceptions have gone on for far too long.
The political power elite has exploited the gullibility of the masses for far too long.
Yet they do not realise time is running out for action to cool rising public anger.
There is a new civic consciousness whose engine is the youth.
Popular expression of public outrage has taken a new direction.
It appears relentless, and increasingly and deliberately indecent.
The disenchantment with politicians may hit a low by the time the power elite realises they still need the masses to defend their elective offices.
The Gen-Z crowd — the youthful generation that raided the streets in June last year — represent the rage spreading across the land.
It was easy for the system to deal with street protests — guns, butts, tear gas, token actions, abductions and political compromise of rivals.
But these gut responses don’t offer lasting solutions to public dissent.
The radicalised Gen Z have gone underground in a way the administration did not anticipate.
Their memes, cartoons and artificial intelligence-generated images are borderless.
They are permanent records of their rage.
The digital warfare is intentional and unstoppable.
Official cyber surveillance won’t stop the passion of the Gen Z content creators, who are enjoying every moment of their hilarious originations.
Not even abductions of suspected digital guerrillas will ebb the hate-spewing underworld of social media.
The rage is focused — its targets are widening.
The off ending political class has been isolated for digital public ridicule.
Gen Z’s concerns are genuine; their anger is rooted in the political context of the Kenya Kwanza administration.
The promised haven is hell for those who believed hope had arrived.
The Gen Z public protests have taken a new direction that the government does not know how to handle.
The digital ambush is a new normal for a system used to the rude and rough ways of handling demonstrations.
It was easier to handle legacy media — deny advertisements to off ending media houses, compromise editors, engineer sack of the noncompliant and co-opt media owners to buy their compliance.
The total effect of these freedom of the press-killing actions has paralysed major media companies.
It has reduced many of them to toothless losers fighting for survival amidst the digital revolution of the United Democratic Alliance era.
Social media — the new frontier of press freedom — however, has gone beyond the limits of good taste.
Nothing justifies responding to wrong with egregious wrong. It’s reasonable to criticise the presidency, with evidence, but it’s patently absurd to ridicule the office, which is the symbol of national unity.
OKECH KENDO
University journalism lecturer and climate change local actions advocate
