The season of ‘politics of the belly’ is upon us

By Tom Odhiambo

The cynics told us to ‘eat’ the campaign money but remember who to cast our votes for. The optimists argued that this is the era of democracy, that we had an electoral system that guaranteed the delivery of Baby Democracy across the country. The jury is still out on whether that child will mature.

But the child has come with expenses. It is what political scientist Jean-Francois Bayart calls ‘ politics of the belly.’ You see, we welcomed this baby called Devolution, celebrating how the government, resources, power, offices etc had arrived at the local market centre (or what we glibly call ‘towns’ in this country). Did we count on these ‘arrivals’ coming shrouded in bellies? Did we ever imagine that we, and by ‘we’ I mean the urban poor and peasants, would not partake of the eating, but could turn out being ‘eaten?â

Politics of the belly has given us governors, senators, women representatives and county representatives. Then there are the county commissioners and the good old provincial administration. What is common to these fellows? They are all agents of the politics of the belly. To borrow Taban lo Liyong’s phrase, the ‘eating chiefs’ have just increased.

Big man syndrome

African literature is full of these malingerers who claim to be bringing development to the people, but who expect to be paid in advance. The ‘big man’ syndrome that Chinua Achebe so memorably depicts through the character of Chief Nanga in A Man of the People, and which Francis Imbuga evokes eloquently in Tumbo in Betrayal in the City, have arrived in the country and counties in big style. The governors want mansions, cars, flags, support staff, allowances and whatnot. Will they not also demand that we pay bride-price for their brand new ‘first ladies’?

I thought that finally, the suffering masses had relieved themselves of the absenteeism of MPs who would decamp to Nairobi and appear after five years to seek votes again. The rest of the country had imagined, in the last three years of making and institutionalising the Constitution, that unlike the citizens of Ilmorog in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross and Petals of Blood, we had been liberated, albeit partially, from abandonment by our elected leaders. You see, Ilmorog is the abandoned homeland. It is the land where pestilence, starvation, illiteracy, crime and moral waywardness haunt the locals. Ilmorog is the hundreds of hamlets in this country. We thought the new constitution would take a little bit of the matunda ya uhuru to the Ilmorogs of Kenya. But we could be wrong, at least from the signs so far.

 We had expected that the newly elected leaders would not try to be the new breed of leeches. But these (dis)honourables seem intent on one pursuit: Politics of the belly. Yet it is not the politics of the belly that we had imagined when we sang, danced, drank and hugged each other on August 27, 2010. We thought that we had just cast the seeds that would give us new interpreters.

Yes, Interpreters is the title Akinwade Aluwole Soyinka gave his first novel. Well, indeed we imagined that we would have schooled minds. That we would get our sons and daughters, whom we had painstakingly educated using chang’aa, miraa, maandazi or sukuma wiki money, back into the villages and bushes. Our sons would eventually ‘give back’ to the community whatever knowledge they had acquired as professionals and develop the hundreds of the boondocks that we love to call ushago.

Aaah, maybe we should have asked these ‘interpreters’ in Sheng: “Usha go ushago?” Instead, we asked them to prove that they had degrees from reputable universities. Our Kenyan pretence: Is there a reputable politician out there? Anyway, why did we demand that persons who hardly had analytical skills could interpret the needs of the countryside or county?

Not so beautiful

We are really wrong to expect that we can find beautiful, country-loving, county-hugging, tribe-kissing, nation-worshipping, citizen-minding politicians out there. Ayi Kwei Armah once wrote a not-so-beautiful book and gave it the title: The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born. If you wish to know why the new kids on the political block are spoilt brats, then read this book.

The search for things material, the yearning for all that glitters, the urge to consume until one can consume no more, the egotism of owning so much when one is surrounded by poverty — in other words, the corruption of the body and the soul — have become the new religion. And there are new acolytes in town, wishing to drive fuel guzzling monstrosities and fly flags, as if in anticipation of the millions of houseflies and mosquitoes that they may need to swat.

Yes, if you wish to avoid the fate of Dusman Gonzaga, the protagonist of Cockroach Dance, who gradually becomes mad because he cannot understand the ‘fiction’ of his life, if you want to stay sane, read Cockroach Dance. For I do not see how one can begin to understand why our new leaders, in the supposed new dispensation, have not looked at the TV screens to see Greece and Cyprus burning. Italy and Portugal do not have a Euro to spend. So, where will the money that these newly minted representatives of ours are demanding come from?

Maybe they should also read Going Down River Road and Kill Me Quick, because, otherwise, this ‘politics of the belly’ that they are fronting shall surely lead us all down River Road. Now, you do not need to utter the words ‘kill me quick’ once you breach the boundaries of River Road.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. Tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke