Magazine
Democracy: Beyond the ballot box
A voter shows her indelible ink mark after casting her ballot at Bhaderwah, during the second phase of India’s General Election this year. Photo/FILE
Posted Monday, November 2 2009 at 00:00
In the sight of God, or under the law, all people are equal — that is, the same in value. But this is very much a theoretical status.
In the privacy of our minds, few believe that real equality exists.
To the contrary, in every material field, variety rather than sameness prevails.
We all know someone who we willingly accept is cleverer (or stronger, or faster) than we are.
And we all know others who we think are fools, or who in some way are not as competent as ourselves.
The only equality an adult Kenya citizen can claim, at least nominally, is the right to vote.
It is central to the modern idea of political democracy.
How essential is voting to one’s wellbeing?
I have never voted, but I do not feel deprived.
As I am not a Kenya citizen, I have no right to vote in Kenya, and as I don’t live in Britain, I cannot vote there, either.
Many years ago I applied for Kenya citizenship (my maternal grandparents arrived here in 1903 and my mother was born here).
But a man behind a desk asked me for “tkk” (toa kila kitu, a bribe) in addition to the fees that the government levied for a Kenyan passport.
As I don’t think nationality should be bought like a banana, I declined.
In any case, being born British was part of my persona and not something to shed like a snake its skin.
As I see it, the dissolution of the British Empire in which Kenya went one way and Britain another, and produced a situation that, for me, was akin to two parents divorcing.
