Fear and loathing lurk below the rationality

Is it possible to have an open debate on the areas of disagreement that have emerged on the Constitution? Theoretically, yes. Realistically, no.

It is increasingly clear that the protagonists who have emerged are being dishonest.

We have all spent a great deal of time trying to respond rationally to what have been placed on the table as rationally-considered positions.

We have done so in the belief that reasonable accommodations can be reached.

But what is on the table, it appears, is not what underlies these positions — and the underlying motives are both hidden as well as more emotional than reasonable — and thus far more difficult to engage.

Take this week’s about-turn by parliament on the consensus-building retreat. It took many by surprise.

Why the insistence on staying in parliament to debate the proposed Constitution by, in particular, the Orange Democratic Movement? Especially when a member of ODM had actually moved the motion to adjourn for the retreat.

The answer was that ODM wanted all debate to be in the public domain.

The reason for this is obvious if one goes back to the first retreat of the Parliamentary Select Committee to consider the draft Constitution first proposed by the Committee of Experts.

ODM’s representatives to that retreat were not only unable to maintain cohesiveness among the troops — given the apparently common ground between some of its troops and the Party of National Unity. ODM was also absolutely outnumbered in terms of technical support.

Why that is so is a question that ODM’s leadership needs to seriously consider and address — because finding itself so outnumbered has happened before, on matters of equal importance, including its handling of the Independent Review Commission.

Something is clearly wrong with it when it comes to preparing and strategising for processes that matter.

But that is an aside. The point really is that the apparent decision was to let matters lie at that retreat and resume the battle in parliament — where the positions of individual ODM members would be clearly visible to the public (and contrary positions thus be more difficult to take) and where the PNU’s technical support team (drawn also from public officeholders, it must be said, which is not acceptable for party matters) could not hold so much sway.

Another example of dishonest engagement.

Take the position of almost all the mainstream Christian churches (minus that of the Seventh Day Adventists) on the Kadhis’ courts.