Kap Kirwok (2009)
Bubble. It is a simple, two-syllable word that sounds innocent enough. On closer examination, however, you quickly discover that it can be a window to a whole world of meaning about life.
This year the word bubble has mostly been used in the context of economics: the housing bubble that spawned a market bubble that gave birth to a global financial crisis which in turn triggered a spreading economic recession. In the late 1990s, there was the dot.com bubble.
This week’s column is not concerned with economic bubbles. It is concerned more with bubbles of a personal kind –the types that originate from the deep recesses of human hearts and minds.
I am talking about bubbles of inflated self-importance, of blissful ignorance and misplaced sense of self-confidence. I am talking about tranquilizing mental bubbles that imprison the mind and drive people to ‘play fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep’, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
Such bubbles dot the mental landscape. There is a famous historical example of the kind of bubble I am talking about. It involved a French king, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie-Antoinette. Their bubbles were both physical and psychological. Cloistered in the royal palace, they had no idea about the magnitude of the gathering storm: social order was breaking down as the French population struggled to bear the burden of widespread poverty, disease and an exploitative tax system designed to finance royal excesses and unnecessary wars.
By the time they allowed daylight to penetrate their bubble, it was too late; an unstoppable political and social upheaval of historical proportions, the French Revolution, was already roiling the land. They paid the ultimate price for their make-believe bubble: an appointment with Dr. Guillotine’s decapitation machine!
In contemporary times, we can see that Robert Mugabe has built a special bubble for himself. He has constructed an elaborate bubble – one that is increasingly opaque because the swollen shadow of his ego fills the entire space.
Unfortunately for Mugabe, external circumstances are conspiring to clear some of the opacity in his bubble. Consequently, he appears to be constructing a truly special structure – a bunker within a bubble, a bunkbubble, if you like.
Mugabe’s delusion and his inevitable fate is a cautionary tale to would-be imitators around the continent, right? Wrong. The pleasures of bubble-building are apparently too irresistible. We see it all the time in our own country. The attempt by our members of parliament to dodge taxation is just but one example of bubble-mania in Kenya. The MPs consider themselves special. Beyond taxation, there is a larger issue that suggests the whole country might in fact be living in a bubble.
Consider this: The salaries and benefits of our MPs are at par with those of the US Congressmen. According to the Congressional Research Service, salaries of members of the US Congress increased by 89% between 1997 and 2008. By contrast, in the same period, the salaries and perks of Kenyan MPs went up by nearly 1000%. This is despite the fact that our economy is a miserable fraction – a mere 0.2 % – of the US economy.
To imagine that we can sustain higher and higher salaries and perks for MPs and top public servants on the backs of citizens who continue to get poorer, is to live in a giant bubble. We should remember this simple but jarring truth: a bubble – the soapy type – is just that: a delicate thing that may look and feel pretty but soon, pop, it goes!
As a nation and as individuals, we need to step out of self-constructed bubbles or better still, stop constructing them in the first place. Bubbles lead to defeat and humiliation. I know because I have lived in one – briefly. Don’t be surprised. It was more than 25 years ago at Nairobi University’s Taifa Hall, during a national Judo tournament.
I considered myself somewhat of a Judo expert – more on account of my speed than skill or strength. My first contest with a Mr. Nyachwaya of the General Service Unit lasted less than 10 seconds; I dispatched him with a knockout throw – an Ippon, Japanese for full point. The roof-shaking cheers that followed worked their narcotic magic on my brain. I began treating my teammates with open disdain and generally acted like a little boy in fantasyland.
But my delusion lasted only until my next contest with a Mr. Mutua of the Prisons Service. His superior skills were a fitting antidote to my hyper-inflated bubble. He dispatched me in less than five seconds. The experience – the thrill and the humiliation – is unforgettable.
Beware of bubbles. Why do we have so many problems? It is the bubble, stupid.
The writer (Strategybeyondprofit@gmail.com) is based in the USA.
