Kenya: Looking for a Solomon
As the events in Kenya have unfolded over the past five weeks, I've been mulling over what could possibly be the answer to the crisis.
The more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to a story from the Bible. Humor me a moment while I share it with you.
In 1 Kings there's a story about two women who lived in the same house. They both had babies around the same time. In the middle of the night, one of the women rolled over and accidentally killed her baby. She got up and switched her baby with the other woman's baby. A fight ensued and they took up the matter with King Solomon. At the time he was the nation's highest and wisest authority.
Each woman argued, "the dead baby is yours; the living one is mine." Neither side was willing to let the argument go. I could just see the two women getting in what we in America call a "cat fight"...scratching, yelling and tearing each other's hair out!
Think about how strong a mother's instinct is when her child is threatened and then double it because there are TWO new mothers fighting it out. One of them grieving over the loss of her child. The other scared hers has been stolen from her.
To resolve the situation, King Solomon's solution was quite shocking. He ordered the guards to bring him a sword.
"Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."
The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king...
"Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!"
Think about that sacrifice for a moment. How hard must it have been for her to offer up her child to a woman she hated?
The other woman spat out...
"Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!"
In Solomon's wisdom, he gave his ruling:
"Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."
You see, the true mother would want her child to live and be well, even if it wasn't what she wanted. Her heart would break seeing her own flesh and blood torn in two. Her child's survival was more important than her personal happiness.
Both sides of the political impasse in Kenya seem to echo the cries of the second woman.
"I will not give in. I may come to the bargaining table, but I AM right and you ARE wrong. Nothing will be resolved until I am in power."
Meanwhile, Kenya is like the child being torn in two...the hope for the future being ripped apart. For surely the longer the political stalemate lasts, the more people will die, the bigger the economic hit to the country, the greater the loss of standing in the eyes of the world's governments.
There is a very good interview with Oxford University's Professor David Anderson by Reuters today. He is a leading author and expert in East African affairs. Reading his interview reminded me again of the story of the two women.
On Kibaki's government Anderson said, "they are playing Russian roulette with Kenya's democracy. They don't give a damn. They just want to win."
On the other side, Odinga's ODM had been "supremely and idiotically naive" to think they could run a civil disobedience campaign without it leading to violence, he said.
And Odinga's poor judgement plus lack of gravitas in handling the crisis had shattered his would-be image as a pan-African statesman able to carry Kenya forward, he said. "I think he's dead in the water," Anderson said.
"One of the problems for the international media analysing the Kenyan situation is that there are no 'goodies', there is no one you can say wears the white hat."
The death toll has passed 1,000. The number of homeless is more than 300,000.
Where is the man or woman in leadership who can exercise the wisdom of Solomon and find a solution?
Any thoughts? Send me an e-mail with your ideas for possible solutions to the Kenyan crisis.