The Death of Negotiation

Smoke Signals

A long time ago; long before there were post offices or even telephones; long before email, twitter, and Facebook; people used to communicate through smoke signals. They would find material that produced visible smoke (preferably white) that could be seen from many miles away. They would put this material (which I suspect was either sawdust or leaves) on a fire and use a fan of a sack (or other suchlike thing) to write the message into the smoke. I think this ancient and primitive method of communication is what gave rise to the expression, “Where there is smoke, there is fire”.  This is because, the only need of communicating with distant communities was to inform them of impending danger (Read: “We are going to attack you”).

 

Perhaps the only serious smoke signal that is still in use today is the one at the Vatican. We saw it being used to communicate whether a new pope had been found – or not. It made for some light moments as we waited to see the white smoke although I still think it would be easier to just call a press conference and tell us what they have decided.

Burning Schools

It is no longer news in this country when students burn their schools. The question people are now asking is, “Which school is next on the burn agenda?” Parents, teachers, and even the children themselves are wondering what the genesis of this current state of lawlessness is all about. However, methinks that the children are trying to tell us something.  They are telling us that they have been watching how we resolve our issues as adults and like the good students they are, they are following our example.

Anti-IEBC Demonstrations/Negotiations

We have had a reprieve from the recent demonstrations against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissioners by the leading opposition leaders. They have called for negotiations that have already been granted by the government which is why the demos have been put on hold (so they tell us!). They have threatened to continue with the demos if the negotiations don’t go in a particular direction. What is wrong with this sentence, you might ask? It is probably only in Kenya where you can have the words ‘demonstration’ and ‘negotiation’ in the same sentence.

Post Election Violence

The violence we experienced in 2007/2008 forever tainted an otherwise clean record of our country. The amazing thing was that the violence was finished by just two men who went to sit somewhere on the meandering banks of the Sagana river, and negotiated a deal. That ended the massacre almost as if a switch had been flicked off. If the negotiation had taken place earlier, we would be calling that dark episode in the history of our country by the docile term of the ‘Post Election Negotiations’.

Murderous Spouses

Historically, dating has always been a game of negotiation. It is the guy with the most convincing tongue and patient disposition who always got the girl. Most music, besides gospel, is about love negotiations. It is what we fondly refer to as love songs. They range in message from initial convincing, to saying sorry for mistakes committed, and everything in between. Older people have interesting stories of how they netted their spouses many decades back. They tell of how they overcame challenges through negotiation.

Of late, the news has been awash with stories of how spouses pay hit men to do away with their better halves. Reasons for wanting them dead range from interest in eventual unilateral possession of co-owned property, to teaching the billy goat of a man a lesson for sleeping around. Ugly divorces with out-of-this-world settlements are also rife. I often find myself wondering, what happened to the effective domestic negotiations of old?

Litigation Instead of Mitigation

Our justice system is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of pending and arising cases. The spouses who are not killing each other are going to court. Politicians belonging to the same party are also using the courts to settle their internal disputes. The window of opportunity allowed by our justice system to allow people settle their cases out of court is not being utilised. People are actually spending the time given to achieve this to plan how they are going to clobber each other in court. The willingness and ability for people to negotiate for anything is dead and they are also saying that they would rather die than compromise their stand. I just can’t tell what is going to happen. I am only but a humble Layman.

P.S. If Donald Trump can’t hire a proper speech writer, will he be willing to hire negotiation experts to get him out of the trouble that his mouth is bound to get him into?