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David Ndii is an unkind man who should not be in a position of responsibility in these hard times.
Because as a whisperer to kings, if what he shows the world is what he truly is, then it is clear why we have wasted so much time, so many precious lives, and so much peace, for something that is should be natural to any living thing: that we are nature’s experiment, not the other way around.
That a nation cannot be at war with its young.
Years ago, I sat in a room in a hotel Hurlingham where a great idea was taking shape.
There had a been a mutiny against the incessant censorship at Nation Center, and several public intellectuals had made away with their intellectual weapons and time.
One of them was David Ndii.
This was the room that midwifed the publication that is today The Elephant, and the discussions were supposed to be widespread. Which is what happens when you gather people together for a common cause that is right, noble, and good for society
Ndii, as his nature, occupied the room.
Ndii’s target that day was a respected academic, with whom he engaged in an intellectual cage match so out of place that it was clear he did not understand that there were other people with other things to say.
Ndii knew everything then. And he knows everything now.
The quote on his bio on X is from an anecdote about a time Diogenes of Sinope, a rebel and philosopher par excellence, asked Alexander the Great, conqueror of the world, to stand out of his light.
Seen simply, as men of Ndii’s age often see it, Diogenes was rude to the greatest man in the world at the time. He was rude because he could. He bullied a man so powerful, so accomplished, that he died young and belongs to the same death age as Jesus Christ.
But what they miss is that Alexander the Great was a king, yes, but also a philosopher. Until he was a teenager, Alexander’s teacher was Aristotle.
They also miss that Diogenes was not being rude. The question to which he answered “stand out of my light”, was what he wanted. He could have asked, as others had, for wealth, territory, power. Alexander, at that point, was a king who could have, and did, gift such materials things to others.
They also miss that Alexander’s response in the anecdote is that if he was not Alexander III of Macedon, a conquering king, he would want to be Diogenes, a man with needs and desires so simple as to ask a warrior and a king, worshipped by friend and foe, to stop ruining his communion with the sun.
This was not an older man bullying a younger man who considered himself, and still is considered by others, great. Or the younger man, with armed men ready around him ready to do violence on his behalf without a second thought, obeying him.
This was banter between philosophers that went far beyond the realm of anyone listening. It was about nature.
***
David Ndii’s claim to the table of public intellectuals is economics, which is both an art and a science. The science bit is contentious, because, as Elon Musk reminded us all recently: Physics is the only law, everything else is a suggestion.
Ndii believes living, to be a live today more so, is a contact sport, which it is. He misunderstands that not all contact must leave or reopen wounds.
It is economics that Ndii claims to know the most, and with it has waged war on dictatorship, corruption, and ignorance. As a man of letters, he has wielded this weapon against friend and foe, and forgotten the fundamental truth about it all. That the only thing that matters in the end is not how one changed the world, if he did not change himself.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that true terror is to wake up one morning and find your high school class is ruling the nation.
Ndii has been living in this terror since 2013, after the independence generation took over the reins. It is his high school class which, given the power to shape the nation and its future, has continued the ways of old, refusing to even rethink how to adapt to a world that is now three decades past the Cold War.
So he has brought his unfinished wars to the table, as old men do and must, but with it he has added a callousness so ugly that to see him tweet or speak is to entertain the desire to be disgusted.
He has forgotten, as he did in that room years ago, to read the room.
The room now is grief. The blood on the streets is not dry yet, the elements of rebellion are still intact, and we are all entertaining ourselves with our own little distractions. The room needs the silence and guilt of old men and women, and the planning and peace of the young. A grief from having to remind other living things, older and more experienced, that as an individual you should always side with the young.
They have time.
David Ndii would have us believe that he wants the best for this nation in his lifetime. But this is untrue. If we woke up one morning and corruption, grand and small, had magically disappeared, he would still find something to insult our intelligence about.
If all dictators disappeared, he would still find fault in whoever took over.
If every bad thing his high school class has done was to be instantly forgotten, Thanos’ snap style, David Ndii would still have us believe he’s the only one in the room with the memory, the intelligence, and the will to impose the right ideas. And perhaps he might be, but its often been said that youth is wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw said wisdom is wasted on the old, and David Ndii illustrates this more than the actual criminals and bullies of his generation.
He would have us believe that his opinions are a public service which, since we taxpayers underwrite his bills now, and have before, it is. But they are also a public disservice.
The man has a price, as all human beings do. He has, I believe, shared his rate card and bragged about how he has helped shape this and other nations.
But what would he charge this great republic for common decency?
***
The common decent man walks the earth trying not to do harm, both because it is moral to do so and that it is illegal. As a boy, the rules are different, which is why high school bullies remain etched on our minds long after the fact.
Schoolyard bullies have issues of their own, as one quickly learns in the game of survival in a high school. It is not even about the harm they do, or the glee on their faces when they win. It is about the lack of foresight, the lack of perspective about themselves beyond that they are bigger than their victims.
David Ndii does not act like a schoolyard bully. He is one.
He tries, as much as possible, to make foes of everyone. So much so that he has made otherwise decent people try to bully him back, not about his intellect even, but about anything else they can find.
What he forgets is that the space that is now X, which has become his favourite for cage matches with anyone he can find, was originally a communal town square that grew organically. Before it took off in numbers and with it got class warfare, and a good example of why a physical town square remains the best way for humans to discuss how to move society forward and resolve conflict.
In this then, this older man has, in his bullying ways, encouraged bullying.
He has refused, as one would had they never learnt that everyone has a story to tell, to be a decent human being. It is not even about economics anymore, as it is clear, and through his own warnings, that we are in an economic mess.
It is about his generation’s refusal to believe that the young too, have stomachs. That they have dreams, plans, and places to be. That they have grown up in this century, in relative freedom, and know for sure that they should not be seen merely as economic units.
David Ndii espouses a lot about his high school class, which lived in relative freedom because enough blood had been shed for them to do so. That they sacrificed for this great nation to be where it is today, only to look back and realised there were unfinished wars they left somewhere in the past.
David Ndii is an unkind man who should not be in a position of responsibility in these hard times. Because as a whisperer to kings, if what he shows the world is what he truly is, then it is clear why we have wasted so much time, so many precious lives, and so much peace, for something that should be natural to any living thing: that we are nature’s experiment, not the other way around. That a nation cannot be a war with its young.
Owaahh, 2024
One Story is good,
till Another is told.
Last modified: September 23, 2024
