Blaming media for the shortcomings of government is dishonest

US President Donald Trump is the latest to launch a frontal attack on the remaining bulwark against executive impunity: a free media.

Trump is well represented locally by the likes of Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma, who recently called for the cancellation of BBC's licence for airing an unflattering exposé of police brutality in Kenya.

Two weeks ago, Trump signed an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to stop funding for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), ostensibly for being biased and spreading "radical, woke propaganda disguised as news." This is the latest in a series of executive orders that have made many Americans to question Trump’s mental health.

Last year, a group of Americans opposed to Trump got 200 mental health professionals to append their signatures to a letter warning that Trump is dangerous after exhibiting signs of "severe, untreatable personality disorder - malignant narcissism, which makes him unfit for leadership”. They warned that Trump was an existential threat to democracy in the US.

Psychotherapist Dr John Gartner, founder of Duty to Warn group, also warned that Trump has 'dementia and is severely mentally ill.' Former US Vice President Kamala Harris called Trump "unstable and mentally unhinged".

Since being sworn into office, Trump’s actions appear determined to vindicate these concerns. From pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Treaty and the World Health Organisation, disbanding USAID, giving civilian Elon Musk the run of government, cancelling the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, starting trade wars with Mexico, China and Canada to threatening to annex Greenland and take over the Panama Canal, and demanding to have the Gulf of Mexico renamed the Gulf of America, it's easy to entertain doubt about Trump’s mental health.

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We should, however, also consider that Trump could be putting the 'Madman Theory' to good use. This theory suggests that a leader considered unpredictable can gain an advantage in coercive bargaining by making his threats believable. Being seen as a 'madman' can deter opponents from mounting challenges.

Trump’s edict and Kaluma's contention that the media engages in irresponsible journalism raise the question: At what point is journalism responsible? Is it when it conceals the truth for political expediency, or when it massages the egos of those in government?

In Kaluma's ideal world, the media comes across as irresponsible and inciteful. Interestingly, he blames media for the 1994 Rwanda genocide that claimed over 800,000 lives. Seemingly, there is a lot Kaluma doesn't know about this genocide that he should, before attempting to gaslight the media.

A study by Social scientist Scot Strauss on the Rwanda genocide determined that only 15 per cent of genocide perpetrators cited media as a key influence. While local media was accused of inciting the violence, international media was accused of not having done enough. Which, one wonders, is which?

The seeds of the Rwanda genocide can be traced to 1916 when Belgium colonised Rwanda and drove a wedge between the Hutus and Tutsis. The two share everything, including language, with the only difference being physical appearance. Tutsis are taller and slight of build.

The Belgium government helped resentment to build up by giving the Tutsis preferential treatment, education and jobs over the Hutus. The resentment burst in 1959 when Hutus murdered about 20,000 Tutsis, forcing many into exile where the Rwanda Patriotic Front was born.

When Belgium left, the Hutus took over power, and continued to take it out on Tutsis. The death of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, on April 6, 1994 when his plane was shot down over Kigali provided the excuse that the Hutus had been waiting for to subjugate Tutsis further. Resentment had been building up for decades and only needed a weak point to burst.

Blaming this on the media, as Kaluma does, is trying to rewrite history. In times of conflict, as has been said countless times, truth becomes a casualty.