What on earth is going on in Kenya? Since the beginning of civilization, governments have struggled with the same issues: crime, tax collection, war, welfare-distribution and over-population among a host of other recurring problems..
In the nation where the Obama family took root, the government has come to near paralysis over the last few months due to political in-fighting between rival coalitions represented by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
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As neither the two heads of state nor their political backers can seemingly find common ground on policy, politics and all hopes for reform have been put on hold - leaving Kenyans frustrated and confused. If, however, the leaders of the G-10 (a coalition of women's groups) are able to get their way, Kenyan males are about to become far more frustrated than their female counterparts.
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Rather than picketing outside a government building in Nairobi or starting a letter writing campaign, the G-10 has called on all Kenyan women to impose sexual sanctions on their husbands and boyfriends in order to force male citizens to take action and break the deadlock in government. The organization claims to also be ready to pay off prostitutes to preclude any attempts to get around the ban. While unique to the 21st century, the idea of denying intimacy to males to achieve a political objective is as old as Ancient Greece.
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In 411BC, a play entitled Lysistrata was performed in front of an enraptured audience. Composed by 'The Father of (Greek) Comedy', Aristophanes (446BC-386BC), the story revolves around the character Lysistrata and her attempt to convince the women of Greece to pressure their warrior husbands into ending the Peloponnesian War (Athens v. Sparta) through sexual abstention. When men came to their senses and ended the conflict, they would then - and only then - be rewarded with nights of uninterrupted romance. Relegated to subordinate status in Greek society, Lysistrata wanted to prove that women possessed significant means to alter the political landscape. Of course, Lysistrata was only a work of comedic fiction.
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Twenty-five centuries later, Lysistrata has assumed the form of millions of Kenyan women. Unlike the character in Aristophanes' play, she is quite real as a collective movement in Kenya. Even the Prime Minister's wife, Ida Odinga, has endorsed the unorthodox political tactic publicly.
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Are 'Lysistratan Sanctions' poised to become a widely used tool of political coercion around the world? Many incredulous eyes are waiting for the outcome in Kenya. If successful, the world of the 21st century will be unlike any other - and certainly less populated than the last one.
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(Picture: Aristophanes)
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J Roquen
