Who is the Trojan horse in these alliance deals?

Updated Sunday, December 09 2012 at 00:00 GMT+3

By Mwenda Njoka

Before we get all overly excited about the season of alliances where all the leading presidential aspirants are turning their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles (in the words of Biblical prophet Isaiah) and burying their political hatchets creating new-found best friends from erstwhile sworn life-enemies, let’s learn some lessons from a little tale originating from ancient Greece.
Greece, that land of mythological greats such as Heracles or Hercules (the powerful warrior), Theseus (the founder-king of Athens) and Achilles (the powerful warrior in Trojan Wars) is replete with interesting stories that resonate well with contemporary politics even though some of these were told eons ago. So, here is one such story. Long, long time ago, Peleus, a Greek god married Thetis, a sea-goddess.
The pair had not invited Eris, the goddess of discord, to their wedding and this infuriated the goddess of discord so much that she stormed their wedding and brought with her a present that came to be known as the apple of discord.
In short, the goddess of discord – by presenting the apple of discord at the wedding bouquet – planted the first seeds of disharmony between Greeks and their neighbours in the land of Troy leading to protracted wars that lasted decades.
Nevertheless despite the wars brought about by the apple of discord, the couple of Peleus and Thetis were lucky to have a son, Achilles who grew to become a mighty warrior.
Now, as you may have guessed right if you are familiar with Greek mythology, Achilles, though a fearless and nearly immortal warrior, had one small but significant vulnerability – his heel.
When his enemies discovered this vulnerability, they targeted Achilles’ heel and he was thus brought down before he could help end the wars between Greeks and the people of Troy.  Greeks had to think of new ways to defeat their enemies by gaining entry to the heavily fortified city of Troy. That is when someone came with the bright idea of giving the King of Troy a gift of a huge wooden horse as an act of appeasement. Inside the mega-structure wooden horse on wheels hid a “commando force” comprising of the best Greek warriors armed to the teeth.
Once they had presented their ‘gift’, the Greek fighters pretended to sail away while people of Troy – known as Trojans – happily hauled their ‘gift’ horse into the palace right in the heart of the fortified city.
Oblivious to the ominous contents of ‘gift’, the Trojans partied for the better part of the night celebrating the ‘victory trophy’. Just when everyone had gone to sleep after a night of heavy drinking, the Greek warriors inside the ‘victory’ trophy slipped out, quietly opened the gates of the barricaded city letting in the warriors who had surreptitiously sailed back from the sea while the feasting had been going on. After gaining access, the Greek warriors ravaged and burnt to the ground the city of Troy, completely defeating the Trojans once and for all.
The ‘gift’ the Greeks had given the people of Troy came to be known as the Trojan horse and today symbolises acts of subterfuge and deception, which enable an enemy to gain access posing as a friend so as to discover the enemy’s Achilles’ Heel and destroy him.
So, as we applaud alliances between erstwhile political enemies, let us spare some thoughts to the unfortunate people in the city of Troy who paid dearly for trusting gift-bearing Greeks.
Who are the local equivalents of gift-bearing Greeks in Kenya’s political scenario? That is upon you, the discerning voter, to decide.

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Updated Sunday, December 09 2012 at 00:00 GMT+3

But remember that Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, cautioned way back, circa 50BC: “Don’t trust Greeks, especially the ones bearing gifts.”
The writer is Managing Editor of The Standard On Sunday

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