To Kill with a Borrowed Knife

• I am sending you like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matt 10:16)
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The Chinese are renounced for their use of stratagems in interpersonal relationships, business and wars. This is a cultural trait honed over centuries of their often tumultuous history.

Stratagem is not to be confused with strategy. The latter is more about long-range planning. Stratagem is about ruse or deception to achieve a goal—tactical maneuvers. What was the biblical Christ using here if not stratagem? : I am sending you like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. (Matt. 10:16).

The use of stratagems is not exclusive to the Chinese. It is often found in low-trust societies, of which Uganda is one. So, no matter the ethical qualm one might have, one has to beware of some common ruses to be protected against or even make use of.

Say, you are told that you are not to carry out your planned demonstration in the district because of orders from above: What exactly does this mean? Is the RDC settling scores, protecting his rear-end or just an over-jealous partisan? In the end he is killing with a borrowed knife, the authority from above.

In these days of heightened emotions and rhetoric due to the coming 2011 elections, one has to be on guard. When snake-oil peddlers claim that such and such a Big Man said this and that, perk your ears. Don’t jump up and down in excitement like a maniac. The peddler is trying to make love to your mind, using the Big Honcho as his knife.

Here are some examples of what to take with a grain of salt: You see a picture at a rally in which there are seemingly thousands of people; is this real or is it some camera trick? Did 100 people or a prominent MP really cross from the opposition to the NRM? Is the claim that so and so has the support of the “educated” backed by polling data? If so, what does that mean in terms of the demographic avenue to winning? Or is it a trick to create momentum? Tribal loyalty has already been mentioned as an intimidation means to push some with no chances of winning nationally. The old man said: "We give our support, not because of tribe, but because the man is very qualified." I have a title deed to Aswa Bridge, and it is for sale.

Now that you have a label on what you might have already used yourself, look around you and kill with a borrowed knife or avoid being killed with one. There are myriads of other elegant ruses one can use instead of frontal assaults which may turn you into mincemeat. For, even the great Mencius of Confucian fame, justified the use of stratagems if only for people to revenge themselves on those who treated them like dogs or dirt.