What if There was No Betrayal?

**Betrayal is hurtful. Interestingly enough, it always comes the people we trust.** *Photo Courtesy of Boldomatic.*

Have you ever been betrayed? Probably you answered yes to my question. Let us take it a notch higher, have you ever been betrayed by someone very close to you? A number of us could have answered in the affirmative for the second question too.

I will begin with a rather common story found in the Bible. It is about Jesus and a certain Jewish man called Judas. Imagine you walked with your friend very closely, dined and wined with him and even helped him with wise counsels on all issues affecting him.

Then one day he walks up to you with a bunch of soldiers and kisses you warmly. He then goes ahead to tell the soldiers that you are responsible for something bad that happened. Remember it is a false accusation but he vehemently stands with it.

Maybe it is an accusation about theft with violence which is treated as a capital offense and one which attracts a death penalty. It does end there; you friend accepts to play a ‘false’ key witness in a bid to make sure you end up behind bars or get hanged.

Will you ever forgive them? Imagine what and how it felt for our savior. But Jesus goes ahead to gladly bear the cost of a selfish desire by Judas up to the point of death. Most importantly He forgives him for all that and offers Judas a hand of reconciliation which he gladly declines. Judas decides to betray himself at last.

Another interesting story is the one about Thomas Edison and J Pierpont Morgan. Morgan and Thomas decided to register a business jointly that ended up doing key researches that brought to life some of the major inventions that run our world today.

After some time, the two wouldn’t get along very well. One of them was deeply into playing it small while the other envisioned a situation where they needed to play it big. But instead of amicably working their differences by talking them out with decorum, J P Morgan did a hostile takeover behind Edison’s back. He, Edison, learned about it when he was trying to give an input to a deliberation Morgan was having.

Morgan informed Edison that his opinion no longer mattered in the business. In Edison trying to wonder how that could happen, he was informed that he had been bought out. In the process, he lost all patents that were registered under the joint company they had with J P Morgan.

Sadly, it seems that he was getting a taste of his own medicine. The reason why I am saying this has something to do with what he, Edison, had done to Nicola Tesla. It can be equated to betrayal as well. Of course, it is a fact that Tesla was kind of an attaché of Edison at the very beginning.

Tesla went ahead to do a research on alternating current and pitched the idea to Edison. Edison on the other hand had done some research on direct current and sticked with his idea and humiliating Tesla about his state and what he had come up with, parted ways with each other. After all, he was his apprentice and knew very little.

It was a costly mistake that Edison learnt the hard way. When Nikola was leaving Edison’s laboratories, Thomas had assured him that he will find no other place and no one will be willing to fund his researches let alone hire him.

But Nikola Tesla approached Westinghouse power tycoon who then took his researches and decided to fund him. A short while, it was realized that Nikola’s alternating current was far superior and powerful than Edison’s direct current. Alternating current was precisely what the world wanted. It was the feasible alternative if industries were to run and estates be powered. It is the power that powers our world today.

That is just stories from history. If I came closer home, betrayal has been on peoples tongues every single day. For example, Sonko has been lamenting of being betrayed by Uhuru Wa Kenyatta. On the other hand, Uhuru too feels that he was betrayed by Sonko.

In the case of one betrayal receiving an equivalent betrayal from another person, then that ends up on a nil score. It is the world standard today. For fact, betrayal and politics is one and the same thing. And the same can be said about ‘betrayal in cities’ if I can borrow a leaf from Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City.

We pride in the belief of tit for tat. And if we can have a better tat for that matter, we never shy away from serving it in the plate of our ‘adversaries.’ Sometimes it is not even about adversaries but rather even our friends.

However, there is no betrayal that hurts the most like the betrayal of love. Betrayal of convenience is bad as well but not as that based on love and trust. Jesus experienced it one on one. Cleopatra played the betrayer in the murder of her brothers and as well as in the betrayal of her lovers.

And today, if there is any betrayal that you and me harbor in our hearts the most is about moments when we got betrayed by them that we thought loved us or vice versa. That betrayal has been the source of a lot of evil and misfortunes. If we can manage the hate that results after, then our associations in this world could be better.

But what if there was no betrayal after all? I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe Jesus might not have died. Probably the scars we carry in our hearts out betrayals we have endured may not be there and this world could be but a haven of a little heaven filled with everlasting love.

End.