Welcome to Kenya, former beacon of hope for the East African region and the greater Africa. It is a third world country currently grappling with the problems that seem intrinsically tied if not divinely pre-ordained for the dark-continent: hunger, pestilence, famine and death- the mainstay of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Add to that poverty, ethnicity and political immaturity and we have a winner! Here where a low-key massacre was staged under the glaring lights of the story-hungry Western media. ‘If it bleeds it leads’ and so on. There was blood…so much blood. The word genocide was loosely bandied about. The West came to the rescue, as usual, with that condescending blend of gun-boat diplomacy and playground taunts about donor budgetary ‘review’. We behaved, chastised. This love affair has an almost a tedious ring.
And lately poor governance which while a given in the Kenyan political context has risen up a notch to power plays over whose toilet can be constitutionally carpeted or not. The politicos are definitely upping the ante!
It’s them. It’s always been about them. But what about us? Who are we as a nation? Where is our compass…moral or otherwise? And does it at all instances have to be defined by this rag-a-tag band of thieves masquerading as reformers. Do we always have to be taken in by them?
I take issue with cynicism. Not mine because mine actually earns me an honest keep- ‘the first duty of a writer is to let down his country’ after all.
In 2003, Kenyans were the must optimistic people in the world. Now we are a people without expectation…without hope. There’s no doubt that Kenya is suffering from battered-woman syndrome. Twenty four years of Moi alone saw to that. And the third time isn’t a charm (read Mwai Kibaki). But this alarming trend in which Kenyans are ready to trust the same old breed of vermin shows a different malady. And then to have the gall to be surprised by them, to be disappointed in them when they act according to their nature…there’s no mid-way with us. It’s either self-deprecating victimhood or cloud-nine entitlement. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?
It says something about us as a people that we can wake up one sunny day and decide with a surprising surety of purpose to butcher our neighbours…whether on command or ‘sporadically’. Says something unflattering about people who are ready to canonize high grade criminals but show unrepentant savagery to petty offenders who are more like them than they care to admit. Those on whom the African sun has shone cruelly bright and who have been denied a chance to honestly pursue the Kenyan dream. Whatever that is…
At forty-five, Kenya is relatively at the infantile stages of its existence. It would be a highly imprudent course for us to console ourselves with the woes of those around us for the misery of others is a comfort for fools. Our Asian counterparts have made quantum leaps working on less than we have been endowed with. We have all the potential in the world to succeed, and in just the right doses: a vital and energetic youth, an enviable degree of political consciousness and a unmatchable entrepreneurial zeal. So why are we constantly missing the ‘failed states’ list by the skin of our teeth? Why are anti-establishment Mafia rings like Mungiki gaining such resonance and sympathy with the mainstream, who are us. We’ve lost that right that we brazenly claimed for our own once to say: ‘Karibu Kenya. Hakuna matata.’ Something has gone terribly wrong somewhere.
I feel we’re a nation without a conscience. We need to find what makes us Kenyan. Define it. Make it a part of our instincts. And this doesn’t need to emanate from the political class. It has to be from us who are the heart and soul of it.
Welcome to Kenya.
The future is for us.
