So many bad things have happened in Kenya over the past few days that we are numb with disbelief. But more than anything else, I am overcome by feelings of deep shame. Shame that my countrymen are capable of such inhuman and unconscionable acts against each other. And shame that people at the top of the tree can be so self-absorbed and can act with such impunity and lack of concern.
I urge you all to feel the same. We need first to hang our heads in shame if we are to lift them with pride ever again.
We should be ashamed because what has happened is our fault, not someone else’s. We are all sitting around casting blame: it was the leaders; it was rogue elements; it was Tribe X; it was hooligans and criminals. Not it wasn’t, Kenyans: it was us.
True, most of us have not been the ones who have raised our hands in violence against others. It is indeed very difficult to imagine what on this earth makes people snatch a baby from the arms of its mother and throw it into a fire, as has been reported. What utter hatred guides such an act? Is it really possible to stand back and watch the flames inflict unspeakable agony on innocents, to live through horrific screams, and then go back to normal life? Apparently so.
But let us realise, once and for all: such havoc was not visited upon us by aliens. It is our own handiwork. It is happening because we, each and every one of us, have lived in a beautiful country and have refused to see the fault-lines beneath the very thin layer of topsoil.
We knew all along that there was a fault-line called inequality, but we refused to see it. We knew that some people had far too much control over wealth and the assets that generate it, but we looked away and let them have even more. We knew that whole regions and communities in our country were impoverished and unable to find a way out of their poverty, but we blamed it on their laziness and lack of endeavour. We knew that slums filled with unemployed youth living like rats grew every day, but we looked the other way.
We knew all along there was a fault-line called ethnicity, but we glossed over it and pretended (in public) that it was not there. We laughed at all our neighbours who had had their countries ripped asunder by ethnic strife, and we thought we were better than them. In private, however, we spoke disparagingly of other communities and belittled them, and allowed differences to grow unchecked. We knew hatred lay deep in many hearts, but we tried to go on with business as usual.
We knew all along there was a fault-line called history, but we tried not to learn it. We knew that the policies of the past had led to displacements and forced settlements, but we imagined that did not matter. We could feel the presence of the ghosts of the political assassinations of yesteryear in our midst, but we shuddered and drew the curtains. Now history itself has returned to haunt us.
We knew all along that there was a fault-line called governance, but we just paid it lip service. We knew our constitution was fundamentally useless, but we failed to take opportunity after opportunity to fix it for the benefit of all. We knew our institutions were weak and corrupt and headed by clowns, but we failed to overhaul them. We knew that there was too much power in the presidency, but we failed to reduce it because whoever was in power wanted to keep enjoying it. Now we are afraid to hand over the presidency to our opponents because it is too powerful.
And so we sat on these fault-lines for years, and carried on partying. I wrote, way back in 2004: “All I can see is a leadership so consumed by the task of retaining power that all else is window dressing. All I can see is an economic elite so consumed by the task of counting its money that it cannot see the rage in the eyes of those guarding the gates. We are all busy laying out the picnic chairs on the slopes of a rumbling volcano. The wine is indeed fine, and the cuisine delectable. But what happens when the music stops?”
And yet the music has still not stopped for some of us. In the middle of this week’s mayhem, many were still teeing off in the golf clubs. New Year’s Eve parties still went on uninterrupted in many places. Fireworks could be heard where bullets had rent the air just a few hours earlier. Champagne spilled when blood was running in rivers nearby. Kenya’s partying classes are beyond redemption.
Here is a solution to the crisis: let the top 100 leaders from across the divide be forced, without security, to spend tonight in a slum in turmoil. By morning peace will break out.
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11 Responses:
January 11th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
A reckless boss will expose his people to unnecessary danger. In the business world, as opposed to the military battleground, that danger is not necessarily to life and limb. It is rather the danger of career damage, of failure, of rejection by customers and peers. Irresponsible bosses make too many wild bets and take on too many battles simultaneously. So beware the reckless leader.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
A new order, a new dispensation is certainly needed. Could all this shocking bloodletting be the turning point that puts us on a new road?
Reading Observer’s point about 19th-century constructs, I now understand more fully what I’ve heard a good friend say repeatedly: that “the Kenyan must learn to leave his village behind”. He means that attachment to ancestral land and therefore to natural resources is retarding our progress by making us protective of a dying way of life and suspicious and intolerant of ‘foreigners’ - an anachronism in a world which rewards motion, fluidity and flexibility.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I agree whole heartedly about our joint responsibility. I am convinced that our leaders are mere reflections of our aspirations and ideals. We cheered and supported them from the sidelines when they played stick up kid with the public coffers because they are one of our own. We cheered jubilantly when they spewed ethnic and religious vitriol at public meetings. The list goes on we all know it very well.
The ugliness that has reared its head has always been there it took this election and our combined actions to bring it out. Now many of us are like the father with the pregnant daughter who refuses to accept that his daughter is capable of such an act and blames everyone, the devil, the boy etc everyone, but himself.
I believe that like our leaders, we are completely out of touch with the conduct required to excel or survive peacefully in the 21st century that we are living in. We are still using 19th century social, economic and political constructs. Given the past week’s madness, we need to see if we are indeed capable of acceding the worst in all of us and creating a new Kenya.
I sadly, am not convinced that the group of leaders we have in Kenya now is capable to taking us there. We will have to rely on our individual acts of accession what ever that those may be.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The comment by SLY is indeed sly. Maybe he is part of the system that has turned a blind eye to the inequalities afflicting out society. Whose fault is it? The governments that we’ve had since independence are to blame. The first govt. discriminated against some communities that were perceived to have leaders who were opposed to the ideologies of the first president. This is a fact that we cannot deny. Nyanza was neglected by the kenyatta govt, moi govt and now kibaki govt. In my course of duty, I have been able to travel alot around the country. The levels of infrastructural development in Kenya is lop-sided. There are rural villages in Kenya which have tapped water, electricity, roads and other social ammenities like schools, markets and hospitals. There is also the other Kenya in which such facilities can only be found in towns.
Until we have some semblence of equality in our nation, conflicts will choke our beatiful land. The notion that other communities are lazy is promoted by people who dont want to see their brothers and sisters in other regions prosper. Take for example the lakeside region, do these people want to tell us that those fishermen who venture into the lake every night is search of fish are lazy? Without roads, electricity, financial services and modern equipment, do you expect the fishermen’s lives to improve when they are still living in the 19th century? It is a fact that the infrastructure around lake victoria is poorly developed due to the history of the country. The british did not develop the lake region as they had an agreement with the arabs in egypt on the use of the nile waters. If the british developed the lake region as they did in the white highlands, specifically in mount kenya region where they had their coffee and tea plantations, the levels of poverty seen in the region could not have happened. The central region of kenya was inhabited by the colonialists and they were able to develop the infrastructure :access roads, schools, hospitals were built by the colonialist to serve their populace. It is in central kenya that the natives land was taken and the people huddled into reserves. This was not the case in western kenya, northeastern, and coastal parts of kenya.
Ethnicity was used by the colonialists to divide and rule Kenyans. Our leaders are using the same tactics used by the mkoloni to rule us as they have found it to suit their narrow and parochial interests. Otherwise how do you explain the fact the three first families in kenya own over half of arable land in kenya.
It is our leaders who have turned a blind eye to the suffering of the common mwananchi. They live in huge mansions while leaving millions crammed in shacks. They have grabbed all the land where decent low cost housing could have been developed and built rental houses where they charge exhorbitant rents. If the mkoloni could use cheap and forced african labour and raw materials to built estates like muthurwa, makongeni, kaloleni, shaurimoyo and all those tiny ancient houses in eastlands where africans lived and still live, what is so hard about building modern low cost houses in independent kenya? We have labour and raw materials in abundance but we dont have the wherewithal to use our knowledge to develop our country. We have only been able to scratch the surface in terms of what we can do as country to uplift our living standards. The experience of hard livity in the slums cannot be appreciated in a day. You have to live it on a daily basis to feel it. As a ghetto youth, it has always been my dream that one day we will eradicate the slums so that we can live like human beings. What is so hard about building decent houses, even if it is 10×10 ft? What is so hard about planning urban settlements? What we as kenyans lack is the political will from our leaders to improve the lives of the citizenry. They want people to remain poor so that during election time they can remind them of their poverty and promise them to eradicate it once in office. But the moment they are voted in, its all about eradicating their own poverty!!
January 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Sly:
The fault, as the article asserts, is everyone’s. We all stood by and watched dangerous inequities build up. The question is not about blame, but more about taking responsibility. No society has managed to flourish without addressing its fault-lines. Keeping diverse communities together requires intelligent policies, and we have sorely lacked those.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Sunny,
I totally agree with you …. this article touched my heart! and I believe others too who want to face the reality facing Kenyans.
Sunny, only people like you will make a difference in what we are facing today.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I think the current hapenings is a manifestation of long term injustice comitted to the majority poor in this country by the few on top. We have seen leaders protect the corrupt, golden burg, agloleasing, the Ndungu report etc.
Loooks like the those in power will commit open injustice knowingly to take advantage of the corrupt court systems. Its no wonder the NPU side is so futile directing the agreived party to go to court; reason, the courts are in their pockets.
WHEN WILL JUSTICE CONTROL THIS GREAT NATION, KENYA.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:54 am
I did read your article in daily Nation and i felt that it was a bit biased.
”
We knew that some people had far too much control over wealth and the assets that generate it, but we looked away and let them have even more. We knew that whole regions and communities in our country were impoverished and unable to find a way out of their poverty, but we blamed it on their laziness and lack of endeavour. We knew that slums filled with unemployed youth living like rats grew every day, but we looked the other way.”
Kindly tell me whose fault it is that things are that way?
January 6th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I agree with every single word you say Shray…this article is very hard hitting…Sunny the world could learn a lot from you.
January 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I’m speechless - this article is your best yet. I had tears in my eyes reading it and I hope it inspires everyone who reads it in the same way. Sunny if anything can make a difference to Kenya it will be thoughts like yours. Kenya is proud to have you.