When I think about the world I would like to leave to my children and the grandchildren I hope to have, it is a world that moves away from unequal, unpeaceful, unstable, unsustainable interdependence to integrated communities that share the characteristics of all successful communities. I would like to live behind a nation that tribe isn't the criterion used to offer opportunities. A world where region does not determine the kind of service be given. An equality sensitive society free from nepotism.
Many times we engage in political discourse assuming everyone is at par with one another regarding their knowledge or understanding of our country’s history in general and political history in particular. This is actually not the case and helps explain why people are constantly talking past each other, especially in the Kenyan social fora and networks.
Of particular concern, is the ridicule and disrespect many of our heroes and heroines are subjected to by a generation which we can condemn for their disrespecting these heroes and heroines but the reality is those doling the ridicule and disrespect actually have no clue who the people they insult or disrespect are or what their contribution has been in both the first and second liberation of our country.
If they are not old enough to have witnessed the struggles and sacrifices by these heroes and heroines, one would expect they had to have learned about them in our school system for I doubt bad as our education system might be, one cannot surely graduate from it beyond primary school without knowing these basic facts about our country such as who our heroes and heroines are and why they deserve the honor and respect, not the insults and abuse these uninformed individuals hurl at them.
Granted, a vast majority of people merely parrot what they have heard others saying without any critical examination of the information; in fact, without any examination of the validity or truthfulness of the information at all and to hear them authoritatively repeat the nonsense, you’ll be confused to believe they know what they are talking about when they, in fact, don’t have a clue.
When a true reformist and hero of the Second Liberation such as Hon. Gitobu Imanyara is accosted by thugs and ordered at gun point to pledge his allegiance to Uhuru Kenyatta and so reports in our Parliament, one would surely expect event those who for one reason or another don’t like him or even hate him would have to pause and wonder whether there is not something wrong here.
The well respected reformist Imanyara is no coward or pushover neither is he one prone to seek publicity through antics like crying wolf as some have spitefully suggested in these fora.
Anyone who knows him or anything about our country’s history, even if limited only to the Second Liberation would know Imanyara is one of those who was right up there standing against Moi and his regime without fear.
Ditto for heroes like Raila Amolo Odinga and many others who have been the subjects of torture and abuse all because of their desire to have a better Kenya with the freedoms we now enjoy thanks to them but others are thanking them by belittling and trashing their efforts while insulting and saying hateful things precisely because of those freedoms the Railas helped acquire for them, which is both mean and bizarre.
Ironically but true, many of those leading in insulting and trashing of our heroes and heroines in the reform efforts are people who cannot account for even an iota of a thing they have done for our country, let alone any sacrifice they have made but they are quick to laugh and belittle Imanyara’s in the latest example for his letting the public know of a life and death experience he is lucky to be alive to tell us about.
Do these people have no heart? What accounts for the callousness of some of these people? It can’t even be hate for I can’t think of any reason why anyone would hate Imamara to the point they would laugh and belittle what smacks of an assassination attempt on his life!
While the extent of it is not known, there is clearly a growing callousness among Kenyans fueled by politicians who are always stoking tribal animosity and hatred for their own individual benefit yet, those enabling them are not the uneducated masses or those who otherwise are uninformed but, quite shockingly and pathetically so, the enablers are the very educated and enlightened among us.
Why? Why would these people who are educated and informed be hell-bent on enabling tribalists and haters in our country? What perverted satisfaction do they derive from such backwardness and thinking?
It surely cannot be any tangible gain for many stand to gain not a penny when the tribalists succeed in using them to gain power much as the hapless youth often used in political violence don’t gain but the pennies to the shilling they may momentarily gain in their induced barbaric acts in support of those who would exploit them.
But the so-called Kenyan professionals or otherwise educated Kenyans proactively engaged in, or allowing themselves to be used in cheer-leading the haters and dividers; why do they do so?
It makes absolutely no sense and is simply horrifying the fact we have people like this amongst us!
We really, seriously need to pray for our country for if these people do not wake up and smell the coffee, it’s going to be that much difficult to move our country forward to the much anticipated dawn of true peace and prosperity we deserve after all these many wasted years of independence.
It is so shameful that a person can stand on the podium, copy paste a speech and try to entice us with promises of addressing social injustices if elected president, when in-fact, these injustices brought about the wealth he so much enjoys. If we are not familiar with these injustices, they are, among them:
· Landlessness due to land grabbing by Kenyatta, Moi and the kinds
· Detention without trial of the renown liberators (among them Raila Odinga)
· Assassinations (e.g. Robert Ouko, tom Mboya, Prof. Mbai, among others)
· Segregation of some communities that were, apparently, not in power (North Eastern, Coast, Western, Luo Nyanza, etc)
Did you know that majority of dwellers in Taita Taveta are squatters in their ancestral land? To address this Uhuru Kenyatta should simply call a family meeting and surrender the title deeds to these people, whom he hopes they vote for him.
The good news is, a vast majority of Kenyans are now more progressive or moving in that direction and reject all this backwardness and willful ignorance which must be shunned by all who care about our beloved country if we are to stand proud to be called the Kenyans we are.
In other words, stand on the side of those who would make our country once again a country to be proud of and a shining star in the continent, if not the world which by definition means shedding tribalism, hate and all other manner of behavior that divides instead of uniting us as Kenyans.
This I believe
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