Images From a DyingCountry (Kenya 2007)

(THE IMAGES USED ARE VERY
DISTURBING AND READER DISCRETION
IS HIGHLY ADVISED). Just three years ago, the
atmosphere was jubilant.
Surveys showed Kenyans as the
most optimistic people on the
face of the earth. And numbers
do not lie. Almost everyone was in Orange and Blue and we
seemed happy. I do not know
why we change our hue and
mood so drastically. So where
did the rain start beating us?
Where did we go wrong? We were on the brink of changing
something? Or maybe not? Sometimes I look back at this
man and wonder where human
hearts have gone to? Like
animals we have become and
sold our hearts to animals and
now, these are the consequences of our
irresponsible behaviour. This man
lies by the roadside…with all the intestines split open, and worse,
like those who maimed him, he
has no heart! Kenya Police! Utumishi kwa wote
they claim. Their very loquacious
spokesperson and eloquent
commissioner claim that if
violence were to re-occur, they
would use the same policies they used in 2007. (Shoot-to-kill!)
What with ruthlessly harassing a
man who is already on the
ground? Is it fair? Utumishi kwa wote? Really? And
what utumishi is this? The sufferers are rarely the Big
Fish. Only the helpless children
and women and men of Kenya
suffer at the expense of
defending the Big Fish. We waste
time in wars and seek vengeance and vanity in the
name of ethnic cleansing,
supporting a leader and fun. All
these kill our country and
render the future of our
children blank and bleak. Deaths seem not to bother us
anymore. We kill and are killed in
reckless abandon and all in the
name of politics and tribe. We
stab and stone, we smash and
burn like we have no more value to life. The inciters are never
present to witness such. They
witness from screens and
boardrooms. Then they condemn
it in the “strongest terms possible” and urge us to “practise restraint” and yet still fund us to partake in “civil disobedience”. What irony? Where have all the humans
gone? We Kenyans have always been
on the run. We have always
been running to the other side.
To seek a better life. To seek
the greener grass. But our
running has only taught us one thing, there is no grass on the
other side! And we are running
a rat race. One thing about a
rat race, whether you win or
lose, you will always be a rat. Up in smoke. We have never
been able to see the next step
clearly. All because of smoke. The
smoke of tribalism and nepotism.
The smoke of individualism and
hate. The smoke of fear and insecurity. And, no smoke
without fire. As we wallow in the
smoke, fires of hunger and
police brutality burn our
existence. Fires of politicians and
crook businesspersons. Fires that will never stop burning us until
we come out of the smoke.
Smoke comes from fire and fire
produces more smoke. A long
and vicious cycle that requires
hard choices, sacrifice and truth to come out of. Are we willing to
walk the talk? Smoke on our path to freedom. And smoke in our vehicles to
prosperity. It is all in the head. If only we
could change our ideas and the
stupid and blind trust that we
so often put in our politicians,
the perhaps we could reason
more clearly and make Kenya a better place for the posterity.
As long as we continue nurturing
and indoctrinating our children
with poisonous thoughts and
ideologies, then we shall never
heal. Change is top down. Before your hand slaps the next tribal
stranger and maims the next
tribal enemy, take time and
think about it. It is all in the
head.
(The man had an arrow stuck in his skull. Thank God for the skull
and cranial tissue that
surrounds the brain. From most
medical perspectives, he should
live a normal life.) But some of us enjoy the
moments of madness and would
sure repeat beastly acts if given
the chance. That presents a
problem. I still ask, where did
the human heart and sobriety go to? Some find fun in it. Futures lost. We butcher and
burn with impunity. Then we
begin all over again. To
construct and reconstruct. When
will we stop our short-
sightedness? That it belongs to a non-tribal member does not
mean it is not a butchery. A
butchery in Kikuyu, Kisii, Luo.
Luhya, Taita, Kalenjin is still a
butchery and still sells meat.
Just like a rose by any other name is still a rose and smells
just as sweet! And so is violence.
Only that unlike roses, violence
stinks. How long? Not long. That is what
MLK said. Only that in this
context, it does not take long
for us to change lives into
corpses and line them on some
morgue corridors, burnt beyond recognition and slashed beyond
identification. Our terrible swift
swords lead us, not into glory,
but into disaster. And no one is spared the wrath
of the forces that be. The
young and old alike, men and
women, the priest and the
prostitute, the pious and the
sinner, none is spared. No wait? The rich politicians are spared.
Yeah, they cause it and they
evade it. The worst part is that violence
comes in mobs and that makes
it hard to know even where to
start. When people are willing to
risk life and limb in the name of
politics, where do you start talking them out of violence? We are always surrounded by
fear. We live in fear, work in
fear and die in the same fear.
We never know when disaster
will strike. But, we still live in
the illusion of happiness and somehow like sands through the
hour glass, so do the days of
our lives pass. Hunger and the fear of hunger
are the biggest for any child,
and adult. But when violence
comes, no rich politician ever
bears the brunt of his or her
incitement. While the poor victims rummage for food, any food, the
politicians feed fat. Talk of
having your cake and eating it! And the worst hit are always
the children. Where are the perpetrators,
you ask? They are always
watching from a distance. And
lurk in the shadows, not
knowing whether what they did
was right or wrong. Will our sun rise again? Is there hope? Or have we
pierced, pummeled and torn
apart the very fabric of our
society? "There is a thin line between
truth and fiction. This is that
line."