Yes, let us pretend that we are united…
I am enveloped in this gloom which I am sure as it blooms, the boomerang effect is devastating. I am seated here in the middle of the night reflecting on all the events that are happening in the top echelon of the country and a big cloud of hopelessness is doing its rounds. What is obvious is that the social media has in a sense been honest in expressing the disgust. The mainstream media has, on the other hand turned a deaf ear to the realities of the day. I am almost certain that the rainbow of hope will never show up. The covenant of unity has been broken. The promise of progress has been extinguished by the fires of selfishness and tribalism. Let us begin from the top. Our president has been speaking in the most eloquent of ways – leadership in Kenya does not belong to all but a few. It is not without doubt that there is a glaring dichotomy between what he speaks and the wine he drinks. In truth, the wine he drinks is more important than what he tells the nation. Recall many times when terrorists attack us he talks tough and promises tough action against them. The inaction thereafter is visible even to the blind.
Leadership in our country has qualified as a tragedy. My kinsman Achucha Jr., reminds me more often that a bigger portion of love stories end up in tragedies. Is it true that our love affair with our leaders has proved that ours become ‘melodramatic tragedies’? You see for those “lovers”, they always live in false hope that the significant “other” will live up to their expectations. So, in essence you find a degree of “blind commitment” that is exhibited in; the actions towards, the thoughts about, the promises and all about the other. This leads both or one of the lovers to be in a love ‘trance’ or drunken ‘stupor’. We forget about ourselves and always think about the other at the expense of our own personal happiness. We forget that to live an ideal life is not only to love self first, then the others next but we do the vice versa and we are okay with it.
Our leaders ‘love’ us so much. No, we love our leaders so much that we forget about ourselves. We have chosen to defend their actions and lack thereof with the most vulgar of words on social media. I have read with my head bent in shame about friends, colleagues, classmates, young men and women to whom I have held with respect and high esteem. Most of those we have interacted in University – the highest academic institution. I have read writings from individuals I have been lecturing with, in the same institutions and worked with others in very high profile portfolios in life. This love for which they unequivocally profess towards the leaders and the apparent hatred towards the “other” leaders renders me speechless.
For the record, I have had the most honourable privilege of studying with individuals derived from almost all the tribes in the country. I recall those days I was in primary school, we used to make good the diversity of our ethnicity. Secondary school was even more fun because the blend enabled me to learn a lot from my other brothers from the other fathers and mothers. See, in the process I managed to be fluent in about 7-11 local dialects. I recall my time in the University was not also put to waste because of my ability to navigate the tribal boundaries and I was more often mistaken to belong to any of the other tribes because of my ability to speak, albeit with sufficient degree of fluency. I have to make a pregnant proclamation. In all my entire schooling, I believed that we were united. My tribe has never defined me nor did it define any of my friends then.
Let us bite the bullet: Kenyans, we are not united! Do you want us to pretend that we are? Unless we own up to this stack reality, our quest to achieve a level of unity, even to a small degree, ours will be efforts in vain. See, we had this ghost of a commission dubbed the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (read: Mzalendo Kibunja’s Commission”). It is ironical that a man to whose name translates into a “patriot” eventually became a “puppet” in what his commission did, failed to do or they were basically clueless. Does the commission still exist? Well, they did their part (what every commission is set us do); earn their salaries and choose allowances, etc and retreat to wherever and account basically to no one. Because after all, who cares?
We are not united because by the strength of the words of hatred and fire that the social media is spitting; we are not united by the degree of what is viewed as “unbalanced” appointment in the government positions that don’t reflect the face of Kenya; we are not united by even the composition of employees in private institutions; we are not united because positions in the counties are dominated by members from the same ethnic groupings.
Kenyans, let us face it. We elected a government. We need to support it. While at it, we need to make the government accountable. We need to confront the realities of the moment with honest and brutal truth. We don’t have to shift blame. Let me be clear here, since I am a political neutral. The opposition will remain that – the opposition. Whether it makes relevant noise or otherwise, it is still the opposition. It is a sum total of also leaders elected by a “minority” of Kenyans to represent them. But, whom does the buck of running the affairs of the country stop? The government!
So now allow me to ask:
How can we be united if our view of problems facing us a country can only be debated depending on who we support in the political divide? How can we even be united when Kenyans are dying in droves and we have the audacity to not point fingers in the right direction and defend a government whose expertise is at deflecting the right questions? How can we not expect the government not to offer security to Kenyans when insecurity is rampant? Do we want the opposition to do that?
Kenyans, who has poisoned the chalice of our unity? It is not our politicians. We have done it unto ourselves. How can we fall in love with a politician who is so distant to us that we can even spew hate of amorphous proportions in the name of defending them? How can we lose our own decency, dignity, humaneness just because we believe that our “own” is untouchable, immune to criticism, he/she is always right and the “other” is always wrong? Sometimes I seat myself down gently, read the utterances of my peers- men and women I have respected, worked with and feel ashamed, disappointed, disjointed, lost in oblivion. What became of the fantastic person I knew? What is beneath that nice person that leads to such hatred, vile and hero worship? See, I will be reluctant to work with you again, even dine with you again if all I can see about you is the manner in which you tell me the other side of you – that you are tribal and full of hate. And, mind you, whatever is written is written – in indelible ink. It will not be forgotten.
So, while we pretend that we are united – we are not. I will purpose to do my part. I will welcome all those who are respectful to others, tolerant with others, use decent language when debating matters of national concern. I will not define you by your name, your tribe but by your humanity and all the positive values and ingredients that you bring to the table of livelihood. It is that that will earn us the initial steps to holding us of purpose, wrapping our hands around each other, looking at each other in the face with honesty and thus building a united nation for you are me and I am you. We are all Kenyans.
