Tuesday 9 July 2013

WHEN TRIBE SERVES NOTHING

                Kenyans have institutionalized the belief that people from the former central province are all wealthy. It is believed this mali could have something to do with being in government. This is just the face of the matter. They too have internalized that being out of government is akin to ceding your livelihood to someone else. I find no water in this thinking. It is just hot air propagated by empty minds.

                To understand central Kenya, I think, it is incumbent for us to cut out the components making up its human nation. Central Kenya is a world of contrasts. It is a land dotted with desperation and suffering. It is a land flowing with honey and milk for a few. It is a land where decision making is a preserve of a few. It is a land whose majority inhabitants play the role of protecting the few decision makers.

                The marriage between poverty and crime is evident here. This is where the super rich are afraid of walking freely. They have to part with protection fee to "feel at home". This is how the society in this part of the world has modeled itself. This is the evidence of how a people can cede their decision making power to others and assume the role of an underdog.

                 They dance to the tune of the few at the top. They aspire to climb up the hill but lack energy. They are fatigued by the daily search of bread. Even those at the top of the hill can't descend for they want to "preserve their place." For this lot, to descend is to kill the goose that lays the life-giving eggs. Staying afloat for them means blinding the hoi polloi and keeping them in the dark. 

                This is not only confined to central Kenya. It cuts across the so-called major communities. It is the cancer that has refused to die. It is enriched by the masses. It is domiciled in them. Any attempt to exorcise it is demolished by the shouts of the very people whose livelihood is targeted for a positive change. 

                For them, to think individually and logically is to weaken the tribal bond. They interpret this as an act of betrayal-an act of dancing to the tune of "outsiders". They find it easy to vote as a block and drown other than voting with a functioning conscience.

               They would rather house a thief because they hail from the same ethnic extraction than exposing him to save the nation. The spirit of nationhood is a distant vocabulary for them. It is a refuge for those who "can't raise the numbers to compete."

               It is incumbent to note that liberation is inborn. It is a process initiated by the person himself. No other person can purport to have the powers to liberate others. The poor and the blind can only liberate themselves once they shake off the dark clouds blocking them. They actualize this liberation by recognizing that their existence is only guaranteed by the existence of others. That critical thinking of facts and events is an obligation of everybody. That ceding once reasoning power to others amounts to burying oneself while still alive. Voila! 

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