Maybe I’m a pessimist.
The 2002 elections in Kenya changed everything for its forgetful citizens. The tyrant Moi was deposed by the anarchy and delirium of a people united against an oppressive rule. Kenyans jeered openly the once deeply feared two-time Chairperson of the now re-branded Organisation of African Unity, mocking his statement “They say ‘Moi must go! Moi must go!’ but soon they shall say ‘Moi must come back.'” Luhya and Nandi, Mijikenda and Kamba, Luo and Borana, Kikuyu and Mbeere, we all sat at the table, equal spoons in hand and waited for the Kenyan cake that we shed sweat and blood for over 24 years and more, to be shared.
2005 in Kenya was “the birth of the Orange from the Banana” as was eloquently put by a presidential aspirant recently. For the first time in these post-Moi times, old racial hatreds bubbled up on National TV sets. Mobs of gesticulating, fanatical youth waved fruits of their choice, sometimes, often-times, clashing in the streets and leaving a trail of banana peels and orange seeds in their wake. ‘Freedom!’, Kenya’s absentee father and her equally elusive partner, ‘Justice!’, were within the reach of radical youth demonstrators. So it seemed anyway.
Come 2007 and everything had changed and everything was the same. We all had one enemy, the difference was who your enemy was; Kibaki or Raila. At the end of the day, it was between these two. The more rational of us youth took up arms and went to the streets amidst the cries of ‘Mass Action!’ and ‘Bloody Murder!’. The cowards stayed home, home being wherever they were most assured of security for the day. They knelt and prayed for all the radical blood spilling to cease, with their jaws clenched and hands clasped in desperation, tears darting at their eyes and beads of sweat rolling down their tense faces and landing on rolled-up sleeves. Some of them, as if the words were bitter on their lips, muttered the haunting taunts from el Toro, “Moi must come back!” Urban Kenya got a taste of anarchy, and the youth loved it.
2010, February 28th, the Kenyan youth had their act polished up for them, the hands guiding them fuelled by hard economic times. The youth called for war at first, a war march. Which evolved into a pointless 15 minute gesture at around 1PM where the national anthem was heard across the city centre. But some saw some point and profit in the naïve, ‘yellow ribbons and flags’ cop-out. If one wants peace, many must pick up arms. Carve out effigies of the enemy, pick one, and burn them and chant hysterically in the streets. And they did exactly that in 2011. And 2012. And some of us got a taste of the spotlight. And some of us loved it.
2011, a peace rally for the never ageing youth of Kenya at Freedom Corner turned a peculiar sight. Especially for international broadcasting corporations. 48 coffins appeared from a truck parked nonchalantly across from the rally’s epicentre. These coffins were distributed to the now bemused crowd. Bemusement turned to shock, shock to anger because and upon the direction of those that wielded the loudspeakers and a 1000 or so odd Kenyans hefted the coffins up to the gates of Parliament and lined them up against the barricade walls. Slogans were chanted, policemen tripled in numbers but stood idly by watching. CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera LOVED this, but Kenyan media was involved in matters too important to care about peaceful protests. Or at the very least, purposeful protests. Upon each coffin was painted the title of the biggest scandal of the year, in the 48 years of Kenya’s history.
So even as the spectacle was repeated in 2012, except that the coffins were 227, one for every parliamentarian, and ended up a macabre bonfire right outside parliament, the Kenyan media houses, the same ones that brought you the recent presidential debate, turned two blind eyes to it all. And the words shouted into the loudspeaker, directing the crowd came from a different mouth, but the same foreign interest sources.
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Maybe I’m a pessimist, but the aggression of the youth scares me nowadays. Its focus with seemingly no coordinators. Its rage, without mercy. Its power.
Maybe I’m a pessimist but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Maybe I’m a pessimist but if the youth get their hands on guns, Tahrir Square will look like a Hollywood set sprayed with grape juice compared to the blood that will flow from City Square. Hand prints on the walls, writing “Death to the Vultures!” “No RAO, NO peace!” “UhuRuto!” “WAITITU 4 GOVERNOR!”
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Maybe I’m a pessimist. March only knows what she has in store for Kenya. And the saga continues.
Maybe I’m a pessimist.
Codified Expressions 