Memories and Resolutions

A number of things come across my mind as I try to recollect the happenings of a year that has seen a country and a people go through so much in such a short period of time. The year 2008 has not been easy for anyone. Not the average Kenyan trying to build the community after a plague of violence sent us all to hell and back, even the politician trying so hard to escape the boss’s (people) cold glare after being elected into office to do the same thing they have done since independence, sit and eat…and a new one for 2008, not pay taxes and be proud of it!

“Hii serekali ya muungano inanyanyasa watu tu, hakuna kazi wanafanya!” (This coalition government is only oppressing the people; it is not doing any (constructive) work!) These are words said by an irate citizen after the vehicle they were travelling in was pulled over by traffic police, leaving the passengers stranded along the Nairobi-Naivasha highway.

An old adage: ‘I heard the old men say all that is beautiful flows away like water’. Another one: ‘History is a nightmare from which I try to awake.’ History gives us a window into the past, a crystal ball through which we vet our experiences and pick those that will benefit us. Our history is in all truth a clouded one. Politically, economically, socially; from which we get the ugly subset that is tribalism, religiously and internationally. Our politics are the same as the colonialists left. The independence we got was like giving candy to a child to earn his trust and use him to run your agenda. We show no monumental growth politically and this shows in our economy. We all threw our hats up after president Kibaki won the elections in 2002, showing a glimmer of hope in our political growth and in turn our economy grew showing our currency battling for recognition against other leading currencies. A few months later and our currency was where we grew accustomed to seeing it…in a land called mediocre.

We cannot blame the people for having a poor economy, not unless Kenya was the land of Neverland where people just sit and make merry, then again doesn’t that sound like the land our politicians make of our parliament? Our political shortcomings reflect our society’s perceptions of itself and thus if our politics are dictated by tribal plays to see which tribe reaches the top, then 2008 is a clear show of what happens to a country with shoddy politics.

What Kenya is experiencing, or experienced is a case of collapsing dominoes where the first tile collapsed and the ripple effect was felt to the lowest tile in the chain. The one thing that showed the true face of the 2007-08 election violence suffers being silenced by the main cause of the violence. The voice of the people faces regulations that would reduce it to a muffled cry. With the media bill and other similar restrictions, the people are further held by the throat, a similar case to tyrant ruled governments that would rather their people suffer than their have their ridiculous policies be questioned by institutions that seem to be the people’s only saving grace.

Our capital city, Nairobi, was at one time the beautiful green city in the sun, and then it became the repulsive brown city in the sun. I must admit the city is back to its green glory but its people still exhibit it brown murk by how they go about with their day to day activities. Corruption, scandals and ignorant bunter shows even to the international sector how our people think. The problem is so that the common con in River Road can thrive, he must have some role models somewhere at the top and at the same time people at an administrative level who make it possible for such people to thrive. Our country and many other countries just like fish, rot from the head up affirming what the wise old men said, “all that is beautiful flows away like water.”

This new year, 2009, gives us the opportunity to harness our potential and capture all that is beautiful and of value in our country, such as our cultural differences as well as our political differences which offer a bigger basket of ideas that would take us where we need to be. We, as a people, have the power to be the change we want and just like fish, we can save ourselves a meal by cutting off the rotten part that would otherwise destroy a wonderful experience. This is the year of real change; we have seen others do it, passing the bounds of race and ignorant stereotyping and being an example even to the government itself. By being the bigger person, we show how small a man can be to utter such a thing as, “if you are feeling sufficiently philanthropic then you are at liberty to pay taxes”.