Riddle me who, riddle me why...

I believe I have an answer to one of my own questions; Or I will try to answer myself.

'Why do we only honor mashujaas after they die?'

I have always accepted this notion as an obvious due to my upbringing in line with my people of Gikuyu's saying that " Īīragwo yaarī iria yakua. " This directly translates that ' it is praised for its high milk production after its death ' this referring to a cow. I want to believe that the Gikuyu being a superstitious lot held it that praising a cow while alive would bring misfortune or bad luck to it and hence to the owner. The Swahili believe that " Mgema akisifiwa, tembo hulitia maji " So I can generalise and claim that it is an accepted norm regionally. We are hard-wired to do so. It's in our genes.

We have probably held our heroes and heroines like the proverbial cow and would not want to preempt the gods and/or demons and bring them crashing down from the pedestals. Be that as it may, I have also realized that most of our heroes and heroines are of the rapid reaction, rapid dissipation kind, that is the type that hold true only for a short time, they come out guns blazing, spitting fire and brimstone left, right and centre, then die off to a deafening silence, not even a smoldering amber visible in the darkness left. 

These ore the most prevalent in the lists of our living heroes and heroines. They have lost their place on the stage. They are deep in the decadence that is stifling the mwananchi, they have been assimilated by the enemy. Most have come crashing down from the high table and my new question of what causes this demands the answer-GREED and SELFISHNESS, pure and simple. We are in short supply of such heroes like the late Mandela who was a hero in his own lifetime, who stay the course, who hold true despite the odds stacked against them, who prevail the test of time. The other problem we have, and which we perpetuate, is the fact that we look up to non-heroes to declare the heroes. We entrust the onus of bestowing glory to those who robbed the heroes their glory in the first place. The quasi-heroes of today, who were villains just the other day, or the fallen heroes of yesteryears who have nothing but shame and self-deprecation to offer. This is a self defeating exercise. It's an exercise in futility.

It is true our heroes have continuously found it too easy to entangle themselves with unnecessary baggage. They have continued to stumble on 'the via dolorosa', not because of the weight of the burden but because of their own greed and selfishness. They have taken advantage of the mwananchi's ignorance in the absence of effective and constructive civic education and in their rush to grab a quick handful of the spoils have found themselves in compromising situations. They have fallen prey to their own affinity to riches and in celebration of our national pastime of gross impunity.

The doyen of our opposition politics, the respectable Jaramogi had an (unfortunate/fortunate?) brush with one Paul Kamlesh Patni, and like the dominoes do, several of his disciples and lieutenants in the so called second liberation struggle, too. His first vice chairman in the mass movement that was FORD got himself into the same mud-pit. It is said the fruit does not fall far from the tree, his son got into some form of arrangement with one of the most ruthless rulers Africa has had and though theirs was touted as a constructive engagement, it came out as a man's ways and means to grab power for himself.  It had nothing to do with the liberation of the common man. Today, he fronts a movement dubbed 'Save Kenya' and a school of thought has it that it's the man's newest attempt at power-grab. One of the only politically active of the then infamous " bearded " septet-heroes in the late 70's and early 90's continues to waltz with Jaramogi's son- who has coalesced a number of political novices, products of our political decadence and corruption notwithstanding, and they claim to have the solution to Kenyans' problems. True heroism, that respect reserved for true heroes eludes him. He has however, the chance to reclaim and redefine self, another of the septet, Koigi, whose name aptly translates to the "sayer"-reminds me-although in the wrong sense of the word-of the 'praeco' in ancient Rome, only time will tell of his impact in the liberation struggles. He too has the chance to live up to the call. He has written several books (a rare one) and runs an FM radio station which could be a good tool for civic education. The list does not end here.

This same infection has continued to plague our scholars and experts who have tried their hand in politics. Very respectable gentlemen and ladies from the intelligentsia have found their way into parliament due to the high esteem they are held in by the masses only to fall far below the 'regular guy' as far as their contributions in parliament and outside is concerned. Some have actually paled and faded into oblivion once they set foot there. The water there should be tested. 

Our heroes and heroines, both living and the dead, we should find open and fair mechanisms to tap them, nominate them and bestow upon them the honours they deserve, this should be an ongoing exercise sweeping the whole nation because heroes are made every day and everywhere-not wait till the 20th of October in the year to just chant "Mashujaa", listen to patriotic songs, speeches by politicians, eat drink and make merry and move on. No wonder to this day, we don't know(or do not care to know), where Dedan Kīmaathi wa Wachiūri is buried, who was responsible for Pio Gama Pinto's, Bishop Kipsang arap Muge's, deaths among many others. We don't even care to find out who is responsible for such atrocities like the clubbing of Reverend Njoya like a common thief or who ordered the beatings and mass displacements of poor Kenyans in subsequent elections through the years. Who have played roles in economic plunder/sabotage bringing our national economy to it's knees?

Are we to blame? 

All Blacks Haka (Ka Mate & Kapa O Pango)

More, Mr President. More please...

Every situation should present moments for reflection, correction and learning for any thinking creature. As a nation, Kenya has had a myriad of these to build upon and to mature politically. The recent summonses to appear in the international court in The Hague for one Uhuru Muigai Kinyata, would not miss a space in this list.

Loud noises were generated around the issue by the political class, each trying to appear most loyal to the presidency and few having the nation in their thoughts. They did what they do best- make every opportunity that arises an issue about them, and only for their benefit. So they shouted themselves hoarse about how the European masters are disrespecting the nation of Kenya and her presidency, how Mr Kinyata would not be let to take off from the airport by the demonstrating, loving multitudes of citizenry, how they needed to remind the said masters that Kenya is a sovereign state, etc.

So they mobilised and accompanied Mr Kinyata to The Netherlands where they proceeded to demonstrate to the ‘wazungus’ that they are a respectable people, with a respectable leader and that they deserved the respect. Unfortunately they could only demonstrate to the police employed to guard the court and the few passers-by who may not even have been aware of what was happening in the vicinity. Only a handful of them were allowed in the courtroom and we can only hope they were able to articulate their displeasure.

Their colleagues outside the court were only able to express their dissent by varied street theatrics, dressing, singing in their languages which only themselves and fellow Kenyans would understand and just generally being unruly. They did not even realise that their respected leader who was inside, facing the court and was not even expected to raise one word of protest for himself.

Be that as it may, the whole incident presented a case in point which ought not be blurred by the hullabaloo from the sideshows.

In the recent documented chronicles of political happenings in Africa, a sitting president handed over the reigns of power to another individual and stepped out of the country. This is now a historical fact. It may not be forgotten to those older observers that Milton Obote of Uganda lost his seat while he attended a summit in Singapore, and more recent in Kenya, former president Daniel Arap Moi would declare that there was no one else fit to lead Kenya- this while at the airport being welcomed by his ministers including his vice president, from a foreign trip. President Uhuru signed himself out of power and flew out of the country as ‘a mwananchi wa kawaida’!

Cleared at the departure terminals like everyone else flying out that day, boarding a commercial flight with other passengers and left.

On returning, Mr Kinyata who had by then re-acquired his official status as president made a number of statements and one of them in particular was my take. He stated that Kenyans need to trust each other and that we should forget our ‘ukikuyu’, ‘ujaluo’ and ‘ukalenjin’, that all that is ‘bure kabisa!’ He went on to say that we should trust one another the way he trusted his brother Ruto and left him to take care of his office, that we should realise that when that other person is in control they are taking care of all of us.

I would like to echo these sentiments because I know we as Kenyans have so far fallen into the pit of mistrust and generalised misplaced mutual suspicions that we even mistrust our own clergy if they don’t share our mother-tongue. We have nationalised the notion that unless one of our own is holding a particular office then we are never going to benefit from the services that office delivers. That is the reason we tried to capture it in our constitution that we need ethnic balance in government. I am yet to see the definition of the said term ‘balance’.

We cannot accept the fact that we can get adequate services from strangers yet we are so trustful of foreigners! Simply illogical and preposterous!

We have locked out the fact that in any given circumstance, there will be a person of a different ethnic descent holding a public office as a public servant. It is a calling for all Kenyans to trust one another and know  that those servants are not their kinsmen's guardian-in-chief, custodians or trustees of their ethnic populace, appointed to grab all resources and deliver to their peoples.

We desperately need to get out of this mindset and embrace the fact that most able bodied Kenyans are appointed for their expertise and are charged with delivery of the said expertise to the nation as a whole.

President Uhuru Muigai Kinyata will have scored a hat-trick in my term, if he qualifies these sentiments by going after public looters and malfeasances with the urgency he displayed that day. Go get the perpetrators of Anglo Leasing, the public land thieves of Lamu, Karen, Mau forest, sweep out all speculators pitching camp in Turkana county, prosecute all county governors and constituency financial mis-managers. In fact, if he clears any one of the above listed from the ‘pending file’, he will have made a complete legacy worth my praise.