of love, life and living it up
Monday, December 31, 2007
let no one cheat you and say that the situation in kenya isn't because two groups of people are bent on getting their way no matter what.
i rarely discuss politics on this blog. this is usually a place for me to dump my random thoughts, rants and occasional music links but at this point, i am disgusted at the sentiments being expressed and the back and forth that goes on to the dertriment of the place i call home.
i won't go into the nitty gritty of what happened in terms of politics. there is much analysis to be seen all over the kenyan blogosphere and elsewhere and some of it way better than what i would come up with right now. the fact is that many kenyans feel cheated and rightly so - they had come to believe that their vote and the electoral process actually meant something and that the people would decide the fate of the country not a select few who for whatever reason feel that their egos are more important than 30 million plus citizens.
in the build up to the election i was rather ambivalent about who i would have chosen for the position of president had i had the chance to go back home and vote. to tell you the truth, both individuals looked abit unsavoury to me. so while the decion of who to vote in as my mp was pretty cut and dry the position of president on the other hand ... you see, the same individuals are being recycled over and over. it's not like i expect anyone, especially politicians, to be squeaky clean but man, neither candidate impressed me. however, a decision had to be made and it was. people came out and voted and were determined that their voice would be heard. the aftermath is what shocks and disgusts me to to the core.
i have tried more than once to blog about the violence i see being reported and that i hear about from back home. each time i was confused and overwhelmed, distracted by phone calls and sms' and one time by tears. i couldn't believe what i was seeing. after relatively peaceful elections there is chaos and tribal accusations being thrown back and forth.
before anything else, i would like to thank all those who shared their stories and kept us updated on what was going on through their blogs in whatever way,big or small. those of us far away from home needed (and still do) all the information that many gave us. in particular kenyan pundit, what an african woman thinks mentalacrobatics, thinker's room and others who i might neglect to mention right now (i'm sorry, it's really late).
now on to the vile things i have seen on the aggregator, in comment sections and elsewhere. i saw a post asking for people to go to war (from someone based in michigan of all places) comments declaring x tribe is this way and y tribe is to blame and people over here in some get togethers i went to saying that now is the time for combat. i am so disturbed, especially since i thought that at this point and during this crisis that people should know better than to utter such inflammatory things.
someone once told me that in a room of more than 20 people it is guaranteed that there will be a handful of idiots. we all know about the herd mentality so i won't even go into that. in the heat of the moment and in all the passion we have for our homeland let us not forget that these are actual human beings we are talking about. real people with real lives. they have family members, friends, hobbies, likes and dislikes, people they have loved and lost ... they are REAL. when you call for people to go to war or start making grandiose statements about how a certain tribe is ignorant/violent ama others need to be wiped off the face of the earth you'd best believe that the person who you wanted to be president or whatever won't be the ones facing gsu or watching their homes and livelihoods go up in smoke. they won't be wondering where to get food or whether it is safe to travel back home after having gone to various places to vote. they will be safe and sound with their security detail and their families far from harm. they have the means to leave the country if need be - majority do not. and shame on the cowards who are abroad and call for violence. you are not there to live through the terror and you dare thump your chest and ask people to hear you roar as you sit safe and sound? utter foolishness.
also, this maneno of saying certain tribes are predispositioned to violence and that others are selfish enablers has got to end. do you mean to tell me that there is some sort of gene that stops where one province stops and another one begins? different brain functions that in a relatively small country like kenya happened to split itself some 40 odd ways to make us all different? we have got to stop getting swept away into believing all the stereotypes that are now being exercebated by a few for their gain. this is not sketch comedy ama those lame jokes that have been recylced for years. this is a case of hooligans and thieves taking advantage of the uncertainty that is there right now. uncertainty that is being caused by a bunch of people who, let's face it, have shown us time and again that they consider themselves numero uno (yes, i am talking about both sides. show me one new person there who in the past has shown themselves to be totally selfless and sincerly put themselves at the service of kenyans) and that they are willing to put an entire country into jeopardy to prove it.
let us not forget that fighting (and supporting it) will take us nowhere. the looting, the killing, the tribalistic overtones will only go to ensure that we don't have a country to call home anymore, a place to be safe and carry on with our lives and for some of us to come back home to. empty rhetoric that puts all our loved ones at risk is something that saddens and angers me and right now, i seem to be hearing alot of that and it's drowning out the voices of reason. all i can do right now is ask people to think before they speak and act and to pray that things will turn around.
i rarely discuss politics on this blog. this is usually a place for me to dump my random thoughts, rants and occasional music links but at this point, i am disgusted at the sentiments being expressed and the back and forth that goes on to the dertriment of the place i call home.
i won't go into the nitty gritty of what happened in terms of politics. there is much analysis to be seen all over the kenyan blogosphere and elsewhere and some of it way better than what i would come up with right now. the fact is that many kenyans feel cheated and rightly so - they had come to believe that their vote and the electoral process actually meant something and that the people would decide the fate of the country not a select few who for whatever reason feel that their egos are more important than 30 million plus citizens.
in the build up to the election i was rather ambivalent about who i would have chosen for the position of president had i had the chance to go back home and vote. to tell you the truth, both individuals looked abit unsavoury to me. so while the decion of who to vote in as my mp was pretty cut and dry the position of president on the other hand ... you see, the same individuals are being recycled over and over. it's not like i expect anyone, especially politicians, to be squeaky clean but man, neither candidate impressed me. however, a decision had to be made and it was. people came out and voted and were determined that their voice would be heard. the aftermath is what shocks and disgusts me to to the core.
i have tried more than once to blog about the violence i see being reported and that i hear about from back home. each time i was confused and overwhelmed, distracted by phone calls and sms' and one time by tears. i couldn't believe what i was seeing. after relatively peaceful elections there is chaos and tribal accusations being thrown back and forth.
before anything else, i would like to thank all those who shared their stories and kept us updated on what was going on through their blogs in whatever way,big or small. those of us far away from home needed (and still do) all the information that many gave us. in particular kenyan pundit, what an african woman thinks mentalacrobatics, thinker's room and others who i might neglect to mention right now (i'm sorry, it's really late).
now on to the vile things i have seen on the aggregator, in comment sections and elsewhere. i saw a post asking for people to go to war (from someone based in michigan of all places) comments declaring x tribe is this way and y tribe is to blame and people over here in some get togethers i went to saying that now is the time for combat. i am so disturbed, especially since i thought that at this point and during this crisis that people should know better than to utter such inflammatory things.
someone once told me that in a room of more than 20 people it is guaranteed that there will be a handful of idiots. we all know about the herd mentality so i won't even go into that. in the heat of the moment and in all the passion we have for our homeland let us not forget that these are actual human beings we are talking about. real people with real lives. they have family members, friends, hobbies, likes and dislikes, people they have loved and lost ... they are REAL. when you call for people to go to war or start making grandiose statements about how a certain tribe is ignorant/violent ama others need to be wiped off the face of the earth you'd best believe that the person who you wanted to be president or whatever won't be the ones facing gsu or watching their homes and livelihoods go up in smoke. they won't be wondering where to get food or whether it is safe to travel back home after having gone to various places to vote. they will be safe and sound with their security detail and their families far from harm. they have the means to leave the country if need be - majority do not. and shame on the cowards who are abroad and call for violence. you are not there to live through the terror and you dare thump your chest and ask people to hear you roar as you sit safe and sound? utter foolishness.
also, this maneno of saying certain tribes are predispositioned to violence and that others are selfish enablers has got to end. do you mean to tell me that there is some sort of gene that stops where one province stops and another one begins? different brain functions that in a relatively small country like kenya happened to split itself some 40 odd ways to make us all different? we have got to stop getting swept away into believing all the stereotypes that are now being exercebated by a few for their gain. this is not sketch comedy ama those lame jokes that have been recylced for years. this is a case of hooligans and thieves taking advantage of the uncertainty that is there right now. uncertainty that is being caused by a bunch of people who, let's face it, have shown us time and again that they consider themselves numero uno (yes, i am talking about both sides. show me one new person there who in the past has shown themselves to be totally selfless and sincerly put themselves at the service of kenyans) and that they are willing to put an entire country into jeopardy to prove it.
let us not forget that fighting (and supporting it) will take us nowhere. the looting, the killing, the tribalistic overtones will only go to ensure that we don't have a country to call home anymore, a place to be safe and carry on with our lives and for some of us to come back home to. empty rhetoric that puts all our loved ones at risk is something that saddens and angers me and right now, i seem to be hearing alot of that and it's drowning out the voices of reason. all i can do right now is ask people to think before they speak and act and to pray that things will turn around.
7 Comments:
Being one of the people who actually feels bitter and cheated I'd like to comment on your post...
1. If you are going to lie especially to a whole country - stick to it to the bitter end.
This is my take on things, tribalism aside - you could feel the tension in the air at the time leading to elections, the problem is the process was very transparent, we saw live feeds of the announcing and the diaputes, we even saw a electral officer come out and admit there was rigging and his conscience made him quit. Then there was the reading of tallied numbers that the officers from the various polling stations came to dispute and the hasty closed door pronuncement of Hon. Kibaki as the president seconds later - LITERALLY he is sworn in as president! all this was shown to us.
Ofcourse, the angry Kenyan are out there protesting! To make matters worse, the Head Electral commisioner comes out and says he's NOT SURE that Kibaki won that he was under a lot of pressure and that the president have people around him who deserve to burn.
I am angry at him in particular! We all Know that Majority of Raila's supporters are from his ethnic background, but it is not an ethnic cleansing and neither is it spear headed by Raila. On the day of announcement of the president, Raila urged the people of Kenya to Keep calm as they looked for a way forward, I fail to understand why everyone is pointing a finger at him, My problem is with the new president who through all this has wished Kenyans happy new year and not said a word to his people since elections. all he does is play blame game with Odinga through his spokes man
yours suffering and pissed
Mikki
mikki dear, i hope you were speaking in general and not specifically on this post when you said that people are only pointing the finger at raila. as i said earlier, i am pointing fingers at both raila and kibaki and the group of people surrounding them - the politicians who stand to benefit most from being in power. that what this is about, power.
i am all about protesting and demanding that things go right. i was home watching kibaki getting sworn in and it stunk to high heaven. clearly very many things went wrong in the counting process and no one is disputing that. but the burning of helpless people in a church is no way to democracy. neither is the forced circumcision of luos to teach them a lesson. these are not the people who rigged the election, all they did was vote. the looting and killing going on is nothing more than pure anarchy. what sort of country do we expect to have left if all we do is parrot stereotypes that we have been told by politicians for their own gain? the us vs them line of thought benefits a very select few and you can bet anything they are not the ones suffering.
and that is what my post is about. it disturbs shakes me to my very core the things i have been hearing recently - kikuyus rigged the election and should be wiped off the face of the earth. luos are violent people and deserve whatever gsu and the police hand out to them. more so when the very people who are telling me these things are relatively upper middle or upper class (and some of them in the safety of other countries)and are yet to be hit very hard by what is going on. at least not at the level of the poorest who are suffering the most.
i reitarate - right now, both kibaki and raila disgust me. their families are not the ones running out of necessities, running out of money and fearing for their lives. neither of them is having to either identify with pnu or odm or with certain tribes as they walk around and risk a beating, forced circumcision, being robbed, raped and death. as the two of them dilly dally and make contradictory statements about peace and yet do NOTHING to sort out what is going on in our country. both of them are willing to let kenya go up in flames to prove a point and it frightens me.
the small group of people who control the fate of kenya frighten me. they have shown that unless they get their own way the citizenry is expandible.
long comment over. i do hope you and yours are fine though - i want y'all to be there when i come to visit.
oh and just so that you know, all that was just in case you misread my post. if not, then just consider it a very long addendum.
and i forgot to add onto what you said about kivuitu - i read that he did not want to resign cos he thought people would think that he was a coward. he cannot be any less careless with the lives of kenyans. he can't backtrack from what he did by saying he was afraid to be embarassed. i swear, these old men make me mad as hell.
um, yeah I was just adding on to what you wrote. This is a very firey topic right now and people are pretty much trying to steer clear of it, we have public recreational places with notices saying that it's a politics free zone and no discussions politics related are allowed. I know understand why the Rwandese do not talk about tribes or the genocide. All in all, we ahouls have in mind that it took us 45 years to get where we are today and it can all go away in one day, and is that would not only be stupid and ignorant but also, incosiderate of our foremer nation builders!
PS dont worry your fans are all alive and kicking...
Happy Birthday Spicey and many hapy returns.
You my dear have been tagged!!!
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