ETHNICITY WILL SURELY BE THE DEATH OF US!

The time has come and we are now gathering in our tribal cocoons, once more! We are crawling back to the places someone made us believe is home and even after whole 16 or more years in school you still believe the greatest possession you have is an ethnic identity.  Well done Kenyans let’s see how long we survive by doing things the same way and proving beyond doubt our insanity, guess what we shall surely eat the fruits of our great labour, we shall be paid handsomely so it’s not in vain after all. Whether good or bad the pay day will come. We have sank even lower and its now inter tribal wars! Its clanism. We thought it would be a better idea to bring our little wars closer home so why not start realising that even that which I thought was my ethnic group also has other groups and then why not begin superiority wars and try proving who more “Meru” than the other is.

As I have said time and again its either we unite or we will perish together as fools.

If what I am seeing is anything to go by then 2007/8 was child play. We are prepared for war we have put our tools together and we are waiting to be called and we will diligently report to duty to protect our own. Our own who forget about us the moment they get the coveted political offices. They disappear on us and after 4yrs they crawl back to us and since we are very faithful we embrace them and we protect them as if our next breathe depends on them. It’s called an abusive relationship but it’s too sweet to leave so we are hanging in there for reasons we also do not know. We are just faithful, we submit and we don’t question.

We forget they presented us with promises and not only that but a full manifesto and we were taken on a full dream  of how we would live in heaven if we gave them the only power we have, our vote. But we are too naive and we have forgotten all that and now we want to give them another chance to make this dream turned nightmare longer.

We love our politicians more than we love life and that we keep proving without fail. And for sure we will be true to that Kenyan spirit unless we transform

By Sarah Makena

A Letter to my brothers

In the past few months I have found myself in conversations about violence and cruelty against women. I thought I had heard all the mediocre reasons as to why a man could possibly abuse a woman but here is the newest excuse in town; "We African men...blah blah blah" and that’s a statement I have heard a little too many times that i want to believe that it was only part of a terrible nightmare which I have since woken up from, unfortunately the reality is that there is a breed of men who have found a new excuse for abusing women. So the reason is that you have a very small ego; to feed it and stroke it you must fight with a woman, and the excuse is that you are an African man? Please give me a break! Perhaps the next time you want to give that flimsy lame excuse try to do it while in hides and skin, may be then I can begin to understand. At the very least I will then have an imagery of the African man you purport to be.

I may have failed my history class but at least I can remember what my mother told me about her father, a true African man. I can remember my own father, the epitome of a true African man. African men were protectors, providers and proclaimers. And that power was lost the day African men of today sat in a house whose rent he had no idea how it was raised and ate food he had no idea how to look for. That power was lost when many men started rolling down the windows of their mothers’ Range Rovers to snare at and intimidate women who were in their own Toyota Vitz.

I have nothing against men I have too many in my circles, neither am I starting a battle I cannot finish. All I am doing is asking us to wake up beyond "MAWE" and realise that the bar was set very high for the men in our society today by those who came before them and guess what? To reach that high bar you need to stop waiting to be a millionaire by playing Sportpesa, boy please! What I am saying is that the real African men killed lions as a show of might, went out literally in search of danger to demonstrate their manliness but that was then and it worked at that time! Today my brothers you must report to duty and be the men we want in society; Men that are not intimidated by the success of their female counterparts but men that are challenged by this and turn it into positive energy to propel them into higher notches of success.

This, my brothers will not be achieved through physical or emotional abuse. It is not achieved by stepping all over the women you come across. The only thing that abuse does is it creates competitors and not partners. It makes women bitter and they choose to focus on competing with you. But when you show up for duty and work twice as hard as she does she respects you and creates a heaven for you to operate.

Men call out the boys in men’s skin who are letting all the men down, call out the men in these boys. Ask them to wake up from the dream that one day while sitting lazily doing nothing they will win a betting jack pot! This annoying betting obsession is a story for another day!

By Sarah Makena