Jamhuri yangu?

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Heading into the holidays, Jamhuri day celebrations will be the start of the festivities. Many Kenyan communities across the world will probably do something to mark this milestone. Being too young to have stood and watched the new Kenyan flag be hoisted for the first time, I can only imagine the thrill that must have been. The joy of being free from Colonial rule was probably unstoppable, heady, intoxicating, sexy, pregnant with promise.Growing up, public holidays were just holidays to me. There was not much contemplation or even thought as to their origin or meaning. Now, older, and more interested in the state of affairs in the world around me, I’m sitting here wondering about the meaning of Jamhuri day.

44 years later, there are things we have done well- and a pat on the back is warranted. However, one of the ways in which we have failed makes me uncomfortable just sitting here. It is as if there are two Jamhuris: those lucky to ‘have’ something (land, power, the right connections, peace, water, food, education, access to basic human needs) and those unlucky to ‘lack’ some or all of the aforementioned. To think that people are campaigning for the General Election while Kenyans, our brothers and sisters in Kuresoi are displaced, homeless, scared, hungry, injured, dead. To think that less than a day’s journey away from the violence, people sit sipping lattes, cappuccinos and other frothy caffeinated luxuries. To think that we’re not bothered. To think that the only mistake those poor people in Kuresoi have made is to be born/live/work in a place that the rest of the country does not care about. It makes me sad.

All it would take is our president, and all other people with the power to change things in our country to stand in that same town where blood has been shed, and refuse to move until peace returns. It will take US standing up and saying “Enough”. Enough is enough- I refuse to stay silent when a family is living in terror. As we go out to celebrate Jamhuri day, think about those people that are now refugees within our homeland. What will it take for us to start seeing our fellow countrymen as human beings like us? What will it take for us to care enough and STAND UP TO END THIS VIOLENCE AGAINST OUR FELLOW KENYANS?

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