UoN vs. The Beast

Picture this: the cloudy sky orange from the hue of burning cars, stones and rocks crawling across roads dying out with the momentum of foolhardy throws, shop windows left in spider-webbed cracks, blood soaked pavements coated with fine layers of fresh dust kicked up by hundreds of stomping boots, the air tainted with the vicious roar of bloodthirsty anger. An untouched statue stands in the middle of it all. It’s a statue of their patron saint. It’s a statue of Kamau.

In the event of this post apocalyptic world, the University of Nairobi students would stand out like the strong warriors of anarchy that they have gained a reputation for. And if reputations are anything to go by then the University of Nairobi rioters along with the USIU valkyries would rule this desolate land with an iron fist (no perverted pun intended). And when the two unite in the physical sexperiment of their material bodies, Mammon, the spawn of Satan, shall be messily thrust out from the warm womb of perdition and his chains made of hope and love shall drop loose and he shall be unleashed upon all of our corroded creation. Earthly hell shall become his dominion and chaos shall reign supreme like it did when Kamau disappeared.

Then, from the distance, would come our law enforcement officers riding in on tired looking, three-legged donkeys. They’d come in shooting their word guns which fire ten bullshit-bullets per second. They’d fire their old tear gas canisters at the crowds but expired tear gas is just a smoke screen for violence to hide behind. Our police force, confused in the wake of doing their jobs, would then scurry back into the holes of their hideous hideouts. Ironic that they won’t be able to face small fires of community when most of them are doomed to the eternal fires of hell for all the bad they’ve perpetrated.

The Warriors and Valkyries would stand strong to fight for what they believe in. When the system that has sworn to protect them fails then it’s time to invoke the metaphysical powers of another being. And that is exactly what they’ve done. In their protest today, through their chants and fight dances and sacrifices and flames, they manifested the collective Spirit of unbridled unity. It’s just a pity that the Spirit has got the attitude of violence and the sickeningly sculpted face of misery, mischief and mayhem.

How much can we take until we push back? Does oppression justify violent retribution? When do we stand as a unit and attack opposition like the Spartan armies of old? Or are we happy in our misery? Content in our capsules?

I don’t know where I stand on the matter of the masses being affected for the benefit of a few but after analyzing the situation I feel that they have the right to do what they did. I would always fight for what I believe in and they’re doing the same. This time it’s legitimate and the only thing that’s tainting it is the reputation that they’ve got from their past exploits of propelling rocks across small distances and replicating what early man did all those hundreds of thousands of years ago by making fire anywhere they pleased.

So maybe they were right to conjure up this creature. Maybe they were right to unleash little hell on Nairobi. A message has been sent and this time it’s not in a damn bottle. Listen up Beast, something stirs in the hearts of the oppressed. Be afraid Beast, be afraid.

On a side note, the world is not for the weak anymore so eat your spinach.

The #KenyansOnTwitter Party

When you're climbing a mountain and you feel like your heart is about to explode, it's usually advisable to think of anything that can distract you from your current predicament. So that's how this topic was born. Halfway up a steep mountain, climbing in the dark, fighting dehydration and pushing away pain. It's just a little bit of fun.

So here we go. If the people I follow on Twitter were at a party in real life, this is how I think it’d go.

Firstly, the party would probably be hosted up at @WestgateMallKe. @Kenya_tweets would be checking everyone’s IDs at the front door making sure that they’re Kenyan and then registering them onto the form. There would be plenty of @coldtusker to go around (the drink, not the guy). @tis_me_pink would be the official photographer at the party giving us the world from her kooky perspective through her spectacular pictures. @cooxie02 would be the quiet, intelligent girl in the corner observing everyone and never speaking out of turn. By the end of the night, she’d probably be the life of the party.

@ahmedsalims would be coming up with a new, innovative way to unite all Kenya. And he’d be wearing a stylish @FluidTees t-shirt while doing it. @kamz26 would be drooling and chasing after @koinangejeff who in turn would be marketing “THE BENCH” and trying to get her on it. We'd hear @Wamathai deliver lashes of creative poetry throughout the night.

The three radio ladies, @PoojaKotedia, @SadiaOfficial and @Evedsouza would be streaming the music from the party straight onto the radio and keeping the audience up-to-date with exciting live commentary. Actually, the commentary would probably be fierce and scathing because they'd probably want to be at the party.

@Buggz79, @donhangani, @crazynairobian and @IamDonatelli would be the boys making everyone at the party laugh with their witty one liners and clever comebacks. They’ll probably have a battle of sorts between themselves to see who wins. The battle would probably be hosted by @Truthslinger and the winner would become a trending topic as a prize.

@theekimutai, @_Ramzzy_ and @iFortknox would be the guys delivering harsh truths to oblivious people through acerbic little lines of wisdom. They would be saying things that get people all riled up but in the end those same people know that these dudes make sense, most of the time.

@ntvkenya and @standardgroup would probably be hovering over the party taking pictures and interviews with the Twitter celebs. @timnjiru would vehemently be asking party goers if they Poken. Vehemently! @safaricom would be off sulking somewhere and apologising to the droves of complaining people and fending them off with a hockey stick.

There would be a melodious ambiance set by the musicians in the house. @zubinews would be singing beautiful songs in that one of a kind voice of hers. Then @justabandwidth would come onto stage and do their thing the way only they can. @ma3theband would then take over and see out the night led by the always bright and bubbly @msupastar.

Finally, @KenyaPower would walk in and the lights would go out.

If Armageddon happens in the next week

Off to climb a mountain.

Hoping Armageddon doesn’t befall middle earth by the time I get back down. Because, you know, that would suck. Also, then there’s only going to be a few of us left to repopulate the earth. Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad. I could remake it in my own vision. Beer for breakfast would become a staple. Cheese omelettes, meaty burgers, garlic fries, chilli chicken strips and crisps with lemon and chilli powder would be the new 5 a day. Everyone would have to get a tattoo to brand them. Anyone caught playing music by Justin Bieber would be publicly castrated with a blunt instrument. All forms of government will be turned into circus shows.

The working week will be set up as follows:

Mondays: People are lazy on a Monday morning so everyone would be expected to come into work only after 2pm and leave by 6pm.

Tuesdays: Full day Tuesday. I don't like Tuesdays and I'd like to punish people for that fact. Because I can. Or rather will be able to. Depending on the whole Armageddon thing.

Wednesdays: Employees would only have to come in for half a day on Wednesdays. 9am to 1pm. Because Wednesdays are midweek and people need their rest to go out in the evening to live, love and laugh.

Thursdays: Due to the heavy drinking on Wednesday nights, Thursday mornings would be rendered unworkable. Employees with hangovers are like condoms with holes. They leak life. So, Thursdays would be 2pm to 6pm.

Fridays: Ah Furahidays. No one would be in the right state to work a full day in anticipation of the weekend so it would be a 9am to 12pm day. Anything more than that would be torture. And I wouldn't want to do that being a benevolent dictator and all.

Weekends: NO WORK ON WEEKENDS.

This will all depend on the Armageddon thing happening whilst I'm on the mountain and me and some others having to procreate after. One problem though. Mate selection is up to the female of the species and I've not been entirely lucky in that department recently. Okay, more than recently.

So, a conundrum has been spun. I'll have to think my way through this one.

See you in a week. Or not.

Suicide by Media

So they say that dolphins are the only other creatures that have sex for pleasure. Now, I bet that there are some of you absolute freaks out there who have subsequently idly wondered what it would be like to have sex with a dolphin. I urge you, don’t. You’ll have animal rights groups coming all over you. And not in a good way. Not that I’ve tried or anything. But wait, think about it. That’s exactly what our politicians do. They hear about someone else enjoying themselves and they go and try to f**k them. Each and every time without fail. Without compromise. Without shame.

I mean, something must have broken these damn politicians. I wonder if something rattles within their skulls when they move. Perhaps it wasn’t printed “Caution: Fragile Brains” in big red letters on their packaging boxes. Or perhaps they were assembled by their just as faulty predecessors.

His story repeats history.

In the comments section of one of my articles, the question of how we can change things was posed. Now I don’t have all the answers and I’m still asking questions but here’s one of my perceptions on this matter of how we can change and what we can do. When I was studying in the UK, I witnessed, as everyone does, how the media are incredibly powerful at keeping politicians in check. One slip of the tongue, one bad decision, one excursion into eccentricity and they’re hounded like the dogs of war they are. The media is a god like entity which punishes those it deems guilty of transgression with lightning bolts of sky television and shitstorms of full page newspaper articles. How exactly does it punish them you ask? Well it definitely doesn’t yank them over its collective thighs and spank them with a paddle on their naked buttocks. Although they’d probably enjoy that, the sadomasochistic bastards that they are. What it does do is reveal every little gritty and damaging detail about the politician and their surreptitious dealings to the public via any medium available. They look to destroy the reputations of politicians and those guilty by association. Granted that the media simply do this for higher viewers and ratings and to sell trashy newspapers but the methodology is quite simple and effective at keeping the beasts that we’ve elected into power on short, electric-shock giving leashes.

Now, I am a person who genuinely believes that a squadron of misanthropic journalists equipped with scuba tanks full of expensive whiskey could probably change this world. How? By finding and presenting the Truth. Not the dumbed down version of the truth, not the truth that has been filtered through the corruption crusted offices of parliament before reaching our newspapers or televisions, not the soap opera truth that makes celebrities of politicians. Just the brutal, ulcer inducing, scrotal sweat releasing, exciting, vindicating Truth. Bila bribery, bila brush ups or modification of any sort.

A lot of you may be saying that our media is not powerful enough to deal with the juggernaut of the government and I agree. Anything that is said in our newspapers has to be very premeditated so as not to spark the ire of the Beast. We all saw what happened to Standard group and KTN back in 2006.

So how do we combat this? If our media is not powerful enough, if legal means will not push politicians into justice, if the masses are too racially and tribally fragmented to stand together against the Beast then what are we to do? If the fight is not a fair one then what do we do? My answer? It’s up to us. The bloggers, the online personas, the street level activists, the celebrities, the pissed off individuals, the disillusioned, the discarded, the unafraid. It’s up to us to create questions. It’s up to us to create awareness. It’s up to us to use mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, web portals, cell phones, virtual messengers, personal websites, online magazines, independent newspapers to spread the word of injustice that happens on the streets of everyday life. It’s up to us to get the message out to the masses because the day for carrier pigeons is long gone. We underestimate the power of the word. If the Beast is going to crack down on our media then let us all become one giant media house. They can’t get us all. Spread the Truth my little Truth spreaders.

I know I talk about political injustices a lot but I believe we shouldn’t be silent just for the sake of social acceptance or politically induced fear. Anyway, I’ll leave you with an abstract idea I say we should work towards. We should have a national public holiday where we get to align all our politicians along a brick wall, blindfold them and then hurl abuse at them all day long. Something like a firing squad but instead of bullets we’ll be using large amounts of ineloquent profanities. Maybe they will be restrained. But if they behave and just stand there and take it then we won’t have to shackle them which would be more humane. I think public humiliation on such a level would be great motivation for them to start doing their jobs. Or commit suicide. I don’t know, it may work. I suppose we won’t know until we try.

The “Just Right” Porridge

Hi, my name is Sham and I’m a middle class Kenyan. Yes, I’m introducing myself like it’s at an addictions anonymous group of sorts but perhaps that’s exactly what it is. Allow me to elaborate.

We live in a country where old dogs lie and we wilfully let them. We are taken advantage of at every opportunity by our government with the theoretical and practical application of laws that seem sincerely inept in the grander scheme of things. Poverty is abundant while our politicians drive luxurious cars and live in ostentatious manors. And they can do such things because we don’t do anything about it. We’ve become subservient slaves slathered in superficiality and consumerism. It should be up to the youth of this country to try and change these things not only for us but for future generations to come. Note the use of the word “try” because that is all we can hope to do.

Now when these laws are passed, whether it’s an archaic alcohol bill similar to what was done during the National Prohibition Act in the United States in the early 1900’s, or whether it’s something as outraging as banning homosexuality with the threat of immediate arrest or even whether it’s something as economically unfeasible as increasing the parking rates in town to two hundred and fifty shillings, we all suffer viciously.

However, it is the middle class that suffers these injustices the most. The poor are unfortunately already far too poor for these upheavals in laws to affect them much. The rich are already far too rich for anything to challenge their bourgeoisie status’ much. Now don’t lose your cool, I’m not saying the poor do not already suffer mass discrimination. So I won’t waste time stating the obvious. However, the middle classes, the ones who have self sufficient businesses and oil the wheels of economy, those are the ones who make the bottomless pit-like stomach of our government rumble with hunger. The middle class in this country are the “Just Right” porridge bowl for our government to eat and deplete from. In the Goldilocks mythology, our government would be that age old hag who takes things that don’t belong to her. Now some of you may be saying “Is he really comparing our government to sweet, little Goldilocks?” The answer? Yes. Read the original story of The Three Bears and you may understand my reasoning. And I fear I’m being pretty gentle with the analogy.

The middle classes are used and abused by the perversions of a depraved system but rather than do anything about it, we sit in our houses and shops and offices and we complain in the safety of our comfort zones hiding behind shields of turnover. After all, it’s ingrained into our contemporary philosophy that there’s nothing a bribe cannot take care of and nothing a powerful contact cannot fix. We’ve become a generation of complainers who perpetuate corruption by allowing it to continue. And so I say that we’ve become addicted to this lifestyle. Sometimes accepting injustice is almost as bad as performing it.

And who’s challenging this? Surely not the packs of inebriated alpha male youths and women with freshly painted faces that I see every Friday and Saturday night living lives of cultural and moral decadence in return for a fickle social acceptance? Are these the bastions of our generation? And what exactly can be done in a country where the wheels of the legal system turn so slowly that it’s easier to pay people off? How can we win if we take on the system? Through an artistic and peaceable revolution? Through spreading awareness through mediums such as this one? Or through anarchy? Violence, however, has been tried and tested and deemed a faulty method in Kenya. However, our Tunisian and Egyptian compatriots would feel differently. Must we try Gandhi’s methods of civil disobedience by non-violent means? They can arrest one person for not paying the two hundred and fifty shilling parking fee. But can they arrest a hundred thousand people? So, my question is what next? These are the questions we as the youth of a nation need to try creating answers to instead of “oh, where do we go tonight?” I’m not saying don’t live your lives. I’m simply saying lets do something while we live our lives.

Perhaps you’ll classify me a pessimist who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or maybe you’ll dismiss me as a hypocritical jester in the court of community. Or perhaps I’m simply quixotic of nature. But maybe these are the very ingredients that are needed to make that old hag choke on that “Just Right” bowl of porridge so she thinks twice the next time she takes a mouthful out of what’s rightfully ours.

Stick that in your tribe and poke it.

Right now as I sit and type out these words my laptop clock says it’s eight forty nine at night and all I can hear is the silence between the ticks of the second hand on the great big clock on the wall behind me and I genuinely pray to the Radioactive-Atomic Gods that a weapon of mass saturation has been deployed upon the world outside my room door and that in the residual aftermath of the inevitable mushroom clouded explosion, the human race has been drained of their colours and their skin has turned into a pale shade of ashy grey.

Now that may seem a little out there to you but I genuinely believe it’s the only way we’ll ever get over racism and tribalism. I mean stick with me for a moment if you will. Evolution and genetics was never helping in the first place by creating us all in different colours. Benetton would probably disagree with my whole philosophy here but that’s their prerogative. Interracial relationships help but they’re working far too slowly to speed up the visionary process of making everyone the same colour. Again, if a bomb is too scary a concept then there are other methodologies that we could examine as a human race to make us all chromatically similar.

My personal suggestions include the United Nations providing funding for discovering what we’ll call a Colour Drainer pill. You take two pills before bedtime, have at least eight good hours of black and white dreamed sleep and check your grey self in the morning mirror and viola! If it hasn’t worked then you’ve probably not urinated yet, which you’ll need to do in order to release the toxin-filled colouration from your body. Don’t worry; the packaging will come with a full set of instructions. Another suggestion would be a spray on permanent grey tan available at your friendly neighbourhood drug dispensary or “Colour Chucker Kiosks” that would have been set up by then. The future is a bright place where grey people will walk without fear of being ostracized, criticized or pulverized for the colour of their skin.

Of course, there’ll be the resistance like there always is. Small groups of oh so naïve people who wouldn’t want to give up their birth colours. And they’ll fight and bicker and terrorize the grey masses for having sold out. But what they won’t realize is that they’re the ones breaking the peace. If only we could get them to the grey side. Perhaps a Star Wars themed mass advertising campaign with a grey clad Darth Vader breathing out the immortal words “Welcome to the Grey Side.”?

I don’t know. Maybe that would be taking it too far. I personally like the bomb idea. Far more simple than elaborate subliminal marketing campaigns aimed at small groups of people. I mean, the human raCe is far toO civilized to sneaK commErcial subliminal messages into the minds of the masses aren’t they? I mean who would commit such an atrocity. No no, we’re far too cultured for that. On a side note, Coke is tasty.

Racism exists. We all know it. We all witness it. We all hardly do anything about it. I experienced racism in the UK on many occasions. In the UK I’ve been called names, I’ve been punched around. My friends have had milkshakes and fruits thrown at them in the street from moving cars. I’ve experienced racism right here in Kenya a number of times. It’s usually name-calling here due to the stereotypes that my skin tone comes with. Sometimes I feel that racism in Africa is directly associated to the monetary wealth of most members of a certain race. For long periods of time it used to be white people at the top of the list because they were the richest. The more power more members of the same race have, the more powerful the race as a whole becomes and once power is attained, enemies spring up and once enemies spring up fights begin. It’s a harsh truth. But now we’re in the middle of a messy paradigm shift where each race is like a drug-fuelled, thoroughbred horse at the races competing in a neck straining fight for the finish. The finish being coming first in the war of colour. And in this process we fight, kill, humiliate, alienate and subjugate each other. Personally, I just feel that racism exists because of ignorance and bad upbringing.

There’s no reason to hate anyone. But if I could, I’d definitely put leaders and ex leaders of certain nations in the world into the Big Brother house for eternity. I mean that’s probably the worst thing you can ever subject someone to. No wait, actually the worst thing would be watching that show. Just imagine President Kibaki, Ghadafi, Mugabe, Mubarak, Bush and Co. in the Big Brother house arguing over who ate the last bit of cheese in the refrigerator. Then there would be games such as “Who can stay honest the longest”. Now that I may actually pay to watch. 5bob or so should suffice.

Anyway, I was speaking of colours. We must understand that we all bleed red, think blue, piss yellowish and shit brown. That is, unless there’s something incredibly mutated about you. So how about giving your fellow man a break huh? How about accepting them as the mentally damaged human beings they are instead of judging them by the colour of their skin.

Inner beauty is grey. We must go in search of it.

Idle thoughts on the Ides of March

Tuesday, the Ides of March. I feel like purging. I will. Because I can.

So, I can’t drink copious amounts of mind numbing whiskies, beers, spirits or jet fuels for the fear of brain damage and liver failure.

I can’t ingest, inhale or inject large amounts of psychostimulant or hallucinogenic drugs into my bluish green veins for the fear of salivating overdoses and painful withdrawal symptoms (for when I, inevitably, run out of money).

I can’t smoke tar bars for the fear of lung cancer.

I can’t eat the crap I want to like thick slabs of red meat and sticky cheese burgers and greasy fries and fried freakin’ chicken for fear of clogging up the fragile arteries of my heart.

Because remember, even a passionate heart is already just dying one beat at a time.

I can’t get the job I want because…aw heck, I don’t know…JOB works in mysterious ways.

I can’t get the girl I want for fear that she’ll cry rape and I’ll get mace faced.

I can’t help all the suffering I see on the streets of Nairobi and that just fragments my mind with doses of guilt and appreciation for the comforts I have.

I can’t say the things I want to say about this undeniably corrupt, insidiously anarchic, inherently devious, megalomaniac, dinosaur-aged, warthog’s seminal discharge of a government for the fear of pissing off the wrong people and being thrown out of the country or silenced in ways that would invoke the services of the grim reaper because free speech is not a right in this country but a privilege. We live in a world where our basic rights are stamped on everyday by rules and regulations that have been set up by politicians who are too afraid to come out of the cabinet.

I can’t drive a car without being stopped by fat pigeon-like policemen asking me why I don’t have five hundred shillings to feed them chai with.

I can’t go out there with spiked nun chucks, a gas powered selective fire assault rifle or a honey sprayer and jars of seething bullet ants and commit wholesome amounts of violence for the fear of ending up in a cell made for ten people but in actuality holding about sixty.

Google is taking over my vocabulary and my ability to remember certain words or even how to spell them thus rendering my mind a little more incoherent everyday. We’re all suffering a technologically induced dementia.

I spend way too much time around machines which means I’m becoming less articulate in actual real life conversations with animate objects such as yourselves.

I'm dreading just living on the memories of a dead youth.

I'm trying to change the world with the harnessed power of pessimism. A lot of people don’t see the logic in that but I live in a “If you expect anything, you’re ready for anything” frame of mind. Cautious, I know, but also aware.

And if you wake up and the suns shining and the birds are chirping and the air is fresh and you go on expecting everything good to happen to you the whole day then maybe that bird shit stain on your best suit says differently.

Not that I care much for suits.

Tuesday. I purged. Because I could.

Proud Kenyans should be loud Kenyans

Sometimes I hate being Kenyan Indian. It’s relegated me into permanently being one of those “ka ching!” dollar signs in people’s eyes, you know, like those in the old Hannah Barbera cartoons. Being Kenyan Indian, I can’t even walk into places like Kibera because I stand out like a sober reverend in a prostitute’s parlour. I hate being told I'm part of that rich boy spoilt brat pack of today’s Kenyan Indian generation just because I’m Kenyan Indian. F**king stereotypes have us all living lies. So maybe I should rephrase the first statement I made. I don’t hate being Kenyan Indian; rather I hate the stereotypes it’s attached to and the people that have perpetuated that stereotype by acting in accordance with it. Thanks, morons. Call me judgemental but if you deserve to be judged then I shall be mental about it. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my ethnical heritage; it’s just that I’m Kenyan first. Indian, later. But looks, accents and demeanours can be devilishly deceiving. So I remain an outcast. In my own country and community.

I often ask myself the question “Are you proud to be a Kenyan?” Now it’s not that I regularly talk to myself but…aw heck, let’s face it. I do, vehemently, undeniably, indiscreetly. Anyway, I digress. The answer to the question is simply “I don’t know”. I mean, Kenya just happens to be the place my parents made that unholy union that produced me kicking and screaming baby-language obscenities into this world. So, I’ll do what writers aren’t supposed to do and leave that question unanswered and ask another one to myself and subsequently to you, “Would you die for your country?” See now here is where we draw the distinction between the name of the country and her people. They’re two completely different things. So my answer to that currently would be “Nope but I’d sure as hell die for the people if it was beneficial. Hopefully not a painful death though. No public self immolation, being nailed to a cross on a windy hill or mustard gas chambers. Nothing like that. A bullet to the brain, decapitation or a trauma induced aneurism would do just fine thank you.”

Because let’s just take a minute out and think about this. What is Kenya? Yes, yes, Kenya is a country in East Africa renowned for having the best tea and coffee and producing the best runners in the world. Now, let’s have a closer look, shall we?

Analyzing [Kenya]… Zoom in: 20%
Kenya is a country with a thriving tourist industry which allows it to sustain its infrastructure.

Analyzing [Kenya]… Zoom in: 40%
Kenya is a beautiful country with white sandy beaches and green forests and has an abundance of natural beauty and is home to the legendary Maasai Mara, Mount Kenya and the historical Tsavo game reserve.

Analyzing [Kenya]… Zoom in: 60%
Kenya is an independent country based on the East coast of Africa and has a multitude of ethnic tribes that are all living together in perfect harmony. Kenya also has beautiful sceneries including forests, wildlife and a thriving beach which promotes tourism in the country. Sites include the legendary Tsavo game reserve, Mount Kenya and the one and only Maasai Mara amongst many others.

Analyzing [Kenya]… Zoom in: 80%
Kenya is an independent country based on the East coast of Africa and was the home to the Mau Mau rebellion. The fight for independence from the British was won by the Kenyans after much bloodshed and destruction. Dedan Kimathi, the leader of the revolution is considered by many in contemporary Kenya to be a legend. Kenya is sometimes credited for starting off the movement of fighting for independence from colonial oppressors in Africa.

Analyzing [Kenya]… Zoom in: 100%
Kenya is a country that has a government that feigns independence in the world’s eye. In truth, Kenyans live oppressed under a totalitarian regime of a government hell bent on lining their heavy pockets with the silk of their people’s labour. There’s no need for colonialists when our own leaders are seething germs in the filthy mess that Corruption vomited out. Kenya has notoriously become one of the most corrupt countries in the world because corruption has bred in the government since they won their independence some fifty years ago. Kenya is a country with a multitude of ethnic tribes that are played against each other by power hungry politicians and this often leads towards violent clashes of ethnic cleansing especially towards the elaborate circus show that is our elections. While robotic politicians drive their large, expensive cars, the streets are washed with the sweat of the hard working and the piss of the homeless. Education is sparse and the government does nothing to change it because if the masses are uneducated then they have no one to oppose them. So they keep the poorer masses as subservient slaves to their serpentine whims. The masses become political pawns and come election time they become sacrificed soldiers in a parastatal war. Kenya has become the land where the poor are ethnically aligned, the middle classes have inbuilt conscience suppressors and the rich are too busy being rich. And all this happens because of the political poison that we’ve choked on for over fifty years of being “free”. We live in a Kenya where we pay for our freedom with the currency that is bribery.

I personally think Dedan Kimathi would turn in his unmarked grave if he could see what the Kenya he fought and died for has become.

But then, somewhere along the way and somewhere out there, somewhere amongst the liars and the thieves and the perverts and the alcoholics and the drug ridden paedophiles and the rapists and the potential serial killers and the worker drones and the dangerously educated but unemployed students and the ostentatious rich pricks, somewhere in that human messiness, we find pockets of passionate people who want to genuinely change this world for the better. People who would give their right lung to see even an iota of maintainable change. Those people are subsequently labelled ideological dreamers and relegated to the sidelines of this materialistic society we live in. Liberalism and passion are engulfed in the all too common fires of consumer culture that cheap magazines brainwash us with. Hope becomes just another four letter word while money remains a five lettered one. And these consumers, all they want is more even when it comes to words. The search for the Truth, the right to hope, the will to change has all become a counterculture while little trivialities have become the predominant structure of social conduct.

We simply bend over and take what the salivating government shoves down our throats and up our collective asses. They don’t even have the courtesy to use the lubricant of honesty. We should learn to question the answers they give to our questions.

I don’t mean to be facetious but it’s all I can do to spread the message to the masses. Because, nowadays, even the Truth has to be coated in the stinking razzle-dazzle of bullshit. We should shout out the raw Truth until we deafen them with the cacophony of thirty five million voices. Proud Kenyans should be loud Kenyans.

Beware, the selfish cometh.