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.