Viva Kenya

If I were to describe the time we are living through in Kenya, I would describe it like this:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Exactly how Charles Dickens started his book, A Tale of Two Cities. Viva.

I write in this moment because of the times we are living through. It is a time when the youth of this great country felt it necessary to lend their voices to the cry for better governance. They have taken on various roles. Through picketing, defiance, dance, digital activism, art, writing, civic education and even unto death, they have made it known that they will not leave their only chance at life to asinine politicians. Viva.

It has been a time of great awakening. Feelings of nationalism and pride in our country have surfaced and we are revelling in the glory of it. However, there is work to do. We need to do the inner work. Reflect on how we as citizens have contributed to the situation now. Even greater is the work that needs to be done to rid ourselves of the problem now and forever. Viva.

We have lost comrades. Something that none of us could have imagined would happen when all this began. We were not meant to lose them that soon. It is not easy. May your names be forever remembered in the history books, right next to the likes of Dedan Kimathi and Tom Mboya. May your deaths fire our bellies and fuel the fight against an oppressive government. Viva.

To those we lost to bad governance, the ones whose names we hardly knew and forgot; those lost to poor leadership and disregard for public good; those lost to hunger and starvation, those lost to fires that county governments could not put out, those lost to cancers from toxic wastes being dumped near water reservoirs, those lost to the embezzlement of money meant for healthcare, those lost to politically instigated violence, those lost to the consumption of contaminated food, and so on, the masses; may your spirits haunt us until the day we find justice for you. For we forgot your death and yet it shook the very earth on which we stand. Viva.

I applaud all of us for heeding the call to join the movement. Dare to be counted on the right side of history. I wish us well. I wish us success, whatever that looks like. I pray that in the coming days, Kenya will feel more like home and less like a place where we are only tolerated. And if there are consequences to be borne from standing with the movement, I fear we have already suffered the far worse consequences of bad governance. Viva.