Let's ban them before they burn us!
One day these careless and irresponsible politicians are going to burn all of us. But of course they burn us without burning us. They will simply give us fuel and a single matchstick then we will ignorantly and foolishly set ourselves on fire.
It has happened before where for instance Tutsis and Hutus in the country of a thousand hills called Rwanda decided to kill each other without any good reason. Political historians tell us that about 800,000 innocent Tutsis and "moderate" Hutus were killed within 100 days in 1994. Burundi has suffered the same, Kenya tasted it in the 2007/08 political violence that assumed an ugly ethnic face. In South Africa we have a madness called Xenophobia where "amakwerekwere," the foreigners are hunted and lynched just for being foreigners in that rainbow nation.
Since we never learn from our past political mistakes, the pogrom that awaits us is unfathomable. The signs are already on the wall. Today in a remote Chepturo village of Nandi county, some people were forcefully evicted from some parcel of land after a 40-year legal battle over its ownership. It so happened that the evicted people are members of the Luhya community.
Land being an emotive issue, politicians in their characteristic have already started beating very dangerous war drums. They have taken an otherwise normal legal issue, sensationalized it, blown it out of proportion and packaged it as a political tool to fight Deputy President William Ruto.
I am told Kakamega Senator Cleopas Malala, Saboti Member of Parliament Caleb Amisi, his nominated counterpart Godfrey Osotsi and Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) Secretary General Edwin Sifuna have purportedly declared William Ruto persona non grata in western Kenya because of the eviction issue. I have never seen such high levels of political lunacy and myopic thinking.
William Ruto is the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya and just like any other Kenyan, he is entitled and is free to visit any part of the Republic. It is therefore futile to purport to ban him from visiting western part of Kenya. In any case, how does a private matter concern him? In any case, the court made a ruling whereby the victims lost the case.
However, my greatest concern is not about Senator Malala and xompanyu personal vendetta against Ruto. I am more deeply worried about the potentially devastating ripple effect of their irresponsible utterances. They are trying to drive a sensational narrative that members of the Luhya community are being persecuted in Ruto's home turf. This is a fat naked lie.
Such a malicious, ill-intentioned and dangerous piece of propaganda is aimed at eroding Ruto's political capital from the affected community. Its real threat lies in evoking similar counter-sentiments from Ruto's region. What if the Kalenjins also said politicians from western should never set foot in rift valley?? At the end of the day we may see a neighbor rising up against a neighbor, family against family and eventually community against community. We shall then maim each other and set one another on fire. We have been there before and these careless and irresponsible ethnic warlords and demigods want to take us back there.
I am sure this is not the road we want to travel. The solution then lies in our own heads. We must always stay awake and alert. We must always call these politicians to order. We must always appeal to our own rational minds and not emotions. Let us ban these politicians from inciting us before they burn us!
It has happened before where for instance Tutsis and Hutus in the country of a thousand hills called Rwanda decided to kill each other without any good reason. Political historians tell us that about 800,000 innocent Tutsis and "moderate" Hutus were killed within 100 days in 1994. Burundi has suffered the same, Kenya tasted it in the 2007/08 political violence that assumed an ugly ethnic face. In South Africa we have a madness called Xenophobia where "amakwerekwere," the foreigners are hunted and lynched just for being foreigners in that rainbow nation.
Since we never learn from our past political mistakes, the pogrom that awaits us is unfathomable. The signs are already on the wall. Today in a remote Chepturo village of Nandi county, some people were forcefully evicted from some parcel of land after a 40-year legal battle over its ownership. It so happened that the evicted people are members of the Luhya community.
Land being an emotive issue, politicians in their characteristic have already started beating very dangerous war drums. They have taken an otherwise normal legal issue, sensationalized it, blown it out of proportion and packaged it as a political tool to fight Deputy President William Ruto.
I am told Kakamega Senator Cleopas Malala, Saboti Member of Parliament Caleb Amisi, his nominated counterpart Godfrey Osotsi and Orange Democratic Movement's (ODM) Secretary General Edwin Sifuna have purportedly declared William Ruto persona non grata in western Kenya because of the eviction issue. I have never seen such high levels of political lunacy and myopic thinking.
William Ruto is the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya and just like any other Kenyan, he is entitled and is free to visit any part of the Republic. It is therefore futile to purport to ban him from visiting western part of Kenya. In any case, how does a private matter concern him? In any case, the court made a ruling whereby the victims lost the case.
However, my greatest concern is not about Senator Malala and xompanyu personal vendetta against Ruto. I am more deeply worried about the potentially devastating ripple effect of their irresponsible utterances. They are trying to drive a sensational narrative that members of the Luhya community are being persecuted in Ruto's home turf. This is a fat naked lie.
Such a malicious, ill-intentioned and dangerous piece of propaganda is aimed at eroding Ruto's political capital from the affected community. Its real threat lies in evoking similar counter-sentiments from Ruto's region. What if the Kalenjins also said politicians from western should never set foot in rift valley?? At the end of the day we may see a neighbor rising up against a neighbor, family against family and eventually community against community. We shall then maim each other and set one another on fire. We have been there before and these careless and irresponsible ethnic warlords and demigods want to take us back there.
I am sure this is not the road we want to travel. The solution then lies in our own heads. We must always stay awake and alert. We must always call these politicians to order. We must always appeal to our own rational minds and not emotions. Let us ban these politicians from inciting us before they burn us!
I am a strong follower of Mr. Ruto and I am glad someone else understands that he is a Kenyan with equal rights like everyone else and as Kenyans I agree with you that" We must always stay awake and alert"
ReplyDeleteTrue
DeleteThey don't want you empowered, the moment you do, they will have no one to manipulate.
ReplyDeleteThey always work to ensure we cannot think on our own... They manufacture our thinking in their thinking and serve it to us without thinking and we greedily munch such thinking without thinking!
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