From: peter okelo
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The New Dawn in Kenya1
The New Dawn, A Second Chance
(By Peter Okelo, dedicate to Wole Soyinka and Mwalimu Julius Nyere)
As Kenyans approach the next elections the question you are asking, the question oneveryone’s mind, on many a lips is: who shall Kenyans elect the next president after PresidentMwai Kibaki gracefully retires?
Before answering this question though, in this moment of restless composure, in this urgentmoment of great national expectation, a few things need to be said, and said unambiguously.
It must be first and foremost acknowledged, that Kenya has come a long way since gainingindependence from the British colonialist after a long struggle during the that colonial momentof official primitive discrimination based, but only ostentatiously, on race, skin colour, on beingBlack or White, African or European/British. It must also be acknowledged, that in spite ofwriters like Ngugi wa Thiongo and the first vice president of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga,lamenting, quite rightly, that in the immediate years following this self-liberation in 1963 it wasnot yet Uhuru [freedom] in Kenya; much has been realized in terms of self-rule, self-determination, and self-definition. So much so has the Kenyan society made progress thatfurther positive outcome in the coming elections will only make Kenya continue on this path ofself-improvement, particularly through the safeguarding of the much died-for and much fought-for all-embracing constitution that some elite power-hungry individuals and interest groupsamidst Kenyans might not want to see reach its conclusion and finalrealization/implementation.
In this regard, in the context of movement from the colonial moment to post-independence[not necessarily ‘post-colonial’—a terminology frequently applied in academic papers but here avoided for a measure of optimism] Kenya, like many African countries like Mozambique, SouthAfrica and Ghana, Tanzania [to name but a few] have made so much progress that the countryis exemplary and worth emulating unlike any country [not worthy of a mention in this article]that still clings to a colonial primitive constitution that essentially upholds the democraticsuppression of a group or community by the majority, on the basis of absurd freckledessentially racist philosophy that deliberately refuse to recognize the existence of thesuppressed minority or majority community. Most of the times the group imposed upon, terror-nullified to be precise, is the rightful owners of the land upon which much claim is laid. Suchprimitive pathological essentially colonial constitution might as well call upon the unrecognizedminority or majority to prove its existence… Imagine being called upon to prove that youactually do exist as a person or a people… and that you were actually born, and by so beingborn your existence occupies space, land, time, and has a history…sick. Absolute collectiveconstitutional national sickness. Such a country [shall we name obvious names?] does not sleep
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The New Dawn in Kenya2
well, and God knows it shouldn’t sleep well until it has collectively solved the roots of itscollective socio-psychoses that eats away its national soul day and night, in tortured silence orguilty ruptures of righteous hysterical shouting in parliament and wherever else constitutiondiscussions might take place. Ever visited such a tormented country?
Never mind, that will be a topic for another time, in the meantime we shall come back to Kenya, come back home.
There is a revolution underway here, in Kenya. Reading from the lips of the common Mwanachiin matatus, in kiosks, in pubs, market stalls, barazas and places of social meeting and worship;Kenya is on the verge of a revolution. An eclipse moment of progressive change that will befollowed by further illumination of the national psyche, renewed to its very core.
But it will be a revolution without violence, a most peaceful revolution, as it should be. Yes,there will be no violence involving a Kenyan raising a fist against another Kenyan as waswitnessed in that sad-insane moment of stolen elections and mayhem, 2007. There might bedisgruntled rustle here and there, but that is normal theatre, drama, fanfare.
This is not a prophesy—that is the territory of the evangelical, nor is this some wishfulpremonition-hallucination. I believe that to write about grave matters affecting people youneed to walk among the people, listen, learn, look, sleep, and live among them even for a shortwhile—not write from the hills of Paris and New York, removed. Then the pen is informed as itshould be anyway.Thus gazing from the ground, from the crystal ball of actual experience of Kenyans’ ownutterances, words, sentiments; the vote shall surprise many, the trend of voting and the resultshall surprise even the winner who will not be so much of a winner but collective trusteeentrusted with the heavy responsibility, a loaded burden, of seeing that the vision of Kenyans iscarried forward—a vision that was desperately hijacked in 2007 by clique of power-hungry elite sadistically bent on the continued concentration of power in the hands of a few, a minorityprivileged cohort that fences its interest within the walls of brute force, coercion, and anillusion of ethnic protection. That ethnic wall is crumbling, piece by piece, and so it should. Youonly have to listen to young people talking, old people wishing, people discussing, the massesof people calculating in dialogue, to realize that the days of that wall are numbered.
The wishful firewall of ethnic-pawns-protection is not assured in the coming illuminatingrevolutionary elections. The majority of once used pawns are restlessly looking elsewhere forreassurance and their eyes are searching, opening to the fact that lasting collective security andnational progress cannot be granted by a privileged minority elite living in the isolated hills andluxurious heavenly hives of barbed wires and electric fences. It’s dawning on Kenyans that
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The New Dawn in Kenya3
security and national socio-economic progress is and shall always be found in the goodwill ofKenyans, all Kenyan tribes and peoples holding hands and moving forward as one.
As one slips, all fall, and as all rise, all remain afloat, buoyant in national victory and continuity.So gleaning from the sentiments of Kenyans, if a privileged individual or group thinks that it willmobilize some ethnic group against another, such group or individual has much awakeningsurprise coming its way. Kenyans are tired, tired of being used, abused, treadmill-trodden upon.Kenyans will not hurl stones at each other but instead turn scrutinizing critical indignant eyeupon the elite masters pulling shadowy not-so disguised strings of historically misplacedviolence of self-preservation of a few, a handful.
Kenyans are realizing that the average person in Nyeri who is afflicted by poverty-induced-alcoholism suffers the same fate as the average Dorobo unable to find water when water-harvesting technology is not really part of rocket science studies at universities; it’s simplehydrodynamics and accessible mechanics that only needs national free will and thedetermination to tap into the vast economic and human resources to realize this needy thirstydream.
Therefore, reading from the not so distant stars of Kenya’s electoral fortunes and outcome—there will be no run off. It will be a convincing majority vote for one presidential candidate. Allthe polling predictions that rely on a few, a selected sample, do less justice to the complexity ofthe majority left un-polled on the ground. You would recall that the soothsayer polls in the UShad Obama and Romney ‘neck-to-neck’ yet when the secret moment of solitary decision came,the majority voted for their candidate of choice behind closed curtains, not a candidate ofmuch hyperbolic polling predictions and at times wishful faulty academic forecast.
Having said all that though, I here do recognize quite calmly with Dr. Franz Fanon [in his brilliantmasterpiece writing called Black Skin White Masks—a book that you should buy and read inyour free time] that there are numerous idiots in this world, and having calmly said that, I doconfirm too that Kenya has its share of such idiots who might want or try to derail the vote,derail the crucial moment, or try to turn a Kenyan against another Kenyan, a Dorobo against aTeso, a Mjikenda against a Luya, a Kisii against a Kuria.
But reading from the sentiments of Kenyans, god help any political elite, or some power-obsessed group or individual, that might try to turn a Kenyans against themselves or steal theelections, a second time. No, Kenyans will not raise a hand against other Kenyans, they learntfrom the blinding white-lie darkness of a still birth in 2007.
Listening to the silent whispers un-shouted, and reading from the graffiti like the one close tothe fish market on Muindu Mbigu Road in Nairobi, god help any political elite tries to derail the
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The New Dawn in Kenya4
moment, while hoping to avert the avalanche of mass indignation and control it with TNT,gunpowder, police boots, or threats of death. So just as well that the Chief Justice Dr Mutungacame out in public on Wednesday the 20th of February 2013 and spoke about the alleged threatof death received in a letter.
Listening to the whispers of Kenyans, the nation will be voting against discriminatory impunity, voting against any a socio-political elite that tries to maintain illegal control on the way thenation wants determine its destiny, determine its being [being as a continuous everlastingactivity and reality], telling people what they are and what they are not, what they could be orcouldn’t be.
Thus going by the currency of words spoken, ideas expressed, any power-hunting elite whotries to instigate senseless violence against Kenyans would be better off leaving the country andgoing into exile, self-exile. That might turn out to be the best favour that such power-hungryperson would have done himself, s/he might just find himself or herself amidst the brokenpieces of self-integration that s/he will certainly experience in exile and, if s/he does come backto Kenya, s/he might so do a changed self, reconstituted in the psyche and attitude.
So who shall be the president I hear you ask; well, all matters held constant, given that no idiottries to hijack the jet of electoral justice mid-air, then these are the like outcome as oneconcludes from listening to the silent will of people.
The next president will be a person who has good intentions but the fellow Kenyan will gonowhere with mere intentions and no substantial following, clout. Some of our candidates arepeople of good intentions but he still needs feet to stand on.
Gazing at the crystal-ball prism of Kenyan sentiments, and sad as it might be; a woman will notbe the new president of Kenya, not now, not yet, not just yet. And not because the currentcandidate is a woman either. Even the women who would have boosted Mama Martha’schances of winning the presidency will not vote her in just because she is a woman. There aremany ways that she is not seen as trustworthy as she comes across. Those sad moments of2007 would have help set her apart as a person of resolute resolve, but many would recall thatshe had nothing to say about the stolen vote. If she had the blessing of Mwai, and Uhuru, andthe house of Mumbi, then she might have had a chance, a slight chance though.
The next president will not be an opportunist either, with less or no principles that Kenyansneed to move over the hurdles that will come with the new dawn of new the government. Hewill not be a candidate considered soft, resolving issues prematurely before a credibleresolution has been reached. Such candidate would do well in times of ease, when there’s nourgency, as a figure-head president with less to do but to maintain a semblance of presence
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with no actual duties, more like the shadow of the real president, having nothing to influencebut still being there anyway, for national integrity, to be seen, just in case. Such softness makesany such a candidate a perfect target of a hoodwinking project of influencing a change ofleadership that would otherwise only be a maintenance of the stability and continuity ofprevious powers that had been, or the powers that be for that matter.
In short, given that the new era is allowed to dawn with fairness and transparency, withoutidiotic hijacking interventions of repeated fatal nationhood-rupturing conspiracy, the newpresident shall be one Kenyans have always perceived [‘have perceived’ is present perfect tenseexpressing a state of nationally widespread perception that started in a distant past to thepresent moment, not a perception or impression shaped in recent times and in the heat ofcampaigning and scheming] as a nationalist, a person with the whole country at heart and notinclined to some indispensable stone of illusory ethnic firewall enclave.
So need I underestimate the collective intelligence of Kenyans and tell you who that person, thenext president of Kenya is? No, you won’t have to wait for too long, just go out there and votefor Kenya and watch for anyone, any elite who retreats back into darkness of divisive politicsand pitfalls of aimless retrogressive violence.
Peter Okelo is Language and Communication / Applied Linguistics academic who has worked in Mozambique, southern Africa, Kenya and Australia.
You may contact author at tekta01@hotmail.com