The little things that make us Kenyan

By MUTHONI THANGWA

Posted  Friday, April 12  2013 at  18:15

IN SUMMARY

• The biggest investment that Kenya has made in the last five years is rebuilding broken hearts and minds because without a change of heart and attitude no nation can achieve any semblance of national unity.

When Michael Joseph said Kenyans had peculiar calling habits – he had no idea! Our way of thinking as a nation has completely defeated pollsters, activists and a sulking international community.

The Uhuru–Ruto election win is the biggest indicator that Kenyans have decided to self-rule, not just in their constitution but also in their minds. The saying the biggest slavery and hence freedom is in the mind, here applies.

No doubt freedom even at personal level is a lonely battle. It is however one Kenya has decided to take head on against all odds.

As a short-term pollster – and don’t take this to the promised Sh6 billion women’s and youth fund – the 50 per cent plus Kenyans who voted for the duo are leading a revolution of liberation from mental slavery.

There are those who do not agree with the choice of the majority, but they may perhaps appreciate the new political culture that is taking root in Kenya – taking our destiny into our hands. This is an important defining moment for any nation.

The much awed Waki envelope (the results of a process that Kenya needed to go through) was meant, especially by the international community to ostracise any name that was read from it.

Kenyans were too numb at that point from burying our dead, looking for lost loved ones some of whom have not been found to date, counting business losses and generally trying to deal with the mess we had created.

The biggest investment that Kenya has made in the last five years is rebuilding broken hearts and minds because without a change of heart and attitude no nation can achieve any semblance of national unity.

Look at the decorum with which the inauguration of the President and the Deputy was conducted. There were only good things to say of retired presidents and rightfully as should be at any retirement gathering.

They are not perfect, but the culture of understanding and dealing with the log in my eye in order to see the one is my brother’s eye prevailed.

This change I will state categorically is not crafted by the ICC cases, as many have stated, but rather by the effects the post-election violence had on all of us.

Many Kenyans have learned the hard way the outcome of uncontrolled inter-community distrust and hostilities. Hence leaders claiming that there is no national celebration are once again missing the peculiarity of Kenyans. The new culture is ‘I will not flaunt my joy in your face, so do not flaunt your disappointment in mine’.

In religion they call it a virtue of the Spirit – self control. To modify what Martin Luther Junior once said, we have realised that the choice is ours, to live together as brothers and sisters or to perish as fools.

Even politicians cannot convince us to engage in any excesses. Excesses leave a trail of living martyrs – look at our internally displaced persons, think of the 1,300 Kenyans we buried.

The internationally community and activists can learn from our peculiarity. If one promises to “make an example out of Kenya” or that “actions have consequences” one can expect a peculiar reaction.

mjthangwa@gmail.co
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