A Response To Sue

(Sue is a Kenyan in the Diaspora - she's hopelessly worried about her family who live in Molo and are now displaced. This is part of our correspondence).

Hi Sue,

We are well.

Yes, things are cooling down. Our country has taken a hit! Our people are afraid; we have been tainted by the reality of negativity and tribalism. We have been shown what it feels like to be separated, torn apart; and it hurts, it really hurts. We have seen what happens when everybody insists they are right and the other is wrong, when we are the helpless victims of a class dictating their whims. When a power fight is in our land and we are the grass. We have had a glimpse of genocide, we have taken a step into Rwanda - our country has had no sleep!

We hope that justice will be served. Kenyans will not live with the injustice of being lied to, but most important of all, Kenya will not live in fear, desolation and death. These two parties have to find a way to an understanding that does not hurt the masses. Kenya remains greater than the sum of them and more!

Yes, houses have been razed. 300,000 people are homeless. I cry for the Kenyans who are homeless in their own land. I cry for the bitterness in our people, our children, and our children's children. I cry for these dark days when our livelihoods were snatched from us, our children killed, our kinship with our neighbours erased. I cry for the children who are in the cold, their hopes dashed, their innocence shattered. And the women and men who are raped and hunted, walking to nowhere in the dark, afraid to look in their neighbour's eye. I cry for Kenya and her people, who continue to be raped time and again by the ruling class.

I noticed, as life gets back to a semblance of normalcy, that even in the workplace, things have shifted. Everyone is afraid of uttering the words Kikuyu, Luo, Masai, Kalenjin, etc. It's like walking on eggs! These are our tribes/nationalities for which we have always stood proud and tall; these are our people who we have embraced, celebrated with, cried with, intermarried with. These are the people who now look at each other with suspicion, even disdain, as if one is only identifiable in the stealing of votes, the looting, the killings, the evictions and bloodshed. Our ties are slowly being eroded by the violence. Everyone is agape at the shocking change in nature of a people who have always lived together. Most of us are shamed; left to hold our heads in our hands and cry. What happened? Has this been simmering all along? All our tribal jokes, emails and sms; all those hard hitting tribal sms throwing mud at other tribes/nationalities that were passed around during the campaigns. This is the result. Yes, they have contributed to the violence.

I'm tired, my dear friend. All I can do is pray that the people heal. Right now, I'm not interested in who becomes president - I'm not sure I've ever been. Until we get a president who is a servant of the people, until we attain a true democracy, we will be exchanging one thief/liar for another.

All I can do is pray; pray for love, peace, and justice. That is my prayer - love, peace and justice, in that order.

Love,
PoP