talk to my guns and my arrows...

Dear Kenyan politician,

You must think us to be so gullible, you must think we have no eyes. But I don’t blame you. While you were one of us, it is all you saw, and what son is a worthy son, except the one that surpasses all that his father ever was? And you have by all means surpassed your father. With every subsequent rebirth we see that you learnt the lessons, you learnt them well. And we, we let you carry out your impunity with heads bowed low, for as you told us, the reason we have you is because we don’t know anything, and we need you to defend our rights. And then you tell us that in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must first love yourself. And love yourself you do.

That guy speaks well, Dedan Kimathi must be turning in his grave, watching the independence he fought for so hard washed down to an even more severe colonialism at the hands of our very brothers… watching as you get up on national television and urge us to wipe out those invaders who are in our land, while you embrace and bump fists with their leader. Had Mekatilili known this was what she gave her life up for, to watch her people turned to donkeys, working three jobs to barely survive, while you dear politician decide that we must pay our and your taxes, we must finance your holidays, and increase your salaries because the work you do for us is so great, so vastly involving, that you have no time to appear and fight for legislation that would better our lives. You must think us so gullible. And we are.

Uliniahidi matamu sasa nanywa machungu,

You said that you would fight the corruption now you only fight each other

You promised me the sky, now I watch you while you fly away

You told me to live, then you came and took my life away

              Dedan Kimathi must be turning in his grave,

              Mekatilili must be turning in her grave,

             What can say to you

 What would you have me do

Now you just talk to my guns and my arrows

It’s a refusal to think, a sad delusion by which the mind creates an excuse to brand the skin black, the society backward and the political economics third world. Leadership thus becomes confused with might and vice versa. Lives are mortgaged to give rise to a mini Euro-Anglo-American suburb and the cries of the people are silenced by the promise of edible warm and nutritious democracy. Demokrasia itakayojaza matumbo, itawapa watu makaazi, italeta ajira na kuwapa watu umoja na amani…

Meanwhile we turn the other cheek. We call every reprimand aimed at you a bullet aimed at removing our people from power. And then we go to that neighbor of ours and burn his house down. Go and tell your leader to leave ours alone. The very next day, you shake hands, the beginning of a coalition between the two of you. Because two heads are better than one. No wonder you treat us like so, it is we who have slept on the job. No one is responsible for my rights, that’s why they call it capitalism. Look out for your rights and those of your people. Don’t entrust them to another who is also just looking out for their own rights and those of their people…

Paukwa pakawa, umesaidia vipi wenzako hawa, nalia,

Sahani ya mchele, wengine wafa njaa tumbo yako mbele,

Giza ya mwizi, lakini mchana twaogopa siku hizi,

Kiboko kwa mkorofi, maovu yako yanapigiwa makofi…

            Dua la mnyonge halimpati mwewe

Mwenye nguvu mpishe, kilio changu kisikizee

            Dua la mnyonge halimpati mwewe

Nalia, nalia….

But we are done. No more sleeping on the job. No more voting is for the old and grey. No more get out of my land you stranger, yet he too was born in the same hospital I was. Eventually, the chickens come home to roost. And no matter how much you postpone the day of reckoning, yours will come. And the voice that we have, the voice that you silenced, we shall use it then… we will dig further into our pockets to run our economy. We will work harder to see our children through school, and we will teach them to be one… and eventually, you will grow old, and so will your ideologies. Then you will be irrelevant, and you will be replaced… it will happen…  And I hope you live long enough to see it…

Yours,

Young Citizen.