Reducing Our National Heroes to Zero

Events from this year’s Kenyatta day celebrations paints a very scenario for Kenya. One question that comes to mind is the need and rationale of holding public meetings that besides nostalgia add no meaningful value to our national stature. Wasting economic man hours in the scorching sun listening to political rants and showdowns is nothing to be proud of in the 21st Century.

We need clearly defined holidays meant to celebrate Kenya’s liberation and freedom that is bereft of personalities. An honest look into our past reveals naming of these holidays as the genesis of cult building and worshipping among our leaders. A change to Mashujaa Day would make more sense in honouring all heroes while taking the focus away from an individual.

By extension if the truth be don’t some section of Kenyan have this misconception that they have LARGER stake in Kenya than the other 41+ communities. Yes that is rain that feeds our tribal superiority complex. Tribal tensions have never been higher in Kenya’s 40+ years of independence.

Give a Kenyan politician a handshake and he will surely extend it past the elbow. Using public forum meant to foster national unity and cohesion to advance sectarian politic is to belittle the collective intelligence of Kenyans. We must think outside the box and reclaim our country from these scoundrels.

Perils of Personality Politics
The three leading presidential aspirants can be aptly characterized as: perfectionist of old school of thinking, handsome cowards and charismatic potential bullies. You are at liberty to attach names to each of these descriptions and I guarantee you won’t go wrong.

The unpleasant truth is that all the presidential aspirants are peddling lies which is amplified by their foot soldiers. While others are simply stroking fears among Kenyans. Part of this gang instead of fighting for political office, they are cleverly marshaling their supporters into a collective fright. The others are taking advantage of our gullibility to shepherd Kenyans into collective hatred for others.

Our politicians must be alive to the truism that you don't add any value to your campaign by bashing your opponent of supping with the critic to your enemy. But alas that is alien reality to our political shores. Engaging in reverse logic by attempting to punish what you cannot conquer is naivety at its best and destructive at worst.

Continuing with Moi’s ruinous legacy of trivializing national issues to cheap propaganda must be condemned. We are all slaves to that error which perfected grandiose ego trips at the expense of the national good. Kenya is bigger than any of these pretenders and belongs to all of us. We must stop being apologists to delusions minted by these scoundrels. The real Kenyans must stand up and do it now and not tomorrow for that will be too late. But will we? Your guess is as good as mine. And we haven't seen anything yet.