I am part of a generation that did not experience colonization. I have only read about colonialism.It’s therefore hard for me to imagine that a group of Europeans sat down and considered their set of beliefs and intellect superior to Africans, and Kenyan’s in particular, hence came to extend their sovereignty by stealing our resources and labour in the disguise of enlarging their markets. It’s really hard for me to comprehend this as a descendant of the colonized. My parents were neither old enough to comprehend what was going on, although my grandparents experienced this dehumanizing experience. Am just a year older than half the 48years we’ll be celebrating this Jamuhuri Day. I will not even be thirty years old when Kenya celebrates its fifty years of self governance.

I however can still see this excessive confidence that the colonizers must have had amongst certain westerners today. These westerners call people of my generation in our country third world, and their people, first world. When people talk of world they refer to what sustains everyday life. My world is different from my neighbor’s though we live in the same neighbourhood. My everyday world includes Christian Doctrine, life groups, church, DVD rip movies, coffee dates, kesha, mentoring boys, and eating lots of fries. My neighbour’s world orbits around table tennis, vampire diaries, porn, clubbing, one night stands, an 8-5 job and being cooked for by his girl of the month.  We are both Kenyan young males in our twenties with ambitions whose worlds are called third world by Westerners.

Other times they call themselves the developed world and us the developing world. In essence they mean Africans like me don’t have a work ethic, but they do. These benefactors of colonialism have this cancer that makes them claim I don’t have an identity as an African because I dress in a certain way, talk a certain way, think a certain way and act a certain way but they do. They claim as a post-colonial Kenyan, I am still identifying myself; trying to define who I am as an African.

Having made this diagnosis, they are using the chemotherapy of telling the African story as one of bad governance and failed states to treat this cancer. When this Chemotherapy doesn’t work, they use a dangerous radiation therapy of sanctions, structural adjustment programs and international media to show citizens of our country and to show their citizens; our poverty, failures, mis-education, corruption, poor infrastructure among other moral anarchy and all rotten things that they brand as African.

But this is not why I write today, I write because am concerned that some of our politicians and our local media are showing signs of this cancer. This cancer of the “primacy of the west” has gene mutated in our executive, judiciary, legislature and local media and I know they are feeling symptoms of this sickness for I can see the signs. I am aware not all these people have this mutant primacy gene. Some have the full blown cancer as we see the reports from the Durban climate change talks. I however want to talk about these signs and the dangerous therapy being applied to the mutants.

Analysts

In my opinion, our prominent political analysts are reading books from the 1970s.These books, are the therapies they are using for their cancer. When I hear analysts like Mutahi Ngunyi, I am not surprised by their pronouncements. To go on national media and tell us aspirant X will bring Y votes from people of this ethnic group is a mutated “cancer” gene that sees some tribes as more superior than others. But at least he has a solid cancer support group chaired by Julie Gichuru in her countdown2012 series. I know these pronouncements will get worse 6mothns to the elections especially from a group claiming to be part of the second liberators of Kenya. They are not part of my generation.

My generation sympathizes with such analysts as we celebrate 48 years of Kenya being a republic. You see my peers really don’t want to know who will bring what votes from this or that tribe on our media. Neither do they want to hear from politicians claiming they will build roads, bring water, improve sanitation and the recycled list of to do things availed every election year. A person from my generation will want to know the presidential aspirants ideas eg his/her foreign policy with regard for example to the Al Bashir’s case, not hear accusations of being taken back to dark days which we don’t even know of.

You see we have grown up with bad roads, blackouts, being sent home because of school fees in primary school, seeing the face of the president everyday as the first news item for a quarter of a century. Believe me, therefore, we really don’t care about the second liberation talks of dark days. We have also grown up with the internet. We don’t need to travel to other countries for exposure. We have lived lives we considered normal and we are saying the so called second liberators need treatment from their cancer.

I want to hear ideology from political aspirants (not party politics) and these ideologies dissected on the local media table (not tribal supremacy).

Vision2030

I visited the new VISION2030 website yesterday. It has a lot of details which I intend to go through. The first step towards the treatment of chronic diseases like cancer or addictions is acceptance. I have never heard an acceptance from the strategists of Vision2030 that the gap that stands between the present and the pre-colonial past is unbridgeable. I can’t help but wonder, from which viewpoint did they write this vision 2030? Was it from the hyperconfident tone of westerners’ reality of Africans of how to change poor infrastructure, fulfill MDGs… or from the dreams of pre-colonial Kenyans?

I clearly see vision 2030 spells out the “Kenya we want” characterized by double digit economic growth, reduced maternal deaths, education… which is a picture of the colonizers cancer instead of the “Kenyans we want” which I believe is what our pre-colonial Kenyans like my grandfather wanted.

The therapy the present CEO is applying of talking of global factors such as oil prices as challenges of why Kenya is not realizing the Vision2030 is toxic. It’s as dangerous as the citizens who have a blue gene to support such logic. If we had an ethics/moral pillar or a sense of national community in vision2030 for a tribe called Kenya, I think this cancer of making plans with the lens of Westerners will be treated.

The obituary

Watching KTN news is like reading the obituary. I am convinced the news editors can feel their cancer symptoms. There is not a day’s prime time news they will not report at least three deaths from our counties. That’s their minimum standard serving, three death reports daily. Often times they do more. Their dead news set background concept doesn’t help. Surely if they can afford to buy two Ipads for their news anchors, they can at least hire a set manager to “beautify” their news set. Or just hire someone to change that background thing that makes them look like they are floating on air and couple this with their death stories you can’t help but feel you are just dying.

This background thing showing lack of creativity is not just limited to KTN. It’s a cancer that is seen in all the other stations (except Citizen today) emphatically broadcasting that Kenyans lack creativity because they are poor or bad governance of the media; the stories of some westerners.

There is no creativity in program line ups. As local citizens we don’t know which month new local series begin. I am of the opinion it’s only Vioja Mahakami that has earned its right to be on TV every week without a season’s break. The day I will sit on the remote and it switches to KBC and find Vioja Mahakami on, I watch it and be guaranteed to laugh.

I will not start on football and EPL for then you might consider me ranting. I think you get the general idea that I may not have to talk of other signs my generation sees such as ethnic fm stations, the cancerous discussions on our local fm stations, our print media (why don’t they just do a tabloid and stop all those “free” pullouts like pulse, DN2…) or even mention about the non-performance of our legislatures, executive and public service issues and the FKEs KEPSA…

So I write to the media and politicians because you will attempt to retell to us about the struggle of independence this Jamuhuri day in your broadcasts and pronouncements to my post-colonial generation. As I have come to learn, the history of Kenya is skewed depending on the tribe of the author of the history book you used in your GHC class. I hope the media will retell the Kenyan story differently this year.

I hope in this 48th Jamuhuri day, the media helps Kenyans to move beyond just condemning colonization as it happened, to embracing it as the start of our Kenyan stories-when Kenya became a republic. Let us not start the stories with bad governance.

I think Mugabe remembers his country‘s story and the west hate him for it. We can learn from his mistakes and love our haters. I will love all the haters who call my world third world.

Happy jamuhuri day!

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