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I have heard many of you Kenyans say “we want a revolution, the likes of Arab Springs”.
No problem, let it come. However, this is how many of us are likely to suffer before that painful death; if not you, your mother, your sister, your wife, children, sister or siblings will.
When the first canon is fired, you will celebrate and bay for ‘their’ (your enemy tribes men) blood. Reports will start trickling in that some enemies have been killed in Coast, Rift Valley and the shanties in Nairobi, this will turn your celebration into… a frenzy.
4 days later, the mood will change, no longer getting the basic provisions such as food, your celebration will be cut short to attend to more urgent matters, that is, fending for yourself.
2 weeks down the line, when your energy levels have ebbed to the lowest, reports will reach you that your enemy has regrouped and is coming for your neck and that of your loved ones.
You will now abandon the quest for food to that of saving your own life. International news media, most likely BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera will show you, and your kin, carrying mattresses heading to a safe haven, most likely a church.
You will reach the church and much to your horror, find thousands of people, many from your perceived enemy tribe also camped there, fighting for the little provisions donated by the UN.
That night it will rain heavily and exposed, hungry, scared and nursing a deep machete wound on your most loved one’s forehead, the slow realities of ‘Rwanda in the making’ will start sinking in.
If you are still surviving one month down the line, 30 kgs down from your usual weight, you wil start wondering who is fighting who, since the camp is cosmopolitan and you are all fighting for basic survival not caring who comes from which tribe.
But that’s just the beginning. The next day, your camp will be raided, 5 of your loved ones will be slaughtered and you will be lucky to escape with a bullet wound on your right leg.
UN will now heap you into lorries and transfer you to another camp. In excruciating pain and feverish from your infected leg, the second reality of war will hit you: what the hell is the fight all about?
You will die 3 days later, from neglect really since people around you are so used to seeing others die to bother about your feeble groans from your leaking tent.
4 months later,corpses, including yours, will be buried in a mass grave as the lieutenants that started the war sit at a table in some hotel in Kampala to craft another ‘power-sharing’ deal.
There will be relative calm as the vultures enjoy the spoils of war, the politicians will be back to their cosy offices…
My point is, when the drums of war are sounded, everyone is a theoretical winner but the reality is so different a few months later.
What’s more, war does not guarantee equality, it dehumanizes and traumatizes people.
Every little thing you’ve worked for goes… Tribe is not your enemy, people that sit in ivory towers from all political divide and subdue you, are. The rich in Muthaiga, Runda and such upmarket dwellings co-exist together, own companies together and dine together; continue fighting in slums and abusing each other online.
At the very end, you will realize the ones who divided you along ethnic lines didn’t care much about you. Your real enemy is not your next door neighbour from the ‘wrong tribe’, its the political class whose only means of survival is dividing and ruling the poor, the hopeless and the illiterate.
Kenyans, I beg you stop tribalism, stop hatred and ethnic profiling. If you don’t, a day is coming and I dare say quote me if you happen to survive the ordeal!
UKABILA NI UJINGA
Follow me on twitter @IamOminde
