The week starting today, @Occupyparliament realoaded takes place on 11th. I dusted the first protests teargas with doses of water doled out without stinginess by fellow protesters. With Serem's commission and the MPigs having cut a deal, I am a grown up who sheds tears for no reason; I will not be attending the coming one; I know a lost case when I see one.
Fifty years from now, a fellow gifted with the gift of gab will be regaling his grandchildren how he fought Kenya's third liberation war and will blame fading eye-sight on operation occupy parliament tear gas. Leave along he was in another town when that happened, or he chickened out and was looking at the confrontation from the safety of an office building perched twenty five stories high from where the action is.
It is the same case with our Mau Mau veterans, especially now that money from the British government as compensation is to be awarded. You and I know most of the recipients will either be conspirators, home-guards or now withered old men who at the time of emergency hid behind their wives skirts whenever gunfire from the forest or footsteps from the home-guards were heard.
Most of the old men fronting their chests as Mau Mau veterans were nowhere near the forest, neither did they aid the cause. As Mwenda Wa Micheni once told me, in the GEMA communities, every man who was above the age of fifteen when the skirmishes started is today not only a veteran but an expert in talks about the war.
The real fighters retreated back to their broken families, carrying scars of a war so traumatizing, some either died in alcohol, or chose to build their familes afresh. I can bet you a million, Nkeu, an old man from my Mitheru hood, whom legend says lost one testicle while refusing to reveal where his comrade in arms were, is not on the list of beneficiaries. It is some then cowardly old men who are now vocal that will lay claim to the benefits of a guerilla war that slew close to 12,000 natives, some Indians and only 42 whites. That disparity of figures still leaves me with more questions on who was fighting whom.
Its at times like today, when parliament awards itself a Salary from a crippled economy, an economy that is spending more on wages and salaries than it can raise in revenue, a country that is living more on pledges than action, - and more waiting pledges, a nation whose engines are running more on promise than action that I wish my grandparents were collaborators.
You see, on my mothers side, Jospeter was too into the Church to get into the fray. On my Dads side, Kobia, fresh out of making a buck in Burma as a whitemans cook, was too busy drinking to get involved. That is how my ancestors lost their bid to grab something for their descendants.
Come eleventh, I will be working with the side that puts a note between the leathers of my wallet. You see, whatever we do, we are all building the country. Ino ndi ti ya ba nyukwe.
Fifty years from now, a fellow gifted with the gift of gab will be regaling his grandchildren how he fought Kenya's third liberation war and will blame fading eye-sight on operation occupy parliament tear gas. Leave along he was in another town when that happened, or he chickened out and was looking at the confrontation from the safety of an office building perched twenty five stories high from where the action is.
It is the same case with our Mau Mau veterans, especially now that money from the British government as compensation is to be awarded. You and I know most of the recipients will either be conspirators, home-guards or now withered old men who at the time of emergency hid behind their wives skirts whenever gunfire from the forest or footsteps from the home-guards were heard.
Most of the old men fronting their chests as Mau Mau veterans were nowhere near the forest, neither did they aid the cause. As Mwenda Wa Micheni once told me, in the GEMA communities, every man who was above the age of fifteen when the skirmishes started is today not only a veteran but an expert in talks about the war.
The real fighters retreated back to their broken families, carrying scars of a war so traumatizing, some either died in alcohol, or chose to build their familes afresh. I can bet you a million, Nkeu, an old man from my Mitheru hood, whom legend says lost one testicle while refusing to reveal where his comrade in arms were, is not on the list of beneficiaries. It is some then cowardly old men who are now vocal that will lay claim to the benefits of a guerilla war that slew close to 12,000 natives, some Indians and only 42 whites. That disparity of figures still leaves me with more questions on who was fighting whom.
Its at times like today, when parliament awards itself a Salary from a crippled economy, an economy that is spending more on wages and salaries than it can raise in revenue, a country that is living more on pledges than action, - and more waiting pledges, a nation whose engines are running more on promise than action that I wish my grandparents were collaborators.
You see, on my mothers side, Jospeter was too into the Church to get into the fray. On my Dads side, Kobia, fresh out of making a buck in Burma as a whitemans cook, was too busy drinking to get involved. That is how my ancestors lost their bid to grab something for their descendants.
Come eleventh, I will be working with the side that puts a note between the leathers of my wallet. You see, whatever we do, we are all building the country. Ino ndi ti ya ba nyukwe.
No comments:
Post a Comment