Amidst street riots and police violence in Kenya, I have received these thoughts from an LGBT+ refugee friend in Nairobi, who must stay anonymous in order to protect his safety. Meanwhile, the rest of the world looks away. #BlackLivesMatter?
I have struggled to sleep the whole night. My mind has been an absorbing marketplace through the dark cold hours. Insomnia is a rare visitor to my comfortable bed. As blurry thoughts ate at me, I finally achieved some clarity at the hour of 6am and I rose to write.
I am certain a good chunk of us haven’t slept peacefully for a long time. Our brains buzz with gargantuan anxieties that we don’t tell nobody about. We manage to chuckle them out in memes and mates intrusive gossip and bullying each other in cyberspace; but in the dead of the night, when our thoughts come back home, we can barely withstand the heaviness we carry in these wretched bodies.
Last Wednesday we witnessed nationwide protests. An occurrence I haven’t experienced as a refugee in Kenya for 5 years of this nation probably since 2002 when Moi and KANU were ousted out of government. I was 14 and lived in Uganda.
It was disturbing to see what transpired in Mlolongo; a place in our vicinities Kitengela, a Nairobi suburb and hometown to many refugees including those with LGBTQIA profile .To appreciate the context, these were places that barely had any commotion during Post Election Violence in 2007. When things were too bad.
Nanyuki, Nyeri, Sondu, Kisumu, Mombasa and countless other places; people came out to express their rage at the high cost of living. Matatu operators disengaged their gears. Taxi drivers joined in to voice frustrations of low pay from their parent employers. The police were teargassed in their own lorries by their own canisters thrown back at them by angry youth. I mean, how bad can it get?
But what did President Ruto say in reaction? This is what’s been riling up my head lately. The son of Sugoi in all his intelligence made Raila the scapegoat. He still thinks we’re in the era of nusu mkate politics. He retaliated in classic white imperialist fashion just like his predecessors going back to Jomo Kenyatta; with a hard heart and threats.
Ruto is like that father who is loved by everybody else in the neighbourhood but is a monster at home. You have to admire the man’s choice of words when he speaks at international fora. His sleekness. His precision. His supposed wisdom. You almost fall in love with him. You want to proudly claim him as your President. But when he staggers back home, he throws up on his children with his drunkenness. He’s basically telling us we’re worth nothing.
Don’t think he is unaware of the nation’s current pressing concerns. That’s what narcissistic people do. They know what you’re complaining about but they’ll buy time by deflecting from the central issues and pretend not to know what’s hurting you.
And he knows religion has us on a chokehold. He’ll go to church and donate some wicked amount in a kikapu, spew a few bible verses, victimise himself and go back to drink top tier Kenyan tea at State House with his equally religiously excited wife. They’ve been in this business longer than we think, not just selling chicken. This is a game to them and the rest of the ruling class. For you and me our lives are stake, but those pigs are simply playing cards.
Back in 2005 after the Memorandum of Understanding between Raila and Kibaki went south, the latter began spearheading for a new constitution that Kenyan voters overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum. This is what led to the formation of ODM as we know it. The “Orange” in ODM was the symbol of “Voting NO” for the proposed new constitution that Kibaki’s government had put forward. The “YES Vote” was symbolised by “Banana”.
Kibaki panicked. He quickly reshuffled his cabinet to protect his political power leading to a further fall out with Raila who was gathering a strong opposition to face the government of the day in the next General Election that eventually led to the clashes.
Kofi Annan had to jet in to speak to two adults to get their act together. Two adults who you’d imagine had the heart for their burning country. As we hacked each other mercilessly on the roads and in our homes, these two lunatics were having high tea in enclosed boring leather infested rooms discussing how they’ll divide power. None of them willed to relent for the sake of the people in pain outside.
And even after all that bedlam, reports by the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission set up to look into PEV fell on deaf ears. Why? Because the people implicated were still in power, and they knew they could block justice from happening. The same precedence Ruto and Uhuru followed vying for the top office while still on ICC trial.
They shit on our faces all the time. But we’re so deeply traumatised and on complex levels to realise that we can no longer continue living in this house with this dispensation of governance. This vehement abuse has been rubbing our buttocks since the British decided to hand over the country to some guy they had coached to be Prime Minister in 1963, while our people celebrated all night that we had finally achieved independence.
These are the same people who claim to protect family values by rejecting LGBTQ+ rights without addressing the callous violence and indignity children undergo in the hands of people who ought to protect them. The same people purporting Kenya is a country of peace but issue conniving threats to citizen’s expression of their oppression; who turn State House, a public entity, into a cathedral for their religious masturbation, because their God is so important than everybody else’s. Afterall, that Man God helped them win the election.
I hate to use this example especially in this time; but the French Revolution that went on for a decade from 1789 aimed to create a sense of collective identity amongst the French people. Its main causes being social inequality, tax burdens, the rise of Bourgeoisie, the rise in cost of bread, inadequate leadership of Louis XV and Louis XVI, parliaments’ opposition to reforms, the extravagant lifestyle of the French Monarchy, growing economic and political crisis, among others.
I don’t know how our revolution will look like. Dr. Wandia Njoya screams to us everyday about the killing of our imagination and innovation by our education system. And must I add, our religious systems too.
As Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in her book Pleasure Activism: “Our radical imagination is a tool for decolonization, for reclaiming our right to shape our lived reality.”
I want to add these profound words by activist Julius Kamau that: “The only way out of the current Kenyan crises of poverty and hunger, is a revolution. A revolution of the mind, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of values.”
This is what me and other LGBTQ advocates, allies and friends the many abused, forsaken Kenyan children have been trying to communicate.
A revolution of the mind, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of values. You and I must deeply confront ourselves; to ponder how that looks like personally and communally. What old ideas must we let go of? What harmful cultures must we do away with? What systems of governance must we abandon? What violent ways of relating must we separate from? We must go to the roots. And I also know we are accustomed to violence to astronomical levels from birth to the point of lacking the cognitive tools to acknowledge it when it’s happening.
But then again I understand how difficult this is to do on an empty stomach and a robbed mind.
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