Kenyans peering at their belly buttons – fiddling while the place burns
February 2, 2008 7 Comments
I am going crazy. I am blogging seating at a table with a small group of Kenyans here in Johannesburg. One of them is visiting from Nairobi and he is filled with the smug knowingness that characterises our country’s elite and is the biggest reason why the flames are up and may stay up for much longer. I am so sick of this Kenyan feeling that the normal laws of violent conflict somehow do not apply to us because we are different. We are special and peaceful. That the guy burning and killing just wants to fill his belly and will soon calm down. What nonsense and what really is it going to take for us to get it through our heads that our country is disintegrating while we fiddle around and believe that it is 300 shs cocktails as usual.
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‘Smug knowingness characterizing the so called elite’, now those are terms i have been trying to find for some time…and I personally find it very very frustrating being in the same vicinity as such individuals especially during this critical(and very very sad) time in our history…
Great Blog and keep up the good work!
There is little comfort in knowing that there’s many of us on the same slow road to a sure hell.
This blog I really like. Here I discover alot of things that I didn’t know I knew (that’s a compliment). It’s not so much the facts you state as the way you state them.
Now, now Mato. Don’t be so censorious – apparent smugness could just as easily be motivated by fear as by obliviousness. These are difficult times.
Oh, and welcome back. I’ve missed you terribly.
If the middle class in Kenya does not rise up and say enough is enough, there will be no Kenya in years to come………
Let your voices be heard……….
The Elite are driving our country into the ground , while the poor are fighting on their behalf…………
The reason the elite can ignore it is because they believe its happening there and wont touch us here. Thats why as violence erupted, the young elite were still going clubbing, its a mystery to me how one could block out the situation in the lives of fellow kenyans and go out to have fun, spending thousands to get drunk while thousands of Kenyans dont know where their next meal is coming from.
Until the rich start feeling the pinch, then and only then is change gonna come.
Lets pray and hope
The scale of smugness depends on where you live.
These “normal laws of violent conflict somehow do not apply to us because we are different” applies to lots of smug middle-class people all over the globe, both in relation to what is happening in Kenya, to what is happening in their own country, and to what is happening all over the world. It’s what happened in Nazi Germany.
That’s why it’s SO important NEVER to be smug. Sooner or later it could happen to anyone. We have to keep examining our assumptions and know that violence – and all things human – lies in every single one of us.
And btw – thanks for your blog, that is a significant part of how I make sense of the world.