Anger, hate, and violence...

I’m sad.

I listened to NPR yesterday on my way to work, and they talked about Kenya. Specifically, about Naivasha. My childhood hometown. It’s bad there, worse than it’s been in years. It sounds like it’s a return to the days of Mau Mau, only the violence is between the Kikuyu and the Luo/Kalenjin/Luhya – everyone else, pretty much. People are being hacked to death with pangas, shot with bows and arrows, burned alive. My happy dusty little hometown is now a warzone. It’s sad, and it’s depressing, because it’s changed so much. During the ethnic violence nearly 20 years ago, Naivasha was where people ran TO for safety, not away from. Naivasha was stable then, or so it seemed to me, but I’m sure it was pretty safe, because I can only remember a couple of incidents of ethnic violence, and we still went into town as though there wasn’t too much to worry about. Today… well, today I’m sure we would have evacuated. I need to talk to Maggie and see if she’s heard any news, and I need to email Gio and check on him and his family, and see what his perspective is.

I can only pray that everyone that I knew there is alright. I can only pray for Rosemary and her children; for Maggie’s brothers and sisters and their families; for Nduta, George, Lily and the Major; for the friends we left behind when we moved to the United States.

I’m not a romantic blinded by idealism and fantasy. Kenya is, and always has been, a melting pot ready to blow with the right provocation. The Brits did a good job of creating the perfect conditions for a violent explosion in Kenya, just as they did elsewhere in Africa – as they did elsewhere in the world. They ignored tribal boundaries established over years; brushed aside traditions as primitive; took away the external manifestations of cultural identity. Anger is handed down from generation to generation, in oral tradition, in simple teachings, and when the right fuse is finally lit, the institutional anger is sparked and explodes. This, from what I can tell from the news reports, is what has finally happened in Kenya. The match that lit the fuse, the final straw, was yet another flawed election, the balance of power politically unchanged, leaving so many feeling disenfranchised. Those first few acts of violence, the first few killings, have been avenged, and revenged, and the cycle goes on and on, leaving a country in ruins. Even if the politicians get involved, it’s too little, too late; too much blood has been shed, too many words of hate said, too much for everyone to forgive, let alone forget.

I’m sad.