Apparently i am not suffering from arthritis as i previously thought i have wrist tendonitis.Le me explain...
I have been having some excruciating pain shoot through my wrist every time someone shakes my right hand or i do any work that involves movement to my right wrist,texting,writing,sometimes even when typing my fingers have to be on the keyboard inclined at a certain angle.
Now i have been telling myself i can live with it till i get it attended to but it seems to be getting worse,so i need to see a doctor soon.
This discomfort if i may call it so has reminded me of the way Kenyans have been putting up with politicians and their tribal rhetoric for as long as i can remember..which is like dog years .
We have been ululating,dancing to the drum beats of our politicians.Women have been gyrating their hips to the tunes of the piper who has paid them the highest to sing his praises and even our artistes sometimes grace this political platforms claiming to be doing it on neutral grounds but we should know better.
I was having a conversation with some very nice gentlemen on twitter and it started with someone asking whether Kenyans would ever move away from tribal based politics.Someone joined our conversation should and said that for you to succeed in politics you need tribal numbers.
Of course i had a rejoinder and quickly tweeted back and told him that,its because we have made our politics that way,we think tribal numbers are all that matters when it comes to politics.
Then i sat back and thought,of course he is right in Kenya numbers matter,the bigger your tribal bloc the better.
Our leaders have made us believe that numbers and especially tribal number matter.It an excerpt fro the book Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan he says
"......humans have a sad tendency to make the same mistakes again and again.We're afraid of strangers or anybody who's a little different from us.We we get scared ,we start pushing people around.We have readily accessible buttons that release powerful emotions when pressed.We can be manipulated into utter senselessness by clever politicians.Give us the right kind of leader and,like most suggestible subjects of hypnotherapists,we'll gladly do just about anything he wants-even things we know to be wrong."
Don't you think this passage aptly describes us Kenyans..?
Look at the way we idolize our tribal chieftains,how there is so much hot air when someone is made an elder of such and such a tribe in Kenya.
Kenyans are very bright people and it is not like they do not know these readily "accessible buttons" as politicians use.We know them.
Back to our tweeter discussion...I tweeted that Kenyans need to start walking out of rallies that are nothing but tribal rallying around.I was glad when it was re tweeted by a few Kenyans.Too few i thought.
But just think of what mass walk out would do in one or two rallies,that is what should happen and (some of) our politicians would get it.We want issue based politics and not tribal war cries.
True, we are a tribal lot. And as Carl Sagan pointed out, politicians are a clever lot indeed. They know how to assess their audiences very well, and because they know they may not have much success with urban populations, they LOOOVE the rural folk. When there are no public rallies, see how they take advantage of funerals; where they know they will get a mass audience. Why do they have to talk politics at funerals? Meanwhile, the mourning family and friends have to 'just' put up with this -whether they like it or not. They dare not raise their voice for fear of reprimand. And by the way the politicians usually sit comfortably in a beautiful podium, while the humble crowd seats on the dusty ground (sometimes muddy) in the scorching sun, adoring their tribal leaders and taking in everything they say.
ReplyDeleteso true @mummytales.
ReplyDeleteKenyans need to turn the tables on the politicians,that is the only language they would understand.