I have been in Diaspora for years now and this qualifies me over some if not many to echo certain sentiments about our culture of pretense and get –in to get- along attitude. My concern is not much about the paranoids: those persons who will do anything to get over the natural mistake of belonging to a certain place and will spend a great deal of time trying to overcome lambdacism. At rare occasions that it is relevant to say ‘Wora’ instead of water and escape a certain look that says “what you say?’. You also shouldn’t be worried about those who feel guilty about their accent, they will twang for ages and time will teach them that the more they force it the more it gets worse. I have a beef with these folks who landed at the Airport the other day and now they are worried about everything in their home country. They insist on insecurity, robbery, poverty and foolishness and other forms of misfortunes. They will bow to every Mzungu and speak with sympathy expecting empathy. Before you continue embarrassing us, let me give you a few hints to kick out abusnatet in your brain.
Before you give a hand to those who want to hear what they want – stop and think because some folks will want to hear how insecure your country is. Let me give you a guideline to teach them about our real threats. Our real insecurity, especially at night is a cat, probably a dog and Kimagutiet, which of course are not armed with any riffles or rabies. We have really learned to live with them, and with my years of experience, we could in our time walk for several Kilometers at night to a club (dance), crusade or Keisha and I have never encountered any episode of insecurity. Remember, there are no street lights or emergency response unit to accompany or check the surroundings. The majority of the children as young as 5 years wakes up in the morning to go to school and they walk and I have never heard of any disappearance or murder. The rats and other rodents are aware of this simple fact because I have seen them cross the road majestically without fear of anybody.
It would be relevant if we would treat Global acts for instance terrorism, that breach the security as international matters rather than to categorize as failures of certain exceptional state. They add to the false misconceptions that the world has painted Alkabuland with every possibility of darkness. Even though in every market, as they say, you won’t miss a madman, there is a negligible incidence of assassination, robbery, and kidnapping, but it does not warrant international publicity.
Another group of persons that need to shut up and feel ashamed for saying what they don’t actually do is the hypocrites and pretenders who preach poverty and primitivity in mama land. Across the water, they went to church and today they drink a little bit of wine and Champagne, they have forgotten the world and the future prescribed to them by the elders. They now call Mama poor, but when they turn around they realize that all the skills they have are copyright of Mama and all that they call healthy eating is the Greens and the Ugali they happen to be missing. The milk they drink is no longer the milk from Chepsitye but from an unknown farmer somewhere. They shuffle through the malls and shops just to find the closest taste of mama stew. They even such and hunt for anybody who is going home, so that they bring them safari shoe, Uji and Kericho Tea, etc. We have not been the best, but under such circumstance the struggle is real everywhere, to malign Mama in an attempt to gain favor or avoid the reality of the new world is an absolute pretense. There is no err in nature that made you belong to a certain Home/family and that is why they say “ Melilchin Kimaget emobchi”.
There are these other groups of friends who try to imagine the impossibility of how to do certain things they had done for 20 years of their life. They pose a lot of irrelevant questions that do not make any meaningful conversations. These guys will ask you how it feels to use the outside house. It is a Latrine and your grandmother uses it, does it mean you are getting more stupid? Matters that pertain to excrete is a non- issue and will buy you more ridicule than mercy. Other folks who are just a year in the West and have begun wondering how people at home cook with firewood. You went to college for 8 years to be a Doctor which you are now proficient in it and now you pretend to have no idea of what you did three times a day for 20 years? Traveling should and must be used to the advantage of your family and childhood friends, to insist on unnecessary gossip, hypocrisy, and falsehood to gain friends and personal fortune is an investment on misery in the fast-changing World.
There is also a new breed of a self-made political analyst on facebook and other social media. They never ceased to amaze me when they cite democracies and development. You know how they put it right? I wish Africa will be like USA or UK -the best democracies in the world. That’s a joke. The USA in its inception did not intend to be a democracy but a Republican government. Democracy implies that the legitimacy of power rests in the majority, however, in the USA slaves, women and those without property were never part of the decision makers. The founding fathers were very skeptical about the proles and they cited that giving them power in decision making will lead them to demand certain rights that will affect the bourgeois. And the last time I checked, UK is and has been a monarchy with a blend of parliamentary democracy.
Lastly, I want to be specific to this guy who thinks gun rights is a cool policy and should be extended to African countries. I have always wondered whether the reciprocal of not having one leads to more dead? Maybe or maybe not. It is subject to debate as to whether there is a positive correlation between putting more arms in the civilian hands and safety. That aside, as African history is key in understanding how the second amendment came about and if those precautions still exist. This was an amendment for a few reasons: Since there was no standing army and a militia was necessary to protect the people. There was also an issue concerning slavery and for the masters to be able to contain slaves.
N/B Thinking loud- debatable..
Mshamba Abroad 