A BIRTHDAY AND A FUNERAL

Posted by Social Matters , Friday, October 11, 2013 7:56 AM

A Birthday and a Funeral

Two weeks ago (May 2011) I celebrated (or did something far from that) what is supposed to be one of those important birthdays in the life of a young woman, but I wasn’t celebrating (not owing to the fact that I hate growing old, I don’t,) in fact I had a handkerchief on one hand (not that there were tears of joys in my eyes as I blew the candles on that special day) and a coffin on the other. I was burying by eldest cousin who had been brutally murdered by thugs a couple of months earlier, his body had been in the mortuary that long as his family searched for him. Never in my life had I been so conflicted as my sister broke the news to me, I was in a matatu headed home from the National Museum where I was on attachment, it was raining heavily outside and inside my heart there was a heavier downpour. I tried to compose myself so as not to break down in the matatu, several times I thought alighting from the matatu along the way, look for a scheduled spot and let it all out. How do you just murder someone? Why did they not take his wallet and live him alone! After I heard that he had been killed by thieves, I thought the next time I see a thief being killed by mob justice I would walk away thinking they deserved it after all it might have been them that killed my cousin, the one I looked up to when I was growing up, the one who told me funny stories of how he was monolised and when I was about to do my national examinations in high school he actually thought I had like three more years to go.  I mean these men (presumably) or women (to be fair) killed my cousin in cold blood and they didn’t care, did they know that he was a person like them, born of a woman like them, do they regret it? Who are they? Why did the do it to my poor cousin?

In my grief I was reminded of the murder of a pilot, a few years back it was all over the media, they warned us, ‘today us tomorrow you.’ The tomorrow came sooner for us than we thought it would. Let me add on what they said. “Yesterday them, today us, tomorrow you!”

Insecurity is a real threat and danger to all of us, rich, poor, it doesn’t matter. Losing someone to insecurity is very sad and antagonizing. My cousins murderers may never be caught, but if we came together and started living as a society, fought against social ills together, shared our grief, we might prevent it from happening to your son daughter, cousin, wife, husband or someone else that you really love. In my grief I am forced to remember the women in Coast Province Kenya that have cried on end to the government to come to their aid as their sons are being made to join Al Shabaab or the thousands of young people that are doing or dealing drugs in the same region, it breaks my heart as it should yours, we need to join them in solving these problems, owing to the fact that we are people and we should never be unfeeling. Secondly I belief in that old saying ‘if you are not a part of the solution then you are definitely a part of the problem.’ Maybe what need to  note is that if these young men are being trained to join the Al Shabaab, I wonder whose sons and daughters will be targeted if not our very own. If the drug menace at the Coast Province is not stopped it will be spread, and where first if not to other parts of Kenya. It’s not their problem it’s our problem as well. Ken Sarowiwa writes in his story ‘Africa Kills her Sun’ that were it not in an unfeeling nation, among a people inured to evil and taking sadistic pleasure in the loss of life, some questions could have been asked, how comes Kenyans never ask the hard questions.

 Need to be genuinely concerned about the needs of the people in this world, and if that is too much this country, it would make a whole lot of difference, I don’t want to feel it when it happening to me or to Kenya, I want to stop and remember the women crying because of what is happening in their country (Congo, Libya, Egypt) and pray the nightmare will end soon.

Fast Forward 2013: While no one was ever arrested or charged with his murder, no investigation was ever launched, I guess as a Kenyan at times you have to accept and move on, but the policemen killed in Turkana, the bride killed on the eve of her wedding, my cousin, they all deserve justice. I guess the best birthday gift would be if the person that killed my cousin was brought to book.

This article was written in 2011, two weeks after the burial of my cousin, edited in 2013 because I was never ready to post it, the only addition being the fast forward.



| 0 comments

A BIRTHDAY AND A FUNERAL

Posted by Social Matters 7:55 AM

A Birthday and a Funeral

Two weeks ago (May 2011) I celebrated (or did something far from that) what is supposed to be one of those important birthdays in the life of a young woman, but I wasn’t celebrating (not owing to the fact that I hate growing old, I don’t,) in fact I had a handkerchief on one hand (not that there were tears of joys in my eyes as I blew the candles on that special day) and a coffin on the other. I was burying by eldest cousin who had been brutally murdered by thugs a couple of months earlier, his body had been in the mortuary that long as his family searched for him. Never in my life had I been so conflicted as my sister broke the news to me, I was in a matatu headed home from the National Museum where I was on attachment, it was raining heavily outside and inside my heart there was a heavier downpour. I tried to compose myself so as not to break down in the matatu, several times I thought alighting from the matatu along the way, look for a scheduled spot and let it all out. How do you just murder someone? Why did they not take his wallet and live him alone! After I heard that he had been killed by thieves, I thought the next time I see a thief being killed by mob justice I would walk away thinking they deserved it after all it might have been them that killed my cousin, the one I looked up to when I was growing up, the one who told me funny stories of how he was monolised and when I was about to do my national examinations in high school he actually thought I had like three more years to go.  I mean these men (presumably) or women (to be fair) killed my cousin in cold blood and they didn’t care, did they know that he was a person like them, born of a woman like them, do they regret it? Who are they? Why did the do it to my poor cousin?

In my grief I was reminded of the murder of a pilot, a few years back it was all over the media, they warned us, ‘today us tomorrow you.’ The tomorrow came sooner for us than we thought it would. Let me add on what they said. “Yesterday them, today us, tomorrow you!”

Insecurity is a real threat and danger to all of us, rich, poor, it doesn’t matter. Losing someone to insecurity is very sad and antagonizing. My cousins murderers may never be caught, but if we came together and started living as a society, fought against social ills together, shared our grief, we might prevent it from happening to your son daughter, cousin, wife, husband or someone else that you really love. In my grief I am forced to remember the women in Coast Province Kenya that have cried on end to the government to come to their aid as their sons are being made to join Al Shabaab or the thousands of young people that are doing or dealing drugs in the same region, it breaks my heart as it should yours, we need to join them in solving these problems, owing to the fact that we are people and we should never be unfeeling. Secondly I belief in that old saying ‘if you are not a part of the solution then you are definitely a part of the problem.’ Maybe what need to  note is that if these young men are being trained to join the Al Shabaab, I wonder whose sons and daughters will be targeted if not our very own. If the drug menace at the Coast Province is not stopped it will be spread, and where first if not to other parts of Kenya. It’s not their problem it’s our problem as well. Ken Sarowiwa writes in his story ‘Africa Kills her Sun’ that were it not in an unfeeling nation, among a people inured to evil and taking sadistic pleasure in the loss of life, some questions could have been asked, how comes Kenyans never ask the hard questions.

 Need to be genuinely concerned about the needs of the people in this world, and if that is too much this country, it would make a whole lot of difference, I don’t want to feel it when it happening to me or to Kenya, I want to stop and remember the women crying because of what is happening in their country (Congo, Libya, Egypt) and pray the nightmare will end soon.

Fast Forward 2013: While no one was ever arrested or charged with his murder, no investigation was ever launched, I guess as a Kenyan at times you have to accept and move on, but the policemen killed in Turkana, the bride killed on the eve of her wedding, my cousin, they all deserve justice. I guess the best birthday gift would be if the person that killed my cousin was brought to book.

This article was written in 2011, two weeks after the burial of my cousin, edited in 2013 because I was never ready to post it, the only addition being the fast forward.



| 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)