Today I want to do a short thread on a song that for me is one of the most underrated in Kenya's history, because of its prophetic voice, empathy for those on the underside of power, and tenderness for those least and left out. "Mariana" by @EricWainaina
Mariana is the grief song of our generation and country, a lament of failed dreams and wasted potential. It shook me the first time I heard it six or seven years ago. It forces you to look, and see - not just turn away from oppression like we have been taught to do
Mariana is an indictment of those who blame the poor for not "working hard". Those who say you can hustle your way out of a broken system. Those who tout entrepreneurship as the answer to everything.
Your do all you can, but your life is one of permanent uncertainty. You can take three steps forward on your own herculean effort but insecurity, drought, a broken healthcare system, anything really, can take you four steps back.
Many have said it before, and I'll say it again - most of us are just one emergency away from financial ruin. Mariana reminds us of this, forces us to see and touch our own precariousness.
But it is also written with love. With a genuine appreciation that we are not reducible to our problems. That we are more than our sufferings and strivings. That poor people can love. That those without connections or deals or tenders or biasharas are human.
There are those who will @ me with critiques that the song glorifies crime. Don't @ me.
(Listening to it again now. My eyes are stinging again, damn! 😭)
"Ukiulizwa kwa nini/ Kwa makumbusho yangu/ Waelezee nilikataa kuishi kwa matumaini pekee"
How many of us are living on these false hopes? I'm quoting @TweetingBandit now: "There are three illusions that prevent many Kenyan millennials from organizing: one, is, this is temporary, we’ll ride it out..."
"...two, I’ll prosper and leave all other millennial strugglers behind: three, I’m the only one caught in this mess, so it’s my private shame."
"Truth is, study after study show you are wrong on the first count, [you] have minimal chances of achieving the second, and you would be surprised how many of us are out here stuck in the third."
Read the full article here:
theelephant.info/reflections/20…
Read the full article here:
theelephant.info/reflections/20…
Listen to Mariana today. Then read Ken Saro-Wiwa's "Africa Kills Her Sun" fickshawn.blogspot.com/2012/10/africa…
And then ask yourself how it is possible to outrun bullets, as the song says. Hint: it's not. We have to stop the guns firing into our backs as we try and flee.
