What makes us need to remove the ruling elite is not that they are stupid and mediocre. Which they definitely are. It is that life in Kenya is so abusive and cruel. Unfortunately, we still don't understand that this problem is political.
We think Kenya's problem is efficiency and morality, and that getting the right, moral person in charge will solve the problem. It won't. The system itself is a corruption. Even Jesus Christ cannot rule using it. It's an evil system that is built on blood.
The other problem is that we think that when we fail, it's something that we didn't do. We didn't read enough to pass exams. We didn't wear the right suit to the interview. We didn't meet performance targets... We don't want to accept that system is already rigged for us to fail.
We cant accept the system is evil partly because there's a whole army of clergy, motivational speakers and counsellors telling us how to fix ourselves to fit in: have faith, read this way, believe this, wear this, get therapy when things dont work. "Fix yourself, not the system."
We also have capitalists and business people profiting from our misery. They tell us we will feel better if we have this house, this car, if we drink the right liquor and shoot the right chemicals in our veins.
Drugs or Jesus, Tim McGraw sang.
Drugs or Jesus, Tim McGraw sang.
Then we have the sanitizing industry to keep cleaning up after the system: lawyers, journalists, PR, "policy consultants," accountants, lecturers, etc. Their job is tell us that we suffer because we don't understand how the system works. Otherwise the system is fine.
I think that most Kenyans understand how politicians contribute to the problem. The next step is to understand how the middle layer is part of the problem. That's the understanding that is missing.
Like I've talked for years about how employment and schooling are rigged, but people still tell me about l skills, sijui no Wi-Fi, sijui no textbooks. Others go on the other extreme and give me the 1960s shpill about missionaries. Those are not the beasts of the 21st century.
The beasts are philanthropists, policy makers and development consultants who are repackaging the policies of the Jim Crow south in 21st century Africa. If we stop listening to these guys, then we will demand change tomorrow.
But it is also a generational problem. Most of these sanitizers are my age mates. We are the last of the colonial system, because we were born to people who experienced colonialism as adults. We're the ones who are holding onto the fantasy of making colonialism work today.
That's why State House is filling positions with relatives and kids and grandkids of colonial chiefs. The whole lot are living in the 19th century, thinking that the system will work with the right African elite snobs in it.
The system will crush in the UK, it will crush here.
The system will crush in the UK, it will crush here.
In fact, maybe if we want to uproot the system here, we should support those trying to uproot it in the UK. Because our problem is still Britain. Kenya got thoroughly colonized because it's British aristocrats, not the working class, who came to Kenya.
The aristocratic system ensures that you can never succeed, no matter what.
That is why we need to remove the Kenyan aristocracy. Not because they are inefficient. It's because their knees are on our necks, and they don't know how to do better. And neither do their sanitizers.
That is why we need to remove the Kenyan aristocracy. Not because they are inefficient. It's because their knees are on our necks, and they don't know how to do better. And neither do their sanitizers.
