By Salim Lone.
FOR KENYA, A DAY OF SHAMELESS INSENSITIVITY LIKE NO OTHER – As I began writing a post about the awful Afraha Rally, I came upon this unspeakably painful story just posted to FB of the horror inflicted upon Diana Okello and the beloved mother Joyce she saw die in front of her.
Diana had pleaded with the hospital to give her desperately-needed oxygen, but the hospital wanted 2,660 shillings more than she had. When she died a few hours later, the family was thrown out of the hospital her body was put in the hall way floor covered with a sheet.
This happened in 2002, but it’s a story that is till played out at hospitals all the time.
We bear the heavy burden of asking forgiveness from all the thousands of victims of post-election violence for having failed them through this wretched celebration, and also through not having convicted a single person for those crimes. But we bear also the burden of seeking forgiveness from hundreds of thousands of others who have perished, been deformed or punished by the greed for power and wealth that dominates our culture, where success is measured only in shillings, which matter infinitely more than human life.
We need to change the entire system in Kenya. In the US, an elderly socialist has managed to make amazing inroads against the culture of power and greed that has inflicted so much suffering on ordinary Americans. The literally revolutionary campaign has been led primarily by the young. And its young Kenyans who should be organizing in the forefront to lead the battle of change here, where the suffering is a million times worse than in the US.
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