Why You Must Not Celebrate Kisumu Killings

By Silas  Nyanchwani

The thing is, these things are cyclic. If you have half a brain, you will know that the extra-judicial killings in slums that the government will patently deny are similar to the extra-judicial killings that Michuki once authorised against many Kikuyu youth in the 2000s.

The enemy here is not tribe.

The young protester in Kisumu, or in Kibera is in the street for a certain cause. A simplistic brain will think it is about Raila.

But the young protester in Kibera, or Mathare, is not any different from a youth wasted on alcohol in Central Kenya, or one totally wasted on drugs in the Kenyan Coast, or one so poor in North Eastern about to be radicalised to join a terrorist organization.

Young men manifest their deprivation in various ways. Some waste away in drugs and alcohol. Some join militant groups be they Sungu Sungu or Mungiki. Some join terrorist organization. Some become criminals. Women will join prostitution, or crime in recent times as we have seen in Kayole.

Trapped at the bottom end of the Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, these young people with the quest for survival don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know who their oppressors are.

But if there was a caring government, we will not be having young men ready to die in the streets, or consuming illicit brew to their death, or wasting on drugs.

I know police have to work a tight-rope on providing security and protecting people’s property, but what some of us are opposed is the use of excessive force.

You can celebrate people killing in slums or in Nyanza, claiming that the protests have no basis, and the better for them to be subdued, and we all resume to our daily businesses, but that young man, whose voice you don’t want to listen to will soon be robbing you. He will soon ensure that you have to close business by 5 o’clock because of insecurity.

He will broke roads for you in the future inconveniencing you.

What is presently troubling is our total surrender of reason.

We were silent when Kikuyu youth were killed, assuming that we were ridding the society bad elements.

We were silent when 2007 came and people were killed, some even being lynched in a church.

We have been quiet over the years as so many extra-judicial killings happened, yet these things are cyclic.

Things have been moving from bad, to worse to worst.

I know we all itching to get back to normalcy.
Create