I just read Aleya's
piece (Not Yet Kenyan) and I have that uneasy silence, akin to the calm before a tempestuous
storm.
I cannot even pretend
to relate to the victimization of fellow Kenyans that is happening. I feel that
the following words will trivialize an issue that is so complex.
I feel
compelled to stay silent, but if I betray my need to communicate what I feel, I
will feel my resolve break to smithereens.
Someone told me that we
as 'Kenya' are so quick to give citizenship to all and sundry, unlike the rest
of the world that guards that right religiously. Thus everyone who is not
"black" is not Kenyan. Doesn't matter if your great grandparents, and
every ensuing generation was born here.
Not having a sense of
belonging is haunting. Even worse, is constantly being reminded that "you
will never belong because..." They have a problem because you do not fit
the mould with which belonging is freely dished out.
The one thing I have
heard all my life is I don't look, speak or act like a Kikuyu. I have been told
that ad-nauseum in Mombasa where I was born, in Nyeri where I schooled, and
Nairobi where I live now. I have been told that so many times it stopped irking
me.
Try getting an ID in
Mombasa, when you speak "Swahili with the fluency of a native, your birth certificate
says you were born in Mombasa yet you claim to be Kikuyu and your dad is light
skinned and has worked at the port all his life..." I was given a myriad of reasons why I was
"Swahili (of questionable descent)", even told that the ID would
delay. It did.
That sadly, will
IN NO WAY EVER compare to the feeling that one day you can be kicked out of a
country, on a whim. Certain regions yes, that has happened quite a bit. During
the elections ethnic tensions are whipped up, and people "shipped from one
corner of the country to the other" by fear, trepidation and
circumstances. Sometimes forcibly.
I belong to the very
'few' that think a human being is a spirit having a human journey. Almost
everything else is vain, what is most important is being true to what you
consciously accept as your "humannness". Thus home is where your
weary heart finds rest, comfort and protection from the vagaries of this life.
Sadly, not everyone
agrees. There are demarcations, and I am constantly told to "accept"
things as they are, not as they should be.
Will I though? I choose
to "revolt." In my silence, in my speaking, in my thinking, in my
being. Yet even though I consciously choose, I don't know how to. I am not a
rebel, not in the way that I perceive rebels to be. I am just me, it's all I
know to be. I hope everyone else can let people be, and be extended the same
courtesy.
Maybe that will solve
all the problems in the world, sadly there are no guarantees in this life.
These are my sentiments, I am no expert on these matters, nor do I purport to be.
