Thank you.

We meet at a difficult time for many Kenyans, in fact, we meet at the crossroads of our history . We are here, as delegates of an important convention, to decide our future path. We are here because of the acts and omissions of an older generation. A generation that was born before our country was freed from colonial rule, and which has since Independence run the affairs of this country.

We are here because we know that what happened immediately after we cast our votes on December 27th last year - the horror of which has never been seen in our country - was a culmination of decades of decisions made by the pre-Independence generation. We raised arms against each other, murdered innocents, and destroyed lives and property. We lost respect for ourselves fighting a war which, if we are honest, was of no benefit to any of us. We set the precedent for the end of Kenya. Then, we stopped. Some say we stopped because of the National Accord of February 28th 2008 or because we feared for our lives, but we stopped and it is now possible to talk. So, it is important that we talk truthfully because the precedent we set has removed the margin of error when we are faced with the next big decisions.

The backdrop to this Convention is not a happy one. The country is still in a political and governance crisis, but yet the backdrop to this Convention is not a hopeless one. It is a question of perspective whether the glass is half empty or half full - it is within our individual choice how to see the crisis and the times we live in. For me, a crisis such as this is an opportunity to decide - to make fundamental decisions. Decisions about direction. Decisions about priorities. Decisions about who in fact should be the decision makers for our country and all its people.

This convention takes place at the time in which its deliberations are important for your future and for mine - for your family and for mine. What we say and do here can help this country and the younger generations make their own future - at a social, political and even economic level. It can also show the country a new face of the youth - and change perceptions deeply engrained that the youth are hooligans and thoughtless people - a lie spread over decades BY FORMERLY YOUNG PEOPLE GROWN OLD WHO WISH TO STAY AT THE TOP and keep everyone else at the bottom. And at this point we must honestly pose the question: how many old and how many young people are there in Kenya?

Did you know that most Kenyans will live to only about 43 years of age - your and my life expectancy? There are very few people over that age in Kenya. In fact there are only 2 million Kenyans who are older than 55 years of age - This is 6%, only 6% of the population of Kenya. Only 294 thousand people have passed 75 years. Think about my grandfather who died years ago - and he died at 110 - now, you won't live beyond 43 years on average. Anyway, the point I am making is that those who are not young are a small minority in Kenya. You, the youth, are the population of Kenya - you are not the minority you are the majority. There were, in 2006, 21, 248, 000 Kenyans below the age of 35. There were 35 million under 45. This is 88% of the population. You are many, and every year your numbers grow in your favour. Every year, 4 million more young Kenyans become eligible to vote. So, what's your problem?

But this convention will not be successful if we impress only ourselves with our majority. If we are not brutally honest about our current situation. If we choose to pretend that everything is alright, to come here and spin the old clichés and lazy explanations for what's happened to Kenya's promise, we will fail ourselves and millions of Kenyans who in fact depend on us to show them the new direction. You see the paradox in Kenya is that we have tried and tried to do new things and bring meaningful change while accepting that the status quo must not be changed and that some actors are more or less permanent. Thus our Independence generation and their immediate successor generation have dominated Kenyan public life for 45 years of our lives and the way things are going, intend to continue in place ad infinitum. When will enough be enough?

Change or a better life will not come if we surrender to the status quo and accept that, while we want everything to change for the better, there are some Kenyans who cannot leave the field of play or are irreplaceable. I observe this fear in the news media where unless a "Name" is speaking it is not news regardless of the content. Where intelligent patriotic young Kenyans are passed over election after election for rich crooks for lack of a better phrase. When we continue to surrender our democratic options to vote overwhelmingly for a better Kenya. When we continue to choose leaders who are bad for us and do not have our collective interests at heart. When we don't hold each other accountable for the kind of leaders we choose at the ballot.

Why are we here for an extraordinary session of the NYC (National Youth Convention)? Why are you here and what are you here to do. I am here because in my analysis it is in my enlightened self interest and that of my family to participate in this the largest gathering of the youth of Kenya this year and to try and suggest that when it's broke it is time to fix it. If the carpenter can't or won't fix it - get another carpenter or fix it yourself. Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest.

We are at the point where, 45 years after Independence, 80% of our population is poor. We have to do something about this - we must be our brother's keeper - it is in our enlightened self interest. Nobody else can do what needs to be done, apart from the 80% of the population that is you - the youth. Over and over again we are told that power is not given, it is taken - but how many of us have understood what responsibility such a position implies for us, first and foremost as individuals? If you've heard this before why did you not act? What permission are you waiting for? It is time, in fact, it has been time for a long time, for the youth to take charge of this country and better it for themselves and for their posterity.

This is the philosophy that informed many of our past heroes as they ended colonialism and struggled for a better Kenya. At no point did these heroes doubt that their individual effort was necessary and needed for the success of the endeavour of freedom. What I believe happened is that in their own quiet place each of the heroes decided to wake the next morning as a change agent. Unafraid to challenge the status quo and ready to take all the risk of that challenge - in some cases people died for their country, Kenya. But they were not foolhardy. They assessed what needed to be done and what opposed their plan and then sought to increase their strength by bonding with other people who saw things as they did. They created movements.

The Constitution of Kenya describes us as citizens of Kenya - nowhere does it mention ethnicity (or tribe) - except to say that we are not permitted to discriminate against each other on the grounds of ethnicity. It abolished tribe - and created Kenyans. Our beloved Constitution gave us rights to life, liberty, property, freedom of expression, of assembly, of movement and of association. It creates institutions to secure those rights for you and for me. It creates mechanisms for us to populate these institutions with fellow citizens - people like you and I - who are meant to work for us to secure our rights. Unfortunately over the decades we have allowed a reversal of roles where sometimes we are told that our rights are privileges given to us by those who we have sent to the institutions. And yet these institutions exist solely for the purpose of securing the rights given to you and I by Chapter V of the Constitution. These are the rights of the individual - fundamental rights which no Kenyan has in excess over another Kenyan, whatever job they have, in whichever institution. There isn't a single institution created by our Constitution that is not ours to make and unmake. For example we elect - in fact choose - who becomes President, who becomes Member of Parliament, who becomes a member of our local authorities. But remember,there are good and bad choices - and too often we have made bad choices and decisions about who works for us.

One of the decisions we need to make here is to fearlessly assert and jealously defend our Constitutional rights. I believe, and I hope, that this convention will agree with me in its resolutions, that we need to return to the fundamental principles for which our Constitution was created. Our individual rights. We cannot allow our Constitution to continue being used against us. It must work for us. It is not a political tool and cannot be rewritten for us by an older generation. It must be for us. This individual status guaranteed by our constitution is where we must begin. This is where we recognize that every single Kenyan is important and that it is in our self interests to protect that right for our brothers and sisters. And speaking out loudly when theirs are violated, each and every time. It is in our enlightened self interest to do the right thing by others as we would have them do to us.

Let us also accept the hard facts that there is a failure of leadership at the moment. The nation is in debt - we have borrowed over 1 trillion shillings for development and we are underdeveloped. We are paying and repaying for things we don't have and will never get unless we change direction and insist that things change. Our national budget is looted year after year to the tune of billions of shillings and those who take our money suffer no consequences - enjoying impunity. We say nothing when only 15 of every hundred shillings we pay in tax are used for development while the other 85 shillings are spent recklessly, stolen and misused - again with impunity. Is it in our interest to have this situation continue? Is it in your interest to be poor? Is it in your interest to owe billions of shillings for things you didn't get? If we didn't add a single inch of rail track why did we borrow and repay 11 and a half billion shillings for rail investment - where did the money go? Is it your interest to allow children to become parents for their siblings and to have situations where 40% of the pupils in a school are orphaned, and yet the households and press units of the top three politicians in this country run up bills totaling 100 million shillings a month? Is it in your interest to have no infrastructure but to hear promises year after year that when funds become available your dispensary will finally be stocked with medicine, that the road or bridge will be completed shortly even as the Central Government blows another 6 million shillings every day on foreign travel?

It is not in mine - and I bet it is not in yours. So... what do we do about it? We have the opportunity to make decisions - to exercise our enlightened self interest and to change direction. To do what we can to change our current status by speaking to truth to power and saying that we want:

- Less bureaucracy because what little we have is consumed by a bloated government. Do we need anymore than 13 ministries? Did we not have 13 at Independence?

- A National Budget that gives more to the people than it gives to the government. Why should we accept any less than 60% of the budget directed to development of the population while running the government and paying our debts on the other 40%? What does Government exist for if it consumes more than it spends on development?

- Respect for our civil and political liberties which are guaranteed by our Constitution so that if and when - because that is the nature of things - we need to speak against violations and abuses of power we are protected and not oppressed by our State institutions. So that if we are hungry we can say we are hungry.

- Freedom from corrupt debts that have enriched only a few at the expense of all the rest. We want the External Debt Register of this country cleaned of bogus debts such as Anglo Leasing and the Ken Ren Fertilizer Factory.

- Corruption to be punished and severely so. We want our public offices clean and free of tainted public officers. We want an end to impunity and discriminatory application of the law - in which the more money you steal the less likely it is you will face the law. Chicken thieves and looters will be treated alike by a noble law that recognizes that acts against must be punished but in proportion to the offence.

- A country where the young and the old will be equally respected. There will be enough opportunities for the youngest to labour to care for their children and the aged. Public positions will not be for life.

All these things we want - we can get. History shows it can be done. It was done when heroes formed movements such as the one being contemplated by the conveners of this National Convention. The conveners are the successors to a reform tendency that has a long history in Kenya. I believe their motivation is to get the youth to think about how they want their country to be. And I am proud to know these Kenyans.

As we got Independence in December 1963, Kenyans were starting to make a new and better place for themselves. There was not a single Kenyan millionaire then, I have been told by people who would know. And yet within months of the declaration of republic we saw, or rather our parents saw, the first political assassination - of a young man who challenged the older generation for betraying the freedom struggle and corruptly acquiring for themselves at the expense of the rest. The date of the assassination was February 24th 1965 and the young Kenyan man was Pio Gama Pinto. And since that date more young men who dared to challenge have been murdered - it started with single political assassinations and became all out war against the youth with hundreds being killed at a time.

Pinto was murdered for saying such truths as: "If, when we get Independence, we only have Black Lord Delameres instead of White Lord Delameres, we will have achieved very little." In a book given to me by a mentor Pheroze Nowrojee he writes that "Pio did not want our freedom to mean simply transferring unfair land ownership, wealth and privilege from British people to a few prominent Kenyans, while the majority of the people were neglected." Pinto was killed for saying such things. And yet it is the truth and will never stop being the truth until we address it.

To address it we must be brutally honest - the generation that killed Pinto will not do it for us. I do not think it is unfair to state that their way of doing things has brought Kenya to where it is today. The people who fought for our Independence are still landless being kicked from one place to another as their land is farmed by a few. Their children - our age mates - are the internally displaced, in fact, internal refugees in a country their parents risked everything to liberate.

Since we got our Independence there has been a struggle between Kenyans who want to liberate the many and a few powerful people who want things to stay as they are because they benefit from the status quo. Even before Independence there was such competition. Every decade since Independence has seen opinion split about whether we are better off leaving things as they are - or whether or not we should change the system and take a new direction. And Kenya has changed when it needed to.

Unfortunately in Kenya, every victory for the change agents, the reformists, has been compromised by the status quo. The system in place is even now compromising Agenda 4 of the National Accord which, I remind you, is about long term issues no different from those which caused young people in the 20th century to fight and struggle to end colonialism. What I am proposing to you today is that you can seize your moment and you must seize your moment to contribute your bit in this struggle against a new colonialism. It is not an unending struggle.

The problem with Kenya is that we have yet to break the back of the system of status quo and to replace it with a new one in which the first generation is told you have done your bit - it is time to go. We want to take care of all Kenyans equally and without discrimination. We want to leave your corruption and tribalism behind and become Kenyans - so that we can prosper.

We are yet to make this breakaway move, and are in danger of becoming bystanders as our national fate is being sealed, and the world is moving on. Economically, we are stagnating - growth figures only masking the truth of an unequal society and suspect markets rigged against the masses. Where investors today have not been refunded their money after participating in a Government sale. We cannot remain bystanders. Even today, the implementation of the National Accord is spoken of as if the people have nothing to do with it - by people whom the Kriegler Commission says have no legitimate mandate. He said "Nobody will ever be able to say who won or who lost this election." I think Kenyans lost. I have an idea who won. I challenge the youth to use this two day National Convention to kick start the real transition of power to yourselves at all levels. Take charge of your country and demand your seat at all decision making tables. But have an agenda in mind for when you get to the table as you surely will.

This country Kenya is yours and its problems are yours. The future wellbeing of this country can no longer be trusted to the hands of generations past. They cannot have your interests at heart because they are so different from you. They are few we are many - they are old and we believe we are the future - They tend to be rich- we tend to be disadvantaged - all reins of economic power and political power are in their hands and not ours - yet we still seek to ride the same horse - how many people can successfully ride the same horse at the same time?

We must not be bystanders in the future that is being written and the foundations that are being laid for our country. But to succeed in this endeavour we must be brutally honest with ourselves. And speak the truth.

Ukweli hauogopi tisho wala nguvu za majeshi

The truth is not intimidated by the threats and the might of armies

Ukweli itashinda kesho kama leo haitoshi

The truth will win tomorrow, if today is not it's day.
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Published here is the text of Mwalimu Mati's keynote speech at the The National Youth Convention (NYC) in Nairobi this past week.