I said the pledge. Two days
a week I said the pledge, and later, in a different time and place,
I taught the pledge. Right hand on my breast, my heart, face lifted
in a pose of perfect patriotism and inside, intensely glowing with the demonstration
of national pride, I said the pledge.
"I pledge my loyalty to the president and nation of Kenya,
my readiness and duty to defend the flag of our republic..."
It still plays loud on the dermis of my consciousness, and as it merges with
the iniquitous images of my country burning, the predominant emotion, that
which burns like bile in my throat, is guilt. I am haunted by the fact that I once recited that pledge from mere obligation; which I, as all children in
Moi-era primary schools were expected to do, knew by heart. It was guaranteed
to collapse into an disconnected mumble when the excitement of raising my hand
to my chest like a soldier wore off, and I wonder now if this was an extended,
though subconscious, expression of the fact that in the eighties and nineties
to be a Kenyan, absolute and incontrovertible though the fact was, was not a matter for proud declaration.
"I pledge my loyalty to the president and the nation of Kenya.
My readiness and duty to defend the flag of our republic. My devotion to the
words of our national anthem. My life and strength in the task of our nation's
building. In the living spirit embodied in our national motto - Harrambee! And
perpetuated in the Nyayo philosophy of peace love and unity."
In the wake of the violence that has raged through our nation, I feel challenged to affirm time and
time again that I am indeed Kenyan and moreover that I have learnt to be proud
of this fact. I am a Kenyan and I am proud to be a Kenyan. I'm not however
proud of the fact that I was always so complaisant, or that I took for granted that
Kenya would always exist, that we would forever be a poor but peaceful people
and that we would always think our identity first and foremost 'Kenyan' rather than focus on our ethnic selves.
In the last five weeks I have had to make reference to my
unfamiliar tribal roots more than I ever have in the last twenty one years. The
muscles in my brow suffer from such conversation as I stumble through my
repertoire of genealogical affiliation: "Luo, I guess...but my mom is
Teso...and I grew up in Thika so that's part Kikuyu right? I have Ugandan
family..." and before know it I'm shamefully divorcing myself from my
country, the source of my life and the place of my continual process of birth.
The Nyayo age pledges were strategic for the Nyayo-age leaders. They
reinforced the idea that the President, our leader of choice was the core of
our nation and the starting place of our ‘nationality'. We were Kenyans
because we had a President who kept us together within geographical and social
boundaries, and to him we needed to be grateful. He should have been for us,
the articulation of the vox populi, a representative, a servant so to
speak. Instead we allowed him the authority to dictate how we defined ourselves
and our relationships within the greater Kenyan society. In 2002 the people
realized that they could exist in the foreground of governance and that they indeed had rights and obligations in this regard. Five years later we were
back to pledging, and these pledges are, more than obligation and school yard
routine, to individuals and political parties. Once again we sought to define
ourselves, our culture and our country, through ‘them' - the big men.
Our politicians have in the last weeks, leaving us in a precarious position
‘behind the eight ball', promoted agendas that have very little to do
with Kenya as a nation and Kenyans as a people, and more to do with private
bank accounts in far away financial havens and the tantalizing notion of power -and the attendant fluttering flag.
And much in the same way that we were once unthinkingly mumbled the words of the loyalty pledge, now we, the Kenyan people have decided in our common wisdom to go with them, down this path because we think, they tell us to think, they have our best interests at heart.
Where are ‘they' now I wonder? I stood on a bridge the other day for three
hours. Not my usual metaphorical bridges but a real life bridge that in it's
loud groans told tales of many different Kenyas. There must have been at least
five hundred people on that bridge. Five hundred Kenyans of all shapes, colours
and sizes, and for once, from all walks of life pressed against each other on a
creaky hundred year old bridge. Behind us, in our city, Nairobi, where as
though from haunting dreams we watched columns of smoke rise and heard the
explosions of what I can only hope were tear gas canisters and water cannons (:)),
our ‘leaders' like animals fighting over territory, flexed the muscles of
‘executive power' against the wiles of the so called guardians of ‘democracy'.
Crowds and contact are an intimate combination. Against my back I could feel
the breathing of the person behind me synchronized with mine as I regulated mine into
consonance with the man in front of me, the one against whom I needed to lean . In those tense
moments no one asks if you voted ODM or PNU, or where you come from or what
language you speak or if your men are ‘cut'. The only question is that of
survival. Will the rioters turn the police against us? Will the police turn the
rioters against us? In that moment I realized that the "living
spirit" referred to in the pledge, as it was recalled to me from all those
years ago was not the "national motto-Harrambee", a motto we must all
admit having turned over and over in our mouths for it is unfamiliar in its
very formation and origin, but us. We are the spirit of Kenya.
Our only pledges should be to each other. Our "life's strength and
service" should be to the ends of national unity.
The pledge of loyalty no longer carries any significance, it tugs at no emotions in me. This is not because we gladly
did away with Nyayo and all the constraint and oppression we might associate
with that time, but simply because in effect there is "no nation of Kenya".
We forgot about it when we established our fundamental beliefs in the farce
that is tribal politics. We had a nominally
free election, in a most ‘African' sense, and then we proceeded to let them
steal not only our votes, our voice and our democracy but our freedom and our
lives: our nation. In all the times I've said the pledge, thought the pledge,
taught it to young Kenyans hoping that they would realize soon enough that for
all its vices Kenya is for us a home and our country and we are what is good
about it; all of us together and not in tribal clusters or political factions,
I never imagined that it might one day be possible to open my eyes every
morning and first of all have to shake off the idea that this morning ‘there
might be no more Kenya'.
I've never felt more Kenyan than I did that day on the bridge. Wet from
getting in the way of water canons and teary eyed but not from crying, I warmed
up from the heat of what seemed to me to be the breath of thousand of Kenyans
breathing in unity. Together we breathe for all the Kenyans who have died, who
we have killed and who will have the misfortune to be born in the present time
where it seems that neither our past together nor our possible future apart is
certain. I feel guilty because now, more than ever we need to recall and recite our
pledges. Yet we sit back and wait to be towed by people who have not our
lives and livelihoods in mind, but their own selfish gains. As Kenyans we must
redefine the centre. We must find a new source of replenishment and forswear drinking from the
toxic well of politics.
I am a Kenyan, born and bred and firmly decided. I
pledge not to let my country burn. I pledge not to let the children sleep out
in the cold, on the ground. I pledge, to myself, and to my fellow Kenyans that
never again will I be trapped on a bridge, drifting in and out of vague
consciousness as I struggle for air knowing full well that if I faint myself
and a hundred other people might be trampled to death. This is my affirmation
that I am devoted to Kenya
and that I am devoted to Kenyans. From this simple averment I know that I can
draw the courage to fight for my country and especially for my people; my fellow
Kenyans.
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This article reminded me of my own childhood. Growing up in a little coastal town that was all encompassing nevertheless. I played with my friends boasting that I would be a doctor when I grew up, and listening in awe as Omondi came up with the first 'I want to be an Ornithologist' I had ever heard.
this article reminded me of school, when I was repeatedly told that I would be the leader of tomorrow.
Akitelek, you are right, I can be a leader, maybe by not being a politician but by choosing not to "sit back and wait to be towed by people who have not our lives and livelihoods in mind, but their own selfish gains. As Kenyans we must redefine the centre. We must find a new source of replenishment and forswear drinking from the toxic well of politics."
Yes.