Wednesday, January 02, 2008

An appeal to fellow Kenyans

Firstly, an appeal to fellow diasporians who are now busy inciting tribal hatred and general war-mongering.
Many of you enjoy comfortable, peaceful and productive lives abroad. Presently, many at home would
be grateful for one these benefits.
Many of you have travelled which is meant to broaden the mind and thus you should know better.
Many of you have access to TVs and the internet and thus don't need to be told about Rwanda. Many of you didn't even bother to go home and vote.
Many of you are grown-ups.
Is it too much to ask you to exerrcise control over your brains? If you don't have anything but tribal bigotry to spew on the internet or thru phone calls, try and pray for the country, send funds to help with the relief effort or do some work...

Many of us love Kenya, have loved ones living there and fully understand that good or bad, its our nation.

Rumours: One thing I noticed when I was home, is that we thrive on rumours and even act on them. A good example, on Saturday at around 930am when tensions were just building, I was just planning to drive to Nai when reports came thru that there were riots in Nai. The rumours were that the whole place was under riots and nobody was to go into Nai. All mathrees that ply the particular route to Nai refused to run. But I had to go because I had an appointment. 1.5hrs later, I was by the Globe and to my pleasure, noticed there was not the usual traffic jam. I proceeded to Hilton then onto Yaya with no problems and with best amount of traffic for the whole time I was in Nai. Let’s avoid rumours as these are being used to feed a volatile situation.

My believe, prayer and hope is that if tomorrow's rally can be cancelled, things will have calmed down by the weekend as peeps realize that there are politicians who live in leafy suburbs and get a very well-fed and irrigated and then there is the common mwananchi who has just torched his local grocery store or supermarket and will probably go hungry unless he can control his idiocy and allow life to go on.

3 comments:

RC said...

This is the kind of posting am advocating for. We need peace and calm before we can talk about anything. Does not matter who is the president at the moment, what matters is that Kenyans are dying innocently and thats what we should address first.

The Black Mamba said...

Maina,
What we are witnessing now has been fomenting for a long time. The killings are a reflection of the state of the common mwananchi.

Now you know why international investors prefer to give Kenya a wide berth. Kenyans who have been buying into the NSE are set to loose their money if this stand-off continues.

Before this, inflation was at double digits. Now the bread basket has been disturbed, tourism is expected to take a hit and bank loan repayments will also be affected. Without political stability, corruption will abound.


There goes our 5% growth. Kibaki will leave Kenya with the same legacy as his predecessor.

Now you know why I don't do the NSE. Not one day did I trust that the GoK respects private property and the rule of law.

This will be a painful lesson for ALL Kenyans.

MainaT said...

Ssem, please. Lives are being lost or at risk. Please re-read my last paragraph.

We invest in the NSE becasue we believe in Kenya and this hasn't changed. And besides, look at US/UK stock markets in last 6 months...