Michael Mundia Kamau                                                                                                           P.O. Box 17510 00500                                                                                                      Enterprise Road                                                                                                                  Nairobi Kenya                                                                                                                          17th December 2001

                                   Annus Horribilis

The year draws to an agonising close with next to no enthusiasm for the coming year and the stark realisation that it will get worse. The socio-political and economic ravages of this past year have left us a great deal more disjointed and less focused on any meaningful objectives. In line with tradition at this time of the year, there will be countrywide calls for renewed vigour from political, religious, business and community leaders, directed at an indifferent and impassive society. Almost all Kenyans have lost faith in the system and in ourselves, and the real challenge is to re-gain back our badly brutalised self-esteem and self-worth.

This Nation continues to fall apart and nothing in Kenya seems to make sense anymore. This point was driven home to me at a personal level a few weeks back when I was up late at night and happened to switch on the television as Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), was closing down transmission. KBC traditionally plays the National Anthem when opening and concluding the day's transmission, and it hit me how I no longer even knew the six verses (three Kiswahili, three English), of the National Anthem, and less even, the National Pledgeof Loyalty.

Earlier this year further, a public procession in Mombasa led by government officials was photographed with the Kenyan flag hoisted upside down. In the depiction of Frantz Fanon, a Nation is assessed by such measures.

A third and crucial eye opener in the year 2001 was the controversy surrounding independence hero Kisoi Munyao's inability to foot his bill at Kenyatta National Hospital and his bail out. A curious debate on how the country had forsaken it's heros ensued. The debate however forgot to highlight one crucial detail. Several Kenyans have pin-ups of role models. If these pin-ups are are anything to go by in terms of our standing as a Nation, then we don't have a Nation, and at best, constitute an assembly of persons. The pin-ups largely comprise Bruce Lee, Mike Tyson, Bob Marley, Lucky Dube, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jnr. , Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Muammar Qaddafi, Boyz II Men, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Diana, Princess of Wales, Tupac Shakur, R Kelly, Koffi Olomide, Wenge Musica, Brenda Fasie, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Celine Dion, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Michael Bolton, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, Michael Owen, Alan Shearer, Sir Alex Ferguson and Zinedine Zidane. For good measure, arising out of the just subsided bloodshed in the slums of Kibera, an individual fleeing the clashes was photographed donning a t-shirt of deceased American rapper, Tupac Shakur.

If one really wants to what is happening in Kenya, the places to go are the slums and downtown areas, and not Kenyatta avenue, Digo road, Nkrumah road or Oginga Odinga street. The hardships that continue to be faced in this country are a culmination of years and years of mismanagement and lack of proper planning. Many of us have been born and thrust into a world that teaches and trains us to expend the least and expect the most : no room here for John F. Kennedy's famous call, "ask not what your country can do for you, but rather, what you can do for your country".

John F. Kennedy's timely call must infact form the basis of recovery for this Nation. There was a time several years ago when many of the values we still cling on to dearly made sense. Formal training and education for instance, ensured that one secured a comfortable position in life. Such examples are epitomised by pioneer African elite such as Mbiyu Koinange, Dr. Njoroge Mungai, Dr. Julius Gikonyo Kiano and Eliud Mathu, who attended Columbia University, Stanford University, Berkeley University and Oxford University, respectively. The trend has been maintained but with much less rewarding results. One of the most telling signs in this regard is the fact that university graduates now reside in slums. Despite this, the perception still held is that the highest level of an education in the most prestigious of an institution should be pursued at all costs, as this will ensure occupancy of the plum spots once held by those above. The result however is a society in deep financial crisis, deep debt and deep depression.

In contrast the preeminent category of Kenyan African elite obtained only an enabling education. These include Mzee Jomo Kenyatta himself, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi himself, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Tom Mboya and Ronald Ngala. That the Kenyan society does not reflect on this is tragic. The stuff of what made men like Jomo Kenyatta is the stuff of what should be inspiring us to bring about change in Kenya. Kenyatta's training and exposure enabled him acquire a job as a water meter clerk with the then Municipal council of Nairobi in the 1920s, with a motor cycle to go with the job. An African riding a motor cycle in the Kenya of the 1920s can be equated to an African owning a private jet today. Whichever way one looks at it, Kenyatta was headed for big things. As his agitation for independence grew, so did the efforts to contain him : it is said that the colonial government even tried to entice him by offering him a job as a Provincial Commissioner.

Kenyatta paid a price for his life long stuggle however, part of which was fifteen year European sojurn on the brink of disaster, and a seven year jail term. Mandela like Kenyatta, also had options. As an Attorney at law, Mandela would have gone places either way. The battles fought by Kenyatta and Mandela were waged at a different time with diffrent goals, and prevailed because of their mettle, character, sacrifice, commitment, resilience and perseverance. It is this that badly lacks in our society today, especially amongst the priveleged, educated elite. Kenyatta sacrificed the comfort and prestige of a motor cycle, for the discomfort and indignity of a hard cold prison cell. Try and argue this to Kenyan parliamentarians who this year voted themselves a generous housing and mortgage scheme in the face of abject poverty. Not one dissenting voice was raised against the contentious and ill timed mortgage scheme, yet many opposition parliamentarians make claim of being the forebearers and custodians of the second liberation. Curiously, there was no voice of dissension even from Kenyatta's kin in the August House.

This country is at greater risk of being exterminated by intellectual poverty, than by material poverty. A good number of us are banking on next year's general election for change, but it's plain to see that it has been won long before it has been contested. The election is a foregone conclusion but even then, it should not form our primary focus. This country is deprived of a spirit and of a soul and it is for us to develop this in the coming years.

This country lacks the thrust, drive and intellect that drove men like Kenyatta, and it is for us to re-constitute it. Kenyan pin-ups must don Kenyan households twenty years from now. The epic "Thriller in Manila", between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier, was fought twenty five years ago. Ali won the title but both men won the fight in a bruising battle that expended both their energies. Ali was drained of physical energy, and noting this, his trainer Angelo Dundee, prompted him to dig deep into his reserves. Ali did just this and from the 10th round till the end, Ali fought and thrust ahead through sheer will power, tact and determnination. Ali later said that he had never felt closer to dying. This country is in the 10th round.

Michael Mundia Kamau