Things that Describe Kenya and Kenyans in the Eyes of Diasporites

The world was recently treated to the spectacle of Kenya’s elected officials putting forth their best impressions of pugilists Robert “Kid” Wangila and Conjestina “Hands of Stone” Achieng. The insecurity experienced by everyday Kenyans was laid bare for all to see when their elected officials “debated” the Security Amendment Bill in the lead up to President Kenyatta’s approval of the controversial legislation.

And like he has repeatedly demonstrated after every national tragedy in keeping with the adage “never let a tragedy go to waste”; the junior half of the digital duo opened his mouth and removed any lingering doubts about his relevance and objectivity in the peculiarity that is Kenya’s political discourse when he asserted that “…what was witnessed in Migori, Homa Bay and Kasarani was exported to the parliament by the opposition wing….”

Mr. Ruto made the obliquely stereotypical comment even as the MP of Gatundu South Mr. Moses Kuria crowed about slapping the MP of Mbita Ms. Millie Odhiambo because she allegedly assaulted Joyce Laboso, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. Fully illustrating why some Kenyans in the diaspora, including this one have taken to identifying themselves as “Africans” instead of “Kenyans”, the overwhelming choice of the good people of Gatundu South went on to give the world a play-by-play of his mano-a-mano with Ms. Odhiambo.

Said Mr. Kuria of his fellow parliamentarian:

“That woman is mad. Millie is mad. She just went there and stripped. Nobody tried to undress her. She undressed herself. She was undressing there and she had very smelly underpants and she was screaming like a mad woman all the time. I think she was on drugs or something.”

“She had very smelly underpants…” said a Kenyan male legislature, of a fellow female legislature he had just bragged about assaulting!

True to the Kenyan mantra of “We Are Pathetic But We Are Not That Pathetic!” one Arsenal2015 equivocated the “Beat-down In Bunge” as follows:

“To me this is not news. In Japanese parliament, Russia, and many other Asian nations and South America, it happens all the time. Just go to YouTube and you will agree with me that Kenyan situation is not unique if people like Khalwale, Wetangula, and the ODM psychos continue to exist.”

Noticeably missing from Arsenal’s list of shame was the admitted assailant with a self-proclaimed discerning olfactory sense and TNA stalwart Mr. Moses Kuria.

And in a recent display of complete and total cognitive dissonance, WanaKenya Halisi went on to give President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy a commanding vote of confidence in utter obliviousness to the duo’s demonstrated inability to arrest the country’s runaway insecurity and corruption. Kenyans were singing the praise of their recycled leaders even as their neighbors to the south pushed the ruling government in Tanzania to the brink of collapse due to corruption scandal implicating some in of its members!

So from my “lofty toilet-cleaning” perch in the Diaspora let me juxtapose some “things” that add to; indeed support the existing (international) narrative that Kenya is a “failed state”:
That the very Kenyans who rank insecurity, terrorism and corruption as the most serious problems affecting their country also chose as their leaders, a duo that has been implicated in multiple scandals across the very issues Kenyans rank “as the most serious” ones affecting them! In the recent IPSOS Poll, WanaKenya Halisi gave Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto favorability ratings of 67 per cent and 63 per cent respectively!

To paraphrase my non-Kenyan friends here in the Diaspora where the 3rd job of the three-job working Diasporite is working in nursing homes because “…no ‘serious’ American is willing to work there”, Kenyans are like victims of domestic violence who continue to profess love for and stay with the very person abusing them!

Contrastingly, since 2009, the popularity of Tanzania’s ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has steadily declined based on the performance of its candidates in local government elections. The sliding popularity of CCM is attributed to Tanzanians being unhappy with the way the government has handled the scandal involving the irregular withdrawal of $183 million from an escrow account; a move reminiscent of recent machination by some in the Office of the President Kenyatta! It thus shouldn’t surprise anyone that the “irregular withdrawal” was made by – you guessed it – a Kenyan – Mr. Harbinder Singh Sethi – who has close ties to senior members of Kenya’s first ruling party KANU!

Indeed there are “things that single out Kenyans in the Diaspora” as listed by the article of the same name appearing on Mwakilishi.com but whose authorship is listed as standardmedia.co.ke. Being the ubiquitous Kenyan in the Diaspora, I can definitely relate to some of the “things” listed in the piece.

One counter to the article, which is part satire and part hit-job, is that there are also “things” that single out Kenya to those in the Diaspora. I would ask those sharp journalistic minds at the nation’s dailies to spend more ink following up on scandals and events that have come to define Kenya and Kenyans “here in San Francisco” and elsewhere in the diaspora than they do demonizing a segment of the Kenyan population whose remittances practically keeps the country afloat!

By Washington Osiro | marloow@yahoo.com