The poor and the hungry this country cannot be fooled

Dear Otero; 

On Monday, May 16 2011, Dr Mulera a Ugandan consultant pediatrician and neonatologist living and working in Canada wrote a column in the Daily Monitor, a leading newspaper in Uganda, which left me surprised at how similar our fate is to that of our brothers across the border. Dr. Mulera’s article, ‘Dregs and wretches of this country cannot be silenced’ outlined the attitude of the ruling class in Uganda toward its citizens. This followed a senior Ugandan government official’s description of the demonstrators in the streets of Kampala as ‘the dregs of society, the stone and rock hurlers, the great unwashed of the slums’  

According to Dr. Mulera, when a government views humans as dregs and abandoned wretches, it has no qualms about setting upon these sub-humans with clubs and truncheons and tear gas and bullets as though they were dangerous beasts in the wild. This is what happened when the Ugandan soldiers descended upon some innocent and broke citizens of their country with clubs and ‘kibokos’ in the streets of Kampala. Their only offence; walking to work!

The  events of this year’s ‘Saba Saba’ day anniversary left me thinking if my good friend and mentor, Dr, Mulera, had Kenya too in mind when he posited that ‘these so-called dregs of the land have children for whom they desire better lives and opportunities than they have had’. The scenes of this day were similar to the scenes in Kampala some few months ago. We may not have been called dregs and wretches or the great unwashed of the slums but the zeal with which the police tear gassed demonstrators in the streets of Nairobi left me convinced that it was a matter of time before the government came out in the open to insult us.

The cause of the ‘Saba Saba riots was simple, the increased cost of basic foodstuffs. Our ordinary demonstrators were asking for an ordinary thing; reduce the price of unga to a manageable level. There was nothing wrong with this; they wanted the government to do something about the raising cost of living and the price of unga, just like that of any other foodstuff, having gone up again and again since this government took over.

The police action exposed us as the poor and the hungry people in this country, a people who can be fooled and trampled upon to satisfy the whims of our great politicians. Time and again we have been reduced to scratch the dry earth to feed ourselves and sustain the insatiable whims of our leaders. We have been paying taxes, without exemption, since the birth of this country and have never been heard to complain, or walk with pomp to the offices of the tax payer to show whoever cares to see that we have met out legal obligation.  

But the poor have their voices too, the poor have their power, the starving poor have an inalienable right to demonstrate and overthrow the government! They have brains with which they see and analyze the internal and external factors that have relegated them to nothingness in a land they presume to be theirs as much as it is their rulers’

When I see the unemployed and under-employed citizens taking to the streets in spite of the guaranteed beatings and tear gas by the police, I am as humbled as I am saddened. Humbled because there is no reason why I should not be among the ‘abandoned wretches’ were it not that I had an opportunity to go to school at the right time to prepare myself for gainful employment in the world beyond the slums of Kibera.

Saddened because their cries are directed at men without ears, people who view the majority of citizens as extras in the long running show called ‘The Kenya We Want.’ Those who dare to demand their rights and freedoms, and a place at the dining table, must be treated as intruders who must be kept off the stage with clubs and tear gas even when they have committed no crime.

Our leaders can pretend that they do not feel the pain of the poor, the hungry and great unwashed of the slums. How can they, when they never have to worry about their next meals or their children’s hospital bills. No wonder they cannot see why these people are going on and on about the stratospheric prices of food and fuel. 

They may wish them away. They may beat them, gas them and even kill some of them. But here is an inconvenient truth. The poor, the hungry and abandoned wretches are here, they are poor, they cannot be fooled and they are not going to go away!