I
had just woken up on another bright Sunday. But instead of rejoicing at
the beautiful day I am disgusted by hate provoked by another of Makau
Mutua’s article in his regular column in the Sunday Nation.
I
would have chosen to ignore it like I have done to his previous other
others, but I won’t. So this is a piece of my crappy mind, an angry one
for that matter:
It
defeats me how NMG continues to offer Makau Mutua a weekly platform to
spread hate amongst Kenyans. Or perhaps the question I should ask is
when the hatred toward Kikuyus became legal or so widely acceptable.
Makau
Mutua, who’s been known to be a media operative of Raila’s camp, feeds
Kenyans his opinionated pieces every Sunday which are not only full of
anti-Kikuyuism but also waters seeds of hatred and divisiveness among
Kenyans.
He
has lately been met with a condemnation of his ideas especially in the
social media. He counters this condemnation by inferring that bloggers
and social media commentaries defending the Kenyatta regime are tribal
goons of Kikuyu and Kalenjin who seek the anonymity in social media to
spread their “genocidal” vitriol.
Mutua
needs to know that Kenyans are beginning to loathe his opinionated
writings that seem to favor one side of Kenya’s political divide.
Mutua’s
hypocrisy is manifestly evident when on one side, Makau Mutua
prophesies democracy while on the other he chocks with anger when he is
challenged on the very tenets of that democracy: tolerance of different
opinions.
Perchance,
what Makau Mutua is angry at is not those different opinions and the
condemnation that he continues to meet, but rather that this opposition
is made on a platform he has no control of.
Makau
forms part of a clique of media political operatives and media spin
doctors that have bought mainstream media to propagate extrovert ideas
for political gains.
What
they perpetrate in the mainstream media are relentless attempts to
re-write history by concocting dogmas from contorted readings of history
in favour of their political godfathers.
While
Makau Mutua calls his opposition in the social media apologists of a
regime, he is indeed hiding under the same veils, himself being an
apologist of an unsuccessful regime of Raila Odinga. But instead of
accepting defeat that was so stark and distant, he continues to feed the
country with divisive rhetoric.
He
continues to push for an argument that is neither true nor holds water.
It is true that the Uhuru Kenyatta regime received a wide backing from
Kikuyu and Kalenjin. But so did Raila bid for presidency in Luo Nyanza
and Kamba land!
Is
it fair then for Makau to continue insinuating that the Kenyatta regime
is a tribal government? And even if Kenyatta got his votes from solely
Kikuyu, or Kalenjin for that matter, what makes a Kikuyu less Kenyan,
what makes his vote less of a Kenyan democratic right?
Numbers don’t lie so let me use them.
Uhuru
Kenyatta was declared the winner with 6,173,433 votes; 50.07% of the
votes cast distancing his closest rival Raila Odinga who had 43.31%
amounting to 5,340,546 votes. That victory did not only give Uhuru a
first round but also gave his astute political nemesis a wide margin of
832,887. Out of those 6,173,433 votes that Jubilee earned, 2,779,929
were from non-Kikuyu/Kalenjin constituencies.
But
it’s rather preposterous that in his Op-Ed Makau deceptively avers that
his critics in the social media are “those who believe they won”.
Numbers are clear Uhuru won fair and square.
Uhuru
Kenyatta received more than 25% of the votes cast in 32 of the 47
counties, while his closest rival had more than 25% in only 29 of the 47
counties in Kenya.
Jubilee
coalition has a total of 135 Elected MPs – which increased to 150 after
post election deals with Amani and APK – compared to 117 CORD Members.
Out of the 135 MPs 73 are from non-Kikuyu/Kalenjin constituencies. All
measurable indicators point to a Jubilee win.
The
situation is replicated in the Senate where Jubilee (TNA/URP) has 20
elected Senators as opposed to 16 who got there by a cord ticket
(Wiper/ODM). If there has ever been a government more Kenyan – at least
by elections results – it is Uhuru Kenyatta’s.
So
it is not that Kenyans are not confident that Uhuru Kenyatta won fair
and square, but it is Mutua’s ill intentioned hate mongering and anger
venting that Kenyans cannot fathom. So continue yapping, Kenyans had
their say. Mutua is mad coz he never got his way.
Thanks
to the new constitutions and reforms that have been instituted since
its inauguration in the August of 2010, Kenya did not wield machetes in
March 2013. And a military coup that Mutua had prophesied hasn’t
happened, neither is it imminent.
His
acceptance of the defeat in the last election is half hearted. He,
among others, insists to use the word “narrow” in reference to the
margin that Kenyatta won the last poll. It was not narrow but indeed a
wide margin of over 800,000 Kenyans.
We
saw attempts to fuel violence among Kenyans as we awaited the decision
of the Supreme Court. And after these attempts failed, Mutua and his ilk
embarked on mission to discredit the Kenyatta Presidency and telling
the world unsubstantiated lies of a divided Kenya.
The
articles that Makau Mutua has been writing should be shunned and
stopped. And until then, because Kibunja has failed to tame this
illegality, because NMG continues to encourage him by awarding the
platform, I’ll encourage social media to stop him. And like me we won’t
hide or be anonymous.
So
Prof, my name is Mwangi Wa Wanjiku a Kikuyu by birth and name. I am a
son of a peasant single mother, so I squarely fit in what you arrogantly
call hoi polloi. That
notwithstanding, I am a proud Kenyan who speaks three other Kenyan
native languages which I learnt by association fellow Kenyans of other
walks of life.
I
have never seen myself more Kikuyu than Kenyan. But I am tired of the
burden of being branded, seen as less Kenyan just because I hail from
Central Kenya. What I will not allow is to bear the suffering of the
fruits of your reverse tribalism-laced propaganda.
I
get caught in the traffic jams every morning among Luos, Kambas, Luhyas
and Kalenjins in Nairobi as you enjoy a posh life in New York. I have
been jobless for close to a year, struggled to pay fees and bills – and
being a Kikuyu did not protect me from that – like many other Kenyans as
you enjoy a lucrative professorial job at SUNY.
I
therefore have every right to stop you from making it worse for me when
you incite Kenyans as you hide behind Western protection. I wish at
least you were writing while in Kenya I’d give you a benefit of doubt
that you have firsthand experience.
But
like a coward, you are hiding in a Western capitol while advancing
“foreigner’s interests”- mentoring the next generation of those who will
draft laws to fleece the developing world.
In famous writing “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”,
Walter Rodney asserts: “Any diagnosis of Africa reveals not only low
per capita and high protein deficiencies, but also gentlemen who dance
in Abidjan, Accra and Kinshasa when the music is played in Paris, London
and New York”. He calls them Sell-outs.
I will not be afraid to say that you, Makau, represent the intellectual sell-outs that Walter Rodney infers. You are a puppet (kikaragosi in Swahili) and a traitor doing the bid of your Western masters and your writings a belch of an over-fed stooge.
But
as the rest of Kenyans and “Free Media” tell you to move on I will not
say the same. I’ll tell you to re-channel that anger for better: offer
constructive critic, desist from tribal hatred, be more tolerant to
opposing thought and be happier we at home are enjoying a peace, even
thought not under the leadership that you’d have preferred – that in the
interest of democracy, even if for nothing else.
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