A JAMANENI NATION

Oh and yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill....

                                                     In Memoriam, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sometimes when your emotions cross the line between anger and exasperation, you are bound to make linguistic errors. It is much easier to say jamaneni and not jameni when you reach the last stretch of your rationality. Exasperation makes us all irascible but much more incoherent when using a foreign language. One of our leading novelists, Marjorie Oludhe McGoye, remarks in Coming to Birth that true disaster expresses itself in a native language. There is no way I may come closer to insinuating that jameni is a word in a native language in Kano area of Kisumu County. If the lexicologist who coined the word jamaneni was being interviewed in Luo, she would have said something like ‘yawa’ or ‘jowa’.  Since we are collectively exasperated citizens of a lofty nation, we may just admit that we are a jamaneni people –our leaders inclusive.

At one time I heard a feeling that my favourite poet, Robert Frost, was inspired by Kenyans to write the poem New Hampshire. Frost observed, “The God who created New Hampshire taunted this lofty land with little men”. That observation makes more sense in Kenya than anywhere else in the world. We are more self- loathing than self-loving. How else would the middleclass chide the masses for ‘tunaomba serikali’ plea every time a catastrophe strikes, manmade or natural? Jamaneni, we form the government to help citizens solve collective problems. Is it not common knowledge that government was not invented with the sole purpose  of collecting revenue but in the pursuit of happiness for its citizens it needs wherewithal to bring that into fruition. So ‘tunaomba serikali’ when famine ravages in Turkana, or floods sweeps Budalangi, or terrorist blow up churches, or when Rift Valley fever kills livestock is not wayward –not in a jamaneni country.

In my opinion, in the recent past, Kenya has never had a jamaneni moment like in the month of September. To begin with, somewhere in Tana River delta, two ethnic communities went berserk and slaughtered one another like fowl while the government with all its intelligence and law enforcing machinery was firmly in control of security situation. As is expected in a jamaneni nation, the media got there before law enforcers, who only arrived at the scene after series of retaliatory attacks. Before you could be fed up with that absurdity, two chiefs and assistants (members of provincial administration and Internal Security) who were privy to the killing orgies escape the arms of justice. There was a sigh of relief when our paramilitary personnel, fondly called General Service Unit (GSU) eventually deployed for purposes of disarmament and peace enforcement but there appears a mass grave without corpse and the media is awash with it. Even the jamaneni media was too embarrassed to propagate hearsay.

Far from our people and their homicidal tendencies, the IIEBC declares by-election for three constituencies and a slew of civic wards. The (in)famous jamaneni media will certainly call it ‘mother of all battles’ or ‘mini general elections’ or ‘ 2013 general elections brought closer’. However being a jamaneni myself, I believe them even if I knew that TNA would bag the Kangema as ODM clinches Ndhiwa and still expect that to be ‘mother of all battles’. Well, Ole Sakuda winning Kajiado was half news because he had beaten Saitoti in 2007 bungled elections with the difference being change of political party. Earlier on Augustino Netto who had jointly filed a court case seeking to block PM, DPM, VP, among others from contesting 2013 general elections citing Chapter Six of our sacrosanct constitution on Leadership and Integrity, upon wining ODM nomination ticket, saunters to court to purge the PM’s name from the list. Ah! In a jamaneni nation you must know the difference between professional activism and active politics so much so that when you cross the line just bid farewell to earlier ideals.

Perhaps the only successful activity that was equally divisive and peaceful at the same time (with a lot of active non-violence) was the Mashemeji football derby between K’Ogallo and Ingwe football clubs. On the part of active non-violence, fans from both teams would eat fish and chicken at Kosewe as they wait to march up and down the streets of Nairobi wearing jerseys with epithetical names like ‘come baby come’ or ‘Destroyer 05’ or ‘ Wegomba Nyako Tichna Tek’ ot ‘Brendafilova’ or ‘Okoa Migingo’ or ‘Kut Kut Kuku’. Anyway, if you traced the names you are more likely to end up with the entire national and global events with much ease. Where the two teams are concerned, football and political activism are inseparable and for the first time in two months the match ended without loss of life and limb.

Jamaneni, Kenya being the land of dichotomised nation, there could never be a Ramogi Night without Mugithi equivalent separated by a week or two. For the prestige it deserves Carnivore has to host both (one at a time) even if it has no space for mammoth tribal revellers. Unlike myself, if you belonged to such social network groups like ‘Luo is not a tribe ; it is lifestyle’ or K’Ogallo is not a club; it is a life style’ your are more likely to hear such intonations like ‘the triumph of Ohangla over Mugithi” or better still, ‘Benga is only preserved for Maestros’. These revelling activities are always safe if every jamaneni showed up with a woman and KDF kept Al-Shabaab at bay. 

Until I went to campus I had not known of International Labour organization. Workers too have their say and may have their way depending on the ‘loudness’ of their union leaders. For starters, Cotu secretary general is the ‘loudest’ on the planet. Yes! He is hardly more effective than the Cosatu secretary general even with the massacre of miners who are later charged in a Jo’burg Court with murder. May be South Africa is also a jamaneni nation: not the rainbow hogwash western media used to yap about. How do you charge victims of police brutality with murder after their colleagues have been massacred by reprobate policemen? A ‘louder’ voice in the person of Malema mourned louder than the owner of the corpse and such collective mourning appeased the judge.

 Come to think of it. Somewhere in East Africa, teachers, represented by three unions because they teach in three distinct institutions of learning (  citing three different levels of academic status) downed their chalk in unison barely a month to national examinations and our almighty jamaneni government responded by issuing threats.  The Kenya National Union of Teachers (mostly representing primary school teachers), Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (the name is self explanatory), and the University Academic Staff Union (the word ‘academic’ is the most crucial part of the name just in case you do not know that universities also host non-academic staff) downed their tools and formed ‘solidarity forever’ choir as jamaneni government issued threat after another until their options run dry only to grant the very demands. These people are all teachers in our institutions of learning but, jamaneni, they enjoy different levels of education so they have to form three unions to be sure they are effectively represented in negotiations. They were taken through the government prescription of threats, sacking, negotiation, reinstatement, and payment. The ‘solidarity forever choir’ sang its way back to chalk board at long last.

As if that was not enough, doctors followed suit as KQ retrenched over 1000 staff so as to outsource for cheaper flight attendants from God knows where if not China. Another wave of ‘solidarity for ever’ was on the offing as patients lay helpless in hospitals and the master in charge sacked  doctors only to put newspaper advert in the vacancies column. You must also know that the same minister has serious dislike for Kenyan hospitals and seeks treatment abroad every time prostate cancer comes calling. The truest people in medical practice whose ‘avocation meets vocation’ are the nurses who showed up at work day after day to dispense ‘unprescribed’ medication. Anyway, when doctors strike fewer people die. When nurses strike, all patients die. To some extent, I think jamaneni doctors really want the government to sack them so that they may go and work full time in their private clinics. The downside is that they may not get leeway into government pharmacies and pilfer drugs. Eventually, our jamaneni government will take them through the prescription of threats, sacking, negotiation, reinstatement, and payment. I am certain the ‘solidarity forever’ choir will sing its way to stethoscopes. My heart goes out to KQ retrenchees because they are few, dispensable and replaceable. The national carrier needs to make profit and that’s the rationale. Fewer people who are nationally dispensable do not sing ‘solidarity forever’ in a jamaneni nation. They creep home quietly to cry! It is common wisdom that camping outside the PM’s office makes matters worse in a bipartite government. 

Nationally, our love and hate for one another come in unequal measure and that is why we have enforceable hate speech and not love speech. In the course of September Ali Mwakwere aka Zipapa(Shark) found himself in the docks fending off charges of hate speech against his not so wenyeji (Arabs). Minister Hon. Mwakwere is a tough Zipapa known for bellicose utterances whenever he comes into contact with a microphone. Collectively, we had not imagines profuse apology from none other than the boisterous Zipapa. If the shark apologized to you, would you show up against him in court? Only a mad man does. Upon being acquitted he did not call another press conference to express gratitude for forgiveness and more copious apologies. And before Mwakwere’s  hate-love-speech dust could settle one Ferdinand Waititu was giving another brand of ‘love speech’ against Maasais in Kayole only this time he underestimated Maasai’s stature in government.  One Ole Metito sends the police, ole Tobiko prosecutes him, and Ole Lenaula sits on the bench. What a tragedy for a masai hater who has since been relieved of his ministerial duties. Jamaneni, what did Waititu think?

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The triumphant and gallant entry of valiant KDF soldiers into Kismayu is the only ‘un-jamaneni’ moment of the month. We wish them all the best and no casualty even as some cowards kill our innocent children in Sunday school with hand grenades. This war will never be a religious war; it is war against terror and lawlessness. May God Almighty rest the innocent children’s soul in eternal peace. Amen!