Politicians, religious tricksters, teachers and other organic intellectuals of Empire – as the revered Marxist thinker Antonio Gamsci might have called them – often tell us that we live in a beautiful country that God gave us. Of course that is a silly lie meant to evoke false patriotism. The truth is that God did not create any nation. Kenya and all other nations are creations of historical adventure.
British colonialists created Kenya for their own imperialist purposes. To claim that God created Kenya is to preach that God hated us so much that he sent the British to colonise us for 68 years – they still continue indirect colonialism today or what is known as neo-colonialism.
We have never recovered from colonialism. It is not only that we are still saddled with mzungu settlers who grabbed thousands of acres leaving our people landless, or that we inherited their elitist and predatory political system that serves the interests of a few as the rest of us starve. Far worse, lots of our people still think mzungus are God’s special gift especially to the Black world.
A few years after independence, a minister in Jomo Kenyatta’s Cabinet stood up in Parliament to thank the British for granting Kenya self-rule. The rest of the clowns seated in the so-called august House must have applauded him. That asinine speech was similar to dancing on the graves of the thousands of gallant women, men and children who paid the ultimate price for freedom.
Sadly, mzungu worship persists today.
Last Tuesday, the Daily Nation carried a story about a family controversy surrounding the death of star footballer Dennis Oliech’s mother. Divided family members placed two contradictory obituary notices in the paper.
“Mary Auma Oliech, the family matriarch, died on July 20 and it appears that the divisions between her sons and daughters may eclipse her achievements that include raising three reputable footballers and running a world-famous restaurant”, the paper reported.
Who knew Mama Oliech’s eatery was world-famous? Who accorded the restaurant that status? The Daily Nation? What is the world exactly? The answer came a few paragraphs down:
“Mrs Oliech, who was a widow by the time of her death, rose from poverty to establish a restaurant that in 2016 made headlines when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, one of the 10 richest people globally, ate ugali and fish there during his visit to Kenya.”
Apparently, Zuckerberg praised Mama Oliech’s restaurant in this statement quoted in the Nation story: “I enjoyed ugali and a whole fried tilapia for the first time and I enjoyed them both.”
That is what made Mama Oliech’s eatery “world-famous,” right? Of course, right. If a rich mzungu peed outside your house, it certainly would become world-famous – and the Nation would report the news.
President Uhuru Kenyatta will visit the US on August 26 at the invitation of Donald Trump, State House announced last week. In a news report on August 8, the People Daily said, “Political observers are likely to interpret this as Uhuru’s growing influence within the continent and across the globe.”
Again, craving mzungu validation!
Thankfully, here at the Observer we are not the sorts of observers the People Daily has in mind. So, we are not likely to interpret President Kenyatta’s invitation to the White House in the manner suggested by the newspaper.
Of course the People Daily would not write a similar comment – itself the journalistic sin of editorialising – if the President visited, say, Haiti, the first Black nation and the only one created through a slave revolution in 1804.
When a Black president is honoured with an invitation to the capitals of Empire, your newspaper jubilates that his influence is growing globally. Yawn!
When will the media be decolonised?
