Two particular incidences made me blog today.
SCENE 1:
Im on the 10th Flr of Teleposta towers,waiting for an elevator to the Ground Flr.Im late for an appointment so im pacing about waiting for the elevator.
The elevator opens and in it are 5 muslim women all covered up save for their eyes..I take one step back.If ur in Kenya considering the recent happenings between Kenya and Somalia,u know what came into my mind.....Al Shabaab!Then considering i was on the 10th Flr..hmmm.how convinient...
I think these women were more scared by my towering 6.8ft frame than i was of them and the thought that they were strapped with explosives ready to scream Allah-u-Akbar then BOOOOOM!!
Long story short...i took a deep breath and took a leap of faith into the elevator,looked at the lift buttons,saw we were headed down not up...phew...!im here writing this...aint i?
SCENE 2.
I get to to my office and at the entrance they are doing routine screening and frisking of everyone who is coming into the building.
Infront of me again is a muslim looking Kenyan like me.The only difference is that he is wearing that long muslim 'dress' and has one of those Afghan looking head gears.
All the other Kenyans before me were frisked within 10 seconds,no eyebrows raised and they proceeded into the building.But when the security officer who happened to be an Administration Police dude came to this muslim brother,he gave him one of those-hmmm-i know-you-are-up-to-no-good-kind of look,then frisked him head to toe and then toe to head,asked him to empty his pockets..all this while we are waiting for about 2 minutes.It was only natural this brother had to complain.And believe me when the protest,they go all out,attracting attention,top of voice denunciations etc.
Then he stormed away mad as hell {..which somehow made him seem guilty..hmm?}
These two incidents just got me thinking about how cliche we as Kenyans have gotten in labelling each and every other Muslim,Somali,Headscarf-Hijab wearing fishy looking man/woman an Al-Shabab!
Lest you forget,the dude{Elgiva Bwire- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F52pz3ozZIY }who detonated the grenade a few weeks ago at OTC Bus Station was a typical Kenyan like you and me.
Personally i have no qualms with any of these people.It just sucks that the Al-Shabaab group has spoilt for the good Somalis and Muslims among us.
Its a good thing for us to be vigilant as Kenyans,but its also sad that we will have a country where citizens are viewing each other with a lot of skepticism.
It such skepticism backed by an already edgy outlawed Mombasa Republican Party that will see us having liberation wars right at our doorstep.Just keep your eyes peeled you are bound to see anti government forces arising especially at the Coast as the seek to cede from the rest of Kenya and form their own state.
The environment as it is is very ripe for such 'politically' viable insurgent activities.
It can get worse as we head to the 2012 election.
But i digress..
Let us as Kenyans pray for our beloved country,it has been a rough couple of months,we are still nursing the wounds of the September fires and now we are dealing with a fulll fledge war with Al-Shabaab insurgents.
As we fight for our country's sovereignty let us also remember our soldiers in the battlefields as they head to Kismayu.They are on a noble cause for our country
The Scribe Rests his Pen...
No comments:
Post a Comment