Stripping incident demonstrates some of us are too small-minded

My sympathy goes out to the ladies who have been stripped; ladies it is not your fault that you were stripped. It has nothing to do with what you were wearing or not wearing.

Actually, I think that it had nothing to do with those bullies who stripped you either.
You and those bullies are victims of a society gone so wrong that impunity has become the prescription we live by and the order of the day.

You see my sisters, many have argued that it was the nature of the clothes that you wore that provoked the bullies. Some have said that ladies ought to dress decently to avoid such wrath. I disagree entirely. While I advocate decent dressing, I hold the view that the manner of dress has little to do with what happened.

If you do not agree with me, consider the case of rape and defilement; tell me what the defilement of a child has to do with what they were wearing; babies in nappies have been defiled—surely what part of the nappy caused that to happen.

What about the rape of an 80-year-old frail granny? What does that have to do with provocative dressing?
What about the rapes that happen as one is walking home on a dark path? When someone grabs you and pulls you into the bushes, where exactly does what you are wearing come in?
The rapes that happen when carjacking occurs; where does the manner of dress come in?

What about those people in our Republic who walk around bare breasted as it is their culture to do? How come the men around them do not pretend to violate them on account of their state of dressing.
My humble view is that the dress is a poor excuse for impunity. That the vital issue is that the bully feels that nothing can be done to him and so he strips.

For how can he feel that there is law and order when the police take and demand bribes from complainants to accused persons alike?

Inspector General of Police, did you know the extent of bribery in the police force? Do you know that the traffic road blocks act as ATM points for your police officers? They stop you for speeding and the matter is quickly settled over a quick exchange of Sh2,000.

Did you know that when your officers catch us speaking on phone while driving they demand bribes?
Would you be shocked if I told you that the officers enjoy such impunity that they will happily tell you what you would be fined if you went to court and they use that to negotiate a bribe less than the fine? Of course there are police officers of integrity who do not take bribes and of whom we are hugely proud.

The Senator whom we mourn this week, Hon Otieno Kajwang, used to say and this I will not forget “fish rots from the head.” If the policemen are rotten why won’t the mwananchi be rotten?

The policeman will be rotten because he considers his bosses corrupt; he watches as a one-time MP becomes fabulously wealthy; as persons with short stints in government or in supplying government become wealthy; police officers also witness the thriving of drug cartels in which people become famously wealthy and so they wait at road blocks and other such places to receive their share of the takings. What time, pray, do the police officers have to enforce law and order?

And so the bullies thrive on impunity fully confident that the police are too busy and that even if they are arrested, they could buy their way out.

Eric Wainaina sang that “nchi ya kitu kidogo, ni nchi ya watu wadogo”; To strip women naked makes us nchi ya watu wadogo!