All Kenyans matter, must fight for equality and justice

By Angela Ambitho

“I’m a Nobody! Who are you? Are you a Nobody too?

Then there are many of us; who obviously don’t belong to The Somebody all important class!  We may shout and we may cry, it doesn’t matter because we are not up high.  In our faces carrots are dangled, The Somebody’s thought is that Nobodies must be handled. And daren’t we any longer complain or raise a loud voice; for vicious armies of ridicule and intimidation their machinery employs; To The Somebody, Nobodies only exist to ensure their selfish whims we all assist. I’m a Nobody! Who are you? Aren’t you a Nobody too?

My rendition of Emily Dickinson’s poem stems from observation of people’s frustration with the recent happenings. Nothing encapsulates ensuing torpor better than comments from an exasperated Kenyan lady who intimated how irrelevant she felt during a TV interview conducted after Parliament sanctioned Kenya’s withdrawal from the ICC and one hundred MPs confirmed their intentions to travel to The Hague next week to provide moral support. That all this was happening  against the backdrop of consumer shock caused by the recently effected VAT and high inflation that’s made the cost of living untenable led her to wonder whether people like her really matter at all.

Indeed her sentiments resonate with majority of Kenyans who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. A recent nationwide Infotrak Poll revealed that nearly 60 per cent of Kenyans are unhappy with what’s happening. They find the cost of living unmanageable, they are uncomfortable with persistent insecurity and don’t appreciate the growing inequities. The questions on many peoples’ minds are; Where are our priorities? How can leaders afford time and resources for trips when their people are languishing? Does the ordinary person really matter?

One may argue that certain current political actions are akin what Alexis de Tocqueville termed as “soft despotism” which exists in modern democracies and majority parliaments. This stealthy system isn’t often obvious to the populace and gives them the illusion that they’re in control, when in fact they’ve very little influence over anything.” He adds that “ after successively taking  each wilful citizen in its powerful grasp, the rulers or  the “somebodies” ensure that the people’s will is softened, bent, and guided;  The Somebodies “don’t destroy, but prevent existence; they don’t tyrannise, but  compress, enervate, extinguish, and stupefy a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a timid flock whose leadership is the omniscient the shepherd”

Whether or not soft despotism has recently encroached or has always or never been amidst us is really for you to decide. However, as you reflect, ask yourself which of the following groups you belong to. Do you belong to the growing multitude of Kenyans who believe they wilt because they’re nobodies and hence suffer the “why bother syndrome?” Or do you belong to the group of puppets that allows itself to be controlled in exchange for goodies, oblivious that they’re puppeteered because they’re considered to be nobodies? Alternatively, do you constitute the small group who irrespective of the risks involved, dare to question and fight for equality and justice believing that nobody’s a nobody and everybody has a right to be somebody?  Ultimately only those who refuse to be nobodies are ever recognised as somebody!

The writer is the founder and CEO of Infotrak Research and Consulting