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The Nairobian

Gen Z remain steadfast in quest to chart out new course for Kenya

Opinion

By Rev Edward Buri | Jul 28, 2024

**Youths carry a coffin along Koinange Street in memory of the lives lost during the Gen-Z demonstrations on July 25, 2024.** [Kanyiri Wahito, Standard]

Young people, Kenya is proud of you. When the gunshots sound, they are drowned out by a grand applause—a standing ovation from all corners of this country. The nation is raging, angry that your good work is being minimised and sometimes demonised. You need not explain yourselves—it is common knowledge that you are doing the Lord’s work. Your persecutors wonder where your God passed on His way to you! So they unleash their power on you, forgetting that He who is in you and for you is greater than their command.

You laboured, earned the bread, and in goodwill brought it home. The father saw the bread and roared, "I'm your father, surrender the bread to me!" He grabbed it and ate it all—alone. Lose not heart—there is another bread they know nothing about. They cannot believe that young people can give them a run for their schemes. They wonder where you sprung up from. “Who brought these up?” they ponder. Your courage is not typical. We all must own up and confess it is divine. Someone tell them—you are passionate patriots, not paid mercenaries! You do not serve Mammon; you serve our beloved Motherland. They look for your paymasters but cannot find any—because you have none! As they dig, they rattle their own! They fight with shadows, ignoring it is they who are shadowy.

They are offended that you are 'leaderless'. They forget that true patriotism looks like that—it is not about who is king but about the kinship. It is less about who wins the reward and more about reward-worthy living. You frustrate them because they have no one to bribe! You are faceless—and so they have no one to arrest. Even when they do, they keep questioning whether you are the one. Keep it that way—they are not familiar with your wit!

If a thief uses a certain route, the day they find it blocked, they panic, not because they lack access but because they feel seen and exposed! Deceivers do not want to be caught in their lies. Your demands make them feel seen. Their use of power is not driven by patriotism but by panic. Your presence makes them uneasy—you are exposing their looting path. They wish you to be struck by blindness so that you see not and say not.

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According to them, you should have faded by now. They wonder how you are still here. God is supposed to be on their side! The powerful want to privatise God so that those they oppress should never have Him. But that is the highest form of pride—and God will not cooperate with a vice. He defies domestication! You keep them awake at night! They wonder how long you will be here. They should know that even when this phase is ended, you will still be here to open the next. Unlike Adam of Eden, they are naked and afraid. They want you gone even if it takes goons. But you are not gooney—you are a gift to the country. You are conscience-awakeners.

Phones are the new stones. They take evidence for the whole world to see Kenya’s ills, including the kills. The youth have subjected us to a forced litmus test. Now we know we lie to ourselves and others when we talk about our 'expanding democratic space'. The reality is an 'expanding myopic space'. Why fight people who are only armed with a two-finger peace sign? Why abduct people whose only arsenal is shouting “do not kill us”! Thanks to the phones, the world is waiting for answers.

Good news had waned—it was all tax news until you came. We had accepted our snare and were slowly sinking into slavery, unable to fight back. We were overpowered by forces that demeaned us, believing they owned us, having bought us with campaign money. We had no right to think or respond; what was ordered, we were to do. “Mpende msipende” it was!

You have revived our freedom frequency. From the generation we labeled lazy and disinterested came forth warriors—today’s freedom fighters. Forgive us—we did not understand your game! Young and old hail your courage; we are tapping into your fearlessness and rediscovering our walking feet.

We should have heeded the instruction that 'cursed is the one who trusts in man'. We put all our eggs in the basket of the man with The Plan. Both egg and basket are now nowhere to be seen—they turned their backs on us. Now we know that 'hustler' was never meant to be a transitory state but a life sentence.

The young of our land, your Motherland holds you close to herself—you are her trophy as you occupy her chest. She feels deeply for you when you take the risks you do. She feels with you when your young blood spills onto the unclean Sakaja streets. But she cheers you on, saying, do not trade your convictions for position or possession. God is the wind beneath your wings—He will repay you and inscribe your work not on the dust as they would like, but on concrete—unerasable. Whenever the story of Kenya’s liberation is told, your story will be told, and your names will be mentioned.

In their corrupt pushback, they will laugh at you, but their laughter will boomerang to them as a haunt. The Holy Spirit will not let them rest but will daily remind them of the staircase of 60 coffins of young men they used to climb to their clout. They will threaten you with their guns, but it is because you keep them restless with your brains. They see you as exposed because their pride blinds them to the halo around you. You are prophets, not kids! Like the servant girl in Naaman’s household, you hold something that the General badly needs, and his life depends on it!

They will invest in showing you that they know better, but that does not negate what you know that they don’t. They will attempt to entice you, coming to you by night to lure you from the marvelous light into their darkness. Remain unimpressed. All who have been wowed by them have fallen into a sorry trap. They want your movement to be relegated to the past, but how can it be? You are the prime stakeholders in the future they will never experience!