Otuma Ongalo

Good morning new Kenya. Good morning fellow countrymen and women. It’s you, Wanjiku, that I salute most after your resilience that ensured that what many thought was as impossible as cutting the great Mugumo tree with a razor blade came to pass.

I can smell the fragrance of the new aura although the odour of yesterday still hangs in the air. I know that many of you are moving to Canaan with the shackles of Egypt firmly around your legs. The vermin of the wilderness still ravage your weary bodies.

Although your role may not have been sufficiently appreciated yesterday, this column honours you today as the undisputable heroes and heroines of the Second Republic.

I honour you, both the dead and the living. For the dead, the grass may have finally grown on your flattened graves. There are no epitaphs to proclaim your contribution or landmark to keep your name in perpetuity. There are no memorials for you and your names will never feature even as footnotes in this great history. However, this does not erase the fact that the objective history of your valiant contribution shall be written by your blood, sweat and tears.

To the living, you have been veterans of untold sufferings. Batons, teargas, handcuffs, imprisonment, abuse, maiming, and mockery – you have seen, heard and experienced them all.

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Yesterday you may not have moved anywhere near the main dais but watch carefully newspaper and television pictures of some of those who took your place at the high table. Do you see some of those who were on the other side of the army while you were fighting for liberation? Many of them are masters of reinvention and are now basking in your well-deserved glory. Soon, they will initiate another battle and self-style themselves as soldiers in the third and final liberation. These people, my brother and sister, thrive on your adversity. The more you appear needy and vulnerable the more they hover around you as your guardian angels and promise manna from heaven. Your poverty ensures their prosperity, and that is why they would rather give you some fish rather than empower you to be fishermen and women.

My humble brothers and sisters, though we bask in the glory of the morning after the historic promulgation (don’t mind the ugly word) of the Constitution, we should not delude ourselves that we have crossed the bridge of tribulations. Yesterday wasn’t a destination; it was the beginning of a voyage that would take us through a thousand hills and valleys. There will be stopovers of both hope and despair.

In essence, nothing will change overnight despite the strong wind of change blowing across the land. In the slums and far-flung areas, poverty will still ravage communities. Dark backstreet alleys will still remain no-go zones. The floors of Pumwani hospital will still be the beds of mothers whose babies are born, literally, at the altar of desperation.

I am not, in any way, trying to water down the grace of yesterday’s happy moments. It was a moment of mercy and hope but even among the diehard optimists, it is a mockery of hope to entrust wolves with sheep. The wolves of yesteryears still remain wolves although many of them have now come to us in sheepskin. It is easier to change a constitution with a few deletions and insertions – including illegal ones – here and there but to change a mindset you need to wipe out a whole generation. It might take some time but with the grace and mercy of God, we shall overcome.

Like Dr Martin Luther King Jr we should at least derive solace from the fact that with the dawn of the new era, we’ve been to the mountaintop, looked over and seen the Promised Land. We may not reach there together but whatever we do should not be about us, it’s for posterity. Be blessed.

The writer is Senior Editor, Production and Quality, at The Standard