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Drums of war, silenced

 

A cry rents the air… anguished, pitiful, piercing… A woman whose breasts have been cut… a breastfeeding mother. The infant already dead, grabbed by the ankle and smashed against the concrete wall. Before they chopped off her breasts, they ravaged her in turns, deaf to her cries of pain, cries unheard to the world. Outside, dead bodies… some charred, some with a head or limb missing, are randomly scattered. In an hour’s time, a feast for the slum dogs.

Baba tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.

(Father walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)

In Geneva, far, far, far away, diplomats gather, a press conference, one not given much attention or airtime on TV. After all, it’s Africans. That’s their nature, always fighting, else, Ebola and AIDS. Anyway, they should stick to their bloody country… to them, Africa is a country… except when Kipchoge wins a marathon, or Salah scores a goal… Here in Europe, these illegal migrants are a problem everywhere. Lazy. Terrorists. Uncultured… and they don’t speak proper English or French for that matter. After they have burned down their country, they want to deflower ours… On social media, the error of political correctness, of polite society, is over.

Baba tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.

(Father walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)

Yesterday, the sun was out. Neighbour A’s child had lunch at Neighbour’s B house, for her mum was late in coming back from their ‘chama’ meeting. Yesterday, these neighbours belonged to tribes, ethnic groupings, but today, no one wants to be tagged as this tribe or the other, for war has visited the land.

Baba tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.

(Father walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)

How did we get here? In the background, the lulling sound of war drums was always present, lending the nation a sense of false security… despotism, ethnic bigotry, corruption, political injustices, suppression of human rights, high cost of living, interference from foreign nations… always about someone’s else interests, except the poor citizens who are a majority… now, the war is come and the young people have to die.

Baba tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.

(Father walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)

The alarm goes off, waking me up with a jolt, the dream too vivid. War, for me, has always been a movie… ‘Hotel Rwanda’, ‘Escape from Sobibor’… but now, the war drums sound in my beloved nation, the country on the edge, the poor citizenry pawns on other concerns’ mind games. I am too hungry to start running should the country erupt into war. So, I get down on my knees, pray for the country’s leadership, that they might embrace this refrain in the decisions they make in the next few hours, days, weeks…

Baba tembea, tembea nami
Usiku wa kiza, tembea nami
Jua lichomozapo, lituapo
Kusini, kaskazini, magharibi, mashariki
Katika misimu yote Baba
Elohi nakusihi, tembea nami.

(Father walk with me
In the dark of night, walk with me
As the sun shines and sets
In the South and North, West to East
In all seasons Father
Elohim I beseech, walk with me)

I pray for my Motherland, Kenya. That the drums of war are silenced. That sanity prevails. That the nation is saved… for I am too hungry… too disillusioned… too tired to run should the country erupt in war. I am ignorant on where to start applying for political asylum in Europe. As someone famous said, ‘War doesn’t determine who is right, but who is left.’

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