JKS Makokha responds to Sukuma Kenya's post:
"I know how you are feeling because millions of Kenyans including myself are feeling the same way too. When the lowest ebb hits, always remember the school in Kisumu and how many Kenyans are benefitting from it and feel revitalised.
This crop, this class of politicians and present generations of followers will take Kenya nowhere in the direction of greatness. Our greatest weakness is that we never had a military coup, a political revolution or any significant national scale initiation rite since Independence. Most African countries that experienced these events violently or softly as in Tanzania are in a second phase of their lives.
Kenya is still stuck in in its infantile mindset. Unless such initiation happens, we won't break loose and embark on the road to greatness like Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, etc are doing. We came to such a moment in December and in the pre-election violence but the forces of the infantile stage blocked the transition. We went back to that initial and basic state of national mind that characterises the first decades of any new multiethnic nation across history like ours and most developing countries.
What we need is a military coup and a season of horror. Blood and all. The chaos, and destruction, the trauma and its memory afterwards will sober the generation that will arise from this chaos and create a new Kenyan order.
But an alternative to this exists.
What we need is a civilian political revolution like the Arusha Declaration of 67. It will bring a new political ethics, land codes, social temperament and national(istic) values that break the infantile Kenya from its present stage and usher it to the next stage which will be the age leading to greatness.
Whatever the option we will surely one day take, it will not be from the current leaders and the led. But the cumulative actions (and lack of actions) by both the leaders and the led in Kenya will prepare the path that will lead to the option lying ahead on the road to a great republic of Kenya.
In the democratic US, the breakfrom the national foetal moment happened with the Civil War. In communist Cuba, it happened with the rise of Castro. In Ghana it happened after the last Rawling coup and same is true in Libya. In Tanzania it happened with the Arusha declaration. In Rwanda with the Genocide. In Mozambique, it happened after the civil war and same is the case in Angola. All these countries/nations mentioned are now in the post-infantile stage and three generations from now they will overtake Kenya in most of the key aspects we boast off as better than them.
Other nations undergo the initiation and heal rapidly such as those named above. Others bleed longer and enter into long convalescence such as Somalia, Uganda and South Africa. But after the convalescence awaits the post-infantile road to greatness. Yet, others undergo several initiation moments in order to fully break with their chains of infantility. Most African and developing countries still in various states of chaos fall under this category esp Nigeria.
Kenya is yet to undergo its own initiation.
Enchanted by the basic security and other aspects of infantility, it is a nation in which a huge population of the led and the leaders fear the radical different world of maturity, responsibility and reason lying beyond the initiation moment. And their fear is doubled when they contemplate the price nations have to pay to enter the post-infantile era...the price is the nation has to let go its comfortable infantile stage....violently.
All great leaders of whatever age, nation, and political creed understand this basic tenet of nation-building. Simply put, a nation must break from the foetal impulses and instincts of its afterbirth moment and grow up. Such a "break" like the verb break itself denotes MUST be violent to destroy the strong foetal forces that dont want to let go for they will have to die in the process of a new nation coming into being.
It is in recognition of this significant need to break painfully from the child in us and our nations, that across the world our primitive ancestors simulated the same through the various forms of initiation of the youths, and to underscore the sacred nature of the events, the ancients shrouded them in ritual and reverence.
When one understands this nature of nations and life, you find a new peace. You know that Kenya will not change in our life but the elusive defining moment where Kenya will finally break from its infantile mind and soar into greatness is inevitable. It will happen. When? Not in our lifetime but it will for such is the nature of life.
PS: The only advice I can offer to fellow Kenyans with love for Kenya is twofold: Kenya will not change. Change will come to Kenya at the right time and under the right leader, military or civilian who will be a product of the sum-total of the actions/misactions of the leaders and led since 1895 when Kenya came into being."
JKS Makokha
"I know how you are feeling because millions of Kenyans including myself are feeling the same way too. When the lowest ebb hits, always remember the school in Kisumu and how many Kenyans are benefitting from it and feel revitalised.
This crop, this class of politicians and present generations of followers will take Kenya nowhere in the direction of greatness. Our greatest weakness is that we never had a military coup, a political revolution or any significant national scale initiation rite since Independence. Most African countries that experienced these events violently or softly as in Tanzania are in a second phase of their lives.
Kenya is still stuck in in its infantile mindset. Unless such initiation happens, we won't break loose and embark on the road to greatness like Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, etc are doing. We came to such a moment in December and in the pre-election violence but the forces of the infantile stage blocked the transition. We went back to that initial and basic state of national mind that characterises the first decades of any new multiethnic nation across history like ours and most developing countries.
What we need is a military coup and a season of horror. Blood and all. The chaos, and destruction, the trauma and its memory afterwards will sober the generation that will arise from this chaos and create a new Kenyan order.
But an alternative to this exists.
What we need is a civilian political revolution like the Arusha Declaration of 67. It will bring a new political ethics, land codes, social temperament and national(istic) values that break the infantile Kenya from its present stage and usher it to the next stage which will be the age leading to greatness.
Whatever the option we will surely one day take, it will not be from the current leaders and the led. But the cumulative actions (and lack of actions) by both the leaders and the led in Kenya will prepare the path that will lead to the option lying ahead on the road to a great republic of Kenya.
In the democratic US, the breakfrom the national foetal moment happened with the Civil War. In communist Cuba, it happened with the rise of Castro. In Ghana it happened after the last Rawling coup and same is true in Libya. In Tanzania it happened with the Arusha declaration. In Rwanda with the Genocide. In Mozambique, it happened after the civil war and same is the case in Angola. All these countries/nations mentioned are now in the post-infantile stage and three generations from now they will overtake Kenya in most of the key aspects we boast off as better than them.
Other nations undergo the initiation and heal rapidly such as those named above. Others bleed longer and enter into long convalescence such as Somalia, Uganda and South Africa. But after the convalescence awaits the post-infantile road to greatness. Yet, others undergo several initiation moments in order to fully break with their chains of infantility. Most African and developing countries still in various states of chaos fall under this category esp Nigeria.
Kenya is yet to undergo its own initiation.
Enchanted by the basic security and other aspects of infantility, it is a nation in which a huge population of the led and the leaders fear the radical different world of maturity, responsibility and reason lying beyond the initiation moment. And their fear is doubled when they contemplate the price nations have to pay to enter the post-infantile era...the price is the nation has to let go its comfortable infantile stage....violently.
All great leaders of whatever age, nation, and political creed understand this basic tenet of nation-building. Simply put, a nation must break from the foetal impulses and instincts of its afterbirth moment and grow up. Such a "break" like the verb break itself denotes MUST be violent to destroy the strong foetal forces that dont want to let go for they will have to die in the process of a new nation coming into being.
It is in recognition of this significant need to break painfully from the child in us and our nations, that across the world our primitive ancestors simulated the same through the various forms of initiation of the youths, and to underscore the sacred nature of the events, the ancients shrouded them in ritual and reverence.
When one understands this nature of nations and life, you find a new peace. You know that Kenya will not change in our life but the elusive defining moment where Kenya will finally break from its infantile mind and soar into greatness is inevitable. It will happen. When? Not in our lifetime but it will for such is the nature of life.
PS: The only advice I can offer to fellow Kenyans with love for Kenya is twofold: Kenya will not change. Change will come to Kenya at the right time and under the right leader, military or civilian who will be a product of the sum-total of the actions/misactions of the leaders and led since 1895 when Kenya came into being."
JKS Makokha
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