I have seen the script more times than I
care to remember. A spark is lit in an unpretentious manner in a
far-off outpost, just like Mpeketoni.
Two days later,
the small embers generate some heat. 65 dead turn to 100, then 300.
Before long, thousands are dead. Massive rapes, wanton destruction of
property; the whole land is lit.
This is how it begins
on social media; “Kill them, useless people,” “Hang all by the neck
until they die,” “Circumcise them with a blunt knife,” “Washenzi,
kill them all, your tribesmen think they are the best, we’ll finish
them.” The vitriolic battle on Facebook and Twitter is real.
Soon
enough, they generate enough heat, then hell breaks loose. The first
victims are far off. Then the battle drums are beaten in your county,
then in your district and ultimately in your neighbourhood.
Long before the battle reaches your village, you soon realize that you cannot access the nearest town, hakuna magari, hakuna unga
in the shops. You cannot even get a Safaricom scratch card to buy
internet bundles. So you are cut off from the social media. The same one
you used and depended upon to “kill” your presumed enemies.
Before
you know it, you escape death by a whisker, but with a deep cut on your
right shoulder. No dispensary is open anywhere. No hospital either. The
fight for your community’s right to be included in the government turns
into a fight for your own life.
The leaders who egged
you on are nowhere to be seen, or heard. They are watching events unfold
in the safety of Sheraton Hotel by the Nile River, Uganda.
Humanitarian
organizations hurriedly put up refugee camps. Maybe in a Catholic
Church compound. Maybe the UNHCR has erected tents in Busia, Uganda, or
Moyale, Ethiopia.
The UN compound in Nairobi is turned into a huge meeting place where all communities gather. And you end up in one of the camps.
Fighting
for the few tents becomes the order of the day. A few rations reach
your parched throat three days later. The gush on your right shoulder in
gangrenous.
The overworked Medicines Sans Frontiers
doctor is busy with a dying child next to your bed in a stinking, wet,
humid tent hospital. There is wailing outside. You pray for death, but
it takes its sweet time.
MASS, UNMARKED GRAVE
Anderson
Cooper from CNN and his trademark black t-shirt have made it to your
camp. The wide view camera catches you gnashing your teeth with high
fever and bloody bandages over your right shoulder.
Your picture is seen worldwide, thanks to globalised, 24-hour media.
Omondi
meets with Karanja and Omar and Werunga in the camp. They converse in
low tones in Swahili wondering where the rain started beating them. They
cannot remember when they last took a bath. They share a lone cigarette
bootlegged into the camp by Mutiso.
In the meantime,
in the Hilton Hotel, Addis Ababa, the political leaders hammer a truce
negotiated by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn and
the AU. They share out government positions.
But you
cannot celebrate the truce. For you see, three days before it happens,
you, together with 43 others, are buried in a mass unmarked grave 12
miles outside the refugee camp.
None of your relatives
will ever learn of your fate. Your amputated right arm is food for the
vultures and hyenas in the refugee camp dump site.
Yes,
my fellow countrymen and women, war is real. It kills real people; it
leaves real women widowed, real children orphans, real men maimed.
Before you click ‘Send’ on that bigoted, egotistical hate message on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp, think twice.
Come on now, burn Kenya with the “Share” button.
Peter Gaitho is a PhD student in Communication Science at the University of South Africa (UNISA)
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