Every Kenyan who survived the Post-Election Violence of 2007 has a story. It will mainly rotate around what caused the violence, to who played what role, how people were killed and who is guilty.
Try a million opinions on land, politics, tribalism and justice. Then add a solution-seeking brigade inspired by everything that fuelled the violence in the first place.
We are biased to whom and less inclined to clearly look at the what. We have perfected the art of worshipping people that we feel have power. Murderers have hate, not power. And yes, you are scared they will kill you next so you are fearfully picking your allegiance.
Adults who probably are parents killed children and helpless women, and then went home to continue raising and protecting their own. Shedding blood makes people short-sighted or totally blind, I guess. They think killing the physical body is triumphant. Then you cannot condemn these acts too loudly because your people committed them or because your people could be targeted.
It is not surprising that the ICC debacle is a rotating centre-stage issue. It is a blood issue; nobody quite heals from bloody issues. They teach you that the only blood you have business with is yours. Anybody else’s binds you and then some more. And it doesn’t matter how fast you run. How deep you hide, blood does not play.
Politics do not make it any better. If you will need to kill people to get power, you know you do not deserve anything. If people are scared of you, you cannot lead them to water or pasture. You will wipe them all out, because their fear will work your killing passion.
So we want justice and are still not ready for truth. Or we are content with dragging our hate to the justice platforms always? The way I see it, the people we have killed over land will kill us over killing them.
So will the ones we killed because we hate their tribe, and the ones we killed because we were defending our tribe. Not forgetting the ones we killed because their tribe killed ours or was going to kill ours.
Our large files at the courts will be accessories, lawyers will speak in tongues but the truth will beat justice any day. Sometimes it breaks me to see the dizzying circles we move in seeking justice.
I see prayer rallies and imagine the people who lit the match are at the rallies. They are not sure if they are praying for the leaders at the spotlight with the ICC or for themselves or for the people who were killed. Then again maybe they are sure and I am the one who doesn’t get it.
Looks like everybody the ICC has is innocent, every witness has recanted their accounts and/or has died. And everybody who killed somebody is going about their business. Activists and conflict experts are meanwhile the ones left with stories which, depending on who pays you, are right or wrong.
The only fact that is not in contest is that people died, everybody saw people die. People were displaced and resettled and some are allegedly still displaced. Again, depending on who pays you!
The only way anybody including the ICC will get Kenyans looking up to them for any help, is by asking the dead who killed them. Kenyans won’t do that just yet.
No surprise if we kill each other again over this issue and go to the ICC yet again. How then does the ICC expect to bring any of us to any book? One of these days we might decide there was no post election violence based on politics. We will say it was all tribal; this will clear all politicians from the dirt.
Hopefully, this will be a prelude to a political alliance and a general election. After a while we will be comfortable until a new challenge presents itself, which will make us remember the killings again and we will use the memories to negotiate another political deal.
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It is interesting watching the ICC handle this Kenyan case. I imagine the prosecution team having a drink out of the office and wondering if Kenyans are aliens. Do you also think they would be relieved if they dropped the case?
Maybe they read our social media analyses and wonder how one country can have so many experts on an issue already on their table.
Meanwhile as the ICC works with water-tight evidence, we are scared of being killed at the next general election. This fear will most likely influence our votes and give us a safe five more years.
Maybe this is the stuff that makes up democracies. Maybe we give politics too much airtime. Maybe after this ICC stint we will be strong enough to go the truth route. The blood we have shed for politics will have to be accounted for and only the truth will get us there.
Meanwhile, I speak peace to all the departed souls, all is not lost.
When the murderers exhaust their strength, the murdered will be heard. We will learn.
Kenya will rise again.
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