It's baseless round of cynicism
Cynicism is the new game in town. Remember the massive post-election euphoria a year ago? It now looks like that was a long, long time ago. In the space of months it has given way to a crass cynicism that does not bode well for our country.
A particularly petty strain of this attitude was on display when plans were unveiled for this month's 40th Jamhuri celebrations. Why waste Sh100 million on the fete? Why not use the money for something else, like buying condoms to help in the anti-Aids campaign?
Such questions are entirely in order if put forward with sincerity. But plenty of the busybodies who were calling press conferences outlining alternatives of spending the money clearly had other motives in mind.
It is everybody's right to take potshots at a government one considers loathesome. But it is wrong to mix up legitimate commemorations like Independence Day with one's burning resentments of the administration in power.
A pattern is emerging where it is considered hip and correct to gripe that Kenya is moving from bad to worse. Often you will notice that this woolly verdict is delivered for reasons that have no relationship to statistics or empirical evidence.
I don't think celebrating 40 years of Kenya's Independence has anything necessarily to do with cheering the Kibaki administration's one year in power. If there are people who honestly think Kenya has nothing to celebrate for in the four decades it has been independent, then there is no hope for this country.
Foreigners can provide a certain illumination on these matters than some self-obsessed local wasting away in his own unproductive narcissim. Visiting Kampala or Arusha on business or leisure gives the Kenyan an idea of what it means to be treated as somebody with the kind of largesse you will not find in those countries.
Don't even mention Somalia. It's not a functioning country any more. But it is useful to remember that the first destination of choice of most refugees from there was not to Ethiopia or Djibouti, but to Kenya. The natural talent for trade in this hard-working if querulous people could not have blossomed as it has in Kenya.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere once sarcastically commented that you didn't need to travel to London to shop when you could get most of what you needed in Nairobi. In those salad days of wishy-washy socialism, Nyerere obviously meant this as a put-down. But in his negativity he had no idea how right he was in pointing at what made Kenya outlive his system.
It is a pity that the perennial whining that has become a feature of Kenya's own chattering classes masks the natural resourcefulness this country's people are known for. At some point Americans were startled to learn that the single biggest contingent of African students on their soil were no longer from Nigeria but Kenya, never mind that many of these "students" later on opted to stay.
The remarkable thing we learn from this is that even during the bleak Moi years when Kenya's viability got seriously threatened, it was impossible to bottle up the desire of Kenyan youth to seek a better life where they could, even though much of these hopes turned out to be illusory.
Cynicism is a sterile commodity. Like a worm, it just coils itself round and round in one spot, never breaking out to embrace hope or possibility.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta usually gave short shrift to people whose perennial vocation was to moan. Confronted with persistent complaints from Uganda and Tanzania that Kenya was enjoying the cream of the benefits of the East Africa Community, Mzee's riposte was true to character: "That is the barking of hyenas at a lion with a kill."
In the scheme of things, Sh100 million is not a terribly huge amount of money. Certainly not when we are talking of something in the scale of a national commemoration. Six or seven top of the range Mercedes Benzes or Range Rovers would probably use up all this money.
Put another way, it roughly corresponds to the monthly wage bill for MPs. Some of the loudest voices against the Jamhuri expenditure were a clique of MPs. Perhaps they would have been more convincing if they tied their protest to the princely sums they get as salary.
An interesting person to appear at the Jamhuri Day rally at Nyayo Stadium was Charles Njonjo. If there is anybody who all these years has had a dim view of Mr Kibaki, it is him. He could be eating crow now, but he had the sense to distinguish between the importance of Jamhuri Day and his personal attitude towards the current President. That is if this was the message this mercurial survivor was intent on sending
Mr Njonjo made his entry in style, in his quaint three-piece striped suits and a bowler hat to match. And he chose to sit with raia on the hard concrete benches.
Amidst all what is being said about him, Robert Mugabe has managed to throw up a pretty consequential question. What is the use of the Commonwealth, anyway? I suspect Tony Blair does not think much of this body either.
The one person for whom this so-called "club" has a strong attachment is the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth. The institution she occupies raises the same questions of relevance as the Commonwealth does. Yet she sticks to the illusion that there is something special that connects the former British colonies to the English Crown.
So she is the head of this so-called Commonwealth? Please give some of us a break.
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