24 May 2021
Kenyan Youth Must Refuse To Be Manufactured By The System
"This is a generation that is facing total identity crisis, taught more on the House of Commons and House of Lords, than the administration and geography of the land we call home. So when people mention of the injustices against other local communities by the “conservationists”, we have no place to engage, because those dynamics of how we are still owned by former colonial government was conveniently left out in education. I say identity crisis because, for most youth, anything African feels like that foreign thing that we now have to re-learn and adopt, which a lot of times, is also a gentrified version of the original.
The colonizers were interested in a working population that thinks not outside the box. They wanted to tell you what to think, what to say and how to say it, what to feel, what to consume and what to do, with no questions asked. Our public education was therefore designed to be memory based and it punished any divergent views and closed doors for all those who could not comply. (Having the arts would nurture creativity, and understanding your true history would spark rebellion, just based off of one’s critical thinking, — which was bad for business.) If you passed this stage, further subjugation would await you in the employment sector, where you would operate as a cog in a machine; never ask questions, do as you are told, until ‘they’ retire you.
In Kenya, the tactics used by the political elite emulate a colonial government in many aspects, which only proves that the colonizer changed face, but not its behaviors.
The plot to subdue this large youth population has not fully worked out in our case, because, we also grew up in the age of the internet. With some effort to diligently study what was left out in our “set schooling parameters”, the house of cards immediately crumbles and the decolonization journey begins.
The Kenyan youth is awakening to these realities. We refuse to be manufactured by the systems that be and we are taking charge of our fate. This might be a long journey because of the hurdles on our way; under-representation in decision making, unemployment, HELB loans, dilapidated public services, name it. Even so, these do not stand a chance in the way of someone that owns their mental faculties. We see the propaganda in mainstream media as exactly what it is. We understand the ills of a capitalist/consumerist society that seeks to make profits at all costs. Isn’t this why theft and corruption in public offices continues even at the expense of Kenyan lives?
According to the 2019 Census, 75.1% of the Kenyan population are youth (https://citizentv.co.ke/news/out-of-47-6-million-kenyans-35-7-million-are-under-the-age-of-35-323822/#:~:text=Adolescents%20%2810-19%20years%29%20were%2011%2C631%2C929%20%2824.5%20per%20cent%29,million%20population%20is%20under%20the%20age%20of%2035.). As we also exist in a democracy, we have the power to shape the future that awaits us. These politics and poli-tricks remain as charades to distract us from the mega loots that happen every-day in government (https://citizentv.co.ke/news/president-kenyatta-says-over-ksh-2-billion-is-stolen-from-govt-daily-4563455/). So we stay vigilant! Let us be keen to understand all the ways that we can take part in the shaping of our fate.
We refuse to be manufactured by the system!" ---- https://www.kisimapodcast.medium.com
Keep it here, on the Kisima podcast (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEV-5Qsy1xRtoKPEpiDA_BQ).
© Joy Mala (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-beryl-odondi-ba2a7285/), May 2021
