Are Some Kenyans Deportee Immigrants?

Wyclef Jean’s nostalgic hit ‘Sweetest Girl’ featuring Ekon and Lin Wayn may be a best selling romantic song to the ears and the youth and worth listening to. The hit is about a beautiful and innocent girl in a refugee camp who steals the hearts of the singers and many of their fans. The worst of all comes when the girl is o be deported from the refugee camp within twenty-four (24) hours. Even as other refugees react over her alleged deportation by yelling at a guard across the fence, that does not stop her from being deported.

The ‘Immigration Transition’ seems to be a hurtful experience to those who yearned to share love and intimacy as one leaves never to be seen again.

Only the memories of the ‘sweetest girl’ linger on Lil Wayn’s mind who sees her as the ‘best girl’ who is gone for good never to come back again.

Many in Mt. Kenya and Kuresoi Division know less about the ‘sweetest girl’ and the refugee status and deportation that awaits her though they are in a more or less situation. They have lost loved ones who mattered most in their lives.

The ‘New Chapter’, like is stated in the song can be a painful nostalgic experience that has since changed the sitting arrangement in homes, the color of water, peace and clouds, the meaning of life and most importantly an individual’s citizenship as Kenyan. The animosities leave one as a desperate refugee far away from home but in the country of birth.

Biff! The Soy and Mosop Clans were allotted land in 1968 around Mt. Elgon. Come 1988, the government re-allocated the same land in the Chepyuk phase III land allocation and re-settlement. Now that more than 600 people have been killed and about 150,000 displaced, majority are now refugees in their own country. Many have been hacked to death and scores gunned down.

Bang! A shoot-to-kill order has been issued even as tension is high in Kuresoi Division. The government maintains that law and order has been restored in the troubled area. Yet day in, day out homes and vehicles are torched and more lives lost.

As I dig into the grave of the Molo skirmishes in this article and which have a history of resurrecting from 1992 and every other election year, more bodies are buried as hundreds of ‘tribal skeletons’ are displaced from their graves to pave way and give room for more innocent bodies. If I were Wyclef Jean, I would easily have called the dead, ‘refugee corpses’. The spirits that refuse to die as a result of lost blood due to sectarian interests. It is said that bodies at the district hospital mortuary, though dead, are still bleeding and writhing in utter pain.

Crash! Politicians in campaigns claim that their opponents are distributing hate leaflets. The government ‘takes action’ by not taking action of arresting and prosecuting culprits involved in this electoral illegality. One group of politicians becomes a refugee of the other. Back in the morgue, the late Ms. Alice Onduto’s body cries loud and points a political finger to the gun trotters. She is now a ‘ political refugee’ in the cold. On the other hand, Mr. Charles Warengai who was in the same vehicle as the late Alice, remains a ‘ward refugee’ in a hospital.

Walop! All these ‘immigration transitions’ brought about by our political misadventures of our own making transform us as Kenyan ‘electoral refugees’. Refugees with ‘Immigration Transition Certificates’ (ITC) that politicians award us after every five years as we approach the monied ballot. The deport our minds, nationality and Kenyans, our human rights and votes to their own regions, parties and ballot boxes. With the ingestion of their ballot medicine, we refuse to think and reason as we follow the leftover coins that fall off their elastic pockets. They spit at us and mispronounce our names to nonsense but we wait to praise and call their names hard. They promise us another transition of development and prosperity if we vote them again and again.

Alas! Just to remind you, far away into our homes from politicians, the fathers of the house come exhausted as they represent the same politicians in their homes. They begin by saying, as the mothers to their children listen with hope, that their houses have become smaller, salt less and are now taking dry vegetables as a result of electoral dictatorship that infringes upon the citizen’s even with politics around. In the house as lone refugees, the man of the house admits that political pretense during campaigns may be comforting for parties and society but very harming and dangerous to his wallet, wife’s purse and his children’s little stomachs. This hurts most when politicians revert to their sale-by-date and old pre-election tricks for votes. Baba Boyi who leads the campaigns for the re-election of his brother who aspires to be a civic leader, only knows too well what he would be allocated in the CDF programme come the year 2008. But for now, he is still s ‘civic refugee’ for his brother and family.

What! Joseph has become a ‘Christian refugee’ for his pastor has signed some MOU with his politician. Khalid’s Sheikh has with him a written MOU that has promises for his faith’ Closely, I see Akorinos and those who belong to Israeli, ‘Dini ya Musambwa’ and the faith that one time claimed the coming to an end of the world, carry ‘MOU’ placards from politicians. All these immigrants of their faith are but refugees of the soul who yearn to have a political transition in the name of participatory leadership and belonging where they foolishly have to.

Hey! You mean the youth have become sectarian? As they immigrate from childhood to adulthood with missiles on their hands and foul mouths of electoral intoxications, they show off their ‘wipers’ and sing ‘bado mapambano’ and ‘domo’ epithets to the nation and their motherland.

A transitional show of accreditation from the whims of youthfulness. As their own refugees they believe that politicians target them and their lollypops of milky innocence. Only for the same to think and live on limlim (sex) and varied intoxications including that from gaga (glue) even a some of them indulge in vehicular infractions (flouting traffic rules) into their tiny early graves.

Oh No! In 1967 five psychoanalysts came up with transanalytical therapy book titled ‘ Families of the Slums’. They strongly pointed out that ‘approaching delinquency as a family issue proved more helpful than defining it as a problem of the individual’.

Well said and perceived. But what next for our poor and disadvantaged social families?

This immigration transition to poverty due to social inequalities proper is a cry so loud to be heard. It is metallic, solid, mentalistic, physical and with a shadow, past and history, plus a grey future. Slums are many. Tiny houses, extensive but with few homes. Smaller structural refugees amongst larger ones.

Just like the ‘sweetest girl’ adored at a refugee camp by Wyclef Jean and company, Kenyans have a choice not to remain as ‘national’, ‘political’ or ‘electoral’ deportees but to become citizens with their rights and identities worn like badges or executive ties around their necks.

Personally, I strongly feel for the ‘sweetest girl’ for her deportation due to her immigrant status. A transition that dismantles family units and society into sectarian political parties, social and religious groups and all human settlements.

Kenyans, let us avoid displaying our ‘identity and voters’ cards as tickets for our deportation when we campaign with hatred, tribalism and sectarianism to nothingness. Just as the girl I the song, each one of us is beautiful and nostalgic to live as one. We may be social, economic, ethnic and political refugees in our dear country but we have a chance to refuse to be ‘deportee refugees’ and displace ourselves from our motherland. For primary ‘deportation’ starts with a single step. A step of land clashes, political and campaign violence, tribal hatred and any other form of stigmatization that sends us packing from our homes and country to hospitals, rural homes, early graves and nowhere. Let us not wear colored T-shirts to impress or chant slogans to scare away our opponents. These sectarian ‘tickets’ only take us to destinations unfamiliar to our hearts and souls. This year, my T-shirt’s color would be white, my party ‘Kenya’, my song the ‘national anthem’ and slogan ‘Peace, Love and Unity’ as I move towards the ballot box. Not as a deportee refugee but as a peace loving Kenyan. And proud to be Kenyan in Kenya.

Merry Christmas to you all and may you vote wisely.

Regards,
Mundia Mundia Jnr.