I imagine a
future, a future where peace reigns
In the breasts
of men
Where killing
the other will be regarded
As an affront
to society, an abominable act.
Somebody hand
me a pen I write this letter
Give me a blank
paper I scribble these thoughts
Give me a
corner I write this letter
Somebody allow
me to weep my agony on this page.
Today, let us
ask ourselves serious questions
Let us today
hang our dirty linen in public
Let us show our
festered wounds
Let us bare our
chests today and show our scars
Today, let us
prostrate ourselves to Truth.
Truth must we
speak, O Souls which love lies,
Clouded by
ethnic bigotry, prejudices and senseless cocoons
We have become
a segregationist society, too tribal
Too flammable,
we are explosives
Our hearts are
burning with hatred
Our consciences
are dead, we now justify murder!
I am Pokot.
I have Turkana
friends.
I talk with
them and hear their dreams and hopes.
A few months
ago, I struck friendship with an Illchamus lady
I have talked
and lived with Marakwet brothers.
I work with a
Samburu.
I share a name
with a Turkana.
One thing that
I have learnt is the bond that unites us all.
The love that
God has for us all.
Another is
hardship.
A pastoralist
boy is mostly born without the benefit of a maternity ward
That boy will
squeeze whatever breast-milk he may from his mother
Whose breasts,
symbolically and figuratively, are shrivelled from scant resources
Most likely, he
may not receive vaccines
He will not lie
in a baby-cot, a hide will suffice
That boy’s bath
is two mouthfuls of water, one to apply soap
The other to
rinse him
Most likely, he
may not go to school
And will be a herdsboy
When the time
comes, he will marry the girl of his dreams
And he will
sire other pastoralists.
So, it gets
confusing to me when life brought forth in such hard conditions
Should be
easily taken away.
It pains me to
see years of nature’s mercy upon the life of a pastoralist
Wasted away,
not by disease and famine, but bullets.
As an
intellectual, I may justify the deaths at Kapedo
Just to fit
into my ethnic dimensions
I may not
understand all the dynamics
But I speak not
for the Pokots nor the Turkanas
I speak for the
mothers of those killed
I speak for the
wives of those killed
For they let
their men set forth
And in the
evening, they waited upon them
They were no more.
They thought
love would last forever
These women
would bury their sons and husbands
And their
hearts will cry for many nights
These women
will ask themselves so many questions
Questions like
why were their sons and husbands killed
The fresh grave
mounds will remain mum
And they will
hear people say,
The Pokots are bad, The Turkanas are
bad,
They killed us first, we have lived here
before
And like swords
jabbed at their hearts
They will
receive this empty chatter
Through their
tears, they may whisper
Life is cruel, my husband’s life, my
son’s life
Is as worthless as cowdung (But not,
because even cowdung
is manure)
And that woman
will weep at her son’s/husband’s grave
Seeking
answers.
But the mound
will now be stiff and parched
Just like the
hearts of men and women
Who killed her
son or husband.
But the most
hurting words she will hear
Will not be
from the illiterate, merciless bandits
But from the
educated bigots.
With the
benefit of their learning, they will spew ethnic vitriol
With the
fluency of overfed honey-badgers
They will shame
learning and walk naked
Crying ‘kill
them!’ ‘Kill them’
I exaggerate.
Though they won’t be naked
They would have
bared their debauched hearts
And that is
still nakedness.
I imagine a
future, a future where peace reigns
In the breasts
of men
Where killing
the other will be regarded
As an affront
to society, an abominable act.
Somebody hand
me a pen I write this letter
Give me a blank
paper I scribble these thoughts
Give me a
corner I write this letter
Somebody allow
me to weep my agony on this page.
This is my
letter to the future
To the society
that a Pokot and a Turkana
Will realize
that cattle rustling delayed
Their leap into
the future.
This is my
letter to the future
That speaks to
an educated Pokot or Turkana
To address the
underlying issues and create solutions
To this
problem, this problem that has held back our development
This is my
letter to the future
To lambast any
political leader who rallies behind community ignorance and braggadocio
To create
mistrust and hatred among us
This is my
letter to the future
To realize
eventually that we have so many big problems
Awaiting us, in
addition to cattle-rustling and border disputes,
This is my
letter to the future
To mothers and
women to take up their rightful role
In bringing
peace
For they have
been the most affected
And the cry of
a woman can move men to action
This is my
letter to the future
To County
Leaders to spur development to its people
And give priority
to peace dialogues
This is my
letter to the future
To everybody to
preach peace
This is my
letter to the future
To change the
nature of our discourse
From the
mundane to evidence-based and solution-oriented.
c) Lorot Salem
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