Angry Kenyan: ‘We are dying for nothing’

Posted: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:43 PM
Filed Under: On Assignment

Earlier, on the way into the hotel, I had passed a long line of drivers standing by their black sedans – Mercedes, Chrysler, and SUVs of all kinds, all gleaming clean. Once inside the hotel, I was surrounded by their passengers – laughing, excited Kenyans in dark suits and ties and shiny shoes. I sat and listened and watched.  They stood and hugged each other, laughed uproariously, and slapped and shook hands vigorously. I understood immediately: These are the politicians who won the elections that sparked a week of mayhem and murder.

That’s one image.

I witnessed a very different spectacle earlier in the day at the agricultural fairground, where tea with milk was all a group of refugees had to consume. An angry young man in a black shirt had pulled at my arm and jostled me, not in a hostile way, but in a bitter way, and shouted that his home was burned, his business looted, his neighbor killed, and he had nowhere to go. There were hundreds like him scattered around the benches inside the stadium sitting on the grass outside, staring blankly.

Handshakes and laughter
Back in the hotel lounge, one man seemed to be the center of attention. He laughed the loudest, the longest, and shook the most hands. A kindly looking gentleman of medium build and height, he was wearing gold spectacles and gold cufflinks with a starched white shirt. They all seemed to have starched white shirts. A telephone rang with a jolly jingle, and it was his. I was sitting at the next table, so I could hear him clearly. That was easy as the room instantly hushed with his first words: "Yes sir..."

"Yes sir, this is Professor ..." He was silent for a moment, listening intently, just as he was watched intently by the others in the room. His face stiffened in concentration and then broke into a huge grin and he nodded abruptly to his friend.

"Yes sir, thank you, yes sir, of course Mzee, I am honored to be appointed your minister, Mzee. It is a great honor for my community and for me. There is a large number of people to call, yes sir, thank you sir..." and so on. (Mzee is a term of respect for an older man in East Africa). Then he added, "Can I see you tomorrow?" Pause. "Yes, I will phone you tomorrow. Thank you, sir, thank you, thank you," and he slowly folded the phone.

He stood there, silent, looking at his phone, and sat down slowly, satisfied, expanding almost in his suit. The room stayed hushed. Everyone looked at him. He didn’t look up. He leaned forward and whispered to his friend. "You heard? I asked to see him tomorrow." He said it proudly, as if it was an achievement.

Then he began to dial, talk, dial again, talk again, dial another number and so on and on. The room was silent; in respect, I think.

SLIDESHOW: Kenya in crisis

I wandered off, dejected. It isn't fair. There has been so much violence this week in Kenya, so much looting and burning and raping and hacking people to death and police shooting at rioters, and for what?

One of the local newspaper columnists asked the same question a few days earlier. Roughly: Why are we simpletons fighting when the leaders wear their black suits and are driven in their limousines and their families are not even in the country, and we kill each other? For what? Because two rich men can't decide which one will run the country?

The angry man in the fairground told me: "The leaders, the elephants, they don't care, we must make peace, among ourselves. Back in Kibera [Nairobi's biggest slum], we are dying for nothing. It's all about rich men wanting more of everything. What do they care about us? Why should we fight for them?"

VIDEO: Kenya struggles to confront crisis

I stood up and walked to the raised floor of the lobby seating area. There were dark suits everywhere, all excited, slapping hands, laughing loudly.

One big man had his arm around the shoulders of a white-shirted waiter, who wore a fixed smile, and the big man pointed and shouted: "Meet the new member for...and here is the leader of..." And I heard another group erupt in laughter and hand-slapping and heard the word "Vice-president."

Clearly President Mwai Kibaki, the man who one newspaper kept referring to as "the man who calls himself president," was appointing his cabinet, although many had advised him against this, because it would be seen as a provocation to the opposition, which still disputes the election result. 

I thought of a little girl, about three-years-old, with tears flowing down her face, that we had seen in the stadium of refugees, all slum-dwellers who had almost nothing to begin with, and now had nothing at all. She just looked at the camera and silently cried.

"It's been a rough week in Kenya," I thought. "But it looks as if things are getting back to normal."

Martin Fletcher is an NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief. He is on assignment in Kenya.

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