By Onyinkwa Onyakundi
There can never be a more elaborate illustration of how scant is the respect that Corona has for our social stratification system than the fact that the Prince, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary of England have all tested positive for it. And yet Britain is the only Country that Donald Trump felt deserving of exception from the ban on flights into the US. So much for ‘low risk destination’.
But you really can’t blame him. Trump and the Americans are confronted this time by a problem whose solutions are well outside their league. They do not ~ and cannot ~ control any of the determining variables any better than a ‘Shit hole’ like Rwanda would if they got their act together. Their ‘America first’ approach to combating this strange adversary is the clearest testimony that they freaking don’t get it! It betrays a poor grasp of the nature of the problem. That it is a global thing in which we all must be in, or all out.
Corona isn’t ‘the great leveller’ just on the global stage. Kenya’s Political and business elite, civil service fat cats, the middle class and such other groups that are accustomed to the easier and lazier route of throwing money and power at every problem or challenge on their path, now find themselves staring at a ‘life and death’ situation that is immune to their words and wads. One that reminds them that when our public education system rots, we must fix it. Not take our kids to ‘Academies’ and reason that “I am sorted. Kila mtu ajipange”.
Equally, Trump is quickly learning that being the mightiest, greatest, strongest, wealthiest, and all that other ‘iest’ that he never ceased to remind us the USA is can be ‘multiplied by zero’ in an instant
