By Cirū Ngigi
Can we unpack that godforsaken song by Sauti Sol and Nyashinski that places the blame of our society on this generation? As if we put ourselves in debt, sold our country to the Chinese on Twitter and imposed austerity via the World Bank on ourselves. Activism requires that you at least get the facts right. Kenyatta and Tom Mboya were trash economists (sawa basi, trash for the economy; now that I’m on and on about facts) responsible for a lot of our tribal wars. So no, they’re not the ones to ask us what happened to the “perfectly running country they handed us” alluded to in that song. They created this monster. They didn’t leave us a habitable nation and Kenyatta’s son, the child he raised, isn’t our fault!
And Moi’s silencing of intellectual institutions after the coup is the reason we have such an unhealthy obsession with religious institutions in this country. So no, it’s not this generation. Twitter is about the only place many people of our generation have left to air their grievances. Because our fathers and grandfathers fucked and stole everything while beating us for even raising our heads to see what they were doing. Scratch that, they’re still doing it.
Nope! No thanks. I’m not taking responsibility for their crimes pris! My generation isn’t the reason for these screw ups!
Alafu the infantilisation! Jeso! Making us look like all we do is Twitter and big booty selfies captioned with Bible verses! Bishes pris! We’re the generation working the longest hours while earning the least ever in the history of Kenya! All we have is our bodies, our online spaces and a ”passed down through generations so questioning it is disrespect to your parents” fear of the god of capitalism! Can’t you see that? Just shut up if you don’t know what you’re saying!
Tujiangalie is a horrible gaslighting! (A very American government thing by the way. This can’t be a coincidence either. The CIA couldn’t be more obvious at this point!) And right before austerity fully kicks in two weeks from now. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing by prepping our minds like this. Language matters!
Moi introduced us to “generational curses”. Let’s talk about them. Why? Because you’ll hear those words A LOT in the coming years in your churches. SAPs are about to finish the middle class proper. And you’ll be told it’s because your grandparents took oaths and sacrificed as MauMau. Na the visited waganga to get rich. And oathed to spite their neighbours and that’s why the demons of lack are following you. You’ll hear how a society that practices witchcraft is cursed by God and can therefore never grow rich. They’ll ignore that witchcraft is ALWAYS a result of economic oppression + gagging in a society. Yes, even our forefathers only visited wachawi when they were out of sociopolitical options. Cleansing ceremonies will be your entire life.
You’re about to get a lot holier, Mungiki will face crackdowns they don’t even know can possibly exist and your lives will generally be one big missed high five. Your mothers will be back to repentance and prayer meetings and Sandererere! Ribamaseke! Kantariba! Your fathers won’t know what to do with new found poverty and displaced egos so they will drink and be violent and your mothers will pray and pray and pray. Because that’s what austerity does. Economic oppression is a full 360° havoc on society!
Buuuuuut, because this was about generational curses… The real ones, Kenyatta, Moi, Mboya, Colonialism, Silence as a culture of maintain honour, Murder of institutions, Brutality, An Education system built on elitist ideals, A religion that requires you to turn off your minds and to stop intellectualizing everything – those are the real generational curses! The things we’re passing down from one generation to the next.
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