Double Standards
By Gerald Kithinji
When one makes viable peace
Between erstwhile colonial whites
And erstwhile colonized blacks
To the advantage of the whites
We urge for a Nobel Peace Prize
Such was the case in South Africa.
‘It is all for the greater good’
The activists will proclaim
The judges proudly pronounce
‘The triumph of good over evil’
‘The milk of human kindness!’
But when one constructs peace
Between blacks and other blacks
To the advantage of both parties
In an erstwhile colonized nation
They send him to The Hague.
He ‘transmutes’ into a tribal leader
With diabolical tribal militias
And a diabolical tribal agenda
For his diabolical tribe or clan
That must be nipped in the bud!
For unlike so-called civilized Europe
And the Middle East and America
Where small tribes are called nations
In Africa small nations are called tribes
Voila! The stigma that grinds Africa!
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Lithuania
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg
Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Macedonia,
Moldova, Montenegro, San Marino
Please bear with me for the list is long
Latvia, Monaco, Slovenia, Abkhazia,
Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldavian Republic
Liechtenstein and other smaller territories
All are independent nations of The World
And each with less than five million people.
Africa strives to keep tens of small ‘nations’
Bundled together within colonial boundaries
Many larger than those cited here-before
Under single cohesive modern Nations
Balancing erstwhile competing agenda
In the case of the Republic of Nigeria
Or the Democratic Republic of Congo
These run into hundreds of small ‘nations’
Or to tens of smaller or bigger ‘nations’
As in the case of Kenya or Mozambique
But who cares that Tanzania has seventy seven
Or that Kenya has forty two distinct peoples
Who cares that Congo has over two hundred?
Yet this ought to be uppermost in the minds
Of those that proclaim themselves pundits
In the fields of human and peoples’ rights
And in the realm of crimes against humanity
For a distinct people crave a distinct destiny
And this runs counter to others’ expectations
And might rekindle simmering opposition
Now if two people manage to weld together
‘Nations’ hitherto hostile one to the other
And to end the animosities and violence
And forge lasting peace endorsed by all
Should the UN or ICC stand on their way?
I hope never to see peacekeepers in Kenya
Never to see Kenyans turn against Kenyans
Is Kenya- by any stretch of imagination-a failed
Or a failing or a rogue or a dysfunctional state?
The answer is a resounding ‘No, sir! Not Kenya!’
