Lest we Forget

As I write this the next general elections in Kenya are less than 4 months away. Naturally our print and electronic media are awash with political  news particularly about who's forming alliances with whom. The alliance in essence being just alignment of tribes.

We're getting into the election mood to determine who will be in charge of the national and the new county governments. Slowly by slowly as the day approaches the stakes are being raised. Something that worries me is the violence we are seeing, could it be that the fuse is short? for instance a man got gunned down in Ngong by police men and 6 hours of riots broke out. Similar story in Mombasa when a Sheikh was killed, Kisumu too. Not a good sign in my book

Our last election was disastrous to say the least and immediately after the country descended into chaos before temperatures cooled down. However even before the elections tensions were high and suspicion of manipulation was rife. The stage was set so to speak because how did people organise so fast. Right now there are people who are accused of organising the chaos and in the opinion of the ICC bear the greatest responsibility. Two of them want to run for the presidency and this has become a hot topic of discussion- should they be allowed to run? One of them William Ruto has gone so far as to suggest that he can administer the country from the Hague which to me is a lot of misplaced bravado.

In the midst of all the political noise we could forget what exactly the crimes were and the affected displaced persons who are still living in camps to this very day. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Photographer Boniface Mwangi of the "Vulture Revolution" chronicled the violence through his Camera lens and came up with a photo book- "The price of Tribal Politics". As you look at it contrast all the mayhem with the final photo of the people in whose names all that stuff was done.

here's a link to the PDF copy of the book http://newsroom.pichamtaani.org/free-e-book-the-price-of-tribal-politics/   . WARNING : the pictures are very disturbing

May it not happen again!