MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. ADDRESS TO KENYA ON 21ST JAN 2008

On this day we mark MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY, and as fate would have it, his addresses almost 40 odd years ago seemed to have beeen directed to Kenyans just as much as to Americans!

<><>To RAILA ODINGA AND THE ODM MASSES….
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not
revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of
futility.

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and
violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge,
aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964.

<><><>TO ALL KENYANS “WA TABAKA MBALI MBALI”…
Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a
conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating
another’s flesh.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait, 1963.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty
important.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, November 13, 1962.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies
hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction
of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values
and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false
and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to
choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road
of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.

Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.

<>TO ALL CLERGY….
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must
be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an
irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

how true is that!!! and we end with this verse from the bible that should save us from the brink of anarchy…..

FINALLY, BRETHREN, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE TRUE, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE HONEST, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE JUST, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE PURE, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT; IF THERE BE ANY VIRTUE, AND IF THERE BE ANY PRAISE, THINK ON THESE THINGS.-PHIL 4:8
<><>

TO HELL AND BACK

I’ve agonised over many things this year,i’ve agonised over the title of this post,agonised over whether to make my way to work knowing that i may not make it back to my humble abode, but what has gnawed away at my soul the most( and one i’m yet to logically comprehend) is how brother can rise against brother.

I was in Eldoret when all hell broke loose, the town that the BBC keeps referring to “the western town of E-L-D-O-R-E-T’. If the hosting of Hell is on a rotational basis then i guess Eldoret won the rights to the post election period. In the movie “the usual suspects” verbal klint(Kevin Spacey) makes mention of one “keyser soze“,the devil, i can assure you that many in Eldoret saw “keyser soze” and not many lived to tell it.

Its said that “dead men tell no tales” and its true, that i’m telling this story is a testament to the fact that some good is still left in the world. I must admit that i was in a relatively calm suburb on the outskirts of town, and its also clear that the name i bear on my ID certainly did me no favours in that part of the country.

<><><><>How bad were things? 
Well i think what can be said is that you cannot legislate for some of the events that took place. I mean from where i was to the town centre was a distance of 10km and yet about 15 roadblocks were erected, the scene that comes to mind is that from the movie City of God with lil ‘Ze running the show with his group of hoodlums!

I’d like to think of myself as an enlightened young man, i voted on issues and not tribe, i was with ODM till when i heard the Majimbo issue, that’s when i changed to PNU, I love this country so much that i was willing to back a party that had the support of the former president. We were not ready for Majimbo and the post-election violence has just served to reinforce my suspicions. So to get hounded out of town coz of my perceived political leanings was not so interesting.

The phrase “Internally displaced person” didnt seem to make much sense till it started hitting close home, i mean i had to FLY out of a town in my own country, where we’ve owned property for eons.

I feel better that i got that off my chest. More to come soon.