Don’t waste valuable time on empty talk

I am stressed. I have been experiencing massive post-election trauma since 2017’s tale of two polls. Bands constrict around my heart every time I think about Kenya’s ruling class, and the endless supply of disdain it reserves for the electorate. My blood runs hot when I think about the energy that was leeched from “ordinary” Kenyans who participated in a voting ritual that was conjured to steal their power, and lock them into a five-year cycle of broken promises.

That adrenaline from 2017’s electoral roller-coaster was just about enough to fry my brain cells. The highs and lows of it were an all-out attack on the senses. It is a miracle that I came out of it with any semblance of normalcy. In typical Kenyan style, I got up, brushed the bull crap off my backside, and forged ahead. I had high hopes that the dust would settle and I would have a minute to collect my thoughts, and manage my emotions. But wapi?

These people who call themselves leaders are still running their mouths talking about 2022 this, and 2022 that. Every time a politician opens their mouth to spew some variant of the noxious 2022 narrative, my brain spasms. Seriously. My shoulders hunch, and my chest constricts as if I am about to have a heart attack. My skull begins to feel like it is closing in on my head, crushing every hope and dream I had for peace and general well-being. It is the truth, you all. I am stressed.

Not caring

It feels like the Government and its people are chipping away at my sanity. Their ultimate intention is to exert a trauma so great that I lose the capacity to think like a voter who has rights. This constant bickering about who should get what is like sustained water torture. Eventually, it might wear us down to the point of not caring.

If I am honest, I have passed that point already. I am learning to be indifferent about Siasa FM. The sound goes in one ear and out the next like a whole lot of white noise. Very easy to zone out. But then they start announcing their corruption shenanigans; a billion lost here, another lost there, and I feel my veins begin to bulge. Acid begins to rise in my chest and I feel a sharp pain between my shoulder blades.

It is as if a legion of demons is stabbing me in the back. The thought that a “cabal of retrogrades” has unfettered access to my taxes is almost enough to make my nose bleed. But then I sit back and appreciate the fact that I can still feel something, anything other than the mind-numbing, soul-stifling feeling of complete and utter hopelessness.

Hot air

That hopelessness is never too far away. It lurks on the fringes of your consciousness, waiting for a trigger, waiting for those micro-aggression that start off relatively painless but eventually cut so deep. Take the annual devolution conference for example. What a colossal waste of time and resources. The amount of hot air that has been generated at that yearly talk shop has probably impacted climate change, while at the same time having exactly zero impact on the improved running of counties. It would make more sense to use the money they are currently spending in Kirinyaga to pay our national debt.

So, yes, I am stressed. My mental health continues to take a battering from this abusive husband we call Kenya Inc. At this point, I cannot even bear to hear him breathe, he is so annoying. But to paraphrase the words of the late Whitney Houston, no matter what he takes from me, he cannot take away my dignity. I refuse to sell my soul to the legion of demons that masquerades as leadership in this country. I will not be drawn into chaos that has been carefully crafted to yield a specific result.

If you are sitting around talking about oh, Ruto needs to do this, oh, Uhuru needs to do that, you are wasting your time. If you are expending energy debating the merits of one political scheme over the other, that energy is surely wasted. Because if you are an “ordinary” Kenyan then you surely do not know the rules of the game, and you will get played every single time.

Here is the thing: In this big-man-eat-small-man country, nothing is safe; not your life, job, health, business, sanity, and certainly not your cash. The one thing you can claim fearlessly is your self-respect.

Do not waste it on empty speculations, and ill-thought out affiliations with the political class. Do yourself a favour and detach. Unless you really just want to be stressed.

Ms Masiga is Peace and Security Editor, The Conversation Africa