Many men love February the 15th. It should be named ‘the Phew! Day’ and commemorated as the day for the survivors and victims of the Valentine’s Day romantic manipulation on mankind.
It should be a day when we remember those men, the survivors and victims of all ethnic persuasions who were fleeced, manipulated, persecuted, or discriminated against due to their inability to render a creative, luxurious and memorable Valentine evening for their loved ones between the 14th day of February. They must not be forgotten.
Valentines’ Day is a systematic, corporate-sponsored event that no man is safe from. The English entrepreneur behind the original card, popularised the Valentine’s gift sharing ritual in the early 19th century, with the belief that love was not meant to be cheapened by mere action, and invented ‘thoughtful gifts’ for the “romantically superior” man.
There is one reason why Valentine’s Day continues to generate more fuss than should be tolerated. The tyranny of numbers.
When everyone is going out of their way to celebrate a day, anti-Valentine’s Day sentiments will just be dismissed as sour grapes. You cannot talk your way out of it without sounding like a single dude who is just tired of bonding with his couch and his free hand.
Valentine’s Day is now an $18 billion economy and working its way into national holiday status. It may have bloody pagan roots but so does just about every foreign holiday that we have adopted and worked into our lives.
Try justifying your reluctance to celebrate an event that started with a beheading to your significant other and let us see how far you get.
Historical injustice
Socially, women have been programmed to respond to a bouquet of red roses with glee. While men are socialised to purchase their way into a girl’s heart.
Recognising this day in all its glory will earn one the ‘considerate’ tag, one of the preferred qualities of a good man in the modern day era.
A teenage male starts his romantic training with a card and a single rose stem. By maturity he should be approaching diamond and platinum level because that is how the big boys roll I hear.
A Nairobi hotel had Sh2.4 million presidential suite and trappings as the perks for the day. I had really hoped that it was a hoax, but turns out there is a 1 per cent that simply refuse to think small. What can we do but accept and move on.
If commercialisation of Valentine’s Day rubs you the wrong way, then spare the rage and shift some of that energy for the real victims and survivors of an actual Valentine’s Day massacre that happened on Kenyan soil.
I am talking about the Wagalla Massacre that occurred between February 10th and 14th in the year 1984.
Figures are still disputed, but on those four days more than 1,500 men and women died after getting brutally tortured and killed by the state.
The Government remains in denial and the victims are yet to find closure to decades of historical injustices caused by ethnic profiling.
The Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission Report is yet to be adopted and serves as the beacon of hope for marginalised all over the country who continue to bear the brunt of their ‘otherness’.
Thirty-one years on, those painful memories are carried on by the survivors who bear real scars of the tragedy.
As we honour those we love on Valentine’s Day, honour the survivors, victims of the several massacres besides Wagalla experienced in Kenya’s bloody history by refusing to accept and move on.
