Kenya has always been angry - we just hide it well

What you need to know:

  • Look at what we do every time there is something to be yelled about.
  • A lot of the time, this type of violence does not start with the one major incident. It begins and grows, culminating into something horrific.
  • Much as you may say children have no cause to burn schools, they have had grievances, for a long, long time.

We’re an angry nation.

The irony is, we have always been angry. It’s just that now, with the advent of the internet, we know things faster.

For example, schools have been burned in Kenya since even before independence. Many claim that it is just this generation, knowing perfectly well that it is something that is practically a part of the fabric of high school.

School unrest and a general dissatisfaction with the system has always been around. A University of Nairobi researcher, John Nkinyangi, found that in 1980, there was a strike at a school in Kenya every day of the year.

You want more evidence that we have always been angry? Look at what we do every time there is something to be yelled about. We gang up on anything and everyone that is trying to attack Kenya, then immediately turn on ourselves.

Koffi Olomide flies in, throws a kick, and ends up sentenced to jail time, just because it happened on our soil. CNN dares to say we are a hotbed of terror and we become a hotbed of hashtags.

More?

The other day, a woman stabbed her husband because he came home past midnight. Her mother-in-law heard them exchanging words and next thing she knew, a knife was drawn. Another scalded her husband’s private parts, apparently for cheating.

This week, a man chopped off both his wife's hands because, he claimed, she was childless, even if medical professionals say that more often than not childlessness has more to do with the man, who many times refuses to be tested.

CLEAN THE HOUSE

On top of that, there had been cause for worry in the marriage. The lady had gone to the local pastor asking for guidance, but he told her to stay in the marriage and pray about it.

This is a very dangerous thing to tell an oppressed person, because it means the abuse will continue and can increase when you go back. Eventually, someone is going to get hurt.

In an abusive marriage, or a marriage someone is not happy in, the aggrieved party should just leave before inflicting mortal or fatal harm on another person, or before grievous harm is inflicted on them.

There is a lot to be said for tolerance and patience in a marriage, but it takes two to tango, to be honest. Repeated and wilful ignorance of another person’s feelings leads to things like the stabbing which has landed a woman in court.

Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone if she had just left her husband? She wouldn’t have been in court now, would she?

And then there’s this unfortunate case of a woman who now no longer has arms, coupled with a huge gash down the middle of her face. Can you imagine that?

You wake up one morning thinking everything is going to be all right. You have plans, maybe to go to the market. Buy a few nyanyas and sukuma for supper. Clean the house, call a friend, chat.

You are seated, cooking and a man comes in, holds you down, wielding a blade and chops your arms off, as you scream, watching and bleeding.

Imagine seeing your hands twitching next to you, having been severed from your body. Imagine never knowing that this was going to happen to you. And now, you know for sure that nothing will ever, or can ever, be the same. You have no hands.

Were the children her husband wanted hiding in her wrists? How would chopping off her hands help barrenness, if that was indeed the case?  What kind of so-called punishment, if indeed he saw it as that, was that for it?

LET LOOSE COMMUNALLY

A lot of the time, this type of violence does not start with one major incident. It begins and grows, culminating into something horrific.

Much as you may say children have no cause to burn schools, they have had grievances, for a long, long time.

As for the violence inflicted in marriages, this is not the only case we know of. Everyone knows someone in their rural homes who keeps beating or abusing their spouses. Everyone has a friend who was thrown out or beaten, or some other such atrocity.

These stories are not new, and they will not stop until we find healthier, more therapeutic ways to express our anger. Perhaps simple options like sports, or ways for people to let loose communally, or communal therapy and courts, perhaps like what Rwanda did when it needed to heal from the genocide.

We need to heal as Kenyans ourselves, because the wounds are many, including from our economy. Studies show that although domestic violence occurs in wealthy homes, its likelihood decreases as economic status improves. Women in affluent homes also have more resources to mitigate or hide the effects of domestic violence.

Perhaps we can start with talking to each other and passing on the right messages. If you are that unhappy, leave.

If you are that unhappy, don’t stab people. Stop telling people in abusive relationships to stay in them. It only makes someone angrier, and leaves someone dead inside, and, actually dead sometimes.

Twitter: @AbigailArunga