Last Minute Mind Change

The beauty of life is the fact that once in a while one has to backtrack, change his/her mind. It is no point to be so rigid in life – circumstances keep changing and our previous premise may not be justified in the light of developments.
I remember saying I had better things to do than attend last weeks PM’s meeting with Kenyans in the UK. As fate would have I was not going for the event until someone coerced me into going for the meeting. I think my patriotism was being questioned if I did not attend – so I made up my mind at 5:30 pm that it wouldn’t do no harm making a technical appearance, after all I have never done this before. When I arrived at the hotel there was a sizeable quorum most of them happy to see their buddies – of course I was a stranger there.
Given the PM and his entourage of the coalition government had a busy schedule the meeting started late. It was noticeably obvious that Kenyans have not got over the infamous last elections. This Luo/Kikuyu rivalry has become boring – even the seating arrangement you could tell there were different sections for the two tribes. I wonder if it still like that in Kenya or those of us far from home still carry around our prejudices and biases. We haven’t moved. The climax had to be question time and the lady who clearly is tired of being robbed since independence and the crowd near me from the ‘other’ tribe loudly expressed their disapproval of her insinuations.

I think I would commend the PM for steering from that topic reducing it to ideological differences rather than tribal. The coalition government is in a tough situation as they pursue an economic agenda – I don’t know it will work out but it better. Promoting Kenya as an investment hub cannot go down well with the concentration on politics – full marks for the PM for downplaying the tribal angle (I just don’t for how long…)

So I changed my mind, the PM and his coalition team (probably) have changed theirs too, but looking around the meeting room and later on some chat rooms it is still a sad situation. This is something we need to change our minds about.

Moses Wetangula (MC): There is nothing wrong in identifying with you clan or tribe, but it is very wrong to use that to oppress other (paraphrased).
A milestone – first time I have been in a room full of Kenyans in the UK.

(The picture quality is not all that - but for an impromtu event the Sony Ericsson did not let me down!)