12 September 2013

Move on - or suck it up?

I find the concept of forgiveness difficult. Not, perhaps, over small things, but when it comes to massive wrongdoings. If, say, you watched your family being butchered. If you have been violated, raped, cut. I guess the bottom line for me is that nobody can tell a person who had been so severely wronged, so horrendously hurt, to forgive – if that person finds it in herself or himself, fine, that’s their decision, and hopefully their ability to do so. But no-one else can ask them, or even order them, to forgive. Or to move on.

So on Kenya moving on - I’d believe this if:

We could stop this endless (agonizingly slow, riddled with corruption) talk about compensation and resettlement. What for? Mr Kenyatta was recently at the coast handing out land titles. I’d like to know from him and Mr Ruto why the people who had been chased away from the Rift Valley can’t go back to the land and to their houses they owned. Rule of law, right?

And if there were prosecutions. It’s almost as is the post election violence never happened – even under Kenya’s old constitution, rape, murder, grievous bodily harm, all those were illegal. 1,500 people dead? Many many more raped, beaten, butchered, burnt? Where, in this sleek new Kenya, are the court cases to prosecute the perpetrators? Rule of law, right?

As long as these are rhetorical questions, there is no moving on. There is only sucking it up.

As long as these are rhetorical questions, none of the screeching over the ICC is valid.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah,i get a sigh of relief everytime some correcting wrongs is highlighted:my community(family) were butchered by outlawed militia,who crawled like ghowls in the dead of the 2009 night,a record widows were told to'move on'.
    2)The nolstagia derived by the political deadlock to me still stinks death,and afew IDPs recently got a reprieve,when an accused(@ICC) was ordered(by kenya court) to give back his land,and pay damages-->A precedent to ICC cases,i believe?
    3)Taxpayer funds doled out by new govt in coast land spree:govt money is our money too-- >again it's a surprise to many ,accountability was opaque in the deal.

    ReplyDelete