I want today to confront our
biases, especially because we are so quick to say one should not judge when we
are performing worse judgment. And I will look at two high voltage incidents
that are trending in Kenya these few days; the insulting Chinese and the
murdered student.
Let us start with the Chinese. Do
we really have the whole story? Is that small clip all we are using to dump a
young man so badly?
I do not support his dirty
language. He is clearly guilty. In fact I am sure he is regretting ever going
that direction.
But let me ask a small question. Did
he start insulting us from thin air? Was he deranged to speak such insults
without caring who heard them, and in a foreign land? Was that the way he
always talked about Kenya and Kenyans?
I suspect he was severely
provoked, either there or elsewhere to be angry enough to pour his heart in
such a manner.
As usual let me give an example.
Suppose we are in a house and disagree.
Then I insult you so badly that your fuse blows.
Then, just as you are lifting up
your fist to knock me a neighbor walks in, getting you just as you are knocking
me to the floor, senseless. He then picks me and rushes me to the hospital and
the hospital says that they must have a police report from the kind of injuries
I have sustained. What do you think he will report? Can you ever defend
yourself?
Remember a world cup where Zidane
was told something and head butted the provoker, getting a red card and soiling
his clean playing record in his last game of his career? Everybody knew that he
had been provoked badly, but there was no witness to prove it. What was evident
was the head butt.
It is possible that his Chinese
guy is a victim of such a scheme. But we will never know as we were given the
only evidence the keyboard battalion knows how to use.
How different is he from Kenyans
who condemn whole communities? They are all thieves, they are all sex maniacs,
they kill at no provocation, etc.
Of course the case of the student
is even more blatant in its usage of the facts. And the facts we already have
have muddied the narrative almost to an irreparable extent.
We were made to believe that the
death was of a young and innocent university girl who was killed for wanting to
expose a ‘sponsor’ whose child she carried. Nobody wanted to hear any questions
as to what a small girl was doing in bed with her father (we are Africans,
meaning anybody my father’s age is treated as my father). Nobody wanted to deal
with the sexual sin.
Then it was revealed that she was
living high yet she could not even pay her fees. And of course it was from the
same sponsor.
Then we were told that she not
only was moving with her father, she was also moving with his own son,
something that brought some issues with the sponsor.
A journalist comes into the
picture with a blurred story, leading to some suspecting that he is the one who
betrayed her trust and led to her murder.
Finally we get to know that she
actually had been a married mother of two.
Let us start the story from
behind.
She was a married woman who
deserted her marital bed for the thrills of an expensive life funded by a rich
politician, meaning she was just an expensive harlot, hate me if you will.
The fact that she was not content
with her old man (sponsor) to have a relationship with his son is telling, and I
will not discuss it here.
Could there have been other
sponsors in the story? Could there have been other hot blooded young men in the
mix? Could there have been other men seeking her expensive services, some she
may have rejected, probably insulting them in the process?
How was her husband feeling
seeing or knowing that the wife he married is making a fool of herself with
rich old men? What about their families? What kind of reproach was she bringing
to them? What about the family of the sponsor? How does it feel knowing that a
father and son are sharing the same woman?
The one who killed her is a
murderer. But that will never make her a saint.
She was a home wrecker and harlot
and a shame to the whole community. Defending her because she was killed is
excusing her sin, making you an accomplice.
Do you remember the sins that
will send people to hell in Revelation? The first one is cowardice (fear) and
the last is lying. Reporting or responding to a story in a way that does not
offend is both.
And I am not talking about shaming
anyone, though I have not heard anyone feeling guilty of shaming the Chinese. Why
are we scared of speaking the truth about the dead? Why are we not feeling any
remorse condemning the living, even calling for his arrest even before the
police have done their investigations? Yet this story has enough twists and
turns to make a huge investigative novel. It is possible that many will have to
swallow their words once the truth comes out. It is only that I have never seen
keyboard warriors express remorse.
Let me finish with the Bible as
usual
And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to
king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the
LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD. (2Chonicles 19:2)
You realize that Jehoshaphat was
the king who sent his praise team ahead of the army to war. He therefore had a
real relationship with God. Why is God angry with him?
Do you realize that in this
incident he was helping his brother out of oppression? He was simply helping in
sorting out an outstanding issue a fellow king, who was also an in law, needed
to address.
He was not a warmonger.
How then does helping out a
brother offend God?
You see, when you join yourself
to God, He dictates your whole life, even your friends and enemies. Joining yourself
to someone not as sold out to God therefore offends Him. Remember 2 Corinthians
6: 14? Fighting for people and issues not related to His revelation is
therefore sin. Incidentally that is what most believers have turned out to being
the name of social media justice.
Why did the kidnappers allow the
journalist to escape? And do not feed me the lie that he jumped out of a
speeding saloon car yet he was sandwiched to the tarmac and was able to later outrun
them to a homestead. Either he talked them into letting him go, a thing they
would have done anyway, or they played with his mind so that he thought he had
escaped.
You can’t jump out of a car at 40
kph. Even the hair-raising heroics touts do are below 20 kph, and from a
standing position. And a car with the intention of crime will not be driven
slowly. They let her companion go because he was not part of the equation.
Why did they rape her and leave
the evidence of the same at the scene? Why did they stab the baby in her womb? It
would have died after the death of the mother anyway. Why did they not make her
body disappear, especially as they had a vehicle?
I suspect that woman’s death was
a ritual killing. And it fits with the specifics of the facts already released,
especially the fact that she was moving with a father and son, an abomination
in any community I know of, and also the Bible.
It is possible her killing was a
cultural cleansing of the abomination her conduct had caused. And that is why
very few in that community want to make much noise. Her killers may be viewed
as cleansers of such abomination. And we know that the community is awash with
many cultural affairs. Remember a case about a snake?
Do not be surprised if this case
disappears just like that if what I suspect turns out in the investigations. There
is a very recent case like that which has also gone quiet. You cannot take
culture to the courts.
Believers, please stick to your
lanes. Stick to what God is telling you and doing for you.
There are many cases in the Bible
like Jehoshaphat’s; people who were punished for showing more mercy than God.
King Saul lost his kingdom
because his hands became weak when a king and fat animals needed to be killed. Ahab
was killed because he negotiated with a king God wanted dead.
