Conversations worth having.

I have a friend, he's an artist, there's this one line in one of his songs that goes, "got my IQ pumped like a latte" Well...It's a love song, so my guess is whoever it was written for must be one very smart woman. That line however intrigues me, how does one person pump another's IQ like a latte. I mean, are lattes pumped? With caffeine maybe? Well. I texted him as I wrote this, according to him, it's like how the coffee in the latte pumps your brain... I don't know...I'll let that one go for now.

This past week, however, I found myself really resonating with that line, I felt like my IQ was being pumped, maybe not like a latte, but you know the fuzzy feeling you have in your head after being in a room with really smart people. Before we go any further, let me be clear on something, I am not talking about the fuzzy feeling you get when something sounds like rocket science so you just switch off. If that's you...I feel you, that is exactly what four years of Chemistry class felt like, but that's not what we are talking about today. I am talking about when your brain has been filled with so much knowledge and wisdom and your mind starts to open up to new ideas and when you finally go to bed, you can't sleep because your brain simply refuses to shut down. If you can't relate...that's okay, but as a person who genuinely cares, I would advise you to start hanging out with a different set of brains. I'm not saying get rid of your squad, friends you can be silly with are very very important. However, once in a while have conversations that pump your IQ, like a latte. See what I did there. I promise not to use the words IQ or latte in the rest of this post. (Okay...maybe once...or twice)

As I was saying before I got mixed in the lattes, this past week I got to hang out with some really smart people, it is not every day I find myself talking about social justice and inequality in society. It wasn't planned, I don't go telling people, "Hey...let's have dinner sometime and talk about social justice" I am more fun than that. It actually started from a rather light note. We were talking about Nairobi, and these people, clearly not Nairobians were astounded by the number of people in Nairobi on a Tuesday, and I'm like, "try Nairobi on a weekend, you'll be perplexed." The conversation then morphs into how one minute you are driving through a posh neighbourhood and the next, you are in a slum. A low concrete wall is all that divides posh Lang'ata and the expansive Kibera slum. Welcome to Nairobi where gated communities sit next to shacks made with scrap metal, sticks and mud.

Welcome to Nairobi where wealth and poverty sit starkly side by side.

But that is not news, is it? We are well aware of these realities. There are rich people, and poor people in this country, just like in every other country in the world, no brainer. But we have a massive problem, inequality in Kenya is out of control. Let me feed you some statistics, less than 0.1% of the population, (about 8300 people) own more wealth than 99.9% of the population(44 million people). This means that one person among the 0.1% of the population owns more wealth than 5,300 people in the rest of the population. I don't think we get it. Take 5300 average Kenyans and tell them to combine their wealth, everything they own, land, houses, livestock and still there is a person in this country who single-handedly owns more than them. (5300<1) It is okay if you are not a number person, all these statistics mean is that things are messed up. I think that we are in big trouble as an economy but even more crucial, as a people. Things haven't always been this way...we haven't always had such inequality. Let's take a trip down memory lane. Kenya fell under British rule in 1888. About 130years ago. So what was it like before colonization? People lived in close-knit communities, the land was communal, everyone was expected to work, and everyone benefited from the produce. It wasn't all perfect, some chiefs and kings owned much more than everyone else, but the gap between the rich and the poor wasn't so mammoth. We still had rich people and poor people but nothing like what we see now. So where did the rain start beating us? Then came the British, settling wherever they thought suitable, amassing large tracks of land, building huge castles and starting large plantations all while the actual owners of the land watched. People were stripped of their livelihoods and forced to work for meagre wages on their own land. I was not there, but I have an idea of what it feels like when something you cherish is taken from you. Of course, there was resistance, but we all know how that went. Finally in 1963, after years of immense struggle, economic oppression and massive loss of life, Kenyans won the fight for freedom...and the colonialists left. Things should have returned to normal, but they didn't, and they haven't to date. We had picked up a thing or two from the colonisers. We had learnt oppressive ways of acquiring wealth, we had learnt that it's a world of every man for himself. We lost our sense of community and everyone started to focus on their own personal gain, even at the expense of others. We had learnt that the ladder of success constituted of casualties. It's what pain and bitterness do to a community, it totally disintegrates the very fabric that holds people together. We took over from where the colonizers left off. We took the very principles that stripped us of our dignity and made them part of our everyday lives. That is how we got here. That is why the richest 10% of Kenyans earn 23 times more than the poorest 10% yet we all sing: na tukae na Uhuru, amani na Uhuru (may we dwell in unity, peace and liberty) When I look around, I don't see any unity, peace or liberty. I see a people who have forgotten who they are. A people who have been cultured to achieve success at all means, hurting whoever dares stand in their way. A people who are so busy focusing on themselves that they forget their collective responsibility to society. There is nothing wrong with wanting to live a good easy life, but we can no longer afford to ignore the fact that our country needs us to step up for courses that are way beyond personal comfort. There is a mother of three somewhere in Huruma earning 7k per month as a domestic worker for some civil servant who earns 100 times what she does. There is a coffee farmer somewhere in Kirinyaga who slaves away on the farm all day only for some big fish in the government to buy her coffee for 25 shillings per kg and sell it to foreign markets at 500 shillings per kg. Even with the processing costs, these prices are ridiculously exploitative. And so the trend continues, widening the gap between the haves and the have nots. Jaguar put it precisely in his song Vigeugeu: maskini atazidi kuwa maskini naye tajiri atajirike zaidi (the poor will keep being poor and the rich will get richer) Unless we are willing to do something. The first step is to realize that we have a problem. Sometimes our lives move so fast that we don't take time to notice everything happening around us. There is much inequality, not just economic inequality but social, political and even gender inequality. Inequality, as history has taught us breeds contempt, bitterness, self-centeredness, violence and unimaginable atrocities. Look at what happened recently in South Africa, you mean to tell me that someone broke into a mall, risking life and limb to steal valuables just because they were upset over Jacob Zuma's arrest. We know better. It had little to do with Zuma's arrest, it was an uprising born of deeper issues of poverty, unemployment and social inequality. The malls and other businesses were simply caught in the crossfire of people's anger. Dear Kenyans, are we really going to wait till people start stealing fridges from malls and carrying them on their heads to realize that there is a problem and take action? Woe unto us if we keep sweeping things under the carpet. Raising such issues can trigger conflict, but conflict when handled correctly could be an instrument for growth. Every major reform that has ever been made started from a point of conflict. So let's stop shying away from having difficult conversations like these ones. Whether it is with mama mboga in the market or with leaders in parliament, we can weave back the social fabric, one conversation at a time.