Kuweni Serious! – Someone Lied To You, Mwananchi

Someone Lied To You, Mwananchi

03rd November 2009, in Rants (13 Comments)

Someone Lied To You, Mwananchi

by Njoki (re-posted with her kind [and baffled] permission)

There’s probably no phrase I hate hearing like I do “the youth”. Sentences starting with “The youth of these days are…” !!! There’s the implication, by the usually patronizing tone making such statements, that youth is inexperienced and ignorant and foolish and shallow and reckless.

Youth, I feel (and I may be biased as one of the so-called “youth”) is for dreams and hopes and colour and fights and decisions and experience and living.
Anyhow, before I digress further into a non-point, there’s a way everyone who’s even set foot in a university is supposed to feel deeply privileged. Not everyone gets that chance, we’re told, to keep studying after secondary school. So we should consider ourselves lucky – blessed, even – and work as hard as we can.

Then we go to public universities and find that people have to carry chairs into lecture halls because there’s not enough space, and the administration conveniently forgot to expand facilities for the multitudes whose fees they’re accepting. Toilets are cleaned once a week (if at all) – and that’s if there’s water. There’s no tissue paper or soap available, even as we should be leading the country as examples of good hygiene, and it’s somehow acceptable to have effing flies all over effing sanitary towel disposal units. Sub-standard condoms run out in rusty government dispensers and are replaced months later…as we “fight” HIV.

Most lecturers last gave a damn centuries before we were even born, don’t usually bother to mark assignments, and if they do, they use arbitrary marking schemes that differ from person to person, they ridicule any questions asked in their sessions, their presentations are the very same ones they’ve been making since the university got its charter and all that if they bother to turn up for class at all. Libraries are full to bursting of books so outdated that even fires would be ashamed to be lit using the paper from them. Administrative processes are vague and unhelpful; you arrive in a room and (after your story has been forced out of you by 5 people who are just looking to pass time and don’t care either way) are told that the one person who can sign your document went on leave and their phone is off and no one knows how to reach them.

School. If you’re being taught anything, it’s that one can get paid for mediocrity and shoddiness.

Some of the brave just up and leave university and chart a different path. Those that decide to stay and fight may finish, but leave very jaded by a system that has taken more from them than it has given, carrying the remains of their dreams in coffins of harsh reality. People had grand dreams. To be lawyers that argue out points and take part in constitution-making for justice and equality. Then you find out you have to wear clothes like morgue attendants to go to court, wear smelly horsehair wigs (EFFING WHY??!!), spend hours going through lengthy documents deceptively labelled “briefs”, then have someone guilty go scot-free because he knew who to pay.

You wanted to be a doctor. Save lives, serve humanity, and all that jazz. You find that supplies have to be locked away – because, apparently, if they’re not, the employees or patients will steal them – and that it takes over an hour to get one blood sample because the guy who was last seen with the key to the supply closet has mysteriously disappeared to a place in the hospital which seems to have no network. You then have to prescribe essential drugs which the patient’s family has to go and buy from chemists in town because the hospital has run out, and the tender process has gotten stuck between committee approvals. You wanted to be an engineer. Your school books are so ludicrously out of date, people use them as doorstops and foot-rests. People are teaching you math that you’ll NEVER use in everyday life.

And that’s the kind of life form 4’s countrywide are urged to aspire to. ??!!

That’s an education system that is doing nothing to remain relevant to a people who are exposed to world-class standards and have to compete in an international job market. Then there’s the right-wing parents and guardians and teachers, pouring vitriol on those who have unorthodox dreams, usually of the artistic and sporting variety. Going home to say that you want to be like Didier Drogba or Eric Wainaina! Be serious, they say. Be a lawyer. A doctor. Go do computers. French.

Kids aren’t told to think about what will make them happy or asked if 5 years from now they’ll still be OK doing the same thing every day. Kids aren’t encouraged to find what they’re good at or told that life is about getting better at that. Kids are told to do what will bring home the money. Something that will guarantee them a job. Money in the bank. However it gets there is not the issue. And the hustle is all about getting there first, undercutting everyone else if you want to win.

So, of course people will cheat in exams, if only to leave overcrowded schools and their demon lecturers. Of course they’ll start the hustle by taking bulbs from lecture theatres and selling them. Of course there will be disregard for public property, and gum will be stuck under broken desks and upholstery on chairs torn seconds after refurbishing. Of course there’ll be regional organizations like Loitokitok Students Union where the first item of the agenda of the meeting is “Constituency Development Fund”, and how the students of the union can get their hands on some of it.

Of course student politics will be a dirty game. People are practicing for the real thing. At the end of the day, though, there’s no excuse for lawlessness, but if it’s the only thing you can see giving results that seem to work?

We’re teaching the youth, who are the dawning of future hope, tomorrow’s leaders – and all the other clichés attached to the young – that if they love music and art and sports or whatever, they have to bury that joy for this; to sit in ancient, stuffy auditoriums and dust off moldy books. That to succeed, they must go to university and do “marketable” degrees with course outlines which haven’t ever changed since the teachers got their degrees, with minimal help from the system. The same system that will then preach to them to stay home and build the nation despite salaries that cannot keep up with inflation rates…and so they will have to have a dodgy undercover hustle to make things work.

So to you, college dropouts…godspeed. To you, college when-will-this-all-enders…godspeed, as well.

“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it, but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and broken.”
W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage”.

Njoki

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13 Comments

November 6, 2009 3:22 am

Sue (@Suetiful)

This is a really great piece!!!!!
Of non-functioning systems and status quo which we could change if we gave a damn…remember 1995??we wer all young ones then but no one can forget the hype that beijing caused..women were going to fight for equality..i ws young then n it dint make sense n honestly today I think it makes even less sense….how is it than 10+ years later THE LAW still does not allow for women to start their own businesses while female parliamentarians fight to have 1/3 of parliaments seats allocated to them..what difference will it make?if one wont even propose a bill to repeal fundamental wrongs that continue to disempower us..of what good will 59 women be??im talkin about empowerment not equality..we hav been fighting th wrong battle way too long!!!im pissed about alot of things political n iv decided enuff with the ignorance..enough..

November 6, 2009 3:36 pm

Malyka

This the truth that as Kenyans we are running away from. I remember I never even wanted to be in the high school I went to #longstory. After I finished got a respectable grade I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I was determined to find out before I fell into the regular rat race. You know, Uni then tarmarcking before someone hooks you up with a job, then become the working poor by moving out from home and surviving paycheck to paycheck before you climb the ladder and/or get married have kids and it’s the same thing day in day out with the bar and coasto holidays the only thing you have to look forward to. Is this why we drink so much. It’s fun and all but is it because you’re afraid to find out the truth. The truth that you could have done so much more with your life but… you don’t know what and you don’t know how. So you keep on drinking and the clandes and the games that give you a little excitement.
Waiting was the best thing I did. I did find out and I’m doing what my soul feels I was meant to do. There’s no beating that.
We have to break the cycle how do you lead if you do not know what and who you are. This is how they keep doing what they are doing confused people are the best ones to lead they don’t know what they want or how to make sure they get it.

November 13, 2009 11:27 am

Mak – D (@Twitter ID)

…”Usijali hii tuta-modify” the last words a mechanic says before he truly messes up your car, and you know what? that’s how i feel every time i listen to Kibaki and the proverbial 40 thieves (read parliamentarians). That there’s a right way to do something, to clear this mess ‘but let’s all just take the short-cut’ . The road to hell is paved with good intentions and i’m sick of being frog marched into a purposeless future. They did it with this thing they called 8-4-4 and they continue to do it with this thing they call ‘refferendeum’ and ‘constitution’ they do it through the committee that’s looking into the committee about the place and the thing in the place about the nothing…nowhere. tis our money they spend buying cars that they replace with smaller cars that were bought at the price of the big cars that they will not give up anyway but sell to themselves in time for the next ‘election’ .
Every time i see IDP’s and other victims of the post election violence i shudder and somehow i know that those behind it loose absolutely no sleep over this injustice.
Every time i see a CV of a “first class honours” in such and such a degree saying they’d do just about anythin…even pack cartons all day…
Every time i watch as the matatu driver slips some notes in between his Drivers licence to pass on to the “karao” . . .
Evey time i hear that we are spending more of my hard earned tax money to
a.) buy some thief a palatial house
b.) build some silly monument in honour of someone who couldn’t care less…
c.) to pay for yet another “inquiry”….

It makes me sick….and i tell you i’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!
This latter day colonialism of our minds must stop!

November 17, 2009 10:28 pm

Mwistar (@http://twitter.com/mwistar)

It is true, we are constantly dealt an ugly hand. It is even more difficult to bear when good ideas on improving our situation end up as dead rhetoric. This beautiful piece that Njoki has shared should be a source of inspiration, as opposed to another reason to lament. We can be successful, or we can make excuses; never both.

November 18, 2009 3:29 am

CK

OK. The system sucks. We get it. So what are you going to do about it?

January 21, 2010 9:12 pm

Wangũi

well said, Well Said, WELL SAID!

January 26, 2010 3:00 pm

Joliea (@joliea)

Heavy stuff. Nuff Said! We sure need some serious head bashing to get angry and do sumthn!

March 31, 2010 5:51 pm

Andrew

Sorry the above is well written but as usual fails to hit the mark. It’s easy to blame ‘the system’ which usually is somebody/something else but somehow the blame never lies with you (and me). I am tired of hearing/reading diatribes on how unfair things are! our education system has serious problems but at secondary level and primary level is still better than an american school (and no that is not a cause for celebration because american education at primary/secondary level is mediocre at best). yes healthcare is terrible, MPs are fake but whose fault is it? yours (mine) for demanding/being satisfied with mediocre service. you (me) for tolerating/accepting/permeating corruption as the status quo. change begins with you. if i see a different person in the matatu next to me, i might be impacted to be different as well

April 3, 2010 7:00 pm

in4paulo

This piece is as depressing as it is poignant (in every sense of the word!). I went through the system in the early 1980s and by the mid-late 1980s my generation had the same complaints!! Can you believe we “had it good”! But it sucked just as much then! Why are we seemingly unable to improve stuff? Is it a lack of courage of convictions? Neuroscience informs us about the plasticity of the brain; it adapts t circumstances and can continually change. The danger is poor habits learned, vices indulged, can eventually become “addictive” or “hardwired” into us – thus can get trapped in vicious cycle of thoughts-beliefs-actions-results-reinforcing thoughts! The good news is that good habits, virtues indulged, have similar reinforcing tendencies. The challenge is to have the courage to break the cycle from poor habits to good habits and having the perseverance to await the results.

July 6, 2010 5:04 am

mbusii (@mbusii)

its babylon system,, firebwon dem,, booboclot…………..

July 10, 2010 1:08 am

sahara (@Twitter ID)

Yawn! Yawnn!! Yawnnn!!!…. Kenyans are the perfect observers and complainers. Seriously, who do we expect to change the status quo if not us? We have been complaining for as long as we have been ‘suffering’. What I would love right now is to be invited to join a progressive movement that actually has an actionable reform agenda. I am in the process of organizing one and I hope that all the ‘fed up of status quo’ Kenyans will be falling all over themselves asking “how may I serve Kenya?”, “How do I make Kenya a better place?” or simply saying “I am truly effing tired of this sh*t and I am ready to die for a better Kenya”.

I totally agree with Andrew.

BTW, love the article. Same stuff, new author.

July 21, 2010 9:28 am

Miriam M. (@muthonim)

Sorry to join this discussion trail so late, but there’s one trait about Kenyans that we tend to forget, ignore and downplay- and that is our patience and elasticity.
It amuses me, sometimes, how much bull Kenyans can take without raising a finger in protest or anger.
We know we are being lied to, robbed, mistreated and swindled and yet, we hold back our rage and simply watch. The liars, robbers, thieves and swindlers that are our leaders, equally amazed at our propensity for forgiveness and patience, try harder to annoy us – by doing the most outrageous, stupenduos and malicous acts of madness.
And still, we watch.

That unending tolerance and patience of Kenyans is what interests me the most. I cannot help but wonder when it shall run out – or what madness we shall unleash when it does.