Mysterious Diaspora Transforming Kenya Government Systems: Silently.
The definition of a Diaspora has the idea of action. Individuals who for whatever reason decide to act to change their state, either going out of the country to seek further education, or those who, seeing no end to the tunnel of a life of mediocrity decide to do something to explode out of dormancy to a life of meaning. Therefore they board a plane, drive a car, or a ship and leave the motherland.
Some decide not to venture back into the homeland, choosing the idea that God created the world without boundaries: Therefore any place in the world can be a home. Others, having achieved the goal for which they became Diaspora decide to go back home. Some go back to fulfill their promise to an employer, a spouse or family: that they will return to help improve the office, home, or village they left behind.
Recently, wanting to hear some good news about anything the government of Uhuru Kenyatta is doing, I heard rumors about an award given to some department in the greater executive. A very un-likely group gave this award:The Civil Society groups! The Kenyan civil society in most cases are a bunch of screamers who receive money from foreign governments to advance foreign governments agenda in their home country. It is the so-called civil societies who are responsible for the Chaos in the Middle East. Many just like to critic for critic case. They thrive in causing chaos!
For these agitators to give an award to a government agency, especially in Kenya, it arouses curiosity. Then I remembered a case of this widow who was getting harassed by her in-laws. They used their vast money to buy the chief, the police, the CID, the courts, and in fact the whole system to deny her, her husbands property. Historically, the Kenyan system has been used by the well connected to deny justice to widows, orphans, the disabled, the poor, the down trodden of society. In fact, many Kenyans believe that reporting a matter to the police or any government agency is a waste of time.
One senior officer laughed that when a Kenyan is attacked by thugs, they need to make chai for them, cook some meal, and request them to wait as they go to the police station; and on the way stop at the gas station because the police car will have no gas, and hope that the police are not manning a road block somewhere. In other words, Kenyans are on their own.
St Paul in Romans argues that the State is a Divine office whose role is to act on behalf of God to administer justice on behalf of the innocent (Romans 13:1-7) The Biblical definition of innocence begins with the idea of a woman sitting in her house, holding her children, crying because the husband is gone. While inside, thieves harvest the grain in her small field! The Divine expectation is that an officer of the state sees this and rides his horse through the farm to chase the thieves.
Somehow, one department in the vast Kenyan government has heeded this biblical call. It has created a system where widows, orphans, the down trodden, the rejected and the insignificance of society can go and register their pain. A priest friend of mine who constantly goes to plead the case on behalf of the weak attested to this fact. “That office is manned by humans, but guided by angels,” he remarked.
The interesting thing about this office is that its head is a former Diaspora. She, having been a public prosecutor, took leave to do her masters degree in Australia. After completing her studies, she kept her promise to go back to Kenya and apply the Diaspora experience to Kenyan prosecution. Somehow the DPP (himself a man of biblical orientation) remembered the Divine Principle of Justice and called her to establish the Department of Complains and Compliments within his docket.
Now, as if by Divine Mercy, Mary Mwenje and her crew are wiping the tears of the many Kenyans who lie on the side of the road exhausted and bitten by ‘robbers’. Somehow the department like the Good Samaritan stop and pick them up and take them to the ‘Inn’. In this case, then, Diaspora testifies of its quality!
Though this Public Service Award was given to the whole DPP’s office, this mysterious Diaspora is praised by the voices of the poor and the priests, to God’s Glory!
Teddy Njoroge Kamau (PhD) HTBluff Associates. An EMG Consortium. Diaspora Messenger Senior Columnist.
