How Do You Sleep At Night?

I was going to post a completely different article today. It was already scheduled for posting at 9:00AM. But every time I kept thinking about it, it felt wrong to post it. Not that the post was wrong, but just the timing of it all, it didn’t feel right. Not when there’s something else we need to talk about.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mathew 8:36

We are in June, and exactly a year ago, we were all fighting the exact same fight we are in today. So many lives were lost. Lives we will never get back. There are people still nursing wounds from the injuries sustained. The memory of that month alone causes shivers. And yet, one year down the line, we are yet to be told, ‘this is the person responsible’ ‘we have arrested this and this person’ ‘our investigations are done. Here is the report’.

We have a better chance at winning a lottery we didn’t enter than ever getting the raw unfiltered report of what happened. Accompanied by accountability.

The latest discussion in town is about the death of Albert Ojwang. Everything revolving his demise is painfully questionable. I read the statement that was issued by the Police on the same and felt my heart break. It made me angry. It didn’t make sense. And in that time, I prayed that none of us would ever find ourselves in a position where we have to do something like that. Where we have to type out a narrative, where we have to tell ourselves, ‘of all that we could say, this is the one that will work’. I couldn’t understand it. I read that statement more times than I would like to admit and each time it felt off. Robotic doesn’t even cover it. It felt inhumane.

There’s a question that constantly comes to mind whenever I hear all these cases of injustice, “How do these people sleep at night?” I don’t ask it for the sake of it. I ask it because I genuinely want to know.

What humanity switch do you turn off? How do you turn it back on without it affecting you? How do you allow yourself fall into the vulnerability of sleep? What do you dream of? Are your nightmares a rehearsal for you? An encouragement maybe? How do you do it?

How do you as a person wake up in the morning, and go back to sleep having added so much red to your ledger?

More often than not we talk about how staying neutral in matters of injustice is akin to taking the side of the oppressor. Many times we ask people, nay, beg people, to speak out. Say a word. Be kind. There was a story last year that one of those killed was a relative of a policeman who happened to be on the streets that same day. The person was supposedly killed by his colleague. It was when this story came out that people asked, ‘think about it. What if it was your father, son, daughter, that was killed?’

You know what? We shouldn’t have to think, ‘what if it was my sister?’ ‘what if it was my son?’ ‘what if it was my mother?’. I shouldn’t have to personalise the imagination of injustice for me to be human. For me to care. For me to sympathise. For me to empathise. For me to want change. For me to want justice. It shouldn’t have to be about me. We are all human. Cut me, do I not bleed? Talk to me, do I not comprehend? Look at me, do I not breathe?

How do you go about your day when you know it is your word that will add pain and misery? How do you find the appetite to eat?

I’d like to mention that these injustices don’t just happen in the political set up. These things happen on a day-to-day basis. In spaces that condition us to not speak as long as it doesn’t involve us. When you see someone swipe another’s phone, not my problem. When you see someone being verbally abusive to a waiter in a restaurant, not my problem. When you see your neighbour beating their spouse, not my problem. When you know someone’s fall to poverty lies on your decision to take a bonus and not pay your lowest earning employees, not your problem. When you see someone kicked out of a matatu because of KES 10 that won’t cause a dent to you, not your problem. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. As long as it doesn’t touch you directly, it’s not your problem.

We have gotten to the point where kids whose innocence we are supposed to be protecting are the ones crying and traumatised by the injustices around us. Our kids can’t go to school, it has become extremely expensive. Our kids can’t get vaccines, because someone thought it best to play games with health.

Is power really worth it? Is instilling fear really worth it?

I do not remember the Moi era. I mainly grew up with Kibaki. But having read all that I read from all the history books and hearing all the firsthand stories from those who were there; I know the fear people had for him. I know how even the thought of defiance would be met with unmeasurable consequences. I have heard of Nicholas Biwott, and all that he did. The lives that were destroyed by his decisions and by the mere mention of his name. But by the time these once powerful men died, the sentiments of many were “they just didn’t suffer enough”. There are people who felt even their death, at such an old age, was too merciful.

We have seen people weep, curse, and pray to God to strike in the most brutal way those who have caused them pain. We have seen people use humour to mask their thoughts of well-defined revenge fantasies. We have seen people throw humanity aside. Aura for aura, it is said. And we understand. It is painful, and unfortunate that we understand, but we do. Do you know how bad a person you have to be for people to express their revenge fantasies on you? Do you know how much humanity gets stripped from someone for them to reach that point?

I can imagine many things. Sometimes it comes with the territory of being a writer. But the one thing I have never been able to imagine is just how someone can cause so much pain, hurt, suffering, name it; and still be able to sleep. I can’t comprehend it. I can’t visualise how someone can be capable of doing so much evil, and still be okay. I don’t get it.