• Thursday, 28 March 2024
THE STATESMAN OPINION: Let's fete our heroes when they are alive

THE STATESMAN OPINION: Let's fete our heroes when they are alive

Kenyans, and more so our leaders, are good at celebrating heroes and heroines in death. 

They will keep your body at the most expensive morgue, buy the most expensive coffin, dress you in imported suits, ferry your body in a Mercedes Benz hearse and lay out an elaborate funeral to please your family and kin.

They will then use the platform to politic and hurl burbs at each other right before the hurting relatives. 

 

Leaders will fall over themselves to be seen to be offering support to the family of a bereaved yet in life they never reached out to lend a shoulder, especially to those to whom life has not been very kind.

When Mukami Kimathi was alive, very few cared where she lived, whether she ate or not, or about her health condition.

But upon her death, many rushed to express hypocritical sorrow. She is just one example.

We have politicians, sportsmen and women, academicians, medics and other great men and women whose contribution to Kenya is great but no one cares about them while alive apart from the occasional state awards, which are equally shrouded in mystery.

Recognition does not require a lot. What would it cost to give our top athletes diplomatic passports or boarding preference at our airports, medical covers and affordable houses?

Uganda and Tanzania have faired way better in recognising their top sportsmen and women.

Let's celebrate our great men and women when they are alive.

 

Quote of the Day: "I'm nobody, who are you?"

Emily Dickinson

The American poet died on May 15, 1886

 

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