Holy Hate

From the corner of my memory’s eye I catch this movie in which a community decides to collectively hate on this Jewish guy who always wears a hat. The kids are fed a belief that the guy has horns under his hat…. what’s the name of that movie… so a generation of youngsters is growing up hating a Jew (and therefore all other Jews they’ll ever know) because they believe he has horns growing out of his skull as a sign of his inherently evil nature. He’s the boogieman they dare not come near… darn it, what’s the name of that movie… There's a funny scene where two of the kids who know the truth decide to lure other kids to the Jewish guy's home so they can see his horns when he takes off his hat. The knowing kids laugh themselves silly when the other gullible kids take off in terror upon seeing the man with the horns approaching... what the devil's horn's the name of-- forget it.

For now, "the man with the horns" is the real-life movie playing out in the Kenyan diaspora among a group that believes the man from the shores of Nam Lolwe is indeed Mephistophelian in nature. He’s Kenya’s guy with the hat that hides something diabolical, and he is to be greatly feared by the godly and spiritually favored group that has decided there's only one man annointed to lead the country. You have to attend a prayer rally like the one I attended last night (and stay to the end) to know what I’m talking about. The prayer meeting, dubbed "UhuRuto Tano Tena Diaspora Peace Rally" was at the beginning filled with fun, educational talk, good food, dancing and good-natured community love. I ate a lot of maandazi and chicken and chai and was happy to see friends.

Then came the sermon and prayers at the end, by which time half the people and the media had left. Too bad they missed such an important segment. But I'll tell you about it. The most terrifying thing was to watch a congregation that collectively believed in the demonic nature of this man, Raila, so strongly that they feverishly, on bended knees and prostrate spines, cried out to God to deliver Kenya from this man’s diabolic dealings in witchcraft which is affecting his followers and the entire country. I do not come to judge your faith or to question the veracity of such bizarre claims - heck, I don't know if the man is hiding a chicken claw that can run all by itself under his hat - but as a human being who refuses to stay silent in the face of crimes against humanity, I will point to the chilling markings of a dangerous collective mindset clothed in holiness and humility.

It is the kind of mindset that will silently watch the extermination of an entire community in the belief that the God of their faith is ridding the land of a great evil. It is the kind of mindset that will see the police bludgeoning to death of babies like Samantha Pendo, and the ruthless murder of people like Chris Msando and Carol Ngumbu, and the obvious targeting of a specific community, as part of a holy war. Somewhere in this madness that has affected diaspora Kenyans, there’s a light, and I know that light well because I have bathed often in its unpretentious generosity. At a time like this, we must dare invade each other’s exclusive spaces even when we're not welcome, talk to each other long enough, heart to heart, across the divide, however difficult the conversations, and only then will we begin to find each other’s shared humanity.