Today, I want to talk about the next big thing that i predict will be consuming the hearts of minds of a number of people on this forum and beyond for the next while, at the very least and most likely for decades to come.
Let me give you a short background. A friend recently mentioned about a group of Gikùyù enthusiasts who had been meeting somewhere in Ndumberi. She figured that I must have known about the group. She was taken aback when I confessed that I knew nothing about the group. After a long conversation about my thoughts about the who idea of cultural renaissance, she promised to take me to the meeting during my next visit to Kenya. Unfortunately, my schedule become a bit hectic and I ended up not going. But it was not for lack of trying. My friend had even made arrangements for me to speak at the meeting.
Since I did not get a chance to make it the meeting, I took it upon myself to share the theme of a talk that never was. I did this my sharing it with those i felt were in the best place to communicate or to process my sentiments. I therefore called Mbaria Wa Mbaria ,Kariuki Kamau Kariuki and Káráyá Ndérítú and expressed my concern that the freedoms of worship that the Gíkùyù were experiencing was likely not going to last as it is a direct threat to those who are real powers in our country. AIt was clear to me that the numbers simply did not add up. There is no way that those many people would be attending such meetings and for the churches not to feel the effect. That was even before adding all the people who have dropped out of church, decided not to join and those who are not even in the market. I was sure that this matter will come to a head and it would not be pretty.
Less than three months down the line, a seriously deluded character known as Njue came out publicly and issued a statement that made it very clear that his organization known as catholic church had been spying on the group. I am sure that I am the first one, nor the last one, to suspect that there had been spies in those meetings. What might have been very clear to many is the seriousness of such spying and danger it poses. This to me is worse than all the venom of the BBI and all the forms corruptions that the Jubilee crooks have been conducting.
Think about it. The government with all its ills has been elected by the people. Even if the steal the elections, they will die or can be overthrown. None of the governments in the world today are as old as the government of the catholic church. The group has a history of genocide that goes back to six hundred years. The group has to, by extension, have the most blood on its hands. They are the single wealthiest group on the planet of all religious institutions. You may just want to ask how they become so wealthy while all along selling a false image that they are in the business of saving souls and helping the power. This is an image they have exploited to the highest. The have agents who to this day are highly praised as though they did great works for the benefit of humanity.
One such recent figure was a broker of souls called Mother Terressa. She was a great friend of poverty but not the poor. She benefited tremendously by pimping the poor. Her fake status allowed her to dine with the high and mighty and getting them to donate money to charity, the funds did not go to help the poor but to open the order of Missionaries of Charity in her own name. This order had as many as 4500 nuns. As for the poor that she supposedly helped, they were just a vehicle for her to raise to fame. She would be bestowed with the Nobel Peace Price and many other awards. She got plenty of money from dictators and corrupt business people. Including the Haitian dictator Baby Doc and the dissident Mark Rich. She would often return the favor by saying very kind things about this sick people. She was later deified by her boss.
There was nothing extraordinary with the above act. Going back to the days of Galileo to Giodano Bruno, the catholic church has a long history of being against progressive thought and right of indigenous people, and honestly the rights of all people. The church has benefited from the spoils of war, slavery and calamities. During Black Plague, the church claimed that the cause of the plague was not rats but rather it was a form of punishment for the sins of man.
The congregation were advised to fast and to engage in self-flagellation. Those two acts caused millions to die from weakened bodies and lines of religious procession that went from town to town , carrying with it, not just blessings but the plague.
Looking the world exploration of the work in the 15th century, the pope played a key role in sanctioning the enslavement of Africans and genocide of other indigenous people. Bartholomew Del Ascas was a catholic agent in Haiti, then know as Espaniola, and actually wrote to the pope to request that he allow Africans to be imported as slaves to slave the native Americans from going extinct from the spanish genocide. The pope would late play a key role in solving the territorial dispute between the Spaniards and the Portuguese in the treaty of Tordesallis in June 7 1494 .
The treaty divided the globe by half and each conqueror was deputized to reduce to slavery all the people of lands that countries would find in their region unless they converted to catholicism . That is largely how we ended up having as many Africans in the Americas.
You may want to know how the church become so rich. Consider the fact that for centuries the Catholic church had earned a lot of money by working the poor European as serfs. The catholic church owned about 30 to 50% of the land in Europe, while the rest was owned by the political class. Some figures show that the lands that were owned by the church produced 10 times more per unit as compared to the lands of the political class that was being worked by serfs too. It means that being a slave to the lords people was far worse than being a slave to caesar .
Okay, back to Kenya now.
While I idd not get to visit the group meeting during my last visit. I visited the first Consolata mission outside Italy which is located in Tuuthu was Karuri. It was built in 1904. The mission was built where the last traditional chief of the Gíkùyù lived as well as the local shrine was located.
While on our way back from visiting the mission, we gave a ride to a local fellow who told us that the fishing rights in Mathioya, the local river, had been auctioned to the highest bidder. There is a fishing club closet to Tuuthu where wealthy African and Whites come to do Trout fishing. No locals are allowed to fish by the banks river banks. I was furious.
I will only mention that the issue of molesting young boys is a well known fact. In fact it is crisis that has been a thorn on the side of this institution as the offending dunderheads are simply transferred from institution to the next.
The catholic church and their agents have too much blood on their hands to claim any moral high ground to condemn the cultural group. It is hypocritical of the institution offer unsolicited advice or guidance to other religious gatherings that are outside their christian denominations. I totally understand that more and more people are leaving religion, including the traditional ones. But those are things they need to deal with internally.
What I know for a fact is that mystery and fear are very weak means of holding people's attention. You can go ask Galileo and Socrates. These were relatively poor people but changed the way we view the world. One of the things these individuals did was to make god less and less important is our daily affairs. The heavens become less important, less and people naturally stoped boarding that plane. Part of the reason being that all gods are worship for a time and then become extinct. The challenge is that when they are in fashion or to that still believe in them, they are real. But surely as the shines, all deities like humans do die. Nobody believes in Zues or Poseidon.
What yours truly believes is that the political system we have is deeply vested in what you and I believe. That is just part of the game. You don't have to take my word it. Just ask anyone from Central province about all the social problems are experiencing in the region with such matters as drug addiction, corruption, damage of the environment, crime, rape cases and family disputes of all manner.
Yet the biggest social institution that has become the de facto political grounds for the country bears not responsibility for this breakdown of the social fabric. The people are getting ever poor, ever insecure, ever lonely, ever untrustworthy, every depressed , ever frustrated with a government that loves the church and always has goodies for the church. When you realize that the same government that is a darling of the church has caused untold frustrations and suffering of millions of Kenyans, it should not come as a surprise that people will not feel a similar dislike for the the church.
The church and the government are to of a insecure institutions in the country today. It is for that reason that I would kindly request all my progressive people in the area of Ndumberi and its environs to attend to attend the next Gwata Ndaaí on huge numbers. This will not be a vote for Gwata Ndaaí, but a vote against the two bearded rogue sisters that are perpetually oppressing us. If w don't stand against this cultural imperialism, intellectual imperialism and political dictatorship will surely follow and none of us will be safe. Don't go for Thaai (sacred peace), go for Thayù(secular peace).
Thayù thayù