Fight for Land and Freedom

The National Language of Humanity.

Humanity is a language even animals understand. It goes beyond achievement of personal desires of comfort and relaxation to sacrifices of reaching out to those in need to share the little available without ethnic prejudice.

As anchored in the Kenyan national anthem, it is the responsibility of every patriotic Kenyan to enhance unity, peace and liberty to create a friendly environment for residence in which businesses can as well thrive for economic growth.

Many a times our nation has been majorly hit by hunger strikes escalating starvation, political violence displacing people and the global COVID 19 pandemic.

Despite the above killer occurrences being dependent on government action to control, Dedan Kimathi Foundation has always given a hand in its own small way to cushion the affected citizens from drowning in extreme need levels for survival. These are lessons drawn from Africanism requiring people to share with others. ‘No one is too poor to give’ comes in handy as the Foundation continues to solicit citizens to ‘split a bean’ as the much they could have to offer each other in times of extreme need.

This has been the major part of the Foundation work when dealing with the aged ex freedom fighters whose prime years of production and wealth creation were consumed in the freedom struggle only to come back to no land as what they previously owned was inherited by British collaborators.

Hundreds of tear-dropping stories from the surviving freedom fighters display a great extent of unappreciated efforts as the freedom they fought for continue to be taken for granted without being afforded their proper compensation. Like flies, most of them have died as poor as church mice. The few surviving live with worries as they have no land for their kin to inherit nor health insurance to keep their hopes of living beyond the age opportunistic diseases that may strike in the disadvantage of their poor living standards and feeding due to empty pockets. To increase the already too hot temperatures for them, most of them continue to live with the bullets lodged in their bodies; sufficient evidence of their involvement in the struggle for freedom and the land they were never allocated.

Surprisingly, they remain cat-calm looking towards better days when their contribution to national liberation would be sufficiently appreciated. Despite their undying feelings of super betrayal, they always smile broadly and keep their voices low despite having quite much to say. This was well observed in the life of Dedan Kimathi Family Matriarch, the Late F. M. Mukami Kimathi, whose constant prayers were to have the Mau Mau allocated land and her husband’s remains be exhumed. The latter was her dying wish that awaits action.

A look at their faces as they narrate the bitter forest ordeals is a clear indication of their steady patriotism and proficient love for a nation whose freedom was won by blood. More than a few times they sob as the forest memories hit them. With scarcity of resources, Dedan Kimathi Foundation gives them a pat on the shoulder assuring them that good things are on the way.

To lessen the effect and offer better living standards, the Foundation carries out a settlement program to help them get somewhere to call home as the much they ask for is a place to be buried when their days come.

Yes, they live to see better days. The questions remain, when are the better days coming? Who is really working on giving them better lives for them to feel the goodness of the better days?