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HARD TALK: KIKUYUS ARE THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES....

Gatundu MP Moses Kuria coined the phrase 'Kikuyu is not a tribe; It's an enterprise'. I couldn't agree more. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya’s economy with their enterpreneurship DNA. The Kikuyus' zeal for wealth is one reason why Kenya has emerged as a ravenous and economic powerhouse in the East & Central African region and Africa as a whole. Entrepreneurship defines the Kikuyu. They hold so much stake in the Kenyan economy and have more to lose from any spiraling anarchy than any other group in Kenya. They are among the most progressive and the most susceptible to subversive activities. Though we aren’t enough to dominate (we constitute to about a third of the country's population), we are too large to ignore. This is a community that has stood up and defied all odds, and still thrive economically over the years. They are both obnoxious and indispensable. Unfortunately, that's where our beautiful story ends. The metaphor 'Man-Eat-Man Society' has now captured Kikuyus' whole hearted embracement of capitalism. The community is now rotting away in alcoholism due to the greed of their own siblings. We are witnessing the telling effects of a de-humanizing economic system eating into the House of Mumbi’s core and churning out zombies. Our men and women are drinking like skunks thanks to our own money maniacs who chase money and forget there’s life outside business. Everywhere you go you encounter youth littered allover like garbage. Families are breaking up. Kids no longer going to school. The Kikuyus say, rùrìrì rùngìhuka thuna no gùthira rùthiraga. We all agree that the youth of today are the future of the nation and the world. But we are letting alcoholism to slowly wipe out an entire generation. The Kikuyu community is slowly getting extinct. The situation is so grave to a point that we as a community have ended up being Kenya's laughing stock. The sad reality is that the menace is man-made, ochestrated by our own high mighty. The manufacturers of these lethal brews are the moneyed Kikuyus. The distributors are our own Kikuyu leaders, chiefs, local police and the likes. The legacy of casino capitalism with its reckless gambling and corruption has infiltrated our society to a point that we no longer value human life. Ours is an ego-centric philosophy and culture of greed that sells off poison to our own, while simultaneously dismantling those public spheres, social protections and institutions serving the public good. Our people have grown on a neo-liberal dystopian vision that legitimates itself through the largely unchallenged claim that there are no alternatives to a market-driven society, and that economic growth should not be constrained by considerations of social costs or moral responsibility. Capitalism and its raw forms of money worship and the attendance desire to worship the moneyed has continued to drive the society to extremities of killing our own in the name of business. What manner of greed would drive a man to mix methanol with water and feed that poison to your fellow kingsman? How does it make them feel when they see a grown man shake like a leaf when he is presented the opportunity to make love to his wife, or a mother lying on the roadside, drunk and soiling her dress? We have come to a new sad business era in which consumerism and profit making are defined as the essence of wealth making ventures. I grew up when everyone in the society was our brother's keeper. What has changed now? I believe that the success and viability of a society can only be judged by the condition of its people and by no means should this be limited to economic conditions. There is little advantage in a society of opulence when it is rotting in moral decadence. A society whose individuals live on a diet of fantasy and intoxication as the means of escaping the hardships of life breeds children to whom these things become the sole purpose of existence. Our youth are slowly projecting the same concepts to society, and so the vicious circle begins. Soon, we will find ourselves with a humanity folded over on itself, without trust and without a positive outlook on tomorrow. Our leaders are weak, compromising and corrupt. They reek of hypocrisy and self interest. A youth without hope is a society without a future. If ever there was a time when the Kikuyu nation needed to answer the looming wake-up call to effectively address this alcohol menace in all of the destructive forms it takes, it is now. If ever there was a time to get serious about teaching and practicing the principles of sobriety, it is now. Our Kikuyu society is being consumed away by alcohol to its own extinction.

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