Will Easter mark a new dawn for Kenya?

Jesus was a whistle-blower. He pointed out to the religious leaders of his time how their institutionalised religion had become heartless. The laws that were meant to mediate the experience of God had actually become the end in themselves.

Several aspects of the religious system of his day were inhuman. He was forthright, and even verbally aggressive. The leaders wanted him out of their way. They accused him of blasphemy.

The guardians of religion could have condemned Jesus to death by stoning him. But they feared a rebellion, possibly staged by his disciples. The subsequent chaos could have offered an opportunity for the Roman colonialists to take over the temple of Jerusalem.

The Jewish identity as a nation would have been lost. So they invented a political crime: treason. In this case the Romans themselves would have to deal with him, and also contain the possible rebellion.

After all, Jesus had talked about a kingdom — though he had actually alluded to the kingdom of God in a symbolic sense, with the desire to assure in the reign of God in the hearts of people.

KING OF JEWS

They brought him before the Roman Governor and charged him with treason. After much drama and an unfair trial, he was executed. The crime-sheet over the cross read: “Jesus the Nazarene, King of Jews.” When he died they buried him. Or did they?

Then there was a surprise. God raised him up from the dead. This is the foundation on which the whole edifice of the faith of the Christians stands. It is the resurrection of Jesus that will offer the possibility for Christians to believe that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.

In one of the first public preaching of the early disciples of Jesus, Peter, their spokesman, blatantly proclaims to the religious leaders: “It was you who accused the Holy and Upright One, you who demanded that a murderer should be released to you while you killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are witnesses” (Acts 3:13-14).

Today most churches celebrate the feast of the resurrection of Jesus in what they call, “Easter”. (The Orthodox churches, even in Kenya, will celebrate it next Sunday.) For a majority of Christians this feast could be just another event in the annual calendar.

For others, it could be a long weekend for a family outing. For still others, it could be another day to show their faces in their churches just to identify themselves as Christians. For pastors it could be an occasion for increased collection. For some sincere Christians, though, after having prepared themselves in spiritual exercises for 40 days in what is called, “the Season of Lent,” these festive days could be a meaningful time – a time of resurrection through personal transformation.

EASTER INSIGHT FOR KENYANS

What could be the insight that the followers of Christ, and all people of goodwill, could draw from the celebration of Easter today? Does it mean anything at all in the Kenyan context?

I would like to consider the meaning of Easter at two levels: first, as an individual experience of assurance that God stands on the side of the just; and secondly, as an invitation to the Kenyan society “to die” to whatever threatens our collective wellbeing and rise to a higher order of life.
God stands on the side of the just

Since the 1980s, numerous Kenyans have unjustly lost their lives. Whistle-blowers have been made to disappear. Investigators have become mere “past-tense”. People, who have courageously defended the rights of vulnerable wananchi, have been subjected to untold violence.

Accidents and armed robberies have been staged to get rid of people. Political differences have been settled not by means of debate and dialogue, but at the click of the trigger.

Truth has been buried over and over again in our own times. Yet as a nation, we Kenyans suffer from dementia. We prefer to forget; we live in denial. The festive occasion of Easter reminds us that martyrs – whether religious or political – are never buried, they are only sown. Jesus himself was one such martyr.

Today, even as Christians rejoice at the resurrection of Jesus, countless are the widows who continue to mourn the loss of their husbands to unjust politics and ruthless crime, and innumerable are the orphans who have sacrificed their parents in the altar of the powers that be. These deaths should disturb the conscience of every Kenyan.

The feast of today assures those widows, orphans and strangers (read: IDPs) that God stands on their side and mourns for them. He has not forgotten them. He hears the cry of the innocent blood shed in the wilderness. God is in control. He is the master of history. He will vindicate the just in His own time. This is at the core of Christian faith, and it is this faith that Christians celebrate today.

DIE AND RISE AGAIN

Jesus himself said: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (Jn 12:24). In an analogical sense, Kenya needs to die in its social structure of sin — a structure that has become so ingrained in the psyche of the average Kenyan that it has been almost normalised. Evil often looks powerful, attractive, and tempts to offer shortcuts. Yet it threatens the core of human wellbeing. Evil cannot become the norm.

In the past fortnight or so, Kenyan media has offered so much airtime to graft, list of shame, and even holy graft. What is at the heart of this rampant corruption in our country? It is the heart of the citizens, or rather, a heartless avarice. It is the mindset. We draw our identities from our material wealth. And to preserve our identities we attempt to get more than we deserve. We are ready to put at stake anything to obtain it: our faith, our integrity, and our relationships, including marriage bonds.

Recent media reports have revealed that 79 per cent of the surveyed women claimed to be in a relationship with a married man. Not surprisingly it is the Mercedes Benz and easy access to some quick bucks that act as the underlying motivation. In my opinion, one factor that has encouraged situations such as these, including the culture of corruption and crime, could be the “trickle-down economy” that Kenya is taking on.

This is a clone of the American model of economy that has, according to some estimates, 40 per cent of its wealth in the hands of 1 per cent of the population.

The American poor people are among the worst deprived population in the world. Is this what Kenyan people want for themselves?
Take, for instance, the people I deal with in my daily work at a university college.

The security personnel at the gate earn about Sh12,000 in hand at the end of the month after cuts and commissions by the private security company that employs them. On the other hand, a moon-lighting lecturer can easily earn this amount in a single day. And lecturers are not the best paid people in Kenya! It is their qualification, you might argue. I agree, but should there be such a colossal gap? Besides, is it always about one’s qualifications? Is it not a common maxim in Kenya that individuals get appointed to jobs not on the basis of what they know, but who they know?

And how come politicians consistently set the trend in raising their own pay, and put down mercilessly any demand for pay review from other sectors of the civil service?

MAXIMUM WAGE

Here is the sore point: Just as our labour laws stipulate a minimum wage, could we not also have a maximum wage? Advocates of wage ceiling suggest that without a maximum wage, the national economy would be a vicious cycle.

When a minority of the population has access to easy money and don’t need to have a second thought about spending, the cost of living is likely to go up. The rising property price in Nairobi is a case in point.

And accelerating inflation will necessitate a rise in the minimum wage. There will be no end to pay rise. For sure, macroeconomics is more complex than this. And with wage ceiling, the society has to invent ways of providing incentives in psychological terms in order to motivate individuals to contribute to the macroeconomics.

In any case, it is interesting to note that globally today some of the happiest nations are the most flat societies, in that they enjoy equality between genders, having equal access to opportunities and amenities, and ensuring a balanced distribution of wealth.

What has all this to do with Easter, anyway? The word “Easter” in its original meaning refers to the goddess of fertility, spring and sunrise. With its relatively sizable population with decent education and a spirit of enterprise, Kenya is potentially on its course towards a new dawn.

However, the envisaged spring seems possible only if the peoples of Kenya are willing, not merely to sing, but also to live these lines of the national anthem: “Let all with one accord/ In common bond united/ Build this our nation together.” Will Kenya wake up to the rising sun?

The author is a Catholic priest lecturing at Tangaza University College. [email protected]; he blogs at www.sahayaselvam.org