KDF MILITARISM KILLS WITHOUT WAR

About two and a half decades ago, there was a disaster that was baying for humanity blood like a Damocles sword and the world knew about it. The cold war had brought with it militarization of states and nuclear enrichment's...the whole world begged for it to end. Fast forward to the present day Kenya and you are faced with almost a replica though different jurisdictions and magnitude. Majority of the Mr and Mrs Regular citizens are calling for an end to the presence of theKenya Defense Forces (KDF) in somalia.

Kenyans back at home have borne the brunt of the presence of KDF in Somalia. It is worth noting that billions of shillings have gone down the drain in the name of supporting the war whilst millions of Kenyans remain jobless and unable to access vital social amenities. On the social front, families have been left without breadwinners after they were killed fighting in Somalia, tears are still flowing. As if that has not been enough, KDF has brought the war to our doorsteps. Attack after attack has occurred in our cities; perpetrated by the enemies we are supposedly fighting some thousand kilometers away in Somalia. What happened to the simple adage ‘charity begins at home? Why should innocent Kenyans become casualties in a war that we have no business with. Methinks this is KDF killing us silently without war.

Just to borrow a piece from the 70s by Dorothee Soelle, a German theologian and activist for justice and peace grounded in spirituality, in the book titled ‘Militarism kills without war’. It is clearly manifesting itself in this time of day where the government continues to put up a brave face that Kenya will be safer with Al Shabaab defeated and Somalia stabilized. Also in the same school of thought as the government are the churches and the peace movements that are paying less attention to the issue of militarism.

The Kenyan government should stop being complacent and accepting the militaristic nature of the war in Somalia as an unchangeable dogma. Thousands of lives are gobbled up every year through starvation, accidents, diseases, attacks e.t.c many of whom could be saved if the Government of the day had not gotten its budget priorities so utterly wrong.

Have we become complacent? Have we accepted the militaristic reality as an unchangeable fact? Or is it simply that we don’t know how serious the situation is? That there is a growing risk of nuclear disaster caused by terrorist attacks is bad enough. Because of this a silent deadly disaster takes place everyday in the starvation of 24,000 people, many of whom could be saved if the world had not gotten its budget priorities so utterly wrong.

Methinks President Uhuru needs to read this quote and borrow heavily from it  “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final  sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, Former U.S. President, April 16, 1953