Table of Contents
By Clement Wasike
At the turn of each year, people usually make resolutions based on what they have experienced or learnt previously. The missteps or triumphs of the year gone by are usually considered when deciding what to do differently in the forthcoming season. That happens mostly at the personal level. In fact, on the eve of the New Year, some church ministers predict (or is it prophesy?) how the incoming year would pan out? But how about doing the same more intentionally at the national level?
We know there is destiny and acknowledge that there is a part of fate we may not, as individuals, be in full control of. However, we know that each individual is a co-author of the story that ultimately defines our lives. It is the same for nations. Every successful society largely decides which path to take towards achieving its goals and desires. This then calls for a shared vision among citizens more than anything else. One of the best illustrations of the power of shared vision is the story of the tower of babel. Those involved had the resolve, resources and reason to undertake the grand project. What they lacked was the outright indulgence of the deity they desired to rendezvous with. It took simple scuttling of communication to kill the project, if you recall.
In Kenya and as citizens, we need no one to identify our resolve, gather necessary resources and create a reason to make 2025 the year we all rise from the babel of negativity we seem to be doused in currently. Societies that go places avoid creating a handful of tin gods who they then lionize as the mouthpieces of their desires and intentions. That though does not mean that there are no individuals who represent the best that a society can become and whose persuasion and moral convictions point to the greatest good achievable by humanity in a world held largely captive by runaway vice and disturbing apathy.
With that in mind, I am persuaded that Kenyans will only make the most of 2025 if we all prioritize the following five imperatives among possible others;
Constructive Criticism
We ought to consider being less negative about anything and everything surrounding us. Call me an apologist but kindly hear me out first. We are better off, for instance, interrogating Government policies more thoughtfully and criticizing them from a point of knowledge than waiting for hardcore naysayers to start a rant that we faithfully echo thoughtlessly. I am by no means suggesting that every word oozing from Government is divine and sacrosanct. Far from it! All I am saying is let us have a view of our own on every aspect thrown at us instead of waiting for serial rubble rousers and loud mouths to read our tarot cards and tell us how our digestive systems are operating! For God’s sake we cannot develop as a society if we allow third parties to decide for us how to make personal decisions on everything including the time to go to the loo! Please! We owe ourselves a positive outlook to life way beyond our criticism of our leadership.
Optimism in the face of challenges
Whatever we feel about our circumstances as a people, pounding ourselves to nothingness by seeing only doom and damnation ahead is the best way to kill hope and entertain societal decay. For that, can we really blame others? We owe it to ourselves as individuals to create an atmosphere of optimism to get lemonade from the lemons life may present to us from time to time. Have we asked ourselves how the dreariness we entertain is poisonous? The inordinate hours we spend spreading gloom about this and the other is wasted time. Complaining about any leadership without taking personal responsibility in doing our part as individuals is the height of simplemindedness one can possibly subscribe to! Spreading blues is simply daft.
Focusing on solutions
Human beings can only assert their superiority in the animal kingdom if they intentionally choose to be problem solvers they were created and not troubleshooters they willfully elect to become more often than not. Let me pose a question… What moral authority do you have to cast a stone, say at Governor Sakaja—who I incidentally don’t have many good things to say about anyway—if you hurl empty plastic beverage bottles and fast food wrappings out of your car window around Nairobi City willy-nilly? If you desist doing so as a personal choice only then do you get the license to condemn such ignoble actions but NOT when you are an accessory yourself! So do it right then blame others.
Shun ethnic bigotry
Over the years, ethnic jaundice and jingoism have oftentimes distorted our sense of merit and entitlement. In 2025, let us get bold enough as a people to commend those who deserve on account of merit and castigate those who do not for their personal incompetency but not on ethnic considerations. Younger Kenyans—especially in urban areas—are blinder to ethnic chauvinism than older ones. If we shun the retrogressive culture of profiling others on ethnic lines we are likely to make 2025 a better moment in getting Kenya to a better place.
Engaging with decorum
We have witnessed an unprecedented brazenness in depicting prominent persons in extremely bad light in online forums this year. This is outright disgraceful and an assault to the offenders for being so benighted and for behaving like cavemen. How do you get along in any society as a 21st century creature when you know too well that you’ve been posting despicable doo-doo all over social media and imagining that you are a star! Not unless you are an absolute gorilla from the smelliest end of the netherworld! A society of indecent characters heads south sooner that we care to think. Stop it in 2025.
In all, we are co-creators of the future we desire and deserve. Welcome 2025.
The author, Clement Wasike is a former banker turned social critic and political commentator.Â
