Don't sell people an incomplete map and then blame them for getting lost. I've been sitting with that thought for weeks because the more I look around, the more I realize that many of the frustrations we carry as a society are not simply about unemployment, corruption, inequality or even money. They are about the stories we tell one another. From the time we are children, we are handed maps for how life is supposed to work. Study hard and life will work out. Get a degree and you'll find a good job. Work hard and success will follow. Save consistently and you'll become financially secure. Find your passion and the money will come. Marry the right person and everything else will fall into place. Believe in yourself. Think positively. Stay disciplined. None of these statements is entirely false. But none of them is entirely true either. The problem is rarely what they say. The problem is what they leave unsaid. Because what is omitted from a story is often just as powerful...
When Kenya descended into bloodshed in the wake of the 2007 general election, the world watched in disbelief. Over 1,300 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were displaced, families were shattered, homes torched, and neighbors turned against each other overnight. We called it election violence. But was it? The truth is more uncomfortable than the slogans, the press briefings, or the reconciliatory church prayers we clung to in the aftermath. What happened in 2007/08 was not simply about a stolen vote. It was the cracking open of decades-old wounds — social, economic, tribal, and political — that we, as a country, had consistently refused to face. We blamed the devil. We called for peace. We urged forgiveness — often from the very people who had been violated. But we never stopped to ask: What were we really forgiving? What had we truly understood? The Road to Rupture: Seeds Sown Over Decades To understand the violence of 2007/08, we must step back — far back. Land : At the heart ...