Support those who are on strike

On Wednesday, I went for a public protest for the third time in my life, and I’ll be the first to admit it – I was scared.

My first protest was My Dress, My Choice, and I was not scared when it began. There were a lot of women around me at the park, strong confident women who knew why they were there and what they were there to do.

As soon as we marched into town, however, there was an immediate disturbance. Our theory was that hired goons were running a counter-march. Strange, considering that they would have had to obtain a permit to conduct a march.

Regardless of that, they marched beside us and behind us, shouting threatening and insulting words, eventually splitting our group into two, in a divide-and-quash-type scenario.

We were divided, but we did not stop marching and stripping of women in the city centre reduced significantly after that.

The second march I went for was the Take Back Kenya protest on December 12, a symbolic date that we thought would drive a necessary message home.

About 40 or so of us assembled near the Tom Mboya statue to conduct a peaceful march through town, demanding a better Kenya.

We walked from the statue to the Ronald Ngala Street junction, and before we had even properly gone through two verses of a protest song, a policeman jumped out of his car, stopped us and demanded we cease and desist.

CONTEMPT OF COURT

When we asked him why we had to cease, he said we had no permit. When we showed him our permit, he then said we could not march on the same day that the President, our public servant, was giving a speech at Nyayo Stadium. Then we were promptly tear-gassed.

People who marched were arrested and then released, because they were arrested for no reason. One police officer said, loudly, in our hearing “Leo nataka kuangusha vijana wawili pekee yake," (Today I want to bring down just two young people).

On the 14th of this month, doctors were surrounded by GSU officers as they protested the arrest of their union officials. They too were peaceful and the policemen there too had teargas canisters.

There were men lined up, with guns of war that could open fire if they were so ordered. Yet the men there, the waiting, spineless shadows in the dark, had definitely all been treated by a doctor at one point or other in their lives.

As they waited silently, a doctor let out a gut-wrenching cry – ‘I will never treat a police officer!’

So you see, every march I have ever attended brings about some sort of action from a government that does not even pretend to care about me.

On Wednesday I stood in solidarity with the doctors who are begging for a better Kenya, once more. Officials of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union have been released from jail where they had been committed for contempt of court – some in Kamiti, which is a maximum security prison.

The record of people in Kenya who have actually done jail time in Kenya for being in contempt of court is quite slim. In fact, most high profile candidates stride scot-free, but Kenyans who fight for their fellow Kenyans are locked up.

The sentence seemed a bit harsh, especially considering the history of the law's application, and the fact that no more negotiation to end the strike was possible while the officials were in jail.

The CBA is asking for better pay for doctors, yes, but also better hospitals, because there is no point in being paid a million bob if you don’t have hospital gloves to protect yourself against infection.

There is no point of a salary if the machine that screens cancer patients is booked up until 2018, as if cancer waits for a doctor’s appointment.

PUT DOWN THEIR GUNS

So I marched in spite of my fear. I carried water and a bandana in case I was tear-gassed and wore running shoes.

I marched because I believed in their cause, and I believe that my country is not where it should be and the reason for that is very clear. Our leaders have failed us, in monumental fashion.

I said, a couple of weeks ago, that everyone should be on strike. Well, I am supporting those who are, because this is my Kenya. My president serves me, as does my governor, my MP, my MCA and my women’s rep, not the other way round.

If Kenyans are suffering, dying and starving, it is their fault and they must, must go.

Hopefully the GSU – or whoever is directing them - will put down their guns and see that we are fighting for them too.

Nchi yetu ya Kenya, tunayoipenda, tuwe tayari kuilinda.

Twitter: @AbigailArunga