Who is the middle class?
That pretentious, snobbish, cowardly and leeching fellow who only rides on opportunities created by the rich class and the blood and sweat of the poor class
That fellow who only wants to show off his Subaru or BMW on Saturdays during ‘choma and drinks’ with the boys and fake ‘happy’ smiles hangovered from here to Nineveh the very next day in Church.
That fellow who imagines scrambling for iPhone X is far much more important than knowing the consequences of strained societal relations and a tribal system engraved in our DNA. That fellow Njoki Chege obsesses about in her musings, only concerned at how lit Koroga Festival was and why Betty Kyalo should have at least kept the Porsche gifted by Sultan Bad boy.
The middle class is me and you. Yes, I belong in this good for nothing category because, I too leech on the struggles of other patriots and pretend to own part of our democratic story. Every time our political leaders call out for civil disobedience and protests, it’s only the poor who actually do turn up and the rich don’t really ever give a fcuking rat’s ass on how it pans out. But the middle-class… Yes us all. We find it inconvenient, perturbing, tiresome and unnecessary.
The middle class wonder how comes a grown man would leave his work and family to brave scorching sunshine and raging rains to attended political rallies in the middle of the week. It’s because this arrogant fellow doesn’t realize that to that Industrial Area causal laborer and that farm hand, politics directly affect them. The national budget directly affect them. Treasury keeps oscillating gas pump prices for the last decade. However much the middle class whine over Twitter, he still pulls up at a petrol station owned by the rich and will say “Weka mia tano na uangalie mbele” and won’t even bother to interrogate the fuel price at the pump. However, to that kayole guy, a rise in the price of a mahindi choma directly influence whether he boards a forward matatu to town or not.
The middle class love to argue how paying a house help 7000 is bothersome since they provide house and food. Well to that house help that is school fees, medical cover for her family of five if any, food for her children in ushago and savings. We the middle class sods sometimes spend 12000 on one bottle of whisky in one sitting. Yet we still have loans to pay that Subaru. Not that we are rich, we are just posers in someone else’s success story. Baby Pendo’s story. Matiba’s story. Kenyans who die for our dispensation, their story, our success. The middle class love to say “Raila should tell his kids to riot, not us”. Yet, no middle class ever protests anything beyond Zuku prices, the EPL and traffic jam at Ngong and Langata roads respectively.
They are so ignorant to realize, Raila was a political detainee in his thirties and forties. That William Ruto was Kanu’s Babu Owino, being in YK92 in his twenties. That Musalia inherited his father’s seat at 27 and Kalonzo was in Parliament in his twenties as well. That university students of the 80’s and 90’s gave us democracy and civil rights. Today’s half-baked university kids just want to cameo in Nairobi Diaries and to attend 6AM pool parties.
Our twenty something year old middle class spawns are obsessed with Tekno Miles, Vera Sidika’s derrière, Donald Kipkorir’s Range Rover, Jaguar’s Jaguar and Lillian Muli’s fake hair.
There’s a joke, a morbid joke that, elections can be stolen, the poor protestors can protest for a week then hunger shall return them to work. You see, it’s not the poor man that is weak, it’s the middle class who can’t wait to return to work because they have loans to repay and clients to serve. If only they knew that once Kenya is gone to the dogs, all that they struggle for will be to naught.
African middle class citizens need to start demanding for accountability, for justice, for equitable distribution of public resources and for the betterment of our collective existence.
Otherwise, our politicians are entirely voted for by the poor slum dwellers and controlled by the wealthy Kitusuru, new Muthaiga and Karen dwellers. (Not the fake Karen behind Catholic university and KK (kilimani kileleshwa) by the way, that’s ratchet middle class pretentious living as well)
Interrogate your lives. Who owns Kenyan politics?
Kibera slums, Mathare slums, Dandora and Mukuru slums. The rest of us are just noisy passengers in between.