Yesterday I had a chance to attend a meeting by Ushahidi at the IHub. The discussion was on the election,monitoring, and the issues that surround the elections. It was a great session. We learnt about what Ushahidi is planning to do for the next elections. We also learnt about the efforts to monitor what people are saying and about hate speech. We went into small groups to discuss what needs to be done before and during elections to ensure peaceful elections. I will talk about the recommendations in a later post. To find out more about Ushahidi go to this link ushahidi.com.
My post today is about your responsibility and mine in ensuring peaceful elections. Today as I write this post we are having party nominations. At the end of the day there will be losers and winners. It will be interesting to see how the losers react. In the past elections have brought out the ugly side of supporters. Politicians have a habit of whipping up their supporters into frenzy when they don’t win and this usually ends up in violence or verbal spats. Let’s hope that this time politicians will be mature in how they react.
We, the people who use social media have a responsibility to Kenya to be responsible about the things we say. Some of the things that people say on social media are so hateful or so inflammatory. Sometimes people don’t know how much power they have and how literally somebody takes what they say. So you may be having a bad day and decide to talk badly about a certain person or community. Or you could be having one of those days when Kenya & (its politicians especially) get on your nerves. So you say something inflammatory. And maybe somebody else takes it seriously. And passes the message across to others who maybe feel the same. A fire starts with the fire starter being unaware of what they have started. There are of course some people out there who are just malicious and have a poisonous tongue. They like starting fires not realizing that those fires that they start will also not spare them.
I don’t know about you but I love Kenya. Well apart from its politicians. If Gollum from the Hobbit could talk about them he would say “bad MPses.” I was born here, hopefully I will die here. Kenya is a place where different communities, skin colors, languages and cultures merge together to create a land that’s just unique. Kenya is not a perfect place, an utopia. It has its problems, including injustices done to many of its citizens. But that is not an excuse for us to tear Kenya down. It should be a rallying call for us to help Kenya be able to stand properly. Because Kenya’s prosperity is our prosperity and Kenya’s downfall is our downfall too. If Kenya goes down, many of us have nowhere to go. I don’t want to be a refugee in another country and I don’t want to be an IDP in my own country.
So let’s be careful about what we say online and offline as well. We may be starting fires or adding wood to the fire with the things that we say. We are all responsible individually and collectively for what we allow to pass on social media. We may not engage in hateful talk but we retweet or repost others hateful speech online. That makes us responsible. Also when we allow others to be online bullies of other communities we also create an enabling environment for fires to start. It’s not only the politicians who have the power to start fights we do too. We just don’t realize the power that we have. Let’s use the power that we have responsibly. Let’s stop the wood from catching fire because it’s much harder to put out a burning inferno.
As Peter Parker (Spiderman) was told by his Uncle “with great power comes great responsibility!” Let’s be responsible with what we say online.
Sometimes somebody can say things better then I can. Roger Whittaker said it all
My land is Kenya.
You only got one mama
You only got one pa
You only got one life to live
No matter who you are
You can go the whole world over
Every city has its dawn
But everybody liveth has one place where he was born
And mine is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You’ll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You’ll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart.
You only got one childhood
And the memories that spring
When you see your house, the tree you climbed
And all those precious things
The faces of the friends I had
The images that flow
When I close my eyes in the land I love
The land I was born..
My land is Kenya, so warm and wild and free
You’ll always stay with me here in my heart
My land is Kenya, right from your highlands to the sea
You’ll always stay with me here in my heart, here in my heart.
Listen to Eric Wainaina’s Daima (Kenya Only). He also says it in a way that I cant.
Keep the peace online and offline so that our country can be stable and prosperous. Because our land is Kenya, from the highlands to the sea.
