These "Youth Leaders" were so disappointing on TV!

Yesterday morning I woke up to find a nice message in my inbox. Geroge Gachara of Picha Mtaani, that reconciliation lobby, was going to be on K-24 TV in an interview with Louis Otieno. Yes, I thought him and other so called representatives of the youth will speak for me, but then I was not prepared for the disappointment that the show turned out to be. I didn't finish watching the show. I switched off the TV and went to sleep. Angry. Disappointed.

The reason is when I listened to the panel answering questions, they so sounded like our fake politicians that I could not just believe it was "fresh blood" that was on TV. From where I sit, I was taken aback.

Louis posed a question and then George looks at him in the eye and says, "we are working on it....not to elect or demote someone" blah blah blah. See, here he was thinking positions. That's where I got disillusioned.

Stella Agara and that Osumbo guy were a little in touch with the issues, but then they were, like Gachara, pre-occupied with sounding intelligent on TV and ended up sounding utopic when they dropped in that "mobilisation" nonsense.

There is the National Youth Council Bill in Parliament. That's a kind of framework to involve the youth. But when it was mentioned it was the "politics" of it that was highlighted bigtime. Come on, where is development in that? Or are we so ingrained in former President Moi's maxim that "siasa ni Maisha".

Eagles don't flock. That's what these fellas should know.

Yes, Louis reasoned that Kenya is a complaining society. I appreciate that. But then I have not forgotten what I have seen great fellows do or achieve without seeking the politics of it. Just look at the way the fellas spoke, they sounded so unconvincing. It was like they were putting out the ideas hoping they can be done, but I didn't see the conviction in the way they spoke. No belief.

There are poverty and unemployment problems. so everyone should be talking about tackling these issues from the grassroots. And it is not through the hundreds, even thousands of youth groups formed to access donor mobilisation money.

Guys like Jua Cali and Nameless advise youth to do what they can from wherever they are. Ditto Churchill the comedian. These guys have come from the other side of town (broke guys and hustlers) to support themselves. To do things that they love and make money in them at whatever level.

The guy who shaves me has been doing so for three years now. I have seen him grow his business --from the days when he used to work for somebody to now that he has his own business. How about that?

When people are thinking of 'stomach', you don't start yapping about "political bigger picture" which they cannot see.

The reconciliation agenda should not be viewed from the political lens. This is an individual affair that whenever we start thinking like a mob about it, we lose the objective. Forgiving and building trust is not about whole tribes. It is about individuals, me and you, trying to forgive each other and then pushing the dialogue forward. Picha Mtaani's documentaries and photo exhibitions are excellent in reminding us where we have been.

The honest dialogue that we saw Boniface Mwangi showing on TV is what I'd like to see among each other. Politicians or youth with political ambitions will ruin the party, if they keep on speaking from Utopian points of view.

If the views do not resonate with a guy in Kibera, Mathare --except where you say we should go and "make food" (?) now that the rains are falling (knowing pretty well that not all these guys own shambas and not all of them know farming)--then it is pointless to air them.

Again I say, these people, the fellas on the panel with Louis, have their right to their opinions. But it is not simply a matter of holding opinions. One should consider if whatever views they are propagating are worth doing so in the first place.

I was disappointed.