Wycliffe Nyamweya was murdered.
A few weeks later Kwekwe Mwandaza was murdered in her home. She was shot in her bed after armed men stormed their house with guns.
Both murders were carried out by the police.
“five suspected gangsters were gunned down
they are suspected no more”
– Something Quite Unlike Myself
I’m tired of writing about death. More particularly, I’m tired of writing about a state that is methodically killing its citizens. I’m tired of shouting into the world that human life is worth valuing. That a life is a life is a life is a life.
It gets harder to find new ways to argue this out. Instead I send out the same links. Use the same sentences; insist.
The police insist that Kwekwe, the 14 year old girl attacked them with a panga. That 8 officers, presumably trained, could only stop a child with a panga by shooting her in the head.
In Ferguson, black disposable bodies continue to be disposed.
In Gaza, bombs continue to drop.
In Nairobi we are given dead bodies and told they are thieves.
Something is happening in the world.
The word is security. This is the imagination shutting word. The thinking stopping word. The “I did it for you” word. The “how else can we protect you?” word. It is the word that keeps us silent.
I tell a friend in passing, if they shoot me – you know people will believe I actually was a gangster. He agrees. It’s easier to imagine that the people who are being shot have done something to deserve it. This is a more comfortable version to tell ourselves.
It’s not true though.
We know it’s not.
We know, because we know, that the police have been killing unarmed people all over the country for the longest time. We know, because we know that a large number of these killings are unprovoked. More importantly we know that the people who die from this violence are lives that we have already decided to devalue, to dismiss.
Wycliffe Nyamweya, Kwekwe Mwandaza and others were murdered. Their killers are still at large. And we’re doing nothing to stop them from killing again.
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