NAIROBI, Kenya. The anniversary of the Kenyan protests has arrived, and with it a curious ritual. Families, their eyes heavy with grief, lay flowers at the very spots where their children, their lovers, their friends drew their last breaths. They are not demanding justice. They are not storming parliament. They are placing petals on pavement. It is a scene of quiet devastation, a floral requiem for a democracy that is, to be charitable, on life support.
And who should appear at the bedside of this stricken patient? Why, the United Kingdom, of course. The ghost of empire past, shuffling in with a glass of lukewarm tea and a pamphlet on parliamentary procedure. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office has issued a statement, a masterpiece of diplomatic ventriloquism. They 'call for restraint.' They 'urge democratic dialogue.' They 'express concern.' It is the linguistic equivalent of a vicar tutting at a riot.
Oh, the sheer, breathtaking audacity of it. The nation that brought the world the Amritsar massacre, the Mau Mau detention camps, and the Good Friday Agreement (a peace so fragile it requires a politician from Northern Ireland to breathe on it weekly) is now lecturing Kenya on the proper handling of dissent. This is like inviting the Borg to consult on your personal boundaries.
Let us examine this 'democratic restraint' they speak of. It appears to be a policy of shooting people with live ammunition, then asking them to please not be so upset about it. A formula as old as colonialism itself: first you steal the land, then you steal the future, and then you ask for 'restraint' when they notice you have their grandmother's watch.
The families laying flowers are not fools. They know that a flower petal is not a bullet. They know that a photo of a loved one is not a court summons. They are performing a ritual of grief because the state has provided no other outlet. In the vacuum of justice, they have created a garden of memory. And Britain, in its infinite wisdom, is offering a watering can of platitudes.
This is not a story about Kenya. It is a story about the moral bankruptcy of the British establishment, which believes that a press release can mend a shattered skull. It is about the fetishisation of 'dialogue' when one party has a gun and the other party has a child's coffin. It is about the peculiar English habit of saying 'Let us all remain calm' when the building is on fire and the firemen are arsonists.
I propose a new form of diplomacy. Let us send not a diplomat but a janitor. Let him sweep up the spent cartridges and say, 'Yes, this is indeed a mess.' Let us send not a statement but a cheque. A big one. For funerals. For trauma counselling. For the mothers who now sleep with their child's photograph under their pillow. Britain owes that. It owes at least that.
But no. We will issue a call for restraint. We will write a carefully worded paragraph. We will pat ourselves on the back for our mature, measured response. And somewhere in Nairobi, a woman will lay a white lily on a spot where her son fell, and she will know exactly what restraint means. It means the world watches, tuts, and does nothing.
So here is my call for restraint: Restrain your hypocrisy, Britain. Restrain your habit of moralising from a position of historical bloodlust. And if you cannot restrain yourself, at least send some decent gin. These are difficult days, and anger is a thirsty business.
