MANY ARE CRYING, “WHO WILL SHOW US ANY GOOD?”

 

Compiled by Julisa Rowe and the Nairobi Baptist Drama Ministry

 

(Different voices speak the different points of view.  All statements are taken from Kenyan newspapers of Jan. 2008, online newspapers during the same period, eyewitness accounts as recorded in papers)

 

1:    The events leading up to and following December 30 have plunged our country into chaos and pain.  Rumors and accusations are flying, killings increase, confusion reigns and we in the church sit helplessly wondering what to do.  Here, taken from actual accounts in newspapers, TV, and conversations, are our voices, our stories from across the spectrum. This is our country; and many are crying,

 

ALL:    “Who will show us any good?”

 

(The next lines are spoken quickly, as professional newscasters, almost overlapping)

 

2:    Early estimates put voter turnout at 70% of Kenya's 14 million registered voters, the highest since multiparty elections were reintroduced in 1992, in what some analysts saw as a sign of growing voter confidence in elections.

 

3:    The Daily Nation newspaper said the efficiency and independence of the elections "should be the envy of the rest of Africa."

 

5:     (a regular person)  This is my first time to vote.  I’m so excited!

 

4:    But some analysts cautioned that Kenyan democracy still has a way to go, with rampant vote buying in the lead-up to the poll and many people voting along tribal lines.

 

5:     (same person)  Half my relatives are all “ODM, ODM”.  The other half say nothing but “PNU.”

 

2:    Kenyan voters have confidence in the power of the ballot because of the country's historic 2002 elections, when the ruling party was voted out of power for the first time. Now there is more confidence in the electoral process than before.

 

3:    U.S. and European observers and local news media praised the balloting despite chaos at some polling stations, delays and opposition accusations of vote fraud.

 

4:    The political parties criticized the slow pace of the count from the presidential and parliamentary elections.

 

(Now we start to hear the voices of people caught up in the fracas)

 

3:    The chairman of ECK made the announcement late this afternoon…

 

6:    My vote was stolen!    [5?:  Go to the courts!]

 

7:    ECK bears the responsibility for the chaos in Kenya today.  They should resign and rid us of this disgrace.

 

8:    “Were we naïve to imagine that our votes were important, or that ultimate power rested with the people?”

 

9:     (slight pause before and after)   I’m scared.

 

10:    Our area was attacked last night.  I can’t get out.  There are men with pangas sitting outside.

 

11:    I haven’t slept for 3 days.  If you sleep, they burn your house.

 

1:     (newscaster voice)  Violence erupted in the slums and throughout the country when election results were announced.  Houses were burned, people were killed, businesses were looted.  The police and protesting youth have engaged in running battles in the streets and throughout the slums.  Tear gas canisters litter the roads.

 

6:     (regular person, angry)  “If by voting we get violence, then I will never vote any other time.”

 

3:     (newscaster) Over 800 people have been killed in post-election violence and another 300,000 internally displaced.

 

5:     (regular person)  I’m so ashamed to be a Kenyan.   (pause)

 

 

(a new group comes together for this passage from Habakkuk as scenes of violence are depicted)

 

8:    How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

 

9:    Or cry out to you,

 

ALL:    "Violence!"

 

9:    but you do not save?

 

10:    Why do you make me look at injustice?

 

11:    Why do you tolerate wrong?

 

12:    Destruction and violence are before me;

 

12,13:    there is strife, and conflict abounds.

 

14:    Therefore the law is paralyzed,

 

13,14:    and justice never prevails.

 

12-14:    The wicked hem in the righteous,

 

ALL:    so that justice is perverted.  (Habakkuk 2:2-4)

 

 

 

2:    “Income inequalities in the country remain among the highest in the world.  The richest 10% earn 34% of the country’s total income, while the poorest 10% earn only 2.5% of the country’s income .”

 

3:    In the poor areas, “There is the false hope that the occupant of State House will determine their survival. The expression of their desperation is the horrific acts of violence. Poverty increases the risk of civil conflict.”

 

4:    “One-third of Kenya’s population is aged between 10 and 25.  Due to poor education and high levels of disempowerment, many feel helpless.  Many of those who have participated in the post-electoral violence are within this age group.  ‘Finding jobs for angry young men and taking them off the street is absolutely critical to lowering the level of violence and just as important as the size of the army.’”

 

Gaddafi:     (25, yr old male, Kibera slum)   I threw stones at the police. Many, many actually.  In return they fired shots into the air as some started approaching us and then others began tear-gassing us.

I was not frightened.

What frightens me is that I'll die of hunger.

We should be allowed to express our feelings as citizens. We don't need the police to come and invade our lives.

I don't know a lot about guns but I think the ones they have are AK-47s. The ones who don't have guns, have shields. Some of them have batons.

All we have is stones.

They have power. No one even listens to us.   (angry) The government is ignoring us poor and unemployed.

Some protestors rolling tyres came to gather with us. In Kibera there are a lot of old, broken-down cars. The protestors had taken them off from these discarded vehicles - they had not looted to get them.

We set them on fire in the middle of the road.

All the time singing and dancing and chanting: ‘We want our own rights! No justice, no peace!'

The air around us was filled with gun shots, smoke and gas - black smoke from the tyres and whiteness from the tear gas.

My eyes were burning really badly and when my eyes got in contact with the gas, tears definitely came out. A lot of tears.

At times the police were less than 20m away and on either side of us... we were more or less surrounded.

This is when many of us began thinking it was wise not to confront them. We left out of fear.

Where I was, no one was shot today. Many were hurt though, mostly during the times of no order and the stampedes.

I didn't like protesting. It is a frustration, an anger.

 

ALL:    How long, O Lord, how long?

 

5-7:    Where is the church?  What is our response?

 

(Next 3 lines spoken to one another, finishing each other’s thoughts)

 

8:    “To allow the hungry man to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one’s neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor.  

 

9:    It is for the love of Christ, which belongs as much to the hungry man as to myself, that I share my bread with him and that I share my dwelling with the homeless.  

 

10:    If the hungry man does not attain to faith, then the fault falls on those who refused him bread.  

 

8-10:    To provide the hungry man with bread is to prepare the way for the coming of grace.”   Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Voice:       (singing a cappella) May we dwell in unity, peace and liberty. Plenty be found within our borders.   (images of Kenya today, in conflict. Continue to end of song)

 

 

1:    Treat all humanity with the dignity and love they are due as the offspring of God.

 

2:    Act toward our environment as its caretakers and not its ravishers

 

3:    For God said to “tend and dress” the earth.  

 

1-8:    THIS IS GOD’S PLAN.

 

3:    Anything short of that is the result of man’s sin—his sin against God, against his fellow man, against his environment.

 

2:    If we have the capacity to relieve suffering and save life—and we do—and refuse to do it, that will undoubtedly be a part of our judgment.   (Stanley Mooneyham)

 

 

Voice:     (sung to tune of Finlandia )
This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth’s kingdoms

Thy kingdom come on earth Thy will be done

Let Christ be lifted up ‘til all men serve Him,

And hearts united learn to live as one

O, hear my prayer, Thou God of all the nations,

Myself I give Thee – let Thy will be done.

 

 

 

Janet:      (36 yr old woman, Pharmacist, Nairobi)   I am in my office. I am working. I am carrying on with my life. It is my own personal protest.

I am protesting against my country's destruction for the sake of a few people’s desire to be in power.

The killing and retaliation going on is not right.  And the saddest part of it all is that our country is now divided.

I guess you would consider me a middle-upper class Kenyan, and for people like me, our problem at the moment is the inconvenience.

We are not hungry. We are safe in our houses.

But I still worry about security, my staff, their safety, people’s attitudes, the economy.

I am fed up with everything.

And I am not alone. There are a lot of us who are fed up with this.

Yes, we all know that a great wrong has been done but we just want our lives back to normal.

 

ALL:    How long, O Lord, how long?

 

Expat:    I am finding it hard to concentrate on everyday living when I do not know if my dear friends are safe and well.  My heart just breaks for Kenya and my soul cries out to God for this land and the people I love; and especially for the innocent lives who are always caught in the crossfire. In the Hotel Rwanda movie the line is spoken , ‘Americans will lay down their fork and watch what is happening and comment how terrible and then pick up their fork and go on eating’. I do not want to be one of those.

 

 

 

6:    "Bless those who persecute you;

 

1-5:     bless   and do not curse them.

 

Samuel:    I had a shop in Kibera and many loyal customers. I lost my house and business worth Sh50,000. So many others have also lost businesses and hope.  We have families that depend on us.  We don’t know what to do next.

 

7:    Rejoice with those who rejoice,

 

8:    weep with those who weep.

 

6-10:    Live in harmony with one another; (images of violence, then violence met by peace)

 

9:    do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

 

ALL:    Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

 

13:    How can we leave the camps and go home?  What if we are killed when we go back?  Who will provide for our families?  This might appear small to the government but not to we who have felt the pain of the violence and lost everything.

 

11:    If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written,

 

ALL:    "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." "

 

12:    If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads."

 

13:    Do not overcome by evil, but overcome with good." Romans 12:14-21

 

9:    And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”  (Jer. 29:7)

 

 

1-4:    Where is the church in this?   (pace quickens over the next few lines)

 

5:    The electoral process must be fixed.

 

6:    The courts are corrupt.

 

4:    The church is silent.

 

9:    The church is partisan.

 

1-7:    It’s the opposition.

 

8-14:    It’s the government.

 

 

10::    Do not pervert justice or show partiality. … Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you.  (Deut. 16:19-21)  

 

 

(this section done as gossipers, speaking among themselves, overlapping, gullible)

 

1:    Did you hear…foreign soldiers are in the country doing the work of the government.

2:    No, it’s those leaders who are inciting their constituencies to violence.

3:    Did you see the email about…

4:    America is going to send a bomb and kill us all.  I swear it’s true!

5:    5 Somali warlords are coming to take over Nairobi.  I saw the SMS from intelligence.

6:    UFOs were spotted over Lake Victoria.  We’re being invaded from outer space.

1:    It’s all true!  Did you hear?

1-5:     (group gossiping together) I read the email…Did you hear…it was an SMS…did you hear…did you hear?

 

 

7:    Do you believe everything you hear or read?  What is the source?  Before you pass it on, do you know it as fact?  Is it helpful?  Scripture says:

 

8:     "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness.

 

9:    "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.

 

 

(pause)

 

5-8:    You shall not murder .   (brief pause, then lines build in anger)

 

2:    Communities attack the foreigners in their midst.

 

3:    Neighbors are killing neighbors.

 

4:    What makes a man throw a child back into the fire?

 

9:    How can a pastor join a gang of youth in murdering his neighbors?

 

6:     (angry)  We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us.  For every one killed, we will kill three.

 

11:     (slowly, carefully)  My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.   (James 1:19-22)

 

7:    You shall not steal.

 

2:     (newscaster)   Rampaging combatants torched houses, looted and destroyed property.

 

Teacher:    “I spent the night with my two children in the tea plantation as my house was being looted.  The agony and trauma I underwent, the images, are still in my mind.  I cannot perform my duties effectively.”

 

8:      You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

 

3:     (newscaster) Looters took almost the entire supply of television sets, DVD players and bicycles.

 

Trader:    “They don’t care about politics; this is an excuse they are using to take our things.”

 

6:    Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (Js 1:22ff)

 

3:     (newscaster)  Of the 250,000 displaced people in camps, about 100,000 are children.  The remaining majority are women who are fleeing with babies.

 

ALL:    How long, O Lord, how long?  Who will show us any good?

 

Patriot:    I write this letter as my final mortal action upon this earth. 

I am a well-educated man. I have worked in Berlin, Stockholm, London, New York and many other places. I speak six languages fluently.

Even with all these achievements, I have no more reason to live. If you want to look for me, go to City Mortuary where I have determined to fester among the anonymous people there. 

This is my only protest.

You leaders, I indict you.

By your actions, my life irrevocably changed. History will now forget the great achievement and legacy that you were poised to make and it shall remember that for your self-righteousness, people lost lives, property, and most of all, hope. On the blood of my people, I indict you.

You leaders, on the blood and tears of my people, I indict you. 

Because of your bitterness my life irrevocably changed. My greatest achievements, my family, died in your name. My son, my heir, named after my great ancestors, went up in smoke before he could say my name, or his great name.

My twin daughters were found by my burnt house, having bled out of their wounds. My wife died with the seed of six men inside her, demented and finally catatonic. This happened in your name. Because my wife was from the wrong community. Because you must get what is yours.

You will read this and feel nothing. You will rationalise it as accepted collateral damage. Some must die in the [supposed] pursuit of justice, isn’t it? 

Kenyans, on the blood of my children, I indict you all. You lost the ball. You forgot that our ethnicity is something we joke about, as we go about our business.

You forgot that we do not fight, we mediate. You forgot that we are a great people, built on the back of great people. You forgot that it’s just elections.

On the blood of my children, on the tears of my dead wife, on the tears of our mothers, on the tears in the sheets of those people who are sleeping in the rain, I indict you.

 

 

3:     (loudly and firmly)  Thus says the Lord God.  Enough, O princes of Israel!  Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness.  Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord God.

 

 

Mildred:    I want to remember how to love you my sister.  Even when gory scenes on TV show ethnic groups slaughtering one another and tribesmen urge revenge.  My sister, I want to remember the countless moments we sat and laughed while watching comedies, eating popcorn and lamenting over husbands and children.

I am struggling to remember. I have to remember the fact that you – a woman of the earth, corroborate the pain that is felt in that delivery room when bringing forth children sired by fathers of different tribes. 

When all the sanity, reason and logic has evaporated the hardened hearts of men, I want to recall, my sister, the love which you and I share even if we have never set eyes on each other – that very same love that is so much needed to save this humanity that is dangerously edging towards oblivion. 

We sat in crowded sweaty rooms for years, whispered, deliberated, discussed and debated the woman’s Herculean task of dancing on through the stresses and hardships of life even when the devil of hatred sat heavily on our backs. 

Remember the many incidences when we removed our lesos, headscarves and sweaters to spread out at the back of a bus just to urge you to push out life that had burst out at the wrong place? Remember how we chased away all the men and shielded you even when we did not know your name? Yes, I want to remember that and most of all, I want to remember how we cried with you as you gnawed and pushed and how we hoped with you to the end up until that very first shrill that signified the beginning of life – the birth of hope. 

 

I want to remember how to love you now because, if we forget this love, my sister, my mother, my daughter, my friend, then what hope is there tomorrow when the offspring from our wombs know nothing but hate? 

 

Voice:     (sung)   Let all with one accord, in common bond united

    Build this our nation together…

 

1:    There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28)

 

(derisively, to others in the cast)

A:    We JaLuo,

B:    We Mkikuyu.  

C:    He, you Mkamba,

D:    You Maasai…

 

5:    Friends of mine who are not my tribe... it never used to factor in our friendship but now it is making me wonder: what do they think of me? Maybe they no longer consider themselves to be a friend of mine?

 

4:    I don’t want to think along tribal lines.  It’s not progressive.  But if I get into a political discussion an unknown side of me comes out.  Where did it come from?  Why is it there?  How can I say those things?

 

A:    We JaLuo,

B:    We Mkikuyu.  

C:    He, you Mkamba,

D:    You Maasai…   (While song is sung they circle, gesturing, then begin evicting people one by one. Last two end up attacking each other)

 

Voice:     (sung)   In Christ there is no east or west,

In Him no south or north,

But one great fellowship of love

Throughout the whole wide earth.

 

2:    If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

 

 

3:    In God’s sight a person is the most precious of all values.  This truth possessed Jesus and never let Him go.  He thought it, taught it, and lived it with full devotion.  He illustrated it with stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

 

4:    Every individual is inherently worthful to the Father—every child everywhere, of every race, of every condition.  (pause)

 

 

5:    I’m tired, I can’t think.  I can’t work.  I just want to sleep.

 

8:    I’ve stopped watching the news or reading the papers.  All I see are the bad things, the killings, the posturing, the accusations.  Where is the sense of hope?  Why can’t the media show how we are helping one another?

 

7:    Enough of the bad stories – let’s hear some good things.  How are people helping one another?  We are sitting down with our neighbors, our coworkers, who are from different tribes, and having coffee, talking.  

 

6:    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.   (Phil 4:8)

 

Voice:     (sung)  Join hands then brothers of the faith,

Whate’er your race (tribe) may be

Who serves my Father as a son is surely kin to me.

 

 

1:    Thousands of the displaced families camp in churches, police stations, schools and showgrounds

 

12:    What can I do?  I feel so helpless.  Where is the truth?

 

4:    All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

 

5-10:    We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.  (2 Cor. 5:18-20)

 

11:    Honor one another above yourselves.  (Rom. 12:10)

 

14:    You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly   (Rom. 5:6)

 

6-9:     (build up until overlapping one another) Where is the church? The church has failed completely.  It has done nothing.  Why does the church not stand up?

 

2:    Wait a minute – who is the church?

 

3:     (pointing to different ones on stage) You, and you, and you, and you (all point out at congregation)… each one of us is the church.

 

1:    You say the church has failed?  Then each one of us who calls ourselves Christian are the ones who have failed.

 

9:    "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.

 

2:    People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.

 

6:    For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.  (Luke 6)

 

5:    Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.

 

ALL:    Do what it says.

 

3:    Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.     (image depicting this)

 

1-2:    But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

 

3-8:    Pray this way for kings

and all who are in authority

so that we can live peaceful

and quiet lives

marked by godliness

and dignity. (1 Tim. 2:2)

 

 

Voice:     (sung to Finlandia.  Two by two the cast comes together, greets one another in love. Some go out to the audience to shake hands.  Then all come together in final tableau of unity.  All cast  joins in singing the last few lines.)

 

May truth and freedom come to every nation;

may peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together

a world united, righting every wrong;

a world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming peace together in one song .

 

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for men in every place;

And yet I pray for my beloved country

The reassurance of continued grace:

Lord, help us find our oneness in the Savior,

In spite of differences of age and race.