I vividly recall the time during my elementary schooling through to the college level where patriotism was instilled in us. Though it was intertwined with the gospel of Nyayoism in primary school, it stood out that we needed to be aware of our responsibility as citizens. Little wonder, therefore, that the period in question was rife with such topics as the Mwakenya, Muungano wa mageuzi, Young Turks and even the Rainbow coalition which all would be capped by the promulgation of the new constitution in 2010.

All this, yet four years later, we are not any closer to where we would like to be as a nation. From living rooms, coffee shops to cybercafés, hypocrisy, mediocrity, tribalism, nepotism and hatred seem to still be pulling us towards the monster of the status quo, fifty years after independence.

As one of our country’s young people, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the resources that have been spent, and sacrifices made in order for us to climb up the academic ladder where knowledge gained is expected to help confront societal challenges. Our sacred texts, parents and all others do not tire to remind us to be our brothers’ keepers regardless of our levels of education, creed, race or political inclination.

The high rates of unemployment and the ever-swelling number of graduates released into the job market make loving each other particularly challenging for most youth, yet time and again, we have been called upon to love mercy and justice, and to walk humbly before our Maker.

For many among us at this time in our nation’s history, this might mean speaking the truth to power at great personal cost, or serve in the most obscure of life’s many stations. In the cities and hamlets of our land, some of us might end up wielding great power, while the rest of us might be on the other end of the divide, going against the grain amidst ridicule and abandonment. Whichever your lot, may the serpentine wisdom and dove-like humility of our country’s people be your true north.

James Russell Lowell appeared to understand the complex nature of patriotic courage when, in The Present Crisis, he observed: “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, - yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

If called to obscurity – away from the sometimes blinding cameras and support of friends and relatives, and our calling be to sweep, let us so sweep that Heaven will say there goes earth’s greatest sweeper.

Few in life have seemed to grasp this better than the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who often counseled: “Darkness does not drive out darkness, light does drive out darkness!”

Fellow youths and countrymen let it not be said of us, months and years from today, that we suffered from a poverty of vision, faith, hope and love. At this time of immense public frustration with a litany of issues, let us not curse the darkness around us, but light up our candles, and go and light the world. At this time of intense debate over whether or not we should have a referendum, two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and like Robert Frost, we certainly cannot travel both, long stand here as we might, and look down as far as we can to where it bends in the undergrowth.

Indeed, each of us should be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: “Two roads diverged in the wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

In our learning experiences, we have been adequately equipped with knowledge and skills to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow, the kind of excellence which the continent and the world are yearning for.

Months and years after today, let it be remembered that we each sought to make our lives a daily, responsible answer to the question of God’s call on our lives in our generation and country. 

By Ezekiel Chebunde 
 
The writer Chebunde2008@gmail.com is a graduate of Daystar University and Community Development practitioner serving as the Project and Programs Director with the Sitatunga Farmers’ Co-operative Society in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County.