Can a people curse themselves and their progeny?We shall endeavor to answer this question from the biblical stand point…

In Deuteronomy 28, God presented ancient Israel with two possible options:  On the one hand, life, prosperity, health and peace on the condition that they remained faithful to Him as their God.  On the other hand, if Israel failed to abide in faithfulness to their God, He spelt out curses that would attend their lives - death, destruction, famine, poverty, ill health, fear and despondency and servitude to Gentile over lords – they would be tails instead of heads. They would be fleeing even when no one was pursuing them. They would suffer terrible debilitating, wasting diseases, festering sores etc…

He further spelt out a long period of punishment lasting 2,520 years in Leviticus 26: 14 – 39.  All these horrible curses came upon the nation of Israel, beginning with the exile into Assyria and Babylon and subsequently being scattered all over the world.  To date, few countries on earth can claim not to have a Jewish population among its citizenry.  It is therefore clear that ancient Jewish idolatry brought a curse unto God’s chosen nation and thereby fulfilling Moses’ prophecies (Psalms 106:27 -28).

Similarly, when Pilate washed his hands pledging innocence of Yahshua’s blood, the Jews unanimously replied; “May his blood be upon us and our children.” (Matthew 27:25).  This self-imprecation has been, and continues to be a source of much Jewish suffering down through the ages, to this very day. The Jews have been hounded out of virtually all European nations into which they established a presence.Their goods and properties have been confiscated (for example, the imperial order to vacate Italy issued by Roman Emperor Claudius in Acts 18:2, and a similar expulsion  by Spain’s  Ferdinand and Isabella circa 1492).  The Jews have suffered unjust taxes targeting them specifically, endured discriminatory legislation forbidding their entry into many professions, forbidding their use of various public utilities or living in certain districts in various European towns.  They have suffered lack of representation in houses of parliament and other policy making bodies.  Indeed, Hitler’s World War II hecatomb can be argued to be part of the consequence of the curse the Jews brought upon themselves. The same can be said of the rising spectre of anti-Semitism in today’s world.  Their blood – guilt shall only be purged at Yahshua’s Second Coming (Joel 3:21).  So, again we ask; can a nation, a people, bring a curse upon themselves?  The answer is a resounding YES!

Kenya, as the “Nest of God”

Now let us turn our attention to the Kenyan situation.In the Hebrew tongue, the name Kenya roughly translates to “nest of YAH”.  Yah is of course the name of the Almighty God of Israel (Psalm 68: 4, NKJV). It is the name we find in the common expression “Hallelu – Yah”, meaning; “Praise the LORD”.  A nest is the place of abode built mostly by birds. A home in which a bird would lay her eggs in, and nurture her young. It is a place of rest and home.  It is central to the bird’s life and certain birds, indeed many birds (for example the eagle) take great care in situating their nests.  Others even ensure that they incorporate elaborate security arrangements (thorns, cliffs, resident wasps, out-of-reach branches, etc) to guarantee their safety and that of their young.  Such is the place of Kenya in Elohim’s scheme of things. Though tacked away in the so-called “Third World”, one cannot but marvel at the uniqueness of this East African nation.  Geographically, Kenya is a microcosm of all the diverse climatical regions of the world: from deserts to savannahs, to mountains and mountain forests, to alpine grasslands, to glaciated peaks, to maritime forests, to equatorial forests, to crystalline sandy beaches and everything in between.  Kenya has it all.  Kenya sits astride the equator, with one half of the country in the northern and the other half in the southern hemisphere.  Kenya’s Rift Valley lakes are also unique in many respects; Lake Turkana is the world’s biggest desert lake.  Lakes Baringo and Bogoria have hot springs.  Lake Nakuru is the world’s biggest natural bird sanctuary.  Lake Naivasha is distinguished in the sense that though it has no visible outlets, yet its waters remain fresh (these waters irrigate some of the world’s largest flower farms).  Lake Magadi, near our Southern border with Tanzania, is the world’s largest supplier of soda ash.

Kenya also boasts the Yatta Plateau, the world’s largest lava flow, while the Maasai Mara is undisputedly the world’s most famous game reserve. It hosts one of the Seven Wonders of the World; the annual spectacle of millions of wildebeests, hundreds of thousands of zebra, topi, and impala migrating from the Serengeti into the Maasai Mara.

Kenya’s sea port of Mombasa is the gateway to East and Central Africa, handling huge quantities of goods destined for Uganda, northern Tanzania, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also the second deepest natural harbor in the world after Southampton in southern England. Mombasa also hosts the world’s largest tea auction - with Kenya’s tea and coffee being the best such beverages produced in this world.

Nairobi, the Kenyan capital is the world’s only capital with a national park within the city limits.  It is also the only capital with a closed canopy forest (Karura) within the city boundaries.  Because of its mild, moderate annual climate; Nairobi is also the biggest diplomatic and corporate hub of East and Central Africa.  It is the only “Third World” capital hosting the United Nations headquarters (the United Nations Environmental Assembly) at Gigiri. The UN Habitat is also seated here along with UN Aids, ICRAF, and ILRI among other global bodies.

But perhaps the nation’s strongest selling point is its peoples.  Kenya has a healthy mix of Nilotes, Bantus, Cushites, Asians, Arabs and Kenyans of European stock. The globally renowned and culturally iconic Maasai are found here. This heterogeneous melting pot of cultures has resulted in a unique Kenyan blend of a warm friendly, hardworking, innovative and very progressive nation. 

Kenya thus boasts one of Africa’s most developed human resource indices.  It is an incubation hub of ground breaking IT innovative concepts (such as M-Pesa which has catapaulted Kenya into becoming the world’s leading mobile money economy).This concept is now revolutionizing the world’s banking.  The current world’s best teacher Peter Tabichi, is a Kenyan, and so is Africa’s 2019 best teacher award holder.

Kenya is also a global sports power house with multiple records in athletics and several other disciplines.  Whether in volleyball, basketball, cricket or rugby, Kenya has given a clearly visible account of herself on the world stage.Kenya’s beautiful national anthem is among the best such national songs on earth.

Most recently, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge smashed his own world marathon record and became the first human being to run the marathon in under two hours.  As this was happening in Vienna, Austria, another Kenyan, Brigid Kosgei was busy obliterating Britain’s Paula Radcliffe’s 16 year women’s world marathon record in Chicago, USA. America’s first black president, Barack Hussein Obama is half Kenyan. One could go on and on, ad infinitum, but I believe the point has been made.  Undoubtedly, all these enviable accolades make this East African country a truly special piece of real estate!

Kenya’s Achilles’ heel

Sadly, however, all these blessings are, so to speak, counterbalanced, by a myriad of setbacks that seem to dog this nation whenever efforts to move forward are made. It is a self-evident truth to us Kenyans that our true potential as a towering giant in the comity of nations is far from being achieved. Kenya is punching way under her weight, to put it mildly.  Kenya finds herself mired in endemic corruption with approximately one third of Kenya’s shillings 3 trillion annual budget lost through grand larceny.  From Goldenberg, to Anglo Leasing, to Triton, to NCPB, to Eurobond, to NYS 1 and 2 among others, Kenya’s corruption horror story is a long and sad one.

The specter of election violence is almost becoming a norm every election cycle.  The economy almost grinds to a halt; human life is lost, vandalized or otherwise destroyed.

Tied at the hip with electoral violence is deep seated tribalism which rears its ugly head and continues to deny this country her true pride of place as one of best places any human could live in on God’s good earth.

The question therefore is: what is the problem?Why are we not able to slay these dragons militating against our nationhood, our prosperity, our peace, our development? What indeed, ails Kenya?

In my humble view, ours is first and foremost a spiritual malady going back to the time that this country was founded.  How so?

Kenya’s Demonic Altars

To better manage their newly acquired East African “protectorate”, the British colonists, through Sir William Mackinnon, set up the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1888.  The IBEAC needed to secure colonial gains in the East African hinter land (from the Indian Ocean sea board all the way to Lake Victoria and into Uganda). This also ensured that their quest to secure the headwaters of the Nile was achieved. There was therefore need to set up a railway line from Mombasa moving north – westwards to the Nyanza basin.  This was billed as the best way to fast track the exploitation of the colony’s resources while enabling the settlement of white settlers in the cooler regions of Central Kenya, the Rift Valley and the highlands west of the Rift Valley.  Although some British parliamentarians were opposed to the project, and derisively called it the “Lunatic Express”, it nevertheless did take off.

To provide the necessary labour the agency of Indian coolies was engendered. Indians were shipped from the Indian subcontinent as labour gangs to help build the railway line. Naturally, the Indians came with their entire cultural peculiarities including their religions.  As they laboured in the hot African sun, they would intone their gods in various religious mantras one of which was “Harambee!” literally translating to “Hail Ambe”.  Who, then, is Ambe? She is one of the most powerful goddesses on the Hindu pantheon.  The word Ambe comes from the Gujerati word “ambika” meaning “mother”.  Ambe is therefore the “mother” of all Hindu deities.The Harambee mantra was chanted as the coolies “pooled” their strength together to lift heavy objects such as boulders, rails, railway slippers etc.  The chanting was believed to invoke Ambee to supply the necessary physical strength to get the job done.

At independence, either inadvertently or otherwise, our founding fathers incorporated this Hindu religious mantra into the lexicon of the newly minted Republic of Kenya. The “Harambee philosophy” was adopted as the rallying cry of bringing people and resources together for development.  Schools, roads, health centres and other public utilities were built through the “Harambee Spirit”.  Thus a Hindu goddess found herself enthroned in high and low places of power and authority as multiple altars were erected to her name.   The most powerful office in the land, the Office of the President is located in “Harambee House”, while the Deputy President’s office is housed in “Harambee House Annex”.  It is also true that the most powerful street in our capital, Nairobi, is called “Harambee Avenue”.  Powerful and important government organs and offices are situated along this street; the National Treasury, the Ministry of Education, the State Law Office, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Assembly among others.

Have Kenyans really paused to consider the spiritual consequences of these actions?  Could there be a spiritual reason for the luck-lustre performance in so many of our government’s institutions?  Why can’t we seem to get it right with our education system?  Why are we plagued with endemic corruption in almost all our development efforts?

Why are there so many cases of grand larceny in Kenya?Kenya loses almost a third of its three trillion shilling budget annually to corruption!  Why has this country, despite setting up numerous anti-graft bodies has been unable to root out corruption? Major corruption scandals such as that involving Arror and Kimwarer dams, Anglo Leasing, Goldenberg, Triton, NCPB, NYS and Eurobond among many others all remain unresolved!  We seem to reel from one corruption scandal to another with no end in sight.

The justice system is not any better.Political assassinations right from the dawn of independence have never been resolved or perpetrators brought to justice.  The political murders of Pio Gama Pinto, J.M. Kariuki, Thomas Joseph Mboya, Robert Ouko, Jacob Juma, Odhiambo Mbai, Muchai, Chris Msando and numerous others all remain a collective scar on the Kenyan conscience.

The submissions of various commissions and task forces such as those of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission Report, the Ndungu Commission Report among others are all gathering dust in government offices somewhere.  They have not been made public, and if they have, the recommendations therein have never been implemented.  Yet this country urgently needs healing and the implementation of the recommendations of some of these reports could go a long way in making Kenya a better country. Ours remains a nation that is not at peace with itself.

The Remedy

It is my humble submission that Kenyans must confront the spiritual, unseen elements of our past and make amends. We must begin with the spiritual dimension.

When ancients Israel fell into idolatry, worshipping Canaanite, Moabite and Ammonite gods such as Baal, Asherah, Molech and Chemosh, the God of Israel punished them by sending them into exile in Assyria.However, to ensure the land remained productive and brought in revenue, the Assyrian king resettled the land with diverse heathen peoples.  These Gentile populations naturally brought with them their various deities – Annamelech, Succoth Benoth, Ashima, Nergal e.t.c.  In other words they doubled the amount of idolatrous pollution in the Holy Land.  As such, God sent in lions to terrorize them!  He was angry with these developments (II Kings 17).

Kenya today finds herself in precisely the same position. The enthronement of Ambe in Kenya may be one of the biggest sources of our problems. As Kenyans, we acknowledge the “God of all creation” in both our national anthem and our Constitution. However, we are also found guilty of honouring idols and thereby not only exposing ourselves to their capricious and malevolent influences, but actually risking the wrath and curses of Almighty God (Psalm 106: 27-28).

Like King Josiah of ancient Israel (2 Kings 23), Kenyans need to tear down each and every demonic altar, edifice and institution erected in honour of foreign deities.  We need to get rid of the mantra “Harambee” from our lexicon, coat-of-arms, our public buildings, our currencies (notes and coins), our official documents and other symbols of power and authority.  We need to get rid of the occultic bull-frog images on pillars inside the debating chamber of parliament (is this why our politicians seem to get little done for the public good, and all the time seem to be “croaking”…which bickering is valueless to Kenyans)? We need to get rid of the Dog Star or Star of Sirius (a powerful symbol of Anubis, the jackal headed Egyptian god of the underworld) image hanging at the entrance to our parliament buildings among other symbols of the occult in our public buildings. That is what King Josiah did in ancient Israel (2Chronicles 34:1-7).

Once that is done, like Nehemiah, Ezra and Daniel of old, Kenyans needs to have genuine national repentance (Nehemiah 9, Daniel9). We need to repent in sackcloth and ashes, of all the sins of our founding fathers and those of the current generations. Kenyans need to go back to the “God of all creation” as our beautiful national anthem says. We need to enthrone Him in the national psyche as envisioned in the first chapter of our Constitution. Then, and only then, can we, perhaps, start seeing rapid socio economic progress. Then, perhaps, shall ours be peaceful elections. Then, may we truly slay the stubborn and entrenched dragons of tribalism and corruption. Then, maybe, shall we know true peace and prosperity and proudly take our rightful place at the high table of stable nations. This introspection into the spiritual component of our problems needs to be urgently incorporated into the Building Bridges Initiative discourse that is currently taking place. God bless Kenya!

By Elder K. Chang'andu