GREED HATE ENVY.....

Greed, hate and envy those are the things we see every day. Sorry for starting this week on such a low note but any true Nairobian knows that wherever they go, they cannot be surprised if they run into this. For anyone who has read my earlier posts you know by know that I have been through all the hood levels and i can say without a doubt that this exists everywhere.

I’m gonna back up a bit to explain why i speak of these vices today. I read an article this morning talking about the greed Kenyans have, click here if you would like to read it, it resonated with me because it was all true. I cannot speak for all Kenyans except for the ones I know so Im gonna say that I know not of any greater greed, hatred or envy than what I have seen here in Nairobi. It may be true that I have not lived anywhere else but most of it is directed to the person standing next to you so hate me or love me, it’s all true.

So if we were to get down to the facts, we can start with what I believe is the start of the downhill journey our city has been going down. Greed and envy, if you look back to history it will tell you that Nairobi was once a bustling capital that was clean and well maintained. Some of you reading this do not remember it because it was before your time. The high end neighbourhoods such as Muthaiga were there just for white settlers and guess where the big black ballers lived. If you guessed BuruBuru and such places, you would be right. Those neighbourhoods were the top of the top of it all, now this is the part where my history gets rusty. How did the people who were actually the tops of the top get to move up in the world so quickly. I can only blame it to greed and envy. I believe there were some actual hard workers who made their fortunes the right way but there are others still who lied cheated and stole to get to where they are. How do I know this, because we are in a society that is complacent, bought and paid for? We for one know who the perpetrators of most of the crimes against us but we are unable to put them to book because of what they do for us or what they can do to us, If you didn’t get that I am basically saying that they could be giving us money in exchange for complacence or we could be threatened with pain or death for it. Point blank, isn’t it? It is the truth though but I do not want to act holier than though because I’d rather never show up to a restaurant again than complain about the service.

In my assessment, envy begets greed because one has to want something first then want it even more when they get it. There is ambition, which you cannot find fault with, where you would like to get out of the hole you are in and make a name for yourself but then there is envy that gives you the deep need to want something that someone else has. These two can be mistaken for equals but there is little that makes the need to be like someone and the need to be that person. Those are my own words, no quotes, so disregard them if you feel i am not right.

Back to the ballers, the best example i could come up with in history i have read is about Mr. Ten percent. He was a Kenyan minister who headed what i could describe back then as where companies come to ask if they can work in the country. I feel it’s relevant because it was actually in Nairobi where his offices were. When a country is still young, looks ready for growth but lacks the know how to achieve it then foreign investors come in and start companies to tap into it. The companies coming in require labour, raw materials and off course government approval. Now the man in charge or who could influence that at that time had one demand or requirement. He gets 10 % of the company and they would be free to operate. An entrepreneur in this case would be faced with a dilemma that had its ups and downs. The upside is that with a politician who had interests in the company, he could be assured of some considerable protection in the long run. I major downside is that if the politician could gain enough power, they could take over the company or even have him unceremoniously thrown out. The bottom line was that the company wasn’t going to start if the entrepreneur doesn’t grant him that ten percent. Judging by the fact that so many companies were started probably around that time, the guy made a killing. I don’t have to tell you that it is abuse of office and shamelessly demanding a bribe. His case was so bad that he was summoned by the then president and was chastised for his actions. I am not sure how the story goes afterwards but I know i am guilty of envy when i say that i probably wouldn’t have minded to be in that family, unless he was eventually assassinated in which case let’s forget that. Mr. Ten percent is greedy, wanted to get rich quickly and wanted to make sure someone else did most of the work. This I am sure still happens today, safaricom 5% ghost owners anyone?

So the need to move up can be created by envy and the hunger for more can be termed as greed but what does hate do. Well hate is what the people at the bottom and the people at the top have in common. I am not at the top and I am definitely not at the bottom so I cannot say who hates who more than who, that will have to be left to more mathematical people. If I am a black man in an exclusive neighbourhood and the guy who lives next to me is white, then I represent progress that he resents and that is racism which is a type of hate. If I speak one language and the guy standing next to me is speaking another and for some reason he throws an insult in my direction about where I am from, if we are both from the same county but different language group then that’s tribalism another form of hate.  I can go on and on about this but the bottom line still remains, it’s all hate and it’s everywhere. 

Greed hate and envy, I want to grow but you don’t want me to grow because you want to get there first so I sabotage you and take over so you try to destroy me but when i succeed and get there you want what I have then you have other people take what I have created from me by using people who believe I am inferior and you succeed in destroying me. In the end we are back where we started, we both have nothing.