Goons have given religious leaders in Homa Bay difficult task

Some of the goons believed to have been hired to prevent demonstrations on Moi Avenue ,during protests over the killing of blogger Albert Ojwang by police at Central police station.[File-Standard]

Religious leaders in Homa Bay County have a difficult task- cleansing the grounds upon which human life was lost. People sustained life-long injuries. Property was destroyed.

Money changed hands. Does this ring a bell? Yes, Judas Iscariot received money to betray his master.

Homa Bay, the scene of political crime last weekend, reminds us of the events leading to the arrest of Jesus Christ in the Gospel accounts.

Some human beings armed with crude weapons such as machetes, axes, clubs, and stones turned beastly, as if without heart, as if without conscience, as if out of their humanity, and killed and injured fellow human beings.

People shed blood and many tears, reminding us of a Good Friday; the conviction of Jesus Christ to die on the cross, innocent though he was.

Look, religious leaders in Homa Bay. What happened can only mean one thing: Some politicians don’t value life anymore.

Forget their appearances in worship places. Forget their support for good causes for religious activities. They have fundamentally told God to mind his business.

They are the owners of life and have chosen to eliminate the ones they don’t like.

They have desecrated places of worship. They have abused the Luo ancestors; Luo elders whose philosophy of life is no different from that of religious teachings: Life is sacred.

The politicians and their well-wishers who planned the barbaric attacks have poked holes in the concept of faith. They have elevated politics over faith in God.

Religious leaders in Homa Bay. I don’t envy the task before you. First, you need to console the afflicted. You have to move from one home to another, visiting those who cannot understand how God permits such an act.

It can only be explained in terms of faith. Otherwise, the pain and agony are too much to bear for people whose faith is not fully grounded, as Job's was in the Old Testament.

Second, you have to face the monster politicians. With the support of your other religious leaders from across the country, you cannot but be emphatically intolerant of violence.

The emerging problem of seemingly normal human beings descending on others with heartless force signals a possible long ride to next year’s general election.

As religious leaders, this time around make it clear that you are angry, like the God of the Old Testament, in anything that smells of violence from afar.

Third, spread your high-level intolerance of violence to at-risk young people. That they are jobless, having no meaningful engagement to spend their energies on and are being tempted with 30 silver coins, does not make it right for them to kill, maim or disrupt other people’s lives.

Clearly, the word of God has not sunk in the hearts of many. Until it is manifested in action, it remains faith without action. Even those who do not come to worship need to see testimonies of faith that reveres human life because everyone is created in the image and likeness of God.

I conclude with Albert Camus’ philosophical discourse on absurdity.

What happened in Homa Bay over the weekend is a pure embodiment of the philosophy of absurdity: In the Camusian sense, the absurd arises when the human longing for meaning, justice, and community collides with a world that answers with senseless chaos, and few scenes capture this collision more starkly than neighbours who share a homeland, a language, and a democratic cause turning stones, pangas, and fire upon one another, killing a police officer sworn to protect them and a woman merely passing through, not over land or survival but over the staging of a political rally.

Religious leaders in Homa Bay, such violence is absurd because it destroys the very belonging it claims to defend, turning neighbour against neighbour without reason. Yet Camus taught that confronting senselessness should awaken refusal, not despair.

That refusal now lives in Homa Bay's clergy, journalists, and citizens demanding dialogue and accountability, declaring that even meaningless acts cannot extinguish our duty to create meaning and uphold one another's dignity.

Dr Mokua is Director Loyola Center for Media and Communications