When I saw this video, several things came into my mind and as a lifelong student whose motto is to study until death, I isolated some lessons that I decided to share here. Several biblical scriptural examples came alive including the 23rd Psalm ..."Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...... The most clear Lesson I learned from this as I was talking to a friend this morning was that the video depicts what exactly has become of what we call Democracy.
Democracy postulates that the majority MUST have it all. This means that even if the majority is wrong, bigoted, unfair, evil or even corrupt, they should be given the throne. That is what happened when some people were dicriminated against because of their skin colour, religion,caste or gender.
The second clear lesson I learned while watching this video was that, Corruption has at its heart the craving of power and money that make those of us who are corrupt to chase and run after the national resources like the snakes in the video.
Every snake in this video to me represents Ethnic comunities and their political leaders in a nation like mine. They all run after the country's economical natural resources, overtaken by their monstrous hunger for money, lust for power, and craving for their selfish ambition, they form political coalitions that are selfish to the core, tribal in nature and on the election days, they scramble for the trophy, miss the trophy and end up entangled in squables of unending ethnic clashes.
The lizard on the other hand, represents opportunities. Generally, lizards are food to snakes and although it may look unfair to equate a life of an individual animal to a resource, I would like to point to a fact I have learned in the half a century I have lived on this earth.
Life comes from death. All the foods we eat must die before they are eaten. At every death of an organism, life springs. If the lizard were to be killed by ants, each ant would have a bite. But the case in the video is, if the lizzard were to caught and killed by one snake among the many, it would have ended in the stomach of but one sanke. ALL OF IT. If we Kenyans can remove the snake like appetite, hunger, strife, cravings, selfishness, ethnocentrism and attitude like the ants, our nation would be a great place to live in. We would not be where we are now.
Our opportunities for progress and development are in within us. The potential of eradicating poverty is in the young people we have left to go and work as house helps in the middle east. Most of these young people passed their exams, have degrees, and could make great engineers, nurses, doctors and educators.
The video is the closest analogy I have ever watched of what democracy has come to mean, and corruption has made us selfish savages who have resorted to quarelling over the escaped opportunities. We need to learn from four things on earth that are very little, yet they are extremely wise:
Ants are creatures of little strength—yet they store up their food in the summer;
Conies are creatures of little power—yet they make their home in the crags;
Locusts have no king—yet they advance together in ranks;
A spider can be caught with the hand—yet it is found in kings' palaces."
Proverbs 30:24-28
