Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Who will follow him?

Stupid people do stupid things. By now the internet should have confirmed this pretty morsel of obviousness. But no! everyone is still shocked that stupid people continue doing stupid things. Take this specimen of utter stupidity, for example:


There is little to be done, except perhaps look for the charity that deals with his kind of stupid and donate money for his welfare. Wait! There is something that we can do. It takes this kind of stupid to make things easier for the slowest cops on the beat. This guy is clearly two sticks shy of a bundle, so he probably doesn't realise that what he has shared with his - I have no idea what they are - is the equivalent of an unsworn confession. There are a few loops to jump through, but Kimaiyo's boys are not that slow, are they?

It all started when some character went to great lengths to malign the character of one of Nairobi's favourite daughters. Many have a very strong opinion of this woman, but the kind of unwarranted remarks aimed at her by an infamous Kenyan online troll were an indication of the support misogyny enjoys even in Kenya's notoriously exuberant social media scene. He made infamous a hashtag that essentially asked all men to make it their mission to strip women of their clothes if they crossed a line drawn in the sand by men over what is and what is not "decent."

Rev Dr Timothy Njoya says the sexualisation of women by men, and women, is a major reason why there doesn't seem to be much hue and cry over the whole affair. He may have a point; many women, when they become women, see themselves as sexual objects of desire and dress to reflect their sexuality. It is well within the realms of decency for women, and men, to see themselves as sexual objects if they so desire; what is indecent is the insistence that sexual objects cannot object to being viciously attacked because they are sexual objects.

Rev Dr Njoya calls for the arrest and prosecution of those that would seek to violently impose their codes of decency on others. I agree with him. It is why the sloth demonstrated by Mr Kimaiyo and his boys is so frustrating. When it comes to the enforcement of their favourite provisions of the Traffic Act, the police do not hesitate, perhaps because the opportunity to line their pockets comes so very rarely. When it is the residents of Mr Kidero's leafy suburbs, the swift police reaction even to cases of ennui are a sight to see. But so long as you are assaulted on the wrong side of Tom Mboya Street, you can expect Mr Kimaiyo and his boys to take their leisurely time to accept that, (a) a crime was committed and (b) there are enough outraged people so that action must be seen to be taken.

But the kind of stupid demonstrated by the internet troll is impossible to correct. He enjoys a following that indicates the kind of purchase his perverted views has in the Twittersphere. He has already inspired one idiot and his friends to an act of lunacy. How many more lemmings are prepared to follow the troll of the ledge and into misogynistic violence?

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