Playgrounds and loyalties.

There are circumstances that demand loyalty. More often than not, they revolve around the fates of our loved ones. Sometimes our loyalties are tested when the fates of groups larger than our families are at stake, but those are be few and far between. I am loyal to my nation, a democratic republic to which I will always return no matter where my travels take me and regardless of how long my travels last. I will always be loyal to my nation, but that loyalty will never supersede my loyalty to my flesh and blood. Those are the only kinds of loyalty that I would consider to be absolute and sacrosanct.

These days I am called to be loyal to my friends, my employer, my boss, my supervisor, my tribe, my business partner, my government, my president, my elected representative and a host of others to whom I am increasingly finding it difficult to be loyal to. My loyalty is taken for granted; it is assumed to be freely given without corresponding obligation on those that demand it. I am told to be loyal because that is what a person in my position must be. I am told that if I do not demonstrate my loyalty, such disloyalty will come with consequences. The consequences are not spelt out, but they are intimated to be dire.

Loyalty is easy to demand, difficult to enforce in the face of the fundamental misunderstanding about the obligations that loyalty must engender. If I am loyal then it means that correspondingly I derive benefits from the one I am loyal to. My loyalty to my family and friends is amply rewarded by their commitment to my well-being and succour in times of hardship. My loyalty to my employer is more complicated; I will display that loyalty by doing what I am paid to do to the very best of my ability and to the highest standard I can muster. But because I know that my employer will not mourn my passing nor pass around the hat to defray the costs of my eternal interment, I see no reason why my loyalty should extend to sacrificing my time or my shilling to ensure that my very best work is done even when I have no obligation to do it. The same conflicted feelings go for my boss, my supervisor, my tribe, my business partner, my government, my president, my elected representative and all the rest of them.

The demands for Kenyans to demonstrate their loyalty by not taking the names of the high and mighty in jest have been rising in recent months because social media have proven difficult horses to corral. Individual users of social media have been prosecuted or investigated because of intemperate statements they have made about holders of high office; the aftermaths of these prosecutions or investigations have included calls for the demonstration by all Kenyans of loyalty to the holders of these high offices. In the light of the arrogance demonstrated by the high and mighty regarding the comforts of the huddled masses, that is a demand too far.

Someone demanding our loyalty permitted a school playground to be unlawfully allocated to a third party, refused to take any steps to reverse the allocation, stood idly by as the third party proceeded to alienate the playground, ignored calls from parents and school administrators alike to stop the alienation, ignored warnings that parents would ensure that the playground was accessible to schoolchildren, sided with the third party by deploying police to keep schoolchildren from entering the playground, authorised the police to attack the schoolchildren with "non-lethal" weapons when they demanded access to the playground, and then blithely declared that after all the playground belonged to the children and that they had nothing to fear. These are the people to whom we are told we owe our loyalty. Our loyalty would be freely given if they did not treat it as a right to which they were entitled, but a privilege which they earned by serving us as they promised they would.