Why must I love KQ?

One of those annoying Twitter homilies is strangely apposite: People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used. If you look at the debate surrounding the bailout of Kenya Airways, one of the recurring themes is that "we love KQ; therefore, we must save KQ." In the same space, where teachers are concerned, no less a power than the head of the National Treasury declares with finality, "Nyet! Hakuna hata ndururu!"

My national heritage is being corrupted. It no longer recognises the incredible genetics that make middle-distance and long-distances races an almost foregone conclusion. It has studiously ignored the spectacular energy - vim and brio - that a kilumi dance evokes and engenders. It relegates benga to second-class status when showcasing authentic Kenyan culture on foreign soil. It is snarky and snide every time somewhere in Kiambu a mugithi is being performed. My culture has been corrupted, supplanted by the likes of Kenya Airways and Uchumi.

Seventeen Kenyans marched into Beijing last month and totally blew away the competition. It is only because they blew away the competition that the scabrous denizens of the an ersatz legislative chamber deigned to ascend from their perfidious Mt Olympus to bestow upon these singular Kenyan champions with their particularly odious imprimatur of esteem. From the snippets broadcast by our craven news media, you would have been hoodwinked to think that the parade of worthies, potbellies wigglingly straining against Italian-silk shirts, had been our victorious flagbearers in the Land of the Dragon.

Victorian England vagabonds poisoned the well of our incredible self-worth and the toxin of their priggishness continues to lay to waste whatever sense of value we ever had in kilumi, benga, mugithi and the dozens of our other cultural mainstays. Now we bend our knees to the almighty bottom line, elevate impersonal creations such as Kenya Airways and Uchumi to the level of loved family members, and worship at the alter of capital gains as a measure of our place among the civilised nations of the world. It is how some people who are taken seriously in certain circles will draw first blood if it mans that roads and railways and airports and sea ports will be built before a single cent is diverted to settle the massive debt owed to the educators of our children and the healers of our feeble flesh.

Why must I love the corporation, kind sir? Will it love me back? Will it hold my child's hand as it navigates the treacherous ebbs and flows of Nairobi's vehicular traffic? Will it throw itself in front of the assassin's bullet when the Shabaab comes? Will it intercede on my behalf with God Almighty and remind Him that I may be flawed but that I still deserve eternal life? Will it engage me in flights of fancy where, together, we can remind the world that there is a long lone that connects the Wazimba in Zambia to the Wakamba in Kibwezi? I think not. If you, dear lady, still insists that Kenya Airways deserves the billions that rightfully belong to Mrs Ogolla and her colleagues who gave me the gift of knowledge, then you are already lost.