All these wars

 

Such strange times... 

It's summer and summer used to make me happy. At least since 2010.

I should be in Kenya, reporting on very important series of protests. Instead, I'm on leave. I'm supposed to 'detach' and get some rest, too close to burnout...

I arrived in Kenya in September 2010, and this country taught me so much. I loved it so much. I travelled wide and far, from Nairobi to Mombasa, Kisumu by Lake Victoria, Samburu territory, then Zanzibar, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Somaliland...

No one should believe they know the world if they have not been to Africa. So much of the history of the West is buried there, from the conquest of the American colonies to the slave trade and the invention of capitalism as we know it with stolen resources and land.

Now there are so many wars raging at the four corners of his Earth. And so little, we, journalists can do to stop them. And fires, floods, and climate disruption.

And we're witnessing the death of democracy at all the other corners.

The powerlessness of our testimonies feels unbearable.

And no joy can sustain; no song sounds sad enough. 

When I lived in Kenya, I was also writing a lot, notes, diaries, and fiction. And I was particularly reflecting on my experience in the USA, a couple of year prior, in 2008. Such a dysfunctional country... Now leaking its deviance to the whole planet. It's unbearable.

I was imagining a civil war in the U.S. of A.

Am I watching it unfold from afar now? But I care more about the rest of the world. The manufactured hunger and poverty. 

How can we get out of this loop now? Isn't it too late?

I keep thinking during other wars, at least we had a sense of right and wrong, the Iraq war, World War II... Now we've lost all forms of compass.

And I remember the land in Kenya, the soil, the hours I walked everywhere while everyone kept driving...

A few records were the soundtrack of that time full of hope and of so many lessons on human rights and equality.

And now?

-

"You always seemed so sure /

That one day we'd be fighting in a suburban war"...

"In my dreams, we're still screaming"....

"Sometimes I can't believe it 

I'm moving past the feeling 

Sometimes I can't believe it 

I'm moving past the feeling again"

"If I could have it back 

All the time that we wasted 

I’d only waste it again 

If I could have it back You know 

I would love to waste it again 

Waste it again and again and again 

I forgot to ask"

 "Sometimes I can’t believe it 

I’m moving past the feeling again 

Sometimes I can’t believe it 

I’m moving past the feeling again"