By Wadaba Wadada
As the dawn breaks on this hallowed day, the 7th of July 2025, Kenya holds her breath. Saba-Saba arrives as a date on the calendar, but also as a living testament to the courage that forged our democracy. This day is etched in the soul of Kenya as a monument to ordinary citizens who stood before batons and bullets so we might inherit a freer land. Today, as a new generation prepares to honour that legacy, we must ask one question – how shall we tend this sacred flame? With hands that build, or with fire that consumes?
The streets you walk today were paved with the sacrifices of mothers who marched for multi-partyism and university students who traded lectures for teargas to seek for constitutional change. Their struggle was never about destruction; it was about dignity and fairplay. When they faced the abyss of oppression, they answered with disciplined unity with their placards brighter than any Molotov and their chants mightier than any rock. They understood a profound truth: True revolution plants seeds.
However, in recent years, we have witnessed shadows creep across this luminous history. As noble voices sing hymns of justice, anarchists slither from alleyways to shatter shop windows and take away the product of many years of sweat painstakingly earned over many years. While students recite poetry of change, looters ransack pharmacies where medicine for the sick is kept. These are not “collateral damage” in a noble war; they are victims of a betrayal – casualties of chaos that dishonours the very martyrs we commemorate.
The world watches Kenya today through the lens of the smoke of our burning markets.
How unfortunate!
Why not carry placards inscribed with solutions, not just slogans.
Why not march with clean hands that refuse to hurl stones.
Why not chant ballads of unity that drown out hate’s shrill cry.
And why not protect the shopkeeper’s livelihood as fiercely as you guard your principles.
The legacy we honour today wasn’t built on ashes, but on unshakeable conviction. Those heroes didn’t pass the torch so that we ignite infernos. They entrusted us to light the way forward. So let tomorrow’s headlines capture:
“Youth planting 10,000 trees at Uhuru Park in Saba-Saba tribute”
“Digital petitions with 1 million signatures delivered peacefully”
“Artists transforming protest sites into open-air history galleries”
Kenya’s soul is too precious to be held hostage by hoodlums. Our martyrs’ dreams should NEVER be buried in rubble. As the sun sets on this pivotal day, let us not offer our children scorched earth and trauma. May we build upon the foundation laid by giants not with the fire of rage, but with the enduring light of dignified, disciplined, and transformative remembrance.
Wadada is a poet and civil society activist
