WHEN POWER TURNS ITS BACK ON HUMANITY

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There are moments when silence becomes cowardice,
When neutrality becomes betrayal,
And when the human conscience must rise
And say plainly:

This is wrong.

Wrong is wrong
Even when it is announced by authority.
Wrong is wrong
Even when it is dressed in the language of law,
Security,
Politics,
Or national interest.

A people who have already fled fear
Should not be made to live in fear again.

A refugee should not wake each morning
Wondering whether the next knock at the door
Will take away the little safety
They struggled to find.

A trader should not be treated as a criminal
Simply because of where they were born.

A child should not inherit humiliation
Because adults have chosen
To turn identity into a weapon.

And let us speak honestly:

No political order gives ordinary citizens
The moral right to persecute, threaten, humiliate,
Or victimise innocent people.

No speech from power
Should become permission for cruelty.

No presidential order,
No political slogan,
No wave of public anger
Can wash away the responsibility
To treat another human being as human.

For collective punishment is cowardice.

To hunt the innocent because of the guilty
Is not justice.

To make an entire community answer
For the suspicions surrounding a few
Is not justice.

To turn neighbours into targets,
Traders into suspects,
Refugees into enemies,
And frightened families into political symbols—

Is a moral failure.

Let the government enforce its laws, yes.

Let fraud be investigated.

Let wrongdoing be punished.

But let guilt belong to those who are guilty.

Do not throw an entire people
Into the fire of public hostility
And then call the ashes justice.

Because when leaders speak carelessly about vulnerable people,
The consequences do not remain in offices.

They travel into streets.

They enter markets.

They reach workplaces.

They stand outside homes.

And suddenly, an ordinary person believes
They have been given permission
To mistreat someone who cannot easily defend themselves.

That is why power must carry responsibility.

A leader's words are never merely words
When millions are listening.

And a nation must ask itself:

What kind of justice are we building
If the vulnerable must be terrified
In order for the powerful to feel strong?

Kenya must be better than the politics of fear.

Africa must be better than the betrayal of the displaced.

We cannot speak proudly of brotherhood,
Pan-Africanism,
Human dignity,
And hospitality—

Then close our hearts
When frightened people stand before us.

Today they may be Burundians.

Tomorrow, history may rearrange the map,
And it may be us
Standing in another land
With our lives packed into documents
And our dignity dependent
On the mercy of strangers.

So I refuse to celebrate fear.

I refuse to call victimisation patriotism.

I refuse to confuse cruelty with justice.

And I refuse to believe
That a human being becomes less human
The moment they cross a border.

Let the law be enforced with truth.

Let wrongdoing be punished with evidence.

But let innocence be protected.

Let dignity remain non-negotiable.

Because a government may control borders,
But no government should command us to abandon our conscience.

And when power forgets humanity,
The people must remember it.

When fear becomes policy,
Compassion must become resistance.

When the vulnerable are blamed,
The conscience must speak.

So let us say it without whispering:

We condemn the persecution of innocent people.

We condemn collective blame.

We condemn the humiliation of refugees and asylum seekers.

We condemn every act of violence, harassment, discrimination, and exploitation committed against people simply because of their nationality.

And we condemn the dangerous idea
That the suffering of vulnerable people
Can ever become an acceptable price
For political convenience.

For borders are human inventions.

But dignity is not.

And before nationality,
Before documents,
Before politics,
Before power—

There is humanity.

And humanity must come first.

©Bunguswa Writes ™

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