20TH October Heroes_Mania, its Brothers and Cousins

Heroes are everywhere. Everyone has a hero, heroine. You could be a hero; you could be a hero-maker. 

And the reasons qualifying one to such a position varies from one head to another. One’s hero can be another’s enemy; you can turn that around too. That’s where the difficulty in picking individuals to be rewarded on this Day lies. 

One other challenge is varying heroism. We will not get stuck to rewarding few, same individuals for the next 50 years. Once those identified are rewarded, we need to move forward to search for other heroes, reward them and move on. That is one way this Heroes' mission will be able to garner support and gets felt across the board. 

The criteria used should be fair, diverse, non-partisan and as agreeable as possible to all people.

There’s a greater risk that the awards could be easily hijacked by politicians and top government officials who may want to exploit the Heroes Day to massage egos of their cronies, family friends or business partners at the expense of more deserving individuals.

The Heroes’ Bill is a much welcome legal framework that would help in identifying and giving the criterion to be used in rewarding the identified individuals. 

However, the formulation of the law should be well-guarded from some of the makers who may want to leave open some loopholes so that they exploit in the future. 

The Kenya Heroes Bill objective is to “develop an appropriate legal framework for the development of a clear, effective and impartial system of identifying and honouring national heroes and heroines, in keeping with the national values stipulated in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.” 

The proposed law further explains that the Heroes and heroines are “defined as persons who, through selfless sacrifice have contributed to the well — being of their communities and the nation as a whole.”

As per the anticipated law, areas of heroism include contribution to the liberation struggle, prophesy, indigenous knowledge, cultural values, scholarship, research, statesmanship and other special achievements.

This is fine but Kenyans would like to see doctors, nurses, journalists, teachers, pilots, athletes, footballers, drivers, conductors, whistleblowers, soldiers, watchmen, farmers and people from diverse professions under the sun get recognised heroically.  

More often than not heroism is restricted to emotions arising from what’s shown on TV. The media helps to point at those who could be considered but that should not be the only way to identify deserving individuals. It is a fact that there could be a herdsman in the far-flung areas in Turkana who could be more deserving of recognition than someone picked in Nairobi. 

The Bill also establishes the National Heroes Council, which will have the responsibility of administering the honours system. Its main functions include formulating policies with regard to the system of identifying, selecting and recommending qualified persons for declaration as heroes, and conducting civic education to stimulate public discussion on national heroes.