@KelvinMurray30 Mzee hii inaitwa hero complex na itakumaliza. Stop trying to save everyone. Si ufinye tu buy/sell in silence and make your money in peace ๐
I hate to say it, but Elachi is right. If you slow down and stop looking at her merely as a politician, you will see her point.
โNobody is saying Burundians physically assaulted anyone or stole anything. The argument is about structural displacement, and that is a legitimate policy concern, not xenophobia.
โWhen foreign workers are willing to share a bedsitter five to a room and send most of their earnings back to Bujumbura, they can afford to accept wages that are simply unlivable for a Kenyan facing Kenyan rent, Kenyan school fees, and the Kenyan cost of living. That is not a moral failing on either side, it is an economic reality. When employers exploit that gap, the Kenyan worker loses every single time. (As an employer, I have even tried to hire a Burundian this year for that very reason, cheap labor.)
โLooking at the bigger picture, this is not just about Burundians. Chinese are operating retail shops in the Kamukunji and Luthuli areas, spaces that Kenyan law explicitly reserves for citizens, while allegedly enjoying tax arrangements that local traders cannot access. That is not fair competition; it is a rigged game. Let's not talk about Somalis, Nigerians and Tanzanians who are in the country illegally.
โThe real indictment here is against the government. Kenya's unemployment numbers are genuinely crazy. When you have a government that cannot absorb its own working-age population, the minimum responsibility it owes its citizens is to enforce the labor and immigration laws that already exist. That is not extreme, that is basic governance.
โThe South Africa comparison is wild๐Nobody is advocating for violence. Demanding policy enforcement is not xenophobia, and mixing the two only serves to shut down the serious economic conversations we need to have.