If I hadn't seen the video with my own eyes, I would have said, “The President would never!” But he did, and now an incendiary spark has been ignited.

The aftermath is one we have seen many times in South Africa. Not so much in Kenya but the millennial in me who grew up in the 90s in Mombasa remembers the era of the Kaya bombo very clearly.

In 2026, it feels surreal that xenophobia is a real thing when in this day and age, we are all from multiple somewheres and not just from one place. My great-grandmother, whom I grew up with, was from Oman; am I not Omani enough to settle there legally? When they tell me to go back to where I am from, aren't I technically back home?

Xenophobia is a proven tactic that politicians explore to distract from the many failures the government faces. When people cry about high unemployment rates, the government just shifts the blame on immigrants or undocumented immigrants. When the landlords raise the rent and are protected by law, the government says, well, there are foreigners who are willing to pay.

I don't know what Ruto and others are trying to distract us from, but trying to stir up trouble because of a Mama Mboga from Burundi is not the biggest problem Kenyans are facing. Why would the President be talking about small-scale foreign traders who are from Africa in such a manner, when we have spent decades trying to build up the East African Community? Haven’t we been trying to build up the African Union to  be like the EU?

The whole point about these unions in Africa is to facilitate easier movement of people and trade between our nations, much like the European Union is doing. No one bothers an Italian living in Switzerland for selling bread. The law allows them to. They don't need a visa or paperwork to up and move between several countries in the continent.

I am a Kenyan living in a foreign country married to a man from yet another foreign country, with kids whose genetic combination would represent almost every continent. As a result, I am baffled by the idea of ‘belonging’. There are laws in place to help us navigate these problems. As long as we fulfil the requirements to cross borders, then how come people turn on us because they believe we make their lives harder?

If a hawker who was granted asylum in Kenya because he fled war and persecution in Rwanda is the main reason you are failing in life, then prepare to hear the hard truth. A small-scale trader with foreign roots is not the reason you failed. You are the reason you failed and the government is part of the process of your failure.

Businesses are being run to the ground because of overtaxation and corruption, not because of competition from small foreign traders. Mind you, the same government spreading propaganda of how these traders should not take the positions of Kenyans are the same people who license and allow imports of these foreign business owners.If foreigners operating businesses are such a hindrance, then why are the powers that be legitimising them from the start?

South Africans are paying the price of their xenophobic stunts. Schools are shut down, many more people lost their jobs and the very shops that were being operated in the townships to help the poor are the ones that are closed down. It might seem like a small thing to start by getting rid of competition from foreigners, but xenophobia has a tendency to snowball into bigger problems that rip society apart. If history is any indicator, nothing good has ever come out of hating another person because of where they are from or because of how they look.