Rule of law
A recent news report in Al-jazeera's website caught my attention. It read “Kenyan landowner guilty of shooting” (www.aljazeeran.net/ english). The report was about a wealthy and powerful white man---Thomas Cholmondeley who has been convicted by a court for shooting dead a black man , whom he suspected to be a poacher, trespassing on his Rift Valley ranch.
Cholmondeley is also the great grandson of Lord Delamere (one of Kenya's early British settlers and also one of the biggest landowners). Thus there was a common feeling among the Kenyan people that men like Cholmondeley were “always above the law.” And at the same time the poor, landless, people of Kenya were also earnestly following this case to see whether the poor family of Robert Njoya (the stonemason who was shot dead) would get justice.
What this judgment has done is bring back the memory of Kenya's colonialist past, when under British rule, their best land was mostly taken away by the British government. What this landmark judgment has done is that it has defied the common trend, in poor countries, whereby the rich have always managed to escape the law of the land by their influence and power. In poor countries around the world, we always see the rich getting away, even after committing unpardonable crimes; we have seen the poor being always under oppression and always being victims of unequal treatment. So, what this judgment has proved, in whatever small manner, that even the powerful and mighty can be meted out the punishment they deserve.
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