JAMILA'S MEMO: Value of human life - Have we become numb to death?

For me, one of the most troubling questions facing Kenya today is whether we still value human life the way we should.

Because when I look around, I increasingly find myself asking whether we have become numb to death. Whether we have become so accustomed to tragedy that what should shock us no longer does.

Take the recent protests in Laikipia against the proposed Ebola facility. People lost their lives. Postmortem examinations reportedly showed bullet wounds. Families buried their loved ones. Yet within days, the national conversation had largely moved on.

Remember the June 2024 protests and the demonstrations that followed?

Scores of young Kenyans lost their lives. Families are still waiting for answers, accountability and closure.

If a society truly values human life, the loss of even one life should matter. Instead, we seem to have developed a disturbing ability to move on. Bodies are found. Autopsies reveal violence. Families mourn. The headlines change. The families remain.

That, for me, is where the real tragedy lies — in the normalisation of death.

What troubles me even more is the growing gap between compensation and accountability.

Government has spoken about compensating some victims and affected families. Compensation is important, but it is not justice.

Because justice requires answers. It requires accountability. It requires establishing who was responsible and ensuring that responsibility is carried.

Money can help a family survive, but it cannot explain why a son never came home, why a daughter was killed, or why a parent was buried. Nor can it replace the dignity that comes from knowing that the truth has been established.

The danger of failing to pursue accountability is that it sends a message that human life is negotiable. That some deaths matter more than others, and that some victims deserve justice while others deserve sympathy.

As we approach another anniversary of the June 25 protests, perhaps this is the conversation we should be having.

Not only about who died or how they died, but about what their deaths say about us as a society.

Do we still believe that every death deserves an explanation?

Because if the answer is yes, then we cannot simply move on.

The families have not moved on. And perhaps neither should we.

For me, the measure of a society is not how it treats the powerful when they are alive, but how it treats ordinary citizens when their lives are lost.

On that question, Kenya still has some very difficult conversations ahead.