What has really changed for us since the famous handshake?

The month of March is just a few days away and it is difficult not to recognise the insanity of our politics. Or maybe I am the insane person.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a movie made in 1975, Randle McMurphy is transferred from a state prison to a mental institution.

At first he assumes it will be a breeze to be in a place that will be less restricted and where he can hatch a plot to escape, only for the movie to end leaving you depressed.

Randle (Jack Nicholson) has a rebellious, disruptive nature that leads him to clash with the tyrannical ward sister and incite other patients to escape with him. He ends up being lobotomised…

So, will I be lobotomised too, for being the only one to point to the craziness of our politics?

Last year, in early March. I was in downtown Busia in western Kenya, in a social hall conducting a training with a number of youth organisations.

We were exploring possibilities of public participation by youth at the county level. During one of the sessions, I remember the room losing interaction.

There was pin drop silence and for some reason, everyone was on their phone; those who did not have a smart phone scooted next to someone who was holding one and their faces expressed complete shock and awe.

I remember asking about three times. "What is happening?" The room just remained silent as pretty much everyone glared at their phones.

So I walked to a colleague of mine, asked him to go to Twitter and see what all the fuss was about. Only to see an image of President Uhuru Kenyatta and former PM Raila Odinga on the steps of the President’s Office on Harambee Avenue.

There were multiple flashes, cameras, and smiles. First of all, it was shocking to see them together, but even more shocking were their ear-to-ear smiles. "Are they friends now? What just happened? And why? When did that change? How is this tension suddenly over?"

Why the word suddenly? And why would it feel abrupt? About three weeks prior to that particular forum, I was approached by two university students at a function, one male and the other female, who requested a meeting with me.

It was urgent. They seemed to be uneasy about something and said the situation they needed help with could not be talked about in just a few minutes of standing around. We set up an appointment to meet during the week.

On the day, we sat down, they told me about what they were are studying but most importantly about this initiative they had started together.

It was a business platform, where young business owners and entrepreneurs could meet regularly to just learn from each other. And it was growing so quickly that now there were 200 youth in this initiative.

Then they dropped the bombshell: The 200 youth were no longer talking to each other.

Basically, the group was divided in two. There was the faction that supported President Uhuru Kenyatta and another that supported Raila Odinga.

They were not seeing eye to eye. And because their leaders weren't, they were stuck in this quagmire. "What can we do to move forward?"

It will almost be one year since we saw the famous handshake. And I feel cuckoo wondering what that whole year meant to us?

I feel crazy because everyone else seems to have moved on swiftly. That I cannot seem to grasp. A year on and now at the tip of our tongues is the constant cry for a referendum.

More and more leaders are not just dismissing it but crying for it to happen. Saying how much we need it, how it will be good for the country.

They say that the only solution to all our complicated problems is sharing power, and the referendum will deliver that...

As we approach the anniversary of the handshake, what has really changed for us? The tension magically disappeared and now the president and the opposition leader seem to agree on everything.

At least for that group of youth, the business platform could go back to normal, but what is normal? When two people can destabilise a country both emotionally and economically, but magically fix it, temporarily, with a handshake? Am I the only cuckoo who finds that deeply disturbing?

Nerima Wako-Ojiwa is executive director of Siasa Place. Twitter: @NerimaW

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