We burn rubbish, ivory is not rubbish!

“We burn rubbish….Ivory is not rubbish!” Khama is alleged to have raised a resonant objection which hopefully will reverberate throughout the continent. Ivory, rubbish? For a long time I have been trying to make sense of the ostentatious ritual of burning elephant tusks in the name of deterring the crime of poaching for elephant tusks in African countries blessed with the majestic elephant.

I wondered who the originator of this bizarre policy is; whether the original advocate of the destruction of this valuable item was African, non-African, African lover or African hater. The ivory bonfire leapt high in Nairobi, Kenya, the land of the Burning Spear.  Would Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, ‘The Burning Spear’ himself, have ordered or sanctioned it? I doubt very much whether the author of Facing Mount Kenya would have had anything to do with this consumption by fire! That it takes place under his son, Uhuru’s watch goes to show the intergenerational gap gone beserk!