There was a time I posted an article on the NYC and YPK google network arguing that modernity had desperately failed us and hence my article sought to suggest that we were better off leading our African traditional way of life than struggling with modernity. I said this because looking back then I could not imagine why for example with the scientific revolution in the agrarian and food production industries millions of people the world over were still dying from hunger pangs. I could not imagine why with the establishment of highly sophisticated governance structures and democratic institutions almost in all parts of the world, corruption and abuse of office and power had intensified and made things worse than ever before. How for example with the improvement of justice instruments both at the local levels in various countries and the international justice system given impetus by the institutionalization of the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), impunity has intensified four fold! Why, if democracy was working across the world would mankind all over the world be talking of secession in Timor, in Sudan, in West Sahara, in Chad, Taiwan, Niger Delta, the Amazon, Spain, Somalia and now Kenya?
In my most recent article on impunity I asked myself why with the formation of the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC), corruption had intensified more than ever before. Why with the formation of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) actions of gross violation of human rights had gained momentum and the situation in the Kibaki/Raila era seemed to be worse than the Kenyatta and Moi regimes! Why for example with the increased levels of education with tens of thousands of Kenyans graduating from colleges and Universities every year, the levels of unemployment are skyrocketing, abject poverty conquering new spheres, social insecurity extensifying and intensifying and generally with improved education comes a general feeling of hopelessness. And here I will give you an example. I attended an interview with B.A.T (K) immediately I left the University for a temporary job which was paying about kshs.20,000 per month. Out of the more than 200 people who did the interview, about 15 of us were graduates. They wanted 35 people for the job. I was given the shock of my life when the company manager told us after the written and oral interview that the first elimination formula was to have all university graduates out! What appeared to be a joke came to pass. I asked myself several questions on this issue and to date I have never found the reason why someone would eliminate me from an interview because of having superior qualifications. This must be the theory of reversed wisdom at best which reminds me of the true argument that our society is known to reward vices and punish virtues.
A few days ago, I had a discussion with my boss in office and the topic was on insecurity. I asked her these same questions. You see! I always wonder why for every success in modernism, Kenyans as well as millions of men, women and children the world over are pushed miles deeper into the abyss of despondence and the quagmire of mire. Everytime there is a scientific breakthrough poor people must brace themselves for the worst. So the question is, should we then strive to achieve modernism at its best? I remember one scholar named James Bakerman said religion is thriving on the ignorance of science! I will confess that I have been a follower of this scholar for sometime but now I think it is time to ask myself this crucial question. What then would the world be like if science were to rule supreme? Is it not better then that science should not be given a chance to rule supreme?
In the discussion we had with my boss, I asked her why Mungiki had better structures than our government in terms of collecting intelligence, collecting and submitting taxes, delivering justice and why essentially people feared Mungiki more than the government. I informed her that I was involved in a research on insecurity and one of the interviewees said, if summoned by Mungiki and the High Court at the same time, he would run to Mungiki first before thinking of the High Court! I told her that in Kuria where I come from, it is Sungu Sungu (otherwise called chati) which ended the cases of insecurity between 1998 to 2003. Our modern government had been defeated hands down!
My argument is that for us to solve pertinent issues which we grapple with daily such as hunger, insecurity, joblessness and poverty we must engage a reverse gear or at best stop our vehicle to modernity and ask ourselves whether we are headed for the right direction. We must ask ourselves who it is that modern scientific discoveries and order of governance is benefiting. Is it to our interest that more people should suffer with hunger with the discovery of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)? Or intensified secessionist movements with the intensification of democratic institutions? Or gross violation of human rights with the establishment of human rights institutions all over the world? Or worsening of insecurity with the modern explosion in the science of intelligence service through scientific revolution? I submit that the world is better off in its traditional set up than it is now in the so called modernity!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Institutionalization of Impunity- Who is fooling who?
I was a one of the discussants at the concluded National Youth Forum which was held at the KICC on Tuesday, 17th November, 2009. To be specific, I was given time to respond to the topic on impunity. You and me are pretty aware that matters of impunity cannot be discussed in the five minutes I was allocated. In fact, to be honest I did not tell the gathering what I had set out to. After all what can a man say when there is a lady standing behind him gesturing vigorously that time is moving very fast?
I do not really know what comes to your mind anytime you hear this term impunity. But let me take you through what I know.
When I was still in the University for my undergraduate studies, one of the first year students who was campaigning to be Gender Affairs Secretary of SONU approached me and asked me what impunity meant. I quickly told her that it meant disrespect to the rule of law. That was all I knew. And I think this is the tragedy of our intellectualism. We lift book definitions and struggle to apply them haphazardly without caring to investigate the true meaning of what we read. I say so because a few days ago I came to discover that there is more to impunity than I had always thought.
Let us take this example. A few months ago, the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission- TJRC was instituted to undertake what the Kenyan Government said was righting of generational wrongs committed against certain individuals, groups of individuals and certain communities. The Commission is headed by Mr. Bethwel Kiplagat. Most Kenyans are of course aware that there exists in this country a commission called Kenya National Commission on Human Rights-KNCHR and another one called the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission- KACC, the National Gender Commission, the Public Service Commission-PSC which a friend of mine recently told me she had never known it ever existed! I almost laughed but I immediately remembered that it was not a laughing matter. It reminded me of the interview I once attended at that Commission-PSC and was treated to three questions which I will never forget in my life. But that is a story for another day.
The reason why I am talking of commissions in Kenya is not because I know them better than any other person but it is because these Commissions are the monumental demonstration of how far the afferent of impunity can go. Whereas in matters corruption for example, the KACC is a masterpiece example of how not to deal with corrupt human-beings, the failure to establish a local tribunal to try the 2007 Post Election Violence masterminds is the hallmark of shame and blatant declaration that impunity is ruling supreme and calling shots in Kenya. The existence of the KNCHR is a reminder to Kenyans and the world at large that it is impossible to protect and promote human rights in Kenya. Yet the KNCHR is founded on the vision of making Kenya a human rights State! The existence of the PSC is a stark reminder to Kenyans that distribution of the national cake in terms jobs will never be equal and that whether or not you like it certain people from certain regions will always get plumier jobs than others. The existence of the Kenya Revenue Authority-KRA is a bitter tale of the story of animal farm where much as the freedom creed of the kingdom animalia read like all animals are equal, some animals were, nevertheless, more equal than others! We like it or not, the tax regime in Kenya will always be skewed and tilted to the advantage of some sacred cows. This argument should of course tell you whose interest the TJRC serves.
My argument is founded on the feeling that the political leaders have become like the proverbial house mouse that bites the finger of a sleeping man and blows off the pain with its own breath! Take an example of the KNCHR. The greatest violator of human rights is the government, yet the same government has instituted a commission that apparently is to advice the same government on issues of human rights violations. It is sickening to know that the government in establishing such a commission is only involving itself in a Public Relations exercise to hoodwink the common citizenry that their human rights are protected. It hurts to know that the government in establishing the KACC is only interested in watching over petty bourgeois lest they should join and compete with the petro-dollar and comprador bourgeois by accumulation of capital beyond certain levels; of course by corrupt means. Otherwise, the Petro-Dollars and Compradors will never be netted. That is why it is easier for the KACC officers to arrest a D.O than arrest Kamlesh Patni! It is easier to arrest a Primary school teacher in Naivasha soliciting for a bribe than arrest Faulician Kabuga collecting rent from his Kilimani mansions. It is the reason why after both of them were convicted of man-slaughter, one Corporal Maoche was sentenced to ten years in prison while T.G Cholmondely was sentenced to eight months in prison! Of course you know the eight months were never fully served.
The other example which I cannot fail to mention is that of political parties as institutions. You know I have always wondered how it is that a member of parliament elected on one political party declares support for a rival political party and continues to remain in parliament! It is even funnier that a politician will lose an election on say ODM today in the morning and in the afternoon they join PNU and tomorrow they participate in the latter's elections! No one can by any stretch of struggle convince me that this is not impunity! It is impunity because after being sponsored by your political party to parliament, it remains your cardinal role to ensure that the values and principles for which your party stood are respected and accomplished. So, desertion of your political party is not only political conmanship but also thievery of resources and an abuse to the intellect of the very people who trusted you with power.
To end my long speech, let me submit here that impunity as a social malady is propagated by the very institutions that purport to check the vice. The politicians deliberately put in place such institutions to act not only as gimmicks against certain vices but also as cash cows for their cronies to draw huge sums of money in astronomical salaries! Everytime a Commission is established to guard against any vice, it is a demonstration by the State of worse things to come. That is why I have always argued alongside Mahatma Gandhi that true citizens have the responsibility of not only obeying the law of their land but also disobeying any law, rule or order not founded on the moral fabrics of society. My biggest question today is, 'why should certain institutions exist?' Whose interest do they serve? The answer is simple. They exist to protect impunity and those that are of service to this shameful social malady! I say so because all the institutions established by the government will never be given enough powers to live fully and truly to their mandate. If the the powers are given then funding will always be limited so that the functions are always crippled.
So, may be from now onwards, you should view impunity not just as the disrespect to the rule of law but more importantly, the institutionalization of the abuse of law by creating institutions that collate to defeat investigative efforts against the demise of certain vices which perpetuate the flexed muscles of social mal aire by seeking baptism of the body and sprouting of their spiritual connectivity to the the legalities of societal body politic!
I do not really know what comes to your mind anytime you hear this term impunity. But let me take you through what I know.
When I was still in the University for my undergraduate studies, one of the first year students who was campaigning to be Gender Affairs Secretary of SONU approached me and asked me what impunity meant. I quickly told her that it meant disrespect to the rule of law. That was all I knew. And I think this is the tragedy of our intellectualism. We lift book definitions and struggle to apply them haphazardly without caring to investigate the true meaning of what we read. I say so because a few days ago I came to discover that there is more to impunity than I had always thought.
Let us take this example. A few months ago, the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission- TJRC was instituted to undertake what the Kenyan Government said was righting of generational wrongs committed against certain individuals, groups of individuals and certain communities. The Commission is headed by Mr. Bethwel Kiplagat. Most Kenyans are of course aware that there exists in this country a commission called Kenya National Commission on Human Rights-KNCHR and another one called the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission- KACC, the National Gender Commission, the Public Service Commission-PSC which a friend of mine recently told me she had never known it ever existed! I almost laughed but I immediately remembered that it was not a laughing matter. It reminded me of the interview I once attended at that Commission-PSC and was treated to three questions which I will never forget in my life. But that is a story for another day.
The reason why I am talking of commissions in Kenya is not because I know them better than any other person but it is because these Commissions are the monumental demonstration of how far the afferent of impunity can go. Whereas in matters corruption for example, the KACC is a masterpiece example of how not to deal with corrupt human-beings, the failure to establish a local tribunal to try the 2007 Post Election Violence masterminds is the hallmark of shame and blatant declaration that impunity is ruling supreme and calling shots in Kenya. The existence of the KNCHR is a reminder to Kenyans and the world at large that it is impossible to protect and promote human rights in Kenya. Yet the KNCHR is founded on the vision of making Kenya a human rights State! The existence of the PSC is a stark reminder to Kenyans that distribution of the national cake in terms jobs will never be equal and that whether or not you like it certain people from certain regions will always get plumier jobs than others. The existence of the Kenya Revenue Authority-KRA is a bitter tale of the story of animal farm where much as the freedom creed of the kingdom animalia read like all animals are equal, some animals were, nevertheless, more equal than others! We like it or not, the tax regime in Kenya will always be skewed and tilted to the advantage of some sacred cows. This argument should of course tell you whose interest the TJRC serves.
My argument is founded on the feeling that the political leaders have become like the proverbial house mouse that bites the finger of a sleeping man and blows off the pain with its own breath! Take an example of the KNCHR. The greatest violator of human rights is the government, yet the same government has instituted a commission that apparently is to advice the same government on issues of human rights violations. It is sickening to know that the government in establishing such a commission is only involving itself in a Public Relations exercise to hoodwink the common citizenry that their human rights are protected. It hurts to know that the government in establishing the KACC is only interested in watching over petty bourgeois lest they should join and compete with the petro-dollar and comprador bourgeois by accumulation of capital beyond certain levels; of course by corrupt means. Otherwise, the Petro-Dollars and Compradors will never be netted. That is why it is easier for the KACC officers to arrest a D.O than arrest Kamlesh Patni! It is easier to arrest a Primary school teacher in Naivasha soliciting for a bribe than arrest Faulician Kabuga collecting rent from his Kilimani mansions. It is the reason why after both of them were convicted of man-slaughter, one Corporal Maoche was sentenced to ten years in prison while T.G Cholmondely was sentenced to eight months in prison! Of course you know the eight months were never fully served.
The other example which I cannot fail to mention is that of political parties as institutions. You know I have always wondered how it is that a member of parliament elected on one political party declares support for a rival political party and continues to remain in parliament! It is even funnier that a politician will lose an election on say ODM today in the morning and in the afternoon they join PNU and tomorrow they participate in the latter's elections! No one can by any stretch of struggle convince me that this is not impunity! It is impunity because after being sponsored by your political party to parliament, it remains your cardinal role to ensure that the values and principles for which your party stood are respected and accomplished. So, desertion of your political party is not only political conmanship but also thievery of resources and an abuse to the intellect of the very people who trusted you with power.
To end my long speech, let me submit here that impunity as a social malady is propagated by the very institutions that purport to check the vice. The politicians deliberately put in place such institutions to act not only as gimmicks against certain vices but also as cash cows for their cronies to draw huge sums of money in astronomical salaries! Everytime a Commission is established to guard against any vice, it is a demonstration by the State of worse things to come. That is why I have always argued alongside Mahatma Gandhi that true citizens have the responsibility of not only obeying the law of their land but also disobeying any law, rule or order not founded on the moral fabrics of society. My biggest question today is, 'why should certain institutions exist?' Whose interest do they serve? The answer is simple. They exist to protect impunity and those that are of service to this shameful social malady! I say so because all the institutions established by the government will never be given enough powers to live fully and truly to their mandate. If the the powers are given then funding will always be limited so that the functions are always crippled.
So, may be from now onwards, you should view impunity not just as the disrespect to the rule of law but more importantly, the institutionalization of the abuse of law by creating institutions that collate to defeat investigative efforts against the demise of certain vices which perpetuate the flexed muscles of social mal aire by seeking baptism of the body and sprouting of their spiritual connectivity to the the legalities of societal body politic!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
What I think of the Concluded National Youth Forum
For those of us who have read Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart, you will agree with that Ibo's saying that if you see a tod hopping in broad daylight then behind it there must be a snake chasing after it. A few days before the National Youth Forum descended on Nairobi swearing under their breath to teach the current political class a lesson they will never forget, I had submitted here that whatever they were going to discuss was in vain. I said it would be in vain not because I am a pessimist but because, already I could correctly guess what it is that the forum would say. I knew that the forum would begin by introductions of those in attendance, ostensibly to prove to the world that the forum was not only national but that it also comprised of people who were respected leaders from wherever they came from. Then the programme would be read and prayers said. Then various speakers would be invited to speak on various topics and of course as if cut from the same piece of cloth they would repeatedly curse the current political leaders, shout at the top of their voices how those leaders have failed young people and then proceed to vow that come the next elections young people were going to vote them out and bring to power leaders who were credible, accountable, corruption free, morally upright and leaders who cared about the plight of young people. After the declarations the young people would then be led into adopting resolutions arrived at and warned that this time round the resolutions were not going to be left gathering dust on shelves of NGOs offices. Above all young people would be asked never to be violent because violence is the worst enemy! After the meeting people would be reimbursed their transport expenses to go back to their homes as they hope to be called again. Of course that will be the end of the story. The next time there is such a meeting another group of ''leaders'' will be called to attend and make the same declarations.
How true these predictions came to pass! That is why I could very easily understand the frustrations that people led by Sande Oyolo had before resolving to disrupting the forum. But what shocked me most was when the members of the diplomatic coup arrived led by non other than Michael Rannenberger, a man I admire for his courage against the hostile politicians of our country. Of course I am aware that the reason the ambassador is normally bitter with the coalition government is not because he really cares for Kenyans but because the coalition government has decided to play hard ball against USA investment interests such as the Oil drilling in Isiolo.
The entrance of the US ambassador elicited excitement which quickly reminded me that the interests of the people I was representing were at risk. Of course several young people who asked the ambassadors questions did so out of an innocent mind not really knowing what was at stake. They thought that the ambassadors were really interested in helping solve the problems of young people in Kenya. Some even attempted to ''inform'' the ambassadors what problems the young people were going through! Little did they know that those ambassadors know those problems more than we even know. They know that they are part and parcel of the problem. In fact one person who to me asked a critical question was the gentleman from Mandera who told the British High Commissioner, Rob Maclare to his face that the problems being faced in Mandera were a creation of the British colonialists. I felt like jumping up! Those are the kind of young men we need in this country. If we get about ten of them then we can begin talking of liberation.
It is my humble submission that young people did not achieve anything worth talking of. I remember us endorsing some resolutions such as that ''from now onwards young people shall participate actively in politics at all levels!'' At some point I even told the man who was seated next to me that we did not have to spend all our time and money just to come and make such an obvious declaration. After all, this is something we have always shouted around. But my greatest interesting moment was when one of the conveners (who seemed to understand why we were there) asked the US ambassador whether the US was going to assist young people in rolling down to the villages to take to the people the same message that had been arrived at while in this forum. I quickly asked myself what type of assistance the young people required in order to go to Nyamtiro village where I come from to tell my people that it was important to participate in politics or constitutional matters. I asked myself why they had never asked me to assist them but the anxious and serious look on their faces told me that the assistance that they were talking about was different. Of course the ambassador agreed to ''assist'' and I saw the sigh of relief on their faces. It was accompanied by a round of applauding claps.
Back to my argument. We must begin to ask ourselves whether this is really what we need. We must ask ourselves whether the change we seek is the same for all of us. We must ask ourselves whether the motives in the song of change we have joined is the same and whether those motives are inspired by the sincere need to liberate us from the our captivity. We must ask ourselves whether we are all faced by the same enemy and whether the methodology we talk of in our bid to confront the enemy is agreeable and workable across the board.
Our country is faced with serious challenges that must be confronted now or we shall all sink. Boardroom forums that continue to enrich a few people are constructing sliding terrains for our country. As I have always said, we need sincere diagnosis of the malady that threatens to sink us. When we do this we shall then be able to identify correctly the therapeutic and prophylactic measures that shall pull us from drifting into the sweltering morass of political quagmire and eons of socio-economic ''Mal aire''!
How true these predictions came to pass! That is why I could very easily understand the frustrations that people led by Sande Oyolo had before resolving to disrupting the forum. But what shocked me most was when the members of the diplomatic coup arrived led by non other than Michael Rannenberger, a man I admire for his courage against the hostile politicians of our country. Of course I am aware that the reason the ambassador is normally bitter with the coalition government is not because he really cares for Kenyans but because the coalition government has decided to play hard ball against USA investment interests such as the Oil drilling in Isiolo.
The entrance of the US ambassador elicited excitement which quickly reminded me that the interests of the people I was representing were at risk. Of course several young people who asked the ambassadors questions did so out of an innocent mind not really knowing what was at stake. They thought that the ambassadors were really interested in helping solve the problems of young people in Kenya. Some even attempted to ''inform'' the ambassadors what problems the young people were going through! Little did they know that those ambassadors know those problems more than we even know. They know that they are part and parcel of the problem. In fact one person who to me asked a critical question was the gentleman from Mandera who told the British High Commissioner, Rob Maclare to his face that the problems being faced in Mandera were a creation of the British colonialists. I felt like jumping up! Those are the kind of young men we need in this country. If we get about ten of them then we can begin talking of liberation.
It is my humble submission that young people did not achieve anything worth talking of. I remember us endorsing some resolutions such as that ''from now onwards young people shall participate actively in politics at all levels!'' At some point I even told the man who was seated next to me that we did not have to spend all our time and money just to come and make such an obvious declaration. After all, this is something we have always shouted around. But my greatest interesting moment was when one of the conveners (who seemed to understand why we were there) asked the US ambassador whether the US was going to assist young people in rolling down to the villages to take to the people the same message that had been arrived at while in this forum. I quickly asked myself what type of assistance the young people required in order to go to Nyamtiro village where I come from to tell my people that it was important to participate in politics or constitutional matters. I asked myself why they had never asked me to assist them but the anxious and serious look on their faces told me that the assistance that they were talking about was different. Of course the ambassador agreed to ''assist'' and I saw the sigh of relief on their faces. It was accompanied by a round of applauding claps.
Back to my argument. We must begin to ask ourselves whether this is really what we need. We must ask ourselves whether the change we seek is the same for all of us. We must ask ourselves whether the motives in the song of change we have joined is the same and whether those motives are inspired by the sincere need to liberate us from the our captivity. We must ask ourselves whether we are all faced by the same enemy and whether the methodology we talk of in our bid to confront the enemy is agreeable and workable across the board.
Our country is faced with serious challenges that must be confronted now or we shall all sink. Boardroom forums that continue to enrich a few people are constructing sliding terrains for our country. As I have always said, we need sincere diagnosis of the malady that threatens to sink us. When we do this we shall then be able to identify correctly the therapeutic and prophylactic measures that shall pull us from drifting into the sweltering morass of political quagmire and eons of socio-economic ''Mal aire''!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The forthcoming NYC/Youth Agenda- Why we may not achieve much!
On Tuesday, 17th November, 2009 more than 600 young people from across the country will be congregating in Nairobi for the national youth convention meeting. The conference will be hosted by the Youth Agenda, NYC among other stakeholders. Reliable information has it that among the subjects that will be discussed will be issues of empowerment of young people, political leadership and ethnicity, Corruption and Impunity.
I think what is most important to note is not that young people will be meeting to deliberate on the best ways of tackling these vices that have continued to hang on us like a dark nimbus cloud. The important thing to me is that it will not be the first time the youth are meeting for such a mission. From as early as 1997, young people have been holding conferences and workshops in Nairobi and other parts of the country and beautiful resolutions have always come out of these initiatives. The questions that we must ask ourselves are about why several of these resolutions have never been implemented.
Last night I received a call from someone who said he knew me and that he had visited my website and read a few articles about the place of violence in the struggle against bad governance, impunity, corruption and statelessness. He said he had read with a lot of nostalgia claiming that the articles reminded him of the old heroic stories told to him by his old grandfather about the Mau Mau war. I will not tell you more.
The reason I am bringing this debate to this level is because we find ourselves in an awkward situation. When I was a second year student at the University my Political Economy Professor told us that the tragedy of Africa is not in the fact that it is a poor continent but in the fact that it is trapped for ever in the international capitalistic markets as an underdog under the working science of dependency. Under dependency, countries are not only underdeveloped but also have their citizens psychologically alienated due to ages of subjugation and subservience. Psychological alienation is a phenomenon where certain people feel that them they were born to be poor and servants of others and believe that under no circumstance can they be better than their rulers. That is what the white man managed to do against the black man during colonialism.
When we breakdown this theory to Kenya, I honestly believe that that is the condition we have found ourselves in. The leaders have treated us with no respect, they have robbed from us everything that we once owned, they have deliberately and unnecessarily lengthened the period young people are supposed to be in school and gone ahead to deny them jobs, they have robbed us of our precious land, they have thrown food to dogs even after knowing more than 10 million Kenyans are dying of hunger pangs. They have bought Cessna air crafts amidst the worst drought in decades. They have literally impoverished the nation and its people and reduced to beggars at their mercy. What this has done to us is the same thing the colonialists did to Africans in those days. Telling us that when our M.P has eaten, we all have eaten. That when one or two ministers are about to be arrested and taken to the Hague then Kenya as a country will fall. That the people who died after the 2007 PEV were not so many to constitute the urgency to set up a special tribunal to try the suspected crafters of the vice. When graduates spend about twenty years looking for a Degree, they tell us the Degree nowadays is not enough, you need a Masters Degree. And of course they take their children to other systems of education in other countries and before we know it the children are back and are made Permanent Secretaries and us who went to Kenyan Universities and took Degrees are asked to be Chiefs and Sub Chiefs. These are the things that have psychologically alienated us from the processes of development in our country. The lives we lead are degrading and inhuman. Life without clean and safe water, life without security, life without a decent meal even for a whole day, life where even university graduates cannot afford lunch. That is the kind of life we now lead. And that is the kind of life we must ask ourselves whether we want to say no to or whether we wish to continue leading it. It is not surprising to find some of us saying they do not see any problem with such kind of life. I will not be surprised because that is exactly what psychological alienation does to intelligent people. Tell them that even under the worst of all conditions do not rebel against the establishments of society because after all this world is not our home!
I have said and I will repeat. The reason why Kenyans have been treated to agonies of corruption, impunity and bad governance is not because they have not been complaining about the issues but because in fact they have complained for too long a time without any form of acting. Kenyans are too obedient to the law. Kenyans are too good a citizenry to question certain excesses against them. Kenyans are too humble a people to demand certain bare minimums from their leaders. Kenyans are too fearful to query certain government directives even when such directives touch on their survival. No! Let me put it this way Kenyans love their lives so much that they cannot risk police buttons on the streets demanding for the trial of PEV suspects.
And so as we wait for the NYC/ Youth Agenda conference in Nairobi on Tuesday, we must ask ourselves what we really need as young people. We must interrogate the methodologies that we have used before and ask ourselves why they have been failing. We always shout that there must be no violence but time has come for us to ask the question, ''Why not if it can deliver?'' Even though I am a human rightists I still strongly believe that there is a price to pay. Violence has never been as bad as we are told. When the Israelites were under Theocracy God himself sanctioned violence against anyone who disobeyed his commandments and especially against the people who were opposed to his chosen people of Israel. Violence has worked in America, in Britain, in France, in India and Pakistan, in South Africa and in deed in colonial Kenya. Let us remember that Mahtma Gandhi called on all Indians not only to be patriotic to their cultures and morals of their societies but also to be responsible enough as to disobey any laws that were repressive and those that did not boarder on the moral fabrics of the Indian traditions. It is time we considered the radical measures of violently disobeying unequal and unfair repressive tax regimes. Unequal representation in the governance processes and blatant practices that perpetuate the afferent of impunity.
I end by observing religiously that if we do not take drastic measures above and outside workshops and conferences ours shall remain frosty noises of frogs that will never scare cows away from a water pool!
I think what is most important to note is not that young people will be meeting to deliberate on the best ways of tackling these vices that have continued to hang on us like a dark nimbus cloud. The important thing to me is that it will not be the first time the youth are meeting for such a mission. From as early as 1997, young people have been holding conferences and workshops in Nairobi and other parts of the country and beautiful resolutions have always come out of these initiatives. The questions that we must ask ourselves are about why several of these resolutions have never been implemented.
Last night I received a call from someone who said he knew me and that he had visited my website and read a few articles about the place of violence in the struggle against bad governance, impunity, corruption and statelessness. He said he had read with a lot of nostalgia claiming that the articles reminded him of the old heroic stories told to him by his old grandfather about the Mau Mau war. I will not tell you more.
The reason I am bringing this debate to this level is because we find ourselves in an awkward situation. When I was a second year student at the University my Political Economy Professor told us that the tragedy of Africa is not in the fact that it is a poor continent but in the fact that it is trapped for ever in the international capitalistic markets as an underdog under the working science of dependency. Under dependency, countries are not only underdeveloped but also have their citizens psychologically alienated due to ages of subjugation and subservience. Psychological alienation is a phenomenon where certain people feel that them they were born to be poor and servants of others and believe that under no circumstance can they be better than their rulers. That is what the white man managed to do against the black man during colonialism.
When we breakdown this theory to Kenya, I honestly believe that that is the condition we have found ourselves in. The leaders have treated us with no respect, they have robbed from us everything that we once owned, they have deliberately and unnecessarily lengthened the period young people are supposed to be in school and gone ahead to deny them jobs, they have robbed us of our precious land, they have thrown food to dogs even after knowing more than 10 million Kenyans are dying of hunger pangs. They have bought Cessna air crafts amidst the worst drought in decades. They have literally impoverished the nation and its people and reduced to beggars at their mercy. What this has done to us is the same thing the colonialists did to Africans in those days. Telling us that when our M.P has eaten, we all have eaten. That when one or two ministers are about to be arrested and taken to the Hague then Kenya as a country will fall. That the people who died after the 2007 PEV were not so many to constitute the urgency to set up a special tribunal to try the suspected crafters of the vice. When graduates spend about twenty years looking for a Degree, they tell us the Degree nowadays is not enough, you need a Masters Degree. And of course they take their children to other systems of education in other countries and before we know it the children are back and are made Permanent Secretaries and us who went to Kenyan Universities and took Degrees are asked to be Chiefs and Sub Chiefs. These are the things that have psychologically alienated us from the processes of development in our country. The lives we lead are degrading and inhuman. Life without clean and safe water, life without security, life without a decent meal even for a whole day, life where even university graduates cannot afford lunch. That is the kind of life we now lead. And that is the kind of life we must ask ourselves whether we want to say no to or whether we wish to continue leading it. It is not surprising to find some of us saying they do not see any problem with such kind of life. I will not be surprised because that is exactly what psychological alienation does to intelligent people. Tell them that even under the worst of all conditions do not rebel against the establishments of society because after all this world is not our home!
I have said and I will repeat. The reason why Kenyans have been treated to agonies of corruption, impunity and bad governance is not because they have not been complaining about the issues but because in fact they have complained for too long a time without any form of acting. Kenyans are too obedient to the law. Kenyans are too good a citizenry to question certain excesses against them. Kenyans are too humble a people to demand certain bare minimums from their leaders. Kenyans are too fearful to query certain government directives even when such directives touch on their survival. No! Let me put it this way Kenyans love their lives so much that they cannot risk police buttons on the streets demanding for the trial of PEV suspects.
And so as we wait for the NYC/ Youth Agenda conference in Nairobi on Tuesday, we must ask ourselves what we really need as young people. We must interrogate the methodologies that we have used before and ask ourselves why they have been failing. We always shout that there must be no violence but time has come for us to ask the question, ''Why not if it can deliver?'' Even though I am a human rightists I still strongly believe that there is a price to pay. Violence has never been as bad as we are told. When the Israelites were under Theocracy God himself sanctioned violence against anyone who disobeyed his commandments and especially against the people who were opposed to his chosen people of Israel. Violence has worked in America, in Britain, in France, in India and Pakistan, in South Africa and in deed in colonial Kenya. Let us remember that Mahtma Gandhi called on all Indians not only to be patriotic to their cultures and morals of their societies but also to be responsible enough as to disobey any laws that were repressive and those that did not boarder on the moral fabrics of the Indian traditions. It is time we considered the radical measures of violently disobeying unequal and unfair repressive tax regimes. Unequal representation in the governance processes and blatant practices that perpetuate the afferent of impunity.
I end by observing religiously that if we do not take drastic measures above and outside workshops and conferences ours shall remain frosty noises of frogs that will never scare cows away from a water pool!
Monday, November 9, 2009
WE MUST NEVER FEAR WAR!
Last week I was involved in a training for human rights of the people living with HIV/AIDS. As the training progressed the question on the male circumcision and its scientificity in curbing the widespread of the virus arose. Then there was a spirited argument on whether or no to adopt it. At the end of the debate I thought the trainer had managed to convince her listeners.
But what shocked me was what the trainer told us of how the research on male circumcision was carried out. She said that in South Africa a group 40 young men were asked to take part in the research. The young men were divided into two groups with one group accepting to be circumcised while the other group was left uncircumcised. These men were given instructions and clearly of the impending consequences should they accept to participate. They were then released to indulge in sex with whoever they met. One of the instructions was that the participants should not use condoms! And after these young men returned after six months the results were shocking. Only about 40% percent of the circumcised men tested positive while
those who were uncircumcised, 100% tested positive!
After thinking for a while I was very furious and naturally demanded from the trainer to tell us why such a risky affair had to be carried out on human beings. This prompted a plethora of disapproval questions with various human rightists calling for an end to such an immoral adventure. But the trainer maintained her stand arguing that the young men had been informed of the consequences and that they consented to the research.
But the storm was over and dust settled I came to think of the article I did here sometimes last on why I support war. I thought there was a serious moral lesson to be connected to this act by these brave South African young men. This is what I thought. The world is at war with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the same has been declared a national disaster in almost all countries around the world. It is said about 40 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. which means that the world and especially sub Saharan Africa is yet to win the war. Not that Africa has not been serious in the fight against the pandemic but because in fact people around the world are not willing to pay the price. The price for me is not just about the ABCs sex but stepping up scientific research which will be serious enough to tame the disease. What these young men did was an act of bravery and humanity will never forget them. For me these are the true heroes of the 21st Century. For what more can one give to humanity than to give up for sacrifice ones life in order that generations to come may benefit. I remembered the Biblical verse that says there was silence in heaven when God asked who among us shall go for us. Then Jesus said, ''Here I am Father! send me so that mankind can be redeemed!''
Reactions to the article ''Why I support War'' were predictive before hand. I said then and today I repeat, there will never be any meaningful development or change we so desire unless people go to war. Of course you will ask me as you did, who is that you want us to fight against? Well, my answer is simple. If you do not know who we are up against then you better step out of the debate on change.
History as we said serves not just to embellish our thoughts with sweet or horrible memories of the past but in fact to remind us that we cannot reinvent the wheel. The way has been prepared for us. I gave examples of the USA, Europe and Asia on how war was used to usher in the change they now enjoy and some of us said the circumstances have changed! Some challenged to provide a theory that informed my thinking. What a cheap way of escaping our true call! These are the same questions that we seek to defeat. People who go to war do so knowing that they have a reason to fight for themselves, for their families and for their unborn children. Imagine what the world would be like today if Socrates, Jesus, Shaka Zulu, Dedan Kimathi among others laboured in boardrooms providing theories that informed their resolve to challenge the Authorities that lorded it on mankind of their days! Well to be straight forward with the theorists, conflict in society is inevitable and is functional to the extent that after every conflict, armed or otherwise society will always develop new mechanisms of accommodation (Bernard Chester, 1984- Book available in the reserve section JKML University of Nairobi). That is if you have forgotten your understanding of Karl Marx on what the result will be like when the hoi poloi take up arms to confront the bourgeois in an armed struggle. By the way Mao Tse Tung was a student of Karl Marx. We do not need reminding where China is today. But I do not wish to belabor my emphasis on what I already took 9 years learning. By now I have already an informed opinion on what our country requires for true change- war!
So my argument again today is that workshops that spend millions of donor money talking about how our country requires change through peaceful means are just a waste of time, resources and dare I say such kind of workshops will always remain whining avenues for those who do not understand the realities and to civil societies and NGOs the workshops will remain cash cows where they milk huge monies for their salaries and allowances. And I repeat, the reason CSOs and NGOs will never embrace true solutions such as I am proposing is because by so doing they will be sealing the very source which pays them. If Kenya were to be a human rights state today then there will be no need of the thousands of NGOs we have today!
And so back to my argument, for us to achieve the change we desire we must be like the 40 young men in South Africa. They gave humanity what we will never forget. And for us in Kenya we should never fear to go to war if that is what it takes to bring change in our country. After all it will not be the first time it is happening. The Americans have gone to serious war three times, Europe more we can count, Asia the same and Africa and especially Kenya must never fear war. As I said, in 2008 we came very close to it but the process aborted thanks to NGOs, CSOs and the so called international Community. By the way when you hear several people saying let Kenyans solve their own problems on their own, by extension they are saying even if it is war we must be left to fight until we sit down and agree! The difference is that they have not articulated their call in a formal manner as I do.
As I finish, I call upon those who challenged some of us who believe in this call. We do not fear to play any role that we may be called upon to. You can count on us. And for those who preferred calling me on my mobile number to declare support, yes I agree with you. The debate on non violence is useless, it will never work. If it works, where is justice for the victims of 2007 PEV?
But what shocked me was what the trainer told us of how the research on male circumcision was carried out. She said that in South Africa a group 40 young men were asked to take part in the research. The young men were divided into two groups with one group accepting to be circumcised while the other group was left uncircumcised. These men were given instructions and clearly of the impending consequences should they accept to participate. They were then released to indulge in sex with whoever they met. One of the instructions was that the participants should not use condoms! And after these young men returned after six months the results were shocking. Only about 40% percent of the circumcised men tested positive while
those who were uncircumcised, 100% tested positive!
After thinking for a while I was very furious and naturally demanded from the trainer to tell us why such a risky affair had to be carried out on human beings. This prompted a plethora of disapproval questions with various human rightists calling for an end to such an immoral adventure. But the trainer maintained her stand arguing that the young men had been informed of the consequences and that they consented to the research.
But the storm was over and dust settled I came to think of the article I did here sometimes last on why I support war. I thought there was a serious moral lesson to be connected to this act by these brave South African young men. This is what I thought. The world is at war with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the same has been declared a national disaster in almost all countries around the world. It is said about 40 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. which means that the world and especially sub Saharan Africa is yet to win the war. Not that Africa has not been serious in the fight against the pandemic but because in fact people around the world are not willing to pay the price. The price for me is not just about the ABCs sex but stepping up scientific research which will be serious enough to tame the disease. What these young men did was an act of bravery and humanity will never forget them. For me these are the true heroes of the 21st Century. For what more can one give to humanity than to give up for sacrifice ones life in order that generations to come may benefit. I remembered the Biblical verse that says there was silence in heaven when God asked who among us shall go for us. Then Jesus said, ''Here I am Father! send me so that mankind can be redeemed!''
Reactions to the article ''Why I support War'' were predictive before hand. I said then and today I repeat, there will never be any meaningful development or change we so desire unless people go to war. Of course you will ask me as you did, who is that you want us to fight against? Well, my answer is simple. If you do not know who we are up against then you better step out of the debate on change.
History as we said serves not just to embellish our thoughts with sweet or horrible memories of the past but in fact to remind us that we cannot reinvent the wheel. The way has been prepared for us. I gave examples of the USA, Europe and Asia on how war was used to usher in the change they now enjoy and some of us said the circumstances have changed! Some challenged to provide a theory that informed my thinking. What a cheap way of escaping our true call! These are the same questions that we seek to defeat. People who go to war do so knowing that they have a reason to fight for themselves, for their families and for their unborn children. Imagine what the world would be like today if Socrates, Jesus, Shaka Zulu, Dedan Kimathi among others laboured in boardrooms providing theories that informed their resolve to challenge the Authorities that lorded it on mankind of their days! Well to be straight forward with the theorists, conflict in society is inevitable and is functional to the extent that after every conflict, armed or otherwise society will always develop new mechanisms of accommodation (Bernard Chester, 1984- Book available in the reserve section JKML University of Nairobi). That is if you have forgotten your understanding of Karl Marx on what the result will be like when the hoi poloi take up arms to confront the bourgeois in an armed struggle. By the way Mao Tse Tung was a student of Karl Marx. We do not need reminding where China is today. But I do not wish to belabor my emphasis on what I already took 9 years learning. By now I have already an informed opinion on what our country requires for true change- war!
So my argument again today is that workshops that spend millions of donor money talking about how our country requires change through peaceful means are just a waste of time, resources and dare I say such kind of workshops will always remain whining avenues for those who do not understand the realities and to civil societies and NGOs the workshops will remain cash cows where they milk huge monies for their salaries and allowances. And I repeat, the reason CSOs and NGOs will never embrace true solutions such as I am proposing is because by so doing they will be sealing the very source which pays them. If Kenya were to be a human rights state today then there will be no need of the thousands of NGOs we have today!
And so back to my argument, for us to achieve the change we desire we must be like the 40 young men in South Africa. They gave humanity what we will never forget. And for us in Kenya we should never fear to go to war if that is what it takes to bring change in our country. After all it will not be the first time it is happening. The Americans have gone to serious war three times, Europe more we can count, Asia the same and Africa and especially Kenya must never fear war. As I said, in 2008 we came very close to it but the process aborted thanks to NGOs, CSOs and the so called international Community. By the way when you hear several people saying let Kenyans solve their own problems on their own, by extension they are saying even if it is war we must be left to fight until we sit down and agree! The difference is that they have not articulated their call in a formal manner as I do.
As I finish, I call upon those who challenged some of us who believe in this call. We do not fear to play any role that we may be called upon to. You can count on us. And for those who preferred calling me on my mobile number to declare support, yes I agree with you. The debate on non violence is useless, it will never work. If it works, where is justice for the victims of 2007 PEV?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
CHANGE AND WAR ARE SIEMENS SISTERS!
A few days ago, I argued elsewhere that war is a necessary evil if at all this great country is to experience real change. You should have seen the kind of responsible I attracted!
Let us begin by observing the following: That it is obvious to excite such kind of reaction especially from the Civil Society Organizations, NGOs, CBOs and FBOs just as you would expect the Western Donor community to react. The western donor community and their cahoots thrive on the apathy of the third world countries. So to them finding a genuine solution to African problems is like asking them to sign their exit certificates, and that naturally demands that they dig in. I will explain how.
You will bear me witness that today in all the elitist workshops you attend, you will hear people in verbally romanticized polemic articulating how our country can attain the change it so desires via non violent means. I admit that before I interrogated myself and compared notes with many of my friends, I also used to subscribe to this self negating school of thought. In fact on several occasions I quoted Mahatma Karamchandras Mahandras Gandhi; he of the much famed active non-violence. I also quoted several of Martin King memorable verses, I quoted Barrack Obama and Tom Mboya alike.
Many happenings in the world, past and present have, however, taught me a serious lesson which I beg to share with you. It is folded in one of my best disciplines-History. And since History is not a cup of coffee for everyone I beg that you accompany me along this short journey as I share with you these facts. I promise it will be short and precise.
In 1776, the Americans declared their independence from the Britons and in their creed they espoused what has come to be the underpinning line of the concept of human rights. That all men are born equal and free before the eyes of their creator and that at birth all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights among which is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It took the Americans about 200 years to embrace the same creed that had created their country. That was in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. Between 1856 to 1865 America was entangled in a civil war that, if the Northern states had not won, then the USA as we know it today would not be existing. The war was a war of morality. Whether or not to emancipate. They emancipated the slave man!
In Europe things were even worse. Between 1870 and 1873 there were two major wars in Europe- The Anglo-Prussian war and the Franco- Prussian war. But it was the latter that gave results worth talking of here. The end result of the war between Britain and Germany was the legislation in Britain that outlawed Slave Trade and Slavery in total leading to a series of events that saw our grandfathers escape the noose across the Atlantic Ocean. In France, fed up with dictatorial tendencies of the Monarch, General Napoleon Bonaparte in 1789 took up arms and led a revolution that left indelible marks in the History of France. France has never been the same.
But perhaps it was the two world wars in the 20th Century that to me, left a mark that no one can deny will never be erased from the History mankind. The second world war in particular resulted in the creation of such institutions as the U.N.O and the Bretton Woods Institutions i.e. the World Bank and The I.M.F. The UN has since 1945 led to a series of other institutions such UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP among others. In fact we cannot imagine the world without these institutions. In 1948 as a result of the ww2 the UNO general assembly convened to pass what came to be known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All member states adopted it with Kenya ratifying in 1976. Several other treaties have since been crafted including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights-ICCPR, International Convention on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights- ICCECOSOC, International Convention on Elimination of All forms of Torture and Discrimination Against Women and the list is long. I promised you the History will not be long. We might ignite a debate of what role these institutions have played in remedying the ills committed against humanity since time but that I suggest should be a debate for another day. What I can say for now is that like it or not the post ww2 institutions are the ones setting the standards of good governance for us today. Talk of the International Criminals Court-ICC led by Moreno Ocampo as Chief Prosecutor or any other institution and I will assure you it has its roots in the ww2.
My argument today is that without war nothing good can come out of any deliberation. In Kenya, events of 2007 post election violence led to a series of changes that we now see. Even though you may not fully agree, some of the Agenda four stuff including police reforms, judicial reforms, electoral reforms and land reforms may be taking long but I can swear to you that none of those would be under the pipeline had people not taken up arms in 2008! Allow me to submit that it is my strongest belief that had the international community not interfered in that war then unlike what many believe Kenya would not have gone to the dogs because in factual sense the war was a chance for this country to institute reforms for a better nation. But unfortunately the western world, the Donor Community, the NGOs and CSOs sensing that they would be rendered irrelevant with Kenya becoming a reformed and truly transformed nation they jumped hither and tither held press conferences and desperately shouted for intervention from their blue-eyed boys and girls. As a result of the intervention Kenya's rebirth process was miscarried and what resulted was an abortion of what would otherwise have been a natural birth of a nation transformed from its erstwhile collection of tribal groupings!
And where are we now? We are back to the woods. We are still carrying for reforms, we are crying for eradication of corruption, we are crying for elaborate judicial reforms and we are still lamenting that we need a new Constitution to arrest the runaway phenomenon of impunity! 46 years after independence Kenya cannot feed its people, Kenya cannot enact into law a constitution that can convict even a petty thief in court, Kenya cannot harvest rain water, Kenya cannot employ its thousands of University graduates! The list is long. In short, our country is quickly drifting into a sweltering morass of political quagmire and eons of socio-economic dormancy. It remains to be seen who shall be the redeemer.
From my argument above I am forced to believe that the only way through which we can get the true change we have long yearned for is through violent means! That is the language humanity understands. If through the wars I have mentioned such beautiful change could have acquired then why not try that path? I know there is a price to pay but remember even those who preached non violence had to pay the price of violence- Gandhi, Mboya, Luther and the list is again long. In other words change and war are like the inseparable siemens sisters, you separate them they all die!
Let me hear you!
Let us begin by observing the following: That it is obvious to excite such kind of reaction especially from the Civil Society Organizations, NGOs, CBOs and FBOs just as you would expect the Western Donor community to react. The western donor community and their cahoots thrive on the apathy of the third world countries. So to them finding a genuine solution to African problems is like asking them to sign their exit certificates, and that naturally demands that they dig in. I will explain how.
You will bear me witness that today in all the elitist workshops you attend, you will hear people in verbally romanticized polemic articulating how our country can attain the change it so desires via non violent means. I admit that before I interrogated myself and compared notes with many of my friends, I also used to subscribe to this self negating school of thought. In fact on several occasions I quoted Mahatma Karamchandras Mahandras Gandhi; he of the much famed active non-violence. I also quoted several of Martin King memorable verses, I quoted Barrack Obama and Tom Mboya alike.
Many happenings in the world, past and present have, however, taught me a serious lesson which I beg to share with you. It is folded in one of my best disciplines-History. And since History is not a cup of coffee for everyone I beg that you accompany me along this short journey as I share with you these facts. I promise it will be short and precise.
In 1776, the Americans declared their independence from the Britons and in their creed they espoused what has come to be the underpinning line of the concept of human rights. That all men are born equal and free before the eyes of their creator and that at birth all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights among which is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It took the Americans about 200 years to embrace the same creed that had created their country. That was in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. Between 1856 to 1865 America was entangled in a civil war that, if the Northern states had not won, then the USA as we know it today would not be existing. The war was a war of morality. Whether or not to emancipate. They emancipated the slave man!
In Europe things were even worse. Between 1870 and 1873 there were two major wars in Europe- The Anglo-Prussian war and the Franco- Prussian war. But it was the latter that gave results worth talking of here. The end result of the war between Britain and Germany was the legislation in Britain that outlawed Slave Trade and Slavery in total leading to a series of events that saw our grandfathers escape the noose across the Atlantic Ocean. In France, fed up with dictatorial tendencies of the Monarch, General Napoleon Bonaparte in 1789 took up arms and led a revolution that left indelible marks in the History of France. France has never been the same.
But perhaps it was the two world wars in the 20th Century that to me, left a mark that no one can deny will never be erased from the History mankind. The second world war in particular resulted in the creation of such institutions as the U.N.O and the Bretton Woods Institutions i.e. the World Bank and The I.M.F. The UN has since 1945 led to a series of other institutions such UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP among others. In fact we cannot imagine the world without these institutions. In 1948 as a result of the ww2 the UNO general assembly convened to pass what came to be known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All member states adopted it with Kenya ratifying in 1976. Several other treaties have since been crafted including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights-ICCPR, International Convention on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights- ICCECOSOC, International Convention on Elimination of All forms of Torture and Discrimination Against Women and the list is long. I promised you the History will not be long. We might ignite a debate of what role these institutions have played in remedying the ills committed against humanity since time but that I suggest should be a debate for another day. What I can say for now is that like it or not the post ww2 institutions are the ones setting the standards of good governance for us today. Talk of the International Criminals Court-ICC led by Moreno Ocampo as Chief Prosecutor or any other institution and I will assure you it has its roots in the ww2.
My argument today is that without war nothing good can come out of any deliberation. In Kenya, events of 2007 post election violence led to a series of changes that we now see. Even though you may not fully agree, some of the Agenda four stuff including police reforms, judicial reforms, electoral reforms and land reforms may be taking long but I can swear to you that none of those would be under the pipeline had people not taken up arms in 2008! Allow me to submit that it is my strongest belief that had the international community not interfered in that war then unlike what many believe Kenya would not have gone to the dogs because in factual sense the war was a chance for this country to institute reforms for a better nation. But unfortunately the western world, the Donor Community, the NGOs and CSOs sensing that they would be rendered irrelevant with Kenya becoming a reformed and truly transformed nation they jumped hither and tither held press conferences and desperately shouted for intervention from their blue-eyed boys and girls. As a result of the intervention Kenya's rebirth process was miscarried and what resulted was an abortion of what would otherwise have been a natural birth of a nation transformed from its erstwhile collection of tribal groupings!
And where are we now? We are back to the woods. We are still carrying for reforms, we are crying for eradication of corruption, we are crying for elaborate judicial reforms and we are still lamenting that we need a new Constitution to arrest the runaway phenomenon of impunity! 46 years after independence Kenya cannot feed its people, Kenya cannot enact into law a constitution that can convict even a petty thief in court, Kenya cannot harvest rain water, Kenya cannot employ its thousands of University graduates! The list is long. In short, our country is quickly drifting into a sweltering morass of political quagmire and eons of socio-economic dormancy. It remains to be seen who shall be the redeemer.
From my argument above I am forced to believe that the only way through which we can get the true change we have long yearned for is through violent means! That is the language humanity understands. If through the wars I have mentioned such beautiful change could have acquired then why not try that path? I know there is a price to pay but remember even those who preached non violence had to pay the price of violence- Gandhi, Mboya, Luther and the list is again long. In other words change and war are like the inseparable siemens sisters, you separate them they all die!
Let me hear you!
Monday, November 2, 2009
The political terrain!
You are in the right place. This is the forum where great minds interact, interrogate each other, sharpen your thinking and literally lifts you up from what is hitherto your comfort zone of intellectualism to a level so high and amazing. The power of the leopard is in its claws, not speed! You and me have no guns to burst but we have brains to ignite!
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