Recent developments and appointments to key government position brought back the emotive tribal debate to the fore. Both critics and detractors are waxing lyrical and defensive with all shades of opinions to support their case. Bu all said and done, tribalism remains the singular malady whose nasty consequences continue to eat into both our conscience and moral fabric.
There is no justification to vilify Kibaki or protect him provided we understand the generation and school of thought he was weaned on. It's total waste of breathe and I would humbly suggest to you Kenyans with a future to look upto to tackle the root cause of this cancer. I am not naive to its prevalence and I know it will take ages to correct but we would be dancing ourselves lame before scoundrels for politicians who sold our soul for cheap populism and expediency.
It is the height of utter insensitivity to brand dimwits professors of politics just because they cause so much bloodshed. On the same vein, what is this madness to jump to the defence of academic dinosaurs whose economic models can't be programmed i any known language?
Spare us the balderdash please and lest seize the opportunity slipping between our fingers to address TRIBALISM. I speak my mother tongue with pride, but the identity end there and I wouldn't care a hoot if the language belonged to the apes.
We are all born equal and any sense tribal superiority is not only a farce but living a lie at best.
True, Kikuyus constitute more than 1 fifth of Kenyans. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the disparity. Stop insulting the collective intelligence of Kenyans. We know negative 'sms, when see one and amount of unsolicited level 100 series of lectures will wash.
Granted, even in a cosmopolitan morgue you are more likely to find more Kuks than Digos but management of public affairs doesn't take such a simplistic version of reasoning. Kenya belongs to all of us and anybody indulging in self-deception that they belong more than others are busy erecting castles on quicksand.
You don't need to be psychic to decode the arrogance and loaded ignorance lurking behind every comment that pretends to exorcise and rationalize the tribal devil.
We are simply, conveniently and unwittingly packaging stereotypes with lofty but empty phrases. Ours is a superlative act of intellectual dishonesty. An argument takes a typical Kenyans turn when you start seeing magnified side shows being prominently elevated to the VIP table of ideas. We can continue bandying all the existing tired catch words while we conveniently let the tribal virus mutate within at our collective peril.
Kibaki is Kenya's president and you can't pocket him unless you entertain the self-deception of 'ni wetu' ilk. Being a public figure, he can't afford to avoid visitation by flies patronizing the beautiful road he strolling on. Trivializing and tribalizing weighty matters takes the wind off our moral sail and we become no better than the pilloried scoundrels we pass as politicians. We are a betrayed generation and no amount of peddling of street wisdom will rescue us from this hole unless we take an honest hard look at ourselves and work together towards reclaiming out nationhood and motherland.
Tuesday 27 March 2007
Wednesday 21 March 2007
Majimboism: Reinventing the Political Wheel?
ODM-K politicians have made majimboism a principal plank in their campaigns to to cheat Kenyans of their votes. Packaging regionalism in new linen makes these chaps believe that theirs is the best political gift to Kenyans after independence. Nothing could be further from the truth and our sly politicians are simply stuck like an old record regurgitating old stuff that has no relevance to our present problems. Shorttermism remains the guiding principle of most politicians. All they do is to scheme using voters as ladders for political expediency.
Majimboism is the epidemic whose symptoms already have Kenya bleeding from ethnic hatred. And if we were to legalize it then God have mercy. For starters, the whole ODM-K brigade’s argument for majimbo is pegged on the wrong premise. Even before we engage ourselves in the debate, we must accept the truth that the timing couldn't have been any worse. Kenya is boiling with tribal tension that only needs a spark to explode. The ODM chaps are alive to this fact and want to take advantage for political expediency at our collective peril.
The merit and demerits of majimbo are neither here nor there. With individualized and/or regionalized rule, majimboism will be the icing on the cake on emergence of tribal chiefs ready to sell their tribesmen pound of flesh to cobble up tribal collisions. All we need is structured administration build on institutions that can operate independent of the office bearers. Simple put must go back to the basic and not even entertain the idea of taking us back to Misri, as my brilliant granny often wisely warned.
Why would we create mayhem to unsettle the prevailing peace among tribes? Our cheap politics that has perfected the paradigm of our turn is the bane in this political madness. A fair distribution of wealth and resources would make us be tribeless.
Unless we stop providing an elastic and indefatigable backs for our politicians to ride on, we are inadvertently abetting the speedy slide of our motherland into abyss. We must stop these politicians from playing the small tribes against the perceived large ones.
All are born equal and any trace of calibration into superiority is the height of deception in attept to jutify living a lie. Such cheap propaganda are anchored on simplistic and unproductive leadership. We must resist the lure to opt for cheap plastic options in the face of gigantic problems. Regionalism is no panacea to the present sickening spate of tribalism among Kenyans. If anything it will only succeed in fuelling the vice.
With no dependable institutions, we are simple inviting ourselves to into the jungle with all its unpleasant laws. Lest we want to create unviable 42+ jimbos for each tribe, Kenya and Kenyans must retrace their values and agree to either grow together of severally exterminate each other. There is success story anywhere in the world on this. So why pretend to have discovered the tools to reinvent a rusty wheel? I rest my case.
Majimboism is the epidemic whose symptoms already have Kenya bleeding from ethnic hatred. And if we were to legalize it then God have mercy. For starters, the whole ODM-K brigade’s argument for majimbo is pegged on the wrong premise. Even before we engage ourselves in the debate, we must accept the truth that the timing couldn't have been any worse. Kenya is boiling with tribal tension that only needs a spark to explode. The ODM chaps are alive to this fact and want to take advantage for political expediency at our collective peril.
The merit and demerits of majimbo are neither here nor there. With individualized and/or regionalized rule, majimboism will be the icing on the cake on emergence of tribal chiefs ready to sell their tribesmen pound of flesh to cobble up tribal collisions. All we need is structured administration build on institutions that can operate independent of the office bearers. Simple put must go back to the basic and not even entertain the idea of taking us back to Misri, as my brilliant granny often wisely warned.
Why would we create mayhem to unsettle the prevailing peace among tribes? Our cheap politics that has perfected the paradigm of our turn is the bane in this political madness. A fair distribution of wealth and resources would make us be tribeless.
Unless we stop providing an elastic and indefatigable backs for our politicians to ride on, we are inadvertently abetting the speedy slide of our motherland into abyss. We must stop these politicians from playing the small tribes against the perceived large ones.
All are born equal and any trace of calibration into superiority is the height of deception in attept to jutify living a lie. Such cheap propaganda are anchored on simplistic and unproductive leadership. We must resist the lure to opt for cheap plastic options in the face of gigantic problems. Regionalism is no panacea to the present sickening spate of tribalism among Kenyans. If anything it will only succeed in fuelling the vice.
With no dependable institutions, we are simple inviting ourselves to into the jungle with all its unpleasant laws. Lest we want to create unviable 42+ jimbos for each tribe, Kenya and Kenyans must retrace their values and agree to either grow together of severally exterminate each other. There is success story anywhere in the world on this. So why pretend to have discovered the tools to reinvent a rusty wheel? I rest my case.
Friday 16 March 2007
African Ghosts Back With Vengeance
If we ever imagined that the dark era of bad African political manners are gone, then we need repentance because current events have disabused of this in a large scale. The bad old days are back with a vengeance with our despots and striving to outdo each other in silencing their opposition and media, both perceived and real.
Dinosaur leaders rule by borrowing bad political manners from their peers. Down south senile Mugabe is speedily driving his beautiful country into abyss and here I Kenya, Kibaki seem to be keenly taking note and proving such an astute student.
The Kenyan government has done it again, having both feet stuck in the mouth. What a primitive show of might in silencing the media. While the world press recently splashed on their front pages a battered Morgan Tsangirai's in the hands of Mugabe’s police, Kenya is threatening to outdo Zimbabwe.
We can condone errors of commission but such grandiose abuse of our national pride, freedom, must be resisted at all cost. We must defend the media and press at all cost lest we lose all that we have gained in the last 15 years. Comparing present freedom to the dark ages of Moi is to feed us on tokenism which we must resist and reject. Whoever authors spins for Kibaki’s government must have been weaned on colonial mentality. Harassing innocent Kenyans working hard to measure to the working nation call is an unprovoked upfront of our collective intelligence. The timing couldn't have been worse in an election year.
Kibaki's propensity to shoot itself in the foot is unparalleled and we must stand up as a nation to shine light in all the dark shades of our leadership. The role of journalists in this endeavour is irreplaceable and we only keep quiet at our own collective peril. Attempt to intimidate the media in this era of information highway is not only destined to fall flat on its ugly face but is also symptomatic of what dinosaurs we have for leaders. The police engage in wild goose chase by shamelessly wasting tax payers’ money in harassing professionals sweating to put food on the table while murderers roam Mt. Elgon unhindered maiming and raping innocent Kenyans.
Ours is a country in the 21st Century led with models of the 1960s. We must reclaim our motherland from these fraudsters in demanding freedom of the press lest we perish both individually and severally. Choosing the cheap option of lynching the messenger and conveniently avoiding the message is the height of intellectual naivety at best and dishonesty at worst.
And our so-called elites are no better than their village mates except they cloth their rawness in eloquent English. They always start an objective argument with loaded facts but no sooner than you read a paragraph than you get confronted with their stories trapped in hole of bad-mouthing. We all appear intelligence in public but remain shameless tribalists in private. It is incumbent upon us to redeem and reclaim our motherland by stripping its leadership of political scavengers now and not tomorrow.
We must refuse to played against each other while imbibing cheap stereotypes. Each one of us is born into a tribe and we must proudly speak out native tongues. But the identity end there and we must embrace and defend Kenyans as one people devoid of prejudice. Otherwise being the country of conspiracies against each other we are destined to collective doom. Politics is a game and the heat it generates is mostly felt by the less-valued loud-mouthed rather than the key players. We must sober up and not be cheap and fast in making insinuations that are akin to character self-destruction. We need not take offence on behalf of our tribal chiefs knowing that we remain the grass that suffers when the bulls fight. When a fellow human being employs reasoning from the lower faculties, they only succeed in making apes look geniuses.
Dinosaur leaders rule by borrowing bad political manners from their peers. Down south senile Mugabe is speedily driving his beautiful country into abyss and here I Kenya, Kibaki seem to be keenly taking note and proving such an astute student.
The Kenyan government has done it again, having both feet stuck in the mouth. What a primitive show of might in silencing the media. While the world press recently splashed on their front pages a battered Morgan Tsangirai's in the hands of Mugabe’s police, Kenya is threatening to outdo Zimbabwe.
We can condone errors of commission but such grandiose abuse of our national pride, freedom, must be resisted at all cost. We must defend the media and press at all cost lest we lose all that we have gained in the last 15 years. Comparing present freedom to the dark ages of Moi is to feed us on tokenism which we must resist and reject. Whoever authors spins for Kibaki’s government must have been weaned on colonial mentality. Harassing innocent Kenyans working hard to measure to the working nation call is an unprovoked upfront of our collective intelligence. The timing couldn't have been worse in an election year.
Kibaki's propensity to shoot itself in the foot is unparalleled and we must stand up as a nation to shine light in all the dark shades of our leadership. The role of journalists in this endeavour is irreplaceable and we only keep quiet at our own collective peril. Attempt to intimidate the media in this era of information highway is not only destined to fall flat on its ugly face but is also symptomatic of what dinosaurs we have for leaders. The police engage in wild goose chase by shamelessly wasting tax payers’ money in harassing professionals sweating to put food on the table while murderers roam Mt. Elgon unhindered maiming and raping innocent Kenyans.
Ours is a country in the 21st Century led with models of the 1960s. We must reclaim our motherland from these fraudsters in demanding freedom of the press lest we perish both individually and severally. Choosing the cheap option of lynching the messenger and conveniently avoiding the message is the height of intellectual naivety at best and dishonesty at worst.
And our so-called elites are no better than their village mates except they cloth their rawness in eloquent English. They always start an objective argument with loaded facts but no sooner than you read a paragraph than you get confronted with their stories trapped in hole of bad-mouthing. We all appear intelligence in public but remain shameless tribalists in private. It is incumbent upon us to redeem and reclaim our motherland by stripping its leadership of political scavengers now and not tomorrow.
We must refuse to played against each other while imbibing cheap stereotypes. Each one of us is born into a tribe and we must proudly speak out native tongues. But the identity end there and we must embrace and defend Kenyans as one people devoid of prejudice. Otherwise being the country of conspiracies against each other we are destined to collective doom. Politics is a game and the heat it generates is mostly felt by the less-valued loud-mouthed rather than the key players. We must sober up and not be cheap and fast in making insinuations that are akin to character self-destruction. We need not take offence on behalf of our tribal chiefs knowing that we remain the grass that suffers when the bulls fight. When a fellow human being employs reasoning from the lower faculties, they only succeed in making apes look geniuses.
Saturday 10 March 2007
One Country, Two People
Our national obsession with everything materialistic has taken criminal dimensions of leather for hell proportions. Nothing demonstrates better this divide of me against than our political leaders. A closer look at any of their actions smacks off utmost betrayal of the fake objectivity and sensitivity they proclaim from the rooftops. They are in a continuous state of competing among themselves to curve exclusive selfish niches for themselves albeit without any trace of tact to disguise their ill motives.
A case in point would suffice to demonstrate this mad rush to be ‘different’. The ODM-K's London trip that never was is just the miracle that Kenyans needed to unearth the quicksand on which they anchor their political hopes. Right from the organizers to the guests, the whole thing was a disaster that occurred before its conception. They had danced themselves lame before even the music started playing and now all they have to show for it is nothing but tons of eggs splashed on their faces. Shame on them.
Behind this facade lurks the unpleasant Kenyan culture of aspiring to belong to a class, political and/or economic/social. The ODM-K leaders wanted to set themselves a side as special Kenyans deluding themselves that their self-manufactured problems can only be solved within earshot of the queen. Speak of colonial mindset. These are chaps out of touch with reality wasting funds that they would better invest in saving lives of starving Kenyans. But alas, you can't preach to the converted, or can you?
Seeing Kalonzo bandying high-sounding words in accusing unknown shadows who have hijacked ODM-K betrays his hitherto lyrical waxes last weekend in Western when he chose to prematurely become generous with unsolicited news about the London bonding. Boy, don't sharks have a sharp nose for blood? Trust Deya to smell an opportunity a mile a way to invest in prospective immunity. Mudavadi deserves a medal for being prophetic to cleverly evade embarrassment - he knew he had no chance and Ruto can't put a spin on the backlash. Solidarity for a course is one thing but solidarity to sanitize a stinking character is the height of political naivity and arrogance to the electorate.
ODM-K leadership must sober up and stop being led with a leash on their noses following the the scent of euphoria and emotions. A deep reflection would have prompted them to an honest soul-searching that would have helped them see the embarrassment in advance. Now they have been hanged out both individually and severally to dry. Product of premature campaign and plastic confidence? We need not bother nor wait for time to tell. They have fatally shot themselves in the foot and their goose is as good as cooked and digested.
A case in point would suffice to demonstrate this mad rush to be ‘different’. The ODM-K's London trip that never was is just the miracle that Kenyans needed to unearth the quicksand on which they anchor their political hopes. Right from the organizers to the guests, the whole thing was a disaster that occurred before its conception. They had danced themselves lame before even the music started playing and now all they have to show for it is nothing but tons of eggs splashed on their faces. Shame on them.
Behind this facade lurks the unpleasant Kenyan culture of aspiring to belong to a class, political and/or economic/social. The ODM-K leaders wanted to set themselves a side as special Kenyans deluding themselves that their self-manufactured problems can only be solved within earshot of the queen. Speak of colonial mindset. These are chaps out of touch with reality wasting funds that they would better invest in saving lives of starving Kenyans. But alas, you can't preach to the converted, or can you?
Seeing Kalonzo bandying high-sounding words in accusing unknown shadows who have hijacked ODM-K betrays his hitherto lyrical waxes last weekend in Western when he chose to prematurely become generous with unsolicited news about the London bonding. Boy, don't sharks have a sharp nose for blood? Trust Deya to smell an opportunity a mile a way to invest in prospective immunity. Mudavadi deserves a medal for being prophetic to cleverly evade embarrassment - he knew he had no chance and Ruto can't put a spin on the backlash. Solidarity for a course is one thing but solidarity to sanitize a stinking character is the height of political naivity and arrogance to the electorate.
ODM-K leadership must sober up and stop being led with a leash on their noses following the the scent of euphoria and emotions. A deep reflection would have prompted them to an honest soul-searching that would have helped them see the embarrassment in advance. Now they have been hanged out both individually and severally to dry. Product of premature campaign and plastic confidence? We need not bother nor wait for time to tell. They have fatally shot themselves in the foot and their goose is as good as cooked and digested.
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