Reflections

Do not dream, demand!

2012-01-29T22:32:00.000-08:00

Demand not a dream today but a reality. If someone is looking down on your ability or simply cannot stand you because of your skin, you must demand to be. Tsunamis make many very sad. All human catastrophes of a natural or unnatural causes make many suffer. Many move out of their cocoon and act. I see the world filled with voices of hope. It reaches out. We help how we can. Memories come rolling in: Haiti, Japan, Italy, Missouri and many other places. Here we can help and have helped.

I move back to the individual on the skin level. I say demand justice. I did not say be violent. Let those who are violent learn not to be. My heart fell last evening when I saw Jessi, that is what I want to call her as I recall Jessi Jackson, on TV last night. Jessi is a woman in Oslo. She says that she dares not step out in the evening since somebody hit her on the basis of having a black skin. Someone struck the castle of her skin. She was in the central part of the city just taking a walk. Her tears were near. She said that she knew that most Norwegians were not like that person who hit her. Police asked people to report these cases. Recently I heard that the problem with racism is that some people who are not hit openly like Jessi do not even know it when it is happening to them. They do not identify it. So they do not report it. Society must wake up. Many in Norway say that racism is subtle. It is not openly seen. I differ. It is visible and identifiable and can be quontifiable and actionable so that the few who want to be retrogressive can learn.

I am refusing to believe that racism will not go away. Someone has even put it in a famous saying, that when it goes, we shall invent something else for the basis of discrimination. I surge with fury. I do not want to dream now. Dr. Martin Luther King has and had a dream, it is time for that dream to be fulfilled. I was sad and glad when I heard Jimmy Carter on Intelligence Sq. BBC talking about racism last year. He said it was unfortunately still so rife. A few days later Obama unveiled the great sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I love the man and his words. We must go beyond his speech and spill into action, for this man had and has a dream which by now should have rocked the world. I know am up against ethnic forces here and there. I know it is possible to get people interested in many other things so that they act on other more powerful levels. I know it is possible to fascinate people with possibilities. I know the media can do much in this. I know writers can. I know it does not work to see very few people of another color on TV screens and only see them when they are in trouble. For Jessi and her types have a profession. Jessi and her type have families. Jessi and her type have many things that the media often forgets.

This is January. On 19th January most media reflected on Dr. King. I did not see anything here on TV. I know I said do not dream. I mean you could have shown something about how to make this dream come true. Besides, I was closely watching what would happen on the 26th of January. It is the day Benjamin Hermansen was killed for being black in 2001 in Norway. At the beginning Norge was shocked. Thousands of people came out in protest. The street action was impressive. It has petered out. Perhaps that is natural. But something else should have grown in its place. As long as the racism issue is left to a few people who speak themselves hoarse and often are from the visible discriminated minority, nothing will happen to change things. I did not see the action that I would expect from Human Rights Watch and other organisations. I did not see Amnesty International lighting up candles here. I would like to see more focus. I would like to see this burden come off the shoulders of individuals and move to institution. Dreams should not be possible in institutions, the individuals in them must make dreams live. Act and demand justice. Never be ashamed to say where we are hurting. This is what weakens human endeavor for change. It is not possible to only make a little noise and go. The police must follow up their word. Ways of identifying offences must be made known to all and not just to the often discriminated people.

Libraries following the legacy of Deichman are powerful here. So, this week I am reading a little book Rasisme forklart for barn by Walid al - Kubaisi and published by Pantagruel Forlag in 2001. It was soon after Benjamin was killed. The foreward is by his mother. Marit Hermansen. Her pain is tangible and I know it never died. Why has ours died? There is another book on Benjamin Hermansen. A big book and colourful. Both these books should have been on forefront display the whole of the month of January and books and films on Dr. King, Gandhi and others. In the lectures of the week held in differerent libraries, I saw nothing focused on history or race. Instead I stumbled on a book about neggers. On this one I will write another day in subsequent articles.

This is a problem we must address as deeply as we can and we can reach many people. It does not go away by not looking too straight at it. In the big book, young people expressed themselves to a newspaper in words I shall shortly quote when I get it, here below. All this has gone into hiding somehwere. We surely must do better as society which actually functions on the basis of equality.. or likestilling. It is meaningless to have gender equality when not all human beings are not seen to be equal because of their skins. We all have the wounds of old and of late. July 22 2011 is also steeped in unacceptance of the 'other' in many forms.

2011-12-28T18:32:00.001-08:00

Dear Mohammed Bouazizi, for a man and his vegetable cart, your anniversary.

2011-12-26T02:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Mohammed Bouazizi,

Ever since you struck that match the flame has not died. We saw the flames it has been difficult to rest, Mohammed. Then you were 26 years now you are an ancient giant. You should be as present as yester- history. It is Christmas time and you kept ringing bells in my ears, Mohammed. I weep. I meditate on you, Mohammed, during this Christian festive season. I cannot detach myself and watch history. I am sure we should be lacking in foresight if we thought you only died for Tunisia and for Arabs. In my mind you died for many. Many had died silently before. Maybe others had chosen fire alone too. But your fire was the one chosen to be loaded with meaning, to spark a revolution, an Awakening that the world should not turn away from. An awakening that must turn the world. An Afrikan Awakening too.

See Nigeria. Questions of faith too. Christianity and Islam. Burning the other. You immolated yourself. Is it true that we are so lost in small divisions where the Northerner in any country claims difference with the westner and the southner with the centralist and eastner? Is it true that belief in God must kill us? Is it true that it is us who speak peace in churches where we do not turn to our neighbour because she is Sudanese and Nubian and not of our Arab ancestry? See India's castes. Division is built on economic trouble, inequality of opportunities. Incapacity to live with differences. Our view of the 'other' is so complex. You taught me that to make room for the other I may need not be present everywhere but tribe in Kenya cheats me the opposite. I take the teaching, I try to leave the cheating.

Is it true that at home tribe marks tribe and in Europe race and tribalism live on? Is it true so many people wanted to change the world when they were teenagers? Is it true that old men and women are meditating? Is it true that we light candles on graveyards and place wreaths of peace?

I hear the name word Tunisia and my thoughts turn to you. I hear Libya it is the same. I hear of Syria today engaged in such massacres and killings and Assad will not hear and I wonder about why you did not live and others died. What have we done to bring the Awakening that must happen in so many lands. Where are our values as humanity?

In the backdrop of what is happening in Syria, Egypt and many lands we may not find in our media because they seem to fall of the map of the world's attention, I think of you. It is for the Arab Awakening that you Mohammed Bouazizi struck the match. Your flames are still burning for the world needs them. You doused yourself in petrol and went up in flames. You were saying you had enough of a world full of injustice not just in Tunisia. Mohammed, we are not able to light up our minds. Dictators hold on as so many people die. The world has betrayed Syria. Sakharov, Vaclav Havel and you and many others are disappointed. We buried all of you? Do we not ignite ours then? You challenged us with a match Bouazizi and you left your mother crying, and us. I sometimes so wish that we could see you watching the world. See your spirit. Touch it.

From Al Jazira. Mohammed must live in our minds. I do not want to see this again!

I do not like it that matyrdom was forced on your psyche. You were seeking to live. I praise you for your courage because sometimes there is no other language possible. You did not take the life of another. I remember your name suddenly hit us as between the 17th of December and the 4th of January, you struggled for your life in hospital all bandaged up. Doctors had done their best. They stood by your bed with nurses. Some important people visited you and took photographs and the whole world was paralysed by this at Christmas. I know now that my Christmas in Norway, in Kenya, in wherever I may be will never be the same again.

I listen to carols at this time and every little boy, every child, every market woman offering bananas lifting them high to a traveller on a bus window reminds me of you. Those men I have seen in Nairobi pulling a cart with their stomach as if they have horsepower remind me of you. My cousin pulls one in a smaller town. I know that life. I know his children waiting for Christmas. I know his faith and effort.

Someone killed two vendors in Firenze on 15th of December. They said he was right wing and angry. He killed himself too. The news was splashed for a while. It is practically forgotten. Those two vendors from Senegal who were shot dead in Firenze, Florence, the other day remind me of you. Four people were injured. The mothers' of those vendors received corpses at home.I was thinking about this when I read in La Stampa, which does not yet carry posthmous postal stamp that indeed his colleagues said, Someone will have to tell Samb's mother. La pieta comes to mind again and no pity. How long with a mother with broken limbs, dead children in her hands, a mother holding ashes at the Ganges, a mother weeping have to live? This mother lonely and filling the face of the earth. This mother holding out her children to us hungers for justice. We cannot sleep. We must unmask our feasts and ask the world what our children will celebrate tomorrow.

http://www.worldcrunch.com/florence-where-counterfeit-gucci-and-immigrant-dreams-meet-racist-violence/4302

I saw photos of Senegalese men on the street demonstrating. I did not see demonstrations anywhere else in the capitals of Europe. I did not see people come out as human beings: Not race, not religion but people who care about the life of another. This event was very close to the UN International Human Rights Day, 10th December.

I know that the mayor of Firenze reacted fast and condemned this. I remembered that I was in Firenze on 9th December 2010 at the Nelson Mandela Forum. I remembered young Italian children 14- 18 filled a stadium with love. I remembered how they celebrated Mansur Raji and I. I remembered one boy who just wanted to call my name and when I looked up he smiled and run away. I remembered hope. I felt pain because I know there are many people who would not have this happen but a few who seem to work harder than the rest of us to be heard.

I know a young boy who was killed here on 26th January 2001 in Oslo for being Benjamin Hermansen. In the 2010 demonstration that my friend took me to, there were very few people compared to the beginning. We are weak. There are many things we shall not root out. Our self immolation does not require that we set fire on ourselves. We need to set fire on our thoughts, on our souls and hearts. We need to act. Nothing is over yet, everything remains from slavery to bombings. The world must show us who is leading it today. Where is the bigger voice. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church reflected on Syria on Christmas Day and asked for prayers, but in Northern Nigeria in Jos, someone killed many Christians in a church. Which language shall we speak Mohammed?

If you try to Google shooting of boy.. . without his name, no matter what year you put, your finds will be filled with Anders Breivik and Utøya. Here, where I live for sometime now, we like to console ourselves. We say that our racism is hidden? Is it? I see it not only on Benjamin but in many places. What is hidden to the world and why? Mohammed, thank you. May we learn to burn bright that which is still hidden in darkness. May we just at least try, to step out for humanity. You inspire me even as I hurt deeply seeing that we do not have enough with the awful natural disasters.. in the Philipinnes, Somalia, U.S.A, Australia and Japan. What are we learning and doing? Why are those against ideals so much more active than those of us who are pro humans? Ask us Mohammed, ask us. We owe you many answers.
http://www.sos-rasisme.no/sentralt/71/2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Benjamin_Hermansen.

Hermansen was 15 years old when he was shot just before midnight on 26th January 2001.

Burden of Peace for theree wise women, Nobel Peace Prize 2011

2011-12-09T22:27:00.001-08:00

Gentle smiles of enduring peace

Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Patricia Howell from Jamaica in Oslo 8th Dec 2011

Nobel Peace Prize 2011- the feet of them that bring news of peace!

Celebrations now come on! There are some reflections, one can only make with the body! It ached then. It dances now. Three women have journeyed from afar. See their first steps, barefeet and full of pain. See them dance today.

Celebrations now.. come on!

See me dance for them. See me. I am full of joy. Three wise women. They are in Oslo this historic day, of December 10^th. This is the day when every year some outstanding personalities stand before us and make us one in hope. It is Human Rights Day.

I know there are controversial issues but today let me rejoice in these women. After all, it was in a workshop titled Defending Defenders in Nairobi where I met one of these women, Leymah Gbowee. It was organized by Urgent Action Africa then directed by Betty Kaari Murungi. There were women from Africa and Asia.

Many great sisters were there and I know today they are recalling that workshop in many parts of the world with joy because Leymah was there and because women are on the worlds’ podium for honor today.

There is a party going on right here..

The Nobel Peace Prize and its history still retains great prestige and meaning. It remains a high peak. It is a big responsibility to receive it. I love the fact that this onus is on our wonderful sisters Tawakul, Leymah and Ellen Jonson Sirleaf in 2011.

To walk in the company of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Chief Luthuli, Wangari Maathai, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and so many great people is a great thing!

Should I liken these three sisters to the three kings of yore? No. They are not all from the orient and the one that is may not have the three kings in the hadiths. Is this story part? It is December 10^th 2011. Well, from that story let me steal the lesson that they must remain people who are moving towards others who are seemingly lowly as it was with kings travelling miles on camels to see a little baby in that Christmas story. Leymah Gbowee Prayed the devil back to hell sometime back with a large group of women. You can see the documentary on this today. She led.

Muslim and Christian women came out and challenged Charles Taylor who had taken liberty from Liberia. They wanted their children back. They wanted to see their boys grow up and their girls and mothers not raped. They like many queens insisted their children had to live. It is about time women showed no fear in uniting even across religious groups. The world is challenged by serious divisions. Will women bring us the frankincense and myrrh we need for our healing?

United across age groups. Ellen Jonson is a torch bearer, Leymah runs strong and Tawakul is the youngest in age and certainly wise... they are all youthful!

So celebrations..

I could be in my warm winter bed sleeping. It is so early. It is one of the days that my 4am alarm has rang after I have woken up. I thought I switched it off on my mobile phone and then it sweetly rang again after ten minutes. I remembered as I put it off how one feels when sleep embraces the eyes forcing them closed and an alarm rings. That you want that snooze. It is that snooze I cannot afford in life. And, I am in Oslo, how can I not write about this?

Part of Oslo will show great excitement today. Sadly, some other people got used to it. I am part of the ones trembling with joy, excited, even as I sit and write and am not invited to the concert which only big people go to. We can’t wait for the public torch parade and for the brief appearance of the Nobel Peace Prize winners at the historic window! It is the land of equal opportunities! I am honored that I read a poem in a gathering where one of the Nobel laureates was invited. I am contented that we- a group of African women- saw one of the Nobel laureates barefoot . and we joked about the dignity of the Nobel Prize! Who would not celebrate the feet of women like these? It is not always our turn to mourn. We loved seeing their families happy. We celebrate!

Tawakul, what is the use of the revolution if we only die and not dance? I hope for you so much. I hope the best. My mother says part of you name means lamp in her language.. Tawa, and so it was to be, and my son says that the other part is ‘cool!’ This is how domestic you have become in my village too.. so... Drive that energy into changing the world! All three of you, the work has only just begun. The world needs real changing, even here on the ground on which you receive the Nobel. Ask us.

Let me not dwell on what others say regarding deserving. This will always come up. It is not new. Give these women a break! Put your fears regarding this or that into something else.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has played a big part in peace building at home regardless of what some say. For me, it is just that. What they must say. Three women will receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. Tawakul is the youngest. She is from

Yemen

. She moved the revolution forward in the Arab Spring, in her country.

I am reminded of Martin Luther King Jr. I am reminded of non violence. I am reminded of some aspects of his amazing life and his ever living dream.

I am reminded of Martin Luther King Jr’s own acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize on the 10^th of December 1964 where he spoke more about the masses than about himself.

“Everytime I take a flight I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible, the known pilots and the unknown ground crew. ..You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth.”

We will always celebrate those who come and return to the people with words of peace regardless of a world that would rather they were not celebrated. Celebrate now!

Afrikan resources stolen just as Dag Hammarskjøld said

2011-11-26T07:08:00.001-08:00

It is not surprising that there are many people who would have nothing to do with anyone promising support for democracy in Afrika. Years of betrayal continue. Dag Hammarskjøld, UN Sec General UN in the 60s was clear. He is still relevant. What is happening to tantlum or coltan in DRC is unbelievable. And everything continues as if all were normal. What is normal? That will not be for long. A world revolution born on the back of the Arab Spring must liberate the whole world. The taking of resources from those who cannot defend themselves is stealing. Multinationals have continued this injustice in many forms. There has to be a new way of dealing with resources in the world. Someone has to champion this. Many people. Billions of them. It can be done.
There are many people in Afrika who are angry enough. They normally throw out the whole western concept or any deed from the west, sometimes even individuals as evil to be rejected by all means. But we need those people in the world who know and see the origin of some of these problems. And I miss deep souls like Dag's! Shame! Thank you John Jones for keeping the flame alive and sharing with us. Here is your article.

http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/chronicle/cache/bypass/home/archive/webarticles2011/daghammarskjoldstoodupfortheunondevelopment?ctnscroll_articleContainerList=1_0&ctnlistpagination_articleContainerList=true

Kenya and the ICC

2011-11-17T03:54:00.001-08:00

http://haririphiloikonyagasheri.blogspot.com/

Shattered

2011-10-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Kenya shatters herself in Somalia

By Philo Ikonya

The eardrums of Salagle Town of Lower Juba in Somalia are shattered

Kenya kills her neighbour reducing 20 years of help to death

Abdi Kadir Ali has left for safety. Warplanes are the new sky

Kenya has moved into Somalia. Husbands are missing. Women

have had it with the weapon of rape unfailing in all wars.

Children die alone, weak and helpless, starved:

Africa's flag in the world.

Kismayo island.

Mekatilili wa Menza was imprisoned there as was Harry

Thuku and many others. We owe ourselves a dialogue not shells

and skulls of children taken from the mouth of drought killing cattle

and women and men and shot through again and again and again for

A crime encrusted in Shabaabs.

Thirsts break my soul.

When Kimaathi and Mau Mau fought the British and won

They did not go to England to kill. They had no planes

They walked forests that are villages now. They spoke to rivers

mists, sands and soils and heard the secrets of nature.

And beheld mountains and seas – Learn to focus.

The enemy is within your clothes.

You shoot yourselves.

Kenya: We do not need the death of Somalis to make peace!

2011-10-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

About Somalia and Kenya

For circulation and open posting on all media platforms

STATE KENYAN WRITERS AND PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS
We, the undersigned, register, in the strongest terms, our opposition
to Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia.

We note that several months at minimum is required to plan a military
operation that involves crossing borders. Therefore the reasons put
forward by the Kenyan government for this operation are demonstrably
false.

Statements from the French Government (see link below) and Medicins
Sans Frontieres contradict the Kenyan Government’s allegation that Al-
Shabaab is responsible for the kidnapping of Marie Dedieu and two
other foreigners.

We will kill Somalis and call them Al-Shabaab. We will all feel very
Kenyan indeed.

They die, so we can create a national amnesia about 350,000 internally
displaced Kenyans, missing World Bank monies, missing Education
Ministry funds, the ICC-Kenya trials, 2012 elections, the
implementation of our new constitution.

The army will claim, as invading armies always do, that they have
courageously engaged the enemy, when they have really killed innocent
civilians.

All Kenyans paying already for this bout of blood-thirst. We will go
on paying, for many years to come. We will pay with our taxes, our un-
built schools and hospitals, our unpaid teachers, our still-jobless
youth, our rapidly deteriorating security situation, our shattered
relationship with our neighbours.

We do not require the death of Somalis to know who and where we are.

SIGNED: (in alphabetical order)

Nguru Karugu
Keguro Macharia
Paul Mwangi Maina
Tom Maliti
Dr. Firoze Manji
Abdulrahman Mirimo
Dr. Wambui Mwangi
Kenne Mwikya
Benjamin Wambua Ndolo
Onyango Oloo
Odhiambo Oyoko
Shailja Patel
Philo Ikonya

Envisioning Kenya's governance in the hands of women giants

2011-10-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

Generations of Courage: Women lead against ethnicity in Kenya and with brilliance!

Shailja Patel voices for women departed. Her poetry is a call for justice and reason to prevail in Kenya. She and others founded Kenyans for Peace Through Justice at the height of poll violence in 2007

We are bereaved in Kenya. Below are thoughts desired to reflect here before the sad news of the deaths Wambui-Otieno Mbugua and Wangari wa Maathai came in quick succession. Both these are powerful women.

Their demise must leave us in Kenya more united. We shun those who try to divide women into elitist vs the rural. Women who live in the cities against the ones in the villages. Women scholars versus women who are not learned. Nobody does this to men. It is done to women on purpose.

Some male journalists keep at this. They say that women who speak up are feminists and so? But they proceed to question their moral fibre and say things about them and their families. This is not new. Wambui-Otieno Mbugua and Wangari Maathai would reject this kind of simplification. Only a person who has not tuned their ear to the ground in rural areas does not know that women there also recoil from injustice. Fiercely defending justice, they ask questions. These are the rural women that some journalists in Kenya so love to deride by imagining that they work with other women against their will. No! Have they even read Wangari Maathai's quotes?

It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari Maathai

We need to rage for these women and others. We cannot let their beautiful 'light go quietly' as Dylan Thomas put it for men in the days when the word men is said to have included women but actually systematically left them out in that verbal silence. We must keep our focus on our beautiful nation Kenya and the promise of change to do these women proud. We must, like John Donne a metaphysical poet remind: Death be not proud .http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-be-not-proud/

Wambui and Mbugua wed at the AGs chambers in 2003. Their marriage was accepted in the Anglican church (solemnized) early this year too. Wambui was 65 then and Mbugua 25 and this was new to Kenya.

The season has been relentless. In this same period we have lost author and paeditrician Dr. Margaret Ogola and earlier Dekha Ibrahim. We grieve that two of these women, medical doctor M. Ogola and Wangari Maathai (Ph. D) and environmentalist, have died of common cancers. We abhor the rate at which women the whole world must be subjected to diseases sown upon us by those who do not care about polluting us even with medicines. We rage! We remind the Kenyan government that cannot lose people to road accidents in droves and continue as if nothing were happening. Dekha Ibrahim died in a crash. Wambui struggled with a heart condition for years.

It is hard for our reason to find meaning in these deaths. We try to because if not life seems to be a vicious betrayal. We rage again and again for our women. To think of the contradiction that Wambui -Otieno Mbugua was all heart and of course intelligence too. Sh re-married only a few years back passionately displaying her love without hindrance inspite of great misunderstanding from her society. It is hard to believe that our environmentalist would not be spared of cancer. But I believe these women died of love for our nation and for love's sake we must speak clearly. I have to say that many activists in the world do succumb to cancers. Well, they mean it when they say they are unhappy. They mean it when they say that things are wrong. We are all in this together.

I hope the poem in which Shailja Patel asks the daring question of why all these women have gone so early when Kenya needs them so and why in such quick succession as old men continue to ridicule many hits us here. http://www.shailja.com/. The poem is dedicated to Dekha Ibrahim, Wangari Maathai and Wambui-Otieno. All of these women and those mentioned above were youthful in a amazing way. The way of service in leadership. We feel that in their departing we have lost a currency we are normally almost bankrupt for: intelligent, resourceful and humble leadership.

So I go back to the thoughts which I kept on wanting to share before the fateful events.

I sometimes ponder about Kenya and what she would have become if top governance had been in the hands of some of our women. Women who have always stepped out to fight oppression. Let me look at a few of them for the difference they made. Often they shunned tribal divisions. I think of Mumbi Ng'aru the former Mayor of Thika town and here courageous association with ODM which in her area is seen to be of another ethnic group. She does it gracefully. She fights on the Odingas camp. Many point out that she is in the camp of the enemy, Mumbi continues/d undeterred.

The thought that Kenya would have been different if her senior politicians had been women or if the women of our times had a better hand in government never leaves my mind. But history shows that for many reasons they did not make it there. Some will say what is the use of thinking about this since history is already done. In that case I would say there is room for noting that history was not always written correctly in our hearts. Books leave the spirit out of names and dates. Many women are sidelined and that is a fact. The media got used to building or making male leaders. A leader can try to do their best but the media plays a big role in amplifying voices.

Not least of these reasons is that they were often blocked by some men. I know this from my research. This opposition means that they got the wrong results. It took too much money to sue when one had just finished a campaign. Such was the law. In the first place most women hardly had the kind of resources used in politics and in a poor nation such as Kenya they were crippling. It also means that the persons in power in their areas did not support them. Some Kenyans will say that Wangari Maathai was too busy abroad after she won the Nobel Peace Prize to be elected by the people of Tetu. But I know Kenya. All it would have taken was a favourable word from Kibaki or even his wife. A gesture. Kibaki named her assistant minister for environment for all her experience and knowledge. Wangari served without signing up for the job.

Of course this may not have been democratic but then again it is the people who would have cast the vote. There are many men in government simply because the powerful wanted it. I know only of one woman whose results came partly because the wife of the president visited one of her last campaigns. Wangari and others had no such chances. In fact, they tried the opposite which was to put in a good word for people like myself up against millionaires. Wangari broadcast my name on radio for election in 2002.

For Wangari it was the opposite. I have to say that it is actually Wambui-Otieno who shared this thought with me. I was concerned that our Nobel laureate would not go back to Parliament in 2007 after her first election in 2002. Wambu-Otieno told me about delegations of old men trooped to State House to defame Wangari, for they knew that she had presidential ambitions in the past. Perhaps that is why she understood Raila Odinga's tribulations so well.

Looking back at how women worked for institutional change with the coming of the new dispensation in 2010 with a new constitution after years of struggling for their gains in representation at decision-making levels one is appalled to note that women have been the first to suffer the drive to curtail what is safeguarded in the new constitution. True that the change of the law is reasoned for much more and women but an excuse but who about that? It was Atsango Chesoni http://www.aaddkenya.webs.com/who called us to order on the new constitution. Women end up being made to look like they are taking all the space from people with disabilty when it is the opposite.. everyone seems to know what the women need better than they do.. that is a shame.

Above: Wangari in a meeting in her rural contituency

Jael Mbogo is another pillar of awoman still at work in Kenya. I was thinking about her recently. That was before the sad news of the demise of Wambui-Otieno and following that closely of Wangari Maathai was announced. Jael is a humble giant. She once told me of her story. She vied for a parliamentary seat back in the sixties in Kenya, and against Kibaki who then was not the president then but the MP for Bahati in Nairobi. Jael did a sterling job. I believe she won but was rigged out. In later years, Kibaki would only run in the rural constituency of Othaya. I quote Wikipedia where the first line on the history of Wambui-Otieno is by the grossly mistaken ( I could not access to edit but will try later for her first husband was not buried in 2003 as it says).... but this is correct on Jael Mbogo whom Wikipedia hands should place in her own right..

..."In 1974, Kibaki, facing serious competition for his Doonholm Constituency seat from a Mrs. Jael Mbogo, whom he had only narrowly and controversially beaten for the seat in the 1969 elections,^[8] moved his political base from Nairobi to his rural home, Othaya, where he was subsequently elected as Member of Parliament."
But when I was listening to Jael Mbogo I could feel her decisive mind.. cutting like a sword. She was telling me never to stop talking and standing for what I believe. I could hear her passion in between the words on her tongue. She is so brave she contested elections back in the sixties when she was pregnant. I told her that I thought she in her times could have made a great president. Not just a Member of Parliament. I encouraged her to write a book. She said she would. She is running a project for women. I found it on the internet since am not in Kenya or in touch with her. Jael studied in Kenya, in the USA and in France as you can see here:http://mamajaelcenter.org/ogombe.html.

A decisive mind and passion are vital for leadership. Kibaki is indicisive still. No passion. Everything I saw lacking in President Kibaki, Jael had enough of and to spare. I am not just interested in saying this because she is a woman. Jael actually never run for the presidency. Instead she lived to work and actually be punished quite harshly by a former woman diplomat who had wanted to be a Member of Parliament herself. It was a pity to see this. See, am not saying that all women are perfect as some people tend to read. There are those who will always be too arrogant and mean. Both men and women.

And that brings me to humility. I have not seen much of that in powerful men that I know quite well in Kenya. I have seen it in many strong women. They had world recognised intelligence and virtue which here means power. And yet they were not elitist. Wangari was not. Wambui-Otieno, two women death has stolen from us were not.

We are grateful that Wangari lived and did so much for us in Kenya as well as for the world. She was refined and down to earth. She saw things with a certain oneness so that being a professor did not prevent her from being a very wonderful activist who achieved a lot. Yet some in Kenya lately and even in her days did deride activism.

Wambui- Otieno married across ethnic groups. Not only that, at the time, between these two groups such action.. and even today was looked down upon. She was brave in many ways. Google her name if you want to know her better. I wanted to reflect on her and Wangari because they have been great women.

In 1999 Kenyan judges courts went morally wrong by denying Wambui-Otieno the right to bury her husband. It was a shock for some of us. All we could do was to weep. Wambui -Otieno Mbugua told me she did not weep. She knew that life is a harder battle than most of us imagine, especially for women. These two women were full of energy for all of us. I cannot think of them silent but they are. On earth they used their lips and actions speak up. They loved their lives and lived to the full. We suffer their loss. But such people do not die? They live in their works and the inspiration they leave with us.

Wangari whose name means of the leopard.. Wa (de, of ) Ngari (leopar)...told me how horrified she was at how men cheated for power. She was horrified and the press reported it when President Kibaki failed to honour the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding that he had signed so that Raila Odinga could support him for the presidency in 2002. She said this in Tetu her home area where most of the people would defend Kibaki blindly because blocks of ethnic groups in Kenya have been reduced to political wagons.. supporting only their men.. their people in a region and showing open hatred for people of different ethnic groups. This regardless of the fact that the vote is secret. This problem is fuelled a lot by male polticians I dare say.

In the MoU, Kibaki had promised to share power with Raila Odinga something he did not even want to do in 2007 when Kenya burned and 1 333 people were killed. Many women were raped. Children died. Even the crops refused to grow. There was a famine that followed. Farmers could not till the land, there were ober 50000 Internally Displaced People almost overnight. All this was in 2007. But in 2003 Kibaki breached the MoU.

I met many people who seemed to rationalise his deed. Some of them are learned. But not Prof Wangari Maathai who because of her ethnic background would be safer backing Kibaki. I know this very personally for I commented on the news item that I had read to Wangari at the Bomas Of Kenya where we had constitutional meetings. I had taken the opportunity to sit next to the great icon dressed in green.She was simple. She simply told me in he mother tongue.. a proverb which means that Raila Odinga was cheated. It states that (even if not literally )upon being called for a ceremony of manhood people turn up but once the the hard part is over they are told that all that had to happen is over and there are no celebrations..
(Thiga ni arua gutiri mararanja!).

Party Leader Dr. Julia Ojiambo has kept up with politics for years

Dr. Julia Ojiambo is another vibrant woman. She has adapted herself to Kenyan politics ceaselessly but politics has not adapted itself to her and other women. It is a hard field where powerful will come to a political party like the one she leads The Labour Party of Kenya and use it and then run over her. I talked about this with her when she teamed up with a faction of ODM. I felt she was reading the situation wrong and much as I had wanted to work with a woman leader like her I could not. Raila Odinga is an astitute an experienced politician and it was clear as daylight that The Kalonzo faction which Dr. Ojiambo worked for could not unseat him. Some people just do not have what it takes to win the peoples' imagination. They try everything, even religion but it fails miserably. Dr. Ojiambo was in the wrong club but at least she showed she could work across ethnic divides. No matter. If she shows political interest, this is one woman who deserves an appointment without further delay. She is smart and learned and giving one example that many people would shun her for. You will hear them tell her she is old. Let her say it for herself. Men have incredible staying power in our politics. She is one of the few who will not give up. We must respect her take. She has been for a while quite active on facebook in 2011. That is remarkable.

Well, these women have done their best. One hopes that their legacy will still mean a better Kenya. I do not mean all powerful women should be in political power. Not at all.

I think of three things. First, it is so vital that we also have alternative voices of power who are not politically aligned. We need them badly and men, when ethncity is so strong a factor in our politics. In learning from the humility of these women, I think it is a high time some well -known people susained their presence, voice and visiblity in society even without political intent.

Ann Njogu focused on higher goals for now ...

Secondly that women who try and tried in politics are such treasures and should never lose sight of that. Losing an election as many did.. I did, Ann Njogu did, as did Muthoni Kihara recently in Kamkunji by election in Kenya, meant more positive than negative things. For the women, this should not mean that one is silenced.. Ann is a recipient of the Woman of Courage honour from Hilary Clinton. She never stops. She is writing and talking and working even off the cameras. Recently she has studied her M LLB, and is on the way to greater heights. No to confusing your voice and votes my sister! Muthoni, you know the work you have done in the City Council in the past. You know how you tried too to campaign for other women including me when I was in competitive politics.

NO fears! They must speak to all with the same strength, letting them know their excesses and making the check and balance. Being fully well informed of our constitution and laws. It seems strange but the nation is lacking in such people. We felt it very painfully when Kenya was burning in 2007. Since the strong women had taken a political position suddenly the nation was reeling with no local voice to be heard across the divides. It was painful. I learnt then that poets are mightier than politicians. We met and encouraged one another through poetry. Let us all find our positions and together weave Kenya for a brighter future!

Oslo bombed: our tears and fears

2011-09-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

Oslo bomb: our tears and fears

Norway is for me from Kenya, in Afrika, a country that seems to say to one that it has character and personality. Norway was before 1969 a poor country. Many Norwegians immigrated to the U.S.A. to make a living. They worked hard and helped build their country. They are now the aged in Oslo. They can see their country coming into the hands of a younger generations that do always seem to appreciate what it has taken to bring the country to where it is.

I found the older people I met in Oslo more friendly and open to us, who are called innvandrere here. At first, the word reminded me of the word ‘invade’ in English. Is there a language that has a friendly word for immigrants? Innvandrere means those who come in and its contrast is the innbyggere which is more positive and means the resident. But the politics of the words is not the issue here. It is the plunging of a nation almost into darkness by someone who many say is a lone ranger. I fear that this lone ranger is a reflection of us all even when he did what makes almost all of us extremely sad.

The bombing and killings of 69 young people on 22 of July 2011 arrested my pen and imagination. I felt like everything else was not worth writing until I had dealt with this. This took time. In one of my poems written on January 1st 2011, I feared that Norway would be woken up by violence. My spirit is for peace and non-violence. I was all for never again another bomb. All can read tensions in society and feel them. Perhaps artists do that even more. The physical silence of Oslo is welcome, but not the silence that consents views that destroy the world. In my poem, I feared that in this silence our vision was become poor. It was not going beyond what eyes can see. That everything was enfolded in the dangerous silence of complacency. In “Wake Oslo Up again” I wrote:

“We saw long clothes, we failed to see him.

Watching his youthful eyes and eagerness,

we missed the dashing spark in his iris,

the cold that said he was looking for recognition,

dying to be hugged on earth and in heaven.

We did not see his brain was a computer,

longing to be touched and loved in service,

force of creativity new barriers breaking,

the violent light of a bomb awakens us.”

Nairobi’s morning torn by a blast of clanging metal and fire lives in me. What has stayed in the mind is the pain, the loss. Who did it has stayed in the law. It was Al Queda. Then I wrote “Nairobi’s signature of Blood”. Dark smoke at mid morning, burning bodies and falling buildings. I was near the bomb on the 7th of August 1998. Appointments, visas, dentists, patients, buses, matatus, certificates, athletes, market women, hawkers all torn into pieces and thrown up in the air as would happen with the awakening of an underground giant who vows to destroy. Foundations of strong buildings, were churned up like clay in a crushing machine.

I have heard the din of many cities. Oslo is quiet. It seems to absorb all sounds and mute them. How rude to plant violence into her soil! Norway’s nature bears the dignity of Nobel. It is a place that speaks space and peace to you. It is the main town of a country that would rather have its pride in nature. A country whose people are happy to be in the mountains and on cragged lands whether skiing or swimming.

I was away on the fateful day. I do not know if I could have borne that kind of noise again. Strong. Shocking. Unexpected. Quaking. Confusing. Chocking. Nairobi was my first and yet I knew it was a bomb- had never heard one before- immediately. It is so crude and rude a sound that no creature should ever wish on earth! To follow it up with deliberate and horrific fires from a gun taking life after life til 69 was extremely cruel on the nation. Oh Utøya, island in the distance! Young lives gone! Young lives in a country where many live to die of old age. In a country where caskets are not so common as at home. In a country where the life expectaion of women has risen to 94 years when mother and child mortality in many lands is so high!

When I came back to Oslo, I was transfixed seeing the wall of bombed building as if bandaged now covered with a long cloth. I stood there. I stared. I was paralysed. I could not take out a camera from my bag. I was outside that building almost daily in the winter. I walked towards it sometimes to keep my feet from freezing even inside boots! I waited often at the bus stop that is now shielded off. Time is an interesting factor. Many people said the same thing. Were it not for time, they would have been there.

I was speechless upon realising that the library next door had been hit too. That is where I would have been coming from. I write on a desk in the basement there. This explained the silence of many of my friends. Some of them are still in profound shock and at that time were in utter confusion. I spoke with a few friends. I saw the pain of what had happened on many faces.

On strangers’ faces, I saw the small thread of goodness trying to open up in our society. For the first time I realised that many were making an effort to greet one another on the streets. A young man got off his seat when he saw me come into the bus and i had to thank him and urge him to sit down. This is not natural in Oslo. For a time, some people wanted to introduce a new way. There were more smiles on the streets. People wanted to say, we are in everything together, something that we say with our words very often at home in Kenya whenever we feel like it and also when one feels under threat – tuko pamoja! we say in Kiswahili and other languages longing to express our bonds and to forge them better. We are together!

But after sometime in Oslo where the greeting is a quick “Hei”, soon followed by a rather popular “ Har det bra!” for ‘goodbye’ many say that the cocoon of selfishness has opened up again. Europe in general is not the land of Ubuntu. You must be not so that I can be. I am not because you are.... I am I. Ubuntu says “A person is another person through other persons”. And this is for good and for worse. That young man who committed these crimes is us. The political parties that are against some people are getting a higher vote in Norway as all over Europe. Europe has learned nothing about Canada’s approach towards immigrants. She sees her tiny land as threatened. I mourn deeply. I try to find meaning.

I used my sackcloth jacket which I made when Kenya was at war to again stitch some meaning by my own hand and get deeply into all this. “No to Silence: Love is bullet-proof!” I am against the silence that is not physical but the silence we connive with when evil things happen.

Lisbeth (Whose words I will not quote till I can reach her) and I visited the Cathedral where all things were being gathered in memoriam.

The most significant moment for me there after all the tears, was when Lisbeth, two strangers from Amsterdam and I held hands in silence after speaking about the events, about Nairobi and peace in the world as such. It was a moment and a gesture that came to us not as planned but when I tried to recall Nairobi’s own bomb and tears choked my voice. It was a moment of openness in pain. A moment I wish upon the whole world. A moment of silence and absence of violence that is impossible to explain how deeply it touches. The moment I wish that one day, some great leader will make happen in the world. Is it possible for us to stop violence even for a week and try to see how people react to lack of violence? Is it possible not to bomb for goodness somewhere? Is it possible NATO? I know you make this decision when you must but why are we still so unable to reason with those whom we try to defeat after so many years of ill experience with wars?

My friend Lisbeth missed the bomb because in the hospital where she works as a nurse, a patient was un-cooperative. Negative delivers positively. She had an appointment in the government building that was bombed at the time it was bombed. I was left with the memories of similar stories from all over the world in all disasters. It is something difficult to fathom. That the entity we are all together is capable of allowing such crass minds to move with plans of destruction and kill so many, and at the same time weave such delicate connections that also saved a Japanese woman I saw talking about 9/11.

It is maybe just another way for us to make meaning of such loss that comes to mind. I think that is the loss of a complete picture that frightens us in life. I also see that is that lack that we should not take easily in life. We should fear our loss lack of connectedness. It is the beginning of societal insanity. We must fear that we live next to someone whom we never look in the eye but are willing to give a billion hours to the internet. That we have been afraid to question that coldness. That even if the doors of our hearts are opened for a few, we have not made everyone we meet feel that they are worthy of being themselves. That some people turned upon the immigrants near them in Oslo on buses and other parts and beat them before they heard that the bomb was not an act of a foreigner is appalling.

Who is a foreigner? It is that person we fail to connect with no matter if they are in our bodies. It is the poor connection that causes cancer, the foreign body that starts disease in us. It is not the person who looks different from the color of your skin. Anders Behrivik does not like Muslims. He does not like immigrants. He does not like that Europe- some of the countries he refers to are not like Norway, they were built on wealth from colonies in Afrika and South America- has in it some people who are not European. To destroy the other, he destroyed himself and others. There is no dropping our human connectedness. If we take our connectedness negatively, it impacts negatively on all. If positively, positive rain pours on us all round the world! I would we chose the positive option.

A new Chief Justice starts a new era in Kenya, after the new constitution

2011-07-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

Reflections

Above: Chief Justice of Kenya: Dr. Willy Mutunga

Below: Catholic John Cardinal Njue who opposed

the new Kenyan constitution and Mutunga for Chief Justice.

Religious voices in Kenya: Unending contradictions

Kenya is celebrating. We have a new Chief Justice. He is among many positive things, magnanimous, unlike the leaders of faiths. I am particularly engaging the Catholic Church as you will see below. They are among those who tried to rescind his successful nomination for this post. Yet, Dr. Mutunga had applied for an advertised post, presented his credentials and been shortlisted and eventually he triumphed. Interviews by the Judicial Servive Committee had been aired live on TV. He passed. Nancy Baraza is the Deputy Chief Justice.

Both Dr. Mutunga and Nancy were waiting to be vetted by the House of Parliament, and finally signed by the President when churches struck. Mutunga had an ear stud. He is not married. And after they found out he was married, a case with his former wife was brought up. Nancy Baraza is a divorcee. It was being said she would like to see the whole world divorced. Besides, she is studying homosexuality for her Ph. D!

The whole thing is worth forgetting and even consigning to a side show but no. There are interesting consequences of the move by the faith leaders and also for others. There are also important levels of engagement we must get to. When Mutunga got through all these dilemmas, he went to a slum to celebrate his victory. He went to a Catholic project too.

Dr. Mutunga had reason to give a cold shoulder to all. He could have chosen to hit back at the churches that had tried to prove him unworthy. He chose, even whilst confessing Islam as a faith, to turn the other cheek. He chose to visit a slum and pointed out that home for him is where all communities are engaging. In Kenya ethnic polarisation due to politicization of origins and votes has been a big problem. He chose 'home' for a place where all religions are represented. He chose to call 'home' a place where people are dignified in spite of having to endure endless problems. And it is not their fault. Here the poor know that if Kenya had justice they would live a better life. They would have less problems.

He chose one of Nairobi's slum areas known as Korogocho. Our society is riven by a sharp division between the wealthy and normally politically connected people and the poor and 'voiceless'. The Catholic church has some who voice for the poor all over the world. Some who ask for justice. And some who engage bishops, the Vatican and secular society about justice. They do it at their own risk. They are normally poor priests. There are rich ones there too. Vocal and poor priests are not tolerated all the time. I know this. I have been told by some of them. I have seen what happens to them. It may not always be the case. I am talking about some priests. Bishops belong to another class. If not always in wealth, at least in voice.

John Cardinal Njue of Kenya, led his flock against the new constitution which the people inspite of the church's disapproval voted for, including many Catholics oon August 27th 2010. It is Kenya's constitution today inspite of that. Many pentescostal and other churches rejected it too. They said the new constitution of Kenya, allowed for abortion, divorce and supported homosexuals. They argued that the coming of this document along with some lay people brought with it all evil in morality. They said it had to be amended. Sample this as one of the articles they found problematic.

Chapter 4: Bill of Rights 24. the right to a fair trial; and

(d) the right to an order of habeas corpus.
Part 2––riGhts and fundamental freedoms
26. (1) Every person has the right to life.
(2) The life of a person begins at conception.
(3) A person shall not be deprived of life intentionally, except to
the extent authorised by this Constitution or other written law.
(4) Abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained
health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life
or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written
law.
27. (1) Every person is equal before the law and has the right to
equal protection and equal benefit of the law.
(2) Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights
and fundamental freedoms.
(3) Women and men have the right to equal treatment, including
the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and
social spheres.
(4) The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against
any person on any ground, including race, sex, pregnancy, marital status,
health status, ethnic or social origin, colour, age, disability, religion,
conscience, belief, culture, dress, language or birth.
(5) A person shall not discriminate directly or indirectly

Dr. Willy Mutunga supported this constitution. He now says that he is bound happily only by this constitution of Kenya and service to Kenyans. Not by any politician, not a political party, not gender, not class but only by our Mother law. He holds a stunning record as a lawyer and fighter for human freedoms. He is a man of the struggle. His record is clean. He is ready to work. He knows his job.

One man, a lay Catholic and social activist Okiya Omtatah Okoiti opposed this document. He went to court. Others also did. Here are a few. Moi did. Koigi Wa Wamwere did. Wanyiri Kihoro too. Moi was the president who had Raila Odinga detained. He also detained Koigi Wa Wamwere who was in exile in Norway for some years, and Wanyiri Kihoro. Both of them have been Members of Parliament since. Moi tried to influence for the draft to be rejected during a referendum. They all failed miserably but they are entitled to their own ideas.

Dr. Willy Mutunga was also detained by Moi. Now he is the Chief Justice of Kenya. Some people are terribly uncomfortable with this reality. Many wish Dr. Mutunga the success. It is for Kenya. I am impressed by his thoughts and works so far. He has started on a very positive thought. He is appealing to the best in us, a task that many who have been in leadership and are paid overly well to do so, have failed in. I am speaking about most politicians in Kenya.

To begin with, when politicians win positions they have huge 'homecoming' parties sometimes their colleagues flying over to their constituencies. This has always hit many other Kenyans as unnecessary and a sign of the acceptance of a lifestyle of excesses amidst tough poverty. It had not occured to elected MPs too that home can be many places in Kenya. Leaders had failed to see that in our societies we do not need people who keep flashing their wealth at us while most of us go hungry daily. This is just one of the ways in which they do it. It makes no sense. The big feast is justified as a voter's treat. But not all voters can even participate. Besides are we not seriously charged with sobering up political work. We have enough problems with alcohol, pun intended, with so many drinking almost pure alcoholic brews to their deaths to forget their misery it is not even funny. This is a nation that requires much wisdom and leadership. Unlike the religious leaders failure- the Catholic and Protestant churches included, Dr. Willy Mutunga's meritorious win of the position after a public interview is historic in many ways.

First to note is that he could have lost it. Initially, the current president of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki and the Prime Minister had attempted to ignore the new constitution and to nominate as Chief Justice Githu Muigai whom many Kenyans rejected. It was the people, many civil society activists and the media and all the sensitive people who blew the whistle on Githu's nomination. It was not the churches. The churches did not tell the president that he had to follow the constitution. Why, they still do not believe in it. They have not made the president accountable in the past. He breaks bread on the Catholic table of the Lord especially whenever the elections are near. Dr. Mutunga's win would never have been. This was a truly a result of vigilance and courage.

Dr. Mutunga moved many of us on taking his 'homecoming' moment to the slums of Nairobi, Korogocho. Besides he went to a Catholic Church centre run by a priest he had worked with 20 years before. It was there that Dr. Willy Mutunga spoke to Kenyans about giving a better chance to reconciliation and not always rushing to the law courts for all disputes. He said that people should try first to settle scores whenever possible: in churches (actually just remembered that this is recommended by Christian teachings), schools, homes and so on. It may look like he is a strange Chief Justice who gets to the top and tells people to look elsewhere for justice but he means it whenever possible. I think this spirit of reconciliation is so needed in Kenya. It is so important that people at different levels of leadership tell many in a country so torn apart by suspicion and also by history and the enrichment of a few at the expense of many, that we must increase our space for reasoning.

Saying it clearly like Catherine of Sienna!

I wonder if the Cardinal and his people, the pastors and the Imams heard the deeper message of Mutunga's homecoming? It is at home where we listen to and love one another regardless of differences. Are we sitting up? I wonder do the Catholics they remember that in Rwanda nuns and priests are included in guilt for genocide? Do they remember that? Do the bishops? Do they see the great responsibility they have to stop antagonising ethnic groups and sometimes even taking sides with their own folk ruling out the others on tribal basis? This is true, not hearsay. Do they know what keen listening and wisdom we need? I do not think so. I have seen them kowtow to presidents for too long. I have seen them not able to say to the powerful that they are just like other worshippers even inside churches themselves. I know quite a lot first hand.

I really think that bishops of the Catholic church whom I know best must re-examine what they have been doing in Kenya. When the discussion on the constitution went so poorly, when a stud became a big obstacle to the churches, I remember wanting to write to all publications on earth. I wanted to ask them to tell specifically the Vatican that its bishops are retarding our growth. I had previously been thinking that all small states are run well, and I remembered shaking my head when it came to the Vatican. Every now and then, the Pope receives news and even bishops from other countries. Visita ad limina. This church operates on hierachical authority. It is very important that the bishops selected for Kenya and other developing nations be people who are able to engage with issues at a wise level. In some nations the lay have a say in the making of bishops. And them packing from time to time. We need to think about that.

If only there were enough fearlessness and honesty in this church even just in Kenya, many of them would confess how bishops have taken partisan and political sides often. This is not new in the history of the church but it cannot be allowed! It must stop.

Often heard in Kenya is that in the 80s and 90s, Cardinal Otunga and for a time Bishop Ndingi Mwana'anzeki had the people of Kenya at heart. That they spoke almost like Cardinal Sin of the Phillippines who led the people to people power. It is regretted that after sometime the church lost this. Cardinal Otunga died. Bishop Ndingi lost his sharp ways. This bishop received a Mercedes Benz from politician Njenga Karume and took it. It was a public matter. Surf the pages. Some people say it had lots of bank notes packed in the back. I might not believe that but I do remember A Man for All Seasons. I remember that it was not only about divorce. Thomas More would not take gifts given to him as he considered them bribes.

Why was I then to be scandalised that a parish priest told me he took 30 000 Ksh (300USD) from a politician I was opposing for a suit and a pair of shoes? He told me himself. He said there is no difference between 'money' and 'money'. I told him in this case this was not just money. He was actually telling to stop running against this politician, work with this politician and get my first two million shillings and be left rich. He was also saying that when I spoke on air about the constitution the old men I was opposing had sleepless nights. He had discussed this with them surely. To call me and find out my price. I know he lost his moral authority.

In 2007/2008 when Kenya was aflame as Kibaki had claimed victory and gone on to his swearing with the ex Chief Justice Evan Gicheru almost in the dark just to have the swearing in done, all religious leaders had lost moral authority. None of them could calm the country. What surprised me is that they should have seen this coming. They were involved. One priest I spoke to at Our Lady of Guadalupe, Kibera, Nairobi was very upset with Bishop Njue's visit there. He had spoken in a way as if to suggest everyone was going to vote for Kibaki.

Had the bishop lacked decorum or was he doing this deliberately? Kibera is represented by Raila Odinga the current Prime Minister of Kenya. Raila Odinga was the man the church and others had demonised. I still remember a Catholic priest giving me a letter that was supposed to be a memorandum of understanding that the previously atheist Raila Odinga had apparently signed with the Muslims. Just looking at the paper itself and scanning it fast, I was horrified that a priest should have believed it and even hidden it as a document to file. These struggles for a healthy nation are very deep.

We hope that we will all be willing to sit up and talk openly. That we shall embrace justice. That reconciliation and justice will be common terms in our churches, villages and mosques. Dr. Mutunga has acted like all these and many more instutitions should be doing. How we respond to his transparency and love for Kenya is up to us. We shall not tolerate the old tactics of taking those who speak clearly off their tracks by inventing issues against them and worst of all by silencing them. We want to speak and hear one another in a clear space. I want churches to allow us to tell them what is wrong and that they confess it and give justice if they can. In some cases as with the issues of abuse at different levels it is almost impossible for churches to make enough amends. It is therefore imperative that they be humble and listen for sometime. In any case, relevance is a challenge all the time!

http://www.fordifp.net/Home/Articles/tabid/293/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/12/language/en-US/Dr-Willy-Mutunga-Kenyas-next-Chief-Justice.aspx

Deported: Clara Gutteridge kicked out of Kenya

2011-05-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

The Minister for Immigration, Otieno Kajwang, a former progressive and one who accepted to be referred to as a human rights activist in the past signed her deportation.

Freedom of expression does not begin to be supressed when a book is banned from the public – a useless move these days of internet even if some try to slow cyberspace down - but when people who ask questions become unbearable. When a government deports a researcher, fear is spread. In a very sure way, this action says something to all minds. It says that it is not good to find out. Finding out normally leads to expressing. What we see and hear is very much part of our lives and even fiction. Fiction is not far from truth. Many, such as Clara Gutteridge write non-fiction.

Clara Gutteridge, a British national, was deported from Kenya on the 21st of March 2011 in the name of national security. Clara G is an International Open Society Fellow researching on terror laws. She says something dark has been happening in Kenya in the last decade regarding secret detentions and tortures.

What national interests would Clara, working with the Kenya National Comission on Human Rights threaten? Does the Governmenf ot Kenya, for example, imagine that when due process is abused as in the case of renditioned Kenyans including those lying in Ugandan cells among them human rights activist Al Amin Kimathi we shall sit back and when we stand up, say three cheers for our national security, hipp! hipp!?

Does anyone think that I, that we, shall close our eyes witthoug dealing with the fact that people do disappear in Kenya through the work of the police and are never seen again? Is that national security? In whose interests are we being governed? Have we as a Kenyan people not given ourselves a new constitution just last year August 2010?

I am alarmed that Kenya will not allow an Open Society Fellow to do her research. I am appalled that someone I was in debates with on a program named Cross Fire, as progressive voices in Kenya in the years 2007 and who was a human rights lawyer, The minister for Immigration Otieno Kajwang should be the one to append his signature to this deportation.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1163544/-/10x715fz/-/index.html

In Kenya, layers of power rub too closely. The visible symptoms of this so far include unfortunately, intolerance. In Kenya, we see enemies everywhere. We now have a new constitution (August 2010) and we should be opening up, but there are dark secrets we want to guard.

My standard of openness is not America or the west ... but Ubuntu which is so African. My standard for injecting levels of reason on human rights and ways of being with dignity and pride are taken from my ancestors who include: Nkurumah, Mandela, Nyerere, Rosa Parks, Senghor... Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others. Put aside the weak notion that I stand for what is human because of the west as we know it today.

In Kenya, Our so called ‘enemy’ is seen to be too close for comfort. Next door. I mean for example that just a few months back on 12. Dec. 2010, both the Kenyan Prime Minister and the President expressed openly the fear that the American Ambassador Michael Ranneberger was funding young people to overthrow the Kenyan government. Not long before that some discussion had come up pointing out that the Kenyan Open Society, and a listserve called Kenyans for Peace Through Justice which was formed during Kenya’s post election violence of 2007- 2008 was connected with trying to change the Kenyan leadership and had caused the post poll violence we witnessed.

And so I remember Julie Ward, A British girl who was killed in Kenya’s Maasai Mara park in the 80s for we have not yet had an answer for her father. I am reminded that the Attorney General of Kenya, Amos Wako, spoke of the incompetence of Philip Alston who made a report on human rights in Kenya and mainly collected evidence on the disappeared of Kenya. The Attorney General, the police and armed forces all ridiculed this report as did many politicians. In whose national interest was all this or is all this often done?

add

2011-05-04T01:20:00.001-07:00

Langaa published Kenya, will you marry me? You took my dreams from the tip of my pen!

2011-05-04T01:08:00.001-07:00

Afia from Ghana wrote ....

Hi Philo!
Wonderful.

I just saw your book here:

http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/kenya-will-you-marry-me

I will get it :-).

Kenya, will you marry me? is the story of my love for my country and where it all comes from. It is also how deep it is in me and that is why I have many words for my nation when I see others that take it and Afrika into such wrong directions.

We had mothers ( Mami) and fathers ( Baba), we have children, we have incredible favor from mother nature. The world and its narrow ways, poor politics will never take my focus away.. my love for a continent that deserves so much more than lip service....Kenya, will you marry me? Mary change? Kenya, will you? I am so happy that i wrote a song of love for my country. A song in which I told those whom I thought needed to be told they went wrong, things they do not like hearing but with much love... with much love, for I tood love Kenya.. It is the only way I have of loving any other part of the world.. loving my own!

Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group

2011-05-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group

Wikileak British colonial power..We want our files back!

2011-04-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Some instutitions are way behind the Wikileaks time and in this age of information, they deny us our history!

Historical Colonial Documents: Kenyan Mau Mau

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford): I wish to inform the House that, as a result of searches in connection with a legal case brought by Kenyan Mau Mau veterans against the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the FCO has decided to regularise the position of some 2000 boxes of files it currently holds, mainly from the 1950s and 1960s, which were created by former British administrations overseas. The intention is to make as much of this material as possible available to the wider public.

These files are the property of the UK Government and have been classed as public records for the purposes of the Public Records Act 1958. I have therefore instructed they now be dealt with under the terms of the Act. The documents will be reviewed and those selected for permanent preservation will be transferred to The National Archives for the public to access.

This work will begin shortly but given the size of the archive the process may take some years to complete.

The domestic records of colonial administrations did not form part of British public (i.e. official) records and they were kept by the individual States created at independence. It was however the general practice for the colonial administration to transfer to the United Kingdom, in accordance with Colonial Office instructions, shortly before independence, selected documents held by the Governor which were not appropriate to hand on to the successor Government.

FCO holds around 8,800 files from thirty-seven former British administrations including: Aden (and protectorates), Anguilla, Bahamas, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British Indian Ocean Territory, Brunei, Cameroons, Ceylon, Cyprus, Fiji, Gambia, Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, Gold Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaya, Malta, Mauritius, New Hebrides, Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Palestine, Sarawak, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Tanganyika, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos, Uganda, West Indies Federation, Western Pacific High Commission and Zanzibar.

I am arranging for a copy of this statement to be placed in the Library of the House of Commons.

ANDERSON RESPONSE TO LORD HOWELL'S STATEMENT:

'The astonishing statement from Lord Howell confirms what some of us
had long thought to be the reality. In effect, Lord Howell has
admitted that the British government has illegally held more than
8,800 files from its former colonial dependencies for some fifty
years, failing to declare these holdings under the Public Records Act
of 1958. They in fact exploited a loop-hole in that Act to secretly
hold these records - the documents did not emanate from a British
department of state, therefore they could be neatly 'excluded' from
the Act without anyone asking any questions. This is a deplorable
slieght of hand. The government was placed in further jeopardy with
the passing of the Freedom of Information Act, because these records
were being held by the FCO but were not anywhere listed so could not
be searched in any FOI request. Again, this is a blatant infringement
of the law, and clearly must have been evident to anyone in the FCO
who knew of the existence of these documents.'

'So, while we can welcome the decision to 'come clean' with this
material, we do need answers to some very important questions. And we
must also not be complacent about what Lord Howell has said will
happen next. The documents will be subjected to a process of review
and possible retention or redaction. That is to say, it remains for
the FCO to decide whether any of these documents wil in fact be opened
to public scrutiny. Under the Public Records Act it is quite in order
for the FCO to decide that all these materials should be retained for
a further period of years. This would be totally unacceptable, and we
must now be vigilant in pursuing the FCO further to ensure that as
much as possible - and indeed why not all - of this material comes
into the public domain speedily.'

'Lord Howell warns us that it may take many years to review these
materials. Why should that be the case? To put this right as
speedily as possible the government should now prioritise the review
of these materials as a matter of urgency, and not leave it to
flounder for another fifty years without resolution. One hopes that
is not what the minister intends, but given our experience in this
matter to date I think we have to maintain pressure on the government
to deal with this in an effective and timely manner.'

The struggle continues .......

best wishes to you all,

David M Anderson
Professor of African Politics, University of Oxford
Fellow, St Cross College, Oxford

Joy in reading early, today's writing pleasure ( por Geraldo Caruso Barros) UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA

2011-03-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

TRADUCCIÓN DEL TEXTO

JOY IN READING EARLY, TODAY’S WRITING PLEASURE

DE LA OBRA INÉDITA DE PHILO IKONYA

Geraldo Caruso Barros

Código: 445640

Francisco Ballén

Director

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS

DEPARTAMENTO DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS

BOGOTA, D.C.

2010

1. IINTRODUCCIÓN

El arte de la traducción, como forma específica del lenguaje, hace de puente entre textos y entre seres humanos, presentándose, a su vez, como una forma de divulgación de ideas y de todo aquello que es inédito. La traducción siempre representará una oportunidad de expresión para el traductor pues su finalidad es divulgar el saber y las ideas entre los hombres de distintas regiones y lenguas.

Fuera de poseer un soporte teórico consistente y, en ocasiones, un conocimiento técnico acerca del tema que trata la obra, también es preciso tener en cuenta el espíritu de la obra a traducir y la capacidad de transmitir un sentimiento, lo cual atañe, sin duda a un cierto sentido estético.

Existen necesidades de expresión propias del autor del texto, existe un cierto nivel de traducción en donde el traductor debe entender la mente del autor y sentir su espíritu. Los propósitos que se buscan con el análisis traductológico, por su parte, son en últimas, los de tender un puente entre la mente del autor y los lectores del idioma extranjero. Al tender ese puente el traducir también aporta parte de su espíritu, en el sentido de la palabra alemana que equivale a espíritu: Geist, esto es, su arista personal. Es la opinión de muchos aquella que afirma que el traductor debe intervenir la menos posible en la traducción, y buscar un justo medio, tal como lo plantea Steiner (1975). Eppur si muove!, hay obras en las cuales las versiones traducidas en distintos idiomas, difieren, entre sí, y difieren tanto de la obra original, que prácticamente el traductor las ha escrito de nuevo, sin tratarse de un plagio el traductor enriquece la obra generosamente, sin escribir su nombre en la nueva obra que ha resultado de la traducción. A pesar de todo lo tradittore que pueda para algunos llegar a ser un traduttore su arte hace posible que el mundo llegue a conocer la mente de los hombre, y es gracias al aporte expresivo y personal del traductor que existen puentes con otros mundos desconocidos, sin los traductores, esos seres anónimos que escriben con arte de nuevo obras del espíritu humano, abnegadamente, incluso enriqueciéndolas para divulgarlas al mundo, sin ellos la vida sería insoportable pues carecería de comunicación con otros tiempos y mentes. Yo en lo personal, confieso que en parte debo la calidad de mi vida a los traductores que levantaron un puente de comunicación entre Spinoza, Goethe, Nietzsche y yo, y a todos aquellos que han comunicado a los hombres de distintos pueblos, lenguas y mundos por medio del arte de la traducción.

Teniendo en cuenta que el traductor es ante todo un divulgador, un humanista, un hombre que desea comunicar, traer la ilustración y las ideas lejanas de otros hombres al mundo, un mensajero y un profeta que enlaza épocas que se necesitan comunicar, su objetivo es más que nada servir de alas de las ideas de los hombres para que puedan dialogar entre sí. El traductor es el relacionista público de la historia. Hombres de distintos mundos y épocas han logrado hablarnos gracias a los traductores. Ellos han divulgado lo inédito, e incluso lo horrible para que el mundo tenga conocimiento. Por ello he decido escoger como trabajo de grado, la obra de hacer una traducción, pues es la materia más noble y humanitaria del campo de la filología moderna.

Para este trabajo, he traído una obra Inédita que necesite salir a la luz en lengua castellana, una obra de gran sentido humano, mi designio es que se abra paso al mundo de habla hispana a través de mi humilde traducción, teniendo como objetivos compartir esta obra escrita originalmente en inglés. Es importante señalar que se trata de un inglés no nativo, producto del sincretismo entre África y Europa y esto, hace a la obra un objeto rico de análisis.

Uno de los objetivos de todo traductor es que su traducción guarde la naturalidad y necesaria para su entendimiento por parte de público que va a leer la obra. No existen a cabalidad procedimientos fijos para esto, no se trata de reglas fijas, sino que se requiere despertar cierta capacidad de expresión. Si bien existen técnicas de traducción que son expuestas por autores como Newmark, Hurtado, Albir, García Yebra, entre otros, el resultado de una traducción requiere algo de oído musical. En este sentido, se debe atender las técnicas del profesor Francisco Ballén de la Universidad Nacional que siempre ha enseñado a desarrollar una especie de sentido de musicalidad a la hora de traducir.

De esta suerte, aplicando estas estrategias, he escogido la Obra inédita de la autora keniana Philo Ikonya llamada originalmente Joy in reading early, today’s writing pleasure. La materia de esta obra concierne con aspectos de la experiencia de vida en Kenya, donde la narración oral y el despertar de la lectura en la infancia principalmente se manifiestan como un abrir de la conciencia.

Esta obra nos recuerda de cierto modo los ecos africanos del Caribe colombiano, los habitantes de la costa así como los africanos, al parecer tienen siempre una historia que contar, por ello esta historia nos cuenta los diferentes encuentros de una niña con el universo rico de la lectura, con la voz de su madre, la profesora de la escuela del pueblo, su relación con los otros niños, son los animales y la vida en Kenia en un hábitat natural, siendo la finalidad de esta obra el narrar la multitud de factores que pueden intervenir en la selección de la vocación de escribir y leer y, como esta vocación tiende un puente hacia la realización personal y la libertad, más allá de la banalidad del consumismo.

Este trabajo también es un aporte académico y personal para el departamento de Lingüística donde he encontrado seres humanos muy receptivos a mi naturaleza y, que han aportado a mi crecimiento personal, en especial quisiera agradecer al PEN Colombia, importante organización que lucha para la libertad de expresión a nivel mundial y al Profesor Rubén Darío Florez presidente del PEN y profesor del departamento de lingüística por sus valiosos aportes y sugerencias en mi traducción y en materia de semiótica y, por supuesto, a los profesores Francisco Ballén y Rodolfo Suárez, al primero por ser mi maestro de traducción cuyo fino sentido de la musicalidad ha sido la guía de mis primeros trabajos y al segundo por sus sugerencias esclarecedoras en lo académico.

2. OBJETIVOS

General

Mi objetivo general es presentar al publico de habla hispana la obra de Philo Ikonya para lo cual, en términos generales, y como objetivo básico deseo guardar una proporción de equivalencia estética entre la obra traducida y su traducción. De acuerdo con autores como Darbelnet, la equivalencia consiste en una suerte de traspaso de un mismo escenario con recursos semióticos y de estructura totalmente diferentes. Según Vinay la representación propia de las equivalencias es que tienen carácter sintagmático y arropan el mensaje transmitido. En la obra de Philo encontraremos eventualmente refranes, y dichos no logran ser transmitidos sin esgrimir un equivalente en el idioma de llegada

Específicos

1. Aportar un texto que pueda ser útil para conocer los registros del inglés africano. contribuyendo a la divulgación de esta obra merecedora de ser transmitida y rescatada en la lengua castellana, afrontándolo desde la perspectiva de su riqueza lingüística para el público que no conoce el inglés africano. En este sentido mi objetivo específico es en una gran medida hacer uso de la adaptación lingüística que, de acuerdo con autores tales como Darbelnet, es el término más maleable de la traducción. Con este procedimiento se intenta trasmitir un paralelismo de situaciones en distintas lenguas.

2. Llevar a cabo una traducción natural y, adecuada desde la perspectiva de autores como Newmark, garantizando una coherencia interna y conservando su sencillez, teniendo en cuenta al público hacia el cual va dirigido el texto y el ámbito académico en el que se realizó la traducción.

3. Realizar un estudio de los registros de lengua del texto de origen y del texto en la lengua de destino.

4. Reflexionar acerca del proceso de traducción a través del análisis y comentario contrastivo-traductológico del texto de Philo Ikonya tanto en la lengua de partida como de llegada, con particular atención a las especificidades en la traducción

3. TEXTO ORIGINAL DE LA OBRA

Joy in reading early, today’s writing pleasure

Philo Ikonya

Mother tongue and drama in the hearth!

With delight I treasure deeply the fact that I learned how to read from my Mother. Apart form telling me stories at home at any time, mornings, during the day and in the evenings, she was officially my first teacher in a village primary school in near Nairobi, Kenya. She taught almost all the people in the area how to read. I know many of them respect and love her for this because they tell me so and send me with warm greetings for her when they see me. When I speak sometimes in conferences and then on TV or in Youtube and people tell me they liked what I say, I often remember Mami’s efforts to make us good in self expression and my Grandmother’s ( her mother) love for unhindered expression. My Grandmother could read a and write a little. My Mother was born in 1928. Nine of us in my family of nine were her pupils in our first three years of school. This was fun!

I remember once my mother sang to me and taught me how to act the role of a rich man who only thought of wealth and was empty headed! She actually taught me how to use a walking stick and look like an old man when I was only about nine years old. I enjoyed this because she remarked how well I acted after learning from her. With the little drama on the old man I was supposed to admire being wise as a good thing, not just being rich! I still love what my Mother did because with the song, I was learning how to distinguish an ‘r’ from an ‘l’ as these two sounds are mixed up by people from my region when they speak in other languages just as I was to learn later the Japanese and the Chinese do the same! Now, when I speak even at home people are surprised at what they hear especially when they know where I come from. So, my first reading was a kind of listening with love and attention- there was no other way to regard my Mother- and it was dramatic. I sang along cheerfully, “ palikuawa na mtu tajiri ohh! Akvaaa siku zote hariri ohhh! Lakini kichwa, alikua hana.. akatembea siku zote bustani, hooo!”

I am sure I heard and saw many more bits of drama and even practised singing but the parts I learn through my Mother remained very special to me. The teacher who officially taught us music was also a very good friend of my Mother’s and he always admired me.

I remember that when my Mother told me a story or when we read out loudly in her class in my Mother tongue, I did not only hear the story. I saw it too. I smelt the things in the stories and touched them. Listening to a story whilst seeing it in my mind, the way you see a movie today. In those days I had not seen a television! What a marvellous experience it was to see the butterflies clapping all over the walls of the little house in which a little gazelle was hiding singing, ‘I am the one who flaps and removes wings until the rain falls!’ I think this is when my imagination was really captivated by reading. It was wonderful and since then, reading has meant so many things to me. I think it means things that go beyond the page into places I can hardly describe!

You can imagine how I remember those magical reading afternoons. I remember once my Mother was almost forced to lose her temper with me openly because I refused to give a classmate the one book we read from quickly as I wanted to continue standing in front of the class and be the one making those pleasurable sounds of reading. My Mother came to me from her sitting place and tore the book out of my hands and sent me off to my seat. I felt sad but I knew that I had made a mistake. I think she was also very conscious that the other over 6o students did not think I was getting special treatment. The sadness would soon be forgotten. In the evenings at home, we took turns to tell stories. We helped each other to be better story tellers in building suspense and we entertained ourselves with songs.

Looking back as a writer today, I feel that without exaggerating, reading has been almost everything to me. I remember that after some time, and mainly because my Mother had studied so well in her time in school and she liked reading, I received a scholarship to a better school in the Rift Valley of Kenya. One sad thing about this change is that it took me away from my Mother tongue and family during the three months we used to be borders before getting a one month holiday. My Mother now wrote letters that I treasured very much partly in English and a little bit in my Mother tongue and posted them to P.O. Box 159, Eldoret. I wrote back to Box 122, Kiambu. I wish I could see my letters today. Please keep your writings safely.

As soon as I got the chance to this school, there was some anxiety that I only knew enough English to answer three basic questions. My name, age and where I came from.

I remember my new school had many things that the other one did not have. Outstanding for me were two beautiful libraries from which we could borrow books for some weeks and return them after reading. I remember now, standing in the corner of one library, the reference library where special books were kept and not borrowed, the corner with science books and reading so happily on my feet first before I could drag myself to a seat.

Walking reading an article that used to appear in a magazine called Reader’s Digest which was titled, I am John’s Kidney, I finally felt for a seat with one hand. This magazine had this series using different parts of the body so that another time the article would be ‘I am John’s heart’ or ‘I am John’s foot’. The article was about the organ mentioned in the title and it is the organ’s voice that used so that you had the brain begin by saying, ‘I am this mass of grey..” I found this very fascinating to read. I also used to read LIFE magazines. At that time I believed I wanted to become a medical doctor.

The power of the written word over us, was the title of an article I published years later in the leading newspaper in Kenya in the 90s. No matter the change of technology, reading and getting meaning continues to have a grip on me, especially so as a writer. Ad I wrote about those articles I used to read, I wondered if this article was really from a Reader’s Digest and it just occurred to me to use the Google search machine- I found the series described and I am John’s Brain is used in Journal of Consciousness with a note on the Reader’s Digest and the old and charming articles!

I am sure that I would not find the magazines in that library today so reading has become even easier with the internet! We had library hours and we also read in class.

I loved my turn to read out loud in this new language too. It was the most enjoyable thing I felt I did sometimes in a whole day. We read books like Tom Brown’s School Days ( books always had men’s names, even articles!) and also we read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. This book so interesting I felt as if I had become a sailor and as with My Mother’s early singing I could now also sing, “ Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest! Yo ho ho ho! And a bottle of rum!”

In school we sometimes watched films. I did not find them making as lasting an impression on me as did books. I could still read a book after watching a film it is made from and enjoy it even more. I still remember how I loved the quaint character of Long John Silver in Treasure Island. I found Tom Brown’s Schooldays a lot more serious and too slow in the early pages, I think I asked the English teacher why we had to read it.

I also asked the teacher what an editor was and she explained before telling me that I would probably end up being one and she was right! She also pointed out someone else in the class who also became an editor in the end.

There were no African writers books for primary schools then and this was a shame. But we read The Bronte Sisters books such as Jayne Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I was very impressed that all three sisters from one family could write. They spent many years looking for a publisher and then finally I was reading their work a hundred years later and this is what made books so special. We also read Jane Austen’s Pride and Predjudice.

I learned from other students to read fast as we competed on reading them novels quite fast and returning them to borrow new ones! We casually told each other what we were reading and admired books’ covers before reading them. Then as we grew older we started reading some romance novels such as Bride of Pendorric and some books by a romance writer called Denise Robins. Of course we never let go of the Enid Blyton adventure series, The Famous Five!

I really enjoyed books such as Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. In these, one followed Anne and how she lived and spent her afternoons and life. You see, may be it was not always afternoons but books like event sometimes stay in one’s mind in a very special way. I really like different parts of a day. The afternoon for me was made by reading. Mind you we had other afternoons that were relaxed like the ones in which we did some sewing and had music playing but I remember more distinctly the reading afternoons. In those afternoons is when I flew with poetry such as the poems in our poetry book Adventures into Poetry! From there I can still recite G.K Chesterton’s simple but touching poem The Donkey and Hilaire Belloc’s Henry King and others. The Six men of Hindustan and the elephant I met in Adventures into poetry as did the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I do not remember these longer poems entirely but I can recite good parts of them.

The cover of Adventures into Poetry, the book was green and it had some birds in flight, I did not ask which birds those were but they became my friends. They were lightly illustrated in reddish brown and they must have been vultures because there was a poem called ‘The vulture’ and these drawings of long birds!

I later saw so many donkeys in Kenya carrying heavy loads! Recently, I saw that a donkey became a very prominent feature of my description of poverty in my unpublished novella, Leading the Night, as donkeys in my country are usually overworked by people who have no vehicles and have heavy loads to carry.

Sometimes when I write today, and am trying to evoke feelings I remember very distinctly that the art to set a mood in a piece of writing became easy for me after reading beautiful words for example on a kettle humming as it came to the boil with water to make tea, and good descriptions that I found. Suddenly, I would feel as if I was in the book and I still do! This means that books I read 39 years ago live in me now as I write. Reading and writing have meant so much to me all my life. There are many other books I will not be able to describe as this is only about my Primary school but I think early reading matters very much for all of us.

Fast forward. Behind my desk now in this lively Deichmanske library am writing from as a guest writer in Oslo today is a huge cart of books by African writers. It is amazing. Every time I look at it, I have to control myself from not stretching my hand to stroke each cover. They are so many and so beautiful! This library is marvellous. It stocks books in 40 other languages apart from Norwegian and of course Spanish and Kiswahili, languages I speak are represented. All these books sometimes makes me feel like not sleeping, just to turn pages and enjoy myself! This is the reason why I will find time to read them. To enjoy. I also have written many poems, but whereas I thought 400 are many, my son this evening was telling me a singer he loves called Lil Wayne has written what my son calls over a million songs (over 900) and he was born in 1982! I thought, I have surely more poems to write in me.. and all of them have to be inspired and good. I have three blogs I post to. I hope one day all my books will come out at last! I must have read so many books I do not remember details of! The only way to know is to read. Reading consequently gives us confidence and interest in more knowledge.

In ancient times, some people wrote in Africa. We all have the same rock art all over the world it seems. Last month I looked at Norwegian rock art and was moved to see that ancient humans did the same kind of simple drawings in early times often emphasising movement. The style of drawing simply were the same, and animals were still part of the game. Whatever was drawn then was in a way a kind of writing for us to read. Before I tell you more about my story, using the Google search machine, you can now look up rock art and see how almost all rock art looks the same from different parts of the earth!

Check the word papyrus too. Early writing on Papyrus was discovered long time ago near the Nile. Egypt is in North Africa and the source of the River Nile is in Lake Victoria, a lake that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, the three countries of East Africa share! Reading has been for me the music of life. I hope I can still listen to more of it as I now write stories that are inspired by my Mother and Grandmother. nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

3.1 ANÁLISIS HOLÍSTICO DE LA OBRA

¿Qué padre no ha leído en voz alta algún cuento para sus hijos? Esta es la mejor manera de incentivar en los niños la pasión, respeto y amor por la lectura. Como lo expresa muy bien el título del libro: joy in Reading early, today’s writing pleasure la autora presenta en esta obra las aproximaciones a su encuentro y su relación con la lectura más que como una descripción general teórica y, como una reflexión personal en la que expresa apegos y desapegos de manera clara y exacta.

La obra está organizada en un texto básico. Desde el inicio la autora se remonta a su infancia y su experiencia de la lectura como un sentido que nos permita ver otros mundos. Se trata de una escritura diacrónica en la cual, el mismo lector puede viajar y sentirse trasportado a la vida en Kenya de segundo mediado de siglo veinte. Recoge recuerdos de su infancia en África, filtrados por una visión llena de frescura, lejana a los convencionalismos de un libro de memorias. Autobiográfico. La autora inserta su mundo interior en el país donde transcurre su primera niñez. La íntima identificación con la lectura es una característica de la obra.

Ante todo el texto es una evocación de su madre, profesora, iniciadora de la lectura, una madre que promueve la musicalidad en la lectura, transformando enteramente el mundo de la niñez de la autora.

Narra con sencillez los recuerdos infantiles y construye un retrato salvador, en busca de la lectura como medio de la libertad humana.

“¡Recuerdo que una vez mi madre me cantó una canción enseñándome cómo interpretar el papel de un hombre rico que sólo pensaba en dinero y que era de un completo cabeza hueca! Me enseñó incluso como usar un bastón y remedar a un anciano, en ese entonces yo sólo tenía nueve años. Lo disfruté mucho pues ella me dijo que yo actuaba muy bien después de haber aprendido de ella. ¡Con el pequeño cuento del anciano se suponía que yo apreciaría el valor de la sabiduría y no sólo desearía ser simplemente rica! ¡Todavía amo lo que mi Madre hizo, porque con esa canción, yo aprendí a distinguir entre el sonido de una 'r' y una ‘l’. Estos dos sonidos suelen mezclarse cuando la gente de mi región habla en dialectos, de hecho, luego aprendí que los japoneses y los chinos hacen, lo mismo! Ahora, cuando hablo, incluso en casa, la gente se sorprende por lo que oyen, sobre todo cuando saben de donde provengo. De este modo, mi primera lectura fue una especie de ejercicio, el ejercicio de escuchar con amor y atención - no había ningún otro modo de considerar a mi Madre - y era una representación dramática emocionante. ¡Cantaba con ella alegremente, “palikuawa na mtu tajiri ohh! ¡Akvaaa siku zote hariri ohhh! ¡Lakini kichwa, alikua hana.. Akatembea siku zote bustani, hooo!””.

Las descripciones de personajes y paisajes africanos- constituyen una acertada forma de compartir con el lector una cierta complicidad en la vivencia de la lectura como algo más allá de la mera contemplación de un texto.

Su lenguaje, presenta variaciones del inglés como muestra de una apropiación de la lengua de parte del mundo no angloparlante.

De la lectura de Philo se desprende que la introducción de la lectura en la primera infancia, a través de la tradición oral y de los textos de la cultura fomenta la comunicación, la libertad de expresión, imprimiéndole una carga afectiva que fortalece los vínculos, enriquece los patrones de crianza y se constituye en poderosa herramienta de constitución emocional. Philo nos muestra que la literatura, como lenguaje habitado por el sujeto, proporciona nutrientes afectivos para la psiquis y enriquece las posibilidades de comunicación verbal y no verbal en el seno de la comunidad dotando a todos sus miembros, tanto niños como adultos, de herramientas comunicativas para operar el tránsito desde un lenguaje meramente utilitario e instrumental hacia otro más interpretativo, expresivo y simbólico que resulta determinante en el desarrollo de la capacidad creadora de un sujeto y que garantiza el tránsito desde la lectura literal hacia la lectura como proceso dinámico de construcción de sentido.

Los beneficios del la lectura en la vida de esta escritora, son incalculables, gracias a la lectura podemos ser libres en la madurez. La madre de Philo lleva a la niña a querer leer, a buscar saber, a adentrarse en el mundo del arte, del dibujo y de la imagen a través de las ilustraciones mentales que salen de las narraciones orales y las historias que les narra a sus hijos y en la escuela. Esta mujer, la profesora de la escuela, aumenta su habilidad de escuchar, desarrolla su sentido crítico, aumenta la variedad de experiencias, y crea alternativas de diversión y placer para su hija, quien será una futura escritora.

De paso, la narradora aprende a convertir fácilmente las palabras en ideas, imagina lo que no ha visto y hace con que consiga bucear en la situación emocional del personaje, probando sensaciones como el tocar el bajo relieve del libro favorito de su infancia. La autora se divierte a través de los libros.

Aparte de esto, en la escuela de Kenya donde su madre es la profesora, de niña aprende valores comunes. El de ser una niña buena y amigo, por ejemplo, del libro llamado “Soy el riñón de John”. Philo desarrolla su conciencia de la conciencia de los demás conociendo a sí misma, formando criterios, sin contar que le ayuda a escribir y a relacionarse mejor socialmente.
de este hermoso texto podemos llegar a experimentar que la edad infantil es una época de la vida, de la cual existen muchos recuerdos de experiencias que quedan por siempre hasta llegar a ser ancianos y pertenecer a un grupo muy lejano al de la niñez.

En esta lectura la autora se remonta al sentido de la infancia y, esos momentos de cuando se fue niño. Cuando se le hacían trabajos manuales a los padres y casi lloraban al ver los resultados tan bellos de sus chicos en el colegio o aquella caída en las escaleras que de tanta vergüenza aún se recuerda. Son muchos los recuerdos que existen, pero no sólo dedicados a momentos personales, sino que también a elementos de la infancia que no se pueden olvidar. Quizás un cojincito que sin el no se podía dormir o algunos zapatos que siempre fueron los preferidos, o ¿porqué no?, como en el caso de Philo Ikonya, un libro favorito o muchos libros de la infancia. No se trata de aquel libro que fue dado en el colegio y que por obligación había que leerlo, sino de textos que abrieron el mundo de la libertad personal, leídos por una madre y una abuela en el marco del África llena de magia y espíritu humano.

3.2 PLANTEAMIENTO DEL PROBLEMA

Naturalidad vs Rigurosidad

El nivel de traducción de un texto es un aspecto esencial en el trabajo traductológico. En esta obra de Philo Ikonya el problema se presenta cuando necesitamos verter el cuerpo lingüístico y semántico del texto inglés, que ya de por sí no se trata de un texto escrito en lengua materna y traerlo con la mayor naturalidad al espacio de pensamiento del castellano.

La primera aproximación hecha a este texto en inglés produjo un resultado demasiado riguroso que no expresaba con naturalidad y sin incomodidad el cuerpo semántico del texto inglés al español.

El nivel de naturalidad es el más alto y el más preciado en un trabajo de traducción literaria y al hacer la traducción se plantea la pregunta de si es posible alcanzar ese nivel sin perder de vista la exactitud en la transmisión del cuerpo semántico.

Si bien los niveles de traducción son importantes el nivel de la naturalidad es el que permite una mejor comprensión real y pragmática del texto traducido. De acuerdo con Newmark (1988:19) el nivel textual reside a nivel de las unidades mínimas de traducción, como son las palabras y las oraciones. El nivel de referencia se define como el contexto en el que se ubica al texto en general. Este nivel sirve de soporte para aclarar los problemas que surjan en el nivel textual. El nivel cohesivo alcanza las relaciones y conexiones establecidas al interior del texto.

En este nivel cohesivo también se comprende el sentido o el modo en que el texto está organizado.

Sin embargo el nivel de la naturalidad es el que permite que tanto la teoría de la traducción como la teoría del proceso de la traducción se relacionen y ésta última se relacione con la práctica de la traducción (Newmark 1988:20).

El nivel de naturalidad implica que el producto de la traducción reúna las aristas que un texto fuente como el de Philo Ikonya podría tener, es decir, que sea escrito acorde al estilo de la narración sobre la lectura en la infancia en un lenguaje propio de la narración de una anécdota, y los juegos del lenguaje del mismo, utilizando el sistema lingüístico del texto de Philo y, el desafio más grande: el tratar de lograr que el texto traducido no retenga rastros de haber sido escrito en otra lengua.

Este es el problema como nos fue planteado al final de las primeras aproximaciones que hicimos del texto de Philo.

Para efectos de resolver este problema hicimos una aproximación al tipo de texto que estábamos traduciendo. Usando una definición técnica diremos que texto es el “registro verbal de un acto comunicativo” (Brown y Yule 1983:6) o bien una “unidad de producción de discurso”

El texto de Philo constituye una reflexión sobre el carácter esencialmente fundamental de la lectura en la infancia para el desarrollo pleno de la personalidad. Ofrece una visión optimista de la relación entre la lectura y el libre desarrollo de la personalidad. La intención de la autora es mostrar la gran utilidad de la lectura infantil, sentimiento que crece con el paso a la madurez. Es también una profunda meditación acerca de la necesidad de comunicación entre los seres humanos. La autora presenta la relación entre la lectura y el desarrollo de la personalidad libre como la integración de mundos que no pretenden anteponer el "yo" propio al de los demás sino comunicarlo a través de la lectura y la enseñanza. La madre de Philo es quien enseña esta actitud a su hija en la obra.

El lenguaje utilizado es aparentemente sencillo a nivel de la palabra, pero no así a nivel de la oración. El vocabulario usado es de suma importancia para crear el tono deseado. Sustantivos y participios como " impressed ", " treasured ", " singing, ", y adjetivos tales como " conscious ", " captivated " o "dreadful" comportan una gran carga expresiva. Todos ellos hacen referencia a la fascinación por la lectura, logrando el tono cautivante buscado. El efecto sonoro de dichas palabras, así como la cuidada puntuación de las frases contribuyen también en gran medida al tono del texto sobre la lectura en la infancia de Philo Ikonya.

Las imágenes creadas a nivel de la oración son bastante elaboradas y pretenden lograr una gran sensación de travesía y de juego infantil a la propia infancia en el lector.
El texto no fue hecho en inglés nativo pero está bien escrito, logra llevar a cabo el propósito de la autora, y por su registro no requiere de un lector demasiado especializado.

Debido a todos estos aspectos al inicio del planteamiento del problema concluimos que el método de traducción que debería utilizarse es el "semántico", por ser un texto literario en el que el aspecto expresivo es de máxima importancia.

Esto se hacia más evidente al tener en cuenta que el inicio de la exploración del problema fue hecho en el seminario monográfico en semiótica y semiología con el profesor Ruben Darío Florez.

Nuestra intención como traductor es reproducir el mismo efecto en el lector de la traducción que el que produjo la lectura del texto original en él mismo.
Como traductor necesitamos ser conscientes de la importancia de la elección de las palabras en el texto para la creación del tono, así como del efecto sonoro de las mismas.

Sin embargo, aunque la elección de los sustantivos y adjetivos debía ser cuidadosa el efecto sonoro inicial no llegaba siempre a reproducirse. Para solucionar esto, la versión que hicimos como traducción está escrita en un tono natural, suave, que permita el viaje del lector por la experiencia de la lectura de la infancia de una niña en África. El resultado es también producto del hecho de haber cambiado la puntuación en varias ocasiones en favor de una mayor fluidez.

Como traductor he optado intuitivamente, por prestar atención a la función expresiva del lenguaje sin detrimento de su función estética. La razón del para realizar esta elección es el hacer más fluido el texto, más comprensible al lector. El resultado es una versión no menos agradable y ligera Es probable por ello que el lector al que va dirigida la traducción, reaccione del mismo modo que el lector del texto original resultado que se plantea como necesario a partir del planteamiento del problema.

1.3 ANÁLISIS DE LENGUAJE DEL TEXTO

JOY IN READING EARLY, TODAY’S WRITING PLEASURE

Con base en los planteamientos de Newmark hemos logrado reconocer algunas características del texto que tienen que ver con la intención de la autora y la tipología textual que hemos mencionado anteriormente, ahora dentro del análisis del lenguaje podemos examinar la escala estilística (simple, popular, neutral, educada, técnica, opacamente técnica), el marco y función del lenguaje empleado (informativa, vocativo, estética, fáctica y metalingüística) y la tonalidad,

Con respecto a la tipología textual, es oportuno recordar que la obra es de carácter literario expresivo. La autora expone el tema de forma vivencial y narrativa.

Por otro lado, el carácter reflexivo del texto es muy amplio, dado que la autora no sólo se limita a presentar una experiencia sino a hacer una reflexión sobre la importancia .En cuanto a la ubicación del texto en la escala estilística propuesta por Newmark, se puede señalar que utiliza un lenguaje técnico, aunque sin llegar a ser neutral, dado que, aunque está dirigido a lectores comunes de literatura y personas con interes en la lectura y la pedagogía, no maneja un vocabulario técnico o complicado para el lector; sin embargo, siempre es mejor que el lector tenga una actitud abierta .Antes de proseguir con otras características del texto, es conveniente remarcar el carácter didáctico del libro, expresado en la intención de estimular la lectura en los niños.

Con base en lo anterior, se podría considerar esta obra como un texto literario, dado que se encuentra que su lenguaje es subjetivo y la función que cumple, expresiva.

El carácter expresivo de la obra conlleva al empleo, por parte de la autora, de un vocabulario sencillo relacionado con sitios geográficos del África, con repercusión en el campo de la educación.

También es pertinente señalar que el capítulo a pesar de ser literario está exento de expresiones idiomáticas que dificulten la comprensión del texto por parte del lector, así como también es evidente el uso moderado de de recursos literarios tales como la metáfora, anáfora, epítetos, etc., lo cual permite deducir que este texto es, seguramente, una muestra de literatura inglesa escrita por un hablante no nativo.

Además del lenguaje subjetivo presente en texto, otro indicio del rigor académico de la obra es la mención de numerosa de vivencias y anécdotas que hacen su lectura muy amena

2. MARCO TEÓRICO

El trabajo de la traducción de esta obra de Philo Ikonya requiere un sólido marco de Conceptos claros, el primero de ellos, el concepto mismo de traducción.

Según de Nida y Taber: “La traducción consiste en reproducir, mediante una equivalencia natural y exacta, el mensaje de la lengua original en la lengua receptora, primero en cuanto a sentido y luego en cuanto a estilo” ( )

Como lo señale al principio este texto plantea un problema que es como guardar la fidelidad y al mismo tiempo lograr la naturalidad. En muchos sentidos la fidelidad se relaciona la traducción literal del texto, en otras palabras, la fidelidad representa para muchos la forma misma del texto. Luego, con la tendencia de a la equivalencia traductora de Newmark se busca al mensaje de forma natural, así que otros dos criterios se fundan: la naturalidad y la precisión. El traductor debe tratar de conservar la mayor naturalidad posible para que el resultado tenga sentido para el lector.

Varios autores han acuñado términos, técnicas y procedimientos, para designar una serie de medios que permiten una traducción correcta de una lengua a otra.

Debido a las diferencias de carácter sintáctico, semántico, etc., presentes entre todas las lenguas (aun entre las más cercanas) el uso de estas técnicas es necesario con el fin de asegurar una traducción adecuada.

Las técnicas de traducción

En suma, cada autor ha abordado la traducción desde diferentes enfoques y perspectivas. Pasando por áreas del conocimiento como la semántica, la pragmática, la lingüística, etc., la formulación de una teoría del proceso traductológico aun está en un desarrollo temprano.

Dado que uno de los principales objetivos de este trabajo es ilustrar la aplicación de estas técnicas en una labor de traducción real, es necesario diferenciar algunos conceptos como el de método, técnica y estrategia de traducción. De acuerdo a Hurtado Albir (Traducción y traductología, Introducción a la traductología), el método traductor “involucra el desarrollo de un proceso traductor, el cual se determina por las necesidades del traductor.”

De este modo, el método puede definirse como una opción global que recorre todo el texto y que afecta al proceso y al resultado. De hecho, un método traductor es más recurrente que otro en relación con el contexto y el designio de la traducción, los cuales pueden ser diferentes dependiendo del destinatario, del uso o incluso del mismo traductor.

Según Hurtado, no hay métodos traductológicos opuestos e incompatibles, “sino procesos diferentes regulados por principios diferentes en función de objetivos diferentes” ( ). Con base en lo anterior, Albir propone cuatro métodos fundamentales: método interpretativo-comunicativo, método literal, método libre y método filológico.

Método interpretativo comunicativo (traducción comunicativa): Se busca que la traducción conserve la misma finalidad que el original y que produzca el mismo efecto en el destinatario. Para este fin se comprende y re-expresa el sentido del texto original, respetando las funciones y genero textual del texto de llegada.

Método literal: Al contrario del método anterior, no se busca conservar el sentido o finalidad del original, sino que reproduce la morfología, sintaxis o significación del texto traduciendo palabra por palabra. Más que preservar el sentido del texto original, se pretende copiar el sistema lingüístico de partida y la forma del texto original.

Método libre: Este método no busca transmitir el mismo sentido que el texto original, pero sí el conservar funciones similares y la misma información. Hurtado-Albir ilustra dos niveles: la adaptación y la versión libre. Este método se relaciona con la traducción heterofuncional de Nord ( )

Método filológico (traducción erudita, traducción crítica, traducción anotada): Dado que el texto original se convierte en objeto de estudio, se añaden a las traducciones notas con comentarios filológicos, históricos, etc. Corresponde a la traducción filológica de Nord y generalmente se dirige a un público especializado.

Por otro lado, Hurtado define las técnicas de traducción como la aplicación concreta solo visible en el resultado y que afecta a zonas menores del texto, mientras la estrategia consiste en las herramientas utilizadas por el traductor para resolver, de acuerdo a sus necesidades particulares, los problemas encontrados en el proceso traductológico,. Las estrategias pueden ser no verbales y se utilizan en todas las fases del proceso traductor, mientras las técnicas se manifiestan únicamente en la reformulación, constituyendo una fase final del proceso.

De acuerdo a Hurtado, la noción de técnica de traducción ha generado confusión, dado que no sido unánime entre todos los teóricos, ya que algunos las denominan procedimientos, estrategias, etc. ( ) Entre los autores que utilizan otros términos tenemos a Vinay y Darbelnet ( ), quienes además de plantear una clasificación de estos, definieron que los procedimientos técnicos de traducción pueden operar en tres niveles (léxico, organizacional y de mensaje).

En primer lugar, estos autores distinguen la traducción directa (literal) de la traducción oblicua. Mientras la directa busca una correspondencia exacta a nivel léxical y estructural entre dos lenguas, la traducción oblicua no permite hacer una traducción al pie de la letra. Entre los procedimientos de traducción literal mencionados por Vinay y Darbelnet se encuentran:

Préstamo lingüístico: Palabra o morfema de un idioma que fue tomada de otro sin traducirse y que es adaptada fonéticamente a la lengua receptora sin ninguna interpretación. Esto es debido, en general, a la influencia cultural de los hablantes de esa otra lengua. Estos prestamos pueden ser léxicos o gramaticales.

Cuando el elemento prestado es una palabra léxica, normalmente un adjetivo, un nombre o un verbo, se habla de préstamo léxico. El préstamo léxico es el más frecuente de todos, pero también existe el préstamo gramatical, en el que un número importante de hablantes bilingües de las dos lenguas usan partículas, morfemas y elementos no léxicos de una lengua cuando hablan en otra.

4.1. ANALISIS DEL PROCESO TRADUCTOLOGICO

Pere Gimferrer ha dicho que la literatura es “aquello que hace que una determinada combinación de palabras o de sintagmas adquiera la entidad de un objeto verbal irrefutable, sin cuya existencia (...) sabríamos menos de lo que sabemos sobre nosotros mismos y sobre el mundo” (Borges, 2001). En un trabajo de traducción existe una creación literaria.

METODOLOGÍA

En mi trabajo de traducir a Philo Ikonya he pensado que se debe traducir ideas y no palabras. Por eso he dicho en la introducción que la traducción es un arte, una habilidad y una profesión. Para lograr naturalidad en mi traducción, he tratado de desarrollar una sensibilidad lingüística que trascienda los límites del conocimiento del vocabulario y de los aspectos morfosintácticos y estilísticos de la lengua inglesa hasta llegar a la identificación de los elementos socio-culturales de ambas lenguas.
La sensibilidad lingüística es una facultad que he desarrollado para este trabajo, basado en lo que el Profesor Francisco Ballén llama musicalidad, considero que se logra al encontrar el equivalente más próximo a la expresión y no a su traducción literal. Por ejemplo, en el texto de Pihlo Ikinya: With delight I treasure deeply the fact that I learned how to read from my Mother.: Atesoro profundamente y con gran placer, el hecho singular de haber aprendido a leer gracias a mi Madre, y no: con deleite yo atesoro el hecho de que yo aprendí a leer gracias a mi madre.

Ha sido importante también valorar la adecuación e imperfección de las expresiones, como es el caso de emulación. Resulta evidente un aspecto relacionado con la compensación de las imperfecciones a través de frases explicativas o de las perífrasis.
En cierto sentido he buscado la emulación del sentimiento del texto de Philo Ikonya. Según la definición encontrada en diccionarios etimológicos emulación en el contexto de la lengua inglesa significa ambición o esfuerzo para igualar o exceder al otro, de ahí la necesidad de la perífrasis.

Algunas herramientas básicas que he usado para la traducción de este texto, han sido entre otros:

El conocimiento básico del idioma inglés, pues no se aspira poseer su pleno dominio.
El desarrollo de la habilidad de escritura y de los elementos básicos de redacción y de la composición en idioma español.
La familiarización con el tema del texto
La lectura de textos relacionados con el tema de traducción.
Las traducciones precedentes en temas análogos por fuentes autorizadas.
La calidad de los diccionarios bilingües, etimológicos y especializados.

Lo anterior ha propicia la traducción de ideas propias de Philo Ikonya y no de palabras aisladas, la fidelidad al texto original y la claridad de la expresión para hacerla llegar al publico de habla hispana.

ha sido importante antes de empezar a traducir hacer el análisis del estilo del escrito original, que hemos visto en el anterior capitulo, del mensaje que desea Philo transmitir y de los recursos léxico-semánticos y morfosintácticos que se empelan y que en lo posible no deben ser alterados, pues atentan contra la originalidad y fidelidad por lo que se pueden emplear giros idiomáticos .

Para lograr la fidelidad de la traducción de Philo he tratado de respetar el estilo en el cual aparece el texto original. Para hacer esta traducción he requerido algunas veces de varias fases, alguna de ellas las he podido obviar o combinar, así como incorporar otras de acuerdo con la comprensión del tema.

Para alcanzar esa comprensión he tratado de
• Leí todo el material
• Identifiqué las palabras de dudoso significado, inusuales o desconocidas en cada oración, párrafo y en el texto en general.
• Consulté glosarios, diccionarios: monolingües, bilingües, multilingües, generales, diacrónicos, y de sinónimos y antónimos, entre otros.
• Traduje oralmente oraciones, así evité tachaduras, omisiones o repeticiones.
• Escribí la primera versión, sin prestar demasiada atención a la forma y a los detalles.
• Chequee el borrador anteriormente confeccionado. Llené los espacios en blanco y realicé las correcciones, revisé el estilo, los préstamos lingüísticos y las abreviaturas.
• Leía la versión en voz alta.
• Analicé críticamente la traducción desde la posición de usuario del texto.
• Realicé una nueva versión de la traducción, si se requiere.

• Comparé el texto traducido por párrafos y en su totalidad con el documento original. Apóyese en otra persona para su lectura.
• Escribí la versión final (con letra legible o digitalizada). Revisé nuevamente los aspectos formales del texto traducido.

Por otra parte, preste atención a casos en los cambios funcionales que se refieren a una palabra que puede tener diferentes significados de acuerdo con la función sintáctica que desempeña en la oración, ya sea como sustantivo o como adjetivo.Tal es el caso de la palabra official o Head en inglés: Official ceremony/ ceremonia oficial y head teacher / profesora principal

Del mismo modo una de las dificultades con las que me encontré a la hora de traducir este texto fueron los tiempos verbales. En particular, con el simple past inglés, un traductor tendría dos opciones: traducirlo por un pretérito perfecto simple o por un pretérito imperfecto. En este caso, hemos de tener en cuenta el contexto y la idea que el texto original intenta transmitir. Un ejemplo, lo vemos en el primer párrafo:

- I remember once my mother sang to me and taught me: En este caso, el uso de uno u otro tiempo verbal va definitivamente a generar diferencias importantes. En mi caso, yo he optado por el pretérito perfecto simple, más que nada por darle una entonación que me parece más apropiada a la hora de contar un cuento para niños.

- My Mother came to me from her sitting place and tore the book out of my hands and sent me off to my seat: En este caso, la traducción obligatoria sería la del pretérito simple, ya que se describe una situación que ocurre solo en un lapso de tiempo y no ha seguido pasando. Si se tradujera con el pretérito perfecto simple, una sensación de continuidad le quitaría sentido

Otro aspecto que debe comentarse, es la aparición de varias ideas que permanecen algo “indeterminadas”. Es el caso, por ejemplo, de “early reading”. Llama un poco la atención, porque, en inglés (idioma correspondiente a la versión original) pero no en español, existe la palabra “early” para denotar el mismo concepto de algo hecho en la infancia en este caso, la traducción literal lectura temprana carecería de sentido y se referiría mas a leer en las horas de la mañana. Por eso, hecho la traducción haciendo un giro a la hora de vertirlo he optado por traducirlo por “literatura en la infancia”.

5. TRADUCCIÓN

La alegría de la lectura en la infancia es el placer de escribir hoy

Philo Ikonya

¡Cuando era una niña hacíamos una representación teatral en la casa hablando en mi lengua materna!

Atesoro profundamente y con gran placer, lo singular que fue haber aprendido a leer gracias a mi Madre.

Aparte de relatarme historias en nuestra casa todo el tiempo: en las mañanas, en el día y por las tardes, ella, además, era oficialmente mi principal profesora en la escuela primaria en pueblo cerca de Nairobi, en Kenia. De hecho, ella le enseñó a leer a casi toda la gente del lugar. Sé que muchos la aman y respetan por eso, pues me lo dicen y, le mandan saludos calurosos cuando me ven.

A veces cuando participo en conferencias y hablo por TV o, en Youtube y la gente me dice que les ha gustado lo que digo, recuerdo los esfuerzos de Madre por hacer que tuviéramos buena expresión y, recuerdo igualmente el amor de la Abuela (su madre) por la libre expresión. Mi Abuela podía leer y escribir un poco. Mi Madre nació en 1928. Todos nosotros en mi familia, sus nueve hijos, fuimos sus alumnos durante los tres primeros años de escuela. ¡Era muy divertido!

Recuerdo que una vez mi madre me cantó una canción enseñándome cómo interpretar el papel de un hombre rico que sólo pensaba en el dinero y que era un completo cabeza hueca. Me enseñó incluso como usar un bastón y remedar a un anciano cuando yo sólo tenía nueve años. Lo disfruté mucho y ella me dijo que yo actuaba muy bien y que lo había aprendido de ella. Con el pequeño cuento del anciano trataba de enseñarme el valor de la sabiduría y a no desear ser simplemente rica en la vida.

Todavía aprecio lo que mi madre hizo, porque con esa canción, yo aprendí a distinguir entre el sonido de una 'r' y una ‘l’. Esos dos sonidos suelen mezclarse cuando la gente de mi región habla en dialectos, de hecho, luego aprendí que los japoneses y los chinos les pasa lo mismo.

Ahora, cuando hablo, incluso en casa, la gente se sorprende al escucharme hablar, sobre todo cuando saben de donde provengo. De ese modo, mi primera lectura fue una especie de ejercicio, el ejercicio de escuchar con amor y atención - no había ningún otro modo de escuchar a mi madre sino con amor - y era una escena emocionante. Cantaba con ella alegremente, “palikuawa na mtu tajiri ohh! ¡Akvaaa siku zote hariri ohhh! ¡Lakini kichwa, alikua hana.. Akatembea siku zote bustani, hooo!”

Estoy segura de que escuché y vi muchas piezas más del drama y hasta las canté pero los pasajes que aprendí gracias a mi Madre permanecieron en mí mente de una forma especial. El profesor que oficialmente nos enseñaba música también era un muy buen amigo de mi madre y siempre me elogiaba. Recuerdo que cuando mi Madre me contaba una historia o cuando leíamos en voz alta en su clase en mi Lengua materna no se trataba sólo de oír la historia. Yo la veía también. Podía oler las cosas de las historias e incluso, tocarlas.

Escuchaba cada historia viéndola en mi mente, del mismo modo en que tú ves una película hoy en día. En aquel tiempo yo no había visto todavía un televisor. Qué experiencia tan maravillosa era ver las mariposas aplaudir por todas partes, sobre las paredes de la pequeña casa en la que una pequeña gacela se escondía cantando, ‘soy quién agita las alas hasta la caída de la lluvia’ Creo que entonces fue realmente cuando mi imaginación fue cautivada por la lectura. Era algo maravilloso y desde entonces, la lectura ha significado mucho para mí. ¡Pienso que la lectura implica cosas que van mucho más allá de las meras páginas y letras, mundos que apenas podemos describir. Se podrán imaginar como recuerdo aquellas tardes mágicas de lectura.

Recuerdo que una vez a mi Madre casi se le acaba su carácter dulce conmigo porque no quise darle a un compañero de clase un libro que leíamos rápidamente pues quise seguir estando de pie delante de la clase y ser la que hacía aquellos sonidos agradables de la lectura. Ella se acerco, me arrancó el libro de las manos y me ordenó volver a mi asiento. Me sentí triste pero sabía que había cometido un error. Pienso que ella también estaba muy consciente de hacer que los demás no pensaran que yo gozaba de algún tipo de tratamiento especial. Pronto olvide la tristeza. Esa noche en la casa, nos pusimos a contar historias.

Nos ayudábamos el uno al otro para ser los mejores narradores de historias de suspenso en el vecindario entreteniéndonos con canciones. Mirando hacia atrás, hoy en día como escritora, siento que sin exageración, la lectura lo ha sido casi todo para mí.

Recuerdo que mi madre era una buena lectora y que había estudiado en la escuela también cuando niña. Yo recibí una beca para estudiar en una mejor escuela en el valle del Rift en Kenia. Lo triste de aquel cambio fue que me llevaron lejos de mi lengua materna y de mi familia justamente durante los tres meses en que solíamos estar juntos antes de vacaciones. Mi Madre entonces me escribió unas cartas que atesoré muchísimo, estaban escritas en parte en inglés y también un poquito en mi lengua materna y las envié al P.O. Box 159, El doret. Le contesté a mamá a la dirección Box 122, Kiambu. Desearía ver esas cartas hoy en día. Por favor guarden sus escritos con cuidado.

Tan pronto como tuve la posibilidad de estar en esa escuela, sentí algo de ansiedad pues yo sólo hablaba el inglés suficiente como para contestar apenas unas tres preguntas básicas, sólo sabía decir mi nombre, mi edad y de donde venía. Recuerdo que mi nueva escuela tenía muchas cosas que no había en la anterior. Era excepcional para mí que hubiera dos bibliotecas realmente bonitas de las cuales nosotros podíamos pedir en préstamo libros durante algunas semanas y devolverlos después de terminarlos de leer. Recuerdo que una vez cuando pasaba por la esquina de una biblioteca de consulta donde se guardaban los libros de colección que no estaban disponibles para préstamo externo, me terminé encontrando con los libros de ciencia, y estaba leyendo uno de ellos tan felizmente, que mientras lo leía buscaba con una mano un asiento hasta que al fin pude sentarme.

En esa época empecé a leer un artículo que apareció en una revista llamada Readers Digest, el articulo se titulaba “soy el Riñón de John”. Esta revista trataba una serie de temas sobre las diferentes partes del cuerpo humano, el artículo siguiente se llamaba ‘yo soy el corazón de John’ o 'soy el pie de John’.

Cada artículo trataba el órgano mencionado en el respectivo título y consistía en la lectura de la “voz del órgano” tratado de modo que, por ejemplo, el cerebro comenzaba diciendo, ‘yo soy esta masa de gris,…etc.,”

Me parecía que leer todo esto era muy fascinante. Yo también acostumbraba leer las revistas Life. En ese entonces imaginaba que iba a ser doctora.

“El poder que la palabra escrita ejerce sobre nosotros”, ese fue el título de un artículo que publiqué unos años más tarde en el periódico principal de Kenia en los años 90. No importa el cambio en la tecnología, la experiencia de leer y entender el sentido de la lectura sigue teniendo una gran influencia sobre mí, para un escritor siempre la tiene. Entonces decidí escribir sobre aquellos artículos que acostumbraba leer de niña, me pregunté si el artículo sobre cuerpo humano era realmente del Reader’s Digest y debido a eso empecé a usar el buscador de Google - encontré la serie descrita como “soy el Cerebro de John” que además fue usada en el Journal of Consciousness con una nota del Reader’s Digest con todos los demás artículos viejos y encantadores!

Estoy segura de que hoy en día yo no podría encontrar en las bibliotecas las mismas revistas de aquella época, sin embargo, lo podría hacer en la red global, de esa manera leer se ha hecho algo más todavía fácil gracias a la Internet.

Recuerdo que, incluso fuera de las horas que teníamos para leer en la biblioteca también teníamos la oportunidad de leer en clase. Me fascinaba leer en voz alta en mi nuevo idioma y lo hacía turnándome con mis compañeros. Hacer eso todo el día era la cosa más agradable del mundo.

Leíamos libros como “los Días de escuela de Tom Brown” (los libros siempre tenían títulos masculinos y también los artículos) y leíamos la Isla del Tesoro de Robert Louis Stevenson. Este libro era tan interesante que sentía como si me hubiera convertido en marinera. Ahora también podía cantar con la isla del Tesoro como me había enseñado mi madre, “Dieciséis hombres en el pecho de un muerto! ¡Yo,jo jo jo! ¡Y una botella de ron!”

En la escuela a veces también veíamos películas. Pero en realidad no produjeron una impresión tan honda en mí como la que me producían los libros. Yo disfrutaba más leyendo el libro original de la película. Recuerdo que me encantó la imagen pintoresca de John Silver Long en la Isla del Tesoro. Me pareció que Tom Brown Schooldays era un libro más bien serio y tal vez tenia un inicio demasiado lento, creo que le pregunté a la profesora inglés por qué teníamos que leerlo.

Un día le pregunté a la profesora qué era ser un redactor y antes de decirme cualquier otra cosa me dijo que yo terminaría seguramente siendo una redactora y, ¡tenía razón! también le dijo lo mismo a otro compañero de clase también se hizo redactor con el tiempo . A pesar de todo, no había libros de escritores africanos en las escuelas primarias, eso me parecía una vergüenza. Por otra parte, leíamos los libros de las hermanas Bronte, uno de ellos se titulaba Jayne Eyre y las Alturas de Wuthering. Me impresionó mucho el hecho de que tres hermanas de una misma familia se dedicaran a escribir. Ellas habían pasado muchos años buscando un editor y, finalmente, ahora una niña como yo podía leer su obra cien años más tarde, eso fue lo que hizo que esos libros fueran tan especiales para mí.

Recuerdo que también leíamos “el Orgullo” de Jane Austen y Predjudice. En mi escuela aprendí a leer más rápido con mis compañeros, solíamos competir en la lectura de novelas que devorábamos y que devolvíamos ¡sólo para pedir otras prestadas! Por causalidad un día nos empezamos a contarnos las cosas que habíamos leído y a opinar sobre las tapas de los libros.

Ya cuando crecimos un poco más comenzamos a leer algunas novelas románticas, como la Novia de Pendorric y unos libros de un escritor romántico llamado Denise Robins. Claro que sin olvidar nunca la serie de aventuras de Enid Blyton y sus “Cinco Famosos”.

También fue maravilloso disfrutar de libros como Anne de Green Gables y Anne de Avonlea, podías contemplar como transcurría la vida de Anne durante largas tardes.

Estas narraciones a veces se quedaban grabadas en mi mente de una manera muy especial. La verdad es que me gusta disfrutar de todos los momentos del día, la tarde en mi opinión está hecha para leer. No hay que olvidar que para nosotros las tardes que eran muy tranquilas tanto que a veces hacíamos un poco de costura y algunas actividades musicales. Pero lo que recuerdo más vívidamente son las tardes de lectura. En las tardes la poesía me hacia volar con los poemas de nuestro libro “aventuras hechas poesía”.

Desde esa época puedo recitar aquel poema simple pero conmovedor de G.K Chesterton llamado “el Burro y el rey Henry” de Hilaire Belloc, o “Los Seis hombres de Hindustan y el Elefante”, poemas que encontré en un libro de de Aventuras junto con el “Gaitero de de Hamelin”. No recuerdo del todo los versos más largos pero puedo recitar las mejores partes. La tapa del libro “Aventuras hechas Poesía “era verde y tenía aves en vuelo, no le pregunté a nadie qué aves eran, simplemente para mí eran mis amigas. Estaban dibujadas en un marrón ligeramente rojizo, supongo que deben haber sido buitres porque debajo de aquellos hermosos dibujos había un poema llamado ‘El Buitre’.

A medida que iba creciendo veía muchos burros en Kenia llevando cargas pesadamente y, actualmente estoy trabajando en un escrito donde el burro es el icono más prominente de mi descripción de la pobreza, se trata de mi novela inédita corta: “Transitando en la Noche”, donde señalo que los burros en mi país son por lo general maltratados por la gente que no tiene auto y que debe trasportar cargas.

Al principio temía que en aquella biblioteca no se encontrara la misma clase de libros que mi Madre nos leía en nuestra humilde escuela y en nuestro idioma, pero gracias a que aprendí inglés muy rápido pude también leer y divertirme en ese nuevo idioma. Ahora cuando escribo, trato de evocar los sentimientos del pasado y recuerdo muy claramente que el arte de darle humor y estilo a un escrito se hizo más fácil para mí después de leer las hermosas palabras de las distintas descripciones que leía, por ejemplo, recuerdo la descripción de una tetera que gorgoreaba cuando el agua se hervía para hacer té. De repente, yo me sentía como si estuviera dentro del libro y, de todo eso, queda mucho dentro de mí. Todo aquello que leí hace 39 años está en mí cuando escribo ahora. La lectura y la escritura han significado mucho para mí toda la vida. Hay muchos otros libros que no podría describir ya que son libros que leí en mi escuela primaria. De todos modos creo que la lectura de nuestra infancia significa muchísimo para todos nosotros.

Una nota rápida: me encuentro en este momento detrás de mi escritorio en la biblioteca de Deichmanske y me siento muy contenta porque estoy escribiendo para un escritor invitado de Oslo, además tengo enfrente un carro enorme de libros de escritores africanos. Es asombroso. Cada vez que los miro tengo que controlarme para no estirar mi mano y acariciar cada tapa. ¡Son tantos y tan hermosos! Esta biblioteca es maravillosa. Hay libros de reserva en otras 40 lenguas aparte del noruego y por supuesto, el español y el Kiswahili, todas las lenguas que hablo están aquí. ¡Todos estos libros a veces me hacen dar ganas de pasar la noche en vela para leer y ¡divertirme! Por eso voy a sacar tiempo para leerlos.

También he escrito muchos poemas, de hecho cuando pensaba que 400 ya eran demasiados, mi hijo me contó que un cantante que le gusta llamado Lil Wayne escribió un millón de canciones y nació en 1887. Entonces parece que tengo muchos más poemas por escribir y todos ellos tienen que estar bien inspirados. También tengo tres blogs en los que trabajo ahora. ¡Espero que un día todos mis libros salgan por fin a luz. En fin, La cuestión es que he leído tantos libros que de muchos no recuerdo los detalles, el hecho es que para mí el único modo de saber más de las cosas es leer. La lectura nos da la confianza y el interés para alcanzar más conocimientos. En la antigüedad, muchos hombres escribieron en África. Cultivábamos el mismo arte sobre la roca que se puede apreciar por todo el mundo antiguo. El mes pasado estuve viendo algo del arte sobre la roca noruego y se me antojó que los antiguos hicieron la misma clase de dibujos simples en tiempos muy lejanos a menudo enfatizando el movimiento.

El estilo de tal dibujo simplemente parece ser el mismo, y los animales todavía se veían como la parte del juego que hay en el arte. Independientemente de lo que haya sido dibujado hay una especie de escritura común en aquél arte. Pero antes de seguir contando esa historia, le sugiero al benévolo lector buscar imágenes de arte rupestre usando Google y allí podrá ver cómo casi todo el arte rupestre es igual en todas partes de la tierra. Se puede también ver lo que sucede con la palabra escrita en papiro: desde épocas muy tempranas la escritura en Papiro fue descubierta cerca del río Nilo. ¡Egipto se halla en África del Norte y la fuente del Río Nilo está en Lago Victoria, un lago que Kenia, Uganda y Tanzania, ¡los tres países del África Oriental comparten!

En fin, La lectura ha sido para mí la música de mi vida. Espero poder escuchar más de esa música ahora cuando escribo historias que están inspiradas en mi Madre y, mi Abuela. ¡Oh!

6. CONCLUSIONES

La traducción de la obra literaria de Philo Ikonya propuesta en este trabajo nos ha permitido poner en práctica y mejorar las técnicas traductoras aprendidas hasta ahora mediante una exhaustiva y sistemática lectura de los textos meta y fuente y la posterior aplicación de criterios de traducción dados en el marco teórico dado. El propósito de todo ello ha sido no solo mejorar mi competencia de comunicación y de transferencia sino lograr verter esta obra inédita del inglés original a la lengua castellana.

Por otra parte todas las fases de la traducción de este texto han implicado conocimientos literarios y culturales adquiridos en la carrera de inglés y filología moderna que nos permiten conocer cuáles son las fuentes teóricas que tenemos para realizar cualquier trabajo de traducción.

La implementación práctica de todas las herramientas traductológicas en este trabajo fue fundamental para una buena traducción pero de todas ellas las nociones teóricas que fueron dadas por el profesor Ballén tales como la musicalidad y la capacidad de lectura jugaron un papel decisivo en esta tarea.

A pesar de su sencillez la traducción del texto de Philo Ikonya requiere hacer ejercicios de comprensión, análisis y revisión muy exhaustivos.

El enfoque según el cual hice la traducción cambió varias veces dependiendo del nivel expresivo concreto que se pretendía verter a la lengua castellana.

A todo lo dicho hasta ahora debemos añadir como conclusión la importancia del criterio lingüístico a la hora de solucionar el problema entre fidelidad y naturalidad planteado al principio de este trabajo: coherencia y cohesión. La coherencia y la cohesión de la traducción implican la estructura de la información lógica y las estrategias que conectan las partes del discurso y por ende una conciliación entre naturalidad y rigurosidad. No se puede hablar de traducción si no se cumplen estos parámetros. La coherencia es: "the continuity of meaning of a text from one idea to another and plausibility of such meaning", y la cohesion hace referencia a: "the linguistic means used to ensure continuity of the form and content of a text" (Brunette 2000: 175).

Durante el desarrollo de esta traducción tuve que analizar los mecanismos de coherencia y cohesión que podrían ser apropiados en el texto en cuestión.

Finalmente, creo haber logrado mi objetivo fundamental de lograr crear un puente para la recepción del texto de Philo Ikonya en la lengua castellana y la posible relación del texto con otras traducciones futuras para dar a conocer a esta novel escritora.

La recepción de la traducción y sobre todo de la obra de Philo complementará criterios anteriormente comentados Es importante, por tanto, determinar cual deseamos que sea la relación del texto con la lengua y cultura hispanas, a mi me gustaría que nuevos los escritores africanos fueran leídos en español y por nuestro publico.

Espero que todos estos criterios que han girado alrededor de este trabajo permitan al lector determinar si el método de traducción y las estrategias concretas utilizadas han sido las más apropiadas Las conclusiones e finales relativas a la calidad de esta traducción deben, por tanto, estar en manos del benévolo lector.

Quiero además agradecer la fina y aguda preparación dada por mi profesor de traducción Francisco Ballén de la Universidad Nacional, así como al profesor Rodolfo Suárez y las claras precisiones dadas por el Profesor Rubén Darío Florez y por supuesto a Philo Ikonya. Por último quiero agradecer el apoyo de mi familia y amigos más cercanos.

7. BIBLIOGRAFÍA

BORGES, J. L. Arte Poética. Seis conferencias. 1ª ed. Barcelona: Crítica, 2001. (Letras de Humanidad)
ISBN84-8432-179-7

Brunette, Louise. 2000. "A Comparison of TQA Practices". The Translator. 6.2: 169-182.

STEINER, George. After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation. Nueva York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Versión española: Después de Babel, trad. Adolfo Castañón. México/Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995.

VINAY, Jean Paul, y DARBELNET, Jean, Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais. Méthode de traduction. París: Didier, 1958.

GARCÍA YEBRA, Valentín. Traducción, historia y teoría. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1994

ORELLANA, Marina. La traducción del inglés al castellano: Guía para el traductor. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria S. A., 1994.

SILVA, Fabio. Balance actual de la antropología en el caribe colombiano. II Encuentro de Investigadores de la Red Ocaribe. Relator: Wildler Guerra. 2004.

HAENSCH, Gunther. Diccionario de Biología inglés-francés-alemán-español. Barcelona: Blume Ediciones, 1976

HURTADO ALBIR, Amparo. Traducción y traductología: introducción a la traductología. Madrid: Cátedra, D.L. 2001

NEWMARK, Peter. A Textbook of translation. Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd., 1987. Versión española: Manual de traducción, trad. Virgilio Moya, Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, S. A., 1995.

NORD, Christiane. Textanalyse und Übersetzen. Heidelberg: Groos 1988. Versión inglesa: Text Analysis in Translation, trad. Christiane Nord y Penélope Sparrow. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1991

PELAEZ DEL HIERRO, Fernando. Introducción a la etología: el estudio comparado del comportamiento animal. Madrid: Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, 2002.

The memory, Libya, Gaddafi's influence in Afrika

2011-02-26T17:03:00.000-08:00

It is the memory of the women who cannot leave Libya tonight that keeps me awake. I imagine the young ones leaving. I see older women, grandmothers saying ' We will stay here. Just go. Try to save yourselves. We will pray for you. We will be strong. Just go! God will look after us. We cannot all go, we are old."

We are not sleeping tonight. We are watching the United Nations live since it is still our only beacon of hope. But I am concerned about our proactivity. Gaddafi in 2009 was the head of the African Union. As seen in the photograph here and in the previous posting, Gaddafi has been very influential in Afrika. I remember President Kibaki visiting him. I remember him saying that he would support the deferral of Kenyan politicians summoned by the International Criminal Court after violence in Kenya. In Kenya 1, 333 people died. Gaddafi has used ubelievable force against his people asking that his supporters visit violence from door to door. We urge the UN to now in this moment see how important it is to take Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court himself for the violence that he has caused in Libya.

Why are so many countries in the world not signatories of the Rome Statute? Can they not see how we are suffering because their not being members is always used against the Courts in our country?

How, for example, can the African Union alone help Afrika when today its leader, elected only a few weeks ago is Nguema the worst dictator in Afrika today? A man who has ruled for three terms? Will we close our eyes to everything until the violence in Kenya, in Libya is replicated elsewhere? Can we say for example that we are not guilty of what has happened in Libya? All of us knew Gaddafi before. No elections. No institutions. No judiciary. No parliament. No police but militias and we called Libya a country and respected it. Is this our so called global village? It is at such moments that I say the International Community does support violence. It is at such times that I say, I would like to challenge us to see how we claim we are equal when obviously we are not. Some things can only happen in some countries. We close our eyes.

I imagine the children's fear reflecting the fear in the eyes of the grown ups around them. I think of how they hid upon hearing machine guns and fire. I reflect on how young people and others felt during years of accepting little freedom. I meditate. It is these memories that steal sleep from my eyes tonight.

I think of the many pens that are paralysed with fear. I think of the jubilation of those who have acted with courage. I think of the colour of their hearts. I clap. I remember the young Mohammed Benouassiz who set himself on fire in Tunisia. I see the flames going down to his intestines and him thinking, this is the end. I wonder at life.

I think of the desert sands that have seen blood. The blood of blood and of worry. I think of the winds that howl in between. I repeat some phrases in grand speeches that never made sense. Facebook. How can you blame Facebook.

It was many years ago that we marvelled at Gadafi's tent as children. His life puzzled us. And not so many years back, we saw that freedom loving people of the west had returned to embracing him for oil?

I have heard many things. I believe I will still hear more. I never thought it would come to this. But how did we think things would end. I have seen girl body guards at work. I have seen militias dancing away and hotels in Nairobi sold off. I have seen politicians deliver illegal trophy, animal skins to Gadaffi, saying they represent their people. Owning animal skins or taking them by plane is illegal. Someone let this happen.

I keep wondering then, why people like Martin Luther King or Malcom X live not so long. Why their influence is never from a powerful podium for 50 years. I wonder what it takes for a man to hear and accept that one cannot allow their own nation to go on fire...if only one remembers that nobody should be in power for so long? That one must have institutions. We cannot live under palm trees, own so much property and have leisure and only look after our own sons. We cannot allow that others have to part their families get separated in Tripoli as you sit comfortably talking from a fortress! The whole world must stop and help Libyan people stick together.

I remember media that opined that Libya would not go the way of Tunisia or Egypt. That it would stay in peace. What could we say to them? They have been in analysis for years. Libya has been like neither of these. It had to be the worst.

All Pharaohs in Afrika, Go Now!

2011-02-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

All the Pharaohs in Afrika, Go Now!

The world owes Afrika better attention, the West and poor leadership in Afrika

If anyone doubts that Egypt is flying today on the wings of the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez, they must at least acknowledge that Egypt is on fire. We saw Tunisia before. Jordan decided for an early attempt of baptism of water rather than fire. Yemen moved with Egypt. Something happened in Khartoum but was only briefly analysed. There is heaving discontent in Sudan and below. Analysts who were surprised by Tunisia now agree that this is an Arab world uprising, and yet. They continue to talk about the Arab world fighting oppression and dictatorships. You do not hear about Afrika clearly. We may not speak about but in the world today, unless you are not seeing it, boundaries are melting under the pressure of the power of communication.Search further.

And yet. A BBC documentary only a few weeks ago was the first in which a journalist interviewed Afrikan victims of trafficking stuck in the Sinai desert. There was an eerie moment during that broadcast,when the presenter said that nobody knows how many Afrikans are caught up in the Sinai desert trying to reach Europe. And we pride in modern communication.

He was speaking to a woman who had been raped endlessly. Her husband had died from the anger and frustration of seeing his wife thus abused. With all our pride in internet, Al Jazeera and these brave journalists, we have got to ask ourselves why some places remain so hidden from the world. They are silent forgotten graves. Are the lives there political pawns?

It’s immoral. We, as the world, especially the progressive world, cannot allow ourselves not to be proactive in knowing what is going in some places. Much of that should shame the earth if it were exposed. We cannot continue as if all is well only stopping when the people risk everything and scream on streets and die for change. In some places oppression- since Europe divided up Afrika like a pancake during the Berlin Wall Conference- killed almost all possibility of People Power.

The complacency in peaceful nations that have progressed until fire burns in troubled nations is incredible. The indifference of some of them when the fire begins to burn is shocking. In places like the Nordic countries, you would be forgiven for thinking anything was wrong in the world. Their media is constipated with their own little world. From time to time, you will see this criminal refugee man as the face of Black Afrika, and prostitutes too.

Darfur in Sudan was and is. It is almost buried from our history and memory because this poor torn nation which gave birth to a new country last week could not muster the kind of people action steaming on the streets of Cairo on international channels and TVs just now. Who supports Omar Al Bashir a president indicted by the International Criminal Court? Omar is not in trouble with law because South Sudan wants her freedom! Why are we washing his diapers and covering bloodshed with him?

What do we do when a people cannot rise up in a clearly unjust situation? We sit and wait. What media is covering Central Afrika these days? Will twitter save us there? Somalia, Madagascar and Guinea- Bisau?

We wait for thousands of young Afrikans who will want to leave Afrika and come to Europe and America where we will deny them entry most of the time because we still think, this part of the world is ours and that other rich (we invariably call them poor) but unstable one, theirs.

And this happens too to poor countries of Europe. In France, Sarkozy just sends the Roma home to be more homeless. He gets them arrested.

But Afrika.

I feel the pain of a voiceless Chad, Mauritania, Ethiopia and Eritrea as the world sits and notices a major crisis. We act as if those places are farway and worse, exploit situations through diplomacy as we benefit before the people wake up or never wake up. We trade in resources with the DRC as 200 women get raped even by the United Nations soldiers that we sent there with our money. In Washington DC, We even hear out Muammar Gadaffi of Libya because his country is quiet. He has been in power for 42 years. What does the vote mean here? That he will save us from terror? He holds no elections.

The International Criminal Court tries to seek justice but even then it is losing support because the same pharaohs have sworn against it in Afrika ever since it sentenced Charles Taylor and others. They are killing it in the pretence of questioning Ocampo’s ability. They are pretending that we poor Afrikans, have never understood the difference between the sovreingty of a country in Afrika and injustice. Governments in all most oppressed worlds blatantly overlook International Conventions and keep the people down. Libya was staunchly behind supporting Kenya for a deferral from the ICC for a year. Thousands of refugees within Kenya are still in camps after the Post poll violence of 2007 that caused the people to seek recourse in the ICC. It does not matter how he has made people in his country contented. We are looking for justice and our freedom.

If the rest of the world in the UN supports au in this, We might as well agree not to have a UN or anything that binds us to protect justice.

We should be ashamed to take pride in the People Power playing out in Egypt now if we are waiting to be surprised by events, in the world we do not look at, as we were by the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It is not just a matter of suddenly hopping onto the right side of history. No. We know that Kenyan people are agitating for change and increasingly feeling repressed and frustrated for the creation of change even if Kenyans have a new constitution. Shall we wait until they tweet like mad? We know Zimbabweans are still suffering. Shall we wait until they fb almost wearing the pages? They do not yet have capacity for that.

You know how Ivory Coast has been of late. Nigeria is often in tension. Kenya and Nigeria have elections in 2012. The oppression being fought in Egypt exists in almost all of Afrika’s over 55 countries. South Afrika, Botswana and Ghana are a few exceptions and yet you will hear about them more in the media. One may choose to see a neat division of the so called Afrika South of the Sahara but one should like to take less for granted. People Power as witnessed in the Phillippines has influenced if not always in action many processes in search of freedom in the world. Wikileaks before this, our own progress in communication in the last decade should wake us up to a different world. The last to understand will always be the oppressors but history is not on their side.

Let us not look at what is happening within narrow lenses. We cannot afford to. Many analysts in the West and other thinkers worried and worried about this being Al Queda at work before waking up to the realisation that this is about the peoples’ undying love for freedom as was in the days of Marting Luther King Jr in the One Million March in America.

Egyptians had to keep reminding all that there were Christians and Muslims on the streets. I pity those of us who would remain narrow. I pity the USA and Europe if they fail to see that the world, not just the Arab Middle East countries has changed. I pity them if they do not realise that there must be more solidarity today with the people of Eritrea rather than with the corrupt and overbearing leadership entrenched in present day Eritrea. I hope they can hear the heaviness and pain in some countries where they are still supporting terrible leaders even if it is because of fear of fundamentalists taking over. I hope those working for the release of writers and journalists in such lands- they are usually first victims- will see how much more they must work for better leadership if they are not just here to make careers on poor situations. The same goes for us, human rights activists.

The only way to go in order to also quell to some extent radical terror attacks is in fact that all the people get their freedoms back. It is easy to radicalise people who live in as dastardly conditions as we have seen have been existing in Egypt as we all just did normal business supporting with billions of dollars and snorkeling as usal at Sharma el Sheikh.

Things should not be the same again after this.

Does the world care today about what is happening in Ethiopia with regard to freedom? What kind of power is the West supporting there? Have we not just seen the au, which from the day it has decided to support Kenya against the ICC we now will only spell in small letters, is incredibly supporting impunity? If the UN endorses this decision we shall also call it the un.

January 2011 in Tunisia and Egypt has been not just as many have been saying, history staring at us from facebook, twitter and the TV screen but also a great reminder to the so called world powers that life has changed in the world. It does not matter that China has supressed demonstrations in support of Egypt. It does not matter that a Nobel Prize recipient is locked up in China, freedom will surge in peoples minds and hearts and freedom will ultimately win. Don't right and wrong sides to be identified so that you can stand,be part of the change we all yearn for.

Office of the President suggests isolation of HIV Positive Kenyans

2011-01-31T12:15:00.000-08:00

Thickening stigma, Hon. Mathenge says:“Isolate HIV infected people!”

Madam Minister, have you forgotten this?

http://www.kenwa.org/index.php

and....

“Angel died last Saturday. She was 18. I was her doctor since she was four.Technically, Angel died of an AIDS-related illness. The truth is, Angel died from the stigma related to HIV.Angel contracted the disease at birth from her mother. With today’s medicine, she could have lived a long, productive life.But many people, including her family members, made her feel dirty because of HIV. She felt rejected.In shame, she refused to take her medication. Consequently, her HIV progressed to AIDS. The untreated AIDS led to her death.” http://dcentric.wamu.org/tag/hivaids/

It is a cause of deep concern that the minister for Special Programs, ( Office of the President) in Kenya today, 31st. January 2011, has displayed little understanding of her work by calling for the isolation of HIV/Aids infected people. But Esther Murugi Mathenge is on facebook and is an educated woman. What is afoot here? Hear us:

http://dcentric.wamu.org/tag/hivaids/

“Minister Mathenge, stigma kills people and spreads HIV/Aids.” Yours is a sensitive docket which depends on the Office of the President of Kenya. We need to know how policy may be affected by what the minister has said to Kenyans.”

The minister needs to know that there is much hunger in Kenya and elsewhere in the world for people to be accepted as who they are. Women, children, sick, old, young or of whatever ethnic origin need people who believe in all of them as human beings. Have you forgotten that there are many who are killed for being albino for example?

The minister needs to know that this is a crass and thoughtless statement in a country where people are trying to hard to deal with this pandemic. Nothing about HIV/Aids should be taken lightly. Ministers and all leaders have a grave duty to talk more about HIV/Aids but constructively. They should also test and let the public know their status.

She has destroyed the work of many years with her statement. This kind of talk was last heard from president Moi. Building the HIV stigma decreases the work of prevention and treatment of HIV. It makes people fear testing. The minister should be ecouraging people to reflect on their sexual behaviour with regard to HIV/Aids and not trying to behave like Adolf Hitler.

Stigma and discrimination are the main obstacles to HIV/Aids prevention and care. http://www.hivaidsstigma.org/ .

The anti stigma initiative urges that HIV positive people be supported. Others in the world “seek to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination to protect the human and social assets of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS through funding and researching promising approaches that can be readily applied by other national and community organizations.”

Kenya has made an amazing effort to tackle HIV over the years. In the 80s and 90s, or since the HIV virus was identified, Kenyan doctors and journalists boldly gave information on the disease. The late Achola Ndinya was among doctors who worked with IAVI and later KAVI along with to find a cure for HIV Aids. It was they who mapped and identified some women in the slums who although exposed to the virus and often, were not succumbing to infection.

Where has Esther Murugi the Special Programmes minster been for so long, that she fails to remember all the discussions that have happened regarding stigma that she should suddenly call for the locking up of HIV infected people? Does she not at least remember Assunta Wagura’s diary? Esther Murugi, the former Gender Minister worries me because she is a graduate of my Alma mater. Does power make us this blind? Is it possible that Esther all this time has not understood that we are all either infected or affected by HIV?

The Special Programs has made a terrible statement which some have termed as the most retrogressive statement of the times. Before her, only Moi. Hon. Mathenge should not only apologize in all channels of information in Kenya -and to Kenyans on facebook and all people- but also speak for hours on HIV Aids and those infected the care and love that they need.

(Violence and peace) BBC TV- The Doha Debate on Free Expression

2011-01-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

It is disturbing that we are fighting about beliefs more and more in today's world. The history of violence is as long as human history it seems. There are different types of violence and always one type or the other is at work. The history of peace, however, seems to be what most human beings seek and love. There is so much conviction that peace is and was before and should be in the future that the engagement of those who love peace has most impressed the world.

It is possible to understand and even forgive humans who fought over food or who fight over food because they might die in the next few days unless they eat. All living things fight to live, but the fight does not have to be bloodshed and the taking of lives even at this level. Reason must lead. It is not possible to understand why violence is more about what one believes and knows and wishes to express. Today we fight those who are passionate about ideas, those who speak against what some embrace in their faiths. This makes little sense. It is disappointing that this is what engages todays world so much. We have very urgent problems to deal with in the world. We have many humans who will follow reason, speak and write but in may countries, they are endangered.

Looking at the levels of intolerance we are experiencing today, especially because of lack of understanding with regard, for example with religions, intolerance in political views, one is inclined to feel that what we are fighting about has changed very much along the years. Human beings have often conceived God as someone on whose behalf they have to fight. This is a huge misconception as God is not powerless. Some will argue that today's tensions, bloodsheds are still based on material resources.. yet it is more clear that this is happening only in some lands. Some will argue that people can sit, eat or be fed... and get some education without being free to express themselves.

Last month's Doha Debate on BBC TV was very interesting. The house believes that education without free expression is useless. What was interesting was to see how close the vote was. 53% for the motion 47% against. The proposers won.

There are many people who are serious in their work, who are enlightened and learned and who do not see the contradiction of the fact that a world which lives more and more in the world of ideas... with so many ways for exchanging views is yet to be convinced that freedom of expression is a fundamental if not basic- as in food and oxygen- need. How is it possible not to see free expression as the greatest contributor to peace?

I think we misunderstand peace. Peace is often seen as something big out there that is sitting and waiting to be taken. Peace is not without us today working more and more on the mental barriers that keep us from opening up and embracing thoughts that we might not be familiar with.

I want to see the day that no one will use religion or a different point of view to kill. This might become the only proof that we ever got educated.

Roses for Taseer

2011-01-12T00:49:00.000-08:00

I saw them roses of the world
They bloomed and grew in many colors
White, black, pink and not only red.
Roses bloomed in the world,
the whole world.
No one threw them.
They turned in an instant
and became roses for Taseer.
Roses for voice.
Roses for Taseer.
Roses. Roses. Roses.
Roses for Taseer.
Roses
White
Black
Blue
Indigo
Pink
Roses
Roses, Roses for Taseer.
Roses
Rose.
They rose in all colours.

All red strewn petals fade.

The Road that always took me home took me to prison

2010-12-07T05:16:00.000-08:00

This case has lasted from:

2007.... 2008..... 2009....2010

It was strange but again not so strange how the road that always took me home took me to the cells for the first time with all of you. We must not lose our faith even though we are so scattered. Even though we felt so betrayed by some whom we expected to understand and be by our side even if not on our side.

http://fwambancfwamba.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/ersecuted-and-prosecuted-for-defending-hungry-kenyans/

A list of amazing photo-journalists in Kenya, Africa ... we owe them more...

2010-12-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

I have found an article I wrote last year that reminded me what amazing hands have held cameras in my part of Africa! They risked life and limb to bring our eyes a thousand words in a photo. We owe them so much. On International Press Freedom Day (2009)we remembered them in a special way as Ramadhan launched his wonderful documentary- Uncovering the media.(Kenya) I published this article in the Daily Nation then.

No slight.. Please add missing names of photographers you know in comments to this article if you can. I notice it is so hard to find Kenyan Photographers on the web, you have to know the name first. There is facebook page but it only has a few active members of the group.

I am writing about photographers here from the point of view of the documentary "Uncovering the media", Ramadhan's life and the launch function.

From the Brave and ever inspiring Mo Amin, (Mohammed Amin) there has been a silent file of keen dedicated photo-journalists in Kenya and beyond ...I have great memories of meetings with some of them. When I google them in general and find them not on one good page from their papers, I wonder what their main media owes them in other ways. Read below an analysis on Uncovering the media by Ramadhan Khamis who has made many documentaries including one on the Nubi of Kenya. For some reason, reality has it that we owe so much to these Muslim brothers of ours.. and the others and sisters of course are no less.. but I must say this is impressive.

Mohamed Amin (Mo Amin, (died on duty on a hijacked plane on his way back from Ethiopia)

Yusuf Wachira
Yahya Mohamed
Baraka Karama
Noor Khamis

Rebecca Nduko (attacked during work)

William Oile
Stephen Mudiari
Mathenge Joseph
Paul Waweru
Joy Wanja
Peterson Githaiga
Arthur

Jacob Otieno
Liz Gichuki (attacked during work by City Council Police or askaris)
Robert Gicheru (cheated death but was hit on the forehead during the post poll violence of 2007/8)
and award winning... Boniface Mwangi

Hos Maina (the late, shot during work)
Dan Eldon (died serving )
Brian Tetley (died serving)
Anthony Macharia (died serving) (sound)

I was a special guest at the launch of Uncovering the media in May 2009

Uncovering the Media- Kenya

By Philo Ikonya

Behind Uncovering the Media- Kenya, a documentary a good audience watched to celebrate World Press Freedom before a discussion with an eminent panel is the strikingly unassuming photojournalist Khamis Ramadhan.

The documentary available on CD from Communityimages was hailed as a remarkable biography of media in Kenya.

It brings out the big questions on women in the media and the deprivation of local content as Kenyans are assailed by soaps and other features from the North and South.

Essential issues for development of media and unresolved legal matters that keep journalists checked as the fourth estate are addressed in Uncovering the Media.

Bantu Mwaura, a lecturer and poet interviewed in the documentary decries our alienation from our selves through our own media: “If we see so little of Africa and we are in Nairobi, what do the others get?” he poses passionately. The documentary rages on about what photojournalists do not get for all their good work.

Ramadhan is more than self effacing in gatherings and corridors believing that the images will speak if they are allowed to. Followed up for this interview at his office, it was hard to get the man to talk about himself.

All his family; wife Mariam and teenagers daughter Rahma and son Ruhullah, sat in the office doing different things but playing an active role in general discussion. My son and I have walked over to Chester House to meet Ramadhan Khamis on this Sunday afternoon. My son keeps nudging me since I had told him I had come to meet a Very Important Person and that is why I was ready to interview him on a Sunday afternoon. After that, I told him we could go for a walk.

Ramadhan’s family. I had to ask if this has got anything to do with one not praising themselves as a religious tenet and Mariam seemed to agree.

Khamis is a good example of those who journalists who put their life in the line in what is becoming the tradition started by the great Mo Amin.

The list is long: Yusuf Wachira, Yahya Mohammed and Noor Khamis. A number of such photojournalists have passed on but not leaving us, like Mo, because of their indelible images.

The late Hos Maina, Soundman Antony Macharia, Dan Eldon, Wallace Gichere, died in the line of duty; and the latter as an unforgettable icon of the struggle Kenya has had for media freedom.

But Khamis’s vision in life, “It is better to die on our feet than to live on our knees,” words of Kenya’s foremost freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi, reveals that there are photojournalists with a mission deep and sacred. These words emblazoned on a wall hanging greet you as you sit down in his office.

The click of the camera and the image we get preceded by such a vision are important in the struggle to live freedom.

Prof. Nyutho eloquently explained that these photojournalists and others in life discover and use their passion, not just brain, early in life.

Prof. Nyutho explained to younger Kenyans who are losing out on knowing their heroes who are not feted locally how Mo shook the earth with his images from Ethiopia, revealing the ravaging famine of the times there. Mo died in a plane crash on his way from Somalia in 1994.

All these photojournalists and others have, like Ramadhan contributed a lot, without expecting accolades and honors. But indeed they deserve them.

A fine example through and through Ramadhan like a number of self-taught photojournalists and cartoonists holds two awards one received in 2003 and the other in 2004 for his work.

Indeed, Mariam is right, Khamis appears to be at the service of some higher goal and patiently immolating his talent for our good.

Ramadhan nearly escaped recognition in the hall where the documentary Uncovering the Media was launched save for that the MC, the renowned writer and dramatist John Sibi Okumu had to blow the whistle, calling not just Ramadhan but also all those who participated in the making of the documentary for introductions.

The fast paced and well choreographed moving story told in 31 mins and 30 seconds, about Media Persons baring themselves begins with a touching account from local photojournalists.

The whole documentary becomes one big picture which if you agree one photograph can be worth a thousand words, becomes infinitely valuable.

A caption – Wallace Gichere died a few weeks after the completion of this documentary- flashes below Gichere’s image on his bed, explaining his tragedy.

Gichere is interviewed extensively in the documentary which he did not live to watch. He is the photojournalist who was thrown down from a fourth floor flat by Kenyan security forces and he got paralysed waist down.

Finally awarded money for damages; what will linger forever in his now silent mind and on our pained consciences, are the man’s pain and struggle to break the silence on his plight when the money awarded for damages was not forthcoming. Indeed he died fighting for he had to stage a hunger strike before he could get the damages awarded him delivered.

The images in the documentary will remain with you; the same way as photojournalists tell us images of pain, death and suffering remain with them and always revisit them before they go to sleep daily.

Stephen Mudiari’s call for counseling for journalists is not misplaced. One is touched for one by one, from Liz Gichuki; who tells of her beatings by City Council askaris to Jacob Otieno; whose pain is so alive on every nerve of his face will leave you in tears. Otieno broke down during the interview upon recalling photos he took at an accident scene ten years ago.

You ask, before you see Rebecca Nduku describe the pain a mother feels taking a photo of a hungry child out there, another hungry child, how journalists go so unnoticed in our society sometimes much in the same way as the hungry and silent child, voiceless and surrounded by cold stones and an empty bowl; startled by pain whose image they bring to us.

You ask many questions as Robert Gicheru narrates long moments in the gutter after a bullet skimmed his forehead. You see the dark days, and still the darkness remains. To the present, photojournalists who have done amazing work remain in background their merits benefiting others.

Baraka Karama’s brought Barack Obama’s Kenyan connections to the limelight but was shunted aside when Obama became known for who he is with a media house claiming the discovery.

The history of photojournalists just as that of correspondents, as Oloo Janak of the Correspondents Association says in the documentary has been one of misery thus far.

Beyond that, the documentary also raises all the fundamental questions facing our media today. From poor pay to lack of transport making reporters ready recipients of transport money from politicians and NGOs which could easily be abused to the Books and Periodicals Act.

Why should we tolerate a colonial prescription for the execution of a million shillings bond, came the well needed indictment of the law by David Matende. He queries too the unjust Freedom of Information which still protects government secrets.

Indeed, Mburu Muchoki bore the brunt of this law last year as he languished in jails. Just why have we allowed the imprisonment of the entire alternative media calling it gutter press?

Just how do such bonds leave room for people to create themselves jobs in the media and be free to express themselves without watching over their shoulders? Isn’t this already an abuse of freedom in a poor developing country? The questions shot from every corner in the debate that ensued after the show.

Why does Kenya, a country that led with community FM radios go so much for profit driven media neglecting this medium which could educate us out of poverty? Grace Githaiga, a community media trainer asks.

Women in the documentary speak of sexual exploitation albeit shyly; one of them charmingly winks to say yes, there is sexual harassment and sexual promotions! The wink calls for stronger voices on issues. But watch that space, Khamis is not done with the screen and other issues ranging from elections, violence and the legal issues that had the late Walter Gichere on the cross for so long.

Letter to Raila Odinga after he fails to uphold minorities in Kenya

2010-11-29T06:19:00.001-08:00

Sunday 28th Nov 2010

To: Raila Odinga: The Prime Minister of Kenya

From: Philo Ikonya ( A Kenyan citizen)

I know that KiberaKENYA has been seen to change a little of late but - I do not wish to stigmatise those of us who live in such inhuman conditions - in more than slum cases most Kenyans also in rural areas live in terrible conditions too. I know it is still not possible to say that the high level of rape, incest and this includes defilement have gone dramatically down from as reported by (Lacey. 2001 ) in a study on combatting Aids. I am greatly disturbed by your priorities as vice president and would be President of Kenya. Lacey and most people have found rape, murder, incest are prevalent crimes there. I also know from experience that many people in Kibera suffer police brutality.

You have just given an order as the Prime Minister of Kenya that any homosexual men and women found engaging in sex must be arrested by the police. For me it is also important that I did not hear the words that after arrest people must be charged in court in 24 hours. We know that police in Kenya have often disappeared people after arrest. I am of the opinion that to a reformed and a reforming police force, you ought to quote the Criminal Code and the Constitution, not your office.

I know too that police are most likely not to find any man in the circumstances with another man nor any woman since already their matters are so stigmatised in Kenya.. ( you heard the crowd roar and this time there was no one to answer you, "Unga!" like that time when you were there and the people brought you back to basics from your excellent ability to hype them). But I know that police will arrest some poor innocent people in Kibera and in other places and tell them they are homosexuals, torture them and humiliate them as they do those whom they call prostitutes after arrest. When you left Kibera, there was more fear than the show of might and bravado that you saw in the early afternoon.

Since you have the power and the media and the umbrella of the AU and the UN, we are left trying to reason on how to make our Kenya a more humane society at the risk of being called all sorts of things and even not managing to live at home. It seems you are enjoying having the kind of police in place who tremble when politicians speak. The type who are promoted when they brutalise those who dare to say they want to and do defend human rights. You have opened another door for them to stigmatise human rights even before you answer to us why police and Kenyan intelligence have decided to lump human rights activists with those whom the nation fears and says they belong to proscribed sects. I still remember how many people rushed to your office and you received them when Oulo G.P. O Oulo and Oscar King'ara were shot dead on State House Road and you GAVE THEM HOPE. We know no one wears a sign of belonging to anything on their forehead and you also know that human rights are just that. HUMAN RIGHTS. I want to imagine that if your own child or relation were a homosexual you would not even know it and that if they were found by police.. strange thought... and let us just follow your mind, they would not even be arrested. I was told by police that when your child was driving without a licence (under age) and was in an accident at night, all they did was mention your name and the police left them alone. The kind of mentality you spoke from and the law in Kenya has always been against the poor and the ones without a name. Look how many they are.

The 3 000 disappearances of Kenyans ( Re: Philip Alston s Report) and the last five in Githurai, one extra-judicial killing in Mathare last week and one in Kisumu and the bodies found dumped in Lari and Kobatek are on my mind. The very recent violence in Kenya after the 2007 General election as documented by many and as in the Waki Report where it shows a high number of people were killed by Kenyan police is on my mind. The many Kenyans who never reach home in the evening, both women and men swooped for strange reasons until they pay bribes are on my mind. The many who tremble on their way home daily are on my mind.

Hitler is on my mind. Auschwitz is on my mind. The tall, blonde and blue eyed people.. are a story no one has forgotten.

Raila, you know who Kenyan police are. YOu also know what misused power is, you were in detention without trial under Moi.

Raila Odinga, the Boundaries Commission has is struggling on the verge of failure, the Kenya National Human Rights Commission is under stress for reasons you know well, the Committee for Implementation of the new constitution has not been set up. The work you have to do is laid out in the agreement you signed on our behalf during post poll violence. It is not part of your office to tell police what crimes to prosecute we do have a code... and even it is not friendly to all minorities and especially the poor and even if it penalises for sexual offences as defined therein so far no one has misued it the way you have done last Sunday. You are aware of what has happened in recent years in Uganda and even if it does not matter who he is and what you think of him, you are not unaware of Obama s reactions on the same. But you spoke for East Africa.

I remember you got the baptism of immersion, submerged in water by two preachers in two churches. In St. Stephen s Church on Jogoo Road you had a ceremony in which Ndolo then aspiring as always to represent Makadara. Before then you were an atheist and not that I really care what faith you confess now, if you do not mind my openness. I only want to remind you that you use the church and the church uses you whenever the two of you need one another for a purpose. After that, you dump each other. The church tries other politicians. The people remain with Raila the enigma.

But this is what a typical politician does in Kenya.... you sacrifice minorities, beliefs, religions, families and many, many people to get to power and you stay in power in the same way.

I was just remembering that

During the constitution campaign you wore green ith Kibaki and that was good. The people could not come for you on the basis of religion as some had in the last election... mind you, I did not side with them and Raila, the only time I felt I should never again try to politic in my village is when they said things about you that I will never say to anyone. I stopped them at my own risk. If I repeated such now, I would be no better, I would be tearing again a wound so unhealed. I felt so bad that you, then the minority in that conversation and so dignified on my mind as ever, even if I did not go there physically with you in spite of some calls from Mumbi Ngaru, were suffering this kind of thing stigmatisation, so neatly sown by the government. Would you turn against another minority so, now?

I know that you now need fundamentalists and so called believers who fought so strongly against this constitution for many reasons. It is time to use faiths and dump them again. I would like very much that you consider your accountability to all Kenyans. If you have an amendment to make to the current constitution, you and those who believe the same know how to go about it. To give us a new Kenyanness better than the one that is all the time shredded in us you might lead the people in following the constitution.

"Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said homosexuals should be arrested, saying homosexual behavior will not be tolerated in the east African country.
"Any man found engaging in sexual activities with another man should be arrested," Times LIVE quoted Odinga as saying at a rally on Sunday, in the Nairobi town of Kibera. "Even women found engaging in sexual activities will be arrested."

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/300828#ixzz16g5Df1ll"