ON THE SPOT

Fighting Terrorists; Kenya

2014-04-14T16:26:00.003+03:00

On Friday 6th, April 2014. I went to Gikomba, passing through Eastleigh in those number 28s with their music, and uncanny touts…. Looking out the window as the driver skirted the many potholes and miniature valleys and hillocks, I found myself looking at young Somali men, and big bou bou clad women, shapely girls, boys, youthful sprints. I suspected every backpack of the hurrying pedestrians; people minding their business, trying to ask myself which of them could be the terrorist, which planning to carry out a terror activity. I was gripped by an apprehensive fear on what could be, what could happen out of the noisy, chaotic bustle of this ever growing, people-burgeoning-place, the rising sky crappers, the roads under construction, the bust sewer lines. The blossoming of investment in an environment that also bears the dents of neglect.

Eastleigh has always awed me…the way things work themselves out, the making of money in chaos, the flowing billions, and how people took an easy stand on life. The routine way life could form a predictable pattern. Make money in the self same way from day to day, but with changes taking form every day, all around, the flexibility with which change could be embraced. From the Ethiopian barbers on 9^th street and their excellent shaving services to the goods from Dubai. Young men here understand the dynamics of the international trade; they know which country manufactures the best khaki products, which country delivers on the suits, the jeans and everything textile and in turn Eastleigh has learnt how to dress Kenyans. With the legitimacy of most businesses comes the need for other black market goods, young kikuyu men dealing expensive phones stolen from the rich Kenya, newly used laptops, silver chains and gold teeth, the easy way of transferring money from the western world to Africa in hidden offices among those cloth stores lining the many malls. There is no black and white in Eastleigh; everything flows into the other seamlessly. Good into Evil, refugees into citizens, terrorists have used this to plan their covert agendas.

Eastleigh is a center for the rebirth of predominantly Somali and Ethiopian immigrants in Kenya, they own each of the Kenyan progress, and they now share in the struggles and problems of their “new home” Kenya. They protest when the government passes laws that are not realistic, they rejoiced when KDF went into Somalia. They trusted their lives with Kenya, a new place, a new reality. But on Saturday 6^th April, 2014 the Kenyan government woke up and decided to server that trust and silent understanding that the Somali people have managed to learn to live with. The soldiers embarked on erasing the process of remaking dreams in a whole new world by vulnerable mothers, children and young people looking for refuge. The sentimentalism of home, of memories that loomed large like shadows of a distant sun became live again, thawing the networks of neurons in their memories to rekindle the spark of sunny days in their own homes and conjuring images of dark days, hunger, lost brothers and sisters, lost dreams and hopes.

On Saturday 7^th April 2014 I was on Juja road going into town as early as 7am. The jam began just around Moi Air Base, after a whole hour of waiting in the slow moving jam; we came upon the first roadblock. Police Check. Identity cards were being checked for each passenger in the Matatu. Pedestrians as well were arbitrarily being asked to produce their ID cards. I am sitting and waiting for my turn to show my ID, all the while acting sanely Kenyan and trying to reach down to my patriotic side. The people of Eastleigh are having a tough time both from the fear that hung's over their heads and now the police.

The Kenyan government has almost always embarked on superficial responses to existential threats of terror in a self defeating way. The government has as repeatedly shown by terrorist activities embarked on symptomatic treatment, PR gimmick and hogwash promises to stem out terrorists, to stop terrorism in its tracks.

Eastleigh has been a victim of the terror attacks; it has suffered greatly from the acts of the marauding terrorists that hide among the many faces of generosity and trusting Somalis. The government actions are reactionary. This is purely a short term plan formulated by some myopic goon in the Ole Lenku circus of security clowns.

Sunday 7^th April, 2014, it’s a brightly sunny day, I am in a cyber shop in Marsabit, checking my mail, no worries of police harass, no worries of terror because in “far off” places of Kenya like this one, insecurity is a major problem but not on a level of terrorism. Communal fighting and inter-tribal wars are part of the growing up in Marsabit but it is not as scary as terrorism. I am waiting for the page to load. Then in walks these three kids, boys between 10 and 13 dressed in brown Kanzus and varied jumpers over them. A curious perversity makes me watch the kids, see if they are here to log into Facebook or whether it’s some online game they want to play. The slightly older one hit Google and types in “Ibrahim Rogo” and when the search result returns he dutifully clicked on the Images under the result tab. The pictures that came up on the screen were very graphic, blood, police, guns and corpses. More shocking was the little boy’s mystery of the faces on the search result. He is pointing to the pictures and says

“this is Samantha’s (white widow’s) husband”

“this is Aboud Rogo’s brother”

“this is Masjid Musa”

“this is how Aboud Rogo was shot…this is his body in the car”

I am in shock! How does he know all that? I lean back and secretly snap a few pictures of them on my phone. And ask them how I could also access those pictures. The youngest boy excitedly says

“There are so many others you can find….type Samir Khan”

I do it and he says “click on images”

Voila!!

Samir Khan is all over my screen. Posing with an AK47 gun.

I look at the boys. One is sucking his thumb. They are glued to the screen.

Something just ticks in my mind. I finish what I am doing and watch the kids. One suggests that they Google search “illuminatti” the older one says

“it’s the same thing as yesterday”

They paid and left. I ask the lady at the counter if those children frequent her cyber. She says. They were here yesterday and the day before.

This is not an isolated incidence., this is how children and young people are radicalized and in Marsabit they are so many. About 58 young boys and girls from Marsabit are purported to have joined the Al-shabab, there are many sympathizers of Al-shabab in Marsabit.

If the Kenyan police and government want to do something on fighting Terrorism in Kenya. They should start from the grassroots. Not undertaking such PR and superficial responses as the Eastleigh case.

While KDF is fighting the al-shabab in Somalia, young people are being radicalized in their back yard, taught to grow up with a flawed outlook on life, community, religion and their lives.

Images and pictures have a lasting impression on the mind.

Whoever controls the images controls your self-esteem, self-respect and self-development. Whoever controls the History controls the vision". - Dr. Leonard Jeffries

On GAY and African reactions!

2014-04-11T11:32:00.003+03:00

Desmond Tutu once said “Kenya is a sexually dysfunctional” society, I was in form four, naïve. At the time I took the statement as a just another foreigner trying to act as an expert. Well, even in the early 2000s, sexuality in Kenya was a liberalized sector to the extent of Tutu calling it Dysfunctional. Only one other time have I read about such a bold statement; made by Taban Lo Liyong when he said East Africa is a “desolate literary desert”. Such sweeping generalization, bold statements like Tutu’s invokes a strong response, it looks insulting. So many years later, today I have the mind and exposure to say a little something on Tutu’s remark.

Just the other month a lot of hate, bile, rancor, passionate banter, the identity of Africa was on the same line proclaimed from the rooftops of conservative corners, the epistolic pages, apostolic proclamations of the sinful nature of a foreign sin in all African landscape; men of god across our land awed congregations with profound sermons on ‘pure sin’, “a naked sin”…now don’t ask me if sin has different degrees of purity or anything like that. This naked sin as a local pastor put it is dependent on several African states passing anti-gay laws. Some of us who shouted for the gay movement listened over and over to macklemore’s SAME LOVE and followed all our support with paradoxical harsh tags #NoHomo lest we are taken to be gay or some effeminate wuss!! We said ‘be and let be’. While the blood breathing conservatives, former altar boys with Eucharistic and Sadaka loyalty, church choir, bible study mums and Dads, the pan Africans, Die hard Homo sapiens, overnight Bio-experts explained how the human body is a perfect machine that never confuses its functions, how each cell, each organ should work for the rest on and on and on. On the other hand the believers, said God, the mighty perfect God made man without a “flaw”. They reduced all the dreams and ambitions and people in the gay circles to just one word “flawed”, defying God. They lived a regimented biblical life.

Enter Gay debate and the high minded libertarians with their equally high sounding tendency for fanciful proclivities instantly rearranged the extent of their beliefs on liberalism, they donned morality gowns and walked like monks, they ran from their idyllic beliefs and became irrationally emotive. They changed color and quoted the bible. Intellectualism died, libertarianism died, they died. If it is all about morality, bible, Jesus and pastor’s profound sermons then why should we be blind to other equally “immoral incidents of the devil ruining the African purity”, take any incident from our national archive of sordid subjects; for instance the narcissistic exhibitionism on TV, Maina Kageni on morning drive where we wash the dirty linens of our “immorality”…

“My wife is so dirty she wears my under pants” said one regular caller…Mwalimu King’angi has a database of them…

“I can have sex with 10 other men without my husband noticing”

Why shouldn’t we, in our practiced responses and reactions to reoccurring sins, then find ways of incorporating “this other sins” into the national prayer breakfast as a special prayer item? Basically, let’s not be a nation of multiple moralities and selective moralities.

The other group of the clenched fist, nostalgically naïve, little “Shaka’s”, “Kintu”, “the true African”, “Django” the young African who came running chest thumbing, a little late for the party, when all was almost done and the die had been cast, woke from little villages inside their heads, looked the other way from the reality of their own lives and said

“Oh mother Africa, what cant they try to do to you? Why can’t they live you alone…? Oh mother Africa…Now they want to confuse you and let men have sex with other men….oh God...America…. Amerikah… A!!-Merry!!-Car!!….they heap all unaccepted cultures from A-Merry-Car and ship it to Africah!! …now they want to change our mother land to A-freaker!! Unacceped!! No…! no way….Go Museveni…the big finger in the American face…..Mugabe the only African with balls to face America, tell them this is Un-African!! This is purely an American….western….Euro way of doing things….it is anywhere else but African!!

These newly conscious defendants of Africa, the legion, true sons, the shirtless, well muscled, village goons, skinny, sure footed, spectacle donning, suited and speeding in university halls, idle sitting in government offices, church goers and bible worshiping people stood up, held hands, watched the setting sun and sang a new creed…..they clenched fists, raised it high, faced the sun and cried to mama Africa, the big woman in the world.

They just said this Gay thing is un-African. Not from Africa. Not for African pleasures. Not by Africans.

Shy minds fail to contend and transcend such nakedness, their imaginations reach a point where it just stops….naked men, the ass and a hard phallus and even when it breaks itself from the imaginative stop sign… they turn their face the other way. This free thinking and wondering imagination can’t be honest it should be sanctioned and subjected to suspicion. Like amateur liars many distanced themselves from all this same sex issue…Men having sex with men!! If it sounds bad, then it must be bad, if pastor says it is unforgivable then God speaketh; don’t think. Oppose. Don’t reason. Just Oppose. Let your imagination not transcend the disgusting perversion. Naked men. Eeeeuww!! End of reason. Beginning of argument. Passionate anger. End of the debate. It is Un-African.

you must read this UN-AFRICAN WHATEVER YOU MEAN!!

UNAFRICAN- whatever you mean

2014-03-25T16:42:00.003+03:00

Let’s be done with the gays and their supporters and haters for a while. Let’s think Africa. This confusing land, the concept of Africa and see it as many see it. When we say this or that is Un-African do we mean that……..?

Africa is an inviolate space that we ran to, it turns to an abstracted blanket that rivets our sentimental certainty about something trite - in that space of joining hands and condemning differences Africa becomes a seamless canvas that links the continent into one thing- the same thing- same mores, same belief, same attitude almost the same mental frame and approach to everything. Africa becomes the ritualized strokes of a painters brush, uniformly same color. No nuances. No disconnect. Mandela is Mugabe and Mugabe is Mandela. Our bad and our good all work for the better of our land…our mama land.

2.

Africa is the end of imagination. What we can’t understand, what we don’t want to understand. Anything that bursts the bubbles of our “African” beliefs and interests (whatever those may be) must be foreign, from out there in the world, the ugly world that is out there in the East, the orient, the West, America, Europe. We pull whole continents into our simple individualistic and differing worlds. We carry the continent with such simple beliefs that if me and my friends, my family and my community don’t practice and believe in this or that other ish then it is out-African. We will coin terms to show how it is from far off. From an alien’s nest-Other places.

3.
Mother Africa- mother land is not a land anymore, not a geo-region anymore but an idea. An Idea that is too simple and basic in its outset that it lacks originality and the ability to mutate into something complex. Africa becomes the concept of aping others, copying and pasting others…other civilizations. It becomes hard to believe in this deep held idea of Africa that we can have home grown murk, homemade sin, which can make the worst of foreign murk and sin look like child’s play. In that idea-Afrique an African becomes a sinless deaf, blind, dumb holiness and in Culture’s word ‘Humble people who see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil’…I’m an humble African!!

4.
Africa is a linkage to our past- to our ancestors, it is an identity and when some people embrace anything that is new and modernly “imported” then this becomes a betrayal of its people, the violation of a sentimental purity. Defiling Africa as handed down by our pious, perfect past and ancestors. We benumb ourselves to the new generation Africa holding the cultures in contempt. We fail to acknowledge the digital post modern Cities and problems that African’s are part of. When I hear this is un-African then I hear; - I’m resistant to change, I wear conservatism on me and wish to pass it to my future progeny like an important heirloom.

5.
Africa becomes hubris, moral superiority, the saint in a morass filled world, a sinful, ungodly, shetani run world. We are holding on to a past fading fast, a fire whose warmth and heat is slowly ebbing out, a past long gone – refusing to believe that the adolescent stroking his penis in front of the mirror with a picture of a beautiful face- African, American or a news paper clipping of a photo shopped face was not made in Africa or that “queer” flamboyance by that saloon working sassy man- or the trans-gender boy-girl calling hotels asking them to accommodate people whose sexuality is not clear cut into male or female but an intersection of both…people like him/her.

I wish I could lift my clenched fist, face the setting sun, set my jaws and cry out to “mama Africa”- fight back the tears and say “they will try violating you, mama- But I am here…I will die first”

The world is what it is. No point detaching oneself and acting morally superior. Dear Young African, next time before lapsing into those un-African litanies kindly consider that Africa is so disconnected. The uniformity that you are looking for is non-existent.

Whatever limits of your imaginative faculties please try removing yourself from the multitudes, instead of drawing them into your own realm of fetishes. Whatever your quirky fanatism or deeply guarded beliefs kindly stop invoking such un-resurrect words as Culture, African purity.

KISUMU- A Glimpse

2014-03-16T15:32:00.001+03:00

The transport system in western Kenya and Nyanza has long ago broken down and is in shambles- both its hustle and bustle – an ancient primordial one and in the new way which all things ineffective and slow i.e. service delivery has come to be regarded in Kenya- Kisumu was more an analogue city than its desired opposite-the Digital post modern hub of the great lakes region!

I was sited cooped on a “sambaza” suffocating from the stifling heat inside a fourteen sitter that now carried at least 20 people; waiting for the tout to conduct his calculations- get his cash from the brokers- wait again as the two carried out other calculations moving from passenger to passenger asking how much each had paid, hurriedly jotting at the back of a receipt book- the whole process taking almost a whole hour from arrival to departure by which time you were already tormented mentally- being packed very close together, with all the sweat, the omena smell from somewhere or a smelly armpit right in your face.

Kisumu city in 2013 is a clumsy boy whose growth and progress has been clipped by an egoistic approach to life- to the simple and finer details, it has succumbed slowly- it clung to its past and made its present in many aspects a murky affair- in business the clumsy boy loomed large- fisher folk do not just abandon their riverbank lifestyles and become instant success in trade- its ego impedes the enterprising nature needed. This is pardonable. Indians, the descendants of coolies, railway laborers are doing wonderful running the supermarkets, hard wares, quick food joints, bookshops and fancy hotels while the Somalis, going by two broad names Moha with a raised inflection on the -Ha and Abdi with an extra i, supply and compete amongst themselves in selling china made electronics while their hooded women, sitting inside big bou bous and Ninja headgear like miniature mobile tents- dash from one joint to another seeking “change” or an item urgently needed by a customer. Watching them run their businesses occasionally shouting an incomprehensible order to the lanky aides hanging around, enticing any potential customer with subtle pleas “aisee jeans…apti….shatti….smart….warriah…bei special” Is a funny performance- these part is a demarcated Somali territory! Garissa lodge it is called!

Kisumu as a city has its elements of backwardness- stark villages loomed and hovered around the excesses of the city- in the exaggerated urbanites. The bravado filled younglings running the streets. The city is in a tight traditional embrace with its village ancestry- the fodder on which it thrived. The matatus are the cord that mark the embrace- the cord that feed the city with the village fodder.

The rural parts has its finer share of these hangovers- remnants of rebel Christians- those early churches set up in the colonial days by native priests are thriving- while life is dreary in the villages on weekdays, it becomes frenzied on Sundays with all the true, Africanized, Christian cultic movements- the uniformed groups of drummers with flagged forerunners their pennants raised high and in diverse colors of red, green and yellow. The congregations with their elaborate church dresses run along- in slight jog timed by the drummers pace. Churches like these mushroomed with astonishing speed giving the region the more number of priests and bishops- aloof men of god, in an even and exaggerated tone of piousness.

I have lived here for four years as a student but never in my four years have I ever resolved the prejudices that slowly crept in and imposed itself on me- there was always a lurking uncertainty even at its most serene- a certain edginess to life; sudden surprises from the old man cursing in perfect English or the young touts modification of verbs and shouting “the car is wenting!!- Comic relief from the grandiose obsession with good grammar and big words that both the traditional Kisumu and its urbane side love to indulge in.

Strangers can spark conversations in seconds, diving into deep exchanges of worries, concerns and love, instantly finding quorum, bringing out the other side of the city- the bravado filled young men listening to the old accomplished “know-it-all” elders who spoke with that aura of yore- big English words!! Adjectives in Kisumu come in twos- each one with its own modifier.

Damn cold, triple looting, Collective amnesia, Self grandeur, Kisumu Dala, Raila Odinga, usual fundamentals, swaggerific Oliech, magnanimous Mariga, humongous wallet. The stereotype has merged into life; it has morphed into the truth. From the outside this looks like a performance that sustains an ego but looking keen and deep the intersection of this prided lies and grandiose self flattery is the reality.

This is the stuff that made Kisumu a city that stooped to a subtle belief of African inferiority, when people from “outside” pointed it out as the Lingual center of braggarts…the common response is-“but do we say?” Or “it’s our weakness” …soon enough the accused lapses into those facetious verbiage…

“You know we Luopeans, what I mean to say my dear friend, you know being a Luo is actually a lifestyle…” these has been repeated so often such that if any of these statement had long ago been made in jest, it now remained at an intersection of a norm and the hollowness of a shallow truth. You just do not know whether this is a mocking sarcasm or a tightly held belief.

Our Matatu is well on its way now. Passed Bandani, The Driver is busy skirting potholes, chavakali now, shouting a word of greeting, Lela, competing with other drivers for the lone passenger by the roadside, Daraja Mbili and talking, stopping by the traffic police and zooming off. The people inside the matatu are uncomplaining; more passengers board and squeeze us more. You don’t have an option. The matatu operators can do as they please. These problems in the matatu sector, I gathered, had not always been these way, ineffectively run a now, with the 2007 election and the subsequent 2008 violence; the kikuyu had lost a lot of investment and were forced to exit from Kisumu; many now fear a repeat of the loss they incurred. They are shy of returning but slowly a few daring ones have found their way back into the sector and may over the coming years transform the regions transport system once again.

I was almost in Maseno when a curios excitement happens. In her efforts at alighting an elderly woman had without intending or noticing she had knocked down bag and vanished into the dark night. The bag fell on the pavement shattering what seemed like a glass or a flask inside the bag; that’s when a lanky pastor who had until now been sitting silently spoke up. The pastor from one of those interior village churches – dini joroho or legio maria bishop wore a long turban, flowing robe and a big sword shaped cross; the man of god was numbered ISRAELI O.J right above the forehead on the white turban with red string, the letters sewn into the fabric with a carefulness but still coming out like the hand writing of a child unsure of the letters. Bishop Israeli O.J was now disturbed; he is craning his neck and calling out to the tout…

“Kondakta?” he called out calmly

“kondakta? Naulisa hiyo ni bag ya bisop?

“Conductor? I am asking if that’s the bishop’s bag that has fallen?”

Now the tout said it was and drove the calmness out of Israeli O.J who broke into a litany of accusatory laments

“kama mumevunja kikombe ya sacramenti iko sida”

‘if you have broken the sacrament’s cup, there is trouble”

‘I am saying if you have broken the sacrament’s cup you are in trouble.”

“nasema kama mumefunja kikombe ya sacramenti nyinyi iko kwa sida” he said this over and over until it became clear that the whole matatu was knee deep in some devilish shit…

These traditionalism and traditional approach to life in our cities and villages will endure.

This Aggression

2014-03-16T12:34:00.001+03:00

Its 5pm there is brightness and certain calm in the air-usual normalcy, a few cows by the side of the road graze unattended. I am with two colleagues from the office going home, talking, feeling accomplished for a day’s work done and I, particularly was feeling a little self important- I made a few Gs in a few hours. Ahead of us are these school children playfully going home- in that careless abandon children can take life, freedom. Then one of them bolts and runs towards us, at least it was in our direction, glancing back frequently with the others urging him to ran faster, then a man emerges hot in the boys pursuit, the man, barefoot, with clenched fists and a set jaw is determinedly catching up with the boy and noticing the hopelessness of his escape the boy crouched behind us and says

“Please uncle, stop him”

A scuffle happens and before we could restrain the barefoot man, he had landed two successive punches on the little boy, who was now faking a serious cry. Sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes.

“K&*mako, utajua leo mimi si babako” says the man, still seething from anger.

I am holding him. What is it bro? Is he your younger brother? What has he done? I am trying to administer a quick therapeutic talk-to-me-bro leave the kid alone dose.

‘Can you imagine he was throwing stones at me? From that end of the road to down there…he has been following me…I will kill him’ he says

But he is only a child, you just don’t punch children like that, report him to his parents, or the teachers. Do you know you can go to jail for this? We say, trying to instill some thoughts into this guy’s head. We lead him away as we go our way and a beautiful girl brings his shoes and takes over from us- his girlfriend.

“you are lucky….I would’ve killed you….I would have buried you’ he kept repeating, even as his girlfriend tried calming him.

The little boy too, now out of any immediate danger ignores the threats and in a bold move or a faked courage before his mates is throwing threats as well.

“You will see me”, he says “don’t you always pass next to our house? I will show you”

…………but beyond the strong language, clenched fist and the seething anger, the bare foot man is just is just one example in a series o increasingly unreasonable responses to incidences in today’s society’s; I bet you have many examples of a man who killed his wife, children and then hung himself or the other one who stubbed his 12 year old over the loss of 20shillings, or how a simple brawl turns into a shocking death. It is unlimited the number of cases these days that makes you ask “why?” why people are becoming increasingly irritable, increasingly complex with their emotional responses? What is it with all these aggressive outburst? A keen look at the trend will bring you into a clear pattern of releasing pent up anger, frustrations, fear, inadequacies which all breed a level of aggression that knows no bound.

Today the socio-economic and political demands on individuals breeds a higher degree of seriousness, hurrying, worrying, wanting, needing, seeking, a heighted level of feisty, touchy need for order, of predictable preciseness for things to work as we want them to be, for people to react as we want them to, for everything to aid us in meeting those demands placed on us by the environment in which we live. This seriousness, this hurrying limits our own interactions; breeds an heightened feeling of our self awareness, our own grandiose importance, the belief that our life’s purpose is of a greater than anyone’s, our ambition is the bigger call than others, the bubbles of our own beliefs becomes a guarded entity- a private space that needs no invasion, no exposure. This sanctions our, concerns, our actions towards each other- placing a ceiling on how far our intimacies in the society can go- how deep the roots of our love can go.

Everyone is in such a hurry, the hurry of life- hurrying home to catch the evening news, hurrying to meet a lover, hurrying to catch a bus, matatu, hurrying to catch up with a life that is increasingly, ever increasingly becoming elusive. Hurry because our fears do not allow us to look around- to take in our environment- our struggles may make the life of others such an inconsequential and trite affair- in a world growing more individualistic there is a new morass, an increasing need for normalcy, an obsession with predictability, for things to be in their place. In the hurry, amidst the shuffling feet, the fast moving bodies, thoughts, ideas, and feelings- we become blind to each other, we become numb to each other’s needs, concerns and feelings- we do things because we have to –we do not stop one moment to consider others- to entertain such a now nonsensical thing as the beauty of our environment, of otherness- paying for services, paying our bills, looking at each other but not seeing, the veiling our pain, hurt, hope, love, life, beauty, the murky, because these will make you vulnerable, weak, before other people. This morass makes your life; your needs and ambition make the life of other not to matter in the quest of our own struggle.

This makes others invisible, needless, objects, tools made for you to achieve your own needs.

THE MENTAL CAGES OF MARSABIT

2014-01-24T19:59:00.001+03:00

I am from a small town, Marsabit , it is a beautiful place, beautiful not in the sense of scenic aesthetics- you know the flowery lanes, clean streets, tarmacked roads and the sort but beautiful nonetheless. The beauty of small towns like Marsabit is its people, the smallness of their beliefs, the depth of their small convictions, the communal sense of being, the extent of their hate and love, their gossip, their pretenses, their lies and truths, laughter and tears- the simplicity of even their complex issues and Ideas, of daily living. The ease with which one can assume many things and just be okay, the seriousness with which even the slightest of things can be brought to life...one minute an issue is just a small murmur in the air, then it becomes a quasi-secret gossip to be whispered, then a few hours later, a full blown concern, truth with people swearing, phone calls are made, and confirmations sought…from the villages where the issue is rumored to have happened, then phone calls from the villages to the town to seek for more information.

A section of Marsabit Town

I am touched by the communal side of my small town. I have on more than one occasion been confronted by people, strangers who have without a care let me in on the darkest sides of their lives, their problems, their challenges and the gate pass into their lives, into their dreams and fears is just their knowing me…knowing somebody I know….knowing I am so and so’ s son, brother, lover, father, mother or niece; friendship is kindled ….with just your name you can have cousins, uncles, clansmen, in-laws materializing out of total strangers. This is community. You can walk into people’s homes and have free lunch, free bed and engage in a long talk with the members of this household and walk out as easy as you came. Or strike lifelong friendships by just a few minutes of talking.

Yet, this communal outlook is this town’s greatest challenge. There is something sinister that lurks behind the welcoming smiles, their too trusting loyalty, and the ease with which people can take in convictions and clasp it tightly with their lives. This loyalty, the undivided love that is offered too freely, it can be seen everywhere, in schools, in the market, in the village, in households- it has been passed on like an infectious flu- like something necessary, like fashion and any kind of dissent is frowned upon- if it’s against the communal think- keep it to yourself.

There is some mild sycophancy, an instantaneous unshakable fanaticism, rumors and speculations, spontaneous worries fly back and forth and in just a few minutes various versions, modified for various ears- the conspiratorial, the impressionable, the doubters, the fanatics each of them blowing like hot airs rife and palpably in the air! The fodder that feeds propaganda and in this way suspicion is bred, nourished and nurtured to live whole lives- lives bigger than human life, and the suspicion supersedes propaganda and transcends into hatred, into blood, into murder, revenge- crosses border and grows into an international crisis- the Oromoland, into the Burjilands, into the Gabra areas of Ethiopia. Cousins and relatives in Ethiopia wonder what is happening in Kenya and send a few guns and horses to go fight off aggression to the respective community- then the buzz dies down, slowly, the angst goes silent for a few hours, a few weeks, months and possibly a few years- then the rumor begins and previous scars are piqued, rancor boils and the suspicion grows into propaganda, the propaganda into suspicion, suspicion into fear, fear into hatred and hatred into impulsive wars and on and on ad infinitum goes the reign of rumor in the land of the gossip. Gossip and rumors have a way of growing wings to fly, have some mutable characteristics in my small town, the capacity to remake itself into funny tales, into shocking news, into war cries, into songs even.

And when my friend often says “you will run mad, reading so many books” I will never take those words seriously than my worry about who hears it because I may wake up two weeks later to people’s sympathy or a distant relative coming all the way from the village asking my mum

“How is he now? We heard he ran mad after reading so many books?”

Or just wake up a new person, with strangers regarding me in a new light, with awe because they heard that I read so many books and I am supposed to behave in a certain bookish way.

And somehow this communal naivete, this too trusting loyalty is in the hands of a few, it is easily manipulated, it is a switch box that can effectively unleash raging currents of hate, love, sympathy, contempt, love and life- those who thrive on anarchy are using it- a few months ago the local leaders gave a simple decree- do not buy from two communities and do not work for them- then the loyal people, communally decided in that mob way of thinking followed the decree and overnight we had meat, whole steaks, fillets and entire goats rotting in the butcheries and people being beaten by hooded goons in the evening for defying the decree to buy from “marked shops, butcheries, wholesalers” there were hushed whispers, fear of unseen eyes watching, one women was beaten while her husband watched because she had a “concubine” from the “marked” communities, there were more cases of tearing of shopping bags and open pouring of purchased goods from the marked shops. The poor suffered, business men suffered, casual workers lost their jobs and daily wages, they returned home to face their hungry children, then slowly life came back and business is now returning almost to normalcy.

And just yesterday I was walking around the villages, and the many settlements around town for a simple exercise, a polio monitoring drive. I walked into many compounds and homes and walked out. In all the homesteads I was more than welcome; I was kindly treated, served tea and ate those small tumandazis, popular in our town…sweet. I ate lunch in one of the households and then my host talked about peace in general for a while, then not realizing my feigned interest, she leaned closer and in that conniving way of crafty elderly women she said almost whispering

“You know so many of them have died, everyone is hiding their shame”

Pause

A picture of the backside Marsabit

“I was in Moyale recently, believe me there is more to the war in Moyale than you know…..they are using spirits…jinn…. They tried burning the house of one of them and it could not catch fire…..can you imagine they even bombed it and it could not catch fire…..”

Surprise on my face

“Yes!!….every attempt at burning failed until they had to call the sheikh….a sheikh who came and in front of everyone cast out the jinn….11 of them…can you believe….Jinn…11..”

I listened carefully, putting all the oohs and aahs and mmmhs as demanded by her dramatic narration; she delved into details of exorcising the jinn…she painted the picture of a jar of fresh blood found under the bed….the sheikh standing in the middle of the house while cats appeared and disappeared, with unseen dogs barking from the many rooms….I endured all her talk until the jinn finally disappeared and the onlookers looted and burnt down the house….with just one bomb….boom!!

I sat there trying to act normal, refusing to psycho-analyze her, trying to believe that she too did not believe what she was saying and that maybe she was high on something she accidentally took. That maybe this is a lie….and she may say something like….heyy stop listening…am just pulling your leg. But believe me she is not alone, I have heard this talk more than once but I have always banished it to the back of my mind, locking all those tales into a tight cage somewhere in the past. The other time, a sheikh was accused of casting demons into six madrassa going children, (there is even a video clip of this somewhere), the local leaders, chiefs, councilors and a local MP were present…the crowd was a big one, the sheikh and demon possessed girls sat on opposite sides with the crowd watching them in awe. Then the girls began talking in funny tones and the crowd almost ran away….the demons/jinn in the girls were confessing before a powerful sheikh….how they came from Somalia and they were treated to chicken blood or something like that! And that they were here for some sinister affair!!

Unbelievable is your thought now….but this is something that is happening, this directionless-ness, and confusion, this murky, voodoo, fanatical, primitive, ungodly ways belong to this century. To this present; It is a village in a supposedly post modern city. This village will endure- this traditionalism will mutate into another form, an amorphous state of our backwardness, it is the intersection of primitive traditionalism shifting into something more sinister, more traditional, more backward and obsessive; imprisoning our thoughts, caging our minds into small cages of aggression, irrationality, fanaticism especially of the region-political nature, propaganda, confusion and anarchic gossip. I avoid some of my childhood friends who have stuck in some state of mental quick sand because in one way or the other they will delve into that irksome Illuminati talk, they will vent their anti-west, anti-American supremacy sentiments, talk about the new world order as if that matters then say a few things about Jesus….about Prophet Issah and eventually narrow down and zero-in on me

“Please do not die a Christian” they will say.

THE DOWNSIDE OF PATRIOTISM

2014-01-22T18:29:00.002+03:00

Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself.
—Philippians 2:3

A few years ago I was in the southern section of Ethiopia and one evening while flipping through the channels, bored by the Ethiopian Amharic broadcasting television stations; I chanced on one broadcasting in English and was enjoying some talk show about something African (I don’t remember what). I became so engrossed and was aroused by the old man who having watched me asked

“Do you understand what they are saying?”

I understood speaking or even understanding good English in Ethiopia especially the southern side is something that is not always seen. I nodded and added

‘Yes I do’

The disbelief on the old man’s face was pardonable

‘…all of it?’ he said with his hand making an expansive sweep.

‘All. of. it’ I answered back

Then the elderly man in a way that has ever since been a part of my thoughts whenever I think of Kenya’s supremacy or lack thereof, or whenever comparisons are made between Kenya and other African states, or whenever any inappropriate comparison is made for the sake of malice or some covert agenda the old man looms large in my mind.

‘You know the Kenyan education system is good BUT their military is nothing’ he said, and the way it came out was more than disparaging, it was both a mocking sarcasm of Kenya and a confirmation of the supremacy of Ethiopian Military. Coming from a history of militarism and protracted civil war I just shrugged the old man’s sentiments as just a rash conclusion without any relevance whatsoever to how my understanding English was a representation of Kenyan education system.

Other instances have taken place since then, all adding in one way or the other to the growth of an idea at the back of my mind. One such instance was that of my Ugandan schooled Kenyan roommate whom we often in friendly verbal plays disregarded as just another kid who schooled in ‘a very third world state-Uganda’ with Museveni’s militarism being infused into him through the school curricula.

And on another instance in a weekly evening poetry/spoken word session in one of the varsity lecture halls one blogger stood up and going by the weekly theme of “paying tribute to Kenyan Defense Force”, he made some positive remarks which eventually shifted to the Kenyan regional supremacy.

“Kenya is a super power” he said and went on to bash Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, the two Sudan-s, and Ethiopia. He created such a negative picture that made Eastern Africa states such tiny names that clung to the mighty Kenya-Dwarfs that need not our attention. I sat there thinking How naïve!

But in mid last year, a young beautiful Belgium lady came to Kenya from Ethiopia through Moyale and on a journey to Lake Turkana we had enough time for interaction. Whenever she talked about Ethiopia and how good it was I subconsciously found myself telling her of similar better things in Kenya. Had it not been her pointing it to me, several days later, that I seemed to be selling Kenya as better than Ethiopia, better than anything Ethiopia could offer, while I hadn’t even seen the part of Ethiopia she was referring to. I wouldn’t have known the shit that my patriotic zeal was painting about me-about Kenya and Kenyans. It was such a blind groping that never thought that there could be other better things, places than Kenya in such “backward” places as Ethiopia.

I have over the years come to regard this with some seriousness; I am not, most of us are not any different from the Ethiopian elder in the remote Oromo land. The blogger in our spoken heart I have referred to because One’s state encompasses the very ideals that constitute ones identity, the body of pride and all that is good in any state elicits the same kind of response all across the world- the flush of patriotic sentiments, both sadness and joy. And it is part of this patriotism ingrained in citizenship through years of socialization that manifests when ‘others’ seem to invade, to supersede the complete body of beliefs and attitudes one holds about their state.

I have made the conclusion that patriotism is on a large extent negative... bear with me…I am making my case.

But what is Patriotism?

The standard dictionary definition of patriotism reads “love of one's country.” Patriotism can be defined as love of one's country, identification with it, and special concern for its well-being and that of compatriots.
(read more)

Patriotism is negative

American political theorist George Kateb, argues that patriotism is “a mistake twice over: it is typically a grave moral error and its source is typically a state of mental confusion”. He further argues that patriotism is “a readiness to die and to kill for an abstraction … for what is largely a figment of the imagination” (Kateb 2000, 901, 907). Kateb conceives a state as “it is also constructed out of transmitted memories true and false; a history usually mostly falsely sanitized or falsely heroized; a sense of kinship of a largely invented purity; and social ties that are largely invisible or impersonal, indeed abstract …”

Patriotism is deceptive; it is a farcical self flattery

Leo Tolstoy found patriotism both stupid and immoral. Despite this, patriotic deception is alluring; it is scurrying away from truth in matters dealing with our realities – our identities. It often entails lying to yourself. Isn’t it baffling when eventually the scurry from the truth, reality reaches a point when it can no longer hold together- when the deception “self-consumes” and self abashment begins in bitter earnest when like Morgan “you do not see nothing to smile about”- the dawn of reality on the prison of lies. This reality becomes a guarded entity- we can self condemn, poke fingers in our affairs and yodel all we can but one statement made even in jest, or anything that seems to slight the spirit of our state from the outside, from other people, from other states will break the self bemoaning about our inadequacy to proclaim a mighty stance of self flattery; a patriotic zeal in which we find ourselves in a narcissistic self adoration. The state becomes a neo-liberal fetish, a glowing jewel that is to be guarded and protected. This self adoration surrounding the state by its citizenry is informed by thoughts like “we are good, they are bad”, “our bad are better than their good” which is an extreme form of patriotism whose mantra is “Our country right or wrong”.

Kenyans on twitter

My thoughts on the portrayal of “our supremacy”, or “patriotism” as a negative thing has often been amplified by Kenyans on Twitter. Not in a positive way but a very negative line of subtle #self deception.

The Kenyan rampage on twitter on any African states that provokes, bursts their sentimental patriotic bubble is a threat that should be eliminated with ridiculous hash tags #someonetell………. and at best the mob psychology that lies dormant even in the highest circles of our most respected i.e. the #culturecreators in the Kenyan society including both its elites and politicians becomes alive, it possess them in showing solidarity in attacking covert enemies from trying to mess with us.

c'mon

Finger pointing, name calling or mocking banter of the inadequacies of others in Africa is not on the western scale of specks and logs in eyes but a famous adage of a baboon that not seeing its own ass laughs at and ridicules other baboons’ asses and in Kenya we have reared a baboon, and the finger of the famous baboon is #someonetell……hash tag. The claptrap banter of an egoistic citizenry expressing their patriotic sentiments and conceptions of ‘Kenyan supremacy’. The total disregard of existing realities, absolving our own weaknesses; showing our strength by pointing to the weaknesses of others is what the declaration of our ‘supremacy’ is pegged on.

And just the other day I came across an article by Kingwa Kamencu on Why Nigerians are miles ahead of our writers in the Daily nation of Friday, October 25, 2013. In this article Kamencu tries to draw a comparison on why West Africans are excelling in the literary world while East Africans are trailing behind. She asks

So, why aren’t East African writers hitting the jackpot of fame, analysis, money and acclaim like their West-African contemporaries?

She quotes Parselo Kantai who in self flattery says “The East African project is in a way more interesting than the Nigerian one.”

The article is apt, it is timely too but Kamencu spoils it when she subtly brings out the comparison like it is a battle, a sort of competition, a war that Kenyans ought to win

Even with the understated war for supremacy between Nigeria and Kenya seen on internet spats, Nigeria is in truth not the only country our writers need to fight.

What Kamencu in her article did was give a voice to ‘our’ belief. The belief that we are better than Nigeria and we could outdo them by just putting in place a few things; a vibrant publishing scene, Good PR for our writers, I searched the article to try and see if she has recommended learning from Nigeria or west Africa. But there is nothing like that, since she already has declared a war between our literary scene and the Nigeria one, she thinks there is not a chance for a collaboration between Kenyans and Nigerians working to improve each other. This is further amplified when Tony Mochama nails it

Mochama suggests looking further afield for challenge and inspiration. “We could look to the US where they have set the bar because of their dominance. They have an exciting tradition of literary magazines - The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Dog And Pound and others.

But couldn’t we look up at Nigeria and West Africa for this inspiration and challenge you may want to ask!! And here Mochama says

….As a third world country, India would be an example of how to write in an international language but still break away from the West,”.

I am not trying to belittle Kamencu or Mochama but they seem not aware of the negative connotation that seems to lurk behind the comparisons being drawn and the recommendations being put forth or if they are, there is a deliberate pitching of the East against the West in the African literary scene. There is an underlying patriotic tone that is tied to Kenya and East Africa in this piece. It is not on the extreme end of patriotism since Kamencu has been careful to notice and acclaim the superiority of Nigeria without lying.

How do we as Africans view each other in the face of Patriotism?

Each state has a single one sided story of the other, when it comes to self comparison. We can’t detach Biafra, Boko Haram, the con men, political upheavals when we think about Nigeria. Or fail to see hunger and starvation, press censorship in Ethiopia. Or when we think about Somalia all one sees is the war, the famine and big bellies. Problem steps in when we fail to transcend these “single story” about others in our outlook. When we start sweep our own murk under the carpet.

This distracted and divided image shapes our perceptions of the ‘African problem’. No one feels like part of it, we thus end up conceiving the continental problems as outsiders, as if we are not part of the murk. How do we deal with regional integration, pan-Africanism or the unity of Africa? When we envision the African problem not as a single bloc but fragments of the otherness informed by the convictions of one’s own superiority?

And if you had not noticed most people when thinking/talking of African problems rarely consider their own state, this is always a thing that comes with human nature; wanting and wishing to distance themselves from problems.

Can’t each one of us disavow and just tone down the superiority of the other? Couldn’t we instead work with each other, to learn from each other? Re-conceptualize our image and our problems, Collaboration instead of Competition.

“The love for one's country is in many cases no more than the love of an ass for its stall” J.B. Zimmermann

LOIYANGALANI IN 2013; A brief encounter

2013-11-09T15:57:00.005+03:00

In the desert, you see there is everything and nothing………….

…..It is god without mankind

~Honore De Balzac

a view of Lake Turkana

Loiyangalani is perched between the base of an imposing mountain and the sand less shores of a lake, the town lies silently, breaking the sloping base of Mt. Kulal into a gradual flatness that drains into the vast Lake Turkana; the only noises disturbing the silence is the drone of distant generators and those of speeding NGO land cruisers. The many shops aligning the wide road on both sides form the only street in the town. With two barbershops, two M-Pesa shops, one curio shop, one wines-and-spirits joint, a famous ‘fashion boutique’ called Lo-meri meri, two butcheries, one motorcycle and one vehicle garage, four restaurants; Vision, Bamboo-inn, Hope ( which also serves as a church on Sunday mornings) and Cold Drinks Hotel, famously known as Chongo’s because the Somali old man owning it has a cast in one eye, a jovial old man, his restaurant is one of the oldest in the town and in his own words he had been in the region from the time the sun died (1973 solar eclipse).

A part of the street in Loiyangalani

At noon the town is sleepy; aside from the School uniformed boys roaming the street, moving from shop to shop; from hotel to hotel selling samosas to earn ten shillings to buy two mandazi’s and bean soup before returning to school, people hurry, almost dash from one door to the other. At such times of the day the sun shines down with a purpose- to scorch. The heat is unbearable; dogs run to water pools and lie in the mud to cool their bodies. There are a few trees in the street- all serving as meeting places for town Moran and those from the interior, or where lanky youth- those that have embraced formal education woo young girls coming to town.

The only open market in the unusually long street is the narrow verandah of a building – drab, with the green paints peeling off, its four dirty doors permanently locked and the poles supporting the roof over the verandah all turned black from constant human touch. This market is not a conventional market; there are no groceries, no loud mouthed women, and no earnest buyers jostling for goods or busy sellers haggling for buyers, there is nothing more than half full charcoal sacks, a few firewood sticks lying limply in the sun. White sacks spread on the verandah floor with very neatly tied minute bundles of 5-shillings tobacco, 5-shillings magadi, 10-shillings bundle of sugar, 5 shillings curry powder- this feeds the little pocket and economic capacity of the region.

The sacks with all these paraphernalia run identically from one end to the other, with big stones holding it firmly in place. Besides each sack sits the owner with legs spread on one side of her wares. The owners not minding their buyers occasionally spit from where they are sited, well aimed, tobacco stained spittle, coming out through a hole made just below the lower lip, flying past the buyer landing across the verandah to the dirt beyond with cobra like accuracy.

Women of all ages sit on the verandah beside their white sacks; newly married ones, old and wrinkled faces, energetic and playful ones with red ochre smeared over their partly shaven clean scalps, the thin strip of unshaven hair forming a fancy Mohawk of antiquity- fashionable in a traditional sense. The entire lengths of their earlobes all pierced with several round coils of white aluminum decoratively aligning them. Wide discs of beads around their necks almost submerge the women’s entire shoulders; seemingly heavy, the discs of colorful beads sit on the chests of the Turkana women, giving them a unique beauty, the artistic well from whence the bead design sprung is visibly and richly full and alive.

a young traditionally dresses Turkana Girl

One woman sits with a child strapped loosely on her back listening listlessly, her sack, the most stocked with more and longer rows of little bundles tied in transparent paper ; colorful curry, white sugar, brown tobacco, red ochre, little traditional spices, crushed barks of rare trees- brown and dried bundles of traditional herbs . Dressed in originally red shuka and red leso all brown now with grimy unwashed dirt (ochre and a mixture of oil and dust) strapped on her shoulder and tied at the chest with a thick knot, the woman exudes resilience. Her feet are hard, in equally hard akalas and her calves are thick- she sits strong.

Beautiful Turkana ladies

Young colorfully beaded girls stand leaning on the walls behind the sitting owners and others taller, beautiful and shapely clutch the verandah poles to their bodies like hooker dancers in a nightclub- their necks, heads in new blood-red ochre and well oiled scalps gives them an innocent newness. Their discs of beads unlike those of the sited women are clean and colorfully new. They talk amongst themselves, conniving, pointing at passing young government officers and throwing back their heads, occasionally laugh unrestrained. Their coy smiles, eyes hiding mischief, knowing looks on their faces and shy yet defiant breasts peeping from under their shukas, these girls gather here every day to idle, or display their beauty. Their presence gives the dreary town an erotic tinge and a post card beauty. International camera men have exploited this beauty; taking pictures of the young girls with uncovered, ochre smeared red breasts and hold exhibitions in European galleria; with such themes as Erotic Africa!!

a young Turkana girl dressed in a traditional style

Their male counterparts less colorfully and creatively dressed are bluntly drab. Black skin in green army fatigues-tacky like boy scouts, the shawls tied around their waist ends abruptly just above the knees- dark colors of maroon, violet and brown interwoven into one. The Samburu Morans who also come out around four when a certain cool breeze from the lake sweeps over the town stand with their legs crisscrossed and nasiggi- that potent traditional snuff is passed around and tobacco calmly crushed into finer particles. A mingling of friendly enemies is seen in this gathering of young Turkana and Samburu Morans who talk and playfully joke with each other like childhood friends. The Samburu Morans are dressed in a colorful combination of bright red, yellow and white shukas- authentic colors of African flags and there’s a lost state with walking sticks and nut made rungus passing for guns. Their thick calves are hidden in long stripped socks of football players and their feet in white plastic tanga shoes or well worn tyre-made black akalas.

The elderly men in the town have several congregational spots; at the junction heading to the DC’s house where an erected shade gives them a space, there they lie talking, each of them with a little stool that also serves as head support- a traditional pillow. These elders talk and talk, they do not go for lunch. They disperse late in the evening and congregate again for the night, recounting stories and more stories as they while away the years of their lives in these prosaic way. Other gathering spots are scattered around the town; the airstrip acacias, the road heading to the police station, just beside Molo Lodge.

The people lead ritualized instinctive lives without necessarily understanding their role and responsibilities to a sovereign state or claiming any of their deserved rights from its formal structures both the government and the faculty of free market; the fisher men everyday throw their fishing nets into the lake without any appreciation that their catch will constitute a crucial part of an international trade with a ready market waiting in Burundi, Rwanda and other East African countries. They will pay the two shillings to the fisheries for every fish caught and go home without complaining of no service or demanding for better services. Young herdsmen tend their goats having little understanding that the meat of their goats will somehow find its way to expensive supermarkets in the Middle East states or in the capital- Nairobi as choma on barbeque grills in Karen or other posh suburbs of the big city. Here, men just live as simply as they can.

A short walk towards the police station behind Palm shade camp site and Moseretu lodge lays a small forest of a few acacias and numerous palm trees and in this forest is a spring of warm clean water called Maji moto (Warm/hot Water). A noon or evening stroll to this site inevitably brings one into contact with the carefree nature of the people of Loiyangalani, among the palm tree fronds men and boys alike undress and shower side by side, all scrubbing without a care for modesty or anything like fear with big black ‘members’ dancing as the splashing of water is frenzied and the water washes away their dirt. These nature of carefree happiness is also seen in the town where naked children stand under taps at designated public water points, with water running over their bodies as they playfully splash, each tap with one child; slightly older girls, either conscious of their bodies or aware of hidden, prying eyes on their nakedness stand under the taps fully dressed, with water drenching their clothes. This playing with water and public bathing sums up the water affair, a handful of people know how to swim and the lake ironically lies just outside town.

At night with stifling heat inside both the traditional huts and modern houses, whole families are forced to move outside; father, mother, daughters and shirtless sons lie on papyrus mats under the stars with a thousand nightly insects chirping the night away and big harmless spiders running all around. The parents talk and the children silently listen asking endless questions after the stories before they all fall asleep, one at a time. Old boys and mature girls secretly escape to agreed locations to pluck forbidden fruits or boys cuddle their girlfriends in dark and narrow paths as they hold long-promise-filled-emotive-talks with the night growing old and the morning finds them seated under those fences.

Loiyangalani; one of the most populous settlements around lake Turkana has a total of sixteen villages, populated by huddled settlements of circular huts, with a sound roundness to every aspect of the hut, arcs of circular short reeds and pliable palm fronds forming elaborate patterns and parts of the circular huts. The final artistic work ends in a complete dome shaped structure jutting out of the ground. The inside feels like a freezer box shielding people from the heat of the outside world. The sixteen villages spread across the vast space were identified, each by the most descriptive traditional name but now that animal that has been robbing Africa of its authentic originality; civilization has caught up with this quarters and is renaming each village by exotic holy and saintly names; (find the list of each village’s name at the end)

In 2013 the usual Bamba 20 across Kenya goes for 25, Bamba 50 goes for 55 and Bamba 100 goes for 110, the freedom and equal prices that the market is supposed to provide is not there in this outpost of the Kenyan empire. The kikuyu shop keepers fleece the shuka clad Moran without any care for or appreciation for the ethics of a free market. The corporate mega bodies like Safaricom do not respond to the cries of these people. In Mt. Kulal the same Bamba or airtime scratch card goes for 30, 60 and 120 respectively. One tomato goes for Ten shillings; a one litre bottled mineral water goes for 100 shillings, elsewhere that buys five litres of bottled water. The extra 5 shillings charged on every airtime card not only discourages communication, but will buy enough curry from the verandah market to spice up the meager meals in the kitchen of the Turkana women, the 10 shillings fleeced from the uncomplaining people will have catered for the unavailable treatment by buying the herb bundles in transparent paper, but the market of exploitation does not care for the needs of the lowly.

Despite the numerous challenges and desolate hopelessness of the place, there is a new talk in town, an indefinably hopeful spirit of opportunity, of oil, of investors- Kenya’s future; the Oil wells turning heads and interests in the western powerhouses lie in this desolate vastness. The spirit and wishes of people here are Electric, with an expected employment of 200 watchmen/guards in the biggest wind power project in Africa. The women whose expectations have been raised beyond what they had ever dreamed of are somewhat impatient; they talk at the drab open market, the reed made stalls where they sell miraa and others design bead art and many more just sit gossiping. The old men sleeping at their congregational spots have no worry disturbing their relaxation- knowing that the future of their children is an assured prosperity.

The region has for six consecutive years held successful annual ‘LAKE TURKANA CULTURAL FESTIVAL” – a colorful week of festivities and unrestricted partying both for visitors and the locals. Between 23^rd and 27^th May each year, the town fills with local and international tourists dressed in grey cowboy hats, three quarter shorts and expensive open shoes. Investors and business people in branded polo shirts with big names like Sarova, KCB, Equity Bank stream into the town with planes, private Safari land cruisers and expensive PSVs. sponsor banners are setup giving the town a new look.

Young men with Smart specs, big headphones, expensive cameras accompanied by young, overworked media interns interview wanna-be traditional experts as grey haired mzungus with big sun shades, fancy cameras take pictures. Young white blue eyed blondes, oriental tiny eyed, slit Japanese ones or are they Chinese? Socialize with each other.

Note taking tall folk- the BBC, CNN type, Alex Perry like walk around the erstwhile sleepy town with notebooks as they scribble notes on virtually everything. Government officers, foreign anthropologists, policy makers, Ambassadors, Nairobi folk meet in Turkana to talk about Development, Potential, Economy, Reconciliation as the indigenous communities sit some distance away enjoying the excitement, many many pictures will be taken, 200GB of video is recorded for posterity and publicity. The Camera shutters constantly, long speeches are made by Nairobi people and the locals Clap clap clap clap and clap, then shirtless hollow chested shy morans, fancy hair styled ones are paraded before the audience of white camera flashing tourists…shutter shutter shutter….camera flash flash flash.

People trek back to the show ground; the original arena of cultural custody; traditional songs are sung with a renewed energy and samburu/Rendille morans jump with an energized valor as dread locked ladies appearing as if they’ve been here all their lives rush out as the participants leave the stage to give t-shirts to the group leaders to distribute among their team. Stakeholders and town Moran holding PC tablets record history!

Mr. Duchler, the racist irate German man running the posh millennium hotel is an old scrawny thing, drinking himself silly and smoking as many cigarettes as he can. He walks arrogantly with his protruding belly presiding him wherever he goes. He is a sorry site and the local Morans laugh the few times they see him and he shouts at them
‘Monkey’, ‘Baboon’
‘Gerr off my property before I shoot you!

Bubble gum chewing, Samsung S4 phone and classy hair styled Nairobi development pundits grace the day! As BiiiiigggGG government and development folks come to discover the region and its people! Imagine that! The biggest untapped resource, it’s going to cost billions, not millions, it will create employment. The minister even mentioned bill gates in his unrestrained eagerness! Stakeholders and leaders shall plant a tree or two….people will drink beer, swim in the lake and eat from the hotels that now have more than doubled their food prices!

The festival ends! As the town lives through a long dreary wait for the next big annual event.

Every evening a spectacular scene beholds and transforms the region into a picturesque beauty as the undying eye of God, a big ball of orange lingers on the lake as if floating briefly before it sinks rapidly and a new darkness engulfs the town.

The sixteen villages of Loiyangalani, the meaning and their new Christianly names;

Soweto - st. Paul
Town - St. Paul
Kula pesa – carol lwanga
Kula samaki- Alamano
St. martin
Kula Mawe/ kokote- Magdalen
Kilama mbogo – consolata
Nakwa Mweki (white thorns)- Teressa Villa
Dikil Kimat (wayward women)- Legio or Veronica
Nawapaa- Bernadette
Nagaan- St. Peter
. Kiwanja Ndege- Yohane Mbatisaji
Nawei Torong (juu yam lima)- St. Joseph
Layeni (El-Mollo)
. Komote- Dominico Savio
Nachukule (Inside a ditch)

This is experimentation with words and development of observational writing from my visit to Loiyangalani, a town on the sandless shores of Lake Turkana between 5^th and 27^th May, 2013

The deception of devolution; Kenya

2013-11-04T18:17:00.004+03:00

On a cloud lined Monday morning, with a heavy mist hanging low I walked into an old office, a little, cramped space. The office had nothing more than a very old mahogany table, old tables and a rusting metallic drawer. An empty, dusty little box sits besides the file cabinet with a bold label on the side-Books.

When I walked into the office I was confused, trying to fit the man and the space he occupies-the office in the corner, the big talk he gave us every day at the local pub. It was all a show. Sitting before me, with the open lie now between us, the man did not know how to behave.

‘welcome welcome…you have come eh?’ he rubbed his hands- anxious, fidgety his eyes darted from me to the chair and to the rug lying on the file cabinet and with one quick dash he took it and dusted a chair for me.

‘Sit, sit…welcome…. don’t worry, these government offices… they will fix it’

He looks down as if trying to hide from the lie that he lives. I was both amazed by the length one could go to hide a lie, an apparent attempt by a senior county officer to match his status with the lie before a young man as me became a source of curious joy. The man tried on different personalities like a rapidly color changing species of a chameleon, he smiled, guffawed, creased his brow with a serious frown and adopted an impatient tone.

I sat down trying hard to hide the shock, curiosity, and the disgust that it finally turned to. If he had the means the old hog before me would have dismissed me from the pathetic life he lived- the county lies. But he thinks I should be tamed by subtle lies and promises for a better tomorrow.

The old man before me is an old relic from the old regime. That long gone age when we had mzee in leadership; around the last time the sun died and people had waited for the mzee to explain it to them. He was, even then, a working man, married with kids growing up. And 40 years later 2013- the year the sun died again the old man in his present state of “dementia senilis” was a rebranded, repackaged civil servant, the sorts that stay so long in service and let their grand children die from job-seeking stress.

Do you feel short changed?

I do. Like so many others I though with devolution things will change; we will have equal representation, equal resource distribution, accountability, transparency, justice, timely service delivery and opportunities for everyone. But across the Kenyan state we are getting more than we bargained for, least in the positive.

The national recycle bin

The Kenyan devolution has brought blessings to the worms in the Kenyan belly and in each county retired men from previously failed regimes have been resurrected from prosaic wastage to spearhead the dream of the new Kenya. New posts are created and new office spaces sought, and the office it gave the man before me is an old store in a 55 year old building. The very space and face of oppression is now the vision of power in people’s hand. For 50 years those doors had been locked and no one ventured beyond the rusty lock on the door. On the wall is a 1962 calendar with a picture of a beautiful deer, next to it sits a 2011 calendar with its some its months having a scribbles above it; Months in 2013. The ingenuity of a recycled mind had made a calendar of the past to be a present with dreams and an assured claim on tomorrow.

The digital craze

When devolution came it was popularly ran on the slogan of a digital team that sought to replace the analogue generation; the scorn of the ‘haves’ of the scientific age, globalized sons of Kenya on the ‘have not’ generation Kenyans. The ‘team digital’ confirmed the marginalization of the majority-analogue which in this context passes as a synonym for the poor and the semi-literate; those without access to any of the digitalized scientific faculties of iphone applications and without the technical capacity to comprehend visualized data. The entrenchment of an elitist thesis on the common locals who watched Uhuru with profound awe, as a son of a former president confirmed to the world that a Kenyan version of ‘Obama’ was here- copy pasted mannerisms, elegance and style-shirt sleeves rolled with youthful robust. This was new in Kenya; the theatrics of youthful presidential aspirant inspired dreams in the delinquent youth and with innocent candor we listened as Kenya was unlatched into a new era of freedom on our TV screens. What we missed in oversight was posted on face book pages and other funnier clips found its way on you tube. The digital team confirmed the decree of our erstwhile African Big Brother now turned a grumpy African elder-KANU would lead for 100 years.

And because of the naivety rife in the Kenyan (African) landscape, we forgot the frivolities of the yesteryears, where the analogue elder ruled- our digital visited the grumpy elder for advice or was Moi the analogue rogue of the wasted Kenyan holding on to the digital team of the 21^st Century Kenya? As some of our youth raped goats and molested chicken, our wealth was divided. All before our eyes because even in campus the bug of vogue optimism was biting, in a little room I joined my roommates and neighbors waiting for the epic judgment to be passed by the studded chief justice.

What we lacked in reality, the digital team made up in nationwide dreams and the digital generation was good at embracing the resultant virtual reality. The very idea of being Digital was a reason enough for us to rally around the young prototypes of the new breed of African leaders.

Our fascination with emergent novelties whet our development appetites) i.e. Oil in Turkana, the biggest wind power project in Africa, large underground water aquifers, severing links with the western neo-colonialists, going East or defying the entrenched social orthodoxy of holding on and waiting for the bad to change to good. All this promised an unprecedented potential for Kenya. I felt like a “Kenyan”, the critics in us overnight camouflaged into patriots, patriots borne by hope, by pride- the pride that Kenya and its beauty and new dreams instilled in its sons sent their expectations so high and now that reality has struck us in the face we have become doubters, and we can never trust ourselves with pride again, knowing that it bears, within its five letters both life and death.

Deception rearing its head

Robbing the true custodians of their right to implement the new dream, team digital and its governors are employing generation analogue and paying them with NGO level PERKS and PER DIEMS. New posts are created and filled by relatives, clansmen, bigots, incompetency, recycled minds, colonial guards. That was why I was disgusted by the old things heading the process of change in the Kenyan devolution process. Across the country you will not avoid feeling short changed, cheated and robbed. The new era of governors it is unlimited the extent they can go to (one even slapped a public officer in a public office) what more do you expect? Isn’t that totalitarian enough?

Like a child learning to speak, the old man before me was babbling words, picking up new vocabulary; transition, devolution, first quarter, vision, democracy, constitutionalism. Yes that too. Internet. Connection. Email. The Kenyan child trying to speak the devolution language is overgrown and retarded. It has been living in that stage of growth for far too long and is still learning language when it ought to be expressing its ideas and solving other bigger problems. The nation builders without a solid foundation are still building; we do not know what floor of the many dreams storied building.

Teething problems? Nay!

‘We are undergoing change; it is phenomenal what Kenya is embarking on’ that’s how we lie to our selves, that every major stage of development is preceded by myriad challenges. We have been here before!!

Yes we will pick up faster than many African economies. Kenya the land of safaris and hospitable people, the hope that came with devolution is dashed, stubbed to death by new spates of ethnic wars- Tana, Bura, Baragoi, Moyale, west gate, by new VAT tax imposed on basic commodities-milk, by the oil prices going up and the budget of running the county being just too much. We are starting on a wrong footing- we have devolved corruption, devolved nepotism, devolved ethnicity, devolved incompetency, and devolved everything that we need to avoid.

Claiming the second decade

Devolution is our claim on the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century. It is severing links with the past. It is spearheading the vision of the new Africa. It should not be a rebirth of the old Africa. It should not be the regurgitation of old solutions. It should not be about recycling worn out stereotypes. It should not be deceit. It should be about reform, it should be about accountability, about transparency, about timely justice. Not about additional taxes or squeezing wanjiku dry.

And in certain quarters people are even more afraid of dying because dying will mean another taxation burden to those left behind. A brother can’t slaughter his chicken and enjoy it without someone thinking of snatching that enjoyment by imposing a tax on the chicken’s neck and the knife that slaughters it…where are we headed? Honestly this is more than we had bargained for.

Disgruntled

I sit across from the old man in this county office and try hard to feel like a hopeful youth in Kenya. Trying hard not to believe that we should be on different sides of the table- He on my side and me on his chair. Waking up every morning not knowing what to do, every day I try hard not break from the pressure. Walking dejectedly from one office to the other and never losing the enthusiasm of applying to long-ago filled vacancies. Hoping that none qualified is openly denied a chance to work.

I am KENYAN YOUTH!!! I STILL HOPE!!! Coming up with slogans to keep me going #Hustle ni hope, kelele achia wabunge!! #Mwanaume ni effort.

Kill the Goons | ON THE SPOT

2013-11-02T22:51:00.001+03:00

Kill the Goons | ON THE SPOT

Kill the Goons

2013-06-03T14:39:00.000+03:00

‘Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!’’

But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified and their shouts prevailed.

Luke 23:18, 23

Hic!

‘You Mr. wheelbarrow-guy, Mr. Gravedigger, Mr. carpenter, Mr. father-of-eight-children, you Mr. school-cook, Mr. Cobbler, Mr. Sheikh, yes! You too Mr. many-wives, my dear friend Mr. posho-mill-guy, Mr. new-comer-to-our-village, and all your Mrs-es and sisters too- all of you, for the purpose of this evening and for the many to come have no names- aye? No! you are as good as only your pathetic profession dictates and as for me Mr. jobless I will be Mr. University-degree- mr. first-university-degree—emphases the ‘first’.

Hic!

‘Aside from Mr. sheikh-guy and Mr. new-comer-to-the-village-guy all of us went to the same school no? We were in the same class, no? We all passed through the hands of Mr. Dead-and-buried-teacher, no? We were in the same class with Mr. political-leader-sir! Mr. CDF-manager, Mr. governor-Wetu too. Yes! We all were.’

Hic!

‘Ooh don’t lie to me or yourself or your children, I remember like it was just yesterday- the mucus on your nose sliding down to your lips and how you would pull it back up with one quick inhalation- I remember it all- the dirty long nails and how at the morning assembly we would cut them up with our teeth, before the cane could snap at our numb fingers-how painful- I see it all the bare feet, all of us standing in a row at the dusty assembly ground, I even remember the patches as the years wore down our school shorts- Mr. wheelbarrow-guy remember the white lines of string on your brown shorts? How artistic it was…’

Hic!

‘Time stands aloof and our history laden with memories but our now and our present humiliation usurps the beauty of yesterday and rapes the memorable. The worries of today makes now and tomorrow very real and yesterday just another era of misery to be forgotten, to be discarded with its entirety but look deep, look keen it holds answers to today, to the present murk- if yesterday, last year or even 15 years ago you asked from life more than it gave you- today and your now would be different. Did we ask more? We were almost asking until something happened- some trivial weakness. Eventually we didn’t ask for anything.’

Hic!

‘The same school that gave Mr. fancy-pants, Mr. political-leader-sir, Mr. our-landlord, Mr. your-employer all who incidentally happen to be your classmates -the very barefooted, mucus sucking, patchy shorts and randy village neighbor of yesteryears now the demigod, order barking master some status and you his scrawny dog, wagging its tail whenever he passes in his big car.’

Hic! Hic!

‘Oh why hath life been generous to some and so unforgiving to some? Why not reward the backbreaking efforts of the many with the generous rewards it deals the shoddy work of a few?’

Hic!

‘How stupid to emotionally ask these questions now? in old age, broken dreams and misery laden. The question is older than humanity. It is the same question that led to the release of Barabbas-the murderer and the crucifixion of Jesus-the savior.’

Hic!

‘Stupid flies….you too want to kill me now?’

Hic!

‘To them it is effortlessly done, the many years of killing dreams, to me and you it’s a life time of holding on, of hoping tomorrow would be different, the simple machinations on their side but life will on our side to stay afloat.’ Hic!

‘From standard one in the same school, the same class the battle lines were drawn and the teachers were on our side on the side of the good but what do the bad do? Lean on the good and destroy them, slowly, completely conscripting them into the legion of the goons!’

‘Didn’t we have discipline in our class? Mr. Gravedigger, if you want honesty- Mr. Carpenter-man, looking for humility? Mr. Wheelbarrow-guy, innocence? Mr. Cobbler. Hard work? Mr. father-of-eight-children. Brilliance? Yours truly- jobless me, Mr. First-University-degree.’

Hic!

‘We had it all- the good and the bad and the teacher the referee. Jesus, Barabbas and Pontius Pilate. The team of the bad; the thief- Mr. Fancy-pants, the sly-Mr. CDF-manager, the cheating-Mr. Political-leader-sir! The arrogantly rude? Mr. Landlord.’

‘And if I‘m making this up, let this tree fall down on me and save the world of my lies. Didn’t the now very old and very skinny Mrs. class-teacher-madam put one evil with one good on each desk? Didn’t she? Weren’t each of you rewarded for your obedience? Were you not instructed to liberate and save your desk mates from self destruction? That was where the bad leaned on and stamped their feet on the heads of the good, eventually conscripting us all into destruction. The tricks on teachers, always cheeky and arrogantly rude scenes- the good and bad never took sides anymore…we became one. The good now copied all their homework from the cunning, the liers and we all became cheaters. There was a blurring line between what was good and what was bad; good and bad flowed into each other seamlessly.’

Hic!

‘At the assembly ground everyday in the cold the goons led us in prayer- the whole school, eight hundred...Eight...One…two...three…eight hundred clean shaven heads and well plaited ones, row after row of eager little faces answering the prayer in unison like the bleating of sheep!

‘Ooo Goooddd blessss awa parents- every Monday

Eeeee Mungu ubaarriki waaazaaazi weeetu’

‘Meeeee! The bleating of human sheep!’

The laugh was more than thunderous; it was unintended and very spontaneous! Clapping of hands jovially, then a slight murmur. He momentarily paused.

‘Who laughs there now? You? Mr. wheelbarrow-guy?’

‘O God bless our country, Kenya- on Tuesdays

Ee Mungu ibariki nchi yetu’

Hic!

‘O God bless our leaders-on Wednesdays

Ee Mungu ubariki viongozi wetu’

‘O God bless our teachers- every Thursday

Ee Mungu ubariki waalimu wetu’

And on Friday we said a special prayer.

Hic!

‘God……………….god….. sat up above like Nero! Ever-present, all-seeing, all-knowing enjoying this theater of children, laughing in heaven at the chorused prayers of innocent souls raising their voices high, so that the prayers may reach His doorsteps.’

‘And you all remember that day I brought 40 clean and squarely cut pieces of kerchiefs and each one in the class got one piece. Remember how you were saved from the canes and your noses cleaned of mucus? I had to tear up my mum’s newly bought bed sheet. Mr. political-leader-sir! Also the class monitor of course passed by my parent’s house in the evening and reported me. I was killed that day, the next day- you all remember I was almost buried in front of 800 of you- they tied me to the flagpole and beat me in turns Mr. Serious-face, Mr. dead-and buried and Mrs. Class-teacher-Madam. Of course I refused to cry-my jaws set and eyes unflinching bore the canes. They tried hard- cane after cane but there was no tear from me until I remembered Jesus at Calvary with the lashes and wounds- ha-ha strange thing to remember. I saw delight in many eyes, in the faces of 800 people- the sniggers and taunts like Goliath’s mocking insults to David. That’s when they came out, hot, large drops, each rolling down my face, down with the reflection of the little smiley faces of all of you. Their canes had a fill of me and their brows bristled with sweat and you all learnt not to mess with your parent’s things and never to make any effort at being practical or communal. They instilled fear in you and planted suspicion amongst us.’

Hic!

They stood silently listening, Piteous and contemptuous sneers, some sad and even teary. The number kept growing and many more were crowding in. Both old and young.

Hic!

‘Remember, too, that day when we were oppressed beyond comparison, when teachers turned tyrannical and they stopped speaking with compassion but only had cruel smacks and canes on the ready? When revolt was our only solution against their inhumanity? We stood up and organized it, laid out elaborate plans for execution of the pupils strike- unfortunately they nabbed it and our plans distorted- again our very own Mr. Political-leader-sir! was the deceiver. We were killed; he was patted on the back. From those days he had nothing like community or joint effort left in him- good for nothing snitch. He tamed you into submission – copying his homework conditioned your reactions.’

Hic! Hic!

Hic! ‘Ha-ha and you have the guts….stupid votes…’ Hic!

Hic!

‘Today you languish in poverty, you eat your shit and bark when Mr. political-leader-sir! coughs. I’m happy…I tried where I could…my conscious is clear but you….you…..pathetic dead men… just listen this one last time…no time—never ever!!…shall the best, the bright, the brilliant, the ethical, the morally upright, the simple, the humble, the practical, the innovative never shall they rise above the schemes of the opportunist schemers, the liars, the stealing, the uncouth, the goons....kill the goons let not their vile ramblings shout down constructive dialogue and practical people.’

Hic!

‘………………do not weep for me...Weep for yourselves and your children!

Hic!

They stood around him for a while longer and dispersed just as they had gathered- uninvited. He hiccupped for the last time, chewed and swallowed like is the habit of all the drunk and snored off, the white shirt and well pressed trousers and shiny shoes in the dirt. With the shadows growing longer and the evening sky turning to a streak of orange. A cold chill came with the wind and the leaves of the mango tree rustled noisily.

CynoCloud

2013-05-31T21:44:00.003+03:00

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http://cynocloud.com

BENEFITS OF EAC

2012-11-29T14:48:00.001+03:00

The East Africa Community is a logical step forward for its member states and is probably the best thing that has happened to the region since the independence of the individual member states from colonialism. When the three original partner states; Kenya, Uganda and the Tanzania signed the treaty that brought fourth the East African Community on 30^TH November 1999 and its subsequent coming to force on 7^th July 2000, they brought into being an entity that was both; novel and a requisite of the times. The formation of the East African Community was a prudent decision, informed both by history and reason. For as evident suggests, integration amongst the peoples and communities within the boarders of Eastern Africa Community predated pre-colonial history.

A peep through history shows us that the East African Community has been one region, after all the indigenous populace within the EAC share common ancestral history. History also shows that there was a fluidity that characterized movement of goods and people within the EAC region especially before the advent of colonialism, well apart from wild game and terrain there was no form of state or state infrastructure that specifically prohibited people and goods from moving around, trading or any other form of interaction for that, matter. It was the partition of Africa into formalized states that put artificial strains to the natural order of free movement in Africa and the Eastern Africa region for that matter. It was this free movement of goods and people that attracted the; the Chinese, the Arabs and layer the Europeans to the East African coast, knowing to well that they could access goods sourced from the rich East African hinterland with relative ease.

“the balkanization of Africa into 53, mostly sub-optimal states, has meant that Africa cannot have a large market under one Political Authority; have no power to negotiate with the rest of the world, This balkanization must stop,”

The EAC has tried to re-establish that free movement of people and goods. That unbridled exchange of goods and movement of goods was an anchor of pre-colonial society in the Eastern Africa region which had a developed market systems well before the colonialists came. Increased intra-regional trade has been beneficial in lowering the rate of inflation as the cost of key consumables especially food has come down substantially. This in effect means that we might have within ourselves the solutions to perennial and potentially debilitating problems like, famine for Kenya especially taking into consideration that Kenya’s neighbor Uganda is not as food poor as Kenya.

I say the EAC is a necessity of the times now more than ever because the global economic climate teeters on uncertainty and the 2008 global economic meltdown amplifies this fact. The EAC provides an adequate regional market that somewhat makes the countries in the block insular to global economic shocks yet allows them to sensibly enjoy the fruits of globalization. Indeed the benign lesson from the global financial meltdown for the developing world and particularly Africa for that matter is that Africa cannot continue relying on Western economies and western consumers as sole target markets for Africa. As such the EAC is timely in that it provides a large regional market, giving producers in the region multiple choices.

The EAC also provides an opportunity for the countries to deal with common problems like security. The region deals with shared threats, Burundi and Uganda have contributed to Amisom peace keeping force in Somalia in their quest to exterminate the Al-shabab terrorism threat, which poses a threat to regional stability.

The EAC has been involved in strengthening the governments of neighboring fragile countries and institutions and of neighboring countries in an effort of to improve the security situations in these countries and generally prevent the insecurity from spilling over into the region.

Although the countries within the EAC are culturally homogenous, the advent of a new identity, i.e identifying oneself as an; ‘East African’ might help push the issues such as ethnicity to the periphery. A new identity for the citizens within the EAC community is desirable; it could heal the fissures of ethnicity that have in past bogged down our development to the pinnacle of economic and human development.

The EAC also gives the members states a platform for collective bargaining; it allows the member countries to have the wherewithal to extract more from multi-lateral negotiations and trade agreements. As President Yoweri Museveni once said,

The EAC has also ushered in a new age of seamless travel of goods and people within the region. This coupled with myriads of other measures taken to ensure that non-tariff barriers to trade are reduced to the bare minimum means that goods and services will become less expensive, not to mention the development of physical infrastructure that has accompanied the integration process.

The EAC will also help to eliminate issues such as corruption. Since corruption in any of these countries tends to increase the cost of doing business, individual member states, citizens and other non-state entities will and have already started clamouring for transparency and a zero tolerance towards corruption especially on the transits within the region. Good and efficient and governance within the region might also get realised as countries within the region need to subscribe to a higher governance culture. This in essence means that citizens within these countries should expect better service delivery from their government and other core institutions within the regions.

The East African Community provides a unique opportunity for the countries within the region to approach the future with a sure footing. The countries within the region can enjoy the benefits of globalization with the comfortable auspice of the East African Community that hedges them from unfavourable global market environments. It is also my sincere hope that overtures will be made to rope in new members like the new nation of South Sudan into the community, for the reason of enlargement and diversification of the market.

These are just but a few of the innumerable benefits of the East African Community, which have already been realized or will be realized as we move into a bright and hopeful future.

EAC’s youth EAC’s future?

2012-11-29T10:18:00.000+03:00

The Connect, vuka border Facebook inter-university challenge has been a great experience albeit a somewhat disappointing and in some aspects a depressing one. My depression might perhaps be resulting from my deep belief in the EAC course. Meeting people who know next to nothing on EAC issues and the progress made within our university is something that can really be astonishing to any conscious and antipathetic person. The drive amplified the imperative need for a conscious and more robust need for youth engagement in the EAC affairs.

But who is to blame for this?

The political disillusionment and general disenfranchisement that the youth in African States have been caught up in and their lack of concern in how their governments are run has not spared the EAC integration process.

What plans does the EAC have for
its youth?

I once asked the plans that the Kenyan Ministry of East African community had for the youth and how far issues affecting the youth have been included in the EAC agenda. Below is the response I received

What plans does MEAC have for the youth in the
EAC integration process and what efforts has MEAC undertaken to incorporate
youth issues in the EAC process?

A number of professional, civil society, local government associations and youth organizations have formed alliances across borders and meet regularly. The treaty establishing the EAC recognizes the critical role of integrating the key stakeholders such as civil society, women, youth and the private sector in the development agenda of the community with the intention of empowering effective participation of the citizenry in matters of economic development and creating a conducive environment for effective participation.

In connection, the youth, who constitute the largest segment of the population in the EAC, should be accorded proportionate recognition and participation in all national and regional development activities.

EAC’s youth is EAC’s future.

They are not only the leaders of tomorrow but also the future entrepreneurs, innovators, the scientists and technologists, the investors and managers as well as the captains of industry interests. In September 2008, the EAC forum for ministers responsible for social development recommended that to mainstream youth as well as gender issues, in all development policies and programs. The ministers further recommended to EAC council of ministers to establish a youth and children position under existing EAC administrative structure within FY 2009/2010. In the intervening time, the EAC gender and community development department has already requested a budget for an annual youth exchange programme for sharing new opportunities and best practices in business and technology. In order to have clear strategies in the sector, a strategic plan which takes into account youth issues is being developed. Three objectives have been identified:

To formulate a harmonized comprehensive regional policy that provides a binding framework for effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of youth programmes and projects
To empower the youth so that they can fully participate and benefit from the regional economic , social and political integration and,
To establish a regional mechanism that will promote and sustain youth culture, values, morals and ethics.

Where are we with the EAC integration?

It came out clear that many of the youth don’t even know the full benefits that result from the EAC integration. Exploiting the resultant opportunities becomes hard if one does not know what the integration process has brought to the fore. While one section of East Africa is talking of more integration and is even debating on EAC political federation another section does not even know we have already signed the customs union and the Common Market Protocol despite the ‘people centered approach’ that EAC promise to embrace.

Be posted for the second blog post examining different scenarios with regard to EAC and its youth participation!!

THE EAC COMMON MARKET EXPLAINED.

2012-11-27T21:06:00.001+03:00

The establishment of the East African common market is the second step in the regional integration process of East Africa, after the Customs Union, and before the establishment of a Monetary Union and Political Federation.

The East African Common Market has the main principle of accelerating economic growth and development of the Partner States through the attainment of the free movement of goods, persons and labour, the rights of establishment and residence and the free movement of services and capital. This will be attained by providing for the free movement of goods; the free movement of persons; the free movement of labour; the right of establishment; the right of residence; the free movement of services; and the free movement of capital between the five partner states of east Africa.

The common market will greatly enhance the trade between the five partner states, making it cheaper to travel, set up businesses, mergers and subsidiaries between companies and businesses between the five partner states.

The free movement of persons and labor will be attained by providing for the standard identification systems, travel documents, free movement of workers, harmonization and mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications, and harmonization of labor policies, laws and programmes. In the education sector, this will increase the competition between the higher schools of learning, and students will be able to do their courses of choice at affordable rates, and hence pursue the degrees of their dreams.

The right of establishment and residence means that a citizen of East African Community will be able to live anywhere in the region and be accorded the rights and privileges given to a citizen of the country he is living in. This will provide great incentive for the citizens of East African community to travel and intermingle, sharing their experiences with each other, improving business links and social ties within the citizens of all partner countries.

For the common market to work, there will be need for much coordination and cooperation between the governments in terms of financial policy, environmental management, research and collection of statistics, industrial development and agricultural and food security, among other issues. If, and this is a very big if, this can be done, then the East African Common Market will open up opportunities for economic and social cooperation on a scale not seen in Africa before. The benefits and opportunities that the East African common market offers for businessmen, professionals, entrepreneurs and the youth are vast, hence it is imperative for the citizens of East Africa to keep their respective governments in check, and ensure the full and quick implementation of the protocol.

Be informed and be a part of the team that will keep the government on its toes to expedite the full implementation of the common market protocol!

OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A CHANGE!!

2012-11-26T08:41:00.001+03:00

There has not been any other campaign as massive and as important as the EAC Inter-university Social media challenge that aims to bring the youth together, the youth in EAC are the biggest yet often overlooked stakeholder, to bring them together, to give them a platform that is not only youth-driven but also one that is far reaching in its scope is a timely move. The Connect, Vuka Border initiative that is working with the Ministry of EAC and funded by Trade Mark East Africa has given the youth a chance not only to get information on opportunities available in EAC but also ways in which those opportunities are being exploited and what needs to be done by the youth to benefit and exploit all opportunities coming their way as a result of the EAC integration.

Whats more interesting? the initiative is seeking to ingrain an EAC week in the academic and activity calendar of various universities where the universities across the region will commemorate the East African Community in their own ways, this will tremendously boost youth engagement in the whole process of regional integration. To achieve this, there is a massive petition to the various University administration for the inclusion of the EAC week in their academic calender. Over 10,000 petitions have, so far been collected. Be part of this movement. Be an EAC youth. Use the Links below to petition for your University: sign the petition and share this with all in your social network!

Moi http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-moi/

Nazarene http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-naz/

Maseno http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-maseno/

Kenyatta http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-ku/

University of Nairobi http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-uon/

Egerton http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-egerton/

Kenya Methodist http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-kemu/

St. Pauls http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-spu/

Daystar http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-daystar/

Catholic University http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-cuea/

Multimedia http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-mmuc/

KCA University http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-kca/

Kenya Polytechnic UC http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-kpuc

JKUAT http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eacweek-jkuat

JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON FACEBOOK
CONNECT, VUKA BORDER

OR ON TWITTER
@CVUKABORDER

THE EAC CUSTOMS UNION SUCCESS STORY!

2012-11-25T13:42:00.000+03:00

The East Africa Integration once again is a dream come true to many believers of unity for strength. After its previous challenges that led to its untimely disintegration the EAC has been resuscitated, this time with clear aims and objectives, with its main agenda being increasing the social welfare of East African citizens through regional economic, social, political and cultural integration. It is under the regional economic integration where the Custom Unions falls.

A Customs Union can be simply understood as an association of nations to promote free trade within the union and set common tariffs for nations that are not members.

The EAC’s Custom Union was the first success story in the East African Community’s integration process. The whole process was a test of fire, given the sacrifices and the stringent and tight measures that were to be adhered to by the three states. It acted as a show of commitment and the resilience showed meant that the region was serious and wholly committed to deliver, and be able to reap the benefits.

The EAC Customs Union was launched on 31^st December 2004. This process initiated common tariffs on both internal and external trade carried out by the Union partners. The Custom Union assimilated the principle of Asymmetry. In this case Uganda and Tanzania were to charge tariffs on Kenyan exports at the rates of 10% and 25% reducing by the rate of 2% and 5% every year for 5 years respectively.

Benefits of the custom union

The EAC Custom Union came packaged with great benefits and opportunities for the EAC members. The entry of Rwanda, Burundi and the prospective plans of joining by countries like South Sudan and Somalia will leave the Community with a further increased opportunities and benefits to exploit. The tremendous economic capacities and potential within the EAC is a hot cake to both local and foreign investors, who are streaming into the region with several international MNCs setting office in the region.

The opportunities and benefits resulting from the EAC Customs Union

The increased competition in the market, has lead to cheaper consumer goods and increased choice of products for the inhabitants within the EAC community

The Customs Union has led to increased market size. With more than 130 million people it has enabled firms to benefit from economies of scale in production and service delivery resulting in cheaper goods and services within the East African region. This has had a tremendous and positive effect on the living standards of the citizens within the Union.

A bigger economy attractive to investors has been realized thanks to the EAC Custom Union. The EAC has a combined GDP of about 79 billion USD. With such a handsome figure investors around the globe have made efforts to have a piece of the cake.

There has been an easy cross-border trade among the five EAC member countries. The Customs Union has led to the harmonization of trade policies within all the member countries within the Union. This has incredibly enhanced trade. The primary factor behind the trade increase has been due to removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers.

The Customs Union however has had its share of challenges too. The infrastructural and procedural problems such as the poor state of roads, frequent road blocks, lengthy inspection and the insufficient port capacities within the EAC has made importing and exporting lengthy and expensive. These problems are currently being looked into so as to smoothen and improve the levels of trade and other related matters within the East African Community.

The EAC ANTHEM

2012-11-22T16:26:00.002+03:00

Did you know that the East African Community has an anthem? Well, it was adopted by the East African community at the EAC Summit on December 3, 2010. here is the the original lyrics and below it find the unofficial English translation for ease of understanding the the content and meaning of the EAC anthem. the journey to becoming an EAC citizen begins with you learning the emblem and anthem and then you taking an active role in the EAC integration process.

ChorusJumuiya Yetu sote tuilinde
Tuwajibike tuimarike
Umoja wetu ni nguzo yetu
Idumu Jumuiya yetu.

1. Ee Mungu twaomba ulinde
Jumuiya Afrika Mashariki
Tuwezeshe kuishi kwa amani
Tutimize na malengo yetu.

2. Uzalendo pia mshikamano
Viwe msingi wa Umoja wetu
Natulinde Uhuru na Amani
Mila zetu na desturi zetu.

3. Viwandani na hata mashambani
Tufanye kazi sote kwa makini
Tujitoe kwa hali na mali
Tuijenge Jumuiya bora.

The English translation

Chorus
We should protect/guard our Community
We should be committed and
stand strong
Our unity is our anchor
Long live our community
1
Oh God we pray
For preservation of the East African Community;
Enable us to live in peace;
May we fulfil our objectives;
2
Patriotism and togetherness
Be the pillars of our unity
May we guard our independence
and peace
Our culture and traditions
3
In industries and farms
We should work together
We should work hard
We should build a better Community.

This is the national anthems of the respective members of EAC...begin with Kenya's national anthem, followed by Tanzania's and Uganda's in that order.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EAST AFRICANS

2012-11-21T17:21:00.003+03:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF EAST AFRICA

I hope this finds you well brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles, friends and friends spread across the Eastern African region, the borders we have are only residual elements that our minds are afraid to discard. We are one. We are many. We are linked by a common destiny, a common past and a shared present. Our problems are the same; they can only be solved by our collective actions. In mentioning the shared problems I must pay tribute to the resilience and the undying spirit of the citizens of the East Africa; from the terror that we have borne equally to how we deal with the inevitable conflicts that characterize the human race. We need to realize that indeed our destiny is one. The dreams you share has been envisioned in the minds of millions of people across our region: the desire for progress. It has been passed from generations and eras of yore, handed down through successive chiefdoms, kingdoms, from undemocratic regimes to the current governments. The dream of a unified East Africa has never been any clearer and more vivid than it is now.

Our progress and identity is pegged on an almost similar or the same socialization process across the region. The cultures we have, the societies spread over and not limited by lines and borders drawn on maps. As kids we have played the same games, same childish pranks and dreamt of the same terrains and environment. Sang and danced to the same songs from the late cool James (motto wa dando) in Tanzania to Saida Caroli in Uganda to Daudi kabaka and Fundi Konde to the current artists like AY and Jaguar singing Vuka Border, from Ray-c, Jaydee, Wahu, Size 8, Chameleon, Bebe cool, peter miles and Ali kiba. We even speak the same language!!.

We have grown up reading the same books from Kenya’s Grace Ogot and Ngugi wa Thiongo to Tom Chacha of Tanzania and Barbara kimenye in Uganda with her amongst others the children’s Moses series, the vividness and the familiarity of Barbara’s fictional school ‘’The Mukibi Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen’’ one school that I wanted to attend from these Ugandan tales.

From Eneriko Seruma of Uganda and the teachings of Peter John Bosco of Tanzania whose words in his short story ‘’Transition” explains greatly a context similar to what the EAC people are undergoing today……

‘’ the difficulty of the period of transition! The suffering of the generation in transition! It had never once occurred to him that the policy directed at changing the life of poverty and misery to that promising affluence and betterment could also mean disillusionment and disappointment- even to the ones it was supposed to benefit. If this was being experienced in all the other parts of the country, then the dream that had been so vivid and real in his imagination and the imagination of his friends back at school, would be much more difficult to realize than they had known. The leap from today into tomorrow was going to be much more difficult than they had known and a difficult feat to perform.’’

We are on the verge of take off. We can achieve a lot together. We are our only true relatives if states have kin or anything as blood relations. We are in-laws. We have always looked to one another when faced by hard times, we can work together, we can pull through, rise over the jeer of skeptics who are trying to shoot down our dreams of a political federation! We need not be afraid to try and implement ideas that work. Self doubt sometimes can creep and disillusion a lifelong dream, 1977 is a lesson that we have learnt from. That the destiny’s of the millions of us are much more important than a few political elements in the name of belligerent rebels and rogue politicians who are wont to create fear and in the process derail the whole integration process. These enemies of east Africa pry on our ignorance, on the apathy that characterizes our engagement in the EAC integration process. Take an initiative and learn more on the EAC integration process.

The task is indeed enormous but the rewards are also unmatched. Despite the challenges that may make the ultimate goal of political federation like an impossible endeavor, we should note that it is not beyond our capabilities, if we have the will, the right political atmosphere and a conscious mass involved at every level and our respective states are willing to make a few sacrifices, this goal will be achieved in just a few years.

We need to continue with the integration process at all levels, streamlining the different sectors in areas such as education, health, security. Take education for example- the same academic system will entail things as same number of school years, same academic syllabus. My roommate schooled in Uganda for his high school and speaks with nostalgia when he remembers his time in Uganda- he had taken it as his home and the people there were not any different from his next door neighbors.

That time is now, dear people of East Africa. We have seen it and we can achieve it.

The journey to the East African Integration is on course. Engage with others that share the same visions for East Africa on the facebook page connect, vuka border.

Useful sites that will help you take the first step in a new active participation in the EAC integration process include:

Ministry of the East African Community

Kenya

EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

AFRICAN UNION

The east African community

Jumuiya website

follow EAC -Africa Mashariki on twitter for updates

@jumuiya

While at this also take a few seconds to sign the ongoing petition by various Kenyan University students to have their respective universities introduce EAC week in their academic calendar.

Sign petition here!!

TRAVEL ADVISORIES WARNINGS!!

2012-11-21T00:10:00.000+03:00

Are travel advisories the new cane for punishing African countries?

The west and other major powers in enticing African countries use all kinds of beguiling adjectives and descriptive nouns; epitome of peace, panacea or the bastion of democracy, a stable country in a relatively volatile region or most recently due to the sustained economic growth and development some African countries have overnight been renamed as the ‘’the lion on the move’’, the ‘’new Singapore of Africa’’. All this are just but a few of the vocabularies that are employed in describing African countries. These terms are just short lived praises that can change overnight and are only used when the interests of those states are at stake. The same countries that are described with terms such as bastion, epitome of tranquility and a peaceful country can change radically and overnight without any kind of warning when sporadic travel warnings and advisories are issued by our friends in the west.

Yesterday the UK issued a travel advisory following the Eastleigh grenade blast near St. Teresas church on Sunday, just hours after the attack the UK had already ‘’ reviewed and reissued with amendments to the Travel Summary...’’ and ‘’we advise against all but essential travel to within..’’

Just this year, 2012 Kenya has been slapped with more travel advisories than ever; any incidence that happens must be followed closely with an advisory. These advisories have a two pronged effect on the country besides portraying the country in a bad light internationally in that the nationals from those major powers in the country at the time the travel warning is issued will 1. Either leave or not enjoy their stay and 2. Those with plans of visiting the country will cancel their trips to Kenya. And since Kenya depends heavily on tourism as a major contributor to its economy, the travel advisories greatly affect its budget and income forecasts. Just a simple Google search shows that different international major powers most commonly the US, Britain and Australia have issued travel advisories for the flowing months in 2012 alone.

The travel advisories are not any different and are full of the usual cliché with only the dates being changed

‘’an imminent threat of a terrorist attack…….’’

‘’this is to alert all US citizens in Kenya, or planning to travel to Kenya in the near future, that the U.S Embassy in Nairobi has received information of an imminent threat of a terrorist attack in……’’

This trend is continuing and has no signs of ending anytime soon, even when Kenya triumphs the terror and barbaric attacks the UK has already issued an ‘’exercise extra caution and vigilance’’ statement ahead of our 4^th March elections.

‘’General and Presidential elections are due to take place on 4 March 2013. Significant violence after the last elections in 2007/2008 left 1,100 dead and 600,000 displaced. We advise British nationals to exercise extra caution and vigilance, particularly in public places. ‘’

It will take several years before Kenya can get itself out of all this bad publicity that are resulting from all this warnings and travel advisories. The government should intensify the security situation and the Kenyan people should also be very vigilant and undertake community police roles to ensure that we are indeed safe.

Australia

Australia

Issues travel advisory on citizens

Updated Tuesday, August 28 2012

''Australia has advised its citizens to avoid parts of Mombasa following the killing of Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo. “Further civil unrest is likely and Australians in the area should avoid all public gatherings and monitor local media for updates on the security situation,”''

''This Advice was last issued on Friday, 05 October 2012 “…We also continue to strongly advise Australians not to travel to the area north of Pate Island in Lamu District, border regions with Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan, because of the extremely dangerous security situation.”

America

July 9th

“The U.S. government continues to receive information about potential terrorist threats aimed at U.S., Western, and Kenyan interests in Kenya. Terrorist acts can include suicide operations, bombings, kidnappings, attacks on civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels in or near Kenyan ports,”

Capital news-

Still current at: 19 November 2012issued just yesterday.

ESTABLISHING A PEOPLE DRIVEN POLITICAL FEDERATION IN EAST AFRICA

2012-11-18T13:45:00.002+03:00

The status of the East Africa political federation

A lot of mystery, fallacy, myth and a certain indefinable fear surrounds the EAC political federation debate. This fear is warranted, from the state centric realist approach, one can openly be skeptic on how states can ever give up their sovereignty to form a bigger and a more powerful state. It seems quite an impossible undertaking given that there is yet a union to gain political federation, the European Union which has managed to develop some highly advanced level of deeper integration is yet to achieve political federation status, so how can a couple of sub-Saharan countries struggling to make a mark on the international political economy be as ambitious as to hope for a superior political federation less than two decades after its revival? One might be forced to ask!

A simple Google search on East Africa federation will give you very diverse opinions: from ill shaped to very plausible arguments on how the federation will turn out to be, from western skeptics portending doom for the East African Community to very optimistic and ambitious debates by East Africans. Despite the varied debates and arguments one thing that cuts across and is agreed upon by many is the enormity of this task, all articles ever written on the EAC does not fail to mention the enormous changes and challenges that face the individual members of EAC in establishing this EA federation.

How the political federation in East Africa be like?

Scholars such as Peterson(2005) and kasasira(2007) believed that by 2013, the EAC plans to have facilitated the creation of the East African Federation which will be a federal super state where all member countries will keep their own identities with national parliaments, presidents, and flags, but share a

1. Federal parliament & cabinet,

2. A chief justice,

3. A supreme court, and

4. A super state president appointed by rotation from the member states.

Are the people of East Africa fully engaged in the integration process?

The right information and informed opinions on the EAC political federation and knowledge on many other aspects of the EAC integration process is a reserve of a limited number of elites and government executives. The fear borne by many of the EAC citizens and its people is majorly driven by lack of adequate knowledge and for the revived EAC to continue its existence it has often been mentioned that it needs to employ a different approach in how it engages with its people, the EAC treaty has indeed gone to great lengths in promoting its aims and policies as people-centered and is working to strengthen the development of a working model through the developing administration, policy, management and organization structure for engaging and incorporating all major economic integration systems, from establishing the common market to the customs union, from plans to put in place a monetary and a single currency for the region to the ultimate goal of instituting a political federation.

This people-centered political federation can only be achieved by heightened levels of engaging the people; the youth, men, women, children and every individual in the social strata of the region; this in turn will mean a more informed populace that will speed up the people owned and people driven EAC integration process. Currently the avenues through which the EAC policy formulation, orientation and its subsequent implementation is limited only to a few media houses and the EAC owned monthly Jumuiya news. A more robust and one on one engagement with the people involves having open public forums that will adequately engage everyone in having a say in what decisions and policies reached and pursued by East Africa as a community. This forum should be running in all the EAST AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES, the current university and college students will be running the EAC integration process in a few years and without their full engagement, full progress and people centered integration will be hard to come by.

Once as a first year student, the Kenyan ministry of East Africa Community under the leadership of hon. Jeferson Kingi, and the late MEAC Permanent Secretary Mr. David Nalo held the first ever EAC integration sensitization forum in Maseno University. As a very naïve and idealistic first year I wished such forums would be an annual event. I greatly benefited from the, debate, the EAC Development Strategy (2008-2012), Jumuiya news and a few other documents that the ministry gave for free. A few weeks later having read the entire MEAC development strategy I wrote an email to the permanent secretary’s office expressing my fears and concerns, asking for explanations on certain aspects of the EAC integration process (read the questions and feedback received from my email to the permanent secretary here.) It’s been a whole four years since and there is not a sign of any such forum on EAC in our campus and it’s a shame that those of us at the university are being cut out of the EAC integration process.

It’s about time the university students demanded to be listened to, to be involved, to be consulted and it is about that time we took an active role in the EAC integration process. Connect,Vuka Border is one initiative that needs to be replicated everywhere and at every level for our universities to include the EAC week in its academic calendar and in the process fostering a more robust relationship between the students body and those in the frontline in running the EAC integration process.

Sign this petition to have EAC week included in the varsity calendar.

SIGN PETITION

The EAC integration should not an elite talk or a purely government officials and ambassadors run process. The mama mboga talks in roadside stalls should be listened to and acted with the same vigor that our campus room debates need to be listened to and used as a guide in shaping the direction of the EAC integration process.

Tweet about this and let all in your network know of the urgency of this matter!

@cvukaborder

#connectVukaBorder

#TeamMasenoUniversity

The writer is a fourth year student International Relation student at

Maseno university.
Twitter handle @Dalle22

Connect, Vuka Border EAC Integration

2012-11-17T14:10:00.004+03:00

The Inter- University Social Media Challenge is an initiative by The Ministry of The East African Community funded by TradeMark East Africa. The challenge is working towards ingraining EAC weeks as part of University calendar activities from 2013 through collection of petitions from universities (please see below petition links to petition now)

Through the challenge, 14 participating universities will hold EAC weeks that will drive knowledge around the benefits and opportunities that the EAC presents to students. All activity photos will then be shared on Social Media Sites (Facebook - Connect Vuka Border & Twitter - @cvukaborder)

Ultimately, one university will win the Kshs 1.3m East Africa grand prize tour with five students from the university visiting the hottest destinations sites in the E.A region. The announcement will be made on December 10, 2012.

This social media competition seeks to engage the EAC youth and varsity students to take up very active roles in the EAC integration process. There competition has drawn much publicity with various types of events being organized within the institutions of higher learning in the whole of the East African region.

Please take time to sign the petition to convince the various university to include the EAC week in its academic calendar.

sign it here

Who is the clown in the loo?

2012-10-25T12:22:00.001+03:00

Every Thursday night, we meet in a lecture hall as SPOKEN HEART family, poets, writers and rappers. The talent flowing in Maseno is enormous. I sometimes write, overcoming my weaknesses and hurriedly jot pieces of stories that are half corrected and in its first draft. I read them out, despite the many grammatical mistakes that am too busy to correct here is one flash fiction that I wrote and read out in one of SPOKEN HEARTS weekly meetings.

Its evening, the sun sinking fast into that abyss in the far west, activities picking momentum by the minute, Jikos are being fanned vigorously, Utensils clanking and sufuria’s being scrubbed in front of open rooms in readiness for the evening meal. Someone is bent over the underground tank tagging at a 6 meter rope to draw water. Black paper bags with evening mbogas (normally kales) swinging in hands of tenants coming back after a day of sexual escapades in the girls hostels.

Allan my roommate had gone to Nyawita for sukuma wiki and some omena for our supper, he walks in and without any warning hits me with

‘aki kuna sauti inatoka kwa choo!’ his hands on his mouth and a disturbing look on his face.

‘Ati choo?’

‘kuna mtu anaongea kwa choo’

‘choo gani?’ I ask.

‘hii ya hapa mbele’

You see, this particular choo is the sort that one prefers to use the bush instead. It’s an old pit latrine, its door precariously hanging on its faulty hinges, the choo is filling up. You shit and the heavy thud is not far off, it’s instantaneous, it echoes back. So close. The walls are almost touching, giving just enough room for squatting space. You would literally see the murky deposit from a thousand previous squats eating up the dark hole below. Green and well fed flies decorating most parts of the walls. Little white worms wriggle on the floor as if they were late for a busy dung market. Any sane minded person uses this latrine with a painful frown like one in deep agony. I confirmed this from the frowns that people still had on their faces whenever they walked of that old latrine.

It is this choo that Allan now said he heard voices coming out of.

‘No way’, I said.

‘I’m sure’, he said, his disgust shown with that agonizing frown on his brow.

Sitting in there is an agony of its own magnitude, how in the world anyone can be talking in there, is something that can be explained by the examination of the more than 30 inhabitants of the place.

‘Could it be the no. 17 guys?’

The ones with a thousand avocados spread over an old sack in their room? Just as we mentioned their names; they appeared, walking sullenly as is their nature, probably brooding over how they could replenish their avocado stock.

It can’t be the pious guy in number. The one who looked at you like you were are a devil, I hated the-you-are-going-to-hell look in his eyes.

My friends in number three were real “Tombinohs” and by that I mean screams and moans from their room every night. So one day the pious guy in number two walks in as we were having a good time talking in room 3 and with that heavenly tone says

‘Bwana asifiwe’

‘asifiwe sana’ they answered in unison.

‘Bwana anawapenda sana’ he began

Silence reigned with a deathly flair. We only stole confused glances to each other. And getting no response from us he continued

‘Whatever you do at night will get you in trouble’, but before he said anything further. The Tombinoh guy cut in

‘I swear I use condoms, hata juzi tulipimwa HIV!!

It wasn’t a stifle that came from me; it was an uncontrolled burst of laughter. I couldn’t sit there anymore. I walked out laughing, thinking how different and far apart our worlds were, how different our morals were.

The guy talking in the Loo was neither of the number 3 nor the number 2 guys.

‘Or could it be the pregnant lady in no. 6?’

‘It is a man’s voice!’ Allan, quick with his response cut me short

So that rules out the ladies, including the number 10 one, who was a self confessed tomboy. But it still could be the guy in number 6 living with his girlfriend, the mshamba one, their quarrels often forced me to wonder how this guy keeps up with the shouts from his ‘wife’.

‘Get out of my room!’ she would often be heard saying.

‘umechangia nini kwa hii nyumba?’

The number 4 guy was a big time loner, his obsession with gym and weight lifting evident on the numerous biceps on his body!, stocky he was. It was one person I didn’t want to mess with. At the tank I always gave him way. It couldn’t be him either.

‘ama ni hawa wasee wa namba 8?’

It couldn’t be them, their woofer was already blaring the same tune of

‘merimela kipenzi ulikuwa mpole….’

How in the world can anyone be listening to the same tune for a whole two weeks without being bored? They sometimes alternated it with their other all time favorite- kigeugeu. The speakers on full blast; even when lying in my bed and their speakers off, the irritating tune still continued playing in my ears. It wasn’t either of them.

The guy in the latrine was animatedly talking now, we were sure he was speaking on his phone.

‘sisi tumeshinda tukilala tu hapa…nikukula na kulala…’

Silence

‘Eeehe….’

Silence

‘Hapana, hata wakitaka wasirudi, kwani ni nini wanatufunza?’

Silence

‘hahaha….si unajua, mimi nilioa kitambo, hiyo kitu, nimeifanya mpaka imenichosha’

An elongated silence…

‘aaaii siwezi blunder hivo…lazima nitumie CD sitaki kukufa’

We were outside our room now, watching silently, listening to this one sided conversation. Size eight, the landlord’s dog had also joined us. Watching intimately, like one also understanding the conversation going on in the latrine. Excitedly wagging its tail like it was impatient to know who the clown in the latrine was.

‘Who can it be?’

The Ombitho guys were sited outside their room, rolling their evening meditation sticks.

‘These merimela guys are distracting our meditation’ I heard them complain one day. Their definition of meditation was something they alone understood.

It was already dark. The latrine guy was someone we could not place in any of these rooms. It seemed like he had forgotten about why he was at the latrine and taken on a whole new role of speaking with his friend on topics ranging from how tired he was fucking his girlfriend, to lecturers strike and how his HELB loan was now reduced to manageable amount. We stood impatient waiting for him to come out. Moran, my other very tall and lanky roommate too had joined us. No one was talking to the other. Seconds ticked. The guy in the latrine too, like someone who’d sensed that we were waiting for him to come out had stopped talking.

The loo’s door was pushed forward. And we craned our necks along with its movement. Here he was, about to walk out.

The silhouette of a man appeared in that tiny doorway. He took several steps towards us and just as he stepped into the lights from our room.

The goddamned lights went off.

Aaaaakhh fuck!

A CALL FOR HUMANITY!!

2012-07-31T12:44:00.001+03:00

Excellencies, we, each year, find time to meet here for one course- to better our world and to renew our commitments to each other.

The challenges of the yester years can not now be solved by the same solution we identified in our last general assembly. New trends and new dimensions of the same or similar challenge emerge with each passing day. Yet the resilience and the undying hope that we can defeat all, and triumph above all together stands out clear.

Excellencies, it is the realization that by remodeling ourselves, our interests and our mindsets with each changing global trend and each emerging challenge that has seen us come up with new solutions and identify better approach to global problems.

At the core of its interests, each nation has its citizens and civilians at heart and since Humanity has always looked onto each other for progress and this gives rise to the interconnectedness of the international system, the practice of two neighbors, one asking salt from the other replicated in the growth of international aid and donor grants, the same culture of conflict between two individuals that leads individuals arming themselves with clubs and machetes to international arms race and military alliances to counter alliances. From the practice of two or three individuals formulating rules, norms and ethos to guide their daily interactions and their existence in the society, man has developed international law at the global level. Humanity is at the heart of our global interconnectedness but for far too long individuals have played minimal and subordinate role in driving their course at the international system, but in our current system, we have a paradigm shift with individuals playing greater role in bringing states together. The use of technology and the social media through which an American citizen is driven by the plight of the children of Uganda is not just any random act of activism, It’s the realization by individuals that they are now living in one village, the global village and that one can not shut his eyes and plug his ears to the pain and cries of others.

You all realize that it is the individual who is the perpetrator and at the same time the victim of his decisions. Piracy and civil wars, floods, terrorism, economic depression, the ravages of drought and famine directly affect the individual. When a state is food insecure, then it is its civilians that sleep hungry. Whether its child slavery, child soldiers in Uganda and Sudan or the sex exploitation of the kids in Cambodia and Korea. Be it war in Syria or Congo. Floods in the Mississippi or in Kenya, food insecurity in Afghanistan or the horn of Africa, the inaction of member states is not just a failure of these respective governments but rather a common failure of each state of the earth.

The same fear that is borne by the mother in Africa concerning her child’s security, health, environment, education and employment are the same one that others mothers across the world bear, the same concern of dealing with terrorism, piracy and all other challenges to the existence of humanity are being addressed by all international organizations and every state.

How then can we, member states, with shared vision, a common concern for humanity, same challenges then work together to achieve this? It must be a different approach and a new global outlook that must be employed to take us there. Not the traditional and conventional approaches that we have been employing for all these years; we have a collective responsibility in these new era of global interdependence.

Since we have common problems, common dreams and common goals then, why do we consider others as our enemies and others as our friends? Everyone is working towards the same goal of bettering their position on earth but the means of approach is quite different, that’s where the collision in our quest to better humanity lies, that’s where the United Nation steps in as the ‘center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these goals’. But often instead of listening to those not our compatriots we oppose, condemn and criticize them without realizing that we indeed are working towards the same goal but in different perspectives. All we sometimes need is tolerance and dialogue and if the stand of our enemies is indeed the destruction of humanity then we are have a right to destroy them before they destroy the global good and humanity. Diplomatic envoys and global leaders who we can call Global Village Elders have been listened to, our won Former Secretary General MR. Anan is one such global elder whose service we can all rely on to settle our differences than resorting to unwarranted force in dealing with such enemies.

The United Nation has the mandate to protect civilians, embodies the ideal of collective responsibility and today unilateral actions is not accepted, I ask you all to uphold the principle of RESPONSBLE SOVEREINTY and to have a global vision in which each member state respects the rights of individuals and instead of defining their interests in terms of power, define your interest in terms of a common course for humanity and the call to humanity entails that it is individuals who tackle the existing global problems in their own unique way. States need to tap in a more positive way into the individual debates going on, in the village squares, the campus hostels and in the market centers in the same importance as those in prominent board rooms.

I urge you, political leaders and developed countries, to go farther than forging new partnerships that ends at economic, military or political fronts to that ensuring that the benefits of such partnerships will spill over to friendship between individuals. We need to go farther than give aid and threatening to cut donor funds and instead put some face to the statistics that is prompting you to five those funds. Engage at a more friendly and humane level the human beings benefiting form these external aid other than stopping at the aid agencies when it comes to our interactions.Environmental conservation concepts brought down to the household level where each family is asked to plant trees and utilize resources too.

When upholding the rule of law, I ask all of you, to dispense justice to all and not selective justice, we need to go farther than persecuting a few perpetrators at the ICC to leaving the true victims in the same state and worsened conditions of life as resulting from the actions.

When we refuse to learn from the apartheid in South Africa and now having to deal with a similar crisis in Sudan, where the north is ejecting the southerners who have all along known the north to be their home!

The case of Rwandan genocide being a dent on the story of global interdependence and today we face a situation where each year crisis that if added together can be of a similar magnitude as the Rwandan genocide and the horn of Africa crisis being a constant problem where each year we deal with the same scenario of hunger and starvation. We can’t talk of sustainability if our approach every year is short-term and immediate only to the crisis. This kind of repetitative crisis should awaken us to stand together now more than ever.

This not a time for war drills and arms race, not a time to form alliances and counter alliances, the debate of Africa leaning towards the East should and must be subservient to the problems facing us all, the Syrian crisis, the hunger in the horn of Africa, terrorism, floods and a diminishing resource base. The interests of single states should be subordinate to the cause of humanity. Its not a time for shutting our ears to the debates going on between citizens of our different states on the social media, not undermining global concerns and agendas even when it is in conflict with our immediate interests but this is a time for identifying the means of and facilitating platform and forging partnership. A time for being true to each other and not to renegade on the agreements between us, not clasping our hands into a fist to those we consider not to be our compatriots or cutting the hands that are stretched out to us. This is the time for shaping one global destiny. And the way is to empower our citizens to know that they are living in one world and to respect life.

If nations remain indifferent to the crisis of the other, they lack in the same breath the moral authority to address each other and to condemn each other’s indiscretion and failures. We need to forge a new global moral where all is looked at from the angle of Humanity and your roles as political leaders is to give directions, identify new, overlooked approach, creativity and nurture the ingenuity of our race!!

I wrote this as a competition entry following The Brookings Institution and the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) speech writing contests for university students. The Brookings Institution in Washington DC and UNAI launched the global contest, inviting the students around the world to imagine a speech that would be made by the Secretary-General at the opening of the next session of the General Assembly. The contest aimed to encourage interested students and future leaders with the opportunity to demonstrate innovative thinking on responsibilities and rights involved in solving global problems together in a shared culture of intellectual social responsibility.

And I leave you with this excerpt from the song ‘’Is There For HonestPoverty", by Robert Burns

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth over all the earth
Shall have the first place and all that!
For all that, and all that,
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over Shall brothers be for all that.

OIL REVENUE IN EAST AFRICA

2012-07-30T13:55:00.002+03:00

On the third of July, 2012 I was in Africacounts round table forum at Hilton hotel, Nairobi organized by Development initiatives to discuss

Natural resources in Eastern Africa: what do they mean for poverty eradication?

Activists, politicians, journalists and development enthusiasts were present. In roads were made on the concept of the emerging oil revenue and the implications on the public expenditure. This forum is a bold one and more of this is needed.

From the round table forum it evidently struck me that many don’t really know what the oil sector is all about, and despite learning a lot I still have a lot of other questions in mind. But before I delve into these questions, let’s briefly look at some of the areas of major concern with regard to the oil sector and with regard to oil revenue in Africa.

When the discovery of oil in Kenya was announced by the Ministry of Energy in Kenya, the social media was awash with discussions, expectations were stated in the most exaggerated of ways. Many saw Kenya leap frog to vision 2030 and beyond in just about a few years. My friend saw his dream of owning a car come into existence…

"the price of oil will be so cheap, I will buy me a big car in just a few years’’

The other one majoring in education was of the opinion that the employment created by the oil industry will save him from the many years of ‘’tarmacking’’ that many Kenyan graduates are forced to undergo with the rising unemployment. How mistaken he is. During the forum a participant mentioned that

‘’only 28,000 people are employed in the oil sector in South Arabia which has the world’s second largest proven oilreserves’’

Just after a few months the whole oil euphoria died down, no more heated debates, no more insightful discussions on the same in the social media. The journalists too did not have many things to say or report on the oil issue apart from the occasional directives from the drilling companies…

‘’more oil wells to be sunk’’, ‘’ Kenya discovers gas’’,

Because of the technicalities shrouding the oil sector analytical discussions on the implications of the resource generated by the Oil industry do not feature much on our media houses. The Kenyan journalists are mum on giving very vital details to the citizenry...these trends are not only confined to Kenya but the whole of East African region.

Jeff Koinange was in Lokichar just a few weeks ago in his ‘’ face the nation” programme and I heard the residents complain that they are yet to get any kind of employment from the oil drills, how their environment was being mutilated, how their livelihoods was being disrupted because the oil fields were their grazing lands.

can the oil sector be a solution to unemployment for many?

Only development think tanks realize how important that the clearing of the misconceptions on the oil sector and initiating very lively debates is.

Some pertinent issues that we should be tackling as a nation concerning this sector?

Managing the high, inaccurate and exaggerated expectations.
Enhancing Stakeholder participation
How do we ensure that the non-oil sectors do not succumb to the excesses realized from the oil revenue?
Taxation and fiscal management.
Legal framework
Land, environment and conflict prevention.
Oil revenue distribution and sharing.

The oil sector is one shrouded with a lot of technicalities, issues such as

· how oil prices are set

· how revenue is generated and shared

· How contracts are awarded is beyond the understanding of many.

We all realize the primacy of engaging the local communities in drawing partnerships and making all such partnership local community inclusive will prevent future conflicts on these resources. How can this happen if they don’t have understanding of all such factors?

The government, think tanks and media houses should enhance how it engages the various stakeholders in this sector by:

· Clearing the fog covering this sector

· Encouraging more open discussions in the local communities

· Avoid the spread of ill-conceived ideas to mislead people and raise their expectations so high.

· Making revenue data and all information concerning the sector open to the public.

Development initiative who organized the forum came up with a four point policy message to East Africa on the discovery of oil and gas recommendation (download the pdfversion of this policy message here)

This is the first of other blog posts that I will be posting on the Oil and Gas discovery in the East African region seeking to tackle questions such as these;-

EAC member states have high foreign debt and might easily be forced to take up the settlement of such debts (following the oil revenue) - how best can EAC governments and states position themselves to ward off unfavorable conditions from the major powers with regard to oil?

The finite oil resource is often addressed by setting up a savings fund-where a share of annual oil revenue is saved for future generations- Uganda already has policy recommendations to put aside some of the Oil wealth for future generations- is this the way to go for EAC member states?
How can EAC members better protect their non-Oil sector and How to best manage other revenue sources?
What best model of revenue sharing should EAC states pursue when dealing with the highly uncertain and volatile oil prices?
What lessons can EAC states draw from other Oil producing stateS?

I urge each one of us to take up the debate at our own levels and try to get a grip of the implications of the revenue generated from the oil sector, the environmental impact of the sector, do not take a relegated position… this issues will eventually catch up with you if things go wrong in the way the oil sector is handled. When god-forbid the ‘’oil curse” comes into being, you wont be spared.

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THE EAC COMMON MARKET EXPLAINED.

OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A CHANGE!!

THE EAC CUSTOMS UNION SUCCESS STORY!

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TRAVEL ADVISORIES WARNINGS!!

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SIGN PETITION

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Who is the clown in the loo?

A CALL FOR HUMANITY!!

Then let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that) That Sense and Worth over all the earth Shall have the first place and all that! For all that, and all that, It is coming yet for all that, That man to man the world over Shall brothers be for all that.

OIL REVENUE IN EAST AFRICA

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth over all the earth
Shall have the first place and all that!
For all that, and all that,
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over Shall brothers be for all that.