Mugabe grossly underestimated the power of a fatigued and battered citizenry. They showed him dust by voting Tsvangirai in the first round of voting and no amount of historic vote rigging for a whole historic month would turn the tables. That has left Mugabe to perfect what he knows best. Zimbabwe is suffocating under INTIMIDATION and brutality meted out to any perceived and real opposition sympathizers. Grandmothers are paying with their head and limbs should their grandchildren be suspected not to be ZANU-PF compliant.
Industrious Kenyans envy Zimbabweans for their civility. In fact Kenya would have registered the magical 10+% growth rate this year if they didn’t protest last year’s FLAWED POLLS. You only need to conveniently forget the Zimbabwe analogue of where we would have been were we to give room for a re-run. We had our home bred Simba Makoni wiping and salivating for the spoils. But again Mugabe is just learning the ropes albeit devoid of our style and sophistication in delivering FRAUD and DECEPTION. Why employ Moi's terror tactics when you can top up with zeroes? Bob only needed the creative mind to add the zeroes truncated from the Zimbabwean dollar to the vote's tally and he would be home and dry without the pain of spewing threats.
Tested, proven Kenyan script
So Zimbabweans may be going through HELL on earth with inflation figures that bust computer’s memory BUT we better learn CIVILITY from them. What is more, better have peace with nothing to eat rather than bloodying your hands to reclaim a country from the grasp of her owners. We leave in interesting times where selective application of logic reigns supreme with eyes singularly trained on feathering our nests.
Well, Robert Mugabe is many things to many people. We have Kenyans who will selectively praise him for standing for the colonialists oblivious of the pre-historic battering he is visiting on his his country and her people. The Kenyan version of patriotism is truly unique. Zimbabwe may have been the last African state to get independence but Mugabe is doing very well in accelerating the speed to MISRULE like his local comrade.
Revolutions the world over germinate from the seed of readiness to die for what you believe in. Deciding whether Zimbabweans are cowards or civilized is to trivialize a grave matter. I only pray that Mugabe doesn’t live to sink Zimbabwe after June 27. But with Kenyan tested and proven script before him that prayer is akin to selling ice cream to an Eskimo. May God save us from our tormentors for leaders?
Sneak preview of the last week's raw notes:
"Indeed it is quite likely that it was the subject of puzzled gossip within the August house where most burly politicians prefer sexual encounters with underage girls picked up mostly along
- Get your Kumekucha raw notes.
There is nothing to emulate from Zimbabweans, civilized or uncivilized. What Kenyans need to do is have a constitution that encompasses all facets of Kenyan life. Having an ECK that basically has the same powers as Lenana school's prefect body to run an election is a joke! And even now with Raila and ODM in GK, they are not mentioning anything about bringing the constitution in line with the 21st century. Before you know it, it will be 2012 and we will be exactly where we left off. Only this time, the smart ones will not have pangas, bows, arrows, stones and other primitive weapons at their disposal. Mugabe is is only slightly better than Kibaki in that he did not insult the mwananchi's intelligence by simply adding zeros to whatever tally showed up at KICC, and then swearing himself in minutes later to control the so called instruments of power thereby killing kenyans en mass.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe with the highest literacy rates in African has been brutalized, stripped, raped call it what you may, by this generation of leaders that are a relic of bygone times. Not only in their ideologies, but lack thereof, of realizing when it is time to hang it up. Mugabe with one foot in the grave does not have the common decency or wisdom to know when it time to ride into the sunset.
ReplyDeleteGOD SAVE AFRICA.
anon 12:29
ReplyDeletespot on, zimbabwe's "civility" is a mix of fear and desperation, most of the "fighters for democracy" in that country are either dead, in prison or across the border. this is not to say that Zanu-PF/Mugabe do not have supporters, but that they have totally smothered all form of dissenting.
Main opposition leaders are in and out of jail on trumped up charges its just absurd.
but i think Taabu's point well noted, is that no matter the circumstances, we in kenya could have done better and not resort to the extreme violence witnessed either to express disapproval or "restore order" as it were.
UrXlnc
Anon 12.55
ReplyDeleteYes you are probably right.
I have come to the conclusion that participating in African politics, and pinning your hopes in politics is a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, I have realized this by being out of Kenya. What is lacking in Kenya is patriotism and to a large extent, what I like to call pride in one's tribe. By this I mean, we distinguish ourselves ethinically but we are afraid and we have no guts to compete against other tribes on a level playing field. Instead, we spend time sticking it to the other tribe and we are proud when one of us is appointed to high office, even when we have absolutely nothing in common with this chap, and when we know that he isn't the most effective man for the job. We somehow derive pleasure from their personal success, which will never trickle down to us. A school here, a water pump there, and we are cumming in our torn tartered shorts with pride.
That is the wrong pride.
Imagine if you as a Kikuyu, Kamba, Luo etc, decided to get involved in your immediate community. Making sure you knew how many kids were attending school, who the teachers were, what farm products were "exported" out of your area, where the orphans slept...I mean knowing what the hell was going on in your immediate area. What were your problems, what were your accomplishments and so on. Then finding home grown ideas to tackle these issues. I often wonder how the communities bordering the national reserves and parks get to keep part of the revenue from these parks, and yet those that live in the tea areas, coffee zones, wheat, maize, grain belt don't get a dime from these products!
How is that?
Charity begins at home. If we as Kenyans can embrace our tribes in a positive light, and work our asses off for the collective benefit of the community to succeed, boma by boma, village by village, shopping center by shopping center; then I think that we would not care so much who becomes president as long as our collective needs were met and represented. Lastly, this is the only sure way to nurture home grown leaders that actually understand where we are coming from. Folks like Raila, am sorry to say, have never slept on an empty stomach. They have never felt the bite of poverty. And while he may advocate for the less fortunate and the masses, he belongs to a different club. So too Kibaki, Mudavadi, Uhuru and on and on.
The good news is that the world is changing so fast towards becoming a global village. Time will come when you will be able to transact business right from the village as long as you have high speed internet and a phone. Time will come when many people will be able to work from their villages while still getting paid in dollars and Euros. Time will come when leaders of the world will call upon these chaps in their villages because they are the pioneers in their fields, bypassing the president and PM and all that beaurocratic bullshit. And once that happens, the GK will be forced to accept a certain standard when it comes to economic, social and political stability or risk loosing these people. And thankfully, Kenyans are among the smartest and brightest and innovative folks in Black Africa. And it will no longer be necessary to look at politics as a way to riches.
You are right Taabu. If Kibaki was civilized enough to accept defeat, we would be looking forward to a gazillion digit economic growth under ODM in five years. Lives would have been saved if Kivuitu was civilized enough to arrest the vote thievery at KICC.
ReplyDeleteThat said we must commend all our civilized brothers who came out into the streets fighting for peace. The way I see it, it is quite uncivilized to relax at home scratching your balls and doing nothing else while the election is being stolen.
i agree that zimbwabeans handled the situation better, but they are also twenty years or so behind us, and the sophistication of rigging to the point of infuriation probably hasnt reached yet. Dont 4get moi rigged in 1992 and 1997, used battery and intimidation just like Mugabe. But definetly they have a much stronger sense of society than Kenya, and they will prob get much more for it because of consensus. Judjing by kumekucha and other discussions, every topic becomes a blame game that is really shameful.
ReplyDeleteKalamari,
ReplyDeleteThat's funny... scratching your balls while the election is being stolen...
I dare say, were it an erection (rather than election) being stolen, no Kenyan man would sit at home scratching their balls! They'd be up in a haste to get back their erection...
That made my afternoon. Cheers bro!
its always kibaki who destroyed kenya and raila is the saviour. When 7% growth was being realised, every1 complained. Then kenyans tarnish their reputation at the brink of global economic recession, and odm claim that they will bring double digit growth, when our growth has fallen 2% and the world growth is decreasing. Even a baby could tell yot that wont be possible in the timescale alloted. Both of the parties are as bad as each other, one blatantly lies to our face, the other makes promises naively. At least in zim they concur on one thing, they want leadership which is hard fought for. We sit and complain then vote in idiots. And we expect better?
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I agree about civility a la carte. I often ask, if as a man (and maybe a woman) if you walked in on some guy raping your wife or you daughter or your son or even your dog; what would you do?
ReplyDeleteDo you take a few deep breaths and call the cops or do you go ape shit on the attacker with whatever is at your disposal?
The Zimbabwe situation is not as merry as put forth here. When inflation is sky high, with over 30% of the population (and I mean the productive segment) are refugees in other countries, with no food and no livelihood or sustainance; what exactly is there to be civil about? If you can not react to save your life at the expense of civility then you deserve all the crap that comes your way from Mugabe.
The skirmishes in Kenya were a good thing. Kibaki and PNU were taking Kenyans for granted. Adding zeros at KICC? C'mon bro! We did not just get off the mayflower and this ain't our first rodeo! Those skirmishes sent a clear message not only to PNU but anyone else that the electorate is not that stupid. Sis sio maid. Even Moi used to rig with some intelligence. Break up the opposition, register anyone who wants to run, then just take 10% from everyone other than the son of the area. That way we had people getting 1 vote!
Lakini adding zeros? Uh, uh , huo ni usenge wa kutupa mbali.
Historically people have always died for what they hold dear. It happened during independence and all the revolutions around the world. So I have nothing but contempt for Zimbabweans for their passivity and lack of fighting spirit. No wonder they were amoung the last to get their independence!
OK, let us agre on this; What we need now is a constituton that ushers in civility on the part of government and the entire political leadership and one that strengthens institutions to ensure that there is no room for impunity.
ReplyDeleteZimbabweans are ahead on thing; their belief that the president has to be elected by a majority of their registered voters. They may not effect it to the latter but at least they have the requirement in their constitution. Each one of us has their opinion on who actually won last year's polls. What we agree on is that no one gannered 50% of the vote (Unless someone wants to change the goal posts further).
If we adopt a decent constitutional document and I am glad the protagonists seem to be reading from the same script on this one, that will eliminate the power of the ruling party to rig elections and get away with it and it will also eliminate the opposition's leverage in engaging in lies to create international attention and claim victory. So let us reform the ECK in our constitutional review. Let us make the appointment of its commissioners inclusive on top of giving it powers to arbitrate on electoral disputes.
On top of that, the judiciary too should be empowered, the presidential powers should be slashed and vested with parliament. The police force should be saved from the whimps of politicians and then after all that is done, we go to the polls where the winning candidate who gets 50% of the votes cast becomes President. If nobody does, let's return to the ballot pitting the top two candidates.
The strange thing is that all this will happen and you will see people crying foul when they lose elections in 2012, which just illustrates the differences in our understanding of what civility is.
Vikii
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and like to tell you thats what ODM supporters have been shouting at the top of our voices. I dont get it
Also it makes more sense for runoff if the top two contenders are within 5% of each other (to curb incumbency dishonesty), but the probability of a candidate obtaining more than 50% of votes cast diminishes when there are more than two strong candidates and means there will always be run-offs.
ReplyDeleteVicki is right on one thing; civility needs to be a two way street. The electorate and the gova need to be civil.
ReplyDeleteTaabu
ReplyDeleteAfter watching BBC today- I have no words for Mugabe- look at what his police and army has done to the Zimbabwean citizen?? did you watch the news?? Koffi Annan is trying to broker some agreement he has been to see Mugabe 3 times and is back in there- Tabu Mbeki now is talking and has gone to speak to Mugabe too not like his last time off hand approach and yes the people of Zimbabwe opposed to Mungabe are still being slaughtered and tortured as we speak or blog here today-
My question is what right has Mugabe to kill and torture his own citizens in order to retain power?? at how much cost on human life??
why are people expecting kibaki to speak on mugabe?
ReplyDeletethe old senile fool is guilty of the same things mugabe has done.
the senile fool from othaya has caused so much damage to our people from central.
wait for the day he retires. the curses and stones from central will overwhelm those of whom here think we care any longer about kibaki.
Vikii how cute?? which Kenyan agrees on your statement unless only mt kenya mafia and that is how they managed to stay in power- there was never no one knowing who won!! ODM won and Raila won the Presidency flat out- Look at the seated MP's In Parliament and look at the PNU MP's who were booted out- you don't need to be in grade six to see the picture and facts pur and simple- shmae on you!
ReplyDelete""What we agree on is that no one gannered 50% of the vote (Unless someone wants to change the goal posts further)"""VIKII'S BULLSHIT US USUAL- GROW UP.
ANON3:40 PM
ReplyDeleteYOU HAVE HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD- THIS PEOPLE THINK KIBAKI CARES?? NOPE KIBAKI IS AMASSING WEALTH FOR HIS FAMILY FRIENDS AND RELATIVES IN HIS REMAINING YEAR- KIBAKI DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE BROADER KIKUYU POPULATION AND HERE THEY ARE LICKING HIS ASS- WAIT AND SEE THEY WON'T HAVE ANYWHERE TO TURN- THE OTHER KENYANS THEY KEEP ABUSING ATI
1. LAZY
2. FILTHY
3. KIHII
4. KALEJIN APES
5.OT EDUCATED ENOUGH
6. FOOLISH NO BUSINESS IQ
AND MANY MORE ABUSES HAVE BEEN THROWN AT OUR TRIBES BY PEOPLE FROM CENTRAL PROVINCE
MY QUESTION IS AFTER KIBAKI WHAT THEN?? DO THEY SINCERELY THINK OTHER TRIBES IN KENYA HAVE NOT HEARD ALL THIS ABUSES AND NOTED THEM DOWN?? FOR ME I'M PATIENTLY WAITING FOR KIBAKI DAYS TO BE OVER THEN WE SHALL SEE- CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MANY KENYANS FEEL LIKE ME?
MILLIONS!!!
on a side note, look at the quality of debate in parliament
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143988757&cid=4
the reaction on paying tax on their 1m salaries.
and the MPs are not there on time
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=2&newsid=125627
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=2&newsid=125626
ReplyDeletePM at work
As long as multinational corporations and the remnants of those who colonized African still wield the power to reject or manipulate African leaders popularly elected by African voters, there will never be peace or stability in Africa.
ReplyDeleteThis power can be taken away when the younger generation stop being tribalists and start being nationalists. They must stop collaborating with the same people who do not want to see unity among the tribes. Then must start charging fee for the natural resources taken out of Africa.
The foreign corporations are well organized (World Bank group, G8, G7, European Union, etc). Africans are being taken to the cleaners because they allow themselves to be divided by these vampires along the tribal lines. Just think, how many languages are spoken by countries forming European Union. How comes they are not tribalistic?
Exactly right. Neo colonialism at its best and yet Africans are ham strung by many factors. For instance, a bunch of African presidents find it hard to critisize Mugabe because 1. Mugabe helped them during their independence struggles and 2. these same presidents have a lot of money hidden away in each other's country. Just read the kroll reports on corruption under Moi. African presidents help each other in siphoning money and investments.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what type of gene therapy we will have to undergo to learn not to shit where we eat. Unlike the US/UK who carry out their corrupt deals outside their countries, we do the exact opposite. Unlike the Arabs who realised early on the need to be on the same page when it come to oil, thereby OPEC; we try to undercut each other. Hence you have Museveni and kagame stealing from Congo under the guise of persuing militants and kony.
It is the curse of being an African I guess...
Anon 3.44, here is the difference between me and you; I unlike you, do not have to wait for a politician to tell me what to think.
ReplyDeleteThis was not about who won but because you have brought it up, let's indulge with figures and reasons, not stones and insults. You have argued that the best way of telling who won the vote is by looking at the parliamentary seats won by each party. If we use your argument sir, we will have to assume the seats won by Yusuf Haji, Ongeri, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka and all those who are not members of either PNU or ODM should not count. Or you want to probably tell me they woud have been won by the ODM?
I have no idea why the figures given by a candidate should be used as a reference in a dispute he is a party to, but for the sake of argument, let us assume we are stupid and abide by them. If you go to http://raila07.com/downloads.html, and you look at the tabulation they have there authored by Anyang Nyong'o and Musalia Mudavadi, you will find a clear acknowledgement by them that Raila Odinga beat Mwai Kibaki in 105 constituencies and he lost to Mwai Kibaki in 104 constituencies. Kamukunji's results are not there. In those same tables of theirs, you will see a clear acknowledgement that Raila lost North Eastern to Kibaki. Assuming once again that we have no brains, are you still convinced we should look at how many constituencies one won to know who actually won the national tally?
The most amazing thing is that after these guys authored these figures, they went straight to address you in one of their political rallies and told you that Kibaki actually won only in 43 constituencies. They told you they won in six provinces because they are acutely aware of your lack of incentive to countercheck the 'facts'.
According to their figures, out of 9.4 million votes cast, they won by a margin of 246,987. According to the ECK's figures, which may not be biblical truth to me, but are more credible than a losing candidate's figures, out of 9.7 million, Kibaki won by a margin of 231,728. Notice both sides claim to have won by 2 percentage points.
Which brings me to the question; Is this the margin you can claim with certainty everybody in Kenya "except the mount Kenya mafia" knows who won? Give me reasons and figures as to why you think Raila won. I will accept even "facts" like Raila beat Kibaki in Embakasi.
You claim to have the facts but you don't argue like someone who does---Just falling back to the same old beaten lines.
Its really sad what is happening to thise guys down south.A week ago i watched a clip on CNN of a man(immigrant) burning while people watch him....reminded me of people burning in Eldoret and a man forced out of a Matatu in Naivasha with panga wielding youths and chopped to death,leaves tears on me.How evil can human be,doesnt get worse than this i guess.
ReplyDeleteMy pain is that most african leaders are still silent and on this and actually soft on Mugabe.One thing about brutality is that the vicious cycle tends to consume the perpetrators in one way or another once its done with ur victims.Kenyans i wish we can avoid that path as much as we can and theres nothing to learn from Zimbabwe am sorry to say,the poor guys are just overwhelmed by the security forces.Wish African Old men could speak in one unwaivering voice and tell Bob to stop his violence on his people.He is a joke.i wonder how many more people gotta die for so called 'leaders' to feel it.They have let the continent down.
Lloyd
Lloyd.
Seems ODM fools are back again bitter with yesterdays disclosure that Raila is screwing Passaris. Now they are spewing rigging elections, the usual crap. Vickii there has given sordid facts that the lazg bigots cannot even counter. By the way,someone said that Kibaki is amassing wealth as Kikuyu suffer..ha ha ha..these guys are the most enterprising that even during Moi's era, no effort of economic degradation brought them down. When the likes of Ruto were robbing Tea, Milk and coffee farmers off their wealth, they went to other businesses. Just compare Nyanza and central and see the difference.
ReplyDeleteThe Political Economy of Ethnic Identities in Kenya
ReplyDeleteA Paper by Onyango Oloo
Delivered at the Goethe Institut
Nairobi, Wednesday, June 18, 2008
1.0. Executive Summary
The question of ethnic identities in Kenya is intricately tied up with the country's politics and influences to a greater or lesser degree the class cleavages in ways which often defy orthodox analyses from the right or the left. The recent flare up of violent conflict between different tribes in the aftermath of the fiercely disputed 2007 elections in Kenya brought to the fore widespread concerns that the country may be on the brink of being torn apart along ethnic lines. There are those who argue that what happened in Kenya is inherently part of Africa's DNA. Onyango Oloo rejects this notion, arguing that the idea of Africa as tribal in nature has deep racist roots. Instead, Oloo puts forth the alternative analysis that ethnic identities in Africa are socially constructed and that the phenomenon known as "tribalism" is a component of an ideology of political control fostered by the ruling elites.
2.0. Tribalism as a Short Hand for Political Problems in Kenya
If you ask Kenyans across the political, ethnic, racial and religious divide what is the cause of major political problems in Kenya, many of them will, without hesitation, cite "tribalism" as the number one problem. Depending on who you are talking to, it will be either those "Kikuyus"and their determination to hog all political and economic power to themselves. Or it will be those "Luos" who are perennial trouble makers and stone throwers not content with accepting the status quo. If you go down to the Coast, you may hear people grumbling about those upcountry "Wabara" people who have consciously marginalized the Coastals. A good friend of mine argued in a national newspaper column a few days ago that the "small tribes" have really been left out by the dogfights between the "major tribes". And on and on it goes with outbursts against those "Indians" when it comes to looking for a convenient scapegoat to explain away our economic woes.
Quite frankly these perceptions are naïve, shallow, ahistorical and dangerous.
There is no doubt that certain elites in this country converge around and along narrow ethnic or even sub-ethnic agendas that are detrimental to the national good. It is true that what passes for political parties in this country are frequently nothing more than vehicles of political expediency fueled by tribal agendas and tribal constituencies. It is also a fact that political elites have hijacked the neo-colonial state to divvy out economic goodies based on a system of ethnic and regional patronage. As someone who argues from socialist positions, I am also aware of the reductionism of certain doctrinaire approaches which reduces everything in society to class, overlooking gender, racial, religious, generational and other specificities. In other words, nobody in their right mind can downplay the corrosive and debilitating effects of what some observers call “negative ethnicity” in Kenya.
When I assert that using a broad ethnic brush to explain away our national problems is naïve, shallow, dangerous and ahistorical, I am merely pleading for a sober, scientific deconstruction of ethnic identities in Kenya based on our collectively lived historical experience.
3.0. The Political Economy of Ethnic Identities in Kenya
The entity we now know as Kenya is a product of the historical interaction between diverse African peoples in this particular patch of the eastern part of our great continent with the forces of world monopoly capitalism. A version of the many anecdotes about the origin of the name Kenya has it that in the mid 1840s when a couple of German missionaries were busy exploring and “discovering” Africa they ran into a bunch of locals in the Mount Kenya region. Depending on whether it a Mgikuyu or a Mkamba retelling the story, Herr Krapf (or was it his counterpart Rebmann?) pointed to the snowy peaks of our tallest mountain and inquired via their guide about the name. He was allegedly told “ Kirinyaga” or “the place where God lives”. To his Teutonic ears, the German visitor heard and contracted it to “Kenya”, leaving us stuck with a distortion which ended up being the name of the country famous for its long distance runners, stunning environment and exotic wild life.
In a sense, our national identity was built on a stencil cut out by a clueless European traveler almost two hundred years ago.
More fundamentally, the process of “becoming Kenyan” was directly connected with the imperialist incursion at the tail end of the 19th century- from the ravenous carving up of the African continent at the 1884 Berlin Conference to the annexation of our country by the British, first by the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1888 to the formal declaration of Kenya as a British Protectorate in 1895 to the promulgamation of Kenya as a British Colony in 1920.
What hitherto had been a conglomeration of diverse Kenyan peoples at various stages of socio-economic development from the autonomous semi-feudal kingdom of Wanga in the west to the Ismalized coastal city states of Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu etc and the myriad communal, largely egalitarian communities among the Mijikenda, Luo, Agikuyu, Maasai and the like were now transformed into a territorially distinct “country” where each and every one of these diverse Kenyan people were considered “British subjects” subservient to the Crown in the UK; a colony where the best land was grabbed by racist British settlers; a missionary lab where Christian ideologues attempted to wipe out all vestiges of the indigenous traditional cultures; a tea, coffee and wheat plantation dotted with vast ranches- with most of the proceeds destined for the so called “mother country”.
The British foreign domination was of course resisted by communities all over Kenya. In 1895-96 Mbaruk al Amin Mazrui led a valiant guerrilla war against the invaders along the Kenyan coast. In 1913-15, Me Katilili, an octogenarian grandmother emerged as a leader of the Giriama people in Kilifi mobilizing local peasants to resist forced labour and compulsory taxation. For her efforts she earned herself the title of Kenya’s first political prisoner- forcibly exiled hundreds of miles away from her community but heroically escaping from custody to continue her fight. Among the Dawida, Mwangeka also led and inspired an uprising. At around the same time in central Kenya Waiyaki wa Hinga was leading the charge against the British- he was later buried alive in Kibwezi. Among the Nandi, Koitalel arap Samoei was conducting a ten year armed resistance to the incursion of British imperialism, symbolized by the Kenya-Uganda Railway. Other stalwarts of these early resistance movements include women like Syotuna among the Akamba and Moraa wa Ngiti among the Gusii- not to speak of later nationalist heroes like Harry Thuku, Mary Nyanjiru, James Beuttah, Makhan Singh, Elijah Masinde, Oginga Odinga, Chege wa Kibacia, Muindi Mbingu, JD Kali, Pio da Gama Pinto, Achieng’ Oneko, Fred Kubai and others.
In the end, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, the British had the Maxim gun and we did not.
One of the immediate consequences of the brutal British take over was the question of entrenching tribal identities at the expense of more nationwide agendas. First and foremost, even the question of who were and how we called ourselves was mediated by the British colonial state. A colonial bureaucrat had in 1917 written a memo cited by Professor Al Amin Mazrui in his book on the history and identity of the Swahili peoples stressing the urgency of enforcing tribal identities as a bulwark against growing national consciousness. It is for this reason that the colonialists outlawed nationwide social and political organizations, restricting people to such outfits like the Kikuyu Central Association, the Ukambani Members Association, the Kavirondo Tax Payers Association, the Taita Hills Association and so on. This did not prevent these associations from collaborating together in a joint anti-imperialist project for national independence.
The other noxious by product of British colonialism was the phenomenon of being "named" and identified by our oppressors. For instance upto this day in 2008 it is standard practice to talk of the "Kikuyus" even though the proper name is the Agikuyu; people refer to the “Taitas” even though they call themselves the Dawida. Fortunately slurs like “Kavirondo” for the Luos; “Suk” for the Pokot and “Kitosh” for the Bukusu have long since been abandoned. In the 1930s the colonialists robbed the Yiaku people of the Mukogodo forest in Laikipia District just north of Nanyuki of their identity by forcibly merging them with the Maasai. One of the consequences of that is that today, among the 4,000 remnants of the Yiaku, LESS THAN TEN can still remember and speak of their mother tongue and the majority are in their eighties and nineties dying out by the year. Similarly, the original indigenous hunter-gatherer communities of Kenya like the Ogieks, the Njemps and others are often arbitrarily “absorbed” into more dominant ethnic groups.
Also in the colonial period certain artificial clusters were baptized “tribes” even though it was often a convenient fiction to suit certain political agendas. An example is the appellation, “Abaluhyia” to refer to several distinct linguistic groups (Samia, Abakhayo, Marachi, Manyala, Wanyore, Ikhisa, Tiriki, Maragoli, Bukusu, Isukha, Idakho, Marama) as one tribe. The same goes with the “Kalenjin” cluster which brings together the Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Keiyo, Marakwet, Pokot and other communities. One can make a similar argument that there are no such group as the Meru, but rather it has to be broken down to the Tharaka, Chuka, Tigania, Imenti and Egoji people. Until recently the Mbeere people were lumped together with the Embu. And in the 1960s, for political hegemonic reasons the larger “Meru” and “Embu” communities were cynically appended to the Agikuyu.
That is why it is bizarre to see, read and hear of violent evictions of so called “enemy tribes” in the 21st century- killed and displaced using the spurious and specious excuse of “ethnic purity”- when no such purity existed in the first place and even if it did has been thoroughly eroded through inter-marriage, urbanization and resettlements across the country.
4.0. The Myth of Ethnic Purity in Kenya
Here is my theory about so called "Pure" Ethnic Identities in Kenya:
By and large, these are historically determined, socially constructed CONVENIENT community MYTHS.
Some years ago- 2005 to be exact- when I was still residing in the west end of Toronto, Canada, I ran into a middle aged Southern Sudanese who happened to be a Dinka. He had also lived in Kenya for over a decade and he told me his version of how the Southern Luos ended up in Kenya. He said that in Sudan they have another name for the Luos which means that this appellation came later in the history of this community.
My uncle, the veteran historian Prof. B.A. Ogot has documented in his seminal text on the Southern Luos how many Luhyia clans in Gem (Siaya District) were assimilated as Luos. And he should know- this grandson of Agina the son of Paulo Opiche and grandson of Ayieko. His grandfather is my father’s grandfather and my father told me that this polygamous ancestor of Onyango Oloo had both Luo and Luhyia wives. Ogot’s grandmother was a co-wife of my father’s paternal grandmother (who I was told by my own paternal grandmother was another Luhyia who did not speak a word of Luo. Interestingly enough my own “Luhyia” grandmother from Emanyulia- who spoke BETTER Dholuo than her sons and daughters- in law from Karachuonyo, Oyugis and Seme- startled me when she revealed to me sometime in 1972 or 1973 that her folks had actually been “Luos from Alego” who had resettled in Emanyulia near the Butere-Yala train tracks.
Quite frankly I never believed her- until over thirty years later, when a Kenyan woman born and raised in Emanyulia writing online from southern France repeated this story in a certain Kenyan cyberforum almost word for word- yes, indeed there was actually a Luhyia clan in Emanyulia who were originally Luos from Alego! She herself was quite conversant with the Luo language and had relatives from Anyiko on the outskirts of Yala Township.
When I once argued that many Kisiis are former Luos and many Luos are ex-Kisiis I was virtually slapped by tribal venom from Luo and Abagusii friends and colleagues of mine. But I was right: the Luos know it and the Kisiis know it.
It is just that our accumulated, largely mythological creation stories have encouraged us to imagine the "ethnic jirani other" as the enemy who stole our land, raped our grandmothers and placed a multi-generational pox on us.
I should have added that there are similar kinship ties among the Luos and the neighbouring Kalenjin communities. For instance, one of my sisters has a kid whose name is Samoei- even though the kid’s father is a Luo. But guess what, his grandmother is a Nandi. Back in my Luanda Dudi village in Kisa West, Khwisero, Western Province there was this old pint sized cattle-herd who never ever married. And he used to tell us that he was a Meru. Again, how far fetched that story is I am not sure.
What I am saying about Luos can be extended to the Agikuyu and the Maasai; the Akamba and Meru; the Waswahili na Mijikenda and even many Kenyans who imagine they are pure Wahindis. How many people know for instance that Kenya’s SECOND Vice President Joseph Murumbi was part Mhindi and part Maasai? How many people know that Najib Balala is part Mhindi and part Mwarabu (with probably some Mijikenda relatives somewhere down his lineage)? How many people know that John Keen’s father was of European descent? How about Kariuki Chotara? His last name is often a pejorative equivalent to the equally derogatory “Point Five” slur used to describe Kenyans of mixed race.
In my own immediate family I have cousins who have Swedish mothers; nephews who have Tanzanian fathers; in laws who are from Nanyuki. My own son has two Meru grandparents on one side- apart from the whole mchuzi mix on his father’s side. .
Who knows what Kenyan communities and the attendant ethnic identities would have emerged had the British colonialists not invaded and occupied our lands?
Is it possible that over time, the Luos, the Luhyias and the Abagusii would have merged into a synthesized ethnic group called the Abagusiluohyias? Think of the stranglehold they would have on the Soccer Championships!
Could we be talking about the Maagikumerumbians?
Or the Akamboranas?
Or perhaps the Turkopokotomarkweiyo?
How about the Gujarasomalis or the Arabogiriamas?
The possibilities are just endless.
What happened in Kenya instead is the REALITY of historical colonial oppression.
About thirteen years ago I read a book called The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People by author/activist/scholar Alamin Mazrui and Ibrahim Noor Shariff . Somewhere in the pages of that book I recall a passage about a 1917 letter from some colonial DC instructing other functionaries to do everything they can to foster tribal identities among the Kenyan nationalities as a way of thwarting the growth of a collective national consciousness.
This is one of the reasons why the first nationalist organizations had names like the Kikuyu Central Association, the Taita Hills Association; the Kavirondo Tax Payers Association, the Ukambani Members Association and so on and so forth. It is not that Kenyans back then were so tribal that they could only form “tribal bodies”- on the contrary- they wanted to form nationwide patriotic formations but this was considered a grave threat to the colonial status quo.
For evidence, you will find out that all these organizations collaborated and worked together and had a common anti-imperialist objective of fighting for Kenyan independence. As early as 1923 Kenyans of Indian descent defied the attempt to segregate them from their African brothers and sisters by leading the fight which led to the defeat of the White Paper which wanted to transform Kenya into an apartheid state like South Africa or the former Rhodesia. Throughout the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s Kenyan communities continued to work together as Kenyans in fighting for a better Kenya. For more background about this, revisit the histories of Wazalendo like Me Katilili and Mzee Wanje who were the first Kenyan political detainees and internal exiles- way back in 1913 when they were “deported” to Kisii land for leading the Giriama of Kilifi to resist forced labour and compulsory taxation; Harry Thuku’s 1922 protest outside the Central Police Station and his later detention near Lamu; Makhan Singh forming the very first non-racial working class organization with the 1935 launch of the Labour Trade Union of Kenya; Chege Kibacia organizing the African Workers Federation in Mombasa to spearhead the 1939 Mombasa General Strike; Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia and other patriots forming the giant and militant East African Trade Union Congress in 1947( or was it ’49?) that coordinated the boycott in 1950 of Nairobi being declared a “White City” and later on the crippling General Strike of that year- which earned Makhan Singh a ten year stint in the coolers as the first Kenyan to ever declare publicly that he was in fact, a Communist; Pio Gama Pinto, the Sharda and Vidyarthi families working behind the scenes as the “Indian” conduit to the Mau Mau guerrillas; liberal White Kenyans working with the Fenner Brockways to coordinate the international campaign to free Jomo Kenyatta and the rest of the Kapenguria Six( itself a very multi-ethnic sextuplet of Luos, Gikuyus, Kambas etc);Argwings Kodhek, Tom Mboya having their social base in urban communities where the majority ethnic group was the Agikuyu; Jaramogi Oginga Odinga sacrificing his political ambitions to ensure that Jomo Kenyatta was released to head Kenya’s first independent government; Jomo Kenyatta emerging from prison on August 14, 1961 to galvanize Kenyans under the leadership of the then quite militant and progressive KANU which won a landslide in the 1963 elections precisely because it was the NATIONAL party that most Kenyans gravitated towards; Munyua Waiyaki, Bildad Kaggia, JD Kali, T.M. Chokwe, Msanifu Kombo, Abdilatif Abdalla, Oyangi Mbajah being prominent non-Luos in the opposition KPU; Ngugi wa Thiongo resigning in protest from the University of Nairobi in 1969 to protest the detention of Jaramogi and his KPU comrades; in the 1970s J.M. Kariuki as the most popular politician in Nyanza after Oginga Odinga; Chelagat Mutai, George Anyona, Mark Mwithaga, Jean Marie Seroney and Martin Shikuku being revered household names all over Kenya because of their courageous and patriotic parliamentary contributions in the mid 1970s; this patriotic Wabunge passing the torch to the Seven Bearded Sisters: Lawrence Sifuna, Chibule wa Tsuma, Koigi wa Wamwere, Abuya Abuya, James Orengo, Mwashengu wa Mwachofi and.. Who was the 7th Sister? Oh. The only woman in the group- Chelagat Mutai, was probably the who was one of the most courageous Kenyan MPs earning her stripes as a militant student leader (along with James Orengo, the late Ooko Ombaka, Wanyiri Kihoro and the late Jembe Mwakalu) at the University of Nairobi in the immediate aftermath of the JM assassination. And very few people know that Koigi wa Wamwere was first detained by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1975 because of his MILITANT opposition to the Kiambu Mafia. Koigi told me when he visited us in Dar es Salaam in 1988 that they were on the verge of launching an opposition party in 1975 (it was legal back then) when he was nabbed and whisked off to detention. His biggest nemesis was Moi’s foe the late Kihika Kimani. Another little known fact is that Daniel arap Moi actively campaigned ( I am not sure if he actually bankrolled ) Koigi’s ultimately successful run for the Nakuru North seat in 1979 in order to turf out Kihika- a rabid tribalist who had spared no efforts to humiliate Moi when he was Mzee’s deputy.
Of course the same Daniel arap Moi turned around and detained the same Koigi wa Wamwere in 1982 in the aftermath of the abortive coup-more because Koigi was linked with the radical Marxist lecturers like Maina wa Kinyatti rather than any involvement in the coup. Of course Raila Odinga’s first stint in detention is dated the same year. Taken together, Koigi and Raila are the longest serving political prisoners in Kenya’s history. Not to be confused with the longest serving Kenyan prisoner period- Mzee Kisilu Mutua who spent 36 years behind bars after being falsely accused of killing the Kenyan socialist patriot Pio Gama Pinto in February 1965.
When we pick up this multi-ethnic patriotic thread in 1990 when Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia and to a certain extent the Reverend Timothy Njoya went public with their agitation for multiparty democracy we should not forget the very important 1981 to 1990 chunk of underground anti-imperialist organizing featuring patriotic and again multi-ethnic formations like Second of March Movement, Cheche Kenya, the December Twelve Movement, the Kenya Anti-Imperialist Front, Harakati ya Kupambania Demokrasia Kenya, Upande Mwingine, the Kenya Socialist Alliance, Chama Cha Ukombozi, the Kenya National Front, the Kenya Revolutionary Movement, Ukenya, Umoja, Mwakenya, the Me Katilili Revolutionary Movement, the Kenya Patriotic Front, the Muungano wa Kupambania Demokrasia Kenya, the Organization for Democracy in Kenya, UWAKE, the Februray 18th Movement and many others that have slipped my mind.
As a rule all of the above formations were multi-ethnic, multi-racial NATIONAL progressive and patriotic formations something that can be gauged by some of the insiders and foot soldiers- Ngugi wa Thiongo, Koigi wa Wamwere, Willy Mutunga, Alamin Mazrui, Abdilatif Abdalla, Shadrack Gutto, Micere Mugo, Edward Oyugi, John Munuve, Rubiik, Odindo Opiata, Adanje, Shadrack Mwarigha, Kathini Maloba, Maina wa Kinyatti, Ngugi wa Mirii, Kaara wa Macharia, Omondi K'Abir, Njuguna Mutahi, Wahu Kaara, Wang'ondu wa Kariuki, Mwandawiro Mghangha, Wafula Buke, John Odongo, Zarina Patel, Shiraz Durrani, Sultan Somji, Irung'u Houghton, Njeri Kabeberi, Jembe Mwakalu, Oduor Ongwen, Odenda Lumumba, the Mungai Brothers, Tirop arap Kitur, Onyango Oloo, Adongo Ogony, Kishushe Mzirai, Mwangi wa Githinji, Chitechi Osundwa, Karimi Nduthu, Yusuf Hassan, the late Mwakdua wa Mwachofi, and a whole bunch of other people some of whom are alive and some who have passed away.
Ironically, some of the "Young Turks" veterans were much, much older than the patriotic comrades that I have name-checked in the preceding paragraph. But again, you see them continuing the very same multi-ethnic NON-TRIBAL national tradition of political mobilization- FORD’s founders like the late Jaramogi and the late Mzee Muliro and Martin Shikuku, Jaduong’ George Nthenge, Kenneth Matiba and Shahib Bamhariz liaised with younger firebrands like Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara, Anyang Nyongo, James Orengo, Murtaza Jaffer, Kiraitu Murungi and other patriots to create the massive opposition that would have surely toppled Moi in 1992-were it not for the artificially created schisms imported from without.
The period between 1992 and 1997 again exhibited yet another multi-ethnic phase of popular mobilization with the likes of Dr. Willy Mutunga, Njeri Kabeberi, Kivutha Kibwana, Timothy Njoya and Davinder Lamba forging the NCEC into the most militant and progressive political machine agitating for democratic reforms and constitutional change.
The period between 1998 and 2002 we saw the faith communities led by stalwarts like Ndingi Mwana Nzeki, David Gitari, Timothy Njoya and Reverend Mutava Musyimi picking up the thread from fiery clerics of an earlier era like Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge and Henry Okullu to lead the fight for democratic reforms.
And of course we see the Unbwogable Eruption of 2002 leading to this massive anti-KANU pan Kenyan coalition umbrella group bringing together Charity Ngilu, Mwai Kibaki, Anyang Nyongo, Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Najib Balala, Kipruto Kirwa, Mukhisa Kituyi, Kivutha Kibwana etc to confront and defeat the Moi-KANU dictatorship. Again we see that Kenyans coming together as Kenyans- not as Luos, Gikuyus, Kalenjins etc.
In summary, my argument in this section is that contrary to mainstream clichés, Kenyan politics has NOT always been dominated by narrow ethnicity as the driving force.
5.0. The Paradox of Overseas Based Digital Tribalism Within the Kenyan Diaspora
During the 2007 election campaign period and beyond some of the most virulent hate messages of an ethnic kind were to be found spilling over in Kenyan online communities, largely populated by young to middle aged Kenyans living in places like the United States, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, India and other places overseas. I was once one of those Kenyans living for years and years in Toronto and Montreal
For the almost two decades that I resided in Canada I became quite perplexed and intrigued by the reckless display of rabid ukabila on display at various online Kenyan forums.
Many of the worst Kenyan tribalists in cyberspace have lived for years in such cosmopolitan and liberal urban locales such as Oakland, Boston, Toronto, Leeds, Dallas, St. Paul, Chicago and Washington DC.
Offline, these Kenyan immigrants and naturalized citizens in the West share the collective plight of other people of colour when it comes to systemic racism and discrimination. Some of them are married to Asian-Americans, Jamaican- Canadians, Zambians, Greeks and Iranians not to speak of fellow Kenyans from the very same ethnic groups they bash online about.
Why do you find the stubborn survival of the INNER MKABILA in persons who last lived in a village twenty or thirty years ago? The sad thing is that you will be startled to discover such tribalists to be loners who DO NOT even contribute to community development within the tribes they keep praising online.
One more manifestation of crude tribalism has to do with a discussion groups that many Kenyans do not even know about. For instance there is this place which is an online community discussion forum that is RESTRICTED to ETHNIC Waswahili who are also Muslim. Now, some of the people who are active in that group including at least some of its founders are dear friends of mine, but I would be DISHONEST if I did NOT DENOUNCE them for their narrow ethnic bigotry which has clear overtones of racism, religious intolerance and xenophobia, some of it a stubborn holdover from the pre-colonial Master/Slave relationships between Wangwana na Watwana at the Kenyan Coast a relationship that had the so called “Bwambadi” lording over the so called “Wafirika” whether they were local Mijikenda or upcountry “watu wa bara.” To become a member of the group, one has to be introduced by a member of the forum who will verify that the prospective individual of the requisite pedigree. That is why someone like Onyango Oloo, even though I have adopted Mombasa as my hometown and I am quite comfortable in Kiswahili, will never be deemed worthy to join this cloistered cultish cybercommunity.
I find it comical that most online tribalists shun the ethnospecific forums like jaluo.com, kikuyu.com, kisii.com etc to come to the more NATIONAL and INCLUSIVE forums like Kenyaonline, Jukwaa or Africa-oped to broadcast their tribal stupidity. It is almost as if they are acknowledging the obvious- you can only distinguish yourself ethnically from others in a Kenya national forum where there are people from diverse backgrounds. Ironically, as a GENERAL RULE these so called ethnic forums frequently are the LEAST TRIBAL of the Kenyan forums.
6.0. Shining a Torch on Mijikenda versus Swahili/Waarabu Tensions
Kenyan mainstream politics for the last forty years has been dominated by the discourse of the so called Luo/Gikuyu schisms and privileges in the cabinet, in parliament and other aspects of national life.
To those of us who subsist on a trenchant class analysis the punditry that ascribes everything to tribal machinations and ethnic arithmetic is not only simplistic and reductionist, it has tended to trivialize other even more deep seated conflagrations simmering under the surface in which ethnicity is definitely a factor.
Any Kenyan who is familiar with the history of this region is aware of the potent and potentially toxic mix of ethnicity, religion, race, class and political factions.
I will speak more about Mombasa because I am more familiar with it having lived there for more than half of my life.
The British colonialists exploited these divisions when it maintained a buffered colour coded stratified society that put the European conquistadors at the top, the Arabs and the Indian rentier and dukawallah strata slightly below that with the Waswahili and Wadawida enjoying a relatively “privileged” access to the uneven spoils of orthodox colonialism compared to say, the Mijikenda indigenous communities.
The presence of migrant workers from the Kamba, Manyala, Luo, Gikuyu, Somali and other Wabara ethnic groups from as early as the mid 1930s in places like Shika Adabu, Mtongwe, Mwandoni, Mshomoroni, Chaani, Kibarani, Miskiti Noor, Magongo, Tudor Estate, Buxton, Manyimbo, Sparki and Shimanzi introduced a permanent sticking point to those saw external intrusion not so much in terms of the foreign imperialists who took over Kenyan land throughout Kenya but in much more simplistic terms in terms of who spoke the language and practiced what religion.
The early migrants from upcountry were largely working class and seamlessly got accepted and assimilated in many Mombasa and surrounding neighbourhoods. Elsewhere, Kamba settlers at Shimba Hills and Luo plantation workers at Ramisi Sugar Mill or the Manyala port workers living in Shika Adabu and Mtongwe were not viewed in any hostile manner, by and large- same with the Miraa Meru businessmen at Mwembe Tayari or the Gikuyu shopkeepers and bar owners of Buxton, Tononoka, Sparki, Changamwe, Magongo and Mtopanga. Place in the mix immigrants from Tanga, Tanzania, Wangazija from the Comoros, Waziba (Hayas, many of them sex workers) from Bukoba, Wanyarwanda and of course the various waves of Ugandans especially from the early seventies when Idi Amin Dada came to power.
The large local South Asian communities in Mombasa were bolstered by Ugandan and Tanzanian Ismailis and there were quite a few Arabs from Zanzibar who resettled in Mombasa. We do know of course, the visible presence of Italians in Malindi. I still cannot forget the shock I got in 1975 when I found out that the wife of our new Kamba neighbour in the Jomo Kenyatta/Kipchoge Keino area near the Saba Saba Bar was this Malindi raised Italian-Kenyan woman who could trash talk you fluently with the eloquent Kiswahili of an indigenous Mswahili. Her mother was even more well versed and if possible even more foul mouthed in Kiswahili. They were such sweethearts those neighbours and I never once heard them refer to themselves as “Italians”.
In the sixties and seventies a palpable resentment started growing when many people associated with Jomo Kenyatta were seen to be grabbing prime real estate land and beach properties merely because of their proximity to the octogenarian despot. Other people have done much more extensive research into the patterns of land and property ownership at the Coast Province, so I will very shortly direct you to at least one such link.
The Mijikenda is the collective name given to a cluster of nine tribes including the Ribe, Rabai, Kambe, Kauma, Giriama,Duruma, Chonyi, Digo and the Jibana and loosely associated with the Pokomo of Tana River. click here
Almost more than many other Kenyan nationalities, land and the national environment play a central and highly hallowed sacred role in the lives of the Mijikenda .The Kaya Forests are especially revered...
The Mijikenda communities are very complex and unique For instance, a profile of the Duruma, one of the sub tribes of the Mijikenda, reveals very interesting connections to Somalia, Mozambique, escaped slaves, Islam, Christianity and the growth of the Kiswahili language.
And speaking of the Waswahili, I have been astounded to witness the thick blanket of unadulterated ignorance with which my fellow Kenyans (especially my fellow Luos) persist in covering themselves when it comes to discussing our national language of Kiswahili and its origins.
When we were kids in primary school (and by “we” I mean those of us who grew up in the sixties and early seventies) we were indoctrinated with the following potpourri of colonial racist myths and neo-colonial tribal lies:
“The Waswahili are a mongrel race, and their language developed when the mixed breed of Arabs and the local Bantus spontaneously started THEIR OWN language by mixing and matching Arab and Mijikenda words when they were playing in the dirt.”
I mean, how stupid can you get?
There is a reason why we refer to the languages we speak at home as our mother tongues.
Where in the world have you ever witnessed this strange phenomenon where 13th century toddlers cobble a brand new language in the compound outside their huts while their Giriama mothers fry the Kadzora and their Arab fathers sip some kahawa tungu inside while waiting for the chapatis?
Languages simply DO NOT develop that way.
In any case, when we are studying a language, we should pay far more attention to its morphology and syntax rather than to its vocabulary.
If we were to use vocabulary as a scientific yardstick to identify the historical, cultural and geographic origins of a language, where would we end up with English where it is estimated that up to 80% of the vocabulary is borrowed from other tongues(just to cite a mere handful of common examples, the word “thug” is from India, “tomato” and “tobacco” are from the Indigenous People of Turtle Island aka the Americas, and we are not even going to bother with words like rendezvous, zeitgeist, angst, origami, sushi, rickshaw, tofu, Jehovah, opera, sonata, soprano, contralto, safari, samba, mambo, salsa, bolero, cuisine, haute couture, sang-froid, Jacuzzi, zamboni, banshee, zombie, voodoo, juju, obeah, calaloo, marijuana, algebra, alchemy, nirvana or zen).
In sharp contrast to that colonial upumbavu, the historical facts about Kiswahili is today beyond dispute.
Kiswahili is an AFRICAN language, in fact, a BANTU language, despite the copious terms it has borrowed from Arabic (and even then, when it imports a word ending in a consonant, it immediately Africanizes and Bantufies said word so that Ahmed becomes Hamadi, Khamis, becomes Hamisi, Shukran becomes shukrani, and Omar becomes Omari and so on).
To see how close Kiswahili is to its Bantu cousins, try and compare some words in KiRabai, Zulu, Lingala and Shona respectively and if you are familiar with Kiswahili you will guess their meaning without knowing those languages in question.
It is therefore, not that difficult to make the case that Kiswahili is definitely an African, specifically a Bantu based language and not, as some local, uninformed strangers would posit, an import smuggled in from the Arabian peninsula.
It is said there are at least fifteen lahaja (dialects) of Kiswahili from Ki a’amu on the northern Kenyan coast, Kimvita (Mombasa) Kiunguja (Zanzibar) Kipemba (Pemba) Kimrima (around Dar es Salaam) Kitangata to Kingwana in the eastern Congo.
Many of the purist coastal Waswahili scoff at the Congolese Kiswahili (Kingwana) as being imperfect and riddled with grammatical errors, yet the Wangwana respond that at 9 million native speakers of that local dialect, they are the single largest bloc of Kiswahili speakers in the Swahili world that encompasses
southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, northern Mozambique parts of Malagasy, the Comoros, Seychelles, pockets of South Africa, a very big chunk of Oman and entire neighbourhoods in the United Arab Emirates.
What further complicates the discourse in Kiswahili is the way in which affiliated African tribes have been collapsed and conflated into being Waswahili when in fact, they are distinct ethnic groups with unique histories.
One such group is the Bajun, found in southern Somalia and the northern Kenyan coast
Malika, the legendary Kiswahili speaking taarab diva known most for her Vidonge monster hit, is actually a Somali citizen with Bajun and Banadir ancestry.
About three years ago, when I was living in Montreal I called up a family friend of mine, a Kenyan married to a Tanzanian. Since she had grown up in Mombasa, I had always assumed that she was a “Mswahili”. She surprised me when she clarified that she was a Mgunya from Lamu who were distinct from Wa’amu and also the Bajun.
She explained to me that the Wagunya are found in three islands along the Kenya/Somalia border- Ras Kitao, Ras Kiambini and Ras insecure?wa. She said that the Wagunya are originally Black African Bantus although there has been intermarriage over the centuries.
She intrigued me further by revealing to me that among the Bajun for instance, you will find Caucasian skinned, blue eyed Bajuni who had Portuguese forbears, Bajuni who had Chinese features, Bajuni who looked like Arabs and Bajuni who had a midnight black African complexion. In the nearby islands Pate (two hours by boat from Lamu you found the Wapate who had their own unique dialect and also north of Lamu you met the Washela who pronounced words in their own peculiar way.
I asked her about the “Wabwambadi” and she informed me that it was actually a pejorative, class based term to refer to those coastal peoples who claimed Arab ancestry and saw themselves as aristocratic high borns who could not mix with the local Watwana. In fact she told me that until quite recently her people the Wagunya, could not inter marry with the Wa’amu who looked down on them as descendants of slaves.
When I told her that many, many years ago I used to have a Mswahili lover from Mombasa who was actually a Mu’amu from Lamu, she was shocked because a non Muslim Luo from upcountry, no matter how Swahilized was in traditional terms not considered good enough to talk to, let alone approach and have an intimate sexual and long term relationship with a mwanamwali from an indigenous Swahili family. Well, times have changed, that is all I can say about dating the daughters of the Waswahili, dear readers men and women in their ordinary everyday lives are saying no thanks to all these internalized racist, tribal, religious walls that separate human beings from each other.
Who are the Washirazi, I asked?
These were the people, I was told, who came from Iran, known until recently as Persia.
What complicates matters is when the Coastal peoples of East Africa migrate and relocate to the Middle East. I was talking recently to a very good friend of mine who is an Abu Dhabi-Canadian who just so happens to be a Mgikuyu Muslim woman who was born in Nyeri but grew up in the United Arab Emirates since the late 1970s.
She told me that many of the countries in the Gulf have xenophobic tendencies and they will look down on ANYONE who is not indigenous, irrespective of whether they are “Arab” or not. She told me of instances where local Gulf Arabs with dark African complexions expressed disdain for light skinned “ Arab” transplants from East Africa and further explained to me that even on the question of Arab identity there is no consensus and certainly you can not reduce things to skin colour- a local Dubai resident will not give a hoot for any Wamangas, advising them to go where they came from-Oman… So you have the phenomenon of a Kenyan “ Arab” boarding a plane from Port Reitz in Mombasa and landing in the Gulf only to learn that he too is considered a khal(black spot) or worse, referred to as an abd (black servant/slave). So all those colour coded social gradations mean nothing all in a context where family lineage and clan pedigree counts for much more.
I further queried my friend about the so called “Wamanga” and I was told that this was the Kiswahili term for Omani Arabs who had settled in East Africa. The Mazrui dynasty was considered to be Wamanga.
Of course I was very familiar with the Mazrui name for it has produced several internationally known Kenyan personages:
Professor Ali Mazrui’s father was the Chief Kadhi and a much respected Islamic scholar. Mbaruk al Amin Mazrui led an armed uprising against British colonial annexation in 1895-96;
Dr and Prof. Alamin Mazrui of Ohio State University is not only one of the most recognized Kiswahili linguists and academics along with the Leipzig based Prof. Abdilatif Abdalla-both of them are veterans of the Kenyan anti-imperialist movement- Dr Alamin Mazrui was detained by Moi in 1982 and is the author of the seminal Kiswahili play Kilio Cha Haki while Prof. Abdilatif Abdalla was imprisoned in 1969 by Kenyatta and composed his poetry collection Sauti ya Dhiki at Kamiti where they both served stints.
One cannot speak about the history of resistance to foreign domination in Mombasa over centuries without invoking the Mazrui family name as you can see when you peruse this link. I was actually shocked to find the Kenya government’s own ministry of foreign affairs agree with me in this regard.
Likewise, one cannot understand the contemporary tensions and conflicts between the Wamanga, Waswahili, Washirazi, Wagunya, Wa Bajuni and other largely Islamic Swahili affiliated communities of Lamu, Kilifi, Kwale and Mombasa districts on the one hand, and the various mostly Christian and animist Mijikenda communities all over the Coast Province on the other hand without factoring in the terrible twin legacies of the East African Slave Trade and the subsequent colonization of Kenya by both the Germans and the British.
7.0. On Kenyans Who Are Ethnic Somalis
The notion of the Kenyan nation has developed in struggle with the machinations of colonialism and necolonialism which paradoxically wanted to lump different tribes and nationalities together into one state while SIMULTANEOUSLY using divide and conquer tactics of tribalism, regionalism, racialism and religious difference.
But we all share a KENYAN identity that flows from our common, collective historical experience of a people ruled by the same British invaders, land grabbers, thieves and looters like Lord Delamare and their ilk.
It is this experience that enables someone like Onyango Oloo, whose ethnic cousins are the Acholi , Lango and Padhola of Uganda; the Alur of the Congo; the Dinka and Nuer of the Sudan and the Anywak of Ethiopia- this is what makes me call myself a KENYAN, sharing a NATIONAL identity with a Zarina Patel and a Davinder Lamba whose ancestors are from the Indian sub-continent; a Leonard Mambo Mbotela whose slave ancestors are from Malawi; a Najib Balala some of whose forbears have roots in the Arabian peninsula; a Mwandawiro whose ethnic relatives are the Pare of Tanzania; a Ngugi wa Thiongo who can dig up the seeds of his family tree very close to Kinshasha; a Moody Awori whose own brother ran for President in Uganda in 2002; a Yusuf Hassan, Mohammed Ibrahim or Nimo Gulleid who may have kith and kin among the Issaq of Hargeisa, the Hawiyes and Daroods of Mogadishu or the Baajun of Kismayu; an Ole Ntimama who may have uncles in Arusha or Namanga or a Richard Leakey who comes from British stock.
To be a Kenyan can not be reduced simplistically to ethnicity.
And the case of the Somali speaking peoples of Kenya offers the BEST PROOF of what I am saying.
For a variety of reasons, Canada is home to close to half a million ethnic Somalis from Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia itself. Following the collapse of the Somali state in the early nineties many people from that tortured land of great promise reverted to narrow clan identities. Among these ethnic Somalis resident in Canada are approximately 20,000 KENYAN nationals.
Even though they are identical in terms of physical features, Kenyan Somalis are quite distinct from ethnic kith and kin from across the northern Kenyan border.
They are referred to as "Sijui".
And you know WHY?
Because more often than not, in the early days at least, when say, someone from Hargeisa, Baidoa or Mogadisho went over and said " Nabat" (Hello) to an Halima from Eastleigh, Nairobi or a Yalahow from Wayani, Mombasa or to an Aida from Kambi Somali, Nakuru, what the Somali nationals would get from ethnic Somali Kenyan nationals would be blank stares followed by a mumble, “Sijui Kisomali" meaning " I cannot speak the Somali language"!
So what language did many of these KENYAN ethnic Somalis speak?
Take a wild guess.
Kiswahili of course!
The HISTORICAL experiences of ethnic Somalis in our country has given them a stamp of national identity that today makes them have more in common with Kambas, Merus, Kisiis and Turkanas than with the far flung tribal communities in Puntland.
Kenyans in northern Kenya in places like Mandera, Wajir, Garissa underwent unspoken atrocities and endured a lot of humiliation as second class citizens in their own country.
Finally in the mid 1960s they decided to do something about the genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaigns of both the colonial and neocolonial governments of Kenya.
Since 1903 there had been a PERMANENT STATE OF EMERGENCY in the so called NFD.
The so-called Shifta rebellion had secessionist aims.
The problems faced by the North Kenyan peoples are rooted in imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism and can only be tackled in the context of solving the National Question in Kenya along consistent democratic and social justice principles that affirms the right of ALL Kenyan people to determine their destiny.
As a Kenyan who is NOT ethnic Somali I know the kind of propaganda and prejudices that I was fed over the decades by our own government to try and convince me that my compatriots in Mandera, Wajir and elsewhere are not Kenyans.
When I was at Kamiti prison between 1982 and 1987, I spoke to former Kenyan soldiers who described their brutal raids against Somali communities in northern Kenya- they had been indoctrinated, just like those American youths dying for Bush, Rumsfeld and Haliburton in Iraq that they were fighting “foreign enemies” instead of their own fellow Kenyans.
The North Eastern province is still the MOST underdeveloped among all the regions of Kenya. Even today many northern Kenyans when they are bidding bye to someone bound for Nairobi will say, “ Please say to those Kenyans” underscoring their ambivalent attitude towards the neocolonial state which embraces them and spurns them simultaneously. In this context their identity as a people is contested and challenged by their lived experience of blatant state oppression and discrimination.
8.0. Conclusion: Navigating Constructed Social Identities in the Kenyan Context
I have endeavoured to demonstrate that ethnicity, tribe, race and other identities, far from being “genetic” “innate” and “primordial” are actually socially constructed, historically determined experiences that interplay with contemporary political realities in a complex and non-linear way. The phenomenon we know as “tribalism” in Kenya is a tool often employed by cynical and conniving politicians who often incite poor working class, lumpen and peasant populations to rise up against equally deprived communities to push very nefarious agendas of the same politicians who are UNITED by class and other elitist interests.
In tacking social issues camouflaged by the “tribal” veneer, progressive Kenyans must revisit history and examine the terrible legacy of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, even as they strive to unite diverse Kenyan communities to fight together for national independence, democracy, social justice and equality across gender, generational, regional and yes, ethnic identities.
Anon 9:19....Can we just have the link.....Then we can downlaod, print and read at our convenience...Imagine reading a long document like that on the screen....Inachosa but it does look like a nice article.
ReplyDeleteif that is what is called civilised....Then i have nothing else to add on to that..I am not going to compare Kenya and Zimbabwe....Sample this how much does a loaf of bread cost in Zimbabwe? and have you ever heard of them going to the streets...No they are just too good for that, why else would they go and their is an alternative of them staying hungry.....Kenyans we have a way of showing our disgust in something.
The only language that the dinosaurs understand is blood being poured...Remember MO1 with repeal of section 2A people died during sabasaba.
Urxlnc i concur that we resorted to extreme violence...But tell me is their another language that Kibs and his cronies understood? Was it not Karua (the only man in PNU) who was telling us Kibaki is the duly elected president of kenya and if you are aggrieved go to court...I ask which court? After it has all been said and done...If it weren't for this people who went out in the streets when we locked ourselves in our houses and we were saying (Another break from work) Kibaki and his ilk will still be raping and stepping on us like dirt...My heart goes out to them they did something that i couldn't do...
Back to Mugabe, my prayer is that Zim will be the last country in Africa to go through that...I join the soccer fans in saying ...Mugabe must go!!!!why does that man think he is indispensable, who does he think he is? I pity Zimbabwe they chose the easier thing to run away (we have over a million refugees in SA)For how long wil they run? Let them confront their problem head on and send Mugabe where he belongs....The archives
Ivy
Charles.Nairobi.
ReplyDeleteIf shutting up and allowing someone to walk all over you because they think they are right is civilized then id rather be a VERY PRIMITIVE KENYAN!
The opposition does not have the numbers and support to remove the old man as strange as it sounds.
I QUOTE
'What is more, better have peace with nothing to eat rather than bloodying your hands to reclaim a country from the grasp of her owners'
Pls correct me if am wrong but i think -THE OWNERS OF ZIMBABWE ARE ZIMBABWEANS THEMSELVES!
They are the only ones capable of removing the dictator from power.
Something is seriously wrong in Zimbabwe, the electorate it seems has lost hope in both the govt and the opposition.
Can someone tell me the meaning of the word CIVILIZED-put it to use in Zimbabwe where bread is only 700,000...?
this luo hammerhead posts a long speech of a fellow luo with many words but full of crap. just paste the link not pages and pages of recycled bombastics
ReplyDeleteI am wondering what is so different in Central, compared to Nyanza? ....Beats me
ReplyDeleteBut if there is ...I thank God coz duh i have something to brag about. Imagine me telling my friends of this kaplace in kenya called central province...that is the epitome of our country.....Mombasa will no longer be a tourist attraction...but central will be the place.....in my few years i have travelled in Kenya trust me......LOL
Ivy
Taabu thank you for finding time to sanitise the place as it was stinking yesterday.Posts such as yours are the calibre of posts we love to read wether you are right or wrong that is debatable!We will engage level headed.Forgive me for not being able to comment in a timely manner on your suggestion about forming "our" party to put ahead the agendas we debate here.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:29
Firstly we wish people with reflections such as yours have handles so we can use them for refrence!Secondly i will only second you to form up my comment as regards this discussion.
Our main problem which i have always insisted in this forum and others is our "constitution"! It has given so much time and again to some 222 guys who shaft us year in year out and as you can see have come back to haunt us by claiming pension.Some of them were in bunge when we weren't born and so little is known about their input in the house.So in essence if we had a clear cut constitution then i think even the civility issue is a foregone conclusion!
Yes the Zimbabweans have been very civil thus far but never forget their civility comes about because of the power of the gun!Given a choice they would do worse than us i believe coz the frusturations those ends in way past the 1000% mark!
Another fact is that we Kenyans are civilised only that there is some element of fatigue that comes out of regime after another and yet into Another!Bottom line lets see what Martha makes of the review process but if Adeniji is a premise of thought then we should be prepared to wait longer!
Have a good day folks!
This MUGABE fellow is a LUNATIC.
ReplyDeleteIf Mugabe is to be believed, it means that we, as modern day Kenyans, remain indebted for life to the so called Mau Mau freedom fighters of yester years! What nonsense!
Mugabe's utterances yesterday that he would never hand over power to an opposition party even if they won and that he would never give up their country for a mere X on a ballot paper has shocked the world! Indeed questions are now being raised about Mugabe's mental state.
I personally do not think MUGABE's REIGN WILL LAST BEYOND THE MONTH OF JULY 2008.
I am also worried about RAO's well being due to his intention to travel to Harare this Sunday to lend moral support Harambee stars as they face Zim's national team.
Phil,
ReplyDeleteHahahhahahaaa, i hate to talk about Mugabe,because there is nothing worrth wtalking let alone write about.
The way i percieve of RAO, travel he will!We can bet on that one!
Knoppix!®
ReplyDeleteas Raila roams all over making useless appearances, his electorate in Kibera are facing tough life especially with the looming hunger. Of course he will come back to be installed a 'kikuyu' elder by njonjo and Kuguru.....and that will add omena on his constituents. this is the chief agent of change who was to bring a constitution and good governance...6 months down the line what has he done?
his usual domo domo and sleeping around....
Kenya's situation was totally different from Zimbabwe. We need to understand that Zimbabwe's
ReplyDeleteMorgan Tsvangirai won and Mugabe no doubt accepts that fact except that except that the opposition leader did not gather enough points thus qualification for a presidential run-off.
Kenya's Raila Odinga won but Kibaki added zero at KICC to avoid a run-off.
Orengo, Ruto and Charity were within the law when they urged Kivuitu to look into the discrepancies before announcing the 'winner'. Kivuitu hurriedly scrapped through the infamous Forms 16A in the basement and quickly emerged the following day to announce Kibaki a winner without following the procedure.
After swearing in the thief-in-chief at dusk (shamefully without the national anthem or salutes from the Armed forces of whom he supposedly is the commander), they went ahead to block and thwart every effort for mass action protest.
Mungiki clad 'GSU' backed Ali's soul-less, brotherless, sisterless, relativeless boys in further surpressing every channel to express dissatisfaction. You could not even seek redress from High Court judges appointed by Kibaki 30 days before election, headed by a Chief Justice who was fully clad waiting with a bible in statehouse grounds to swear in a president before all results had been announced.
It is at this point that Kenyans engaged all security machinery in running battles.
AND WHO ARE THESE WHO KEEP ON SAYING THAT KENYA HAS THE BEST POLICE OR SECURITY SYSTEM, PHIL, TAABU, KALAMARI, VIKII. Pleee..eeaa...se!
Had these people not come out to protest, and I do agree with Kalamari, whether it is sarcasm or not, there would not have been sanity in the current government.
Have we ever thought of what the situation would have been had blood thirsty saitoti allowed Kenyans to peacefully demonstrate at Uhuru Park or whereever without police beating them up.?
Kenya's situation was totally different from Zimbabwe. We need to understand that Zimbabwe's
ReplyDeleteMorgan Tsvangirai won and Mugabe no doubt accepts that fact except that except that the opposition leader did not gather enough points thus qualification for a presidential run-off.
Kenya's Raila Odinga won but Kibaki added zero at KICC to avoid a run-off.
Orengo, Ruto and Charity were within the law when they urged Kivuitu to look into the discrepancies before announcing the 'winner'. Kivuitu hurriedly scrapped through the infamous Forms 16A in the basement and quickly emerged the following day to announce Kibaki a winner without following the procedure.
After swearing in the thief-in-chief at dusk (shamefully without the national anthem or salutes from the Armed forces of whom he supposedly is the commander), they went ahead to block and thwart every effort for mass action protest.
Mungiki clad 'GSU' backed Ali's soul-less, brotherless, sisterless, relativeless boys in further surpressing every channel to express dissatisfaction. You could not even seek redress from High Court judges appointed by Kibaki 30 days before election, headed by a Chief Justice who was fully clad waiting with a bible in statehouse grounds to swear in a president before all results had been announced.
It is at this point that Kenyans engaged all security machinery in running battles.
AND WHO ARE THESE WHO KEEP ON SAYING THAT KENYA HAS THE BEST POLICE OR SECURITY SYSTEM, PHIL, TAABU, KALAMARI, VIKII. Pleee..eeaa...se!
Had these people not come out to protest, and I do agree with Kalamari, whether it is sarcasm or not, there would not have been sanity in the current government.
Have we ever thought of what the situation would have been had blood thirsty saitoti allowed Kenyans to peacefully demonstrate at Uhuru Park or whereever without police beating them up.?
Supu
Could those who have been paying up to the Raw Notes publish their access codes here? Or better, send it to the friends and they in turn could send it to others? Not all of us have $ 15 to spare to send to Chris so he can afford living in the States.
ReplyDeleteanon 1.25am
ReplyDeleteYour obsession with railaphobia has blinded you so much to the extent that you cannot contribute constructively to sensible debate. Are some bloggers here dunderheads with etc (end of thinking capacity) to reason beyond pulling raila into every topic?
Raila apparently stands for the ideals or rather expresses the ideals of the majority of electorates who believe in a just system of governance, equitable distribution of resources to all and tribalism free society. That is why other sensible people who have thus seen the light and the right path (the winning path) have suggested and are planning and arranging to install him as a Kikuyu elder. Why are some people jittery about this.
Atawanyang'anya clout ama?
And for your information, RAO has not asked to be made a Kikuyu elder so those gibberish spewing from dirty mouths should not be directed at him.
Nonetheless, whether he is made a Kikuyu elder or Taita Kaya, what is important is formulation and implementation of sound policies that will translate into good governance free from greedy thieves who fear change even in the face of inadvertency.
Supu
I have said it here time and again; if you have any evidence that Kibaki rigged the election you should table it down before the court of law and let the whole world know how he rigged the vote. Otherwise forever hold your peace.
ReplyDeleteBut I will continue to blame ODM for all the economic woes that the country is experiencing right now. There are democratic ways of protesting without hurting the economy.
Kenya would be scaling new heights if it was not for ODM refusal to accept defeat. Yes I blame them for country’s economic failure and high inflation.
According to the global wealth survey data for 2007 provided by Scorpio partnerships, it reveals that wealth creation, and the allied rise in number of ‘High and Ultra Net Worth Individual’ was dominated by the emerging economies. The biggest were China 14%, followed by India 9% while Kazaktan, Singapore, Argentina and UAE followed with 8% and then Brazil and few other countries including Kenya, yes Kenya with 6%. You can found out about this information on Scorpio Partnership website.
According to another different of kind of report, global wealth Index, which is contributed by many other factors other than money, Zimbabwe was ranked 50 in the world while Kenya was way down, not sure what the number is.
DEAR KENYANS---WHAT DO YOU SAY?
ReplyDeletePosted: June 19, 2008, 9:31 am
DEAR Prime Minister Odinga,
Please be advised that we take great exception to some of the words you have used in describing our leadership in Zimbabwe, when you know very well that some of those words you use could well be used to describe yourself and your new government.
We shall not repeat everything you have said otherwise we will not be able to make our point clear.
You recently called Zimbabwe Africa’s ‘eyesore’ and an example of ‘how not to do it’. You have also said that ‘disaster is looming in Zimbabwe’.
You made similar statements about Zimbabwe, before the current violence had started around the beginning of April 2008, as if you had some special powers of ‘reading the future’. Everything you predicted has happened in exactly the same way; yet there was no precedent to such election violence in Zimbabwe — at least of that nature.
Today Zimbabwe feels like Kenya in December 2007-January 2008, where bodies, for the first time, are burnt and body parts cut off innocent civilians in the name of politics. We had never seen this kind of violence and level of killing in Zimbabwe and we condemn it unreservedly.
We challenge you to read reports of violence documented on Zimbabwe and you will agree with us that this type of violence is a first in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history.
You have been recently installed as a Prime Minister after almost 2, 500 post-election deaths, violent deaths, in your own country where we saw some of the worst brutality on the African continent in this day and age. Three hundred of your own people died pre-election (before December 2007) — a number that the current violence in Zimbabwe could never match; yet you have the audacity to call Zimbabwe an 'eyesore'.
Mr Odinga, we know that two wrongs don’t make a right, so Zimbabwe is not exonerated from criticism and it should be criticized. But who criticizes Zimbabwe and using what words? The words you have used recently Sir, are not akin to a new leader and whose own country is still reeling from one of the worst violent episodes on the continent.
We are getting increasing concerned and frustrated that you are not using diplomatic channels in criticising Zimbabwe. You will soon be mirroring the utterances of the erstwhile enemies of Zimbabwe, who have closed all diplomatic channels and are now trying to use 'force' to bring change in the couintry. You might as well be representing those countries, and their interests in Zimbabwe, not Kenya.
We do not exactly know what ‘triggered you off’ as a new Prime Minister to dedicate your respectable offices to criticizing Zimbabwe in this manner, when you have the advantage of your 'good offices' to do so. We were hoping that if you had any concerns, as a ‘head of state’ you had the opportunity to visit President Mugabe and speak to him directly. But you chose to use different fora; just like those people who have traditionally been at loggerheads with Zimbabwe.
Cowardly Insults
In this regard, with all due respect, we think this is cowardly. As a ‘head of state’ why you preferred to use the World Economic Forum in Pretoria and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington as platforms for firing ‘insults’ at Zimbabwe, rather than engage the leadership to find common solutions, is not clear. Your silence on Darfur and your own problems at home on these same fora is very concerning.
When you said you are ‘enemy No 1’ in Zimbabwe, you were wrong Mr Odinga. Zimbabwe does not hate you at all. You are not the enemy. Why are you identifying yourself with the enemies of Zimbabwe? Why should Zimbabwe hate you? Or, to rephrase, do you want Zimbabwe to hate you? As a news organsiation, we are concerned by your statements, but hate is a far-fetched word. Afterall, you are an African brother.
We sincerely hope that you do not view your leadership as ‘a way of doing it’ in Africa. Your leadership as Prime Minister is yet to be tested, yet you have the audacity to speak ill about Zimbabwe's leadership.
As we speak ethnic tension in your country is showing no sign of abating and suspicion runs high in your cabinet. We do not know if President Mwai Kibaki shares the same sentiments as you on Zimbabwe. We have only heard your lone voice from your bloated cabinet.
The just-ended by-elections in your country have highlighted continued tensions between the coalition partners and the persistence of ethnic politics.
The coalition that holds your government together is still to be tested. We urge you not to be over-excited by power and start criticizing what you term 'old African leaders'.
We know about the disgruntlement that exists in your party today, and your desire to forgive those who have perpetrated violence in the post-election period which has been criticised by the Roman Catholic prelate Cardinal John Njue of Nairobi.
Many of your allies “have been disheartened by the success of Mr Kibaki’s party – and his Kikuyu ethnic group – in dominating a government conceived as a union of equals,�� according to the Financial Times.
Long-standing ethnic grievances over the unequal distribution of land, wealth and power in Kenya will not be resolved by a GNU, and we hope you know that. This, we know, is what triggered the post-election violence, although others have said it was your desire to attain power.
We hope you will not get so overzealous in your new job as to create new enemies for Kenya from old friends. You still have a long way to go before the next election (in 2012). There is still a lot of work to do on constitutional reform, on truth, justice and reconciliation, and on the ever contentious issue of land. These are very delicate areas and before you start presenting yourself as an effective leader, you have to resolve these problems first.
KENYA, NOT SO LONG AGO
We do not know who you represent in your views Mr Odinga, given that you seem to be distracting world attention from Kenya.
It would suffice to remind people of what happened to kenya in January this year, to contextulise our concern. Some quotations from the media not so long ago would help:
“An estimated 30 Kenyans of the Kikuyu ethnic group – many of them children – were burned alive after taking shelter from a mob in a church in the western town of Eldoret,�� CS Monitor, Jan 3, 2008.
“Ethnic violence continued to spread throughout Kenya on Sunday, with at least 7 people burned to death in their homes in a tourist town and more than 100 people killed in the past four days.�� Associated Press Janury 27, 2008.
In one incident, witnesses said at least 7 people and possibly as many as 14 had been burned to death after they were trapped inside their house. Associated Press January 27, 2008.
“On Saturday, hundreds of men prowled a section of the city with iron bars, poisoned swords, clubs, knives and crude circumcision tools. Boys carried gladiator-style shields and women strutted around with sharpened sticks. The police were nowhere to be found. Even the locals were shocked. ‘I've never seen anything like this,’ said David Macharia, a bus driver.�� Associated Press Janury 27, 2008.
This will suffice for now.
300 people died in pre-election violence in Kenya and 2,500 died post election violence. This number, by any measure, dwarfs the 65-70 deaths recorded by the MDC (Tsvangirai) in unclear circumstances, yet you call Zimbabwe an eyesore, without trying to engage the Zimbabwean government as a PM.
We feel that Mr Odinga you still have to prove yourself as a leader and therefore are unqualified to make informed judgments about other leaders. We do not know what advises your judgment.
We urge you to stop the globe-trotting and focus on troubles in Kenya and engage African (Zimbabwean) leaders. We also urge you to let Mr Kibaki sometimes comment on Zimbabwe. He is the president, afterall. We do not even know if he shares the same sentiments as you over Zimbabwe.
We also urge you to reduce the size of your cabinet. We know that cabinet posts in Kenya attract a monthly salary of nearly (US) $18,000 (£9,000). Assistant ministers earn a bit less - just over $15,000. (BBC)
We also know that there are “40 cabinet ministers and 52 assistant ministers, not far short of half the total number of MPs�� in your country.
“Ministers and their assistants also get allowances - that adds another $210,000 a month to the bill.
“To add insult to injury, the Kenyan exchequer only claws back a little in tax: only around $3,000 of the ministers' income is treated as taxable income.��
So we know that you spend at least US$1.5million a month on salaries alone — the Kenyan taxpayers’ money. What exactly are you managing in that country Mr Odinga? And couldn’t you use that money for land redistribution and dealing with ethnic divisions in your country? Do you think this is sustainable in the long run?
We have problems in Zimbabwe. We have to deal with them; but we do not need insults from you Mr Odinga. We need help. We did not insult your country or your leadership when innocent people died in Kenya in the name of politics.
We expect you, the new generation of leaders, to be exemplary, not derogatory and divisive.
What lessons are you teaching future generations of leaders?
Is this the best you can come up with in your first months of leadership?
Do you have to exploit every forum to chastise those who make mistakes and castigate your own continent?
The US$13m a year you are about top spend on your cabinet, according to the BBC, is enough to build around 50 new schools in Kenya. So is this not an ‘eyesore’ on the continent? Is this a ‘way of doing it’?
Having 40 permanent secretaries and their staff, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars more to the bill, is not a ‘way of doing it’, neither is it exemplary leadership on a continent that is trying to lift itself from years of foreign domination and extraction of resources.
Mr Odinga, we wonder why you have already been allocated 45 security staff and a fleet of cars to travel in, when you say the situation in Kenya is improving.
We also wonder why “cabinet ministers and their deputies get a minimum of five security personnel and a couple of shiny new cars.��
In a country with an annual per capita income of less than US$400, these statistics are shocking. They are irresponsible. They are an antithesis to development and an embarrassment to the continent, and definitely an ‘eyesore’ and a ‘way of not doing it’.
THE ZIMBABWEAN PROBLEM
Sometimes, Mr Odinga, we wonder if you really know the Zimbabwean problem — how it started and how long it took the government to get majority rule. We wonder if you have read the history of our relationship with the ‘wild wild West’. We wonder if you know how many people perished in colonial Rhodesian and how many people sacrificed their lives.
We also wonder if you know how many black Zimbabweans people fought in World War II and were only given 15 Shillings as compensation on return; and how your own people (the Kenyans) contributed to the British Empire in Burma and SE Asia and went back home to fight the same people for freedom. Obviously history is not important to you, Mr Odinga. We believe the world starts in 2008 for you?
We do not say seek retribution; but we say, ‘contextualize problems’ before you are given a ‘High Chair’ at some forum or institute. Have pride in resolving your continent’s problems; not castigating those who came before you. Even Catholicism was proved fallible, remember papal infallibility?
Why can’t Zimbabwe make mistakes without attracting your un-useful comments? Why can’t you take a trip to Zimbabwe and not to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. if you feel Zimbabwe needs urgent attention? Why didn’t you detour to Zimbabwe on your way to, or from Pretoria, where you were attending the World Economic Forum?
Why do you always have to score points by mentioning Zimbabwe — and not providing credible solutions — than by talking about Kenya? Is there not enough trouble in Kenya?
We urge you Mr Odinga, to diplomatically engage the Zimbabwean government.
People are dying in the country and your words are not very helpful to a situation that is out of hand. We all exercised caution when Kenya was burning. It still is burning today, and we are still exercising caution. We are not getting over-excited. That’s what leaders do — find strtategic ways to resolve crises, not attack other leaders.
We do not remember hearing President Mugabe refusing to meet you or criticizing you or Mr Kibaki. We also do not remember you offering to help Zimbabwe. We remember your hugs with opposition leaders soon after your ‘inauguration’ and hugs at the World Economic Forum with Tendai Biti and Jendayi Frazer. Those are more memorable than anything useful you have said or done on ‘really’ resolving the Zimbabwean crisis.
We urge you to clean house before you make any further embarrassing statements about Zimbabwe in your first few months of leadership; and we also urge you to seek diplomatic ways of engaging the Zimbabwean government.
While at it, please also ask the Africa Commission and its splinter organisations and their spokespersons to lead a diplomatic offensive on Zimbabwe rather than speak from London.
Also please ask Mr Tony Blair to encourage the ‘African Elders’ he currently leads, to use the same methods he used in a more difficult situation in Northern Ireland, in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis.
Zimbabweans are dying from violence and soberness and diplomacy by leadership is needed; not these divisive by-partisan statements likely to divide a continent that was moving towards a Pan-African integration.
RSVP.
Wed 18 June 2008
http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/117/AR … 06-18.html
kwale
ReplyDeletego easy.
on another thread, i requested that you publish your blueprint for poverty eradication. you then proceeded to shamelessly crap on our intelligence. am still cleaning up that joke.
Anon 3:05...Pls because you are not the author of the long document...Kindly just the link will do..It is an eye sore
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the comments one of the bloggers put.."mugabe should rule zim for as long has he feels. God bless RG MUGABE"
Should such people be assisted...I will summarize .....The services of Dr. Njenga are much needed than any other person...No wonder!!!
Ivy
What happened and is still happening in Zimbabwe IS NOT civility or whatever you choose to call it.
ReplyDeleteIt is actually COWARDICE.
Those people need to wake up and fight for their rights,hungry or fed.
they think by being 'civil' everything will go on as usual?
Hell NO,they will keep dying like chicken.
Sorry for my tone but i seriously think Zimbabweans are not serious!!!
Zimbabweans are dying from violence and soberness and diplomacy by leadership is needed; not these divisive by-partisan statements likely to divide a continent that was moving towards a Pan-African integration.
ReplyDeleteThat is a quote from Anon 3:05 long document.......Diplomacy and soberness in the face of violence and hunger strike ya kujitakia (or is it fasting?) ...My foot is Zimbabwe guardian equivalent of Kenya Times enzi ya Moi?
Ivy
Anon 3.19… since you have asked me several times to produce my blueprint for poverty eradication, I have prepared one specifically for you.
ReplyDeleteDon't you ever take the piss with me again by asking me to provide things that you already know.
1. Promote infrastructural development by constructing good roads to make transport and communication easy.
2. Create employment opportunities by constructing small scale industries to enable people get access on jobs.
3. Educate people regarding how to save and this may be done through organizing seminars and conferences.
4. Promote agriculture and farming which are the main sources of income in rural areas.
5. Create credit facilities to enable the rural population get access on finance through loans and grants.
6. Create sports opportunities to enable the youth getting jobs though they are not highly payable.
7. Reduce on malaria transmission by providing both preventive and curative measures in order to reduce on money spent to treat this dangerous disease hence poverty will be eradicated.
8. Avoid corruption which is the most cause of poverty mainly in rural areas.
9. Promote peace and unity in order to avoid political instability. This will attract investors to invest in rural areas.
10. Create market opportunities to enable the rural population sell their goods at favorable prices.
Where is LUKA?
ReplyDeleteCan somebody please WAKE LUKA up. He must have drifted into eternal slumber after enjoting the 6% growth. Kwale needs company as he creates wealth from without.
Ivy,
Leave Kwale alone unless you want another cut-and-paste blue print dossier. Don't you the likes of you made Kwale fly using his OTHER pp together with his CELLULITEFREE....
Selective logic galore here. Mugabe is a hero to those who wished he was ours to batter us to submission. Reminds me of the gloating about turning East. See even Mugabe tried importing a shipfull of arms from China. We conviniently demonize the west
(their warts notwithstanding) to gloss over injustices.
The prevailing pre-1989 mindset belongs to the archives. Clothe DECEPTION and fraud in all colours but it remains just that.We are in a different era and if you think we owe you any favour then it is the bullet, bite it.
taabu
ReplyDeleteivy's innocent of that charge.
you're right Luke been gone a long time
Taabu
ReplyDeleteI haven't even talked to Kwale today....But i think Anon 3:19 has been asking Kwale the same question over and over ...After he gave me the 8 pointers i gave up.
Can i chambua his 10 points...today...Just in summary i thought Kibera is urban...So where are all these rural this, and i am just wondering how to improve on infrastructure..where is the money supposed to come from (my equity account) then panda my crops where behind my mud house? ...I guess i am just too naive and i also suffer fromm inferiority complex...kweli iron sharpens iron....LOL
Ivy
I have read some of your comments on my country Zimbabwe And our President RG Mugabe. All i noticed is most of you if not all have never been to Zimbabwe you have no backgroung history on how the current problems started. Its not about misrule, yeh he may have made mistakes here and there BUT it all started when land was given back to the Blacks!!!! Why cant someone talk about lifting the so called targeted sanctions which have brought the current untold sufferng you are all talking about
ReplyDeleteWhy do some people here make me feel like a genius?
ReplyDeleteAti blue print for poverty eradication......This is supposed to be kibera or nyanza specific.
So my guy a blue print is by defination a specific plan for a specific situation.
The fisrt thing you must do is show some basic understanding of the current situation using more accurate descriptions than 'the poor...and to define the specific challenges unique to that situation.
I never new I was so bright....or is it that someone here is so metally challenged?
Sir Alex
@Anon 5.31,
ReplyDeleteStop hidding under the land issue. That is precisely the pre-1989 mindset syndrom we banished long time ago. Ati my country my fool. Kwani are we shamelessly exporting deception. Ask the war veterans who benefitted from the land. The ordinary Zim has nothing to do with that.
@Sir Alex,
How many PPs do you have? I hope not one becoz with that you cannot hold any candle (even msuma) to our EXOTIC plueprint experts with CELLULITELESS spouses. Create wealth Sir or better still keep to football whcih is your strength. Leave juvenile civic lectures to experts, won't you?
MEET THE NEW MAN TO BE MADE A KIKUYU ELDER AFTER DEPORTATION
ReplyDelete[img]http://bp3.blogger.com/_oycKvAJJ1pQ/SFg3sU5QHGI/AAAAAAAAA58/mObz_-ndT9I/s400/kenyan+nurse.jpg[/img]
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-06132008-1548551.html
he has met the critiria by the primitive section of kikuyu community
- no foreskin
- baba watoto
- love for money
- practitisng hidden cultural practices
- daring to do the un imaginable
- love for his community before country
- has impacted muthungu where it matters most
- worships robert gabriel mugabe as a hero in africa
Anon 5.31
ReplyDeleteHow long was Mugabe in power before the land issue came to a head? Was this one of his administration primary tasks to redistribute land?
Assuming it was, why then didn't he nurture the right people to take over this land? Instead, he was happy to get the white farmers' support until it was evident that his time was up. And then he decided to energize the base of peasants by giving them large scale farming land. That in itself affected the food supply of Zimbabwe.
Are you being disingenous when you claim the land issue is what led to all these problems. To me, it seems that Mugabe piggy backed on the land issue instead of showing leadership.
Anon 5:31
ReplyDeleteOne thing I agree with is that the local interpretation or perception of issues can at times be so far removed from what is published in both local and/or international press and in many cases misrepresented or quoted out of context.
I also agree what is hurting zimbabweans is the inflation that has since gotten meaningless numbers brought about by sanctions and its a matter of opinion which is more of a problem the politics or poverty.
although some of us want to pretend, the period from 1996 to 2002 kenya experienced some of the same when IMF, World Bank, and other donors suspended/withheld funds to Moi's government due to rampant corruption, stagnating economic growth and eventually bringing it to its knees -0.1%. On a side note, i've always maintained that the so called NARC govt growth was largely due to removal of moi (reduced executive interference in govt operations) and resumption of funding, but thats for another day.
if moi had dug in and continued to rule kenya (thank god for the term limit - constitutional reform still remains our only hope to reign in rogue politicians and leaders) we would probably be in the same position economically as zimbabwe
but thats not what this is about, the local economic and development agenda, resource distribution, its dynamics and criteria are always debatable with pros and cons.
what we hear are grown men and women being caned, maimed, jailed and killed for expressing opposition to the ruling party ZANU-PF and its leader Mugabe. This has resulted in several opposition supporters fleeing Zimbabwe. Those remaining have succumbed to the pressure in order to 1) stay alive and 2) receive the food and other handouts or otherwise continue going about their daily business.
THis is the information we get from the media both international and from inside Zim. It does not matter whether we have been or not been to Zim. Are these reports credible or do you deny and state these are "exagerations or fiction".
Certainly no one wishes another to put his/her life on the line but what we are saying is that as long as the people of Zim do not collectively put up resistance to oppression (if it exists) then Mugabe will continue to rule, inflation will rise even higher etc.
What do you consider mis-rule, if the sanctions are due to a stance taken by the top leader(s), and they make the rest of the population suffer, wouldn't it make sense to step aside with dignity for the sake of the people? If indeed his is a popular stand, then wont he automatically get "protection" for his steadfastness?
We are wondering or curious about whether our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe are totally smothered and thats why we are raising concerns here on there behalf or if they are truly comfortable with their leadership. We are also human and if we see a man hobbling on his right leg carrying an amputated left leg, and even if he smiles convincingly and says he's ok, we are bound to ask him if he's sure he's alright. (sorry for the unfortunate graphic analogy)
UrXlnc
anon5:56 PM
ReplyDeleteVikiI use logic my dear- if ODM MP's were voted in all this constichencies?? yes only PNU don't add any other parties that went at it alone or Kilonzo Musyoka's party?
If voters voted kibaki's MPs out?? and replaced them with ODM MP's ??ODM had the three tier voting system in place- where the hell did KIBAKI GET HIS VOTES FROM THE SAME DISTRICTS??
OOPS I REMEMBER NOW WHAT ONE OF THE ECK OFFERS SAID - THE ONE THAT RAN AWAY FEARING FOR HIS LIFE(HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO STOOD AGAINST KIVIUTU AND HIS TEAM WHO WERE PAID MILLIONS - THE TRAVEL OF MONEY DISCOVERED IS FOR ANOTHER DAY- KIKUITU WAS FOOLISH ENOUGH TO BANK ABROAD AT A TRACEABLE BANK- KIBAKI RECEIVED HIS VOTES FROM DEAD VOTERS- "DEAD PEOPLES" ID'S WERE USED TO RIG VOTES FOR KIBAKI IN THE AREAS WHERE HE KNEW HE WOULD LOSE-
AND SOME AREAS THE VOTES FOR KIBAKI WERE MORE THAN THE PEOPLE REGISTERED IN THIS CONSTICHENCIES
VIKII DEAD VOTERS DO NOT COUNT AND TRYING TO CONVINCE YOUR SELF THAT KIBAKI DIDN'T RIG IS A FOOLS PARADISE= BUT I DON'T BLAME YOU:) YOU SEE THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN KEEP YOU SEINE - THOUGH YOU KNOW VERY WELL KIBAKI RIGGED OPENLY. I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU BUT I GUESS BY THE TIME REALITY HITS YOU KIBAKI WILL BE OUT OF OFFICE AND I SINCERELY WONDER WHAT KIKUYU POSTS YOU WILL BE POSTING HERE- SINCE THERE WILL BE NO KIKUYU OF INTEREST TO CHAT ABOUT....
ANON8:07 PM
ReplyDeletedon't be a fool. i'm a kikuyu and i'm suffering and i don't see why i should pretended otherwise and follow your bogus claims on here- stop your nonsense our people are indeed suffering- maybe you are one of those kikuyu's studying abroad with rich parents or who's parents are in kibaki inner circles.
First off I'm an ordinary kikuyu from central province with relatives who had a few businesses here and there in the rift valley some even at the border of kenya and uganda a place called AMAGORO"
THEY LOST PLENTY AND THEY HAVE TO START AFRESH.
I on the other hand can see through what is happening unlike you and i agree with the blogger who commented that kibaki is only looking after the interests of his family, relatives and close friends can you even imagine protecting Moi and his billions(that was foolish of kibaki)
what do we ordinary Kikuyu's have on ground- nothing we like every other ordinary kenyan have to look as a few elite kikuyu's enjoy the kenya wealth and live like kings-
why refuse to state the obvious?? is it because you are a kikuyu?? and if you are not from the elite circles?? are these rich bastards sharing what they have with you? and do remember most of it was ill-gotten- my father worked for the government since independent and i will just say he was those poor civil servants- and he tells me that it seems that history is repeating it self- Kenyatta shouted harambee!! but only for his family, relatives and close cronies and kibaki has followed right in his foot steps- i think you should shut the f'''' up - i didn't ask you to represent my fews as a kikuyu on here- you do not represent all kikuyu's those are your own opinions you post here about kikuyu's. and i will not tolerant being bunched up with the likes of you!!!
UrXInl,
ReplyDeleteDECEPTION I repeat comes in all shades. We even have academics for hire. You one ORGE GKK who was saved by Smith H but when he became state lawyer now spews all lies gabbed in intellectual dishonesty? Yeah they will tell you to go to the courts and as Ivy would ask which courts?
Mugabe is an eyesore and just like DEATH did us a favour in 1978 one is left asking why is Lucifer so unfair? Imagine the senile then continuing as figurehead as his clonies rape Kenya. No wonder you cannot fail to see the mau mau reverence through Mugabe.
The poor zimbos after hitting them 2nil I would not want to look like I have suddenly become an expert on Zim issues, but may I say my two cents worth;
ReplyDeleteIts true that zims is a victim of some serious economic engineering by the west to get uncle bob to tow the line and to send a strong message to anyone else who dares take on the west that they will get creamed.
It is also true that Bob is nothing but the cheapest, lowest kind of thug, the useless kind of leader that Africa is unfortunte to have had plenty of.
Thats the easy part... The BIG problem is how to solve the Zim problem with the interest of the ordinary zimbawean.
Well first the ordinary zimbo is just a victim of war between white interest in zim vs uncle bob and both don't care much for that poor soul known as the zimbo realy needs.
Any which way the poor black zimbo goes he is screwed. Bob or the west.That is Africa for you, its either western exploitation or Black despot.
Both are guided by the same principle,: If we are in charge then you have no say. The west has more power and is better organised so they can argue that the ordinary zimbo is better of under them and not very few zimbos disagree with that.
The biggest problem today in zim is not Bob but the lack of a credible alternative. Zims is a nation of 'workers' the white man trained them to be good workers they are genearlly leadership averse.
You need a ruling class to provide leadership. Right now they are marely reacting to their hardships. Hoping someone will bail them out. What is happening in zims is not civility but a lack of 'clarity'....Bob should go cuase he is making starve but after Bob what? Thats the problem.
Will they have to sell their soul to west to eat? If so what would that be like? Nobody is sure about that bit.
Sir Alex
anon1:25 AM
ReplyDeleteoops you mean Raila is busy traveling and working while Kibaki is bonking martha karua day in and day out?? he the old senile kiza will run out of Viagra soon- go won him Viagra does sometimes give heart conditions-
and he should keep his hands off the cleaning ladies at statehouse
there have been too many complains-
isn't ironic while Lucy kibaki is busy slapping people at statehouse the senile kibaki is busy jumping on women and having sex more so the cleaning help?? how disgusting.
Homosexuality refers to sexual behavior or attraction between people of the same sex, or to a sexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions primarily to" people of the same sex; "it also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them."[1][2]
ReplyDeleteWhile "sexual orientation ranges along a continuum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual," homosexuality is often contrasted with heterosexuality (primary or exclusive opposite-sex attraction) and bisexuality (a significant degree of attraction to both sexes).[2]
Homosexuality is also distinguished from other aspects of sexuality, "including biological sex (the anatomical, physiological, and genetic characteristics associated with being male or female), gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female), and social gender role (adherence to cultural norms defining feminine and masculine behavior)."[2]
Etymologically, the word homosexual is a Greek and Latin hybrid with homos (often confused with the later Latin meaning of "man", as in Homo sapiens) deriving from the Greek word for same, thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex, including lesbianism.[3][4] In a narrow sense, gay refers to male homosexuality, but it often is used in its broadest sense, especially in media headlines and reports, to refer to homosexuality in general. Lesbian, however, always denotes female homosexuality.
Homosexual behavior occurs among numerous non-human animals and particularly among social animals.[5]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8EBOkGJM8U
ReplyDeletejienjoy
ANON 7:40
ReplyDeleteWho is gay here and why this irreverent post about homosexuality. Are you gay looking for acceptance?
Anon 7:33 and Mla chake...What was th post again....Pls dont spoil the broth
ReplyDeleteIvy
Vikii and these other Central Kenyan IDIOTs who think that because Raila has a mass following that he is upheld as a diety & worshipped alike is all NONSENSE. When there seems to be a lack of genuine intellectual discourse, they revert to the same nonsense from CENTRAL like ANTS on a safari.
ReplyDeleteLast year it was "unelectable kihii", this year, "worship your god"...all nonsense and we are damn tired of these CENTRAL KIKUYU BASTARDS.
Is SAM OKELLO a gay man living in the USA? Why are they living together with Chris?
ReplyDeleteIs that why MARIANNE BRINER hates SAM OKELLO because he has no desire for her unlike all other men she has slept with?
Could it be that really SAM OKELLO is a gay man and Chris as well?
anon7:59 AM
ReplyDeleteMartin Ngatia is one kikuyu who speaks the truth and stands for facts
He the night mare for most elite kikuyu mafia like the Kibaki's and the Karua's of kenya- i bet you if he was in Kenya in 2007 he would have been assassinated like J.M Karuiki
either by Kibaki or funded mungiki- because he listens to no nonsense and does not follow blindly?
Ivy and Taabu what is your take on this kenyan??
Raila spent 9 years in detention. Handed the Presidency on a GOLDEN PLATTER to the goon now in Statehouse. In the 90s when people were fighting for a multiparty state, where was the GOON, in bed with MOI and peeing in his pants at Muthaiga Golf Club and Cameo.
ReplyDeleteThen these thick headed, mokimo heads, jigger infested a-holes from Central have the nerve to cast aspersions.
WHAT HAS KIBAKI EVER FOUGHT FOR IN TERMS OF DEMOCRACY HIS WHOLE POLITICAL LIFE? At least MOI was there in the fight for independence.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE JARAMOGI AND HIS SON EVER MADE WAS HAND THE PRESIDENCY TO THESE POTATO EATING A-HOLES FROM A CERTAIN REGION IN KENYA.
And they wonder why no ones wants them in their backyards. It is not like Central is the yardstick or barometer of what a PROVINCE should be.
Anon 7:20
ReplyDeletei couldnt agree more with your post.I know the topic here is Mugabe,i really sympathise with the author of the link on a Zimbabwe paper if he really is from there coz what Raila said cant be further from the truth.This so called African diplomacy he is askin RAO to use on Bobby M isnt working anywhere with these old warlords.It is what has led to tyrants in Africa in Ethiopia,Kenya,Uganda and even Egypt thriving on power while the people suffer.They need to be told to their faces.Its sheer madness. Am sorry that while most of us sympathise with them they dont seem to know where their problem is.Of course i may be wrong,i aint lecturing them on what probably they know of better...but aint it rather obvious to any Tom Dick and Harry what ails Zimbabwe,once the bread basket of Africa.???
But my beef is with people on the blog of the school of thought that all people who have root in central kenya aint struggling/are well off and the rest(nyanza,western) are living like paupers.To put it in simple terms you are trying to put off a fire with gasoline.The reality is there has been an imbalance in kenya for a while and the election violence was a symptom of it.Unfortunately evil people/and those that were just venting their feelings directed it to the wrong target as in the case of ur relatives in that place called Amagoro at the border.These are ordinary people probably owning nothing in the wider central province who were out to make their living in their small way.I believe this is counter productive coz if u are championing your rights then these should be your comrades given that the policy that be in kenya of official corruption and thuggery,selective justice and pure favouritism have made both them(the post election demonstrators and killers as well as their victims in the riftvalley and naivasha) to live like paupers.Now dont you think that if they had not involved killing and brutality on these folks then maybe some unity could come out of it knowing that the true enemy is one...Government of the day and political elite.
When somebody says that there aint kikuyus suffering then u arent doing any good to ur own folks,thats what i mean usin gasoline to extinguish fire.You actually making the unfounded hate for them amongst some stronger.At the same time treating the ordinary people from the House of Mumbi like the elites we all know who have raped this country senseless is not gonna bring about change.I am neither a kiuk nor a Luo/Kalenjin/Luhya or any other tribe from those sides BUT i feel for those who loose lives and property in on behalf of the Elites just because they are of one ethnicity.
My point is that it would be great to appreciate the fact that the ordinary kenyans have so much in common in terms of their daily struggles and problems than differences.Actually the only difference between the 'wanjiku' selling mtumba at Gikomba and 'Apiyo' selling fish at Toi market is their language....they are both hardworking,honest and havent made lives for other kenyans unbearable.So what the fuss..wish we can stop writing about people here usin adjectives like 'lazy' 'poor' 'HIV ravaged' and such.I come from Malindi and my own villagers deep down there are dying of the virus.So what u gonna tell me???they ran away from Nyanza.???Get a life with that one.Lets treat each other like human beings and the respect that comes with it and then it will be clear who the real enemy to kenyans is!Of course they have one given the situation in kenya is not their making.Where i study here in Michigan we happen to be quite a numba of KENYANS and thats what we are...fullstop.Not Kikuyu ,luo,Giriama,meru.Trust me,we consider ourselves bros given that together we face same issues and not individually depending on tribe.Thats the way out otherwise every other election there SHALL be a church burning with women and children,a whole family burnt in a house in Naivasha and Police usin bullets on a Youth asking him why are u shooting me in Kisumu(by the way,why dont we force such police/GSU to Iraq if they really like turning off the safety button and pulling trigger coz they would have a lot of target there who are so happy to return fire).Americans themselves arent interested in going to Baghdad anymore.I hope my point is seen here,lets stop petty tribalism.Politicians have perfected it to their own benefit and to our detriment,i bet the reverse will be to their detriment and to our benefit.
LLOYD.
lloyd your post has made my day. i always come to kumekucha everyday but today your post inspired me to actually leave a comment. i wish we could all think and live the way you have described because at the end of the day, most of us are struggling to make it.
ReplyDelete