Whatever the outcome of next week's referendum on the proposed constitution, the political landscape and chemistry will be radically altered forever. Whether Kibaki will reshuffle his cabinet is neither here nor there but the writing is boldly imprinted on the wall. The church too must brace itself for rebranding after next Wednesday.
First the trophy goes to Moi for standing up to Kibaki to remind him he has all the right to trash the proposed constitution. At least Moi unwittingly accepted that we needed a new constitution 100 days after Kibaki took power. But his beef that the promise was not kept leaves him exposed as very petty. Is it not better to have it in less than 3000 days (8 years) than not at all after close to 9000 days (24 years) of ruin?
Granted, neither Moi nor Kibaki should be criticising each other in public. It is just not right given their ages and our African culture. But Moi should walk his talk of speaking the truth instead of selective interpretation of the draft for political and personal expediency.
True, two wrongs never made a right but just imagine anybody swiftly standing up to Moi just some 9 years ago? The political hirelings would have left some parts of the victim's anatomy scattered in various parts of Kenya. That Moi has his right as a Kenyan to make political choices is given. But attempting to square it out with his predecessor is just not right.
Freedom! That word which is both used and abused in equal measure. Moi is brandishing it while he denied Kenyans even a trace of the same commodity. Well, speak of people living in glass houses having their hands full of stones and throwing them with abandon.
We live in interesting times, COME ON August 4th.
So what does Moi mean when he says that left Kenya united? Who created those TRIBAL districts while lying that he has banned GEMA etal? If we are tribal kids, Kenyatta planted the seed, Moi watered it and Kibaki had a bumper harvest.
ReplyDeleteIts a done game.
ReplyDeleteThis Katiba will will get over 80% votes.
Thanks Moi for remaining in the limelight! many have a bone to settle with him. Just remove those security guards ( provided by state) and see how fast and angry many are for what he did to them. he should really lie low like an antelope.
Here comes the difference between Moi and Biwott. The latter is too much intelligent.Do you hear of him? Moi should consult Biwott on survival tactics!
Kenya will undergo a major facelift without a painful surgery, after August 4th, 2010. There is no doubt nor question about it! The majority are very ready for the overdue surgical procedure.
ReplyDeleteAny well informed Kenyan knows how ugly we have looked and how our nation's image has been deformed for the last five decades.
As a matter of fact, it's high time, the nationwide ugly warts, moles, blemishes, lesions, cancer, pimples, pineapple bumps, acne, leprosy, infected tattoos, deeply engrained elephant frickles and other unwanted countless facial growths were surgically removed, once and for all.
Well, well. Ati "Moi left Kenya [a] united" people and nation?
Which Kenya does he have in mind? Is it the Kenya of the 1980s, 1990s, up till 2002, where ordinary citizens were always hounded, haunted, harrassed, bullied, threatened, beaten, tortured, imprisoned 24/7 or even killed for holding dissenting opinions or views on matters of governance etc?
At times it so easy to delude ourselves through selective amnesia when we are floating or drawning in a self engineered sea of "cronic denial".
One old man Moi knows so well that some of the political, ethnic, economic and social skeletons will soon start surfacing or walking through the closet doors and out of hidden basments, bunkers, forests, rivers, mountains, valleys and places from a distant past that were unknown to the general population.
FIA (Freedom of Information Act) is a very tricky but deadly animal in any democratic society, when used for the right reasons.
FIA seems to be one animal people like Moi fear most for the rest of their lives under the sun.
And it's for one of those reasons that Moi should retire from active politics and allow the future generations, yes those who were born during the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, to take up leadship for a change, and for the better of the nation's future.
Well put, he should lie low like an antelope in the Savannah grasslands of Kenyan politics.
Am among millions of Kenyans who can't wait to reside in a Kenya that will eventually undergo a gradual but meaningful surgical change for the better.
It is true that Moi denied Kenyans the right to speak their mind but that is no reason to deny him. Let him speak his mind and campiagn freely and we should respect him as our former president who -- despite all his shortcoming -- at least kept the country together for 24 years and - most importantly for me -- relinquished power peacefully.
ReplyDelete@Abass,
ReplyDeleteYou are right but Moi is stretching his luck too far. In fact he is like daring the incumbent. There is what is called mutual respect, ilienda wapi? As Taabu said two wrong don't make a right.
On relinguishing power YOU BET and tehre lies the catch most bloggers don't want to read/hear. Moi knows much that we don't and if pushed he can open the can for the worms to flow.
I agree, Moi should continue to have his time in the (now setting) sun, but we dont have to listen to him. My anticipation, though, is that the blood-thirsty types (like those who went and settled in other peoples' houses in 07 elections) will be very disappointed. I do not think that Orengo and others will rush into implementing and enforcing certain things in that constitution. It would cost them, if they are not 'bought' outright and I mean that literally. Moi himself once said how cheap some people are.
ReplyDeleteFrist things first. Moi never held the country together under a democratic government, rather he tyrannically ruled Kenya with an iron fist. Call it the vicious "rungu ya nyayo" if you will.
ReplyDeleteThere is a big difference betweeen having the right to speak one's mind in a constructive manner, versus speaking one's mind in an old divisive fashion, especially when the individual in question spent over twenty years frustrating the very effort of facilitating a new constitutional process for the republic of Kenya.
For the record, let it be known that Moi relinguished his tyrannical hold on power after he had been overwhelmed by the prevailing winds of political change around the globe. There was no turning back to the discarded old ways of doing business or bad governance.
Moi, to his credit, was a wise gizzard, who didn't want to end up or to be blidsighted by political events like his counterpart Nicolae Ceausescu.
Fortunately for Africa and it's people, Moi had become an unembarrassing dirty relic from the Cold War era, like Mobutu of Zaire, Joseph Savimbi of Angola and many others on the African continent, whose time had run out.
Thefore he was no longer viewed by the former puppet masters as an asset or a leader of a "strategic military zone" but had become a liability in the eyes of his former handlers, namely, the United Kingdom and United States of America, who could no longer offer him any more carte blanche financial support nor guarantee him any necessary military support in time of urgent need when faced with internal political turmoil.
Revisionist history is a very hard mandazi or donut to sale to Kenyans of all ages after the fact, make it two and half decades under Moi's misrule.
The proverbial land issues will still stick out like an old thorn in our collective achilles heel.
ReplyDeleteHow in the world did Bwana Kubwa Hermus Steyn of Nguruma Ltd. come to own such a hu track of land, 200,000 acres, in Kenya, after forty something years of uhuru?
200,000 acres of land in 2010?
Is this one of the many reasons some circles within the NO camp are working day and night to defeat or stall the new constitutional process?
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteFrist things first. Moi never held the country together under a democratic government, rather he tyrannically ruled Kenya with an iron fist. Call it the vicious "rungu ya nyayo" if you will.
xxx
For the last 6000 years, man had only 2 glorious periods. There are the
(a) FREE CITIES of Ancient Greece. Who has not heard of the half men and half divine men this society produced?
(b) and the Medieval FREE CITIES of Europe.
Who has not heard of the beauty of art of Raphael, the strength and boldness of a Michelaneglo, the art and science of a Leonardo da Vinci, the poetry and langauge of Dante?
Who has not heard of the architecture of cathedrals of Laon, Rheims, Cologne, Pisa, Florence which Victor Hugo said, "they were built by men."?
If we stick to the Medieval Free Cities which gave us parchment and paper printing, printing and engraving, improved glass, steel, gunpowder, clocks, telescope, the mariner's compass, the reformed calendar, the decimal notation, algebra, chemistry, Oxford University which are the foundations of today's civilization, we must ask ourselves, how were these Free Cities organised?
They were dedicated to:
(a) conquest and defence of liberty of the individual,
(b) the FEDERATIVE principle, and
(c) the right to UNITE and ACT as free men.
In a medieval Kuttenberg Ordinance, we find these words:
"and no one shall, while DOING NOTHING (mit nichts thun), appropriate for himself what others have produced by application and work, because laws must be a SHIELD for APPLICATION and WORK."
Today, when we ask that, we frame our constitution in terms of what Medieval Free Cities accepted as a matter of fact, we are called utopians. How pathetic to say the least.
So, what happened to these Free Cities/Communes? They were overwhelmed via massive massacres by the barbarians.
Who were these barbarians? They were/are the triple alliance of the military chief, the Roman judge and the priest, i.e. THE MODERN STATE.
What was the objective of their state?
(a) destruction of liberties,
(b) submission of the individual,
(c) annihilation of the free contract, and
(d) the uniting of men in universal SLAVERY to the state, i.e. the organised dominant minority.
Now, the question is, when this centralised state, or organised violence becomes unbearable, what do men do?
They must revert to their own tongues (tribes) for two reasons:
(a) for their own protection, and
(b) in capturing the state.
Therein, lies the problem because the centralised Roman/Byzantine/Hegelian State is nothing, but, a Towel of Babel which must eventually collapse into many tongues.
If the origin and objectives of the modern state was taught properly, we would be able to re-organise the govt. in a better way. We insist that, we have not done that.
However, instead of such truthful teachings, we are over fed with social contract and Hobbes theories/myths by the STATE EDUCATION. Unfortunately, these theories are are not grounded in historical facts.
Mwarangethe,
ReplyDeleteA while ago, someone advised you (and for a good reason) to stick to the basics of 1+1 for the time being. Having said this, I think it is better to pass the proposed law and then later work ways of making it conform to those of the Medieval Free Cities.
PS: whenever I read your write-ups, I find myself trying to guess your profession/career. Do you teach history in some university?
THEN WHY ARE WE PAYING MOI 1M OR IS IT 5M A MONTH TO STAY OUT OF ACTIVE POLITICS??? HE IS CONNING US THEN!!! AGAIN!!!
ReplyDelete@Mwarang'ethe,
ReplyDeleteIn haste to sound knowledgeable wrote
.......Towel of Babel ......
Whatever that means.
Mark my words, we shall have a brand new Constitution on the 5th of August 2010 PASSED BY OVER 70% OF PATRIOTIC KENYANS. That, ladies and gentlemen, is in less than one week's time!
ReplyDeleteLet the minority have their say but the majority have their way.
"Not even Mwarangethe's long essays, Moi's stolen billions, Standard Group's biased coverage, bombing innocent people at Uhuru Park or even an army of one million soldiers can stop an idea whose time has come!"
Make no mistake, passing the draft is the easier part but implementing it and making it work will be the real battle.
However you vote on the 4th, please be on the right side of history!
Vote YES!
"KATIBA MPYA...KENYA MPYA!!!!"
Quote of the decade:
ReplyDelete"Not even Mwarangethe's long essays, Moi's stolen billions, Standard Group's biased coverage, bombing innocent people at Uhuru Park or even an army of one million soldiers can stop an idea whose time has come!"
thanks m-psea
sasa rudi back 2 ur burekabisa blog.
am abstaining from voting. thanks to mwarangethe. this whole katiba sounds so trivial when u can just open ur mind and listen to the refreshing ideas on generating wealth. voting no will sound more of a protest vote. al instead spread his gospel around and work my butt off against slavery of any means, and especially by the state.
ReplyDeleteMpesa wrote
ReplyDelete"Not even Mwarangethe's long essays, Moi's stolen billions, Standard Group's biased coverage, bombing innocent people at Uhuru Park or even an army of one million soldiers can stop an idea whose time has come!"
xxx
eheheh, ati an idea whose time has come? Which idea is this?
This is the deal brother. We approach this constitution with a sense of history. When you do as we suggest, you will be forced to investigate how the human mind worked in the past.
It is upon this knowledge you form your expectations of the present and future workings. The disadvantage of this knowledge is that, you are forced to withdraw from many popular movements and associations because you know they are not new and to a certainty you know how they will turn out.
In the realm of public affairs, for instance, your judgment is not shaped by this-or-that humbugging political nostrum that the crowd is running eagerly to swallow.
You can relax and match it all the way back to the politics of:
(a) Ancient Civilization (Sumer, Babylon, Rome and Athens),
(b) Middle Ages (3rd Century - 16th Century, and
(c) the Modern Era (16th Century - 2010) and you know it for precisely what it is.
Now, when you talk of majority, we remind thee of what one thinker wrote in 1952 on the importance of MASS PSYCHOLOGY and politics.
"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. ... This study is immensely useful to practical men, whether they wish to become RICH or to ACQUIRE the government...
Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the MOST influential is what is called ‘EDUCATION’...
[NB: He is saying modern education is PROPAGANDA].
...What is essential in mass psychology is the art of persuasion. If you compare a speech of Hitler’s with a speech of (say) Edmund Burke, you will see what strides have been made in the art since the eighteenth century.
... What went wrong formerly was that people had read in books that man is a rational animal, and framed their arguments on this hypothesis. We now know that LIMELIGHT and a BRASS BAND do more to persuade than can be done by the most elegant train of syllogisms.
[NB: Is the "civic education" not accmpanied my brass band?]
... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of ANYTHING if he can catch the patient YOUNG and is provided by the STATE with money and equipment."
keep them coming prof. we are all ears around here...very interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteMwarang'ethestan is land flowing of wealth and honey. Please apply for visa to the NETHERLANDS.
ReplyDeleteThe Kenyan church is TOAST, period.
ReplyDeleteNo place/illiterates to hide under.
No more lies.
The temple, the church, the mosque and any other religious shrine are all built by man and declared by man to be houses of god. No god has ever told man to do anything. King david was pushed by bathesheba to declare solomon his successor. He did and declared it to be the will of god. It was the will of bathesheba.
Annoyingly ignorant people over the centuries have believed solomon was made king by god. Even Bush II declared his invasion of iraq to be the will of god. In reality it was the will of corporate america. It is amazing that in 2010 hundreds of millions of people still take religion seriously.
Judging the professions of some Kumekuchans by what they post is the height of folly.
ReplyDeleteAll one can do is learn to decipher what's constructive and what one can take in to incorporate into being a better Kumekuchan or a wise affiliate or regular guest or one of the many Kumekucha residents who always lack behind the scenes for whatever reasons.
... trying to guess your profession/career ... is the equivalent of stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes.
Anyway, I will not contribute a single punch or slap aimed at the already Bloodied Face of Kenya, but I will vote YES as my way of sending a clear message to those who don't have Kenya's new constitutional interest at heart.
However, I will continue to associate with as well as fully embrace those who decide to vote otherwise on August 4th and beyond.
After all, we are all Kenyans regardless of whether we belong to the -
a) REDS .........(NO),
b) GREENS ..........(YES),
c) NAVY BLUES ........(UNDECIDED),
d) YELLOWS ..........(INDIFFERENT),
e) BROWNS ......... (CLUELESS),
f) TURQUOISE ...........(DIASPORANS who are unable to vote)
g) EVENING EMERALDS .........(HOLDERS ('Kenyans') OF FOREIGN PASSPORTS).
At the end of the day we will always remain Kenyans (Wafrika/Wahindi/Warabu/Wazungu)until our dying day.
After all, we are all Kenyans regardless of whether we belong to the -
ReplyDeletea) REDS .........(NO),
b) GREENS ..........(YES),
c) NAVY BLUES ........(UNDECIDED),
d) YELLOWS ..........(INDIFFERENT),
e) BROWNS ......... (CLUELESS),
f) TURQUOISE ...........(DIASPORANS who are unable to vote)
g) EVENING EMERALDS .........(HOLDERS ('Kenyans') OF FOREIGN PASSPORTS).
***
This kind of work can only come from an idle mind.