Why was Mboya’s assassination so significant? Simply because the two bullets that were fired that Saturday lunch time July 5th 1969 changed the course of Kenya forever. Today we are suffering the consequences of that new course that was clearly charted out that day. Impunity won that day. Years later the rhetorical questions were to be asked over and over again by those who own Kenya; Mboya was killed and nothing happened, who is so and so? We survived the Mboya assassination what crisis can we not survive?
Tribal politics won that day. In killing Mboya the assassins killed nationalism. To date we are yet to see another Kenyan attracting national popularity in their own right enough to win a presidential poll with votes from every corner of the republic. Every single prominent politician now has their political base in their ancestral village and those who don’t have imported their fellow tribesmates in large numbers into the constituency they represent away from their village. Mboya's political base was Eastlands Nairobi and the non-tribal culture that rules the place today owes much of it's foundation to TJ, as his friends called him. Tom Mboya was a Luo (Suba) who was time and again voted in by mostly Kikuyus even when other prominent Kikuyus from very prominent families stood against him. To a young Kenyan who understands Kenyan politics today, this statement may sound like pure fiction.
Again Ben Gethi was deeply involved in that assassination that shook the world.
http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-was-mboyas-assassination-so.html?m=0
He was very easy on the eyes unlike many Jaluos. (I mean handsome)
ReplyDelete"Tom Mboya was a Luo (Suba) who was time and again voted in by mostly Kikuyus even when other prominent Kikuyus from very prominent families stood against him."
ReplyDeletexxxxxx
"The culture of the Suba People IS VERY distinct from those of the Luo.
The Suba people practice circumcision as an initiation process from boyhood to adulthood. Mostly boys are circumcised. In some clans, even girls are circumcised."
Today many people in the islands and the highlands subsequent to the Victoria still retain the suba dialect that is closely related to the GANDA language although it is heavily influenced by the bigger Luo Language."
Wikipedia:
The African teacher never ceases to amaze his students. Wikipedia is his great fountain of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteImpunity has won the day again as it did on July 16th 1969.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it happened when the MPigs unanimously agreed in their usual greedy fashion to vote for themselves an unmerited giagantic salary increase.
Believe it or not, it all happened in our third world country that cronically depends on foreign aid, and where the majority of its ordinary citizens live on one dollar or half-a-dollar a day.
While the IDPs and slum dwellers continue to live in deplorable conditions that are far worse than residing in hell on earth.
The MPIigs are the real deadly assassins of 2013, because they are the ones occupying the disgusting house that has been turned into a pigsty.
A disgusting house where Animal Farm type of laws are enacted on a whim without any due consideration so long as they benefit the two legged animals that are now better known as the Africa's greediest MPigs.
The certified greedy MPigs are the present day assassins who are currently busy assassinating the country's Constitution, the economy, political system, including whatever hopes that the citizenry had for real change and a better future for all.
Sadly, the president of the Banana Republic has receded his previous stance on the very abnormal salary increase and instead given in to MPigs clamour for larger feeding troughs loaded with huge overflowing salary packages.
All done with the calculated expectations that the MPigs will in turn continue to offer their unwavering support in favour for the dismissal of the president's pending trial at the ICC, and the much needed support in the next general elections.
Animal Farm plus two legs good type of leadership seems to be the only way forward within Kenya's corridors of power.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteTJ is a classical case of benefiting in death what you would never achieve in life. Were TJ to be alive today he would have gone back to Suba or trendered politically irrelevant.
Lack of political models leaves us holding to corposes for inspiration.
Taabu said...
ReplyDeleteChris,
TJ is a classical case of benefiting in death what you would never achieve in life. Were TJ to be alive today he would have gone back to Suba or trendered politically irrelevant.
Lack of political models leaves us holding to corposes for inspiration.
5/30/13, 2:33 AM
xxx
Correctly put.
For the "thesis" that, the killing of TM is the cause of lack of "nationalism," in Kenya, whatever "nationalism" means, is just MANIFEST NONSENSE.
If it is the cause, then, what is the cause of the same problem in Libya, Somalia, Congo, Nigeria, Sudan etc etc?
Anyway, since hard thinking and SERIOUS RESEARCH has been outlawed, we are off to enjoy:
No Slave
http://is.gd/JvIq2K
Never knew that copying Wikipedia counted for HARD THINKING.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is African about Wikipedia?
Taabu,
ReplyDeleteDid you really have to go there, let alone remind those of us still seeking inspiration, that lack of political models leaves us holding onto to corpses for inspiration?
Did you have to be so cruel at a time when the majority of us are desperately seeking in every which way for better political models and sane leadership throughout all corners of what is left of the Banana Republic?
The rather naive and idealistic young politician, Tom Mboya, may have been misled into believing that the majority of the politicians and people of his day held onto the very same patriotic feelings, principles and nationwide efforts for a better Kenya as he did.
ReplyDeleteWhen in reality, all that everyone of the leading politicians, post colonial vanguard and regional groups that had emerged after independence, ever wanted was to become Kenyanized versions of little Europeans aka Bwana Kubwas at the expense of real Uhuru, freedom, better governance, justice and equity for all.
Mboya stood on principle and ended up becoming a real stumbling block in the eyes and path of those who didn't have the country's interests at heart.
And that is one of the many reasons why Mboya had to be eliminated in one way or another so that he could not continue to complicate matters for those who wanted to own the country and run it as a tribal fiefdom once the last vestiges of colonialism and settler community had left the country's powerful political circles and business bastions of old boys privilege.
The bottom line is that, the people who ended paying the highest price and continue to do so, are the ordinary Kenyans, given their current collective abysmal state of life fifty years after independence, as well as since July 5th 1969 when impunity won the day.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteOn reflection, a living TJ would have 'regretted' how politically NAIVE he was then.
Nyanza si Kenya!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to tell Wikipedia that Suba people are SDA who must circumcise. Your motive Master Mwara is known.
ReplyDeleteYou are about to say that Tom Mboya was a Kikuyu and it is justified that Kikuyus murdered their own.
Buddy you are thinking along tribal lines. Forget the nonsense in Wiki. These are Kenyans murdered by opressive Kenyan regimes. Only ICC can help us and bring justice. Haki ya Binguni!
You can now see why a clean President must be elected.
ReplyDeleteIf you have cases of murder, land grabbing, ICC, etc, MPS will always blackmail you.
This is where we are now.
Absolute nonsense. TJ was nothing but a overly ambitious, scheming, CIA puppet who was hated by Odinga more than the Kikuyu elite. I am convinced that Kenyatta had NOTHING to do with his assassination. Just like Moi had nothing to do with Ouko's.
ReplyDeleteThe Abasuba are BANTU - handsome, hard working and civil. I am Bantu and somehow every friend I have from lakeside happens to be Suba.
Back to TJ anyway karma is a bitch - his son-in-law is now in the same position as Mboya (actually more like his daughter by proxy as it is well known who wears the trouser in the Governor's house!)
"The Abasuba are BANTU - handsome, hard working and civil"
ReplyDeleteAnd you wonder why HATYE SPEECH has become so chick. Why blame whites for racism?
"The Abasuba are BANTU - handsome, hard working and civil"
ReplyDeleteThis is an insulting expression for non Bantus. This is racism, tribalism and stupidity.
"I am Bantu and somehow every friend I have from lakeside happens to be Suba"
You have a inferiority complex. I am a Suba but I assure you that I am not corrupt, a murderer, a head chopper, a homosexual and no jigger infested feet.
I'll never be your friend!
Was it a case of a kettle hating the pot for obvious political reasons?
ReplyDeleteOr was Mboya envied and hated at the same time by his old adversaries who were also known to be excessively cold, calculating, very opportunistic and double-faced at a time when "natives" who were spearheading the agitation for 'Uhuru' were paid and controlled by local puppeteers and puppetmasters from either Washington DC, Foreign Commonwelth Office, or Moscow?
Chris,
ReplyDeleteWho Is So and So? And Who Was So and So - The Big Man or Men? With regard to Mboya's July 5th 1969 assassination - Goodwill Kill.
The assassination of Mboya has been politicized, criminalised, tribalized and even colonialized, depending on which side of the geopolitical or sociopolitical strata the interested party - parties - comes from or belongs.
When looking at Who Is So and So among the people presumed to have been involved in one way or another in Mboya's murder - goodwill killing - that was carried out in broad daylight.
It is always easy to forget the fact that Mboya and several other prominent African politicians - like Patrice Lumumba et al - were eliminated during an era when the state of political hostility existed between the Soviet bloc countries and the US led Western powers from 1945 to 1990.
Talking of a time when our former benevolent colonial masters, the Brits, wanted to maintain a strong foothold in the West, Southern and East African regions.
The Americans - new kid on the African block at the time - had a great desire to gain some penetration in Eastern Africa and exact their sphere of direct influence especially in a country like Kenya, that was once seen and still is considered as the easiest entry point on the African continent.
So, African leaders like Kenyatta, Banda, Obote, Smith, Botha, et al, were encouraged by the powers that be at the time to undermine and weaken other African politicians like Odinga among others who had already gotten ahead of themselves in partnership with Soviet bloc countries.
Hence, emerging African politicians like Odinga were contained or exiled instead of being eliminated at the time in a strategic manner without any direct bloodshed being involved.
And in turn, the Soviet bloc countries and China were prevented or blocked from setting up shop or a foothold in many parts of the African continent.
Unfortunately, Mboya, Lumumba, among others, were collateral damage, while men like Kenyatta, et al, allowed themselves to be used as nothing more than pawns within the Cold War, as well as in the loyal service of the Brits and conglomerates.
The murder of any innocent person is unacceptable and very evil by all accounts.
ReplyDeleteThere was no need for the powers that be to eliminate Mboya in the way they did in broad daylight causing all the unnecessary drama and political upheaval that followed thereafter.
Cause there were a hundred ways in which Mboya's killers could have mysteriously accomplished their evil political schemes without ever resorting to gang style type of street execution with the help of a hired armature hand.
Events and political circumstances of the day have convinced several generations of Kenyans that Kenyatta and his kitchen cabinet had a lot to do as well as gain with the assassination of T.J. Mboya.
What Kenyatta did or didn't do following Mboya's death, especially in his capacity as head of state spoke volumes until the day he also crossed over into the netherland.
The deaths of other prominent Kenyans like Pinto, Mboya, Kariuki, Ngala, Mwendwa, a former navy commader (can't recall the name), and countless others who were deemed or feared to be imminent threats to Kenyatta's kingdom and status as "president for life" do add up to the trail of assassinations that were sanctioned by people in high places.
The rest is history and all that the TJRC can do is gloss over its findings with the hopes that their version of accounts will end up nestling in one of the nation's vaults of who was who and who did what to whom, without anyone ever being helg accountable or brought to justice.
Kenya is still a country where everything happens for whatever reasons with the unlimited blessings of the lords of impunity.
Mboya was a voice that understood well the painful sociopolitical circumstances that surrounded the people of Kenya, yet his actions at the time expressed a stubborn and expectant believe in a better Kenya.
ReplyDeleteHe would have been to Kenya what Nyerere was to Tanzania, had he been granted the opportunity - against all odds - to lead the country beyond the post-colonial adminstration.
As a member from one of the smallest ethnic communities in the country, he was more appreciative of all things nationalism, and very sensitive to the downside and impending dangers of negative ethnicity that were beginning to permeat various political circles within the five year old nation.
Mboya may not have been a saint by all accounts but he was all about making everything better from an all inclusive perspective and for the greater good.
Various eyewitness accounts describe him as a person who was good-natured, low-key, very brilliant, generous, genuine article, very knowledgeable about the issues of the day, and an individual who would have given up his life in order to help tranform Kenya a greater nation.
Ironically, his life ended being given up - lost - for all the worst kind of political and ethnic reasons, but his spirit lives on leaving many of us to wonder about what if(s) and what could have been, had his life not been cut short on July 5th 1969.