Africa's Curse of Eternal Slavery Inside the Box

By EMK

Blogger Mwarang'ethe has been raising here some thought-provoking questions relating the present and past POLITICONOMICS packaged in very apt historical contexts. Well, the response has been varied as the bloggers supporting and rebuking them.

No matter you take, one thing is clear and we have to give it to Bw Mwarang'ethe that he his posts raises level of discourse. Specifically, his posts demonstrate the essential validity of a systemic analysis, rooted in history, of the current African condition.

For example, Mwarang'ethe was spot on about Botswana and her relatively developed economy compared to the rest of Africa. Botswana went their own way and repudiated the neo-liberal/neo-colonial Washington Consensus and that is why they have done relatively well.

However, let us not forget that Botswana remains a poor country. They have done well relative to other African countries, but they have not done well relative to their resource and economic potential.

The truth be said those who keep talking about leaders as the problem, miss the point that you made. That our leaders will keep acting the way they do because of the historical and systemic straitjacket that we are in as neo-colonies of the west.

Granted, leadership is a problem. But it is not the fundamental problem facing Africans.

One should just ask themselves this question. How come Africa consistently produces bad leaders? Given about 50 African countries with and average of 3 post colonial presidents and probably a further dozen key leaders at lower levels each, gives a total of about 700 key African post colonial leaders.

Out of that large number how many can we say were or are good leaders? You can probably count them on just your fingers.

This should prove to anybody that what we have in Africa is a systemic problem. We have a systems of governance, politics, economics etc that consistently produce bad leaders.

To change the leaders, we must change the systems. We can't just hope that the next leader out of the same system is going to buck the trend of the previous fifty bad ones.

To change the system we must look to its fundamental underpinnings. It is an imperialist system and imperial systems consist of the subjugated and the subjugator. This is their essential nature. Just as for slavery to exist, there must be a slave and a master.

Our problem as Africans is that we are too weak both individually collectively to confront imperialism head on. Until we unite with a singular purpose, we stand no chance of breaking free of the present ruinous system. Any takers out there?

US Plots to Topple Kibaki: Tell it to the Birds

So the might US of A has degenerated so low to an extent of financing Kenyan youth to topple their government? Well, one must expose his post molars at that laughable jibe of yore. And while at it forget the present hot potato from the cyber fascists called Wikileaks who gives priority to the facial beauty of our president as if governance is a catwalk. They can rant and rave all they care but we remain SOVERRIGN so much so that only we have the patent for such gems as Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing, Triton and Grand Regency. But that is a story for another day.

For now the big boys are in town wielding the bid stick. Koffi Annan has never tired of babysitting toddler Kenya. And for good measure this time he is accompanied by the holder of that scary ICC office, one Luis Moreno Ocampo. Which leaves you wondering why the later did not save Ruto money by asking him to wait in Nairobi instead of suffering The Hague winter. Again a story for another day.

Kenya is choking with imperialists demanding every pound of her flesh. If it is not the US envoy Renneberger hogging the local political scene with his diplomatic incitement of Kenyan youth against their own government, we collectively get painted with that broad brush as a stinking SWAMP of FLOURISHING CORRUPTION. Well, if that is the accolades from a friendly country I guess we need not search for true enemies.

Forget that fat lie that the international community saved us from ourselves. We have always butchered each other in five-year periodic cycles since 1992. Annan is better advised that his determination to remain relevant and in employment since leaving the UN is selfish at best and overbearing at worst.

Reign of shameless imperialists
The ex-UN boss must leave Kenyans to run their own affairs in ways they know best. Now Kofi is in town breathing fire on our necks threatening brimstone if we derail implementation of the new constitution which has proved to be the elephant ready to evict us from our own house.

The stakes are too high to leave this hydra-headed monster set of new laws to grow legs of its own lest we all get consumed by it. Kenya is the largest economy if both East and Central Africa and the REAL ENTREPRENEURS who make us tick must not be harassed with fictitious.

The Charterhouse bank operated on Kenyan money and was run by Kenyans for Kenyans. The phantom drug lords are mere shadows. For the records Taib is a lawyer and must know better when it comes to matters that appertains to law. Loud-mouthed Renneberger must stop being jealous of SELF-MADE MPs Kabogo and Joho and smart ex-sharp shooter Mwau.

We must unite as a country to collectively stop the so-called international community from conspiring to bring Kenya down to her knees by targeting our industrious leaders.

The truth be told, Annan and Ocampo are poorly disguising their escape from Europe's biting winter, WASHINDWE.

City By-election Results Rattles Political Parties

The recent by-election results is sending shock waves among hitherto united political parties. Having lost two seats, PNU as we knew it is tottering in the brink of disintegration. With Kanu, Ford People, Ford Kenya, New Ford Kenya and ODM-K deserting the coalition, we may as well be staring a new political dispensation all together.

But wait a minute, are these mere political tantrums founded on nothing but hot air or signs of a sober reality check? Well, you guess is as good as mine given the original shaky grounds on which the coalition was founded in the first place. Just like Nark before it, PNU appear far past its sell-by date. But don't tell that to its supplicants lest you become a ready e-meal.

While political spin doctors will shamelessly peddle the lie that the new constitution has no place for pre-poll pacts, the reality lies elsewhere and they know it. No party formed singularly for convenience can stand the occasional political heat like the one brought about by the Kabogo-Sonko axis.

May be we have to witness all the present phase of amorphous grouping as a process of political maturing. But again, it is only in Kenya where the so-called leaders lie through their teeth and the voter including the Diaspora and bloggers buy the deceit line, hook and sinker. The journey to political maturity will surely be both torturous and painful.

Or may be the stillborn political baby christened Progressive Democratic Movement (PDM) will save the day and orphaned political faces. But you only bet on any Kenyan political sloganeering at you eternal peril. Talk is cheap. What is more, Kenyans never disappoint when it comes to waxing patriotic and intellectual albeit of the plastic genre.

Here comes the theatrics premiere of 2012 Kenya style now showing at a microphone and a camera near you. Enjoy, NA BADO.

Iron Lady Martha Karua Floors Giants in Polls

Her Nark-Kenya party has bagged two more parliamentary seats and in the process floored PM in Makadara, VP in Juja and DPM in both Makadara and Juja. She may not be ruling but Martha Karua reigns supreme, at least for these by-elections.

You have to give it to the iron lady from Gichugu and her bare knuckles political fights. Thanks to her resilience, William Kabogo and Gideon/Mike Mbuvi Kioko have acquired the honourable titles before their names.

With an average turnout of 40%, the three by-elections epitomizes the curse and cost of democracy. Well, people get the leaders they deserve but having such a low turnout flips the argument on its head. While the electorates may be blamed for failing in their collective and individual civic duty, it is difficult for the emerging MPs to claim to be comprehensive representative of the people.

The latest by-elections also exposed the folly of Kenyans expecting different politics from the same old brood. The campaigns took the predictable and partisan path that read like any script from the years of yore. And the voters have themselves to blame because they cannot turn around and demand any better after going to bed with the same scoundrels.

Just like exams being the worst form of evaluation but for lack of a functional alternative, democracy is surely a curse and damn expensive. It may be tempting to wax intellectual with a think-outside-the-box prescription but viability and practicality will dissuade such pretense.

We have laid our bed and must sleep on it with all the moulds underneath. In the meantime congratulations to William Kabogo, Sonko Mbuvi and Bishop Dr Margaret Wanjiru. All the three winners owe their success to no king-pin with Mbuvi drawing the thickest of political blood while Kabogo has whipped the UK-Wiper alliance.

What is more, Bishop single-handedly upset the bookmakers even with ODM's lukewarm support. Well, I guess the cast will be complete when Maina Njenga becomes the Governor of Nairobi in 2012.