By KK Blogger
What a speedy ruinous transition from the most hopeful in the world to the saddest in under a decade? The true state of sad Kenya can only be traced to the own making of Kenyans themselves. They made the bed and must brace themselves to lie on it.
That Kenya is at crossroads is susch a remarkable paradox where human, material and achievements are celebrated irrespective of how have been acquired. The media are culpable in this context thriving on fanning emotions of the Kenyan people rather than promoting ethnic harmony. Secondly, leadership lacks direction whipping ethnic allegiance at the expense nationhood.
As revealed in a recent research, Kenyans are amongst the saddest which tells a million since majority are prone to depression worried about where the next meal would be coming from whilst those inciting us against each other worries the least about this. Majority of us lack the relaxed social contact and emotional satisfaction we need, we thrive on exploiting others to an extent where illegal drug lords are celebrated deemed as leaders.
How is it that we have created mental and emotional suffering manifested through corruption, land grabbing and exploitation the poor while at the same time keeping t the poor masses together as they follow ‘leaders’ blindly? The ilk of Ruto, Uhuru and Sonkos are the ones I have in mind. Whilst we struggle for psychological survival, we celebrate this people against the backdrop of stress and emotional exhaustion we are going through. But the truth is that they are lavishing themselves in extravagance at our expense while our children, siblings, families are dying of hunger, diseases not able to afford basic health care, least of all able to put food on the table.
These people are deeply ambivalent about our welfare or the state of affairs, rather are concerned about wealth, material gain and at the pinnacle this is how to protect what they have ‘acquired’ at all cost thus the hullabaloo about ‘time for youth leadership’. Incisive questions in this regard are whether this ‘bus’ offers any solutions to unemployment, drugs, crime , diseases and lack resources to jump start businesses or offering any vision for the future of Kenya with clear strategies. Hell no, the culture of impunity is what this promotes, with ‘me/my’ at centre of it all. The end result to all these is that we are bringing up children who will be celebrating drug lords, those with no respect to humanity , grabbers and in the long run perpetuating moral profligacy.
It is a pity that mainstream politics no longer taps on these issues and has abandoned the attempt to provide a shared vision capable of inspiring us to create a better society. As mainstream voters we have lost collective belief that that the society has bestowed upon us to shun such personalities for the sake of harmony in our midst. With this in mind it is possible to piece together intention of these ’Johny come lately’ politicians who personify dysfunction behaviour. If we spared a second in order to have a proper understanding of where these actions will take Kenya or transform politics and quality of life for all of us. This would change our experience of the world around us and change whom we support or vote in.
Instead of blaming the society, religion, values education, governance the responsibility is ours, resonating around our behaviour, culture and values. The buck therefore stops by the doorstep of the media, instead of promoting harmony in the society; they are constantly thriving in fanning animosity between different personalities an extension of divide between their communities. Positive stories/news that would help Kenyans celebrate their diversity positively are relegated to ‘less worthy stories’ as opposed tribal warlords galvanising their tribes to fight their personal wars.
This decay will result in a generation lacking vision, direction or future that which celebrates thugs, Mungikis, drug lords and proponents of widening the gap between the poor and rich or just society and broken society.
But again aren't we an enterprising lot and the envy of many neighbours? Surely the road to self destruction must be immaculately paved with golden pebbles. Ours is akin to marvelling at the beauty of every floor on our way down oblivious of the hard pavement waiting to split our collective skulls.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
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?
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?
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