TZ is also close to my heart as I have been there severally visiting immediate relatives and close friends that live there and so I do see where you are coming from.

I applaud your concern and the interest you have taken in Kenya and Kenyans and thank you for your efforts in drawing attention to our crisis as well as calling your senators and congressman.

I just wish that in your haste to comment you hadn’t forgone the opportunity to moderate the tone and language used. For my part I did fail to give you the benefit of doubt and should (as is my usual wont) have asked for further clarification, then proceed to comment having had that from you.

With this in mind, I do sincerely apologize if by my comments I managed to suggest to fellow Kenyans that hate mail was or is acceptable behaviour. I have never utilised such means to get my message across, I do not intend starting now or at any time in future and I hope, fellow Kenyans, that we do not resort to such means either.

They are both foul and unconscionable for I believe we can critique and disagree with one another without the spectre of hate intruding upon or dominating discussion. Although I do tend to think of M’s blog as our boma (many complex meanings including ‘house’) or baraza (perhaps closest similie to baraza is ‘town hall’) my reference to “our house” was made with emphasis to mutual respect and good will not exclusion-you opted to cut off the paragragh in it’s entirety (why?) it continues:

[QUOTE]The offensive manner in which you have behaved in our house has led me to believe you’re not well meaning hence my terse tone and similarly disrespectful responses.[/QUOTE]

In the second instance I said:

[QUOTE]please treat our house and it’s inhabitants with respect and you will be assured of the same in return.[/QUOTE]

I like it here, too….have done since way back when (M was still with yahoo…um, that may be longer than 5+ yrs ago) I wouldn’t want to keep anyone out and in all likelihood once things return to a solid footing in Kenya, I will not post but once again resume my “lurking”.

As to your leaving, you’re the only one that knows what best for you. All I can do is ask that you do not let hate dictate or determine your participation and/or visits.

Have you been to kenyascenarios.org? If not, go.

Let’s be careful not to turn these matters into a who’s-better-than-who contest. Pls look at the nature of M’s post and the responses thereto. Nobody cares about either Raila or Kibaki.

Bottom line, Kenya is splintered because of the direct and indirect actions of both these men, and trying to say who’s better than the other achieves absolutely nothing.

This whole episode has been disappointing. For several weeks I have been following Kenyan events, and posting about them here,
here, and here.

Events in Kenya have hit kind of hard because of a long-term relationship with Tanzania, and because in June 1994 I spoke to a Hutu refugee who spoke about killing his Tutsi neighbors the same way a man talks about cleaning out a nest of roaches under his house. He was a
rational man, but yet he was gripped in an irrational hatred of the people he grew up with, dined with, and shared life’s struggles with.

So when I saw the beginnings of that hatred in Kenya, it startled me – and I thought “it’s happening again.” As an American in the USA I’m
limited in what I could do, so I did what I could: I wrote, I commented – and I called my senators and congressman.

For my comments I have received hate mail from Kenya. Some of it came for my supportive stance of the opposition, but surprisingly most of it came from this post.

Now as you suspected I wrote it hastily and didn’t read it carefully, but I have made public and private apologies to both M and to a certain
degree you. Still I am accused of disrespecting Kenyans. I am not sure what more I can say.

I’ve found M’s commentary to be some of the best around, and over the past few weeks reading M as well as other writers has assured me that it’s not happening. Kenya is not Rwanda. I’m relieved and hope that this remains so.

I’ve been commenting on the web for close to 20 years, and under my real name for 7. During that time I’ve learned that it’s important to assume the best of commenters due to the limitations of the medium (no face/face contact, limited space and size of comments, and different cultural assumptions.)

What I hoped to drive home is that Thinkers room is M’s domain, but it is also OUR HOUSE.

I guess that “our” excludes me, so good writing or not, I’ll leave.
Regards,
Scott Kirwin

He was expressing his views on this whole situation, and though some of his tenents were off, he has a right to state his case — who knows? there might even be the proverbial diamond in the rough in his diatribe.

And the name calling was really unnecessary.

I was raised to treat others how I would like to be treated (my put upon family had the best of intentions :))but experience has taught me to treat others how they treat me.

In the real world, courtesy costs something-that happens to be courtesy in return. Respect costs something and that happens to be respect in return. I have said as much to Scott and I say the same to you-that is my idea of maturity when talking to adults and not children I would have to be mindful of.

If you have had occasion to read the initial and subsequent comments by Scott he exhibits neither and I acknowledge my responses are terse and similarly disrespectful-I find that those lacking in common courtesy and respect are seldom tolerant of the same while on the receiving end.

Added to that, I seek no converts or to persuade folks to joing the Ishara chorus-perish the thought (lol!) with this in mind, feel absolutely free to ignore any and all comments from me, past, present and future.

I also have no problem with agreeing to disagree-just the manner in which we address one another while doing so.

Have been a visitor (cough, lurker, cough)to this site for over five years now….the Kenyan crisis and it’s resolution is what prompted me into commenting at all-as I said to Scott, it is M’s domain but it is our house, please treat our house and it’s inhabitants with respect and you will be assured of the same in return.