tHiNkEr’S rOoM

Vote Of Thanks

Many thanks to everyone sending all those emails and text of concern. I am alive and well and taking good care of myself. I am a bit flooded with emails but am doing my best to respond to everyone.

Special thanks to all those sending in news and information. Special thanks to WathiiFM for updates from the Buru Buru area and first class pictures

Housekeeping

I fondly believe that most of my readership are adults of sound mind with a modicum of maturity. In case you are not, allow me to tell you this. This is not a site to propagate hate and rumours. I have spent more time than I should moderating obtuse comments. I am tired of that. I have many other things to worry about. Henceforth if you post something even remotely advocating hate or violence not only will I delete it, I shall blacklist you from ever visiting my blog again. I shit you not. If you think this is a convenient avenue for your hate, think again. I have no time for your nonsense. We want solutions, not more problems.

My connection is not the most stable so henceforth I shall be uploading a huge combined post whenever I can.

News Update

• Official death toll is now 300. Unofficial death toll is much larger
• Yesterday there were skirmishes in Bahati, Maringo, Kangemi, Arwings Kodhek, Industrial Area and Thika Road
• A man was killed on Thika Road when police fired in the air, severing an electrical cable that fell on him
• ODM rally was moved to Saturday
• At long last Mwai Kibaki addressed the nation in a lackluster speech long on hot air, ambiguity, vagueness and lethargy and short of concrete solutions
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived and met with the ODM leadership. The grapevine has it that Kibaki initially refused to meet with him. Subsequently it turned out that a meeting was indeed scheduled for this day.
• Again proving that no matter how low the bar is, stupidity will always find a way to slither under, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua, rose eyed lens firmly on, castigates the international community for interfering.
• Flies on the wall allege that Kibaki himself is pretty amenable to negotiation. But as is the hallmark of his regime other elements in his administration are taking hardline positions.
• Same flies say that Kibaki is willing to form a coalition government with the opposition. This I have to see to believe. 
• Nairobi water company allays fears that the city water supply is poisoned.

Kibaki’s Speech Highlights

• He is deeply concerned
• He condemns the violence
• Kenya is a peaceful country (Is it now?)
• Justice abounds in Kenya. No one has ever been denied justice
• He too, just like other Kenyans, was made aware that he was won in that same press briefing of the ECK
• He has followed the law all the while and will continue to
• Anyone with problems with the outcome should take it up with the court
• He would seek solutions once the situation calms down. (WTF?!! People are dying while you wait!)
• He had no time for journalists’ questions. If they had any they should come tomorrow. (People will be dying while we await for you to be comfortable with questions)

State House

Earlier today I drove past State House. A continuous flag like the one that is put on public holidays is very much in evidence. I took some very illegal pictures juggling camera and car. It is no idle rumour that the security personnel there are overzealous. A friend of mine once stopped outside one of the far flung entrances and within minutes a truncheon was being bounced off his amazed skull.

Personally I would take down that flag. It can be construed as a celebration of Kibaki’s new term. I don’t think there is anything to celebrate.

Here are the pics (Quality is not the beast because I was driving and some were taken through windscreen)

 
Road heading towards State House, adjacent to the grounds

The State House Junction

Approaching the main gate

The main gate

The Rally

I’ve been roving here and there to capture developments on the ground just after the skirmishes took place. The pictures are sobering indeed. My heart breaks when I photograph what some Kenyans have done to others. Scarred indeed are our weary souls.

The following set is from a looted Coca Cola distributor on Arwings Kodhek. I spoke to the proprietor and the owners of the adjacent stalls. The angry mob repulsed by the police in Hurlingham wreaked havoc. The vendors lost their fruits and vegetables. Hooligans would bite a mango and throw the rest at cars, buildings, etc.

At the depot they broke bottles from some 300 or so crates.

A destroyed adjacent vegetable stall. They ate the fruits and took or destroyed the vegetables

Another looted vegetable stall

A torched stall

Broken glass on the road

A closer view of the glass. They broke 300 crates

Pile of shattered glass

A closer view

A still closer view

The distributor

Attempts to recover

 
Uprooted bus stop

The following set is from the Engen Petrol station further down the road

The empty parking bay

The looted quick shop

The broken door through which they entered

 
Thrown stones litter the parking

Entrance to the adjacent restaurant

 
Windows of the restaurant

An ignored plea in the restaurant window

Kenya Burns

I weep.

Rioters burn tyres behind a locked gate

I need not tell you that as I write this our country is on fire. Flames stoked by the ineptitude of the current regime and outright tribal polarization by politicians have finally exploded in a shocking turn of violence and destruction. Neighbours are turning against each other. People are suddenly afraid.

The rowdy mob makes its presence felt

Myself included. As I was driving to visit the missus who lives in an area that happens predominantly of a single community I wondered what exactly I would do if I was stopped by a mob and asked to identify myself. One of the names given to me by my folks happens to be Luo, and it is proudly there on my ID. The fact that I am not actually Luo would not help be because assumptions would probably be made on the strength of my ID, as is happening in many places in Nairobi, let alone Kenya. I have two friends in hospital who has “the wrong names” on their IDs.

An unfortunate is arrested

However I refused to succumb to this situation. I refuse to be a victim of the greed of the political elite.

GSU personnel run after a mob

The fact of the matter is that the political elite is very comfortable in their homes. I drove by State House this morning and not only is the road clean and uncluttered, there are flags all over presumably to celebrate the Kibaki victory. Unlike my hood where there is debris and ashes and broken glass and stones all over.

A GSU office reloads with tear gas

Our politicians are not suffering. They have running water. Milk, eggs, bread, meat and even cake are delivered to their doorsteps.

Reloading

It is me and you, my friends, who risk being beaten up by mobs and shot by the police as we look for milk and bread for us and our own.

A GSU officer ready for anything

The political elite are enjoying cartoons and soap operas and football on their DSTV and GTV. It is only me and you who are watching KTN and K24 and Al Jazeera and NTV to see the carnage being visited on our country. (KBC is not a serious news station. They’ve been showing cartoons and comedy clips as the country disintegrates)

 
Fully reloaded the GSU set off after rowdy mobs

The political elite sleep soundly in the peace and quiet Kitusuru and Thigiri and Riverside. It is us unfortunates who have our sleep interrupted by screams and shouts and gunshots.

The press in the thick of things

The political elite have access to fist class air tickets to fly out of the country. It is me and you who have nowhere to run to. If Somalis and Rwandas and Ugandans and Sudanese flee here, where o where are we to flee to?

 
Still reloading

And while our brothers and sisters and cousins and nephews and nieces are dying, pseudo-leaders wallowing in crass stupidity appear on TV to grandstand, blaming the chaos on each other.

Listen, nitwits. We are not interested in your grandstanding and finger pointing. We want solutions. Alfred Mutua, we have no time for your foolishness Kenyans are dying. We need all the help we can get to contain this situation. Accusing the international community of interference is nothing short of obtusely crass stupidity. This is not an episode of your half baked pesudo-thriller Cobra Squad! This is real life!!!

The GSU at work

We’ve had enough of nonsense press statements from comfortable hotels and the State House lawn. Come and make those inane gestures from Kibera or Mukuru or Thika Road or Kangemi. I dare you. Come down like me and other Kenyans who have no security detail and do your grandstanding!

What Should Be Done?

• Every politician and their offspring should have their visas canceled and should be denied new ones. Let you and your children experience the Kenya that you created! Let your children come back from the US and Australia and Canada and England and live with the consequences of what Mama and Papa created like the rest of us!
• The grandstanding between the government and ODM should stop. We are not interested in your foolish finger pointing games. It is we, not you, who are suffering. Shut your mouths and give us solutions, not problems. The media (local and international) should give the ilk of Alfred Mutua a total blackout.
• Kibaki and Odinga should visit the affected areas and make their statements for there. If they are so sure they are right then there should be no problem in facing your people.
• PNU and ODM must negotiate without pre-conditions. This is no longer about you.
• This is not merely a matter of getting peace. We need to treat the disease, as well as the symptoms. The disease is justice, or lack thereof. If we don’t sort out this root cause then the violence will just flare up again later.
• Recounting the votes and re-checking the tallies I fear is no longer an option. It would seem that some form 16As have been conveniently stolen from the safe in which they were stored. Presumably ballot boxes are being stuffed with votes as we speak.

The ideal solution I would think, would be along the following

• Kibaki and Odinga agree to a government of National Unity, with the former as president and the latter as vice president. The cabinet would then be split between PNU and ODM
• In 6 or so months, fresh elections to be held
• Neither Odinga nor Kibaki should offer themselves for election. They are even more polarizing than they were before. We need a completely new shift in governance. Those political fossils still in power need to go before they sink us all
• The election should be overseen by an imported Electoral Commission. I would not trust the ECK to hit the water if it fell out of a boat
• Usage should be made of all the TV footage and camera pictures. Neigbourhoods and communities should be called upon to identify the murderous and destructive fools that have been the instruments of destruction. They should be dealt with ruthlessly once identified.

As with most ideal solutions this one has a fatal flow. Neither Kibaki nor Odinga have demonstrated putting the welfare of the nation above their own.

What can we do?

Go into your hood and talk to people. If you’re waiting for someone else to do it you’re part of the problem. You have youth groups and fellowships and estate committees and outreach programs and tuition groups. Go and talk to them. Go into the community and preach peace.

People in the slums do not have TV to watch the televised campaigns. The most powerful voice is yours. The people know you and they probably trust you so they’ll listen to you.

If I do that and you do that and the people you talk to do the same pretty soon we’ll have covered this country.

Stop the fighting. Why are we losing our lives while the elite, who don’t care, are comfortable?

Show them they no longer have power over us. Show them that they work for us, not us for them.

Show then their days of lording over us and using us as cannon fodder are over.

Stop the fighting.

Stop the fighting.

Stop the fighting.

News

• In a show of crass stupidity, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua and Lands Minister Kivutha Kibwana release statements accusing the ODM of organizing and funding genocide. I am stunned at the foolishness of this gesture that can only further fan the flames and erode the remaining goodwill (if any)
• 7 killed and dozens of houses burnt in Huruma and Dandora. There was a standoff between two rival gangs and skirmishes that lasted for hours
• Jamhuri Park has been set up as a refugee center. My heart is heavy to report that there are refugees in Nairobi that are from Nairobi

AOB

I’ve been round a bit to check out what’s happening on the ground. Things are slowly creeping back to normal, in some sections of Nairobi though given tomorrow’s rally, or lack thereof, one wonders.

Exodus

In What Really Happened #1: Genesis, I outlined what I thought was the kindling for the situation we are in today. Here is the conclusion.

Capital Center

Between the knowledge that they were unpopular all over the country and had polarized other communities against their own, and the irresistible taste of the trappings of power and wealth that come with incumbency, a decision was probably taken that the State House was to be retained at all costs.

Main Entrance, Capital Center

It is here that I postulate something that might raise an eyebrow.

I do not believe that Mwai Kibaki intended to run again.

 
Milk Shelves Before Stocking

Yes, I don’t. Why? Because of the following

• Kibaki did not seem to take the elections seriously until 2 months to the event
• The decision to cobble together a new political party at the last hour, instead of using the already established NARC Kenya is unlikely to be grounded in wisdom
• Much, if not all, of the campaigning was done by lieutenants for most of the year
• Extremely strange liaisons developed at the 11th hour, which included

• Former President Moi
• KANU

• The campaign was largely disjointed to the very end. Having affiliate parties field multiple candidates is an extremely poor strategic move

Restocking Milk

However powerful forces around him convinced him that it was incumbent upon him to run again. And the more he thought about it the better it sounded. Which led to ludicrously absurd scenarios like

• A sitting president attending the delegates conference of the Official Opposition, singing the infamous KANU party slogan KANU yajenga nchi (KANU builds the nation)
• Said sitting president proudly and happily waving the finger salute of KANU
• Said sitting president appealing passionately to opposition delegates to give him their votes
• Sitting president breaking bread and proceeding to meet regulraly with his predecessor, Moi, the very man he humiliated in more ways than one, least of which was thinly veiled insults in his inauguration speech, sending his lieutenants to court and threatening to prosecute Moi himself

Milk, milk everywhere

However,as I have said, after all the rallies and politicking, the reality began to show itself and the bitter truth was that it was unlikely to win the elections.

Meat Shelves, almost bare

Contingencies were laid to improve the odds

• Campaign consultants were imported (Never mind that ado that was made of ODM’s Dick Morris. On that note even today I have always been suspicious of ODM’s move in parading Dick Morris. The quintessential red herring if ever there was one)
• Formidable state machinery was brought to bear. A cursory look at the movements of the campaign teams over the latter half of the year ought to make some interesting reading
• Significant amounts of funds were injected into the campaign. The strategic targeting was questionable, but the sheer quantity was there. Idle banter with individuals in the know have led to the floating of figures to the tune of a couple of million. Per constituency.

Skumawiki (kale) shelf, clean as a whistle

And just to make sure another set of contingencies were put in place

• A good chunk of the sitting Electoral Commission’s commissioners were replaced with new ones. With the knowledge that one of the new commissioners is the President’s personal lawyer, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to divine the fact that they probably were loyal to the President.
• The knee jerk reaction to replace the chairman as well was overturned at the last minute to give the commission the perception of independence. Kivuitu was largely trusted by both sides. Then, at any rate. However I’m inclined to think some form of hold was gotten over Kivuitu.
• Days to the election the president swore in a new set of beaming judges

Well stocked shoppers at the till

That last point in particular is why I am deeply skeptical that election petitions will be of any value. Asking judges appointed not a fortnight ago to expel their benefactor is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. It was not lost on many that a beaming Chief Justice and the ever smiling Attorney General were delighted guests at the inauguration. The old adage of a rooster appealing to the justice of a hungry crocodile comes to mind.

South B Shopping Center

The final contingency was the one that was to be a last resort. This happens to be the one that has put as where we are today. It was not executed as envisaged due to a number of factors

• Kenyans turned out to vote en masse. En masse
• Instead of going home like good little boys and girl, Kenyans remained at the polling stations and watched the ballot boxes like hawks
• The convenient inability of the ECK to procure ICT systems to have a live tally of results was overridden by the enthusiastic coverage and tallying of the TV, radio and press who kept the public fully appraised of the results
• An assumption was made the Kenyans were somewhat gullible and liable to agree with anythng that sounded official. Boy was that a null hypothesis!

 
Vendor selling vegetables

The strategy was simple.

• Stuff ballot boxes where possible. This largely proved impossible thanks to hawk eyed Kenyans at most polling stations. However it was executed at some constituencies where observers were denied access.
• Through willing proxies like Nyachae (Nyanza), Kombo (Western) and Mwakwere (Coast), secure at least 25% of the vote in the provinces Kibaki was not going to win on his own (besides the inevitable Central and Eastern)
• Move with speed to publish results of the opposition’s candidate’s presidential votes, while at the same time holding back the tally of the incumbent. It will not do to inflate the incumbent’s tally and turn up short. Or overshoot by several million.
• At ECK headquarters, have a series of “technical issues” that result in incorrect figures being published of the incumbent’s totals. Invariably, these would be larger, through means like judicious addition of zeroes to totals  or surreptitious injection of the odd 20,000 votes. Inadvertent reduction of the opposition candidate’s totals would also not hurt. This would be courtesy of those ECK commissioners that so recently gained employment.

Fully loaded handcart sets off

The last plan hinged on the fact that there were no hawk eyed Kenyans watching the national tallying. Ergo if action were to be taken, it would be taken there. Much has been made of the fact that the various observers were at times denied access to the tally room.

Nakumatt Karen

The looks in the eyes of the likes of William Ruto and Charity Ngilu when totals they know to be 35,000 in some constituency were announced as 100,000 were truly priceless.

Nakumatt Karen Entrance

The problem with the master plan was that the average Kenyan is not as naive and as gullible as the political elite like to think. Kenyans put two and two together and got not the 22 that the elite was expecting, but a resounding 4.

I knew what was coming the instant the paramilitary General Service Unit cleared the KICC of journalists and additional armed men arrived and sealed it off.

The supermarket

The rest, as they say, is history. Kibaki was declared winner. Needless to say, the reaction came thick and fast

Breaking It Down

I was not the least bit surprised that things degenerated into violence.

Maize flour sells like hotcakes

Think about it.

Much ado has ben made over the right to vote, and the empowerment of the voter. Kenyans were told that they had the power to shape their destiny and choose their leadership. And so they turned out in colossal numbers and they voted. They were told that they had a voice and that it would be listened to.

And when it came down to it their voice, the ballot was ignored. And so they had only one voice left — protest.

Lengthy lines at the till

Make no mistake. I have ZERO support for destruction of property and shedding of blood. As a matter of fact if you threw stones or raised arms against your brother you should be dealt with ruthlessly.

It is extremely naive for PNU supporters to gloat over such a tainted victory. Because it is indeed a tainted victory. And if you support a tainted victory it would be the height of hypocrisy to object if for instance, Moi won in a similar manner.

I am stunned that Kibaki conveniently forgets the election petitions revolving around the 1992 and 1997 elections. My how the memory is selective!

 
The end is nigh!

Supporting this travesty because it favours someone you like is a dangerous and foolish precedent.

What we have lost, my friends, is our voice. The power of the ballot. The right to determine our leadership and our destiny. The very thing our forefathers risked their lives fighting for.

So if you are celebrating because Kibaki ‘won’ or you are bitter becauase Raila ‘lost’ my friends you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

You need to be better because your voice has been stolen from you.

UPDATE: 11:00 PM

Rumours going round are to the effect that Raila Odinga and William Ruto have been arrested, and William Ruto has been shot. Reportedly this is after ODM announced their intentions to name a parallel government, a move, I must confess, is not entirely wise given the current situation.

More as I get it.

I have just been watching President Kibaki been sworn in, amid applause from his cabal of powerful friends and cronies. As far as I can tell it seems to have been a private ceremony for himself and his friends.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that Kibaki’s friends and minions were already gathered and ready for swearing in minutes after the announcement was made.

People awaiting news

I refuse to call him and his ilk honourable. They are no such thing.

While he and his friends are sipping tea and eating crumpets in statehouse I find myself at crossroads.

I question the very beliefs I once held true — that democracy at the end of the day triumphs.

I feel outraged that Mwai Kibaki can with a straight face tell me how he feels “humbled that the people have elected him” and how he urges his opponents to “respect the electoral process”.

People reacting to the news

I feel mad that Samuel Kivuitu is cracking jokes at State House while my country falls apart because of him and his puppeteers.

I feel that the people of Kenya have been completely robbed of everything they have gained over the last 40 years. We lacked few things but at least we were generally a fair people.

I feel that the change we thought we had in 2005 was just an illusion.

I feel that all the time (3+ years), love, devotion and attention I dedicated on Mzalendo.com, sleepless nights sacrificed, hours of my time and resources have been pissed away in just a few days.

I feel that Kenyans have been robbed of something that can never be valued — their electoral process.

I feel challenged even now to respond to the question I had been asked earlier in the day — “Is there any point voting?”

Fracas begins to develop in my backyard

I feel cheated because the same cabal that has been in power since independence is still in power.

I feel cheated that an administration rejected by the ballot can somehow find itself into the presidency.

I feel sad that Kenyans optimistically queued on the 27th thinking they could control their destiny and the very people they entrusted spat on their good faith and goodwill.

I feel angry that my house has just been stoned.

I feel angry that my friends’ shops have been looted and burnt.

Shops Looted and burnt. FYI the burning kiosk is the left most blue one in the first photo

I feel shocked that on comparing Kibaki to Moi, Moi comes out on top because he actually walked away when he lost.

I feel amazed that the ruling party in no way shape or form is representative of the country.

I feel insulted that people can rig the elections and believe that we are dumb enough not to see through it.

I cry (literally) at realizing that we have been robbed of our peaceful, friendly homeland, where our camaraderie made us famous worldwide by power hungry power barons.

As I sit here in my room sick to my stomach and hear the breaking glass outside my house and see my friends watch helplessly as their shops are looted and burnt I again ask myself …

What have they done?

UPDATE

The Government has just issued a directive via the Ministry of Information & Communication banning all live broadcasts, or broadcasts of anything “inciting”, presumably the reaction to the ECK announcement.

Try harder. You can’t silence the truth.

* Long Post. Take Bathroom break now *

In every village, in addition to the village madman and the village idiot, there invariably exist the village’s literati. These would be the folk who gather under the biggest tree, and fueled by an array of potent brews, churn out the village’s literature — poems, skits, stories and of course unbelievably filthy songs and skits.

It goes without saying that literature, oral and otherwise, is an important constituent of society.

The post I did, On Reading, drew a variety of interesting feedback, most of it offline. Apparently my choice of eclectic reading material wasn’t “literary enough”. Someone actually put it precisely like that.

It reminded me again why I view critics, and people who purport to critique literature, with a highly jaundiced eye. Why? Because if no two people are alike why on earth would two people derive the same enjoyment and grasp from a poem, or a song, or a novel?

“I’m quite surprised at your choice of books,” a resident of the Ivory Tower told me. I’m very sure said resident was smoking a cigarillo at the time. “Stephen King,” resident confided in the next line, “doesn’t do real writing. Not true literature.”

Well!

Even now I’ve been unable to come up with a suitable response to that outrageous statement.

Along with Government of National Unity, this without a doubt is one of the most ludicrous things I have heard all year.

What makes a good book?

I would say some books are good because they have

1. Good writing
2. A good story
3. Both of the above

Good writing again is a very subjective thing. Everyone has their own ideas as to what well written prose is. Some people enjoy a heavy use of metaphors and allegories. Others prefer the flowing use of seldom used words, the sort of reading where you don’t actually know what the words mean, but you grasp their meaning as you soldier on. Others thrive on similes and onomatopoeia. Others on simplicity. And so on.

The same thing goes again for stories. Your combination of likes and dislikes and ideas and aspirations leaves you best placed to decide whether or not a story is good.

And so you can find a book that has good writing and absolutely no story, a book with atrocious writing but a riveting story or if you are lucky, a book that has both.

And so I find it rather pompous for someone to pontificate that Stephen King doesn’t do “real literature”. Why not? I happen to think on average that he is a brilliant writer and he tells excellent stories.

The look whenever people discover that Stephen King wrote the Shawshank Redemption AND the Green Mile is still priceless. Priceless.

In school I deeply resented the literature courses, English AND Kiswahili. You read a short story and spend precisely three weeks dissecting every nuance of the story, making impossible connections and conclusions that would surprise and amaze the author. You spend hours and hours extracting “themes”, “stylistic devices”, “plots” and all sorts of things from a 5 page narrative.

You do the same nonsense for the 20 or so short stories and by the time you are through you have completely forgotten what the original story was about. And then  you move on to the plays and do the same thing.

Based on one line a character a student proudly writes in his exam

Kamau is dishonest, and not truthful. We see this when he says “Fine” when asked “how are you”, despite him coming from a funeral. It also shows that he is polite, because he answered a question when he was emotionally not ready. It also demonstrates his emotional strength.

Or, the exam paper says the following:

Identify 3 categories of stylistic devices used in this story, and give 3 examples of each.

As Tony Soprano would say, Whadhafaak?

After four years of subjection to this our reading youth are released to the wild with a somewhat interesting take on literature.

Writers who don’t make use of metaphors and allegories and all this stuff is somewhat less literary than his fellows.

Really? I beg do differ!

I ask you, Why can’t we just read for the freaking story? Isn’t the story, after all, the aim of the game?

If you read the Sunday Papers, and particularly the Sunday Standard from cover to cover you will have come across the section called the Literary discourse.

If your reading fare is fast and furious ping pong between pompous pontification and indignant outrage, this is the page for you. During the course of the year a variety of individuals, self anointed as authorities on literature have attempted to tell us mere mortals what does and does not constitute literature. Some of the slugfests that I remember off the top of my head are. Some of the more spirited ones I remember pitched the Kwani camp on one end and a bench of the local literati on the other.

The literati objected to Kwani, how it was spelt, whether it was literature, its use of sheng, its use of sheng poems, the length of pieces.

The Kwani Camp, needless to say, gave as good as they got and objected to the literati, their qualifications to be the same, their mandate to question them, and the challenge to their ideas.

Needless to say it was fascinating reading the skirmishes every Sunday.

But one of the things that came way from the debate was a challenge to the idea of literature in the traditional sense. The established literati were seething at the idea of poetry in sheng. POETRY IN SHENG!

Personally I love the idea. As you no doubt know by now I am all for breaking the mould that restricts literature to printed books filled with long winded metaphors.

If people express themselves best in sheng, by all means let them!

I am all for increasing the realm of literature into new fields like stories in sheng, poetry in sheng, poetry in music, powerful lyrics, multimedia and last but jolly well not least, blogs.

A fortnight or so ago, I occasioned to end up on the same table with three gentlemen from camp Kwani. Reading from left to right they were as follows:

1. African Bullets And Honey, complete with a cigar
2. Binyavanga Wainaina, complete with notebook
3. One Potash, complete with … er …. self contentment

Potash was very taken, and absolutely had to touch ABH’s cigar the cigar ABH happened to have with him.

In true Hemingwayesque fashion, a short skirted waitress was summoned and dispatched to get three beers and one coke. After several years of stares ranging from puzzled to downright incredulous, I am quite thick skinned and I feel quite nothing ordering sodas in a bar.

Needless to say, discussion flitted from issue to issue on literature as a whole, its form and perception globally and locally. Blogging of course threw itself into the mix. As the publishing press for the common man its pretty hard to beat.

Just think of the scathing reactions from Africa over the Live 8 Debacle. Had this been 5 years ago Bob Geldof, Jeffrey Sachs and the rest of their ilk would have been in blissful ignorance of just how fine disdain the whole thing was held by many.

The whole concept of writing and publishing must evolve around the blogging phenomenon. You can get yourself read by millions without going anywhere near Simon and Schuster or Bantam Books.

Of course the question is, how do you get the denarii, the chumes, the cash, the iron men outvof it?

Will blogging become the new writing? Granted, you can’t quite take your favourite blog into the throne room after a heavy meal, but suppose you could?

Kwani is currently hosting The Kwani Litfest  starting today and ending on the 28th. All sorts of famous names that I cannot pronounce will be in attendance. The brochure talks about something called barbecue poetry that I am very keen to find out more, especially the barbecue part.

If you can make your way there, fashionably late of course, please do. The more voices there are the better. Many great names in literature will be in attendance and it would be a fantastic forum to discuss literature in all its current and future forms.

Click image for a bigger version. Click HERE to go to the official blog.

Kenya should be able to export more than just miraa / khat / gomba (Delete as appropriate)

Henry Mancini - Baby Elelphant Walk

There a number of fields of industrial development that create quite a number of jobs and bankroll billions around the world. The better known culprits include oil, computers, mobile telephony and pharmaceuticals.

The identity of one of the biggest players, however, is secreted away in our collective ignorance.

There is no shortage of keen eyed, breathlessly enthusiastic ladies and gentlemen with grand ideas of world peace, lions laying down with lambs, no war and no hunger. They look through life with rose tint glasses, fondly envisaging an Eden on earth.

What holds these people in common are beliefs in nebulous ideals like foreign aid, strategic papers, Jeffrey Sachs, Live Aid and other such.

One of the biggest of these is the concept of poverty eradication.

A couple of weeks ago I was enthusiastically informed over lunch that poverty eradication was inevitable. The choking noise I made was not the food going down the wrong way but a superhuman effort to check what was undoubtedly going to be a very long burst of laughter.

Anybody with any rose tinted ideals about the possibility of poverty eradication had better get them out of their heads because

Poverty is one of the biggest employers, and what’s more, has created some of the biggest gravy trains in history

Poverty has created a proliferation of global bodies, departments, companies, organizations, boards as well as a host of jobs that allows millions of people and dozens of governments to butter their bread.

Poverty has created opportunities for everyone, no matter what field there are in. Poverty has allowed characters who would have otherwise faded into the yesteryear like Bob Geldof to get their vaguely belligerent countenances on televisions around the world, and his own tele-documentary, Geldof in Africa, where he managed to pass through Africa with fleeting contact with technology and architecture.

Poverty has allowed NGOs to proliferate all over the world, purporting to be working round the clock to deliver man from his poverty and deliver him to a world of manna, wine and cake here on earth.

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I’ve been suffering from a very acute flu for the past few weeks. Each and every joint I had ached as if it was getting good money to do so. My nose decided that it was equally as capable as my feet of undertaking the task of running. My head decided to notify me by throbbing painfully after every heartbeat, without a doubt under the impression anything the heart could do it could do as well.

This however did not stop me from more or less attempting to get around to my various duties, and, naturally, getting involved in a very heated debate.

This past few months have seen an unusual influx of Kenyans in the diaspora from the various countries and counties that they diaspora in. Following is a sample 2 week schedule of one such cowboy

Day 1
Arrive in the country at some ungodly hour of the night and proceed to call up everyone you know to inform you are around

Day 2
Find bearings. Get used to :
- Driving on the left
- Ever changing geography of Nairobi
- largely ignored highway code

Day 3
Meet the family. Hug everyone. Give away the gifts that were limited by (in descending order)
a) Budget
b) Airline personnel
c) Customs personnel

Day 4
Go to see the grand folks in shags

Day 4
Back in town, meet the friends and chart out a solid 10 days of enjoyment

Day 5 - Day 10
Attempt to visit all the discotheques, clubs, bars, coffee houses, movie halls and restaurants in and around Nairobi

Day 11 - Day 14
Go to coast

Day 15
Leave town in a hurry, carrying nothing more than an amazing hangover and pleasant memories

Good times, good times. And us locally based sons and daughters of our parents also attempt to stuff as much fun as possible into the remainder of the year. In this haste we generally forget that the December salary is actually supposed to be spent in January, but that is for another day.

But I’ve digressed enough. A couple of days ago I was having coffee and throat lozenges with a conglomeration of Kenyan Tourists (KTs ™ ) and Kenyan Roots(KRs™ ) until the discussion took an interesting turn.

The discussion as usual swiftly swiveled into politics and the state of affairs of Kenya. Nothing can neatly divide the diaspora from the locals better than this topic.

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No sooner is it quoted that “beauty is only skin deep” than it is just as quickly forgotten. Of contemporary cultural cliches this particular one has got to be one of the more poignant by the very virtue of its ubiquity, because in the hierarchy of statements grounded in reality, it ranks immediately below “Santa Claus is coming to town”. Why? Because much as it is oft repeated, it is never really reflected on, and what’s more it is immediately forgotten.

By virtue of observation alone it is abundantly clear that we fondly believe that of all the adjectives to describe us, superficial is not one of them.  We fondly believe that our judgements are based solely on sound reasoning and objectivity. We refuse to entertain for one second that we do not live by these words that so readily pour from our lips.

A very effective mirror of society is the media. Long before economists got it down on paper the dynamics of supply and demand had long been apparent to Adam and his immediate descendants. If people want to watch dogs biting man newspapers, magazines, television, Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood will oblige. If they do not the media fraternity will without a doubt withdraw that particular fare.

The unfortunate truth is that we are a reflection of what we watch and what we read.

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[EDIT #2]

The so called “war on terror” is not only not working, it is falling flat on its face and taking us down with it.

I must confess that I was quite taken aback to read about the London bombings on the CNN and BBC websites. Where oh where would we be without technology? A personal twist was brought into it because I know people who are there, and hearing it from them was indeed sobering.

It brought back unwelcome memories of the day a bomb went off in Nairobi, in 1998.

I recall at the time I was nowhere near the central business district, that hosted the former US embassy. I was in fact a couple of odd dozen miles away but despite the distance was still able to hear the explosion. A colleague dismissed it as “damn kids and their fireworks!” and the matter dropped.

An hour or so later as we were boarding the bus to take us into town the conductor informed us that we were not, as a matter of fact, going into town, but bypassing it altogether. Our resulting reaction left that gent in no doubt he was deeply unpopular. When he was able to get a word in edgewise, something to the effect as there having been a bomb blast in the CBD, we assured him that we questioned not only his intelligence, but his senses of sight and hearing.

Some ten minutes later we were passing outside the hospital in Hurlingham it became apparent that something was very wrong. There were dozens of people standing outside the hospital, bandaged with suits and dresses covered with dust and blood.

Someone thought to turn on the radio and it was a grim statement indeed that we heard:

By the time I got home all the bits and pieces had come in.

There had been an explosion at the US embassy. As curious Kenyans gathered to find out what was happening an even bigger explosion had occurred. An indeterminate number of people had died.

Of course I wasted no time in making my way to the CBD.

I can still remember the feeling of acute shock as I walked towards the site. The explosion had shattered the glass of countless buildings and the pavement was littered with broken glass. I remember the crunching of the glass under my shoes. From the looks of things I was not alone in my shock.

By and large we are a lucky country. We have not had civil wars, so when it comes to violence at such scale we were, and I dare say still are, clueless. Losing a life in an accident is a big deal, but losing dozens of lives to deliberate acts by unknown people?

The site itself .. words cannot express. It had been cordoned off but we could see it from a short distance away. The combined efforts of the army, police, fire services and ambulance were completely unable to cope with the carnage and the wounded. There were dead bodes lying in the rubble. There were wounded people lying on the pavements and the roads.

And Kenyans, as they are wont to do, rose to the occasion and volunteered their private cars and vans and pick-ups and buses to help out.

What I remember most was a man sitting on the pavement with his head in his hands, asking again and again about his wife. I sat down next to him for over fifteen minutes and could not think of a single word to say.

The toll stood at around 200.

Ruminations

No matter how low you set the bar, the human being always manages to find a way to slither under. 3 years later I listened in real time to news of the planes flying into the World Trade Center and I watched in shock as a 747 banked and flew into the side of a building.

The toll? Thousands, including a deeply personal loss I still feel today.

And then there was the Spain bombings. And Bali. And now the London explosions.

I can just imagine the people, still a bit jubilant at getting the Olympics going about their business to find themselves real victims of terrorism. As I am writing this - 37 dead, 700 injured.

I have wondered for a long time just what can drive people to do some of these things to each other. I recall unwittingly watching the video of the unfortunate Nick Berg as he knelt there in bewilderment as someone read a statement in a language he could not understand behind him and the next thing the poor man knew his head was being taken off with a knife. He could not understand what was happening until it was too late.

Needless to say it was weeks before I got a good night’s sleep.

Among us are people who have no qualms about shooting us, blowing us up and beheading us. Beheading us! With a knife!

Among us are people who will go into a Beslan school with hundreds of children and shoot them. Grown men and women ready to shoot innocent little children.

All these incidents beggar the question:

But the more you think about it the more you realize it is not as simple as that.

Now you ask yourself:

But the more you think about it the question changes yet more subtly:

In the papers and in the news we keep reading and hearing about suicide bombers. Think deeply about the concept.

A suicide bomber.

A suicide bomber is going to blow himself up. A suicide bomber is fully aware that he is going to die. He has no doubts about it. There is no ‘if’. There is no ‘perhaps’. There is no getting away, no escape. If he succeeds he will die. If he is intercepted as he tries to perform his act he will die. There are no two ways about it.

But he will wrap explosives around his middle and go into the midst of his fellows and blow himself up.

And he is so convinced, so driven by his beliefs that he does not hesitate.

Now ask yourself — what can make you feel so passionately, so deeply, so totally in something that you’d give your life, that you’d blow yourself up?

It’s very easy to say that you will die for your faith, or for your loved ones. Or die for your beliefs. It is quite easy to say indeed. It is quite another to walk your talk.

It’s not that there are one or two suicide bombers. They have been dozens and dozens, in Israel and in Iraq. As recently as a couple of days ago one donned a police uniform, walked into a mess and blew himself up in Iraq.

There is no short supply of these people who feel this passionately about whatever it is their misguided cause is. They are lining up to blow themselves up. They have been there for years.

It is naive in the extreme to introduce religious connotations into this, and this is the slant that the world seems to have gripped with both hands, inadvertently or otherwise.

The unfortunate thing is that human beings have this tendency to fear things they do not understand, and fear is a very powerful force. Fearful people in large enough numbers are a recipe for disaster.

Sad fact: people do not understand Islam at all, and this has contributed immensely to the problem.

Consider this for instance: Osama Bin Laden and his comrades in arms have declared themselves openly as being staunch Muslims on TV. Now, what would have been the effect had they turned out to be Bible thumping, cross carrying Christians? What if he appeared and after a couple of Our Fathers got to his latest declaration?

I don’t know about you but personally I am convinced the world would have no problem with dismissing him and his associates as a deranged and isolated bunch of crazies.

But since they claim to be Muslims, for some reason the world has a problem divorcing them from Islam at large.

Of course we don’t like to acknowledge this, which is why after we condemn the terrorists we always add that ubiquitous trailer “… we realize that Islam is a religion of peace, and that these are isolated militants.”

Without a doubt that last addendum would not be there had they been Christians.

Even if they are Islam, I find that perpetually referring to them as ‘Islamic Extremists’ is doing little to help, besides subtly drawing an association between the two.

And what is the result? Muslims who have nothing remotely to do with Osama Bin Laden are increasingly finding themselves on the defensive. I have lost count of the number of frustrated Muslims I have run into who always find themselves having to explain their faith is one of peace to an increasingly sceptical audience.

Shortly after the 911 events a number of Muslims were assaulted. People who “look like” Muslims inexplicably have a rough time at airports.

It is just a matter of time before this misguided impression causes a real problem — where the Muslims are living in fear, and like I have said before fear in a large enough number of people is a disaster waiting to happen.

I am not a Muslim by the way. I am a Catholic, and extremely unlikely to defect. I say Hail Mary’s when I’m scared out of my pants. I always carry some sort of cross or the other on me. Every two weeks or so I spend a couple of minutes raising the eyebrows of my priest with my antics of the past fortnight.

I grew up as a wee schoolboy knowing that they were funny people who went to Church on Fridays and their girls could not decide between wearing dresses or trousers and therefore decided to enjoy the best of both worlds and indulge in both. That was as far as my prepubescent knowledge went.

Of course age, experience and knowledge make you wiser. I made some good friends in high school and university who are Muslims. We have had lengthy (and spirited) discussions of religion past and present. I have read the Koran. I know a lot more about the faith than I used to.

I won’t pretend to know Islam, or even half of it but I know for a fact that the gulf between what the Osamas are doing and what I know of the faith is unbreachable.

Just like the Muslims, Christians have their own rotten apples. The things Christians have done to each other in the name of religion are a study of terrorism, from witch hunts to inquisitions and right down to the latest bit of bother between Christians in Northern Ireland. Christians have been clubbing, crucifying, beheading, drawing, quartering and burning each other at stakes for thousands of years.

Protestants and Catholics have been merrily beating, shooting and bombing each other for years in Northern Ireland. It was a rare fortnight indeed that a news announcement as to the latest explosion in Belfast did not make the news.

And I remember after each of these announcements Protestants and Catholics outside Northern Ireland have had no problem concluding that those are a bunch of crazy misguided yahoos and go on to meet at the tee for a rousing game of golf or at the club for a stiff drink and some roasted meat. Can you think of anywhere where Protestants and Catholics did not get along?

It has never been necessary to add a qualifying statement at the end. This is undoubtedly creating another problem.

Just yesterday some Hindu Militants engaged the police in a shoot-out for hours before being silenced.

It has never been necessary to add a qualifying statement at the end.

It is creepy how terrorism and Islam always seem to end up in the same sentence.

My point? Organized religion is a convenient scapegoat for the many atrocities man commits. Man has spent millennia looking for scapegoats for antics, right from blaming snakes for appropriated apples right down to religion to killing others. Osama Bin Laden and his ilk have no problem appropriating Islam for their own use, violating almost all its basic tenets in the process. With all our experience and all the information at our disposal we should be wise enough to divorce the two.

There is something deeper driving these terrorists and we need to find out.

Diseases & Symptoms

“War on Terror” will be an utterly meaningless statement until we find the root of this problem.

Yes, we can speak passionately against terrorists on TV. We can create commissions and committees, declare war, send in Navy SEALs, commandos and special forces to fight terror. We can condemn the terrorists at every opportunity until we are blue in the face. We can form Departments Of Homeland security and unite the workings of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the police. We can increase threat levels. We can install cameras and issue ID cards.

The grim reality is that at the end of the day we cannot watch every inch of every border, We cannot read the minds of those flying into airports every day. You cannot watch all those suspicious looking people in the bus with us. unfortunate truth is that at the end of the day we are extremely vulnerable. The terrorists only have to succeed once whereas the security forces must have a 100% record of success, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The odds cannot be more stacked against them.

Don’t get me wrong — I am not saying we should not be on the lookout and we should not actively seek these people out from wherever they are. We should. We have no choice but to. But despite our best efforts, and even if we succeed 100%, I fear we will remain precisely where we are now. Here’s why.

I watched Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and Vladimir Putin all grimly saying that they are going to “fight terror”.

I found myself asking, just what does this mean? What is it to ‘fight terror’?

To find all the terrorists that we can and shoot them?

I’m afraid this will achieve little, if anything: it will be a stop gap measure and a short lived solution at best. If anything, it will exacerbate things. If you intercept a bomber, suicide or otherwise, and shoot him in the head, and go on to parade on TV about your latest victory, in a house somewhere a young man will see his father has been shot dead by “them” and steel himself to complete his father’s work.

Ask the Israelis. They’ve been shooting and arresting suicide bombers for years and years. Things are slowly starting to turn around when someone realized

Those suicide bombers and terrorists who succeed gain a larger than life status to their fellow believers. They gain respect. They become heroes. And somebody somewhere becomes inspired. Those who don’t still drive yet others to take their place.

A scary and obscene corruption Tertullian’s words: “The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians”.

Finding them and bringing them to justice is not fighting terror. It is fighting terrorists. It is not treating a disease — it is treating symptoms.

We need to delve deep into these people and find out just what it is that is driving them and then maybe we might have an idea of how to if not solve the problem outright, at least ideas on how to approach the undoubtedly long journey that curing the root causes is. Once we do that the symptoms have no choice but to die out as well.

What I do know is that the CIA, the FBI, MI-6, MI-5, special forces, commandos, police and Navy SEALs are not going to deliver this world for the looming threat of terrorism. They’ve been trying for 40 years now, from Baader Meinhoff Gangs to Red Army Factions right down to Al Qaedas.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is just not working. All we are doing is marking time at best, and slipping backwards at worst.

We have to find out what the disease is and treat that, and not the symptoms. We need to actively ignore the smoke and mist and hone in on the real issues. Then can we have a hope of removing this looming threat from our sights.

The time we have to do this, I fear, is not much.

It takes seconds, maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days to change minds. But it takes a lifetime to change mentalities.

We may be too late to stop the Osama Bin Laden and his ilk but we had better start right away nipping his successors in the bud.

Right away.

Our prayers are with the victims and their families. God will comfort you.

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