Being unknown in unknown surroundings is pretty much equivalent to a blank cheque. You can, for instance, enjoy yourself thoroughly by speaking with an accent. Don’t be boring by using an American or a British accent. If you want to cause much puzzlement and head scratching, nothing beats the sight of an African speaking with an Indian accent.

But I digress.

Much as I love traveling, I HATE AIRPORTS, and especially JKIA. I had to use that establishment’s services for a couple of times last year and I assure you that there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I wept.

JKIA is big, poorly designed, stuffy and as comfortable as sand filled y-fronts. The broken, uncomfortable chairs in the departure lounges have to be seen (and sat on) to be believed. The facilities generally smell like a certain substance chemical symbol NH₃, better known as Ammonia. The one time circumstances forced me to make use of the same (a litre of Coke, ladies and gentlemen, will eventually demand an exit) I went in a black haired man and emerged platinum blonde from the fumes. The security guards at the entrance are overzealous and have delusions of grandeur.

But despite this doom and gloom much merriment can be derived from the insanity.

Travelers by and large treat the 2 hour check-in period as an unnecessary and malicious complication. I freely confess to being one of these until a few flights have cured me of this foolishness. Kenyans will show up for a 7:30 flight at 7:20, fully laden with 3 bags, a ruck-sack, golf clubs, a baby and two teddy bears and expect to make it on time. Those two hours are for

1. Allowing you to queue with the other 100 people on the flight, fill in nonsense forms and check in your crap
2. Correcting the many issues that the airport/travel agent/airline/you have screwed up (no, dammit the flight is to Niger, not Nigeria!)

Travelers additionally have a strange habit of dressing to the nines to travel. I remember a flight some years back where there were four of us traveling to Uganda for some reason I forget at this juncture. There was an uncomfortable silence when I showed up at the airport in my faded t-shirt, track suit bottoms and battered sandals to find my other colleagues in suit and tie, complete wit briefcases. Needless to say I was taken aback and inquired if there had been a change of plan from our itinerary that was to travel to Entebbe, take a cab to Kampala and check in to the hotel and proceed to get a night’s sleep. I was assured there was none. Todate I am mystified why some of us insist on suit and tie to travel. Or perhaps I am playing roulette with the latex glove?

Travelers additionally carry large amounts of crap in and on their persons when traveling. Again I freely confess I used to be one of these. Last year I was with a fellow Kenyan on a return flight from South Africa and at the metal detector she filled two trays with the contents of  her pockets, items ranging from money, sweets, biscuits, tulcum powder to sanitary pads and tampons. The male security guard did not shy away from examining the latter items in great detail.

The metal detector is another item that still mystifies. A typical scenario is a feller, call him Bill, walks through the detector. It beeps. Guard asks Bill if he’s carrying or wearing anything metallic. Bill denies both counts and walks through again. It beeps Bill then empties the coins in his pocket into a tray and tries again. It beeps. Bill then takes the guard’s suggestion and removes his belt. Bill then walks through the detector with his belt in hand. Unsurprisingly, it beeps. Finally after removing belt, gold teeth, suspenders and assorted rings and putting them in the tray, Bill finally goes through, after wasting 5 minutes of everyone’s time.

What is the point of those ridiculous entry and exit forms? I don’t get it. They are a colossal waste of time. After all, the same information is scanned from your passport to why force us to fill them? I make sure I use my worst handwriting and if I can find one, a luminous green biro. If I have time some Morse code on the back in dots, dashes and pluses will keep immigration officers busy. Let their immigration and intelligence services earn their money trying to break my code.

Anyway, happy new year my friends. Here’s to 2009!

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.

• 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.

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.

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

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.

Poverty has allowed countries to earn still more money, for its coffers and for its people.

One of the biggest ironies of all time that inexplicably escapes notice is that the bodies and structures that are mandated to eliminate poverty are inherently working against their own existence and are expected to succeed.

I would welcome the input from anyone of the opinion that Live 8 was anything more than a glorious, noisy and free concert where people got the ludicrous notion that snapping their fingers would propel the world leadership into action.

As a matter of fact, the instant the last amplifier was packed into a lorry and the last mobile toilets was carted away, the whole thing faded into the collective world’s memory. All that remained was the aroma from the mobile toilets, the trampled grass from the fans, and the puke from the more inebriated fans.

In fact the only people who remember the event were the quieter residents of Edinburgh, and they undoubtedly did not think much of having their sleep interrupted by all the noise.

There is no way that poverty is going to be eliminated. There are too many vested interests, too many gravy trains, too many pockets being lined by poverty, and no one is about to kill the golden goose, the thread of bird flu notwithstanding.

HUNGER

Take for example a very simple scenario like famine in Kenya. As we speak some 1.3 million odd Kenyans are suffering the combined effects of debilitating drought and a devastatingly incompetent government that would be hard pressed to hit the water if it fell out of its collective boat, that has delivered the hungry into the arms of a famine.

The President, rubbing sleep from his eyes, climbs down from his fence and sends a passionate appeal for food aid, ten minutes after authorizing an increase of 100,000 shillings in the benefits of cabinet ministers, the rationale being that cabinet ministers are not sufficiently renumerated for the tireless work they do.

It is here that the gravy train begins to chuff.

George Bush authorizes 100 million dollars to purchase corn. This corn is trucked to the sea and loaded onto ships that sail on to Kenya. These ships are then offloaded and the corn is shipped to the starving masses.

Not clear yet?

Let us look at the actual events

Secretary: There’s someone here to see the President. She says its very urgent. It’s about the famine in Kenya
White House Chief Of Staff (COS): We’re about to go into a meeting on precisely that issue so send her in!

{Enter guest}

COS: Well?
Newcomer: My name is Na Yvette. I have some ideas about helping with the famine in Kenya.
COS: Have you run these ideas by Dick Cheney?
Yvette: If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not. I have this feeling that I’ll be shot down.
COS: Fair enough. Your idea?
Yvette: Wouldn’t’t it be faster and cheaper to buy corn from farmers in Kenya, or even Uganda and Tanzania rather than wait all those months to ship it from here? The people are starving now!

It is at this point that a beefy farmer of considerable girth, smelling powerfully of cow and mint juleps, rises to his feet, spurs jingling.

“Begging your pardon suh, my name’s Billy Ray Cobb, president of the Kansas Farmers association and I do, yes I do suh, urge you not to take this lady’s idea seriously and remove, ye suh, remove the food from the mouth of babes.”

A second man with a striking resemblance to Popeye rises to his feet.

“Aaaaah — ka — ka — ka — ka! I laugh at this suggestion, Mr. President. I have hungry children to feed as well. My name is Bill Panty, president, CEO and Chairman of Panty Line Shipping.”

A third man rises to his feet. “And I, sirs, am Jeffrey G String, head of the G String trucking line. I too oppose that notion.”

President: You see, Yvette, we buy the corn from Billy Ray, and pay him well for it. Then the G String company comes on board to truck the corn to the ports, and here we see the Panty Line. Come into play I mean, and we pay him to ship the corn to Nairobi. So you see, if I follow your suggestion I’d be putting hundreds and hundreds of Americans out of work.
Yvette: But that takes months and months! People will die if we do it that way! Isn’t life sacred?
Cobb: I think I need to get you invited to go hunting with Dick Cheney. I would especially urge you to keep that feathered hat you have on.

CONSTRUCTION

When large segments of the women folk are having hour long discussions speculating on who Carlos Daniel is going to marry, and large segments of the men folk are arguing who will take home the Champion’s League, and all of them when to meet in the evening, the finer niceties of donor driven construction pass silently by.

Foreign Secretary: Well, Mr. Minister, I see in the papers that you are trying to upgrade your Mombasa road to make it a dual carriageway from Mombasa to Kisumu.
Minister: Yes sir. We’re very excited about the project. We want to do it in cement instead of bitumen, and right now we’re about to put out a tender to local companies. The construction sector could do with some of this work.
Foreign Secretary: Hmm ….

Two weeks later

Foreign Secretary: Ah, Mr. Minister. Good news. We’re giving you a loan to build that road we were talking about. Isn’t that great?
Minister: Uh … loan? What loan? What for? We’ve already set aside the money in this year’s budget. All systems are go.
Foreign Secretary: But this is a special loan. You don’t pay anything for five years, and then the interest rate is only 10%. I’m sure you can find some other use for that money.
Minster: Well… you’ve got a point there. I’ll take it.
Foreign Secretary: Excellent. This project will be a great success. We have already identified contractors to carry out the work. It will be a consortium of John Peel Construction of London and Halliburton Construction, USA.
Minister: Halliburton? Is that the same Halliburton owned by Dick Cheney?
Foreign Secretary: Is it? I don’t think so. Sounds like a shot in the dark. Ha ha! A coincidence. So anyway, change that tender to eliminate the cement construction thing. The consortium will tender and they should get the tender.
Minister: But …
Foreign Secretary: Take it from me old boy, cement is overrated. Let’s use tried and tested technology for this work. By the way, can you organize tax holidays for the companies?

And so it happens. Bamburi Cement, East African Portland Cement and Athi River mining are perplexed on Monday morning when the government revises the tender to allow bitumen contractors to participate, effectively knocking them out of contention.

Within the week the foreign secretary, clearly having taken notes from his Prime Minister, smiles toothily at the camera as he hands over a cheque of 500 million pounds sterling earmarked for road construction to the roads minister.

The cement manufacturers bitterly rue the opportunities there may have been had they gotten the contracts.

After the press has left the Foreign Secretary taps the Minister on the shoulder.

“You know, old boy, it’ll save you a lot of time and bureaucracy we just process the payments for you for Halliburton and John Peel Construction. Expect communication from the contractors within the week. Give us that cheque. I’ll deliver and process everything for you.”

And that evening the Foreign Secretary lands in the UK with the cheque he left with having moved from his left coat pocket to his right. By the close of business the following day two construction companies are pleasantly surprised to be awarded work they had never tendered for.

Five years later the new Finance minister finds to his amazement that there is a 5 million pound repayment scheduled. He tries and fails to establish why a loan that was never asked for was given, and there was already money to effect the construction.

He is also puzzled why the cement industry is so hostile towards the government.

NGOs

I was informed just this weekend that Kenya hosts the highest number of NGOs in the world. I’ve not found this out for a fact but I am inclined to believe it. The better known international ones include HABITAT, UNHCR, UNDP, ICRAF, ILRI, FAO and a host of other 3, 4 and 5 letter acronyms. Hazard a guess how many people are employed by these organizations.

If by some stroke of fate poverty was eradicated, every last one of them would be out of a job, because most are run on money aimed at funding projects to eradicate poverty.

Then there are the niche local NGOs, which piggy back on very fashionable clichés. These include

• Educating the girl child
• Protecting the girl child
• Feeding the girl child
• Empowering the girl child
• HIV/AIDS education
• HIV/AIDS Eradication
• Poverty Eradication

You would not believe how many NGOs are merrily making short work of donor funding ostensibly to tackle serious issues.

You’d be amazed just how many NGOs are conducting research into “The effects of education on the girl child”

Uh huh.

Precisely 95% of the budget is spent on the following

• Vehicles and fuel for the top managers
• Salary and allowances for top managers
• Per diems for top mangers (must have some expatriates in there somewhere)
• Miscellaneous expenditure

If there is any left, then the girl child can finally be gotten round to.

An interesting study that a prospective NGO can do is how much anti-HIV/AIDS money ends up in the pockets and G-strings of ladies of the night, or the more smooth talking beach boys. The results I assure you will be an eye opener.

MORAL

It is in the vested interests of very many people, and very many industries, and very many countries that poverty remain precisely where it is. The preferred status quo is one where external observers see a lot or running but the reality is that the running is on the spot.

Dubiously benevolent gestures like unsecured loans and laughable inane ones like worldwide concerts are shows of very clever shadow boxing that merely leave feelings of goodwill and empathy in the breasts of many. Will Smith without a doubt had a very good night’s sleep after snapping his fingers on television around the world in his strike towards poverty eradication.

If Tony Blair and George Bush were serious about poverty eradication they would do well to consider genuine measures like allowing fair trade to flourish, and resisting the (considerable) temptation to make quick gains off some African leaders whose intelligence levels are dangerously close to moronic.

Eliminating poverty has been a very happy pipe dream throughout the ages, and the proponents (generally the poor) fondly forget is that wealth does not make one rich — poor people do. The rich flourish because of the poor.

Attempts to address this situation have been tried and failed.

If none of us is poor, can then any of us claim to be rich?

Poverty will never be eradicated by entities whose existence is based around the ideal of eliminating poverty, or those that derive benefits off the status quo. Besides politicians, it is not natural to see an organism rush headlong towards its doom.

Wake up and smell the coffee. Be careful who you regard your Messiah

Run DMC – Mary Mary

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.

Armed with copies of the Washington Post, the Economist and numerous clippings from the online version of the newspapers, and memories of conversations with ambassadorial staff, and the odd clip on CNN and BBC the KTs™ will pontificate just how good governance and the economy has grown in leaps and bounds, and how things are looking much better under Kibaki’s able leadership. They will be pleasantly surprised that Nairobi has become a safe haven where the lion will lay with the lamb.

Armed with copies of police abstracts, medical bills and numerous physical and emotional scars, and memories of conversation with gangsters, us KRs™ will wonder exactly what the KTs have been smoking, and when it expired. We will wonder what manner of good governance has a cabinet that is precisely a third of the entire community of members of parliament. We will wonder which economy is this that grew, and where its mother keeps it indoors because we have never seen it. All we see are steadily rising prices of everything. We will question Kibaki’s ability to lead his shadow through a doorway. We will wonder about this security business when police themselves are being shot by the day, and when people who yawn carelessly in down town Nairobi finish their yawning without realizing they have been relieved of wallet, belt, tie and tooth fillings in that brief interval between opening mouth and closing it.

Naturally fierce and enthusiastic debate will ensue and after everyone is flushed under the collar, a subtle change is introduced when someone finally concedes that there is a problem or two in Nairobi, and wants to know what can be done t fix them.

It is at this point things began to hum.

“By building Kenya,” a KT™ declared impressively rising to all of his four feet and banging the table with a fist for effect.

The agreement was unanimous, and there was peace until I sneezed (while holding top of head to keep it from exploding) and fired the shot that sunk the ship.

“And just how do you build Kenya from a very comfortable air conditioned apartment, complete with goldfish, in New York?”

This particular KT™ floundered briefly.

Another spoke up, haughtily informing me that she sent thousands of dollars to Kenya over the past couple of years.

And it was there that the camel’s back was broken.

Thousand and thousands of Kenyans leave these hallowed shores to go abroad to study. Each has their own reasons
- They can afford to
- What they want to study is not offered here
- To say the magical sentence “I’m flying out”
- They’ve gotten a chance to study at a good school
- Just because

And so they depart. The entire clan is at Jomo Kenyatta Airport to see them off. Everyone, from the family patriarch to the family livestock and poultry is there. While the several dozen uncles, aunts, bothers and sisters deposit kisses on the cheeks of the excited students, the family poultry deposit guano everywhere. Tearful goodbyes are exchanged and the student leaves, ostensibly for four years to study Nuclear Physics / The Mating Habits of the Equatorial Baboon.

Five, six, seven years later, there is puzzlement as to why the student has not returned.

Bewildered relatives corner the father in a bar.

No, Waithera did not switch to Music then to Theatre then to Engineering then to Catering like so many of her fellows. She did not acquire a credit card for each day of the month and then spend days hiding from creditors in a manner that the Special Forces and Navy Seals would do well to emulate. She was not forced by circumstances to get 5 jobs that consigned her studies to a distant back bench.

She stuck to her Nuclear Physics and indeed completed, Summa Cum Laude, Quid Pro Quo, Et Cetera, Nolle Prosequi, Ave Maria, some five years ago.

Then why is she not returning? Because she has decided to live there. She now works for NASA.

“In fact,” the proud patriarch says happily taking a swig of his Tusker Malt, “She was just telling me that she has developed a vehicle constructed entirely from bamboo, fishing line, timber and a watch battery. It is powered principally by the warmth in the human breath, and speaking for five minutes into a little unit gives the car power to travel 100km. Of course if given to a politician he can travel to the moon and back, ha ha!”

“But,” asks a cousin morosely, who forgets to hide his ulterior motives, “Is that to say she is not coming back?”

“She says not in the foreseeable future,” the patriarch says polishing off the Malt and then hailing the barman.

“However she sends me a good bit of money every month and so, my friends, help me reduce this thousand dollars to more manageable levels. Drinks all around my good man!”

There are several thousand Waitheras out there. In the North America. In Europe. In Asia. Indeed, even in other countries in Africa. It’s just a matter of time before South Africa and Botswana start speaking Kiswahili. I vaguely recall some report some weeks back that suggested that Kenya was one of the top contributors of students aboard in the world.

We have several dozen thousand very able scientists, doctors, surgeons, lawyers, IT professionals, authors, musicians, artists, researchers, scholars, engineers and architects all around the world, doing sterling work wherever they are.

Which is good. When opportunities present themselves, grab them. If they don’t present themselves, you go out and get them. Once Harvard / Yale / MIT / Princeton are through with you, and empower you to join the working masses you have in many ways triumphed over adversity.

Naturally, while studying for your degree, you don’t stop living. You come to the realization that in some places it is a big deal for power to disappear. That opening a tap and getting running water is not a pleasant surprise. Some countries have realized that roundabout is Ancient Greek for one person wasting three other people’s time. Some politicians resign because they have been accused of some misdemeanor. That you can apply for a job, do your shopping and pay your bills without leaving the house and dealing with sweaty gentlemen who breathe through their mouths and do not believe in Colgate.

There are plenty of reasons for one to decide that the grass is indeed greener on the other side and decide to settle there. And so a good many do precisely this and go on to settle abroad and get jobs with NASA, IBM, Microsoft, on Wall Street, etc. They will do those jobs and be equally adept, if not more, than the residents.

It is therefore amusing for Waithera, lead researcher for NASA and Onyango, Head of Design at IBM to come to Nairobi for holiday and while seated across from me, purport without batting an eyelid to be working round the clock building Kenya.

You are doing nothing remotely of the kind.

Any innovations you make there will be the property of NASA and IBM, ergo any benefits above and beyond a handsome bonus cheque to you will go straight to NASA and IBM. Your ingenuity is building NASA, IBM and the USA.

Waithera’s car will be made at a cost price of4$ and will turn up for sale in Kenya some 5 years later at a pocket friendly price of 1,000$. If 1 million Kenyans buy this car they will send a grand total of 1,000,000,000,000 dollars straight to the United states GNP, which they can undoubtedly find uses for like building roads and disaster management. In the United States.

While Onyango is developing processors the size of a crumb of bread that can be powered by a watch battery and run for a month on it, the Ministry of Science and Technology still operates a behemoth whose processor is the size of Chris Murungaru and produces about as much hot air and sweat.

Now just imagine how many hundred thousand Waitheras and Onyangos we have working and building USA, UK, Switzerland, Holland, Spain, Belgium, and a dozen other countries with their skills and know how.

If they all returned to Kenya and took charge of ministries, parastatals and the private sector, starting KASA and KBM it would just be a matter of time before we start being known for something other than running.

Before we build our own industries. Before we build nuclear power plants and stop being at the mercy of rain and shine. Before we laugh at the hypocrisy of George Bush and Tony Blair whining about Iran’s nuclear program while they are doing the exact same thing.

Before my computers come in boxes saying “Made In Kenya” and not “Made in the USA”.

Before we tell pontificating condescending, professional activists like Bob Geldof and Jeffrey Sachs to take their magic bullet experimental formulae and stick them in a location that depends on how tightly these magic bullet experimental formulae can be rolled up.

I have nothing against settling overseas. After all, all of us dream of having a good life and are always in pursuit of actualizing our dreams. I don’t even have a problem with changing citizenship if it brings you closer to your dreams. The sad truth is that patriotism is not particularly edible and it’s difficult to remember the words of the national anthem when you’re hungry.

What I take issue with is pontificating about how things are going to the dogs, how the country is run by nitwits and how you’re correcting the situation and building your country by wiring money from the comfort of your New York apartment, complete with goldfish..

You can’t have your cake and eat it.

I’m sorry to inform you that sending money is not building anything, besides offices for Western Union. It does not build Kenya anymore than trainee teachers build schools by declining to return to teach after training and sending money instead.

Sending money merely allows Kenya to run on the spot at best. It allows your nearest and dearest to subsist. It pays bills. Nothing more nothing less. Spare us the absurd notion that we should be grateful to you for the greenbacks you mail every month in the guise of building the country. Attempting to place your wired money on a pedestal is merely massaging your conscience.

Which is not to say you should not send money. Au contraire. If it keeps roofs over heads of wee tots, pays the odd bill, clothes backs and educates a few, carry on. If it enables cantankerous old men to down rounds at the local bar, soldier forth. At least you’re sharing your spoils.

You can’t have your cake and eat it.

The United States we know today was, and continues to be built by the English and the Irish and the Chinese and the Mexicans and the Italians and the Indians and the Russians and the Japanese and the Germans who live and work there. And of course by poor Africans who had a remarkable incentive program called the whip and were not distracted by little things like wages and unions.

Money does not build countries. People working does. Do not for half a second delude yourself otherwise.

You can’t have your cake and eat it.

There is only one way to build Kenya.

Come back and work.

Alanis Morissette – Uninvited

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.

A fairly accurate depiction of contemporary society and its beliefs can be very effectively gauged by an even cursory analysis of the media, notably cinema and the television.

The daily fare generally consists of numerous casts of impossibly good looking stars and starlettes going through day to day life dealing with complex relationships and life’s triumphs and tribulations. These triumphs and tribulations generally consist of a suitor wooing the suited despite the hurdles thrown the suitors way by virtue of evil twin brothers, jealous rivals, etc.

Never mind that actual tribulations like hunger, poverty, crime, ware, and human suffering only get passing references in the meat and potatoes of the struggles of Siobhan and Maximillian as they rush headlong towards their inevitable lavish  church wedding where brides liberally wear white, blissfully aware of the origin of that particular tradition.

Variations of the theme are the rush of Maximillian to get into Siobhan’s pants, the rush of Maximillian to save Siobhan from his mortal enemy, the rush of Maximillian to save Siobhan and the world from untimely doom, the rush of Siobhan to mend Maximillian’s errant ways and realize that she is the one he loves  and not the even more impossibly good looking Juliet, and so on

Recent entrants into the scene are the proliferation of programmes masquerading as “Reality TV”, an oxymoron if there ever was one. Someone ought to have written down when the difference between reality and television was the presence of a script. We’d have appreciated the heads up.

The basis in reality of 25 grown men convincing one woman on camera that she should spend the rest of her life with him is neither here nor there. Neither is that of a budding employer recruiting a deputy on public television and having the temerity to fire some of the applicants before they have even been hired after making them sell ice cream, again on public TV. Still more vague is the reality of 25 odd people being shipped to some obscure island and eliminate each other by carrying buckets of sand/seawater from A to B.

Now don’t get me wrong. No one is saying that TV should be intellectually stimulating insights into the purpose of man and the realities of life. No one wants to watch a 3 hour program detailing the finer aspects on nuclear fission vis a vis nuclear fusion. I enjoy my 24 and my South Park and Simpsons as much as the next man, if not more.

But I digress. The continuous fare of sculpted stars and starlettes on big screen and small screen and magazine covers living impossibly perfect lives have poisoned the very ideals and aspirations of humanity more than we know.

Before Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabana and their ilk, it was possible for any woman to be beautiful and desirable and sexy. But now that these characters have been on the scene for some time now, anyone not 5′ 6″ with the dimensions 32-24-32 need not apply for the title ‘beautiful’. Thanks to these individuals and their ilk a ludicrous ideal of a beautiful woman has been fronted and women hitherto very comfortable with themselves are now made to feel as if they are acutely wanting. And they have been driven to try and conform.

The repercussions of these are far and wide. Silicon meant for assorted gadgets is increasingly ending up in nether regions. Some people have had so many face lifts the bags under their eyes are actually their knees. Many find themselves forced to give up a perfectly good meal and their meals generally consists of little more than stains on the bottom of saucers in the pursuit of the new benchmark of beauty.

Before Hollywood you could be lovely, whether your skin was black, white, yellow or olive. Several block busters later, if your skin is dark then you need not apply. In fact, if you are black your beauty is in its novelty value. Think Alek Wek.

The African woman settling down to watch good old fashioned TV is not given a moment’s peace. First off is an advertisement by a cosmetics company tellingly called Fair And Lovely. That’s right. Fair and Lovely. They have the temerity to suggest that anyone in possession of dark skin is an unfortunate individual that requires immediate relief. Their website informs me

The dramatic advertisement  actually currently showing on TV unfolds as follows:

A rather fetching lass arrives at an airline office for an interview as an air hostess. The interviewers take one look at her dark skin and dismiss her summarily. Dejected she walks out, holding out a palm with a ten shilling coin. Magically a sachet of Fair And Lovely skin lightening lotion appears on said palm. Over a couple of weeks using the lotion her skin progressively lightens. Then she appears again for the interview, oddly enough in the exact same outfit and the same hairdo. This time the pilot conducting the interview (I kid you not, a pilot was interviewing) is unable to  keep his mouth closed, and the lady from the cabin crew nods her head in approval.

And now already perfectly beautiful women are smearing toxins on their skins to bleach it, ostensibly to look more beautiful. One is unsure what to think upon seeing someone looking like they are wearing a white mask and white gloves, driven to do this by constant bombardment on what the ideal woman is supposed to look like.

The fact that this is not the ideal woman, but someone somehere’s idea of an ideal woman conveniently gets lost in translation.

After being told that they are not light skinned enough, they are also told that they are too big. Years of Cindy Crawfords, Kate Mosses and Naomi Campbells have led the media to conclude that if you look like you are desperately in need of a square meal, and have been so for the past 6 months then you exude beauty and radiance. If your bust is bigger than this, or your hips are bigger than this then not only are you not beautiful, you are assymetrically fat!

So sad, so sad.

I cannot begin to articulate just how much I object to the ludicrous notion that my mother and my friends and my fellow countrywomen, fellow Africans and indeed anyone of the ebony complexion are not beautiful because their skin is not light! Complete and utter rubbish! I’m not going to say anything as knee jerkingly mindless as “black is beautiful”. Personally, I think you can be beautiful, no matter what colour you are.

Popular media has challenged the very concept of quality life. You are not living a successful, quality life if you do not work long hours, hit the club three nights a week, the gym on two and once a week one cocktail with all the right people. This breed of life goes by the name of young, upwardly mobile professional. Anything outside these myopic parameters and you “don’t have a life”. Never mind that truthfully speaking a 54 weeks spent in this fashion are pretty much marking time, and one is completely unable to answer the question “what are you doing with your life”.

So sad, so sad.

Either directly or innuendo has convinced us that the idea of a perfect life is. Cosy job. Colossal house. Trophy spouse. Annual holiday. Two children, a boy and a girl. The token pet. A nanny.

It is tempting to say that these programmes we watch and magazines we read are just mindless entertainment to get away from the realities of life. But the question arises that are we getting so far away from the realities of life that we no longer know what they are?

I am inclined to think that we are, and with the opening of every new mindless reality show, every printing of mindless polls that tell you whether you are happy or not we are retreating further and further into our jewel flaunting, TV watching, yuppie idolizing skin deep society, blissfully aware that with every episode of realtity tv it watches it is losing more and more touch of reality.

Force MDs – Tender Love

[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.

More discussions: explosions, london, london explosions, terrorism

Simon & Garfunkel – Scarborough Fair

[Edit #2]

I fully expected my last post, Live Aid? Please! to stir some interest, and it didn’t disappoint. Responses in terms of posts and actual emails have been coming in thick and fast. The post has been linked to by several websites and blogs, both personal and institutional, and those have sprouted their own discussions.

Which is good.

It is impossible to respond to everyone in person and so I shall first post a monster post and you can pick out your responses. If you were thinking of just reading this before taking a trip to the men’s room to get rid of those 5 cups of coffee, I suggest you go first.

Now, the responses can be broadly categorized as follows:
- The School Of Like Minds agreed entirely with me
- The Band Of Hope thought I was too cynical and should give Bob, Live 8 and Tony Blair a chance
- Dissenting Disciples who disagreed with me in entirety
- The Sanctimonious Schmuck Squad who could not believe my black behind could dare question the good work that was being done in my benefit
- The Cretin Clique who were sure I was a lazy, good for nothing buffoon, wholly ignorant of world affairs and the way things work, content to sit on said black behind and point fingers, wondering what I was doing instead of clicking my fingers every 3 seconds to fight poverty. These are the people who claim to be authorities in Africa by watching CNN, BBC and listening to Akon. They wanted Bob Geldof canonized at the first opportunity and I had jolly well better be grateful for all that was being done for my poor backward self. Well gentlemen, if you are waiting for my gratitude get yourselves a good long book. I suggest War And Peace.
- The Keyboard Kommandos who did not even bother to read the entire post but jumped on their keyboards intent on proving they have opposable thumbs. To these I can say this:
(1) Kindly read the ENTIRE post. My solutions (by no means exhaustive) are peppered throughout. It’s not a Puss In Boots type story with the moral neatly at the end.
(2) Even if I had not suggested any (which is not the case), howling self righteously about problems without solutions is a half baked notion that speaks volumes of life experience amassed purely by a regular diet of television talk shows. Consider you are in the garage and the gardener runs in shouting “Your baby has fallen in the pool”. Does a sane mind retort: “Don’t me the baby fell in the pool! Offer solutions!”?
- The Arrogant Abels who equate my statement “Who can spell Geldof” with a chronic case of Worldly Ignorance. Apparently, knowledge of world affairs is tied to which (in)famous people you know. To these sterling intellects let me just say the point I was trying to make missed you in its entirety.

And oh, one more thing. I am not European or American. I am not writing these thoughts from a comfortable chair in London or New York or Dublin. I am writing these thoughts from a comfortable chair in Africa. I am a full blooded African. I was born in Africa, I studied in Africa, I work in Africa and I live in Africa, Kenya to be precise.

That said and done, I deeply believe in free expression which covers everything from saying what’s on your mind. As for the latter four gaggle of individuals you are also fully entitled to making an ass of yourself. Watching CNN occasionally and listening to Akon does not make you an authority on African affairs.

Now, to answer to the copious feedback I shall do it in the form of a narrative that is partially true and partially fictitious that will illustrate the grim reality of this world.

The Way The World Works

Preamble #1

Kundu
Smack in Central Africa there exists a country called Kundu. (An episode of West Wing had something to the effect that Military planes got permission to fly over Kenyan Airspace to get to Angola, a geographic inaccuracy which was so laughable the name stuck).

People
Kundu is composed of three major tribes, the Kuku, the Unu and the Dudu, numbering 30 million. An amalgamation of the three tribes’ names led to the naming of the country. This was done by the British, who colonized the country briefly. The national bird is the Chicken. The Kundu are peculiar in that they get by with using only one name in lieu of the traditional forename and surname. The chief spoken language is English.

Climate
Kundu has a warm wet tropical climate that is excellent for agriculture. Among the things it grows are foodstuffs, flowers, pyrethrum, cocoa and cotton

Minerals
The Kundu are blessed with diamond deposits and oil wells

Economy
The bastion of Kundu’s economy is the export of the following
- Oil
- Diamonds
- Flowers
- Cotton
- Beef
- Pyrethrum
- Cocoa

Recent History
In the cold war era, some 10 years after their independence, General Felya, a deeply communist leader toppled the popular government in a bloody coup, and to ensure they didn’t return the favour, toppled their heads from their necks, installing himself as President, Fountain Of Honour and Imperial Good Guy™. He immediately declared Kundu a Communist nation and ordered the removal of the words ‘my’ and ‘him’ from the local Dictionaries and Thesauri. Chairman Mao and Josef Stalin called him personally to congratulate him them on their new political dispensation.

Preamble #2

Great States
Shorty after America declared independence, three leading officers of the British army, Major Minor, Major Major and Major Stake unanimously came to the conclusion that it would be unwise for them to return to Britain. Their hesitation was understandable after a letter from the King, requesting the specifics as to the circumferences of their necks and asking conversationally if they had any next of kin. By the same token, George Washington was very keen to meet with them and remove their heads with a blunt blade. And so midway between Britain and America they formed a new country the Great States.

People
The population of the Great States is approximately 500 million. 200 million in the State of Stake, 50 million in the state of Minor and 250 million in the state of Major. The people speak English, but have taken liberties in pronunciation and spelling. Those who have heard a Greatan say “Nuclear” will know what I mean.

Climate
Due to its size (it is an entire continent) , Great States enjoys the spectrum of weather.

Minerals
Great States, hereafter called GS enjoys deposits of gold and oil. The gold deposits have been all but exhausted. With the oil, wells have been dug and plants have been built but the oil is not actively extracted.

Economy
GS has one of the biggest economies in the world, remarkably similar to those of other leading economies. Listed in order of contribution these are
- Bullshit
- Electronics
- Pharmaceuticals
- Motor vehicles
- Services
- Assorted farm produce

Recent History
As one of the participants in the cold war, and the warm war before it, GS’s capitalist disposition put it at loggerheads with China and USSR. The communists’ activity deeply concerned the GS leaders and so they fought tooth and nail, hammer and thong, peaches and cream to counter the effects of the communists.

Of late attacks on it by terrorists, militants and assorted yahoos has left GS in no doubt that though it was big and powerful, it was about as popular as the guy who does quality control for electric chairs in death row.

Are we together? Excellent

Chapter One: The Way The World Worked – 1950-1980

Shortly after General Felya took over Kundu and made it communist, concern grew in GS. “How dare they!” the president at the time, Raygun, said indignantly. “We cannot cannot cannot stand by and let this happen!”

And so the 103.45 infantry battalion was told by its Commander In Chief to avail its best men to train freedom fighters to liberate the country.

“What freedom fighters?” A bewildered Major asked as he cleaned his rifle.

“Dunno!” His commanding officer replied, equally bewildered.

Two months later a certain Sergeant Attarms, Harvard educated, came to the light as a freedom fighter passionately opposed to General Felya and his communist government. The battalion parachuted in its men, in the still of the night, while shepherds watched, rendezvoused with Sergeant Attarms and within 6 months had trained Attarm’s army.

For a long time after that, and even now, some people still believe that there is a certain animal in Kundu that sounds precisely like a machine gun. In a few years General Felya realized that fate has a sadistic sense of humour and succumbed to a fatal case of chronic bayonet. Elections were held and invariably the people voted in their beloved liberator sergeant.

The ink had not yet dried on the election tally when a delegation of magnates from the GS bearing gifts of Gold, Frankfurters and Cuban Cigars landed and sought an audience with President Attarms. The President was happy to meet friends of his good friend Raygun.

“Any friend of my friend .. Ha ha! .. is my friend!” Attarms said clapping them in a comradely fashion on the back. Two days later Special Oil sunk its first oil wells, Croak A Cola opened its first bottling plants, Softy (No relation to Wimpy) opened its first fast food store, McAvelli’s opened its own first food store. Henrietta opened a diamond mine and a whole bevy of GS industries set up shop.

A year later a thought struck Raygun and after an exhausting evening of chewing tobacco he asked his Minister for Defence: “By the way, do we still send military hardware to Kundu?”, to which he was informed “Well, Felya may have failed — ha ha! — but his followers are still there. The new government needs arms to protect its people.”

Two years later increasing reports of torture chambers and members of the opposition shooting themselves in the head before setting themselves on fire, making use of elevators to get to the roofs of tall buildings and jumping from their rooftops caused some concern in the leadership of GS.

“Well,” Raygun observed philosophically, unaware that his copyright material was to be later infringed by F D Roosevelt, “He may be a sonofabitch, but he’s OUR sonofabitch.”

Back in Kundu, it became extremely unwise to pass a photo of the President For Life and Imperial Majesty without bowing at least 45 degrees and not more than 90 degrees. Speaking of the president in any way other than devoted fervour was tantamount to treason and was punishable by spot execution. His birthday was a national holiday. He was a passionate believer in Nike’s logo and he Just Did It, objections of husbands and boyfriends notwithstanding.

“But why don’t we just remove him?” The unwary would ask.

The wiser would mince no words.

“What part of ‘I am henceforth president for life’ didn’t you understand? 90% of the budget goes to the army, nitwit. You try and remove him!”

And so for 25 years the Kundunese made as much progress on the path of development as a glacier going uphill. There’s something about AK-47s, AR-14 Carbines and men in jungle green all over the place that just kill the spirit of initiative and development. It was thought, and understandably so, a brain was best without a bullet in it. Those who think nothing can stop a brilliant mind have clearly never beheld the effects of a sharp machete on the same.

“But don’t these guns rust or something? How do they replace them?”

“Which part of ’90% of the budget goes to the army’ didn’t you understand, nitwit?”

“Surely the Western world can help us! We can’t vote him out and we can’t remove him because he has all the guns.”

“And just who, pray tell, do you think supplied the guns?”

And so life went on. Dissent was silenced not by debate but by bullet. And Special Oil, Croak A Cola, Softy, McAvelli and others happily wired billions and billions back home.

But God is a merciful God. Five years later either a lightning strike or a cruise missile (opinion is still divided) struck the President’s barracks and ignited the fuel depot. The former was speculated by the presence of a large number of Soviet Gentlemen spotted drinking comradely Vodka in the presidential dining hall.

President Attarm’s well known horse hair wig was found some 30 kilometers from the barracks. President Attarm was not found immediately below his charred headpiece. Kundu was free.

Chapter Two: The Way The World Works – 1980-2000

The new President of Kundu, Dude, got to work with zest. Painfully aware of how bad leadership cost the country, he set to work laying out institutions and procedures. The only people to carry guns were the police. All soldiers were to remain at their barracks until further notice. Looking at the statements of accounts he discovered that they were so deeply in the red they were able to see the other side of the spectrum.

“Crikey!” He observed to his finance minister. “I’ve never seen so many zeroes after a negative sign!”

His consternation deepened after he observed the contracts being enjoyed by companies owned by the late Felya’s good friends.

“5 dollars for a 100 year lease? Zero taxes? Zero duties? Zero mining fees? Over my dead body!”

Within the hour panicked calls rung at the Pink House, the residence of the GS president and a day later a powerful delegation landed at Kundu’s capital, Cluck.

President Dude quickly discovered precisely what being between a rock and a hard place meant.

“Look, if you want to have your zillion dollar debt waived, and money to build schools and hospitals, just leave these contracts as they are, capische?” The Greatan Minister for Trade was a keen follower of the Godfather trilogy and was willing to demonstrate it.

“We’ll give you a hundred thousand bucks to build roads. However please find in this slip of paper the contractors, engineers, surveyors etc you should use … what’s that? They all seem to be GS firms? Why what a coincidence! Anyway, just sign here and we’ll be on our way.

Unable to enjoy the benefits of his country’s diamonds and oil, the president and his advisors brainstormed.

“Well, it looks like we are somewhat at the loose end,” the president observed to his cabinet.

The cabinet, and to be precise the Minister For Education, expressed itself at length and in great detail. That they had a lot to say, and a firm grasp of the language became quickly apparent. The air turned blue for miles around the state house. The secretary taking minutes resigned her commission five minutes into the meeting, on grounds that her duties were incompatible with her Christian upbringing.

“But there’s not much we can do about it.”

His sentiments were unwittingly to be echoed some years later at a series of cabinet meetings in Iraq when the sensitive subject of Iraqi oil wells arose.

“All right,” the president said philosophically, “We can concentrate on agriculture. As Ice Cube says, ‘you can do it, put your back into it’.”

So Kundunese flowers and pyrethrum, of a singularly good quality began to arrive at Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

A Briton farmer took one look at a Kundunese rose and ran howling for his MP.

A week later a new requirement was placed for all flower exports from Africa:
a) Inspection fee (none refundable) to be paid to EU appointed inspector. Criteria of what Inspector is looking for are not mentioned.
b) All African flowers should be sprayed with InsecticideX, which has, among its ingredients, gold fillings.
c) All African flowers must have an odd number of petals

A cabinet meeting was hurriedly called.

The Education Minister has been polishing up his vocabulary. His tirade rattled windows and cracked the large plate glass window overlooking the lawn.

“Well, looks like we’re headed for the high jump. This new flower requirement will nip us in the bud, of you’ll pardon the expression.” President Dude said.

The finance minister raised a harassed and unhappy countenance to his fellows.

“This new regulation just screws us completely. Our annual income will drop to … let’s see — borrow one, carry one — five bucks.”

“If I can summarize or predicament. We have oil and diamonds that we are quite frankly giving away, so we can’t make money out of that. We can’t sell our flowers or pyrethrum either. Basically we have a large debt and no income.”

“But what about cocoa?” The health minister asked plaintively.

The agriculture minister shook his grey head sadly.

“Since we have lousy infrastructure, it costs us 97 cents to get a unit of cocoa to the market, which is sold for 1 dollar. This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that it costs GS framers 40 cents, AND their government subsidizes them 50 cents per unit.”

“Well, as I heard my son tell one of his friends yesterday, ‘whichever way the die falls we’re screwed’.”

Enter Live 8
Now, if you have read that narrative you are in a position to digest the following

PRAGMA ONE: AWARENESS IS NOT A PROBLEM
Africa is not something that was discovered the other day. Africa has been around for millions of years. People have known about it ever since the first ship was built. Africa’s problems have been covered from time immemorial, even more during the colonization of the continent by the British, German and French in the infamous “Scramble For Africa”. There exist reams and reams of footage, books, newspapers and articles of the continent and its problems from the 30s onwards. Anyone claims not to know Africa’s problems, especially after factoring in the ludicrously skewed coverage of Africa is either living in his own world or lying through his teeth.

PRAGMA TWO: WHO WAS TO BLAME
The very African General Felyas and the very foreign Rayguns of this world must take credit for contributing to the state of affairs of Africa in the period of the 60s to the 90s. This is a truth, but at present it is a meaningless truth. So what? The blame game solves precisely no solutions. However the events in the past directly precipitate the events of today and we have to deal with them today.

PRAGMA THREE: DEMOCRACY
Politicians are the same the world over — your opinion only counts in the run up to the elections, and only to guide them to say the right things. After that you are just an ignorant irritant to them and they’d be very happy if they never heard from you.

President Raygun did not consult his constituents before effecting the actions that he did. In fact he was quite unmoved by the protests.

The concert was ostensibly to force the G8 leaders to act. My friends, the fact that our opposition to the war in Iraq was disregarded in its entirety should speak volumes of the power you have over your politicians and what they think of Democracy!

PRAGMA FOUR: THE BOTTOM LINE
Africa is a gloriously cheap source of minerals, oil, agricultural produce, ore, etc.. That coffee and tea you drink, that chocolate you enjoy shortly before rushing to the gym probably came from a farmer who was paid a couple of cents to Cadbury’s who probably make a 10000% markup on it.

Make no mistake about it – in a world where resources are running scarce it is in G8′s best interests to retain this state of affairs, no matter how well meaning their populace is. After all, the people snapping their fingers are not the ones balancing budgets.

If you expect President Raygun to give up free oil and free diamonds, and to suddenly let his countrymen’s companies be taxed out of their back teeth my friend you have got to be kidding! If he does this it will mean increased prices for his people, and who, pray tell, would want that?

PRAGMA FIVE: VESTED INTERESTS
There are deeply vested interests in keeping Africa precisely where it is. However the demands of the populace have caused some rumination to happen among the G8. It will be political suicide to do nothing. However it would be suicide to do what they are told. The result? Compromise
- Waive Debt? [x]
- Double Aid? [x]
- Donate material support (nets, HIV medicine, etc.) [x]
- Open the markets and enable Africa to stand on its own [HECK NO!]
- Stop plundering, raping and pillaging the continent of its resources [HECK NO!]
- Stop shipping mines, guns and ammunitions to Congos and Sudans and Somalias [HECK NO!]

That’s three apiece.

Another example. Some time back, the United States made a lot of furore as they objected to generic Antiretroviral drugs, copies of copyrighted drugs made by their manufacturers. Then there was the little bother of some people sending others poisoned mail. The drug to counter this little bit of additive was copyrighted elsewhere but good old US said quite blatantly that they were going to make their own generic version, copyright or copyleft notwithstanding.

Moral – countries will always act in their own interests first, second and third.

PRAGMA SIX: REAL SOLUTIONS
Utterly pointless to waive Kundu’s debt and they are unable to sell their oil, diamonds and flowers to raise the money they need to build schools, hospitals and so forth. They will be back in debt within SIX MONTHS. Waiving debts is completely meaningless on its own!

Granted, a good chunk of African countries have the most mediocre leadership ever to sully the face of this planet. We have fellows who buy themselves 400,000$ colossal cars and a week later are at the IMF gates with hats in hand. I dare say if these schmucks had strong grips attached to their trouser seats and they were bounced down the front steps they’d be forced to live within their means. Aid paid to most countries goes straight into numbered Swiss Accounts.

Civic education is the most glaring omission in most political dispensations in Africa that masquerade as democracy. This we must address both systematically and in public fora like these.

Shovelling aid at these wastrels is just filling their Swiss bank accounts and allowing them to get a 8 door Mercedes instead of 6 door ! It is ludicrous for the West to rant and rave at Museveni at his lack of democracy and yet 60% of the Ugandan budget, most of which is used by the military comes from the very same West!

PRAGMA SEVEN: LIVE AID
The attendants of the concerts no doubt were well intentioned. In fact I was impressed at the turnout. Most of the attendants I believe were genuine, but I fear largely ignorant of the unbelievably murky world of global politics that they live in. But ask yourself — how many farmers in G8 countries were at that concert snapping their fingers, championing the waiving of subsidies that line their pockets?

So now after P Diddy and Destiny’s Child and U2 and Dido have performed people know the G8 agenda. Big wow! So what?

The democracy we have today is nothing like what Plato envisaged. You cannot make Tony Blair or George Bush or Chirac do anything. If you couldn’t stop them from going to war, I wonder what you could stop them from doing.

But I can wager that subsidies and other uncompetitive tactics are here to stay. I don’t see them sacrificing their farmers and their pocket friendly golden goose on the altar of an African Renaissance.

I can hardly wait for the outcome of the G8 meeting, but I can wager good money that the check-list will be as I have outlined above.

So for those who attended the Live 8 – thanks for the concern and the passion.

PRAGMA EIGHT: BOTTOM LINE
The G8 is not going to shoot itself in the foot to help out the Congolese or the Sudanese or the Somali. Bush and Blair went to war to smoke out alleged weapons. People are being raped, bombed and shot in plain open in Darfur but the pressing urgency that Bush and Blair had seems to have dissipated. In case Bush and Blair missed the Seven O’Clock news, the Darfur crisis has been on for well over two years.

The difference? There is nothing in Darfur that anyone wants, just as there was nothing in Rwanda.

You have a long wait if you thing Tony Blair, George Bush, Jacques Chirac etc are going to dump their farmers and industries in the noble cause of freeing Africa from its shackles.

We will be left to our own devices, problems or not until we have something that they want urgently enough to justify their discomfort. Just ask Iraq.

MORAL
It’s good to be optimistic, but then again you should also always have your feet on the ground.

AOB

Here’s to Luther. One of the greatest singers of all time.

Ciara – 1,2 Step