FEMINISM IN BLACK: and an ode to Neda

This grand painting attributed to Caravaggio perhaps captures adequately the mood of the first feminist movement. "Feminism: It isn't only for lesbians anymore"

My constitutional law lecturer, Mrs Pamela sporting modest heels, a witty tongue and that ubiquitous black skirt designed to flatter well toned legs magnificently,stands at the stage and tells me women rule the world. How can I not believe her when half the class is swimming in drool? Men being the visual creatures that they are, and gender disparities being what they are.

Being not unintelligent, I’ve always been loosely aware of the universal mantra of Amazondom. ‘If you’re intelligent and have a vagina, you rule the world.’ Secretly, everyone knows this to be true. From the king who wishes to place a kingdom at his Cophetua’s feet to the beggar who wants to win the chief’s daughter. There was Corazon Aquino, the plain housewife in a yellow dress who dissembled the Marcos dictatorship in a whirl of yellow ribbons with roses at her feet and Cristina Kirchner who wooed voters, literally, hair bouncing in the wind. Red lips, all woman. Each cascading lock swinging some crucial undecided voter.

Years after white women, in a fit of domestic fatigue and sexually frustrated and repressed rage (or was it the other way round?) decided to burn their bras, the fires have spread to Africa. Feminism has gone black, and in two words…it’s a jumbled mess- in all its various age brackets. The 18-24 girls with that deliciously girly,bra optional, no make-up needed mien, they can afford to be unidealistic. They want to be pampered in these their ‘best years’. You can treat them like tarts as long as you pick up the tab. For the 25-36 bracket, a radical shift in priorities has taken place. They still want to someone to pick up the tab but they must not be condescended to. At all. Middle age is a labyrinth. Dealing with mistresses and wrinkles in equal measure. Of course culture, education and lifestyle shift the dynamics greatly.

In Kenya, the feminist movement is in dire need of a pin-up girl. It must not be Martha Karua. Arguably one of the best legal minds here. Brass-balled divorcée…I love her to pieces. But she emasculates the men and alienates the women. But then again, it can’t be anyone else. The women want to be repelled. A recent initiative by gender-based groups which called for a voluntary ‘dry spell’ of sorts for the sake of institutional reforms was a nationwide flop. Fiercely intelligent women in protest argued that by deploying their genitalia as bargaining instruments, they were advancing the notions of women being, well…sex bunnies. The rest, who had no argument, just wanted to get laid.

The question needs to be asked, though. What are feminism’s footprints in post-independence Kenya. The subsistence sector of our economy is a woman industry. Yes, women are running the country and go-figure…they are the last to know.

Because Africa was colonized, women here didn’t really get a gradual understanding of their own femininity. It was already defined for them. The modern goals and demands of the African woman are heavily borrowed and imported from the West. And what confusing signals this importation brings. African Traditions dictate that we be seen, not heard. Scratch that, they said. Don’t wear bras…!? We didn’t to begin with. It became okay all of a sudden to sleep around. You weren’t loose, you were liberated. We could drink men to bed. Love them, and leave them. Fast-forward to this century and you have to wear spandex and padding just to get a line thrown at you…how I do so desire those kiss-ass days of yore!

The timeless stereotypes are still alive. A career-oriented woman with no children is secretly hiding testicles under her skirt. If you cry you’re a hysterical female, if you don’t you’re a man. Low IQ and culinary skill is still the secret to a lasting union. You mustn’t watch politics or business and if you do, you must feign complete miscomprehension. And men aren’t helping matters any…but again, they never have. They want to be the breadwinners. They want to hunt. They want someone, ideally a woman, in the kitchen. And they secretly want to pick up the tab. Anything else is a disruption of set rites and designated roles. Yet our roles are changing every day. How are we to cope?

All around the country women are waking up to the coffee-fresh realization that there’s more to life than breeding and cook shows. Martha Stewart and Oprah? We’re not that pathetic. Barefoot and pregnant has become passe. Women want to not pop babies; in heels. Six inch. What I find infinitely depressing is that once you’re liberated, you’re labelled a slut. but more’s the woe: liberated women are sluts. the current state of things is: sex sells. Yes still. Ergo the magazines with sex tips that make you blush. Men sleep around, women can sleep around better. But is this what it’s all about? The hard truth is that women don’t know what they want. Do they want to be the Ventriloquist or his dummy? Do they want the corner office or a modern kitchen with a friendly oven? Do they want to be demur or feisty? Brainy or compatible, abrasive or soft-spoken. Unfortunately for women, there is no middle ground.

Yet what is my contribution to the Good Fight? Beyond silently chanting Allon-y mes braves! to those clamouring for affirmative action. With adolescence and mood swings, I always thought I should concentrate on living to fight another day. Yet still in the remote parts, White beards are holding beer fests to discuss daughters-swaps. The inappropriate kind. And in the city there’s a Slap-on-the-wrist policy for male clients and a nothing-but-cell one for prostitutes bundled away in Black Maries. I thought it was enough to buy my own drinks and give a spirited mock protest when he offered to…refusing one for the team.

Is feminism dynamic or am I just a pretentious feminist?

 

Raila and other stories

Raila is a fraud and I want my money back. No, no…keep the change because this man is one interesting piece of work.

What cannot bend must break, and what you break you own. This appears to me to be the single-minded intent with which Raila signed the National Accord of April 2008. The date says it all, the 13^th of all days. There is therefore no need to further pollute the ozone with carbon-emissions from Geneva-bound planes on hatchet-burying missions when the accord is being actively negotiated in front of our very eyes. I thought it callous, the call for snap elections when the smoke had barely risen from Kiambaa. We owe something to the dead. An assurance perhaps that none will die as ghastly as they did.

Raila is a born strategist with superb organizational skills. The Rainbow Alliance that was instrumental in Kibaki’s first successful presidential bid had his fingerprints all over it. (I refuse to comment on his second bid). The ’07 pentagon merger had that Agwambo shine as well. He was right on the money with Balala and Mudavadi because these were men of little consequence. Men who could be compelled and whose dreams for the presidency were nothing but ‘idle flights of fancy’.  But with Ruto, he refused to see a man like him. A self-made man who carved himself out of nothing- literally because Ruto had neither a name nor an inheritance. He made his own way by the sheer force of his personality and the strength of his intellect. Raila either disregarded or  refused to see that Ruto’s  eyes too were on the prize. Of these two Raila seems to me what euphemism ascribes ‘the lesser evil’. His reformist credentials are more ‘up-market’ than Ruto’s.

His detentions and series of incarcerations in the eighties following coup collaboration suspicions and later KRM(Kenya Reform Movement) involvement. He is an indispensable figure in multiparty reform saga. But he upsets this unblemished record with a brief stint in the Moi government; Energy minister 2001-2003. And  serves as KANU Secretary General after subsequent party elections. I can rationalize this in a world where the end justifies the means and I do respect ambition. But when you lie with the dogs…KANU is almost a rite of passage where every politician must ‘make his bones’. For him is the Molasses stench.

There is something restless about him. Something restless about the Magdeburg-trained Engineer who lectures for five years, quits to join KBS and quits that too. After his return from Norway in ’92 he joined FORD, challenged Wamalwa for chairmanship after his father’s death, lost and left. Joined NDP, then KANU,LDP,NARC and finally ODM after the 57-43 referendum of November, 2005. A serial party hopper? He reminds me of Ahab who sails the high seas in search of the ferocious whale, Moby dick, which manages to unfailingly elude his nets.  And when the chance is tantalizingly within reach…there are no good endings. If Melville’s literary masterpiece is anything to go by, I think one shouldn’t get addicted to the chase.

And now as an arm of the Grand Confusion he has lost that thing that was instrumental in shaping his career, namely the right to criticize the government. It is this that the She-man from Gichugi gained through her resignation- a moral high ground. For Martha was neither a reformer nor a lone agent for change in a system that was unspeakably corrupt; the picture she was trying to sell a while back. She was Kibaki’s personal pittbull and the snub in favour of Uhuru in ’08 was too much to bear…’ nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’ Enough said. It is this system that Raila is now a part of and by dint of the guilt by association rule; the ‘it ain’t me’ argument can only take him so far. The whole ‘PNU is taking the reform agenda hostage’ angle is getting old. It won’t  wash till 2012.

And after, in my view, winning the bitterly debated leader of government business round I advise Muthaura to have a manageable fear for his post.

All in all I do think Raila is in the twilight years of his existence, politically, and while his ambitions might not have been fully quenched he should concentrate on cementing his legacy. Something that maize is not helping too greatly with. There will be a handover to the next crop.  He should use the power he has consolidated so far to initiate reforms, not wrestle more power through the accord. When will it ever be enough to effect change?

 

“My poverty is incomplete, it lacks me”

 

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough. ~William Shakespeare

Like everyone else I have qualms with my upbringing. I resent not being born in a mansion in one of those leafy Nairobi suburbs with Swiss neighbours Günter and Zelda, a missionary couple or foreign expats perhaps tired of Western reserve and looking to find themselves in untamed Africa. We would have had a houseboy called Juma and a dog affectionately named Simba. Ahh…how I would have adored Juma, and Simba too.

I resent the view from this side; it’s not glossed with that enchanting patina of opulence, ornamented with trinkets that only money can buy. Resent that I cannot afford that indifference to money that those with too much of it can. Those with something more than a passing familiarity with it. Resent also the numerous encounters with that word ‘No’, the incredulous truth that there are those to whom it has never been uttered. Yet, as I look on it now not with the petulance of a six-year-old but with the cool calm of a maturing awareness…it’s gentle resentment. Nothing seething.

But where does that come from? When we’re young we’re all Kings. All idiotically happy. We play with mud with the same enthusiasm that the children of Runda play with their illogically expensive toys. Where does that go? That fascination with the elegance of crude simplicity. And where are those first lessons in the love of money held? Money is the sixth sense without which you cannot enjoy the other five and so on.

It’s at school, is it not, those centers of diversity where we hear other children talk and we learn what is normal to us isn’t so. It is here that we are exposed to a world outside our reach that shuns us and teaches us to be ashamed of who we are. To despise it.

You learn fast that you are invisible…to the chauffeurs behind tinted windows, to the pretty people in air-conditioned cafes. A statistic to the media. Everybody thinks you should be helped, no one wants to. Wanjiku means something to everyone: to the rich, a reassuring reminder of their superfluities, to the government a pitching point for donor aid, to the West a platform for imperialism through this same aid. She has existed under different labels in the annals of history: the pleb of ancient Rome, the proletariat of revolutionist France. But I ramble…

I am grateful for my poverty, and my shame. You’re not human until that dehumanizing feeling of self-deprecating worthlessness washes over you. I’m grateful because it has allowed me to touch the world, raw and unshielded; there’s none of that cushion that money provides. I’m not trying to romanticize poverty…there are the rich for that. Besides there’s nothing romantic about want. And yet there is this…a truth. It’s in the dusty streets where people laugh most heartily, in the overcrowded Kongowea market where the hum of a thousand voices makes happy discordant music. It is an overwhelming sensation to feel the pulse of a people. To hear them mourn and laugh, to see them suffer and triumph and see the realization of a father’s forsaken dreams come alive in his son and to feel the feeble grasps of humanity among these children of a lesser god. It is the poetry of living. Hope. And it is recited everyday from daybreak to dusk. Here…like a rose growing among thistles and thorns. I can live on this I think. On a little, but not on less.

In a way it is easier to be poor. Your path is mapped out for you with mind-freeing ease. A path out of the slum. The means of course can’t always be justified. It fills you with a paralyzing fear of being nothing. And fear is a compass. It is after all the son of tears and want who learns to make the future grow, but entirely the happy child who prances about looking for the private glades where he played. When you come from nothing, you have nothing to lose.

There’s a man who peddles water in our neighbourhood during the shortages. He’s about 5’6 with rough workman’s hands, a sonorous voice and a genuine laugh. A Mijikenda man who goes by the name Wakenya, by far the greatest man I have ever known. He gives his lowly, labourious job such a grace and dignity and when he laughs it isn’t a hollow laugh, it’s infectious. He seems untouched, artless to the seductive charms of money or immune to them. There’s no greed in him at all. The good life is the simple life. Ahh..my soul loves him. And as I think grudgingly of those leafy suburbs, of Günter and Zelda and of whether I would ever have met Wakenya on those well-lit pavements, those manicured lawns…it’s gentle resentment. Nothing seething.

The sun kisses my back, a burning hot kiss.  A child smiles, artless and innocent. A madman grins, gently and then idiotically. The wind blows…how can I not be alive? He stands in the rain, he smiles. He shivers and he laughs. Is he more sane than I who smile at nothing? Where is Apollo’s Oracle to give me a purpose. Here where even the winds blow in circles, following no path.

It helps to have no expectations in life. Simple pleasures. I am poor in silver but I claim everything else; the Sun, the smell of wet earth, the sea. They are mine.

 

 

Cupid’s reflections

 

In Roman mythology, Cupid (Latin cupido) is the god of erotic love and beauty. He is also known by another one of his Latin names, Amor (cognate with Kama).

I need a definition of love…yes we’re back to that. Again. I feel like a definition is half the work. If you know it you can avoid it…or find it better. (Pick one people, and run with it!)

I look for it’s meaning in those around me and frankly, I’m disappointed. Is love something you pick up at Maggie’s half-drunk on a Friday night or does it reside in more morally sanitary conditions? Is it something you bump into along Moi Avenue or does it require, like perfection, the gentle touch of time? Is it, per Camus, ‘madness and confusion’ or is that just a gimmick to cover up the fact that we’re all certifiably insane?

Is love a colour? Red? Do we paint it on and wear it, and own it? Can love be summed up in words or in a gaze or in a touch, or a kiss? Does love obey Newton’s laws or is it on a downward trajectory, bound for the inevitable crash?

Where does love lie? In the heart or in the head? And how long is this journey from the cerebrum to the cardiac cavity? Is love the truth or is it the greatest story ever sold?

Who gets the girl? Is it the quiet intelligence or Mr. Popularity? And who gets the guy? Saintly Mary or not-so-sweet Sue? The mating rites at Campus make T.V an unnecessary and expensive hassle. Fertile ground for as impressionable a mind as mine.

Some opt for the consumerist approach…they buy it. Lunch, clothes, weaves…the whole enchilada. No romance without finance. I can understand this, I suppose, in an offer-limited-while-stocks-last kind of world. To each his own, right? Besides, you have to give some to get some.

There are those who try to hide from it. In library basements and behind computer screens. Those who fear inadequacy and hurt. But what’s worse? A broken heart that can mend or one fully intact and empty? It’s terribly easy for me to condescend from the spectator bench…or my usual high horse.

And those who think they have it; illusion, smoke and haze. Heedless that love is mortal, susceptible to death.

Others prefer to wait for it. Others like myself. Does it come by ship or rail I wonder? Like some import of some strange and enchanted foreign land? Or an arrow through the heart?

Where is the indisputable proof of its existence in a world where weapons of mass destruction exist; proof that there’s no love lost. Where is its assurance in an Akinyi-chinedu world? Or is it that thing evidenced by a ring, consummated by cake.

Is love its own reward or does it demand something in kind? Is it something tangible or are we damned to blind groping in a candless room? Is love the good ache…is there even such a thing?

‘It’s about finding someone who you can tolerate better than the others and giving until it hurts,’ my friend tells me. He’s male so by dint of this very fact his emotional intelligence was neutered on arrival. I had hoped for something a little less clinical. Why if Troilus had displayed such vague sentiment to Cressida, romanticism would be beggarly for it!

I’m not looking for those cheesy Hollywood one-liners about seeing forever in his eyes. Just a truth that can be endured. Yet is it a contradiction in terms to wish love were something taller than 5’8, had something more than a grudging acquaintance with Shakespeare? Can love be chivalrous and funny or is that too much to ask of this hustler-thug generation? Will love be the father of my children?

Is love what comes after loneliness or is it the other way round…and is it complete lunacy to ask for assurance in this world of clay where everything breaks and nothing lasts…even hearts, even love. Or is it an ideal, something we can only aspire to…

never possess?

 I need a definition of love so that I can know it isn’t this insubstantiality of media-hyped emotion. That it isn’t a third wheel to a meeting of drink and mutual willingness. To know that there’s more…there has to be. And to know that it didn’t pass me by.

 

SONU; the circus is in town

It’s one day to D-day; the SONU elections of May 22nd. And while the weeks leading to it have been characteristically marked by mudslinging, voter ‘swaying’ has gone up a notch. This SONU time of year has seen campus politicos preach one redeeming Gospel message: they came so we could have soda, and soda more abundantly.

Yes, the official symbol for a Kenyan bribe is no longer the time-tested ‘Chai’- plummeting overseas prices and inefficiency at KTDA saw to it that disgruntled farmers plucked out tea bushes with others going up in smoke- literally. So it’s basically Brrrrrrr and Bamboocha time.

These weeks were marked by aspirants raiding your room with their ass-kissing entourage on an epiphanic mission to ‘get to know you’. Of course none of these well-meaning social calls would have occurred earlier in the semester because no one would have given a rat’s ass- constructively or otherwise- who you were. Isn’t life a crock? All the same you had to laugh half-heartedly at jokes with no punch lines, nod agreeably about friend requests on facebook, smile inwardly at these hawk-eyed entourage who for a higher cut would gladly play for the other team; mercenaries or hire with an unwavering loyalty to the shilling. Mercenaries who smell money like sharks smell blood.

The electioneering period, marked by flagrant voter bribery (which one may argue is in line with the nationalistic, if not humanitarian efforts of pumping money into a slumping economy), the lack of ideals, and the corruption of the whole system makes our national parliamentarians seem like sound candidates for sainthood.

But this isn’t even tragic yet. It isn’t the rabid hypocrisy that incenses me. It isn’t the Keg conspiracy- you know, the feeding of young minds with such unsavoury brew so as to dim any glimmer of logic nor the lies told with unflinching gazes. It’s this new phenomenon. This self-pontification of virtues. This churning out of Obama one liners: it’s not about me, it’s about you…Really!? I mean, just when you think you’ve seen it all we have these little demagogues (some of the candidates are curiously short-statured) chanting hope slogans. It’s depressing to see how far from the inspiration mark they fall.

They publicize their clashes with the ‘powers that be’, wear these incidents like badges of honour. Irrefutable proof of their martyrdom. SONU operates on a budget of about 39million. It has no budgetary oversight body which makes misappropriation the only ‘politically correct’ thing to do. The SONU constitution might just be, save for the real owners of Mobitelea, the most jealously guarded secret in Kenya.

A few bleeding hearts swear to rectify this sorry state of affairs once elected…but I’m hardly holding my breathe. Campus politics operates in a very narrow field. Firstly, the pernicious class wars between parallel students and regular students- wealth versus merit some say. It’s age –old tension bursting at the seams and worsened by shortage of amenities, primarily bed-space. Tribe, believe it or not! Every tribal grouping , save for the Ogiek and Dorobo, have associations from which one of ‘their own’ enjoys frenzied and unsolicited support.

‘ Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers’: Tennyson. You can’t take the village out of the man, eh?

And lastly, money. It accords you a certain comparative advantage. Who controls the on-campus businesses is always a political affair. Do you know someone who knows someone? So it is that campus bureaus rightly belonging to the needy students are owned and managed by student leaders- illegally might I add. SONU is high stakes. It’s a stepping stone. A promise that if you amass as much student funds as you can chiefly from the bursary pool that should be rightly awarded to the deserving, you will be handed the keys to the kingdom- the Kenyan coffers.

 That’s why there’s an ODM and PNU faction. That’s why Ruto and or Biwott, so rumour has it, are funding one Nickson Korir who is vying for the post of SONU secretary general. That’s why aspirants are churning out cash faster than ATMs on crack. And why Coca-Cola is enjoying a bumper harvest of sorts. Saturday the 16th was the designated day for nomination paper submission. Motorists on parklands road can attest to this.

Things headed South but not on a large scale. What’s with University students and this seemingly endless fascination with the roads? Come Friday every serious contender will have prepared adequately- bribed the clerks, bribed the voters and mudslinged as though his very life depended on it.

There are already some aspirants who have been tied to the Mungiki sect by the rumour mill- which for the record is having a field day. The not so serious contenders stick to their ideals and live on a prayer; the outcome is almost always invariably disastrous. They have one year to impress me. Ten to one they won’t. Who ever heard of a politician being worth his salt?

‘Soda keeps you relevant,’ one told me.

 Can I get a Brrrrrrrr?

 

 

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

The painting, Hope, by George Frederic Watts is a representation of the Greek mythological entity of Hope. Legend has it that Prometheus sealed Hope inside Pandora's box. When the evils were released from the box, Hope stayed. Although Hope is more of an idea than an actual figure it is sometimes personified as in Watts's Hope.

During the post election violence that gripped the country after the results of the 2007 presidential elections were announced, a question gripped me. It hasn’t let go ever since. Is evil something in us? Is it something we’re born with…something we have to conquer to gain redemption? Like killing off a piece of ourselves. Or is it something foreign? Something we have to acquire a taste for?

I was in bed that night and outside I could hear the heavy sound of footfall; marching around the estate. (I came from one of those areas where ‘sporadic unrest’ occurred.) I wasn’t afraid then because I’d spent the past few week s in a state of permanent terror. Fear had become a religion…and we sacrificed to it pieces of ourselves everyday. I was angry. Angry that these hoodlums without a cause could make me feel unsafe in my own home. Still, out of respect for self-preservation, I maintained a sound fear for my life.

So I lay in bed and through the deliberate footfalls, I could remember in abstraction, hazily, a discussion on the sources of evil in society from a previous C.R.E lesson in high school. (It’s surprising what can come to you when death is mark timing in shorts outside your door. Ps- see Mrs. Mureithi, I was actually paying attention!) Anyway, African tradition attributed evil to the external, to those things beyond our control; Christianity to man’s nature that is highly susceptible to evil. I much favoured the African approach because I do believe in our humanity. Shaky and sickly at times but it is there. My mother has tried to kill this ‘Ann Frank’ optimism but it’s an obdurate streak in me. It refuses to die. She thinks it criminal for someone my age to harbor this brand of naiveté.

But it was the night after Kiambaa, and my views on world goodness had changed considerably.

‘He who cannot live in society is either a god or a beast’: Aristotle.

Are we beasts? It scares me this line of thinking because I mirror myself in others. I look for myself, for my humanity in them. I look for in people the same thing I look for in food. I’m not a picky eater. Yes, yes. Sue me. I subscribe to these Hippie philosophies of humanity being a web. Step on a butterfly here; cause a tornado in China and all that. Chaos theory and then some… Like every other walking cliché, I’m secretly an optimist masquerading as a cynic. I also moonlight as a romantic…

But Kiambaa killed something in me, in all of us I guess. For me it was the right to believe in the inherent goodness of others. It was blind faith that didn’t need anything to anchor on, I’ve lost the right to practice that futile religion of hope, which much like my Christianity, I do not understand but practice anyway. The world isn’t black and white anymore. I see the shades of gray. Because people have such an amazing capacity to love, we must also appreciate that they can feel unadulterated hate. Because they can build, they can destroy.

In the wake of the discharge of the suspects of the Kiambaa killings due to insufficient evidence, I want to launch into some Dickensian rant about better hanging an innocent man than no man at all. But I resist the urge because I see how easy it is for one to paralyze one’s soul with hatred…and evil. I resist because evil, like apathy, is something we must resist. So let’s console ourselves with pointless truths that those who died were too good for the world and be awakened to the knowledge that evil is both around and in us. But these days I doubt that there’s much goodness left. Is there?

 

Migingo; time to settle this once and for all

An aerial view of the disputed island. The island has a population of about 500, who are served by four pubs, a pharmacy and a number of brothels.

It’s Museveni to the West, Al-shabaab to the North, the Pirates to the East and post-Socialist suspicions from the South. We are in that position, as one once said, to attack the enemy on all sides. Famous last words, I think. Let’s head west.

Museveni is spoiling for a fight…and in not so subtle ways. The fact that he’s choosing a one-acre rugged and rocky island half the size of a football pitch as the battleground is inspired! Really it is.

Now like the rest of the melanin-endowed people- or should I say melanin-burdened- I’ve come to the point of African maturity in which one attains a certain indifference to neo-colonialism. You know, the nice white people who tell us when and when not to stage our own civil wars- The nerve!

But one must admit that as founders of the Republican concept, they do have some paternal authority in telling us how to run our fledging and miserably failing democracies

We are used to our sovereignty being undermined by the West- we have budgetary deficits to show how established a feature of modern African government this is. But when a fellow, equally unimportant African nation tries it; that’s where we should naturally draw the line!

This brings me home…and to our lame-duck president. One look at Kibaki and you know he’s a man who needs to brush up on his Machiavelli. The amount of public discontent going around makes Nixon (he of the Watergate fame) look iconic. Of course this would all somehow matter if Kibaki actually gave a damn- the indifference brimming from State House is borderline Olympian. The man has the PR instincts of…well; take a pick of your favourite African dictator. And Kenyan cynicism being what it is, there are already remarks floating around about Migingo having been ‘secretly’ sold off in a ‘Grand regency type’ deal. This incidentally makes me think that this blend of apathy and cynicism should be the only requirement for Kenyan citizenship. Slap on your best ‘devil-may-care’ expression and suddenly you belong.

But back to the main dish. We need a war. More to the point, Kibaki needs a war- and a victory, a genuine one this time. He needs something to rally the people around him; he needs a legacy. His reputation as a London-schooled economist is as in doubt as a possible prompt resurgence of the global economy. So too his reputation as the ‘gentleman of Kenyan politics’. Migingo is more PR than he could have dreamed. Or Alfred Mutua which, as it goes isn’t saying much.

Now I’m hardly suggesting we get a cover story in the line of Museveni hiding weapons of mass destruction in Migingo. We all know how that story goes. Just a loud enough bark from our military…with a few visible bite marks to boot.

The harassment of fishermen seeking an honest living, the horror stories from the past of them being forced to eat raw fish at gunpoint, some languishing in foreign jails where the ambience is nothing to right home about. It means nothing to be a Kenyan abroad, that’s a given. But it has to mean something here; on our own soil for Heaven’s sake!!

There’s something of a friendly enmity between Uganda and Kenya. Always has been. Reports of declining water levels at Victoria in the past could be attributed to a hydroelectric project at Jinja. And there’s Ugandan folklore that ascribes part of western Kenya for Ugandan territory. If the Ugandans claim Migingo, they’ll be bold enough to claim anything else that ‘tickles their fancy’.

To the objection that the government is too broke to fund this proposed ‘escapade’ is the retort that 140million is too exorbitant a fee to settle border disputes. To the conscientious objectors is stark reality that nations are built on the soils of conquest, not white-livered pacifism; war is the only way of securing peace. Border committees are an elaborate waste of time and an avoidance of the issue. And while we’re busy playing happy families with Museveni’s diplomats, the UPDF is moving beacons in Kenyeris, Pokot. And to those who think that a one acre stretch of land is not worth it- Migingo is hardly about land, or fertile fishing ground. It’s about supremacy and taking a stand. And to postpone this stand taking would be to our detriment.

It’s ours- gospel truth of Tembo and Kibebe, the island’s initial inhabitants of ’91. Uganda’s appetites need to be tamed.

‘Men must either be caressed or annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore we do a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.’ –Machiavelli.

And a better war cry cannot be found.

 

In search of the Kenyan conscience

 

 

Welcome to Kenya, former beacon of hope for the East African region and the greater Africa. It is a third world country currently grappling with the problems that seem intrinsically tied if not divinely pre-ordained for the dark-continent: hunger, pestilence, famine and death- the mainstay of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Add to that poverty, ethnicity and political immaturity and we have a winner! Here where a low-key massacre was staged under the glaring lights of the story-hungry Western media. ‘If it bleeds it leads’ and so on. There was blood…so much blood. The word genocide was loosely bandied about. The West came to the rescue, as usual, with that condescending blend of gun-boat diplomacy and playground taunts about donor budgetary ‘review’. We behaved, chastised. This love affair has an almost a tedious ring.

And lately poor governance which while a given in the Kenyan political context has risen up a notch to power plays over whose toilet can be constitutionally carpeted or not. The politicos are definitely upping the ante!

It’s them. It’s always been about them. But what about us? Who are we as a nation? Where is our compass…moral or otherwise? And does it at all instances have to be defined by this rag-a-tag band of thieves masquerading as reformers. Do we always have to be taken in by them?

I take issue with cynicism. Not mine because mine actually earns me an honest keep- ‘the first duty of a writer is to let down his country’ after all.

In 2003, Kenyans were the must optimistic people in the world. Now we are a people without expectation…without hope. There’s no doubt that Kenya is suffering from battered-woman syndrome. Twenty four years of Moi alone saw to that. And the third time isn’t a charm (read Mwai Kibaki). But this alarming trend in which Kenyans are ready to trust the same old breed of vermin shows a different malady.  And then to have the gall to be surprised by them, to be disappointed in them when they act according to their nature…there’s no mid-way with us. It’s either self-deprecating victimhood or cloud-nine entitlement. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?

It says something about us as a people that we can wake up one sunny day and decide with a surprising surety of purpose to butcher our neighbours…whether on command or ‘sporadically’. Says something unflattering about people who are ready to canonize high grade criminals but show unrepentant savagery to petty offenders who are more like them than they care to admit. Those on whom the African sun has shone cruelly bright and who have been denied a chance to honestly pursue the Kenyan dream. Whatever that is…  

At forty-five, Kenya is relatively at the infantile stages of its existence. It would be a highly imprudent course for us to console ourselves with the woes of those around us for the misery of others is a comfort for fools. Our Asian counterparts have made quantum leaps working on less than we have been endowed with. We have all the potential in the world to succeed, and in just the right doses: a vital and energetic youth, an enviable degree of political consciousness and a unmatchable entrepreneurial zeal. So why are we constantly missing the ‘failed states’ list by the skin of our teeth? Why are anti-establishment Mafia rings like Mungiki gaining such resonance and sympathy with the mainstream, who are us. We’ve lost that right that we brazenly claimed for our own once to say: ‘Karibu Kenya. Hakuna matata.’ Something has gone terribly wrong somewhere.

I feel we’re a nation without a conscience. We need to find what makes us Kenyan. Define it. Make it a part of our instincts. And this doesn’t need to emanate from the political class. It has to be from us who are the heart and soul of it.

Welcome to Kenya.

The future is for us.

 

Campus living

It’s months into the campus experience and the glow of newness, that enigmatic aura that surrounds those things in life that seem to us mysterious, has faded. The idyllic enchantment that is synonymous to all freshmen with institutions of higher learning has fizzled off.
It’s High School all over again albeit with a few perks such as a liberalized dress code; the self-aggrandizing tags- lecture halls for classrooms, mess for dining hall, tutorials, e.t.c. Yes, there’s generally an air of self-importance. But one gets the feeling that something is amiss. Where is the intercourse with brilliant mind? Where is the colour and vibrance of youth…the bubbling of great ideas? The sad truth is that nothing substantial has changed. And nowhere is this stunted growth more evident than in the social scene.
There is still that pointless obsession with lyrics- remnants of the teen years. You’re no one if you can’t hum to the latest Rihanna tune. And to give you a glimpse of  just where I stand in the social ladder…pure rap is lost on me, hard rock too- all those suicidal lyrics and the lunatic headshaking; what’s that about!? And there’s something adolescent about the unwavering interest in gadgets- cell phones, I-pods. Something near-menacing about earpieces popping out of underclothes, and something infinitely sad about a generation more at home with automated  voices than the warm laughter of those around them.
Come to campus and there’s a silent declaration: it’s beer o’clock. Booze and sex are the basics of life. When you’re not brain-dead wasted from drink you’re shacked up with some one night stand whose name you don’t even know; and here the world revolves. The more liquor you gulp down and the less classes you attend, the faster you achieve legend status. There’s still that same popularity contest; the girl who shows the most skin wins. These are the simple but illusive principles of popularity as laid down by the gods of fame.
For a first year girl, the mood is unapologetically predatory. There are pick up lines used that are an insult to seduction. Lines that would make Romeo turn in his very grave. Some actually work…more’s the pity.
But there are also the lovers. The Don Juan of the Denim generation. The ‘smooth operators’. The ruffle of skirts excites them. The clinking of heels enflames their blood. Ahh, they live for women these gentle rogues, and the women live for them. With subtle whiffs of musk they make provincial girls swoon for them.
When one reaches university, the journey of re-invention and continual self-improvement begins. To the Problem girls of High School who discovered that their beauty could get them attention is the realization that this attention could be converted to economic remuneration. They are trophy women and nocturnal creatures with a penchant for shiny jewels, flashy cars. They are the skeptics of this age with no love left but the love of money. And who can blame them? Love dies…money has continual life. Behind each jewel is a sob story that could syndicate a back-alley Kenyan tabloid and Daddy-issues that years of therapy won’t crack.
In campus, there’s something irritatingly predictable in the turn-over from Evangelism to bar-hopping. The choir girls of High school who refused to glorify the flesh are now party girls on a mission of debauchery and drunken dissipation. They have set aside the Stoicism of religion for the Epicurean delights of sensual living.
And the cliques! I have nothing against social stratification, honest to goodness, but the manner of groupings…it’s like the minute you come here you have to be branded and tagged and placed in a little box.
Yes, life here is pretty much a cliché. At first you’re wide-eyed, basking in the light of your youthful idealism. You vow not to become one of these cheap imitations, you swear to be different, and for a time you truly are. But then you see how easy it is to belong to this headless revolt. See how good it feels to be admired even by those who matter least and it becomes a drug. This need to impress and gain favour.
Yet there are a few brave souls. Those who know who they are and who refuse to be lesser men. We label the ‘weird’ and we condescend to them. We hate them because they show us how pathetic we are…because they are better than us.
It’s months into the campus experience and I feel terribly unprepared for it.

 

The D word

I have never attended a funeral. I remember though, very vividly, when my neighbour died. Urban planning being what it is in 1990s Kenya, a great idea poorly fulfilled, I was afforded a rare glimpse into this private affair- as was half the estate. (We’re not a gated community)

I remember the emotion, the plaintive moans, the masked expression of the grieving widower, the sullen ones of the children. I remember all those things that are expected in the in the natural progression of as unnatural an event as death.

She was a Muslim. Had to be buried on that day. Of all these things, I remember nothing so much as the thought that struck me when I saw them carry away the corpse, draped in a dazzling white sheet. It was a purely selfish thought- but a completely human one.

I wondered whether the angel of death had hovered over our neighbor hood, over our house…over me before finally descending on her. And if so, what had made Him not choose me?

Death gives meaning to life. It scares us into living, if only for a little while. That’s why when it happens on a large scale- the Nakumatt fires, the Molo explosions and more recently the famine deaths, the Nyakach floods- we feel the need to huddle together. We hold memorials, we declare mourning periods, and we blame Satan…the government. We pray and cry. As if death were an unforeseen eventuality. As if it weren’t some immutable aspect of existence.

Death hovers over us everyday. Sometimes it treads silently, strikes unexpectedly.  Sometimes it is in the obvious pain of disease. Sometimes it is the physician that ends that pain.

This knowledge resides at the deepest recesses of our minds. It is pushed there by fear. Fear of the unknown, of what cannot be controlled. But to claim this truth would bring certain pointlessness to living. We live…to die?

So we live our lives, pointless and purposeless at times but temporarily free of that fear of the end. We create routines and daily rituals, subtly scorning death. Some live it on the edge in flagrant defiance. We are shocked when those around us die. What a farce. We know death. It knows us…will one day call us by name.

But this insane farce is the only way to sanity. We need to pretend to live so that we can live, truly live. Until the next calamity pushes this inevitability back to the forefront of our minds.