Farrah's 2 Sense

Turning 37...

2010-01-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the Light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

On Truth & Justice

2009-07-31T04:42:00.000-07:00

True Justice is not about punishment, but restoration and rehabilitation. Marietta Jaeger

And before that restoration of spirit begins, first perhaps, there has to be acceptance – at the very least of the act that occurred. If we continue to carry the emotional charge around the event that occurred, then perhaps we can never really create the space in which our own healing can begin.

Compassion and forgiveness are spoken of often enough – acting out compassion and forgiveness is another thing altogether. It means that first and foremost, I need to accept things as they have come about to be – and this means reconciling myself to the acceptance of loss – whether it is the loss of a loved one, or of my possessions, or of my dignity, or my health. This is a great challenge, because I would have to ask myself how I will now live without that which was important to me.

Once I can accept that life from this moment is going to be irrevocably different for me, and once I can start to come around to what that will mean for me, perhaps this is the point when I can now start to look at the occurrence from a different perspective.

And this is perhaps the first inclination towards forgiveness – Neale Donald Walsh writes that in forgiving someone, we are saying to them “thank you for-giving me this experience”. This may hard for some to swallow – after all, how could one possibly thank the murderer of a loved one for giving them the experience of heart-wrenching loss, and for taking that person away from them forever?!

But I would say that in doing this, we are not going as far as thanking the perpetrator in saying this – what we are doing, perhaps, is to shift our perspective and to accept that at this stage, what has happened has happened, and neither hell nor high water can change that. It’s tough to do that. Gratitude for an experience can take a long while to come about – it is only with hindsight that our vision is 20-20 – it is only after the fact, and maybe a long while after the fact, after we have learned various lessons associated with the experience, or after perhaps we have grown from the experience, that we can look back and perhaps start to introduce gratitude for what we have gone through.

Some are able to do this better than others – some will succumb to the pain of the experience in such a way, that it is only the imbibing of substances that will help them take their attention away from the pain – and sometimes, this is the only means that they will ever use to help them cope.

But there are some that will, in a moment of surrender, take a moment to pause, and to open their hearts a little wider.

It is in doing this, I believe, that we start to create the space for compassion – that all-healing, alchemising vibration that literally, in and of itself, starts to melt away the lower vibrations of anger, and pain, and indignation, and humiliation.
Perhaps in coming into acceptance, we are reconciling ourselves with a little of Truth – in facing our demons, we acknowledge them and we recognize them for what they are. We recognize that an ‘injustice’ has been brought about; a loss of dignity has come about. It is perhaps at this juncture, that we can also realize, that we have a choice with regards to what we can do next.

If I live for ‘an eye for an eye’, I may demand at this stage that the one who has harmed me be put through the same level of pain that s/he brought about to me. I may feel at this stage, that in doing so, I am ‘taking responsibility’ to ensure that the perpetrator is also ‘held responsible’ for his / her act. This is the premise that the death penalty is based on. It would be interesting to know just how many witnesses to executions feel genuinely redeemed or ‘better’ after having watched the killer ‘put to sleep’.

I could, on the other hand, realize that having this person killed will not ultimately take the sting of my loss away – my anger will abate, but chances are, I will not feel any less wretched. In this instance, I will embark on an entirely different process – an introspective one, where I will have to make peace with my pain in an entirely different way. And this is perhaps where forgiveness starts to seep in – in attempting to understand in a small way the who and the how and the why, and then perhaps, with ultimate grace, forgiveness of myself, and of my own sense of wretchedness.

On the notion of Justice, there is a very interesting story I came across. In the absence of anthropological details and fact, I will relay it as a story:

There is tribe that exists in some part of the world, which has a unique manner in which the members mete out Justice to one of their own that that has killed another. They tie up the person’s arms and legs, put him into a sack, dump him into a boat which as a small hole in it, and they push the boat out into the furthest and deepest part of the village pond.

The rules are this: All in the village must come to witness the punishment. All in the village must stay and watch the entire process unfold, no matter how traumatic it gets. As the boat starts to sink, and as the water fills up the boat, and as the perpetrator starts to struggle, and to drown, it is ONLY the family of the victim that is allowed to take any further steps – they can therefore let the person drown in front of them, or decide to swim out and rescue him/her.

One may argue that in contemporary society, we can’t possibly all start using ponds and sacks to bring about justice – but consider this – even the families of the victims who are allowed to witness executions, are shrouded from the ultimate horror of watching someone die a long and painful death in front of them – we’ve developed the lethal injection and the more horrible but efficient electric chair to ensure a ‘quick exit’.

I believe that if we truly honest without selves, and if we were to engage with more compassion in our systems of jurisprudence, then perhaps we would be willing to let go of our own sense of vindication, which often takes precedence over anything else, and substitute punishment for a more reconciliatory and rehabilitative approach.

In Kenya, we are currently grappling between sending our post-election violence perpetrators to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and subjecting them to the enquiries of a local Truth and Justice & Reconciliation Commission.

Well, if they are willing to look into the eyes of the people whose lives they have destroyed, and in the interest of Truth, completely come clean and describe in detail how they set about planning the violent and horrific death of the loved one of the person they are sitting in front of, then perhaps we can allow the person they have harmed to decide whether s/he is going to going to let them sink, or swim. But Reconciliation can only come about if we are prepared to face our demons with the greatest of courage, find the magnanimity of Spirit to initiate the process of Forgiveness, and engage with each in the most authentic manner possible.

Anything less, will Just not do (pun intended).

On Power

2009-06-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.

What Power is NOT……

Power is not Force – it is not about imposing one’s Will – rather it is about having the strength and Presence of Mind to bring about Enrollment into a Higher Ideal.

Power, in and of itself is not harmful – it depends on the quality of Intent behind the channeling of Power.

Power is not Gender specific – it is not Masculine. It is not qualitatively anything. It can, however, be infused with masculine or feminine qualities through intent, to influence a situation.

Power is not Exploitation – It is not ‘at the expense of’ – exploitation can only come about as a result of Free Will deeming it so – Power unto itself is not exploitative. It can be directed by Free Will or Choice to exploit, but in and of itself is not exploitative.

Power is not rigid. It is Free Will that holds power to a position. Power in and of itself is not stagnant or still – it is ‘pulsating’ in nature – power is channeled and directed and is radiating. Power is harnessed by Free Will and Choice to retain and maintain the structure of a system. This is why Free Will is so powerful – it can harness the movement of power into rigidity. Power in and of itself is not rigid – it is Free Will and Fear that uses Power to bring about rigidity.

Power is not Exclusive – Power does not discern, Power just IS. It is available for and to everyone. It is the intellect that is able to identify and discern the presence of Power and the benefits of holding Power, and then to use Free Will to hold on to Power for exclusivity purposes.

Power is not Greedy, or Discriminatory. Power is used by greediness. It is Free Will and greed that causes an individual to want to harness more Power. It has nothing to so with Power in and of itself. It is the human instinct that manipulates Power and succumbs to greed that causes the desire to harness more Power.

Power is available to anyone and EVERYONE. It is YOUR Free Will that will determine how YOU will use Power to your advantage and for the benefit of ALL.

How do YOU choose to use Power???

This magazine is 'Loaded'

2009-03-23T03:29:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Wajibu Magazine, a journal of Social and Ethical Concern is out now.

Click Here for a look at the contents in this issue.

TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN GET A COPY, PLEASE CONTACT DIPESH PABARI AT dpinkenya@yahoo.co.uk

Click Here to access the Wajibu Webite

Leadership my Ar** - Nothing's Changed

2009-03-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

I posted the following post in February last year. Absolutely NOTHING has changed - in fact it's worse. Out of sheer frustration, I am posting this again.

___________________

I just cannot help feeling angry at the way our future is currently being horse-traded. Keeping my optimism levels high is becoming more and more of a chore and extremely difficult to do.

To you, Mr. Politician, I wish we could tell you to your face how we really feel about you.

I wish you could see the disdain and the lack of respect with which we regard you. I wish we could somehow find a way to let you go, and not waste any more of our precious energy resting our hopes with you - always hoping and praying that you’ll do the right thing.

What exactly is it that we owe you? Why do we even look up to you? Why did I even bother allowing myself to be momentarily uplifted by your fake and deceitful promises? Why did I invest any faith in you?

You, all of you who claim to lead us today, have, as a GENERATION have failed us. You have allowed our communal values to disintegrate. You have allowed us to become a people divided by greed, self-interest and exclusiveness.

While we wait out every day with bated breath, you continue to haggle with each other over who will retain the most power, trying to ensure that you maintain your upper hands and your control. You’re STILL not seeing the real picture – you are so blinded by your self importance, and your inflated egos, and you really don’t give a damn about what happens to millions of us.

Oh how I wish there was some way to get rid of the lot of you. How I wish we all felt more empowered, more able, more confident, more enthusiastic, more determined, because if we did, trust me – you wouldn’t stand a chance. But you know that already, don’t you? It’s why you use what you use to oppress us, to keep us down, to make us fearful, to make us insecure and uncertain. You try to destroy our strength every opportunity that you get.

What goes around, comes around. No power lasts forever. No family is always safe. The sins of the fathers will always be revisited on future generations. Maybe you’ll keep your children safe, but perhaps you’ll be around to see the legacy that you left your grand-children. You will only have yourselves to judge.

So go ahead – fill your bellies to bursting, steal as much as you want, fulfill every self-serving desire, because your grandchildren will be the ones to inherit a world that is so bursting with poverty, that they will not be able to step out of the safety of the palaces that you built for them because their security will be threatened with every step that they take. They will not be able to step out of their palaces because the environment that they live in is so filthy that a mere breath will make them ill. They will not be able to walk and live freely because there will be no concept of neighbourliness – you had them all killed.

Their lives will be filled with boredom, because you eliminated diversity when you brought about your divisive thinking.

So go ahead – negotiate, horse trade, make your deals, and stick with your myopic and petty thinking.

You will pay the price, and no amount of cash is going to help you settle the bill and you certainly won’t have built up any credit.

Enough said.

Earth Hour 2009 - A Billion Voices for Climate Change!

2009-03-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Earth Hour 2009 is a global initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature which acts as a worldwide call to action to every individual, business and community to take a stand against Climate Change.

To show your support, sign up now and commit to switching off your lights for one hour on Saturday, March 28th at 8:30pm. Originating in Sydney, Australia in 2007, the Earth Hour initiative proved more than worthwhile when it witnessed 2 million people coming together to switch off their lights for one hour for this vital cause.

Following on from this success, 2008 saw an estimated 50 million people taking part. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

This year, 2009, Earth Hour will see the lights go out on some of the most recognised attractions on the planet, including Cape Town’s Table Mountain, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Merlion in Singapore, Sydney Opera House, the iconic 6-star hotel, the Burj al Arab, in Dubai, Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and the world’s tallest constructed building, the Taipei 101.

Earth Hour 2009 has one major aim: to unite the citizens of the world in the fight against climate change in order to convince governments and world leaders that our planet cannot wait any longer. There simply isn’t enough time, and therefore 2009 is a colossally important, if not the most critical year, to take action on climate change. 2009 is the year we decide the future of our planet.

An Open letter to and eleven point demand for the President and Prime minister from Kenyan citizens and civil society organisations

2009-03-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

Delivered through a meeting with the Prime minister on March 9, 2009

We, the undersigned Kenyan citizens and civil society organisations, have sought this meeting following the assassinations of Kingara Kamau and George Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation and a student last week.

We note that these assassinations come in the context of non-implementation of Agenda Items One and Two of the mediation process last year—that is, ending the violence and disarming and demobilising all armed groups and militias and restoring fundamental rights and freedoms;

On Agenda Item One, ending the violence and the disarmament and demobilisation of all armed groups and militias, we reiterate there the position of the human rights movement that the heavy-handed security approach is insufficient for the task and has also allowed for the security services to stigmatise young, un/deremployed males in low-income rural and urban areas leading to the disappearances and extrajudicial executions of the same. It has also allowed for the security services to extort money from the public on threat of the same;

On Agenda Item Two, the restoration of fundamental rights and freedoms, we reiterate the position of the human rights movement that the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of assembly, association and expression have been suspended since last year, allowing for the security services to harass, assault (including sexually assault) and illegally detain many human rights defenders seeking to legitimately and peacefully protest various government actions and inactions;

We further note that we raised these concerns at a meeting with the minister of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs last year, who promised us she would seek audience for us with the minister of Internal Security on the same—a promise that has not been honoured;

We finally note that last week’s assassinations have occasioned, as we believe they were intended to do, an atmosphere of fear and threat among human rights defenders who have consistently tried to demand that these concerns be addressed. As we speak, several human rights defenders who have documented, with evidence, these disappearances and extrajudicial executions, have received verbal threats, have had to move to safe houses within the country and have even had to leave the country;

This atmosphere of fear and threat has been fostered by the repeated statements of heads of security services, their spokespersons and the supposed government spokesperson linking human rights organisations themselves to armed groups and militias—accusations for which evidence has never been tendered to the public to support or formal charges brought against them in court;

We therefore demand:

In the immediate and short term:

1. That the government, through the President and the Prime minister, publicly reiterate their commitment to full implementation of Agenda Items One and Two—and the rights of all Kenyans to life, safety and security of the person, the freedoms of assembly, association and expression as well as the freedoms to be assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law;

2. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by offering financial support to the families of those assassinated with respect to funeral expenses and livelihood losses;

3. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by enabling the demonstration planned by University of Nairobi students for tomorrow, march 10, to protest the assassinations to proceed peacefully, with full support of the security services and with no negative consequences such as the closing of the University of Nairobi;

4. That the government, through the President and the Prime minister, publicly reiterate their commitment to human rights defenders by ensuring that all dis/misinformation being peddled to the public about them cease and by guaranteeing their protection from the increased levels of risk and threat resulting from last week’s assassinations;

5. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by proceeding with the independent investigation into the assassinations, for which the United States of America has already offered the services of its Federal Bureau of Investigations;

6. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by immediately dismissing from office, the Police Commissioner, the Police Spokesperson the head of the Criminal Investigations Unit, the Provincial Police Officer for Nairobi and the acting Officer in Charge of Police Division at Central Police station among others—who all bear direct political accountability (if not legal accountability) for the harassment, assault (including sexual assault) and illegal detentions of human rights defenders;

7. That, also concretely, the President and the Prime minister, release to the public any information it has regarding the supposed linkage of human rights organisations, such as the Oscar Foundation, with mungiki, by bringing charges to bear in a court of law against such human rights organisations;

In the medium to long term:

8. That the government, through the President and Prime minister ensure the release to the public of any proposed laws and policies to address matters of security sector reform—such as those announced recently by the minister of Internal Security—to allow for public debate and discussion of the same;

9. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, push forward not only the laws and policies required for security sector reform, but also the core, critical and fundamental demand of the reports of both the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Elections Violence and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions—that for impartial, independent internal and external accountability mechanisms for all security services and the utilisation of those mechanisms to achieve individual legal accountability for all disappearances and extrajudicial executions of all individual security service members involved in the same;

10. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister ensure the delivery to the public of a benchmarked and timebound plan of action on implementing the security sector reform proposals of the reports of the CIPEV and the UN SR;

11. Recognising the manner in which Kenya’s security agreements with bi/multilateral bodies (notably the governments of the United Kingdom and the USA as well as the European Commission) on matters ranging from anti-terrorism to training to piracy and regional peacekeeping capacity contribute to the apparent sense of impunity and lawlessness of our security services, that the President and the Prime minister arrange tripartite discussions between the government, such bi/multilaterals and civil society on the same to ensure that legitimate security interests being so pursued are not at the expense of fundamental rights and freedoms.

In conclusion, understanding that some of these demands need consultation and discussion within the government, we request a further meeting with you on the same within a week’s time at which the President and the minister of Internal Security are also present.

We thank you for your public statements on the concerns raised to date. We stress our willingness for dialogue with the government on these concerns (including constructive criticism on both sides). And we look forward to full implementation of Agendas Items One and Two of the mediation process.

(end/Kenyan citizens and csos/lmw/09)

Signed:

Akiba Uhaki
BidiiAfrika Network Group
Bunge la Mwananchi
Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD)
Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW)
COBADES
Constitutional Reform and Education Consortium (CRECO)
Fahamu
Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK)
Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU)
International Centre for Policy and Conflict (ICPC)
Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)
Legal Resource Foundation (LRF)
Mazingira Institute
Muslim Consultative Council
National Council of Non-Governmental Organisations of Kenya
Pambazuka News
Partnership for Change
Release Political Prisoners (RPP)
Social Reform Centre (SOREC)
Youth Agenda
P Gitonga
Philo Ikonyo
Maina Kiai
Oikya Omtatah Okoiti, Concerned Citizen
Anders Sjogren, Political Scientist, Stockholm University
Rose Wanjiru

With the support of:
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)

On Philo Ikonya.....

2009-02-19T02:57:00.000-08:00

For the background story on Philo's arrest, click here

To read Philo's latest work - "10 Million Cuttings for 10 Million - A Valentine Story", click here

Special Thanks to Dipesh Pabari, of SukumaKenya for allowing the sharing of information on his blog site.

The Kenya I Cannot stand - Notes from Philo Ikonya's night in a Kenyan prison

2009-02-19T02:49:00.001-08:00

I am at 330 am because after the news of our arrest at 12 .30 pm was flashed last night, for some reason, I was released on a bond signed by Jaoko of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission after activist Ann Njogu, Wangui Mbatia and others told her to take action because I needed medical attention.

Thanks so much for all your actions. Shailja and Dipesh.and Bunge and CKW and all… and all…. even to the most powerful in the land. It is dark in Kenya… very dark… our freedoms are not ours anymore and all Kenyans are suffering. I do not want a seat in a bunge like that, never. But in the darkness the voice of a man in the cells.. “Madam, they are trying to break your voice.. but it is powerful and unbreakable.. is your spirit. I saw it here in the cells… you have made me.. we were wondering who will speak since we lost voices to politics…. I will never be the same again … just watching how you deal with things here…” Sorry it was about me.. but I have to be honest.

For some other reason, even when they told them about Fwamba and Kamotho; their case was not heard. I refused to leave them in the cells but once a bond is signed one cannot stay in as it is illegal.

Needless to say, I feel much compassion for Fwamba and Kamotho who were also beaten up especially Fwamba .Tears flood my eyes… when I remember how a merciless cop would hit him in the ribs every time he spoke up after I was boxed under the chin. He spoke gently but the cop yelled at us… he ( the cop) had said he knew me and that I should have kept quiet not to be arrested… I had told him I did not know him and could not abandon Fwamba,,.. he was alone… ( thank God Dipesh had mobilized Press) but now here we were in the car being told there was no camera there…. And so we would see… Here at home, I could not sleep and certainly not with the lights off as they had insisted on confining me in a dark cell alone…once we were hurriedly and as usual dangerously again transferred shoeless to Gigiri as they sneaked us out through the back since Central Police was too close for other activists to sustain pressure…

But in those hours at Central Police- we were transported at about 650pm and I managed to alert Mwalimu Mati whom I saw through the grills of the back of a van but police hit the car on all sides so that he could not hear- every few minutes they called us (over 50 men (5 women) out of their cells for a roll call. The Officer In-charge asks them what is their problem and they come forward fearfully and mutter something. “I need to see a doctor, my chest hurts.”
”Rudi ndani….. utamwona.” Another, I need to go home, I am now here in the cells for three days, my eight-month old baby is in hospital admitted and I have nobody to help me take care of him.” I need… I need and I need…..But really all the officer is doing is intimidating fear. Here comes a young man with a big swollen cheek and he later asks me. “Madam, I am sorry that they boxed you…you see this huge swelling on my cheek, I was not like this before…. They hit me.” For Mukono, who pleads a case of mistaken identity and for many others, including the woman with the sick baby, the 24 hours in which they are supposed to be held in police custody before they are produced in court, ( only those held for murderer can take 14 days) long, long expired. But they are still here. And there is crawling lice, the toilet for women is a little hole as the so called ‘proper toilet’ is inside the gate of the men’s cells. Yes, there are gates inside here and they have lock and key. Now since they learnt that the two of us who are human rights activists are in here, they tell me it had not been so strict for the women until I came. We are now thrown into an innermost cell and locked up more securely, it seems. The place stinks.

But every time we meet in the little antechamber of the halls, I remind the police officer that I have no clothes on my back, since his boss, the Deputy OCPD tore them up on the street. I complain bitterly about having a bare back and being in the same room for the roll call with men arrested for different purposes… one of them told me he was definitely going to be hanged for robbery with violence and he said this after suddenly taking charge and yelling at Fwamba whom he told he was worse than the policemen whom we seemed according to him to cow. But the office in charge…every time he says, You will get them Madam,” and each time he finishes his roll call and throws us back in there as if we had not said anything. I can see from a little grille Kingwa Kamenchu showing them a paper bag with clothes in there for me.. I can see a disturbed Khainga… I can see Keli, Abel, I can see Kingwa being pushed out of the way with my clothes, I see many faces I know, I see Cyprian and Jane and Mwalimu Mati.. and the Tshirts they try to pass us.. the ones… are roughly confiscated… Fwamba being made to undress and I still left with my uncovered back.. ( the others are on their laurels but the cop has realized not even their blows keep me quiet… they were laughing as the cop who guarded us in the car was telling them “vile tumewekwa… how it was given to us… and by the way on arrival in Central I was made to sit on the floor and the brute of a policeman took Fwamba upstairs and confining him in a room tried to even pull his private parts.. beat him even more and told him not tell anyone…) But now we are with the juniour officer in charge of us…He is very rough if one continues talking but I have taken this opportunity of the men sitting on their laurels to keep standing up and telling them that we must change our country. That the law does not allow for police brutality. That the police are not judge and jury. They are shocked that I address the policeman by the number he wears on his lapel. The policeman who beat us up this afternoon, in town and in the car almost turning us into pulp and hitting us where no obvious bruise can come up like under the chin, I remember asking him if he was going to break my jaw had no number on him. But we know him. He is the Deputy OCPD at Nairobi Central Police and when Fwamba and I get to the police station and activists flock in, they tell me that is the same man who last year molested Ann Njogu on the streets as he arrested her. I am horrified for indeed each time he hit me I told him to look into my eyes and see God and his eyes looked opaque and distant… he hit me again saying he would take us where we could never talk again- I suppose he meant the grave. But I continued to tell him, ‘ My father had never hit me, nor any man on the streets nor any male in my life… no one… and that therefore, since he was oppressing me in the car – At the Inter Continental Roundabout I had yelled to motorists saying, “ they are killing us…” and he had only hit us more turning the front seat of his vehicle low and leaning back and shouting at the cop on our back seat for letting us talk…and hitting Fwamba in the ribs and menacingly staring at us and swearing…but no one heard us in this torture chamber. The journey between Parliament and Nairobi Police Station down City Hall Way, past Kimathi’s statue and through Moi Avenue was just blows.. and our voices since we are convinced that being threatened with being silenced is the last thing that will cow us. what I tell them happened to us in the police mobile torture chamber; a huge cop sitting in front, the one who had told me not to talk all the time, leans back and boxes me in the neck all the time. Well, what to do, with each blow we tell him to stop it. He beats us again and with each blow I tell him I was never beaten except by the state and sincerely ask God to bless him and since he has taken the law into his hands and is all ‘powerful’ as we are confined in the car, and is pretending to be a god, I tell him he is not one but God would bless him.

At the station, Fwamba is thrown out roughly and I escape the brutes side and walk with the cop guarding us… I think I noticed that he could not stand this at some stage but his boss was showing him the way, we first sit, as I said before Fwamba is taken up to be beaten and to be asked who I am. They have perfected every stroke of intimidation… he thinks Fwamba will start spinning yarns but he only lets him beat him more… at this stage once in their hands Kenya Police – Dhuluma Kwa Wote – can kill you as they smile and move their shoulders to show that the job is satisfactory and that the orders from above have been fulfilled… I ask myself many things… “ Just why is my country so dark….”

I told you they can kill you and you perhaps thought this is a story… listen to Bilha and her mother who shortly join us women in the cells. Bilha is preganant… her mother arrested in tow with her looks horrified when they come back to the cells. Bilha is 30… and Bilha’s story kills me. No wonder she looked stupefied when she came down till I massaged her head in the smelly cells… her story is something about having been duped to hold a child in town as someone went into a cyber… and immediately being blacked out and having all her property stolen and being left with a child she did not know… ( Feel sorry for the child, and for the child in her womb but another friend in here – is saying that babies can just be dumped in bags because women have to move on… she wants her puff badly.. yes, she is the woman who has a baby in hospital.. but she says… she had tried to abandon hers because she has no food for herself…) But Bilha… ten women cops upstairs in the station beat her up even with a wooden stick. They beat her and told her they would insert hot pepper in her vagina for an hour.. they beat her mother too on her back.. and then brought them in the cell. You can imagine my fear of a miscarriage and when they whisk me out for fingerprinting and I find Ann Njogu I shout out the story.. since the cops will not allow me a minute of sanity.. here they are asking me my tribe again…And in comes another clean woman later in the cells where all agree this is where the clean ones are. She was arrested at 10 am for not having a coverall at her little eatery. She and four others. They were driven from Kasarani to Kiambu and all over town the same day while they tried to raise 4000 Ksh which the police wanted in order to release them… a bribe.

And I remember why we are here. Corruption = Death two of us chanted outside Parliament. My hands were in paper bag gloves; empty packets of maize flour. People are dying of famine, 10 million Kenyans and MPS sit in there not paying their taxes… a lot happened outside Parliament as women supporting the Minister who has mismanaged the maize harassed and tried to beat me first before the police…hurling all sorts of abuses.. and they were not arrested… I tell the women in the cells never to give bribes.. the mother of the 8 month old tells us she was accused of stealing a phone by a man who would not pay her after a night ( does anyone remember that poem…I once wrote.. and it won a prize..? the man came over to the police and apparently bribed all of them… he is rich, he is from the DRC. The girl… has been in for four days today.

And suddenly we women have a chorus – I had sang a few on my own to keep from reflecting too directly- and it goes like this:
”Did you say you have an eight month old alone at home, I was worried for my six year old!”
And I for my 8 year old son…
And I for my 13 year old who is a candidate this year… “
And Bilha does not talk. She carries a baby she might lose in her womb….
So, when am with the cops alone and on the journey to Gigiri- part of the reason we must be transferred before our 24 hours are over is the influence we are bearing inside… and also the many questions we ask…- I tell them, especially the woman not to touch me with hands that have hit Bilha… but the men look on and later they tell me after some verbal sexual harassment that I should not care so much for Bilha for the seed is by a man… she is pregnant from a man. At that point=there is a huge jam and not even the cops can manouevre- I start singing my Ave Marias in different languages if only to derail them from talk I cannot stand. They were warming up after threatening us with how they are going to deal with us on Forest Road where there is a cemetery. Later I tell them, the four with us- that the system they work in has eaten their souls and that they need to reflect. They tell us strange things…. They confess they need help, they soften and toughen and begin to call me other names that are not mine. We are at Gigiri and am raving at the dark cell. Then, when I think they are going to transport me again… and separate me from Fwamba because they put me in a place with light but the bulb has expired, I am called outside… the cops had told me they watched the news…I hear Pius Gachoka speak and he says they have come for me. I see Wangui, Florence Jaoko (KNHRC Chair) and Ann Njogu. I am shoeless but I am in a car going home at midnight to go to court at 8am……I must now get ready…

Kahlil Gibran: The Garden of the Prophet

"Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking... Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation."

implement the Waki Report
Philo Ikonya

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

2009-02-04T02:11:00.000-08:00

Help me out a little here. I am trying to understand what exactly people want. On the one hand, the Americans now have a president who promises greater transparency, accountability and change from the bottom up, and he’s taken some pretty drastic steps to move in that direction. On the other, you have a hungry media, desperate for a story that will point out his fallibility – all through the campaign, the bane of their existence was that they simply could not find anything that he could do wrong.

So now, there are two nominees that have stepped down of their own volition, and have also taken responsibility for messing up on filing their tax returns. Obama has also stated openly today that ‘he screwed up’. The press have decided to put this out there as impending doom for Obama's administration. They owned up and apologised and took responsibility for God's sake!!!! What more do you want??? IF they've stepped down, it's because you morons would have harped on it till kingdom come, and distracted everyone from the real issues!!

For me, it doesn’t get much better – who the hell said it was going to be a perfect process – when you have a system that has been running on bullshit for so long, how the hell does one expect everything to fall into place all at once.

Perhaps the republicans can be excused for taking up the mantle of bashing the new administration. Their defeat was a very bitter pill to swallow, and it takes a great human being to take humiliation sitting down – and we know there are no great republicans.

But the media – well now – if they don’t get that they would serve a far more noble purpose by focusing on the positive things that are coming out of this upheaval, then they have, once and for all missed the point. But of course, the story is always bigger than the larger welfare of the Whole.

Yes the global economy is in a meltdown, and yes millions are losing their jobs, and yes, everyone is being forced to re-think how they live. But who the hell said that real change was going to be easy?????

Selfishness and self-serving lifestyles have been the norm for the longest time, and somewhere along the line, it became acceptable to live off money you didn’t have and wanted things that you couldn’t afford. Banks, corporations and celebrities have all been central to propagating a system that has woven an illusionary consumerist fantasy of what it means to be wealthy. And the people have allowed it.

So now, the illusion has revealed itself to be exactly that – and people are realizing that their dreams are not even made of paper, and it’s been about an electronic house of cards. And everyone is going down whining.

Because it’s been about top-down domination, it is no wonder that the ones to suffer the most are the ones from the middle down. The ones at the top may worry about their failing system, but they’re not the ones who are worrying about how they are going to feed their families. And so they will ask for quick solutions to jump start the system again. After all, the electronic illusion can be easily manipulated to weave an even more fantastic story of ‘how to become rich’ – all you need to do is wave the wand a little differently.

We can either look at this as a disaster, or we can look at this as a tremendous opportunity. For the ones who have lost their jobs or homes, if they allow their new president to take them down a different path, a path that was perhaps traveled down in the past but forgotten about in the last two decades, then they will see that it may take a while, and it may be painful for a bit, but the rewards will be far greater, more solid, and certainly more tangible than anything they can expect from the current system.

So he was right when he said it was going to be about patience, and sacrifice and humility.

And this is not just for America – this is time for global re-assessment, to reexamine and to question what it is that we truly hold dear, of what is and always has been sacred for us.

This is not going to be a time of band-aid solutions, nor is it going to be one of fitting into the old status quo – we are going to have to go as far as to even re-define our definition of success and to identify those values that bring us together as a collective and not separate us through our differences.

There is no stopping of this snowball that has started its downward descent. We either prepare ourselves now, at the bottom of the hill, or around it as it makes it way past us, and perhaps try to prepare ourselves for what we think the picture is going to look like when it settles wherever it decides to.

If I were to list out the number of things going wrong for us here in Kenya, the list itself would be the size of an average blog post. But I have decided that I am going to dispense with focusing on what’s going wrong – I am instead going to lend my energy to those people who refuse to take things sitting down, and who are working tirelessly to expose the selfishness, corruption and in efficiency – Bunge la Mwananchi, Youth Agenda, Partnership for Change, to name a few.

It is going to be from within the system (yes, there are a few good people on the inside who perhaps need to be supported as they challenge the status quo of the existing system), and without, with the action of the groups that I mentioned above that we are going to bring about the changes for our collective future.

It is going to take time, a hell of a lot of hard work, diligence, persistence, sacrifice and determination to get us where we want to go. And it is not going to be easy. But the days of sitting back and whining and complaining, of complacency and despondency, of handing over our power to the elitist few who never has our best interests at heart in the first place, ARE OVER.

I looked back at all the blogs that I have posted over the past year, and I realised that I have pretty much repeated myself in quite a few of them.

If I could put it all down in a simple paragraph then it would be this:

Start to take responsibility for yourself and for those around you.
Practise generosity – of mind, of temperament, of your time and of your resources.
Be mindful of how your presence on this planet affects it – you are not here simply to take but also to give back and to contribute.
Define what success means for you – I’m willing to bet that money isn’t one of your top priorities.
Don’t compromise on your core values – when you do so, you only rob yourself of a little more dignity, integrity and self-respect.
Have the courage to define life and its rules for yourself, based on your core vales.
Don’t give your power way to your so-called leaders – they are after all, only human and just as if not more fallible than you.
Spread dignity – in uplifting someone else, in honouring them, in acknowledging their existence, you exalt yourself.
Look after yourself, and your family, and your community – sometimes, sharing yourself is infinitely better then sharing your resources.

Don’t give up – I’ll be damned if I do.

The Burden of Reponsibility lies with YOU

2008-12-07T05:32:00.001-08:00

I am heart-sick. And I have a malady of the heart that is not curable through any conventional or non-conventional forms of medicine. The malaise that I am feeling is related to a sense of desperation that I feel about humanity today.

A desperation associated with witnessing the effect of fear, the fear of not having enough, of not being safe enough, of not having enough to eat, to feed ones family, to ride to work, to pay the bills. Of driving down our streets and witnessing besieged individuals struggling to make it through this existence that we call Life.

A desperation associated with witnessing the gross juxtaposition of immense wealth against a backdrop of equally immense poverty.

A desperation associated with witnessing the sometimes inhuman behaviour of human to human interaction.

A desperation associated with witnessing one individual’s determination to bring down another, because in doing so is the assumption that their survival will somehow be ensured.

A desperation associated with witnessing a distinct absence of fundamental and core values such as sanctity of life, honour, dignity and respect – values which would affirm our position on top of the ladder as the most evolved, intelligent species that inhabit this planet.

So I am heart-sick, and I am desperate. I am desperate because I wonder just how this world that we live in going to change. Change seems to be the new buzz word. EVERYONE wants change. Everyone wants things to be different. It is in the name of this change that we look to the future and to our leaders, in the hope that they will bring this about.

One thing this means, is that a lot of people are just not happy with the status quo. But if we were to take a survey of the general population, the list of ‘things’ that people want changed would probably be an endless one – each would put forward what they would feel to be the ‘fix’ for themselves – a new government would mean less rent to pay, another might say food would be cheaper, another may say that taxes would come down, another perhaps might add that infrastructure would improve.

Whatever the ‘thing’ that needs to be changed, it would all inevitably be entirely subjective, based on an individual’s assessment of what it would take to make life better for themselves.

If it is just about ‘fixes’, then we may as well throw in the towel, put our feet up, and wait for the world to burn. Given the current state of affairs, and with the current complete lack of basic human decency, there is no easy ‘fix’ that will help. Lets get this straight – THERE IS NO ONE LEADER OR SYSTEM THAT WILL FIX YOUR WORLD FOR YOU. Period. Fullstop. Understand this, digest it, internalize it.

No-one and nothing outside of you, not even your community, or your family, is going to be able to make things right. Not on their own merit, and not by existing as an island unto themselves. It is not going to matter how much money you have, or how many safe houses you have managed to build for yourselves, or how effectively you have planned for your future.

A decent future cannot be possible, if we do not start looking after the people around us.

A decent future cannot come about, if you continue to look out just for yourself, because nowhere on this planet anymore can you exist within your own carefully constructed fortress, and avoid interacting with the world around you.

The person begging on the street may not be your problem, and you may decide that he or she would be better off getting a job, but there are no such jobs available, because you have not bothered make education available him or her.

The people living in the slums may not be your problem now, but when the tyres start burning in your streets and you can’t even leave your house to go to the airport, they will very quickly, become YOUR problem.

You may decide that because you pay your staff, you have earned the right to treat them like your slaves and get the most out of them per shilling of pay, but when the tide turns, and your staff joins a mass movement and revolts against you, you will understand the fickle nature of your industry’s (or even your domestic) foundation quicker than you can imagine.

You may decide that the world’s hunger and poverty and misery are just not of your own making, but when you decide to leave where you are, and you escape to your foreign destination, you will realize there just isn’t any green grass left on the other side of the fence anymore. Its all gone – destroyed, burnt down and cleared away to make room for the rich and industrialized – all wanting to make more and more, at the expense of the very air that you breathe.

Whether you like it or not, CHANGE is going to have to start with YOU.

So let’s cut out the bullshit. Agreed – that you are doing the best that you can right now, with just trying to make your own ends meet. Agreed – that you are trying to do your best to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your family. All things considered, you’re a good citizen, you keep your head down, and you’re ‘doing your bit’.

Here’s the challenge – if you run a corporate organization and you treat you staff like shit, you’re NOT doing your bit. If you’re a senior person in that organization, and you do nothing to stop injustices in the workplace, then you’re NOT doing your bit.
If you’re part of an organization, and you refuse to work as a team player, looking out fro those that work with you in even small ways, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you employ domestic staff and you couldn’t care less how they or their family eats, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you know that the guy who guards your house all night, every night gets paid a pittance, yet you don’t even bother to acknowledge him or give him an occasional cup of tea to help him while away the night, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you drive down the streets with your windows rolled up, and ignore or look down with disdain upon everyone that approaches you (not everyone’s out to get you by the way), and continue to propagate just how much you’re ‘better’ than the guy on the street, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you continue to sit on your ass, and not get involved in community initiatives – ANY community initiatives, and then feel the need to rant about ‘just how bad things are in the country today’, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you live in the ‘developed’ world, but you continue to harbour racist, classist, or bigoted notions, or if you insist upon remaining cultural secluded to ensure your ‘safety’, you’re not doing your bit.

If you live in the West, then you probably already think that you’re not safe anymore, whether from acts of religious extremism, or a volatile market. If you decide to continue to ignore what’s happening in the world around you, because it’s ‘out there’, think again. By ignoring the reality of the global situation, not trying to understand how the rest of the world functions, and perpetuating the myth of ‘West knows Best’, you’re NOT doing your bit.

If you have decided not to get involved in the lives of anyone around you, other than your nearest and dearest, then I am afraid my friend, that you might want to start to wonder about your fate when the shit hits the fan.

Not ONE thing mentioned above would reduce your personal resources by any significant amount, and it may not even particularly take too much of your time to act upon. It’s all about acting like a decent human being more often. The best part is that you don’t even have to wait for anyone or anything before you start.

Just enhancing dignity for example, has tremendous potential; if your primary goal is to preserve someone’s dignity, then automatically, any form of discrimination will fall away – you are now looking at this person in a totally different way and there would be no room for any sort of prejudice. Any perceived deficiency in another would immediately be acted upon, out of simple decency. Any bad behaviour would perhaps not even be considered, and you would probably employ more tolerance, acceptance, patience and general good manners before acting.
Now imagine, if EVERYONE were just to start behaving differently, and not even drastically, just a little here and a little there, what are the possibilities for Change that we can now envisage?

So change your mind set a little – whoever you are, wherever you are. Start with yourself, and then perhaps insist on the same from others – start by treating those around you with a little more dignity and respect, and then ensure that you get the same in return.

There simply is no excuse anymore for abhorrent behaviour and just plain, pathetic bad manners. IT STARTS WITH YOU – the rest is just details.

No taxes for MPs; No taxes for us!

2008-11-25T12:21:00.001-08:00

From Sukuma Kenya and Bunge La Mwananchi

No taxes for MPs; No taxes for us!

Onwards....and Upwards

2008-11-05T23:57:00.000-08:00

So this is Humanity’s Moment. And the People of the United States of America, together with the Citizens of the World made their Choice.

As a Victory for the people of the United States, and as a Victory for the citizens of the World, it is the starting point - an opening - to chart the course for a different type of world.

The economy, education for our children, safety, food security, basic human rights that include access to primary health care for all, our planet’s climate – these are challenges that the global community faces as a collective.

So what does it mean?

Does it mean that we look yet again to a leader, to solve our problems, or do we finally accept the power that is inherent within each of us to influence and create our own destinies?

Now that we have shattered the boundary of Race, will we continue to use the colour of our skins to assume superiority over each other? Or are we finally prepared to leave melanin out of the equation once and for all, and perhaps recognize it from now on for what it is – a beautifully demonstrative characteristic of the diversity that is the Human Race.

Now that we know that Women Can too, will we continue to utilize domination and oppression to mask our insecurities, or will we finally recognize and celebrate the exquisite and unique characteristics that are inherent to each gender?

Will we continue to use separation and differences to out rank each other economically, socially and politically, or do we recognize that we are magnificently part of a Collective that thrives best when its myriad components come together, each a unique thread that is essential to the overall integrity of the tapestry that we call Humanity?

Will we finally accept that this planet that we call Home, is a living, organic and magnificent wonder of Creation, unconditionally supportive of all that thrives on it, and in it, or will we continue to assume that it is only our species that is somehow more important that the millions of species that have an equal right to be here?

Will we accept and embrace our role as custodians of our planet, or continue to abuse and exploit it for personal gain or convenience?

Will we agree to come together to better understand those that disagree with us, and to put aside our differences to meet on a platform of compromise and tolerance? And in doing so, to recognize and embrace our diversity as intrinsically essential to creating a planetary destiny that is infinitely colourful, infinitely creative, exquisitely textured and fully reflective of the magnificence that is Life itself?

And finally, will we come together to decide, once and for all, what we hold dear to us, what we hold as our Truth in terms of our Core Values – built on a platform that is accessible to all that inhabit the world that we live in, learning from the mistakes of our past, and looking forward to construct the future of our Dreams?

The Moment is Now, and the Work has only just begun.

To my South African Friends

2008-06-04T01:29:00.000-07:00

Watching the news on what is going on in the country I fondly refer to my second home, I am transported back to the events in my country only five months ago. I do not want to go into how similar things are to what happened here in Kenya, nor do I wish to focus on comparing the two.

What I would like to do is to share my thoughts on what I see as a bigger picture, and how perhaps I see how an individual can play a role, from personal experience.

When Kenya erupted in December, we were not alone with regards to election violence. At the time, I remember observing two other elections that were taking place concurrently, and what perhaps struck me is how each scenario played out, it I could use that phrase.

Georgia and Pakistan both went through their electoral processes in the same time frame.

In Georgia, there were widespread claims of election rigging, and it was the popular sentiment that the elected government took office fraudulently. The people of Georgia, whilst disagreeing with the outcome, did not choose to take the matter further in terms of using violence or any forceful means. (However, as of right now, the opposition in Georgia is currently opposing the opening of parliament, claiming that the government was not fairly elected). So, there is resistance, but it is a largely peaceful one.

In Pakistan, things deteriorated to an extent of which the culmination was the assassination of a former Leader.

Kenya erupted in two ways. Most people worked hard to keep things peaceful, but a small minority erupted with sufficient momentum that nearly brought the country to its knees – the country WAS on its knees at one point.

If we were to devise a scale of chaos to depict the three scenarios, Georgia would perhaps fall at one end, Pakistan on the other, and Kenya in the middle.

This is how I see it – if I step back, and allow myself to look at the planet from a distance, it seems to me that I can see certain patterns emerging. The word that comes to mind is CHURNING. It seems that there are pockets of this churning happening in lots of different areas:

In America, the country is on the verge choosing between two members from traditionally marginalized sectors of the general population. America is rallying for Change, and either a Woman or a Black man (or a near Octogenarian) will be the one to take the lead in what has been termed as one of the most exciting election campaigns in the history of that country.

China has shown its eagerness to enter the world arena on a more even playing field by playing host to the world’s top athletes, and in doing so, through sport and entertainment, to hopefully assuage its reputation in the global arena. It has already started experiencing difficulties on more than one level – first there were the Tibetan protests, which brought to the forefront China’s human rights record, and the subsequent boycotting of the Olympic flame’s journey to Beijing, and now an earthquake that almost reached the upper end of the Richter scale in its’ magnitude.

If that wasn’t enough, a cyclone of immense proportion hit an area just south of the epicenter of the earthquake, in a country that has perhaps the worst human rights record of our current time. Also, let’s face it, no-one’s really paid any attention to Burma lately despite their being ruled by one of the worst type of military regimes.

Zimbabwe was next – the fight for fairness continues to date, with the opposition choosing the option of hanging on, not giving up, and taking the battle to court, which has culminated in a hopeful re-run of their election. Who would ever have even considered the possibility of Mugabe being ousted – we all thought he was going to take the presidency to his deathbed.

The Middle East – it seems that we are approaching crunch time here too – oil has reached an all time high of USD 135 per barrel. Analysts are now, surprise surprise, talking about a new world energy order. Al Gore paved the way forward, it won’t be long before we also take that path. Except that now it may be more out of necessity than out of choice.

And finally, South Africa. The issues of Xenophobia, poverty, inequality, and the political leadership manipulating people’s insecurities to achieve their own ends are all coming to the surface (Issues that have also surfaced elsewhere in the world). What is happening is not really coming as a surprise to people, but perhaps what is shocking is just how violent the mode of expression is. The power shortages now seem to be a somewhat lame(?) cause of worry compared to the implications of what is happening now.

Do you see a pattern? This is how I would perhaps summarise it – I see the world in the middle of an opportunity for profound Change – no, I’d rather use the word ‘Shift’. Yes, that very shift that some of you may have read about – of a quantum rise in the collective consciousness of Humanity and of the planet as a Whole.

To expound on my line of thought, I would like to use the analogy of a snow globe – you know, the ones you get at a tourist concession stand – with perhaps the Eiffel tower in it, and as you shake it, all the snow flakes go crazy and you create a little storm in the globe.

The degree of the storm in the globe depends on how hard one shakes the globe. What the shaker has control over perhaps, is how hard and how long S/he wishes to shake the globe. At some point, S/he will choose to stop shaking the globe, and allow the flakes to settle. While the snow flakes are flurrying, it looks like chaos in the globe. All hell is breaking loose. As the flakes slow down some semblance of order starts to get restored.

By the time the snow has settled, it all looks calm, but with one difference – while on the outside all looks the same, each of the snowflakes has settled in a completely different place to where it was originally. The scene looks the same, but the intrinsic environment of the globe is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

With reference to the predicted shift for humanity, I see the planet as that snow globe. And as a result of the positive intentions, hard work and energy of millions of individuals who have worked towards and longed for this shift, or for a better world, or a different world, a snow storm has been created in this planet/ globe. And the whole planet will be affected, at some point or another, by this storm.

The nature of the storm, or the churning, as I see it, is this.

In almost every example, I see people becoming restless, people finally reaching the end of their threshold when it comes to how much they can tolerate with regards to how they are governed, asking perhaps whether they need to be governed (??!), looking around them and realizing perhaps that life is just too incredibly hard, that they have been lied to so much, that the values they uphold are perhaps not adequate anymore, that life isn’t working according to this old rule book that has been in place for so long and which they have been following religiously (no pun intended).

That perhaps there’s more to life than just accepting what they’re told – with what they’re being told is the definition of success. That even if they agree with the conventional definition of success, how on earth are they ever going to meet that definition with the numerous challenges that they face on a daily basis – if you’re not the right colour, then you’re too poor, if you’re too poor, then you’re marginalized, if you’re marginalized, you don’t even have the opportunity to pull your self out of your situation, because someone somewhere set the limit of your ceiling and made it almost impossible for you to burst through that ceiling. If you’re not poor, then you belong to the wrong religion. If you’re not from the right ‘Faith’, then you’re an infidel, a heretic, you don’t deserve beneficience even from Divinity. And on and on and around and around we go, in circle after circle.

Perhaps this churning is a result of multitudes hoping and wishing for a different world – of higher consciousness? And if what we are experiencing is the snowstorm in the globe, then the way I see it, is that what we do have control of, is how we choose to play out our roles during this churning. Do we contribute to the chaos, or are there other means of expressing ourselves during the chaos. Do we hold the space with our very firm intentions of how we want the final scene to look, and uphold and brace humanity during the chaos, through thought, action and deed, or do we allow ourselves to get lost in the chaos, and lose ourselves along the way.

Perhaps we cannot be responsible for bracing the entire planet’s churning. But consider this – what if where we are right now, is the exact place that we wish to be on a deeper level? What if, this is where we have chosen to be at this time, whichever region of the world that we may be in right now, because this is where we felt we could make the most difference. Where we are right now then, is our niche, so to speak – the area where we could influence the most, understand the most, be loyal to the most, and be the most effective in.

If that were the case, and if we are in exactly in the right place at the right time, WHAT WILL BE OUR CHOICES?

So it’s no wonder that people are standing up. It’s no wonder that people are choosing to take a stand. Maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to judge those who are resorting to violence because for them, right now, violence is the only means through which they see themselves as having the permission to express their indignation, and their sorrow, and grief, and frustration. It is said that there is no more sacred thing than human life – but what if you were one of those for whom human life has been an experience of the worst kind of misery and degradation – how could you possibly look at that and regard it as sacred? With no benchmark for sanctity, what could you possibly be limited by or hold such dear value for, if you have no mother, father, siblings, family, cultural or national identity, or a sense of belonging to either a community, country or society?

And who has done this? The rich to the poor? The government to its people? The foreigners to the nationals? One tribe to another? The men to the women? The Church to its flock?

How about we consider perhaps, that “I did this to You” – How about “ I did this to You when I acted mean-spiritedly to you, when I thought you were different to me, when I thought to choose pride, anger, jealousy, hatred, envy, insecurity, superiority, exclusivity, ignorance over camaraderie, generosity, kindness, patience, tolerance”.

The way I see it, we have at this time, a massive opportunity to stand up, take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for Who we are, Where we are, How we choose to Act, What we choose to Say, and What we choose to Think.

I read somewhere ‘Choose Change before Change Chooses You’. Change is happening, it always has, and it is said that change is the nature of the universe so change will always happen.

If we can recognize that we are now living in a time where we are increasingly affecting each other with everything we do, say or how we behave, that countries can no longer afford to operate as islands, that ignoring the needs of those around us will inevitably have repercussions on our own lifestyles and livelihoods, then we may not be as inclined to pursue exclusively individualistic aspirations. And perhaps our increasing ability to communicate with each other at the touch of a button is a reflection of how much closer we are to operating as a collective. That being the case, the opportunity that I see in front of us then, is one of taking collective responsibility.

Where collective responsibility has been applied, it has succeeded in bringing about positive change. To name a few current examples which do not even touch the tip of the iceberg - Kenya has a coalition government, the first on the continent; the ASEAN countries have successfully applied pressure to Burma, and aid is now being allowed in; America is participating in a process that is shattering stereotypes and traditional barriers and is inspiring to millions of people.

And how would we do this? Well, we can stand tall, fill up our lungs and send a message to the entire universe, and state with utmost clarity what it is we choose for our future. We can state our choices in no uncertain terms, and then accept nothing less.

And then, we can spring into action, and act out Who We Are. YOU decide who you are and what you stand for. YOU decide what it is you want to put out there everyday. YOU have an influence on every individual that you encounter, interact with, speak to, think about, work with, work for – every person that fills your gas tank, that packs your grocery bag, that you spend your work day with, that you meet in traffic, that you pass on the street , that you buy a sandwich from, that you ask to clean your house, that keeps your garden tidy, that you go out for a meal with.

You see, while you may not be able to change the world, you can certainly BE THAT CHANGE – Gandhi said Be the Change, Mother Teresa said do small things with Great Love. Why not start Now?

All my love,

Farrah

Hope

2008-03-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

We open our hearts in Gratitude for Peace,
We open our hearts to Healing for our Nation,
We open our hearts for Courage, Strength and Determination to build our Nation,
To create our Future – A Kenyan Future.

We have Peace - We have a platform to Create,
But we cannot afford to forget,
We still have refugees in our own country,
Our institutions are still weak.

Nurture each other,
Show little kindness to your fellow Kenyan everyday,
Reconstruction and re-building our Nation starts with You and Me.

Our journey has just begun,
Your country needs you more than ever NOW.

'Leadership' my ar**!

2008-02-21T09:52:00.001-08:00

I just watched Kofi Annan’s update on the Kilaguni talks. We will be forever indebted to that man. For the sake of the country, I have to continue remaining optimistic that a successful outcome will be reached. And it will. There is no other viable possibility for the present time.

But I just cannot help feeling angry at the way our future is currently being horse-traded. Keeping my optimism levels high is becoming more and more of a chore and extremely difficult to do.

To you, Mr. Politician, I wish we could tell you to you to your face how we really feel about you.

I wish you could see the disdain and the lack of respect with which we regard you. I wish we could somehow find a way to let you go, and not waste any more of our precious energy resting our hopes with you - always hoping and praying that you’ll do the right thing.

What exactly is it that we owe you? Why do we even look up to you? Why did I even bother allowing myself to be momentarily uplifted by your fake and deceitful promises? Why did I invest any faith in you?

You, all of you who claim to lead us today, have, as a GENERATION have failed us. You have allowed our communal values to disintegrate. You have allowed us to become a people divided by greed, self-interest and exclusiveness.

While we wait out every day with bated breath, you continue to haggle with each other over who will retain the most power, trying to ensure that you maintain your upper hands and your control. You’re STILL not seeing the real picture – you are so blinded by your self importance, and your inflated egos, and you really don’t give a damn about what happens to millions of us.

Oh how I wish there was some way to get rid of the lot of you. How I wish we all felt more empowered, more able, more confident, more enthusiastic, more determined, because if we did, trust me – you wouldn’t stand a chance. But you know that already, don’t you? It’s why you use what you use to oppress us, to keep us down, to make us fearful, to make us insecure and uncertain. You try to destroy our strength every opportunity that you get.

What goes around, comes around. No power lasts forever. No family is always safe. The sins of the fathers will always be revisited on future generations. Maybe you’ll keep your children safe, but perhaps you’ll be around to see the legacy that you left your grand-children. You will only have yourselves to judge.

So go ahead – fill your bellies to bursting, steal as much as you want, fulfill every self-serving desire, because your grandchildren will be the ones to inherit a world that is so bursting with poverty, that they will not be able to step out of the safety of the palaces that you built for them because their security will be threatened with every step that they take. They will not be able to step out of their palaces because the environment that they live in is so filthy that a mere breath will make them ill. They will not be able to walk and live freely because there will be no concept of neighbourliness – you had them all killed.

Their lives will be filled with boredom, because you eliminated diversity when you brought about your divisive thinking.

So go ahead – negotiate, horse trade, make your deals, and stick with your myopic and petty thinking.

You will pay the price, and no amount of cash is going to help you settle the bill and you certainly won’t have built up any credit.

Enough said.

Creating Our Future - A Kenyan Solution

2008-02-15T07:00:00.001-08:00

We are all hoping for a successful outcome from the mediation talks. As of Friday last week (8^th Feb), there are signs of both sides backing down from their hard-line stance to a more optimistic consensus, perhaps with regards to a possible power-sharing arrangement. So far, this is probably the closest we have come to a coalition of sorts, albeit for a short term period.

The interim period, with possible power sharing, will perhaps now lend a platform from which we will be able to discern and determine how we want to move forward formally. By formally, I mean that we may now perhaps look at constitutional changes that will allow for a decentralised presidency, an independent judiciary, and new legislation that will address land policy reforms, resource allocation, and increased accountability within the constituency framework.

All of these have been addressed at some level or another during the constitutional review carried out a few years ago. Perhaps now is the time, and an opportunity for our leadership to actively address these concerns.

The aspect that I would like to bring to the forefront in this piece is one that is perhaps less tangible and more ‘informal’, if I could call it that.

At the start of the ‘crisis’, the violence, looting and turmoil was ascribed to a reaction towards a flawed and stolen election. A couple of weeks later, there were claims that the ongoing violence was a result of a reaction that stemmed from retaliation to the initial violence and displacement of people from the Rift Valley region. It seemed at the time, that the violence was tribally motivated. Two weeks after that, in yet another apparent reaction, gangs of young individuals claiming an affiliation to a specific militia group went on a rampage in revenge attacks, again in what seemed to be yet more retaliation in an escalating situation.

There is some truth in each of these claims. I say some, because whereas the reasons given in each instance are valid, I do not think that they reflect the entire truth of the overall situation.

From the numerous editorials in the daily newspapers, most will agree that the problem facing Kenyans today is one of greater complexity. On the surface, we may deduce from the turn of events that there are tribal divisions and underlying resentments relating to an inequitable division of national resources. Fair enough, but I think the problem goes deeper.

Like most developing countries, Kenya’s evolving democracy has had to address a myriad of problems and issues relating to power and governance, resource allocation, and poverty alleviation to name a few, against a back drop of cultural, traditional and ethnic diversity. If the challenges arising from the colonial ‘divide and rule’ methods have not been addressed adequately, it is perhaps because we assumed that economic empowerment would be the great equalizer in the long term. The notion that economic wealth will eventually ‘trickle down’ from the upper and emerging middle classes has been a long standing development theory.

In the last four years, it seemed that the theory would be proved in the Kenyan example – our country had achieved 7% per cent growth, and most sectors in our economy were thriving. We were a ‘busy’ nation, there was a discernable buzz in the air, and investor confidence had improved markedly. Our emerging ‘bourgeoisie’ – or middle class, were doing just that – emerging. Yes, there was still gross inequality and poverty, but we were not much different that most developing countries in our path of evolution. We all felt that we had come so far – after all, defeating an autocratic system and a free press were huge gains that we had made in the last seven years and this contributed to our sense of national pride. In addition, surely our security was guaranteed to some extent, given how far we had evolved democratically.

It didn’t take much to bring down the house of cards. And in retrospect, this is not surprising either. Because there were still too many imbalances in the system to allow us the ultimate guarantee of security. There was a point when we were almost relegated to the status of 'yet another African a country on the brink of civil war', and therefore not much different from our African neighbours.

But here’s the thing – there is something that sets us lightly apart as Kenyans, and makes us a little different.

Not only did we as an African nation defeat a post-colonial autocracy peacefully, but we defeated a government referendum and SUCCEEDED IN RESTORING PEACE at a time when we were almost written off as a country that would lapse into civil war.

I wonder if we realize the immense power and strength of what we have just accomplished in the past few weeks. I wonder if anyone truly understands just how important and powerful we are as a People, how the VALUES that we uphold as a People have saved the day for us? And this is just the tip of the iceberg – if this is what we have managed to achieve when under pressure, just how much more can we achieve if we truly unite as a COLLECTIVE in ‘peace-time’?

The events of the past few weeks have affected EVERYONE. There is not one single person that can claim to not have been affected directly. If you stayed at home in the first week, you were affected directly. If you were afraid to go out, you were affected directly. If you wondered about the safety of your future and if you asked the question ‘Where will I go?, you were affected directly. I say this because in my discussions with various people, now that we have restored ourselves to some semblance of calm, I can already see signs of the familiar dissipating interest in the situation.

And it is this familiar ennui that scares me. As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, the human memory of pain is short – the memory of the pain lingers, but because the intensity has dissipated, we tend to become complacent about the cause of the pain.

I would like to use the analogy of a boil. A boil is a sore on the skin which can be an extremely painful and an ungainly condition. It may not be apparent at first, by if left untended, it festers and becomes infected, grows in size and may lead to many secondary complications. And I would use the analogy of the boil to describe what has happened to us in Kenya.

We had a boil on our skin. Our boil is the hopeless poverty, inequality, frustration, hunger, desperation and suffering of at least two generations. For a long time we hid the boil under our sleeves, hoping it would either go away or heal over time. Without invalidating the suffering endured over the past few weeks, I would like to point out that perhaps all that has happened is that the boil finally burst. And it has been excruciatingly painful and messy. I would like to think that all is not lost - not yet anyway. We still have a chance to treat our wounds, and to ensure that we remain blemish free in the future.

So let's examine the cause of our condition. We are quick to invalidate urban settlements such as Kibera by terming them as as illegal, but do we realize that an entire generation has been born and raised in these settlements?

Think about it. Individuals from the rural areas are forced to migrate to urban centres seeking a means to earn a living because the infrastructure in the rural areas is simply not adequate to allow the community to thrive in a sustainable manner. As this happens, the rural structures that have allowed communities to survive in the past are gradually eroded, as the community is broken up. This leads to a disintegration of the value-system in the rural village, as elders and women are forced to fend for themselves, and children are increasingly considered as a resource rather than the community’s wealth. And this is just the beginning of the story.

As the individuals migrate to the urban centres, the cost of living simply does not allow them to establish any meaningful mode of existence, and small informal settlement begin to form which are regarded as illegal.

I don’t need to go into the developmental model of the consequences of rural to urban migration, but I think you get the picture. In twenty years, we now have over one third of the city’s residents living in such informal, illegal settlements. The government will not do anything about this, because technically, they are illegal. The same is happening in all the other towns. The generation that has been born and raised in these settlements has done so in the absence of a communal value system.

Most children have been abandoned, or have parents that struggle beyond normal human endeavor to provide for their children. Almost all have had no access to a village or traditional culture which would provide a level of safety and a value system or framework that would contribute to a sense of identity and belonging. The absence of elder members of the community and of general communal responsibility would only enhance their sense of disengagement from society.

The issues run deep, and there are no apparent or immediate solutions.

I am not about to propose that we change any of the above. Neither am I going to propose that we tackle the issue of government responsibility, or that we tackle the issue of slums, or that we tackle the issue of rural to urban migration. I’ll leave that for the policy makers and for the politicians and the NGO’s.

All I am attempting to do, at this stage, is to try and paint the picture as it is. I will even desist from making a judgment on the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of this picture.

All I am trying to do is to bring to the forefront a representation of what I see as the consequences of all our collective actions and choices as a Nation to date.

Let me repeat that. Where we are and what we are today, is a product of all the choices and actions that we have made as a combined collective. That’s all. No more, no less. Some may say the overall picture looks good, some may say it looks bad. Some may say there’s lots of room for improvement, some may defend their position and say we’ve done the best that we can – we can argue about this forever, and that is why I would just like, at this time, to step back and look at ourselves form a distance, and take stock, if you will, of where we are today.

If we do that, then perhaps we’ll be in a position to assess ourselves carefully. If we’re able to do this, without getting caught up in defensive positions, if we can do it without pointing fingers at each other for the things that we see that we don’t like, perhaps we’ll be able to look at ourselves critically, and without placing any blame anywhere, discuss what we like about ourselves, what we don’t like, what serves us, and what doesn’t.

Perhaps we can even go further, and decide what we would like to take forward with us, what we would like to discard forever, what lessons we have learned, and how we can use those lessons to assist us in mapping out a future of our own making.

I see in front of us at this time, a huge opportunity. They say that there are two ways to teach a child – either you can teach it lovingly, with patience and care, and if the child responds, you have done well. The second way is to allow the child to learn from its own mistakes. This method can be more painful for the child, and is filled with greater uncertainty, but the lessons learnt are more ingrained as they come with the scars of experience.

We can either sit back and learn from the wisdom of the lessons of our African neighbours, or we can move forward with the courage of those children who will learn from their mistakes and suffering. We will get there, either way. We need not look at our suffering as a set-back. We can sit up, lick our wounds, pick up our brothers and sisters who have fallen in the process, and decide as a collective to move forward together.

We can, right now, say that we have had enough suffering, and come together immediately to decide our way forward, or we can allow time to go by and wait for our lessons to come in the Future. Either way, lessons must be learned. When and how we will learn them is only a matter of time, and a matter of CHOICE. So the big question is: What do YOU choose?

At the time of writing this piece, we have been assembling a media campaign that will address the question of our values as a nation. The media campaign is one that will address the question of VALUES – what are our values as a nation, as a community, as an individual, as the middle class, as the private sector etc. It is a campaign that targets all individuals on an even platform to address the concepts of taking responsibility (and what that means), creating accountability (and identifying who is accountable and how) and identifying our common values.

Our hope is to reach out to people through print media as well as radio stations. We are asking all interested individuals to get in touch with us and all are welcome to participate. Our goal is also to reach out to civil society groups and individuals working in the legislature to effect change based on a system of commonly adopted values.

WE CAN CHOOSE CHANGE, BEFORE CHANGE CHOOSES US.

Practical Spirituality - An enhanced way of Living

2008-01-23T12:56:00.001-08:00

The first two blog posts were both about Kenya and I guess I don’t really want my blog to be all political and so I decided to post this article which I had intended for a column in daily newspaper. It basically follows the principle of ‘Be the Change you wish to see’ (I just love that ol’ skinny guy).

Spirituality – a word that perhaps conjures up images of Monks, Mystics and an Ascetic way of Living. Almost all of us today have come across numerous aspects of the New Age movement including transformational workshops, Yoga, meditation, breathing techniques and visiting Ashrams to find that elusive inner peace and happiness.

Yes, wonderful for all those people who may have the time to devote to inner search and the meaning of life, you may say, but perhaps its not something you consider adding or adapting your current lifestyle to for many reasons – time, practicality or simply the current circumstances of your own life.

Well, this article demonstrates how you can perhaps transform a simple, mundane task that you perform on a regular basis, into a more meaningful and enhanced experience.

Whereas we may regard or expect spiritual experiences to be of the profound, near-ecstatic, potentially out-of-body kind, I suggest that ANY experience that brings an individual greater Joy, or an enhanced sense of well-being, or even a generally ‘feel good’ sensation could perhaps be regarded as a spiritual experience.

Consider this – any experience that makes you feel good in your body, that brings about a sense of heightened awareness, (as long it does not bring about any harm to the individual or to those around, and as long as it is done with integrity and with good intention) could be considered a spiritual experience.

After all, it is now often heard that we are perhaps Spiritual Beings having a Human Experience – a little too far out? Well, let me give you an example.

Take Driving, for instance. Those of us that do drive, are all aware of the general ‘un-state’ of the roads, and the traffic, and the inconsiderate drivers etc. Most of us brace ourselves for a traffic jam at some point in time during the day, and most of us even end up getting stuck in an inadvertent traffic jam at a most unexpected hour. So how could driving in this city, possibly be turned into a so called spiritual experience that brings about joy and all those other lovely emotions?

Well, here’s a scenario – you brace yourself for a two hour wait on Mombasa Road at about 5.00 pm. This is something you do everyday. Its something you wish you didn’t have to do, but short of leaving work at 3 o’clock, you pretty much know that this is what its going to be like for today. So you’re in the traffic, and there’s a car in front of you, and one behind you, and a ditch to your right, and well, another car to your left. So you’re stuck. It’s hot, the radio’s on the blink, and the traffic cop seems to be favouring all the other directional traffic lanes but yours.

You have two choices. You can work yourself up into a silent, seething rage, with shallow breathing and all or……take a deep breath. Just that - take a deep breath, then another one, and another. As you calm down, you realize that you sink back into your seat (this pretty much happens naturally). As you sink back into your seat, something amazing happens – you suddenly start to care a lot less about the traffic! A part of you resignedly accepts the situation as it is. So you sit back, and perhaps start tapping your fingers lightly on the steering wheel, and as you do so, you start looking around.

You notice the street vendors, the people on bicycles precariously trying to weave their way through traffic, and the numerous others trudging home on foot. Perhaps you now appreciate the fact that you have a car to drive home in. You also now suddenly start seeing the insanity of the other drivers who, just like you two minutes ago, are still trying to cram themselves in through the one foot gap between two cars! As the insanity becomes apparent, you immediately give way to someone in front of you.

Now, because of your new state of calmness, you realize that you’re here for the next 20 minutes or so at the least. So you do a really crazy weird thing. Forgetting about how unsafe it is to roll down your window because of crime etc, you actually allow yourself to do so for a breath of fresh (or fume filled) air. As you do so, one of the street vendors comes up to you, but now you’re feeling calm, and so you don’t regard him as a potential deviant. Instead you strike up a friendly conversation with him. Because you’re in good spirits, you manage to convince him that you don’t want to buy your tenth pack of peanuts for the day, and the most surprising thing happens - he smiles back at you – and tells you to have a great day! You say something similar to him and the traffic starts to move, and suddenly you’re moving forward, but now you’re feeling really great!

As you move forward in traffic, the feeling carries forward with you. Now, all you have done is shifted your perspective on the situation. But you’re left with a net result of generally pleasant feel good sensations. You probably will end up getting home feeling better than you did then when you left work.

So, you have now felt, in order of appearance – calm, accepting, observing, grateful, considerate, free of fear, patient, smiled at a stranger, and optimistic. I don’t know about you, but I call that Spiritual.

Have a little patience today – and show a little consideration. It’ll go a long way.

Who will Save Kenya - Part 2

2008-01-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

It’s been just over three weeks now, and we, as Kenyans have been through an extremely trying and turbulent period.

We have experienced, outrage, anger, indignation, sorrow, shock, numbness, disbelief, fear, and sometimes, just a certain quietness.

The trauma to our psyche is apparent everywhere. However, whilst acknowledging the anger that has been felt, and without invalidating the deep indignation towards the injustices that have been carried out, I would like to shift the focus to what I can only term as a certain kind of ‘Magic’ that has happened:

The outpouring of support from Kenyans TO Kenyans has been phenomenal. There are people who have gone out on a limb to share and give of their time and their resources, to help in any which way that they can.

Companies have actually gone out and paid for advertising that calls on Kenyans to Help save Kenya, and have donated large amounts of money and resources to help with the relief efforts.

There are brave individuals who have risked everything to shelter those that were fleeing from violence.

Media companies have collaborated with each other to propagate relief efforts and to call for peace. The messages that they have sent out are bold, honest and defiant towards any kind of divisive behaviour or attitudes.

The Institutions coordinating the relief effort are actually now trying to figure out the best way to get the aid to the people, and not primarily worrying about whether or not they have enough to go around. (I am not saying that they have more than enough, but am merely pointing out just how much has been donated to the Red Cross by Kenyans and her Friends).

I just saw a message from the Tourism Board in the newspapers today that was honest, direct, and laid the cards on the table in a forthright manner that one would never see ordinarily – it mentioned how the MP’s attended parliament, went about their business, came to their conclusions, and adjourned, thereby securing their salaries etc for another term. It then asked Kenyans whether they could expect the same for themselves. There are many more companies being similarly non-conventional, honest and direct in their approach.

Kenyans from all walks of life have called for and have rallied for Peace, both in word, and in action, barring the actions of a misled minority. And this perhaps has been the most consistent, prevalent and unifying aspect of the past few weeks. If Kenyans have spoken, then surely this has been our most significant and resounding statement.

With incredible resilience, courage and determination, and in the in the midst of uncertainty, insecurity, inconvenience and severe constraints, Kenyans have gone back to work, in order to try and restore, with whatever means they have available, some semblance of order to our everyday lives.

In the first week, it really did seem that we were on the verge of sinking into a situation that so many of our sister countries have found themselves in – one of civil war, ethnic divide and incredible chaos. It almost seemed, for a time, that the situation was spiraling out of control at an unstoppable pace.

We were so numbed by the sheer momentum of the turn of events, to the point that we were almost incapacitated into helplessness.

However, what has emerged is what I have pointed out above, and this is why I have called it nothing short of MAGIC. Despite the international media sensationally predicting genocide and ethnic divides, despite the doom and gloom painted by outside observers (not completely invalid but certainly in my opinion inflated), despite the immense amount of fear that we have experienced and despite the immense suffering that we have undergone in such a short time, we have yet again, SURVIVED..

FOR NOW.

And I’ll say it again – FOR NOW.

We have come this far and we have survived, but it would serve us well to remember, that the temporary comfort that we have fought to bring about in the past few weeks is still a very fragile and transient comfort. To illustrate the point that I am trying to make, I will use the analogy of a multiple injury accident.

At the time the accident happened, there was a colossal amount of pain, acute shock, and without being glib, lots of blood loss and acute suffering for the first few days. After a few weeks, (not withstanding the continual pockets of violence that we are still hearing about), the worst of the PAIN seems to have lessened. What we are now experiencing, is akin to post traumatic pain. The wounds are still sore, they may still bleed from time to time, and there are a lot of emotions related to the injury itself that have yet to be dealt with. In addition, we are still accident prone, with the risk of further injury a very real possibility.

Human memory of pain in itself is short. And I don’t mean this in a bad way – perhaps we are programmed to forget the intensity of the pain to facilitate our moving on. The grief or sorrow that replaces the pain is perhaps a lesser burden to bear than the pain itself in that it is not as debilitating as pain. I say this because for now, it seems that with the lessening of the pain, some semblance of order has been restored. And perhaps I am afraid that the temporary relief that we are experiencing will lull us into a false sense of comfort about the risk of further injury being a possibility, and lead us to underestimating the fragility of our situation.

A political outcome at this stage is completely uncertain and unpredictable. In addition, there is a general consensus that the continued unrest is not even the result of genuine demonstrators protesting against the election results, but the opportunistic endeavours of a misled, dangerous and criminalistic minority determined to disrupt and destroy lives and livelihoods in a senseless manner.

It would seem, to the outside observer, that our future today largely depends on the actions and decisions of a handful of individuals who are holding the mere title of 'leadership'.

I see it very differently. We have, in my opinion, available at this moment a tremendous opportunity to harness the phenomenal amount of goodwill, courage, resilience and determination, and to USE this TO TAKE OURSELVES FORWARD INTO A FUTURE OF OUR OWN MAKING.

It has already been proven to us that those that we call leaders do not really listen to what those they are trying to lead are calling for. It is being continually proven to us that the institution that we call government never really has, and is certainly not at the moment doing its job of providing a safe and enabling environment for its citizens. In the midst of the greatest of hardship, and with very little resources, Kenyans have continued time after time to wake up every day and, with or without transport, with or without roads, with or without security, with or without services gone about in the best way that they know, to make a living. It is Kenyans who put food on the table for their families – Kenyans, in this time of crisis, who have come to the aid of fellow Kenyans, Kenyans who have come together to call for peace, and through conscious inaction and non-violence brought about that very fragile Peace.

We have come this far. With almost no means at our disposal, we have come this far. We have so much goodwill (in the form of positive intentions) and potential at this moment. Add the third magic ingredient of rightful action, and we can have forward movement.

The question now perhaps, is not so much as Who will save Kenya, but HOW will WE save KENYA?

This is the time for us to come together to decide on what our values are. This is the time for us to come together to decide as a Nation, what we truly stand for. This is the time for us to come together to decide what is genuinely important to Kenyans. This is the time to come together to REMEMBER BEFORE WE FORGET. This is the time for us to come together to acknowledge the value of Peace. This is the time for us to come together to make promises to ourselves that we will never break. This is the time for us to come together to make a commitment to our children and to our future generations that we will not fail them. This is the time for us to come together to decide how we want to be led.

This is the time to come together. Is there anyone out there listening?

Who will save Kenya?

2008-01-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

Speaking to almost everyone that I have an opportunity to engage with in the past two weeks, this has been the common consensus:

* Kenyans stood in long lines for hours on December 27^th 2007 to exercise their constitutional right, and voted.

* Everyone that I have spoken to, without exception, is shell-shocked – both by the senseless violence and the killings, which no Kenyan would ever had expected to happen in our country in this day and age.

* Everyone, without exception, wants Peace. And that’s Peace with a capital ‘P’.

* Almost all feel that both parties are to blame, and the general consensus is that the politicians are merely power hungry, and looking to serve their own interests – which primarily involve the Number One Seat and power.

* When asked if they would go out on the streets, all again, without exception said No, because, they asked, who would feed us the next day?

* On the question of tribalism, almost all that I have spoken to, simply cannot understand the intentions of the groups that have propagated the violence in the name of tribalism. How can we be tribal? One woman even went as far as to say that being a Kikuyu herself, she was primarily concerned with the welfare of her colleagues, who are from different tribes, and during the unrest, she kept calling and checking up on all of them to see if they were ok and if they needed anything. The thought that they were from different tribes did not even cross her mind.

What is emerging, is that over time, our interactions with one another have ‘humanised’ us – we have come to regard each other as a colleague, an employer, a neighbour, a friend, or just someone whose services we may use from time to time.

And that, in my opinion, is not from the evolution of democracy, resulting in a government that looks after and feeds it people, but from a People or population that has evolved by embracing the diversity presented by a multitude of races, cultures and tribes. This diversity has included the acceptance, adoption and propensity for a multitude of lifestyles and interests, as well as resulting in the evolution of a culture unique to the People of this country.

Kenyans are bound by their loyalty to their Nation. We are primarily a friendly People, blessed with a sense of humour and an intelligence that allows even a less economically fortunate individual to appreciate the nuances of politics or the idiosyncracies of human nature.

Which is why we have all been so taken aback by the turn of events in the last few weeks. Kenyans are not fools. Being an eternally optimistic People, we are always seeking change – change which hopefully brings about forward movement, be it economically, personally, politically, or even culturally. And it is with this optimism that Kenyans turned out in huge numbers to vote. We are not a foolish people. If we were perhaps naïve enough to believe that our future could be governed by one man, I would like to say it is because of our innate optimism. Realistically, not many truly believed that there would be a huge leap forward, but for us, even a little change would be good.

It is with this optimism and determination that we defeated an entrenched autocratic system and bought in ‘Mabadiliko’(Change) in 2002. It is with the same resilience that we defeated a Government Referendum, put forward by a government that thought it could fool the people into voting for a flawed constitution.

In both instances, it was not the politicians that brought in change – IT WAS THE PEOPLE. Of course, we must give due credit to those that spoke out and allowed us to come together with one voice. And perhaps we can be forgiven to think that the person who speaks out the loudest should naturally be the one to lead us. But I honestly do not think that it will ever be about one person leading us. How could that be?

For a society that thrives IN Pluralism, with so much of a mix of different interests and cultures and lifestyles, how could just one human being be responsible for overseeing, managing, and nurturing all the millions of differences?

And this is why I put forward the opinion, that for Africa, and I’ll be specific to Africa for the present time, with its history of traditional tribal culture, colonialism and diversity, COALITION can be the only way forward.

Having spoken to many people over the last week and a half or so, many say that if asked to vote again, they would not do so! Who would we vote for, they ask. And why should we vote if this is what the ultimate result would be.

And so, in the final analysis, all political parties are to blame, and all have proven in some way or another, that their personal ambitions supercede the desires and welfare of the people they wish to lead. Sacrifice a few now, and all will reap the rewards later.

And in doing so, they have proven, that they do not truly understand the Pulse of this Nation. That they do not understand the extent to which Kenyans have evolved not just as citizens, but as a branch of humanity itself.

I said before the election, that I was making a CONSCIOUS choice not to vote. Not because I wasn’t bothered, or that what would it matter if I did anyway. But I said that if there was a box on the ballot which said ‘none of the above’. Then that is where I would place my ‘tick’. When asked why, I simply said that I was not willing to give my vote to another human being who I simply did not have any faith in. After all, if things did go wrong, I would only have myself to blame, because with my vote, I endorsed that individual and gave him the power to lead in me in manner as he saw fit.

When asked who I would vote for, I said that I would vote for that person, who would have the economic acumen and experience of one of the candidates, the passion of the other candidate, and the diplomacy of the third. Impossible? I don’t think so – after all, isn’t that what defines a Coalition?

Hello!!

2008-01-14T03:51:00.000-08:00

Having just set up this Blog, I don't really want to launch into long explanations of who I am, or what I do. This is a medium through which I will choose to express my opinions and ideas on various issues, and you are welcome to share in them, engage in discussion about them, discard them or simply read and move on.

Either way, I am sure that those that know me will breathe a sigh of relief now that I have found an alternative medium to express myself, and I look forward to using it to share my thoughts, opinions and ideas with all of you - Old and New Friends.

So.....WELCOME.....to my 2 Sense!!! :)