Friday, December 5, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
The Big Man Syndrome
We seem to live in a society that is seriously afflicted by low self-esteem disorder; in fact we seem to be suffering from self worth big man hemorrhage, from the bullies in our schools and work places to our public life. It is like one of those moments that someone steps on your cleanly polished shoes in the matatu as you are headed to down town Nairobi, covering them with a thick coat of clay mud, don’t make a mistake of raising up your head as if to say “excuse me boss you stepping on me” unless you expect a stare from mean looking eyes, with the guy gathering the audacity to look you directly in the eyes with that suspicious look like you supposed to apologize instead – hello! Dude you just stepped on me?
There is nowhere that this reality is magnified than in our political system. Now that the National Assemble asserted itself as the senior house their counterparts in the Senate now have to lay claim in the County Development matters by appointing themselves the Development Board Chairmen – really? Like seriously? What role does the Senate really play? At first we thought they were supposed to be the custodians of devolution. The governors who have perceived themselves as the small presidents, I take that back, they are their “Excellences” just short of Court of Arms and the National flag, they have let us down in no more than numerous ways, but still for the Senators to devolve their patronage and corruption to the grassroots (mashinani) is still not what we anticipated when we worked hard to give ourselves a Constitution.
Without fear of contradiction this menace of the big man syndrome in our public life need to be nipped in the bud before we self-destruct. In deed, in order to save ourselves from ourselves we need to support the Cord’s call for a referendum, we should petition them among the many questions they are consulting with the Supreme Court- sorry Mutunga and the IEBC be included in the referendum, the scrapping of the Senate and the reduction of the Constituencies to not more than 42 thus ensuring equality in representation with each tribe contributing one honorable member of the August House.
Uganda and Gay Debates in Africa
Several months ago, the African Trip by the most powerful President of the most powerful Nation on earth, as expected elicited both excitement and resentment in equal measure. Remember the Kenyan whining how ungrateful Obama is to not even go by his father’s village and shake the grandma’s hand? Oh, while in Tanzania there was the promise of the energy investment to light the African continent from the perennial darkness, not forgetting the many inconveniences that came with the visit including the jamming of the telephone networks. However, the most memorable was the following statement reported in some Kenyan Media and attributed to President Obama, “My basic view is that regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, when it comes to the law, people should be treated equally, (Daily Nation, July 28)” Mark the word regardless of sexual orientation. This may as well have been taken out of context and the emphasis may have been elsewhere. But these was seen by many and rightly so as a veiled attempt to push and arm-twist the African countries to legalize gay marriages. At the time the first and perhaps the most vocal voice was that of the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Kenya Cardinal John Njue and his advise to the good president “forget”.
The recent development and the passing of the Antigay laws in Uganda have revived the same sex debate again. For most Africans whether Christians or non-Christians the debate on gay issues raises very varied reactions with those in support being in the minority or even never heard. You need to follow such debates on the social media and vitriol’s that come with it. Obviously, I am not going to voice their concerns in this platform. However, for me the call by President Obama, raises a very fundamental question to us as Africans. We can all rise up in arms and claim how African we are and how immoral this is, but as in many other issues when it comes to the West and standing up against Western influences we are poor students of history, remember the Anti-terrorism bill and subsequently Anti-terrorism Act?
Cardinal John Njue may have called it as it is, but we really need to rise and stand for our African culture and what is morally right whether religious or otherwise. There are many other moral issues that Africa has fallen short and leaves a lot to be desired but Gay marriage and Gay unions is just not one of those that we need to accept just because it is a norm in the West. Obama’s father may have hailed from Kenya and as he has stated his opinion may have evolved over time, but we cannot let our guards down just for the sake of promised financial aid. However, our reasoning and stand against such issues should be informed by constructive debates and criticism as interrogated against the African cultures and not mere opposition for the sake of it, or holding the African mantra just because it has been advocated from the West.
As a Christian, however, I have to be moved by love and compassion for the sickness of the human soul and the more need for human redemption. I have to fervently pray for these individuals whether they be my brothers or sisters, friends or neighbours or even my children. But my human weakness does not reduce me to an emotional walking robot, which has to do what is politically correct at the expense of my own faith and culture. I believe in a real faith and in a real God and that is what I have to teach and preach, despite my shortcomings in articulating or in living the same. For those who argue that you are either born Gay or heterosexual I leave to the psychologists and others to make the case; there are those who also argue that this is a common phenomenon even in the animal kingdom and that the animal in us may be the explanation of such inhuman tendencies. To these I say as much as I wish to agree with the evolution theory there is still a reason that a scorpion is still a scorpion even after all those centuries and not a small human being; until when an elephant will act and behave like a human being despite its assumed intelligence it still remains to be an elephant, there is no reason for a human being to behave like a spider. There are those of course, who will take every opportunity to remind me to live and let live, in other words I should be tolerant and respect other people’s lifestyle, but as the patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty” has shown even in the West there is no common voice on Gay issues.
Respect for my friends and neigbours despite their sexual orientations does not mean running away from what since the beginning of human race has been held to be the law of nature and of course the will of God, the source of All things. For me those who embrace and practice homosexuality are sinners, and like all of us sinners they need love and prayers but also their inhuman tendencies that goes against the human nature, public decorum and African morals need to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, irrespective of whether they are advocated by the most powerful president on earth or any other western forces. If in future we turn and throw our morals through the window like we have done in many other instances, it will be of our own volition and not from push from the societies that wish to prescribed their norms on others. But as to what we do with those among us either in the beaches of Mombasa or the Nairobi city, Kampala or elsewhere who decide to prostitute themselves for monetary gains or other convictions is a debate we should keep having while at the same time reminding our children we are human beings to begin with.
Mandela’s Legacy; Kenyan Heroes…..
Are great men and women born or made? Mandela was a legend, a giant like in many African folklores and a myth to many people living today who grew up during the apartheid era in South Africa. In Africa and beyond it was hard to think of a great man without in the same breath and sentence talking of Madiba. World over we are not short of great people who have suffered for different causes or even stood up for or against something. During the struggle for independence and against the colonialists, the Mandela spirit could have been replicated across many African Nations, some of who could have been an inspiration for youthful Mandela and those who suffered along him in South Africa.
In the next few days and perhaps weeks, the media will be awash with images and praises about Mandela. But why is Mandela’s halo so huge for any living man to match? Because in world full of self-serving human beings who have become an enemy to themselves and the environment they live in, it is hard and almost impossible to come across a man or woman who can rise beyond their comfort zones to suffer and sacrifice for others; individuals who can stand up for what they believe in, suffer as a result, loose their own freedom. Don’t get me wrong there a many people doing wonderful things, but unfortunately, very few doing great things when the circumstance demand them to rise beyond themselves. No wonder we speak nostalgically about Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi; because it is very hard to find such personalities in a generation.
Closer home this offers us an opportune moment as we celebrate 50 years of self-rule as a Nation and as the debate about our heroes is in earnest. What can we take from Mandela’s legacy? Why is he such a resistible figure in our times and history of African democratization? Why is South Africa despite such an appalling past still is the giant of Africa economically, way ahead most of African countries that were independent many decades before South Africa including Kenya? While many of our fore fathers selflessly sacrificed during the freedom struggle, it is what they did after gaining independence that set the foundation for the Kenya we have today, distinguishing them from Mandela.
It is not far fetched to say that Mandela was a politician by every definition, but he did not become who he was just by being imprisoned for 27 years. While this is a long time in the life of a man to remain confined, a period that is long enough for most of us to lose hope, despair, or even the willingness to live again, on the contrary, he came out to call for forgiveness and reconciliation of his followers and those who had imprisoned him. As if that is not enough, he became President for only one term and refused to seek re-election. Think about it; this is a man by all standards was qualified to serve as President, a President who had steered his country on a path towards political and economic prosperity through reconciliation of the Rainbow Nation, this a man who was adored by his people and popular within his political party. But he chose to retire in peace and give the younger generation a chance to define their future.
In a place where we are dominated by leaders who want to stick to power through all means including oppression, and those who want to rise to power for the sake of power, others to enrich themselves and others just because they are owed by their subjects, it is not hard to understand why we are still plagued with inefficiencies in public sector, corruption, media suppression and life Presidents. The modern society is driven by capitalism as a philosophy, but hidden beneath it is selfishness, greed and hunger for power. There are few people far and wide and in between that we can draw inspiration from such as Wangari Maathai, but is upon us to find our own true self to stand for something and what we believe to build Kenya beyond what it is today. These will be the true heroes of tomorrow.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
The KCSE Certificate Dilemma
KNUT the famous teachers union is up in arms after the directive by the Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. Kaimenyi to the school heads to release all held certificates to former students. Before we get carried away by the emotions and politicize the whole issue the best way Kenya knows how, it is important to look this issue devoid of our usual style of doing things. This case can best be expressed by the case of Kipchirchir from Eldoret who despite having scored an A- at Nairobi School he could not secure his KCSE and leaving certificate in order to proceed with his studies due to a balance of Ksh 88,000. While the young man had secured a farm job that he was making Ksh 2,500 every month it was unlikely that he would have been able to raise the funds to clear the balance, thanks to the well wishers who stepped in to help.
Kipchirchir’s case can be replicated in the thousands across the country of similar students from poor families and not so poor backgrounds that have been unable to get their certificates despite having been in school for four years. Of course some choose not to collect them after dismal performance and their future endeavors does not need educational certificates. But for those poor students who desperately require the certificates to make a difference in their lives and may be that of their families, it is immoral to keep holding the documents at ransom for a fee that may never be realized. I know of some people who had to wait even for six years before they could manage to raise the fee balances.
In a country like Kenya where teachers’ tab is picked by the tax payers it is difficult to understand why some schools charge so exorbitant fees and yet some are even day schools, with some of the entries in their accounts being school bus fees that have been charged to every student joining the said school for the last 20 years and the bus has never been bought. The directive is timely and makes a lot of social - economic sense because if the school has not been able to realize the money in the last 10 years why keep holding the poor kids certificates? In the real world it is called bad debts and is always written off from the accounts. In fact holding the certificate is like double punishment to the said student as if being poor in itself is not difficult enough. I remember in my days students who had to sneak back in class because going home would not make any difference either. In fact the only thing that could be mortgaged in their homes was the only chicken that laid the eggs that were sold to buy the reading kerosene. These students used to be the best in class. Uhuru’s government would have done better by explaining this directive and arraying the expected fears by the school heads that are already worried of the future students defaulting, if anything they are only enforcing the law. While real free and compulsory basic education to which secondary education is part of is a tall order to achieve for now, doing away with the examination fees is a positive step in the right direction.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
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