To be Frank, I don't get this!

My attention was drawn yesterday by Andrea Bohnstedt and Stephen Partington to an article published by the Business Daily, a publication of the Nation Media Group, on 28 May 2013. In the day's advice column, a woman who had been abused in her teenage years by a relative and kept the abuse secret was wondering whether to finally now speak out. She's since got married and has children. We shall call her Wanjiku. 

Dr. Frank Njenga's response to her predicament seems to start well. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Good, so far. Well done, Doc. Then he proceeds to quote the Biblical account of a woman who was caught in adultery. 'Let him who has no sin be the first to cast a stone', Jesus told her all-male authority-figure accusers. I like the direction Frank Njenga is going. Then he does a very unexpected and surprising thing. He turns the story on its head and offers the advice that perhaps, perhaps Wanjiku should not speak out because her motives for doing so may not be pure after all. Maybe she only wants to speak out only to hurt her abuser, who is now a respected elder.

It is difficult to figure out which angle to approach this from: there are so many of them! Let's start with the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the Biblical account. Wanjiku was abused. Her dignity was forcibly violated. Wanjiku is hurting, and has been carrying pain all these years. On top of all this she gets to be compared to an adulterous woman. Help me, somebody.  

Frank Njenga blazes on and implies that Wanjiku should stay silent in order to protect the reputation of the now-elder then-abuser; maybe still-abuser. The truth shall not set you free because it could hurt your children, your family, and your husband. Be a strong woman; think only of how everyone else may benefit from telling the truth. Truth can be a very inconvenient thing. It can have some unintended consequences.

It is interesting to note that Jesus doesn't condemn the woman. In contrast, the word guilt appears at least thrice in Njenga's response. The word hurt (yourself, the abuser, your family) appears thrice as well. You are suffering from guilt, guilt, guilt Wanjiku. And you will hurt, hurt, hurt others.Speaking out is a bad, bad, bad thing.

The icing on the cake comes when Njenga implies that Wanjiku's abuse could be a false recollection. Maybe a delusion. Nice one, Doc; gosh, how many delusional women we have! We have whole hospitals dedicated to treating women and girls who have delusions of having been raped and nearly killed! Heck, we even have an Act of Parliament meant to protect women who might be delusional. Because, you know, sexual abuse is such a wonderful thing to fantasize about; what a good way to lift your mood if you are having a bad day! You can become so good at it the difference between reality and fairyland disappears.

Find a way, Wanjiku, to deal with this in a 'healthy' manner. 

I don't know what is more pathetic between Njenga's 'advice' and the Nation Media Group publishing it. What I do know is that Kenya will remain an unsafe place for women and abusive men will continue to prowl in freedom as long as authority figures and media houses continue to be so blasé.

Things and concrete

On the morning of Sunday 26 May I took a flight from Nairobi's Wilson airport. Overflying the waking Nairobi bathed in soft light, I was faced with two realities. One is the beauty of the Nairobi National Park, and juxtaposed against it the housing estates of South C and South B. All bathed in the morning's sleepy light. The plane quickly changes direction and flies over the Industrial Area and the cornucopia of infrastructure. One moment, an industrial plant, next, a slum with neat rows of rusty  mabati roofs crammed together, next, a middle-class housing estate, next, a quarry. On and on until we left the City perimeter and got to agricultural land interspersed with deep and dangerous quarries. Our love affair with infrastructure is undeniable. A road here, a bridge there, a school, laptops -- the manifestos must have been manufactured in the same factory. Read the Machakos County Manifesto, and you realise that for an area so often ravaged by drought and famine, little is said about environmental regeneration and green technologies. The manifesto mentions the word environment exactly twice, once in relation to sand harvesting (yes, sand harvesting), and the other in relation to market infrastructure. Give us another concrete edifice, please. 

The Jubilee Manifesto does a little better. In a 70-page document, the environment is given two pages. Specific initiatives to encourage citizen participation and education in energy and waste management, and recycling are visibly absent. The plastic bag menace and public health implications of our open-air garbage disposal stink very loudly. Also highly desirable are land use policies that maximize what we have. How sustainable are projects such as Tatu City and other mushrooming lifestyle developments that uproot coffee and plant buildings? All the while, we are investing dollars in researching coffee varieties that can grow in dry areas.



Visions cast in concrete

We need roads,
we shall build roads.
The Park is in the way of the highway.
Move the Park
We need to move goods,
trade is important.
Development is at stake.

Where will our children play? 
Play? We shall give them laptops. 
Where will the women get together? 
We shall give them shopping malls. 
Where shall we grow our onions?
We shall make this a 24hr economy
strengthen construction and tourism,
grow the GDP so you can afford 
things in cans and fried and cured.

Silence, woman.
I have a manifesto to fulfill.
Sleep on, sleep in the city's beautiful lights
The city never slumbers.  
You don't need to be vigilant.

Sleep to the sweet jingle of progress
Sleep, sleep, the day is young,
and our vision is fresh. 

Let the dream embrace you.
You can lean on it -- 
it's as sure as concrete. 

A Fragile Contentment

"Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

 

The same can be said about peace. Peace ensues. It is an outcome, not an output. I am intrigued by the recent directive outlawing public demonstrations in the wake of the disputed March 2013 presidential tally. This is not a comment for, or against the directive.

I think the directive is a reflection of our fears.

We are afraid of ourselves

We are afraid of the untamed animal within.

We saw what the animal could do in 2007/2008.

We saw what the animal could do in Tana River.

We know what the animal does to disenfranchised labourers in cities and other places.

"I knew a man who lived in fear

It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near

Behind his house, a secret place

Was the shadow of a demon he could never face

He built a wall of steel and flame

And men with guns to keep it tame

And standing back, he made it plain

That the nightmare would never ever rise again

But the fear and the fire and the guns remain…

And then one day, the neighbours came

They were curious to know about the smoke and flame

 They stood around outside the wall

 But of course, there was nothing to be heard at all

 "My friends," he said, "We've reached our goal

The threat is under firm control

 As long as peace and order reign

I'll be damned if I can see a reason to explain

Why the fear and the fire and the guns remain"  -- Dan Heymann

The recent prescriptive campaigns for peaceful co-existence are well meant, and I am sure they have had an impact. However, as long as the shadows of our demons remain; as long as the elephants in the room remain unspoken about, we shall continue to need guns and tanks. This begs the questions: What happens when there are so many elephants that we become and elephant graveyard? What happens when the ghosts overrun us?

We all know from science fiction movies that bullets don’t kill ghosts. Exorcism works better. The peace we desire and are urged to maintain can only come when we commit to exorcism and healing.

I look forward to the time when we shall collectively appreciate that peace is more than not killing each other. I have hope from the fact that many of us who think this way. In whatever language you translate the word peace, it implies harmony, safety, and right relationships. My favourite word for peace is Shalom (from the same root word as Shelam and Salaam). It implies welfare, prosperity, and wholeness.

Shalom, Kenya.

 

Debris after the campaigns

As you read this blog post, beware of flying jabs and barbs. 

While we collectively wait for the IEBC to finish tallying the March 2013 election results, I thought I might write something on the lighter side. I hope you can chuckle at least once, so that if you have been holding your breath since Monday, we might get some fresh air into your lungs – because, you know, you might be holding your breath again for another 24 hours. 

Since November 2012 I have had a unique source of entertainment in the form of campaign posters. You see, I have a relatively conservative work ethic: I believe that a job worth doing is worth well doing. It follows, in my line of thinking, that if you want to offer yourself to serve your electorate (serving the electorate is certainly a misnomer – please let it pass - we shall deal with that in a later post), you may want to create the impression that you will do a good job.  We judge books by their posters more often that we would like to admit. At least, I do. In case you think I am talking about being flush with money, that’s not it either. We know who’s flush by how much they flashed. Money can certainly buy you professional teams to polish your image and pose, but we assume you have some taste to start with.

Let’s cut to the chase. What’s with using a photograph that gives the impression that your face was smeared on the camera? Then there is a certain gentleman who was vying in Westlands. His campaign posters could be recycled to promote the Brazilian national soccer team. There is such a thing as wearing party colours to the point of ridiculousness. One wealthy gentleman looked like he had posed for a distinguished gentlemen’s clothes catalogue. But there is also something about his pose that makes me think he is about to start deejaying seriously (a la DJ Chris – the two are fabulously wealthy gentlemen of a certain age) or perform a hardcore rap. I am ya dawg, man.

For there was also a young-ification and street-ification thing going on. Let me state that I don’t think street cred can be created overnight. Cult icons like Sonko and Waititu have been perfected their thang for years. Suddenly everyone was Jamoh, not James. I have no words for geriatric Senator Stano. If my grandfather asked me to call him Stano I would think I am hearing voices. 

Kamlesh Pattni’s blue monstrosities get the cake for bad taste. See, posters are meant to be read on the move. They don’t move. So, when you fill one with text (not to mention the illegibility of white text against blue), er, you’re expecting who to stop and read? Good luck, Brother Paul. If you had less baggage, I could have offered to help you design better posters in future. For free. I still might, if you would consider returning, say, ten billion shillings to the Treasury.

All the posters, savvy or otherwise, are a serious eyesore right now. In my thoughts, hate and Nairobi are finding themselves in the same sentence a lot lately. I am curious to see whether and how the campaign materials will be disposed of. Will the contestants hire the same armies of followers to clean up?

In spite of my misgivings I am happy for all the start-up printing businesses that received a shot in the arm during the electioneering period. Watch this space, for in 2017 I shall be serious competition.

The poor you will always have with you

A woman came to worship Jesus. Her worship consisted mainly of tears with which she washed his feet. When she was done, she wiped his feet with her long tresses. She finished with an oblation of very, very expensive perfume. Jesus' disciples were indignant. The reason they gave: What a waste; the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor! Jesus answered, 'the poor you will always have with you...'

I think Jesus was asking them back: O yeah? And what have you done so far for the poor? I don't think he liked the poor being used as an argument to justify the sociopolitical hangups of the time.

The poor are in our face. The poor are in my face. Depending on who you are and where you are coming from, the poor are expendable. You can hire a nanny for next to nothing, and a watchman for not much more. 

The debate about Ferdinand Waititu versus Evans Kidero as the next Governor for Nairobi, and indeed any debate about the upcoming elections must of necessity be a debate about the poor.

Kidero has been accused of being elitist, about caring only for the small percentage of rich and middle class Kenyans. Ngwatilo Mawiyoo's poignant poem 'Boy' is elegant in its portrayal of the interaction between the rich and the poor. Stephen Derwent Partington has written a powerful indictment of the rich-poor divide.

Waititu, on the other hand, is perceived as being a man of the people, of advocating for the poor. I am deeply uncomfortable with the perception of the likes of Waititu and Gideon Mbuvi (aka Sonko) as men of the people, unless we are using that term to mean populist. Al Kags has posted an excellent blog about Sonko leadership style. Elitism is easy to see, and of course, inexcusable. The form of populist exploitation of the poor exhibited by Sonko and Waititu worries me. On the surface, their behaviour seems pro-poor. Go to court and stop that demolition; agitate the poor not to move from unsafe dwellings; obtain an injunction to stop a state corporation from moving slum dwellers from on top of the oil pipeline. No, I don't agree with the forceful removal of people, especially when there is nowhere for them to go. But where are the lasting solutions we so badly need? To my mind, these two gentlemen are as much part of status quo as the competition.

If I were to vote today I am pretty sure that would choose neither Wiatitu nor Kidero, or any of the contestants of the governor vacancy, based on their track record in dealing with the poor. I don't care about any of the aspirants' gatecrashing (literal or otherwise) or how clever and polished they are. 

Before I give you my vote, I need to know, what are you going to do about rural and urban poverty? 

Iskushuban

If you think Iskushuban sounds like the name of a dark prince in a Middle Eastern romance, you are not alone. If Wikipedia is anything to go by, this small town in North Western Somalia is a place worth visiting for its natural beauty. I am curious to see what a place with such an impossibly romantic name looks like.Visiting Ishkushuban on my bucket list.

***

But I have been to Mogadishu. In the five days I was there I became acquainted with the perimeter wall of the guesthouse. Daily I heard the shouts of workers hauling wet concrete up eight floors. They are making what might become an office tower across the road from the guesthouse. The concrete was in small buckets passed hand-to-hand up eight stories. One morning the electrician was trying to repair something at the junction box. He must have tripped some wires, for soon after there was a swooshing explosion as the junction box caught fire. We used the only fire extinguisher we had to put out the fire. It took several bursts of chemical powder before the fire was under control. The electrician was wearing laundry gloves when doing his work. It reminded me of visiting a friend's house in Nairobi for dinner. My friend forgot a pot of oil on the cooker. Soon the oil caught fire. Her husband rushed in and poured a glass of water on the burning oil. Swoosh!

I heard one gunshot during the five days. It was a policeman controlling traffic. There were no injuries or fatalities during the shooting. I am told this method of controlling traffic is fairly common in the city. In other places they use a whistle. Two days before I arrived, a businessman was assassinated in curious circumstances. Three weeks before I went to Mogadishu, a Kenyan businessman was assassinated in Nakuru.

In Mogadishu I had ate the best fish I've had in a long time. 

While I was there my period came early; way early. Talk of being vulnerable in a strange city. The women rallied around me and provided my for my need. 

The normalcy of life - people laughing, eating, loving, building - in such a dangerous city  gave my expectations a headspin. I am not sure that I am ready to go shopping in downtown Mogadishu (I confess I don't even know where that is). I tend to go into cities expecting to have my worst fears and/or best hopes confirmed. But in Mogadishu I was refreshed by the details of people's being. Just being.

Birdfall (or, who determines our agenda?)

The National Geographic (October 2012) reports that China legally bought 73 tonnes of ivory from Africa in 2008. In 2011, poaching reached the highest levels since the 1989 ban in ivory trade. A single tusk can fetch up to USD 6,000, providing a strong incentive for the poor and criminals. We must urgently take back the driver's seat in setting our own human development agenda.

Birdfall

The next someone says the sky is falling

I shall be more inclined to listen,

because this morning I saw a strange thing happen.

I saw a bird fall onto the tarmac, and I promise you it wasn’t dead.

We might say it hit the ground flying.

I don’t know any more if it’s true: that only dead birds fall to the ground.

Here we don’t cry wolf, because the wolves were wiped out with the smallpox.

And the African painted wild dogs are nearly extinct.

Soon we won’t be able to cry anything at all –

not lion, not leopard.

Certainly we won’t be able to say, I was chased by a rhino on the way to work.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

The sky is falling. The air cannot hold the birds.

Cities are crumbling, even as skyscrapers go up.

Our stories are about extinction and eradication.

We can’t speak of miracles; such as birds defying buoyancy.

That would be mere superstition. If we insisted that it happened,

some more research would be required.

The research consortium would then patent

the gene that causes live birds to fall from trees.

When the right hand is trying to breed back the wolves,

the left hand is holding workshops about development infrastructure.

The rhino keepers dart, dehorn, and then decry the waste.

Have you ever seen a lump of rhino rotting?

While the cameras flash, the horn makes it way to Asia.

The technology is assembled in Asia.

Part of our development is built on cadavers.

Me, I’m keeping my eyes open. There might be other birds falling.

Maybe this not such a rare phenomenon.

I want to hear what earth might be telling me.

I might to catch a new idiom; speak in tongues.