TRIBAL CURE: SIMPLE WAYS OF ENDING NEGATIVE ETHNICITY.

Tribes is now the predominant form of identification anywhere in Kenya. Before someone asks your name he/she will ask where you come from and your tribe. The same culture is rife in Maseno and the biggest tragedy of our time is us taking this as a normal part of our being and not doing anything about it, negative ethnicity affects us all, so we need a deep reflection on our context as students and the place of tribal antics in the years to come. Our socialization has corrupted our thinking; imposed on us a story that is one sided, making us not to see each other as brothers. Let us rewrite this, redefine our biased values and engage our mental processes and be a part of the solution. Its time we draw a few lessons to tone down this culture: let us make the following part of our lives comrades of Maseno.

Let’s rid ourselves of ethnic badges and identify people with their personal traits and attributes. This culture of identifying people with their tribes, yule kijana mluhya, yule mjaluo, yule mworiah robs us of our identities as individuals and ties us to an ethnic group. We can instead use identification that are not ethnically based or prejudicing such as: that third year dude, the tall guy who lives here instead of yule mjaka huishi hapa. This will help us see each other as a people who share a common purpose, unified and not divided along ethnic lines. This will in turn tone down the negative culture of ethnicity within maseno.

Social stereotypes and myths such as all Luo’s having pride or unproportionally high egos and all kikuyus loving money or worse still every Somali being a “fala” robs one of their dignity, dispossess people of their personal identities and divides us further, we need to purge ourselves of such traditional notions.

We need to embrace a culture of free thinking individuals, “group think” robs us of a lot of rational reasoning and a keen observation will show you that as individuals we all regard each other as brothers but once people from the same ethnic groups come together then our tribal woes begin. Think independently comrades. 

Lets practice tolerance of people’s opinions at all times, when an individual speaks he or she speaks out of his/her own will and no person has the audacity to speak for a whole tribe. Our diversity should be the source of our unity, of our progress and a heritage that talks of success.

Grouping and regrouping especially along tribal lines creates an illusion of progress, we need to get rid of tribal clubs and groups, lets join clubs and organizations that are issue based, universal and progressive, if at all the groups we have within Maseno are progressive then why is its membership confined only to some regions and communities? 

The schools administration should also institute some strong punitive measures to those student leaders who mobilize students along their ethnic cocoons, ban the KKK alliance and all such other alliances.

Before you regard this as a very idealistic article, JUST THINK AGAIN. It’s only from the ideal that we can shape the reality of our time. If only we tried as individuals and made this part of our lives then we might realize that ending tribalism amongst us is after all not beyond our capabilities. We are human first; Kenyans second, why resort to tribalism?

THE STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR SINGLE STORY: S.O.M.U

This post was published on equator weekly, but i post it here that those who did not read it might get a chance to get some insight into how STUDENT ORGANIZATION in Kenya operate with particular reference to STUDENT ORGANIZATION of MASENO UNIVERSITY (S.O.M.U).

Contempt and criticisms characterize all kind of political and elective positions anywhere in the world. Some of these criticisms are warranted while others are mere pejoratives of prejudiced minds. S.O.M.U has had a fair share of criticisms and all who have served in SOMU have not been spared, they all have been demonized as incompetent ingrates only motivated to “kukula pesa zetu”. Some SOMU officials are evidently very mediocre and deserve to be criticized. But it’s not justified to condemn and criticize just for the sake of criticism and condemnation as it is evident that many are hell-bent in portraying SOMU as unresponsive, unproductive and a near useless organization. This is the single story that most have of SOMU/SGC. Misallocation of student funds, underperformance, unfulfilled promises, unresponsive members are some of the allegations making up this single story of SOMU, some of this might be true but making it the definitive story of SOMU is not okay!

This single story of SOMU demoralizes the truly committed leaders; this single story will rob some of them from the credits they deserve and their dignity, this single story denies many the opportunity to participate in SOMU activities or even running for a given post as recently experienced where only single contestants showed up for the post of Editor and the Organizing secretary respectively. This single story will make many blind to any kind of achievement by SOMU. How can SOMU be vocal in the national politics if it does not have the support of the students because of the contempt it is held?

SOMU comprises of not only the Student Governing Council(SGC), which everyone seems to criticize but it also comprises affiliate bodies like MUABS, MUACU, RED CROSS, MUCSA thus the criticisms do not spare such well meaning organizations as well.

SOMU’s duties is simply to act as the link between the student body and the administration, to be the mouth piece of the student body and air their grievances, to work for the students and with the administration, to follow up in making enquiries and propose new ideas and bring down the administration to be student friendly and responsive to their needs. SOMU ensures that all semester activities are conducted on time and successfully and many sacrifice both their time and energy towards this end.

The expectations that we have of SOMU is an unrealistic one, we expect SOMU to do things magically, to fix that blown inflorescent tube in your room almost immediately (and you have not reported to anyone), to make sure transcripts don’t have re-sits on them, to make the queues at the mess be shorter, to make sure that the library is fully stocked, to make sure that there is a television in every hostel. When they don’t meet this expectations the “robin hood” style, all you get is very cruel accusations against it. 

The roles of Maseno university administration and that of SOMU is not the same, SOMU might not do some things because it is out of their mandate. We should all strive to recognize the correct boundaries to prevent both the exaggerated disdain, contempt for and help restore the confidence that we should have in this organization.

Limited resources, falling confidence in, lack of support from student’s body and the bottleneck of bureaucracy in addressing student’s grievances and even raising funds for their activities are some problems that affects the performance of SOMU immensely.

SOMU members on the other hand should strive to embrace ethics, integrity and serve with diligence, rid themselves of tribal alliances, corruption and the culture of mediocrity which greatly hinders their performance and till they do that it is no doubt that the criticism and mistrust will always be directed to their activities.

  

DOWNLOAD SAKU BURSARY/CDF FORM

You can now download SAKU CONSTITUENCY BURSARY and CDF FORM here very easily, all you need is a click and you have your form which you can print and take it to the SAKU CONSTITUENCY CDF office. This move of having the bursary form on the internet has cut the hassle of getting a bursary form from the office which most often is unavailalble because the issuing officer is out of office or the final date is over or the office has run out of papers. Download it here and tell your friends where to download it too. MARSABIT/ SAKU CONSITUENCY BURSARY FORM  can be DOWNLOADED from anywhere for the first time. wellcome and pass the word around!!
DOWNLOAD FORM HERE

CATEGORIES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION: CHALLENGES IN CATEGORIZING SUCH ORGANIZATIONS.

Introduction.                                                                                                                                                                     Since the Second World War, international organizations have become integral features of the international system. International organizations have emerged as significant international actors in their own right, international organizations are today more influential internationally than most underdeveloped states.  In Today’s world, states can not lead a viable international existence as autonomous units; sovereign independence does not guarantee an ability to act in the international arena hence the need to partner with other states to form international organizations.

States must in the modern world cooperate, adjust, accommodate and compromise in so many areas to promote their common welfare, for these and more purposes states have formed elaborate agencies and organizations in a complex set of relationships among nations. Bennett (1995) states that a feature of Today’s world scene is the existence of approximately 3,00O public and 5,000 private international organizations and with the increase of diverse international organizations both in numbers and purpose the issue of categorizing these numerous organizations comes into play. The following is a discussion on categories of international organization.

Categories of international organizations

Different scholars and schools of thought have different perspectives when it comes to the categorization of IOs. Some categorization model is based on the structural peculiarities of some kinds of organization for example in terms of its regional orientation, functional orientation, structural complexity.

Another easy way to classify IOs is based on the structure of their institutions and the comparative power of these institutions.

Lynn H.Miller is cited in Bennett’s book as bringing forth a classification model of all regional organizations into three categories: co-operative, Alliance (NATO) and Functional (OECD).

Membership is another criterion; membership can be open to all actors in the case of UN and its agencies, IMF, World Bank among others.

Organizations can also be classified based on the spill-over effect, in that co-operation in one issue may affect other issue areas, for example ECOWAS initially an economic integration has developed a military wing, ECOMOG to deal with security issues.

According to Clive Archer (1995), the most common way of classifying international organizations is their aims and activities. Basically, what they are supposed to do and what they actually do most international organization be they IGOs or INGOs, usually have their activities and aims stated in the basic document by which they have been established. Another easiest way used in classifying according to Clive is by the structure of the institutions and the comparative power of these structures. Organization such as UPU and ITU had permanent established structure.

International organizations fall majorly under three conventional categories as outlined in the Yearbook of international organizations and they are as follows: intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs), International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs) and multinational enterprises. This conventional categorization model is discussed in detail below.

INTER-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS.

IGOs are set up by three or more states to fulfill common purposes or attain common objectives (field, Jordan & Hurwitz, 1983). The Yearbook of International Organizations (1979) IGOs are primarily made up of sovereign states based on formal agreements between the governments of this states and possess a permanent secretariat.

IGOs differ on various criteria. The most general classification of IGOs is derived from geographic scope, where an organization can be regional (AU), sub regional (EAC) or global (UN) in geographic spread.

Another category of IGOs is the degree of integration, IGOs can be very loosely integrated with minimum institutional structure and minimum powers conferred upon them by their member states like the UN, or the disbanded League of nations or have high degree of integration like the EU, EAC also aims to achieve a political federation.

International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs)

Is an organization whose membership is composed of private individuals or groups (Wigel, 2003). An INGO is an organization whose aims should genuinely be international in character, and manifest the intention to engage in activities in at least three states, membership should be drawn from individuals or collective entities of at least three states and must be open to any appropriately qualified entity/individual. May be found by private philanthropy such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, B. Gates and ford foundation or as an adjunct to existing IOs such as catholic and Lutheran churches.

INGOs may be divided into two broad categories according to Bennett (1977), the non profit organization (NPOs) and the multinational business enterprise (MNCs) organized for profit.

Non-profit organizations.

The NPOs is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders but instead uses it to pursue its goals, self preservation and for its expansion. Examples include charities and trade unions. Some NPOs known for their charitable or social nature of their activities conducted over a long period of time include the Red cross, amnesty international founded in UK in 1991 advocates for human rights internationally and by 2002 it had branches in more than 

Multinational Enterprises.

Commonly known as MNCs or enterprises and at times transnational corporations, they are profit firms that have subsidiaries in two or more countries and engage in transnational production of goods and services across national boundaries. It has its management headquarters in one country called home country and operates in several other countries called host countries. Examples include general motors, Unilever, Total, Toyota motors.

 Problems of international organization categorization.

According to Clive Archer (1995), a problem in dealing with international regions is that of delineation; where does one region end and where does another begin: if the world easily divided into segments then the answer would be self evident, but not even the continents provide such neat package in international relations. There seems to be no international organization whose members completely cover one continent and is only drawn from one continent. OAU is the nearest but it excludes South Africa.

Not all scholars subscribe to the same use of terms. Some of the terminology applied to this field of international organization is little understood and sometimes lacks precision for example international organization, transnational interaction, transnational relations (Leroy, 1995). Thus, the categorization of international organizations brings some kind of disagreements and contradictions depending on the meaning one ascribes to the terms used.

The United States for example, is a member of several organizations that claim regional status and that reach to almost every point of the compass, thus variously identifying the U.S with North Atlantic, America and Southeast Asian areas. None of the organizations involved conforms to any geographic region. The commonwealth is also frequently classified as a regional organization, although its members are dispersed around the globe.(Bennette,1995)

Coexistence of regional and universal organizations makes the dividing line between international organizations in these two categories somewhat arbitrary and subjective, for example if a regional organizations/agencies submit to supervision by global agencies or respond positively to their requests for supportive action then the basis for a compatible relationship exists. Thus a combination of regionalism and universalism serves to promote the national interests of most states in their advance beyond unilateralism. (Bennett, 1995)

International organizations tend to slide into each other, developing points of approximation or overlap rather than to maintain fixed distances of separation. Some regional organizations like the AU and OAS have different characteristics hence may overlap in categories.

Some organizations lack the capacity or do no present a sufficient degree of internationality. The 16^th edition (1977) of the yearbook of international organizations gave some recognition to this fact, it states “with the increase in the number and varieties of bodies called ‘international’, it has become difficult to limit a yearbook of international organizations only to those organizations corresponding to the selection criteria used for previous editions, even though those criteria remain valid as a definition of minimal internationality”.

Preconceptions and misconceptions about world institutions, international organizations is common place within the realm of international organization. With the existence of many misconceptions many scholars have come up with some hybrid classification of IOs such as the Conventional IOs, federations of IOs, universal membership organizations.

Another major problem in categorizing international organizations is the extent to which organs of an IO contain NGO representation as opposed to governmental and vice versa. At both ends are IGOs and INGOs respectively, near INGOs’ are organizations like inter parliamentary Union and Interpol-international criminal police organization which have specialized links to governments and to IGOs’ side are those organizations which have non governmental representation in their representation such as the European Community and the ILO. According to The Yearbook of IOs(1978), some contemporary

Conclusion.

Because of the existence of very many and diverse international organizations, their classification continues to pose a serious scholarly debate among the student of international relations. From the above discussion and in the analysis of the challenges visited it is clear that no single principle or categorization model can be adopted to precisely place every IO within its respective domain hence every move that aims to adequately categorize international organizations should adopt or put into consideration the existing multiplicity in the categorization models that is there.

EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY

The east African community is more than a decade old since its revival, with some major milestones having been achieved in the common markets protocol, a customs union and integration in areas such as security, education, health and so many other sectors being worked on. I once wrote to the permanent secretary for the ministry of East Africa community (MEAC). The following are the questions and the feedback that I received.  EAC is a powerful power bloc in the making and you don’t want to miss its struggles, aspirations and in making achieve the ultimate political federation that it seeks in the long run. Follow up on its progress.

Response to Email by Abraham Dalle

1.       How is the MEAC prepared to meet the very many different and at times divergent stakeholder and MEAC expectation?

The EAC integration process is indeed a very complicated process that covers a broad and wide range of issues that affects every single person in Kenya and in East Africa. At the government level, we are aware of this and it is for this reason that whenever we are engaging at the regional ( EAC ) level, we as MEAC begin our preparations by convening multi-stakeholder meetings to gather views and advice from those who are closer to these issues. In doing so, we ensure Kenya as a country in the EAC is presenting the views of the Kenyan. To this end MEAC welcomes comments and information from across the board on how the EAC integration process is working for them.

2.       Partner states as the key stakeholders will hold some personal country positions based on their personal interests, this is an obstacle to the process of the full EAC integration and might derail the process. How is your ministry prepared to address this issue?

As I have mentioned above, MEAC has preparatory meetings before any regional meetings in order to have a consistent and single voice. While we are aware that there exist personal/country interests at these meetings, we have to be willing to negotiate and ensure the best outcome for one the EAC, and second the EAC citizens which include all Kenyans. Difference of opinion will always exist but as long as we are committed to the greater good of east Africa, these differences can be overcome. To large extent there is evidence of this one only has to look at the progress made today compared to the previous EAC. We are on the verge of establishing a common market; we are looking at introducing a single currency for the region.

In response to your statement on the disregard of EAC in Kenya’s vision 2030. While there is no explicit inclusion of the EAC integration process in the KV 2030, there are implicitly linkages between the KV 2030 and the path towards which the EAC integration process is moving. The foundations of a strong and sustainable environment for economic development and growth are fundamental to both the successes of KV 2030 and the EAC integration process. Notwithstanding the omission in KV 2030, the EAC integration process is very much part of government business. You will note the numerous mentions of EAC integration process and its importance in speeches and statements delivered by both H.E the president and the prime minister.

3.       How viable is the EAC political federation timed for 2013 given that Tanzania is pursuing the political ideology of African socialism while other member states are generally capitalists?

 The east African political federation is the ultimate goal of the EAC integration process. It has been agreed the political federation will be established as enshrined in the EAC treaty that was signed by all five heads of state of the EAC. It is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the EAC integration process and without a doubt the most ambitious of any regional economic bloc. To date no regional bloc has managed to establish any form of a political union, the European Union included. The EAC political federation while ambitious is not beyond the EAC if you look at the historical context of especially Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Rwanda and Burundi are slightly different for obvious reasons. Taking the three founding states of the EAC, you will note that prior to the period of colonial rule, the three countries shared a rich heritage of trade, social, political and economic integration albeit in a less formal arrangement. A typical example is how the several ethnic groups can be found on either side of the country border, for example, the Maasai, the Luo among many more. So, while an ambitious task, the political federation is not beyond the EAC.

4.       The resolution reached at the 1^st tripartite summit held in Kampala in 2008 for the merger of COMESA-EAC-SADC is a bit farfetched given the current shaky state of the EAC. What has prompted this move?

To begin with, the idea of merging these three regional blocs is not at all farfetched. At the moment there is a real strong belief that Africa’s development and growth is within itself. Africa has natural resources in abundance, and if you look closely enough at how the industrialized nations of our world run, you will see that they source majority of their raw materials from Africa. We as Africans are realizing of this potential and want to exploit what we have to our benefit. The merging of these three blocs will hopefully create a bloc that is globally competitive and open up the region to foreign trade and investment. Furthermore, the merger will assist in connecting sub Saharan Africa in a way that to date has not been possible; through improved transport and communication infrastructure.

5.       What plans does MEAC have for the youth in the EAC integration process and what efforts has MEAC undertaken to incorporate youth issue in the EAC programmes?

A number of professional, civil society, local government associations and youth organizations have formed alliances across borders and meet regularly. The treaty establishing the EAC recognizes the critical role of integrating the key stakeholders such as the civil society, women, youth and the private sector in the development agenda of the community with the intension of empowering effective participation of the citizenry in matters of economic development and creating a conducive environment for effective participation.

In this connection, the youth, who constitute the largest segment of the population in the EAC, should be accorded proportionate recognition and participation in all national and regional development activities. EAC’S youth is EAC’s future. They are not only the leaders of tomorrow but also the future entrepreneurs, innovators, the scientists and technologists, the investors and managers as well as the captains of industry interests. In September 2008, the EAC forum for ministers responsible for social development, the ministers responsible for social development recommended to mainstream youth as well as gender issues, in all development policies and programs. The ministers further recommended to EAC council of ministers to establish a youth and children position under existing EAC administrative structure within FY 2009/2010. In the intervening time, the EAC gender and community development department has already requested a budget for an annual youth exchange programme for sharing new opportunities and best practices in business and technology.

In order to have clear strategies in the sector, a strategic plan which takes into account youth issues is being developed. Three objectives have been identified:

                                           I.             To formulate a harmonized comprehensive regional policy that provides a binding framework for effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of youth programmes and projects;

                              II.            To empower the youth so that they can fully participate and benefit from the regional economic, social and political integration and,

                                              III.            To establish a regional mechanism that will promote and sustain youth culture, values, morals and ethics.

6.       A little on the “principle of sublimity” stipulated in the EAC treaty?

the principle of sublimity , namely that every regional policy, law, regulation, practice etc shall be at least as good as the best of the national policies etc, and further that such a regional policy, law or regulation shall supersede any national policy, law or regulation will assume high priority amongst existing EAC operational principles. The principle of sublimity will enable harmonization of national policies/strategies/plans, laws and standards with regional counterparts.

This principle forms the underpinning for the successful implementation of the EAC’s development strategy 2006-2010. The principle of sublimity has been endorsed but it has not been fully operationalized in terms of shared regional values, policies, strategies, laws, regulations and practices.

MEAC VISION: Deepen and widen east African integration for sustainable development and improved livelihoods of all Kenyans.