Fighting Terrorists; Kenya

On Friday 6th, April 2014. I went to Gikomba, passing through Eastleigh in those number 28s with their music, and uncanny touts…. Looking out the window as the driver skirted the many potholes and miniature valleys and hillocks, I found myself looking at young Somali men, and big bou bou clad women, shapely girls, boys, youthful sprints. I suspected every backpack of the hurrying pedestrians; people minding their business, trying to ask myself which of them could be the terrorist, which planning to carry out a terror activity. I was gripped by an apprehensive fear on what could be, what could happen out of the noisy, chaotic bustle of this ever growing, people-burgeoning-place, the rising sky crappers, the roads under construction, the bust sewer lines. The blossoming of investment in an environment that also bears the dents of neglect. 

Eastleigh has always awed me…the way things work themselves out, the making of money in chaos, the flowing billions, and how people took an easy stand on life. The routine way life could form a predictable pattern. Make money in the self same way from day to day, but with changes taking form every day, all around, the flexibility with which change could be embraced. From the Ethiopian barbers on 9^th street and their excellent shaving services to the goods from Dubai. Young men here understand the dynamics of the international trade; they know which country manufactures the best khaki products, which country delivers on the suits, the jeans and everything textile and in turn Eastleigh has learnt how to dress Kenyans. With the legitimacy of most businesses comes the need for other black market goods, young kikuyu men dealing expensive phones stolen from the rich Kenya, newly used laptops, silver chains and gold teeth, the easy way of transferring money from the western world to Africa in hidden offices among those cloth stores lining the many malls.  There is no black and white in Eastleigh; everything flows into the other seamlessly. Good into Evil, refugees into citizens, terrorists have used this to plan their covert agendas.

Eastleigh is a center for the rebirth of predominantly Somali and Ethiopian immigrants in Kenya, they own each of the Kenyan progress, and they now share in the struggles and problems of their “new home” Kenya. They protest when the government passes laws that are not realistic, they rejoiced when KDF went into Somalia. They trusted their lives with Kenya, a new place, a new reality. But on Saturday 6^th April, 2014 the Kenyan government woke up and decided to server that trust and silent understanding that the Somali people have managed to learn to live with. The soldiers embarked on erasing the process of remaking dreams in a whole new world by vulnerable mothers, children and young people looking for refuge. The sentimentalism of home, of memories that loomed large like shadows of a distant sun became live again, thawing the networks of neurons in their memories to rekindle the spark of sunny days in their own homes and conjuring images of dark days, hunger, lost brothers and sisters, lost dreams and hopes.

On Saturday 7^th April 2014 I was on Juja road going into town as early as 7am. The jam began just around Moi Air Base, after a whole hour of waiting in the slow moving jam; we came upon the first roadblock. Police Check. Identity cards were being checked for each passenger in the Matatu. Pedestrians as well were arbitrarily being asked to produce their ID cards. I am sitting and waiting for my turn to show my ID, all the while acting sanely Kenyan and trying to reach down to my patriotic side. The people of Eastleigh are having a tough time both from the fear that hung's over their heads and now the police.

The Kenyan government has almost always embarked on superficial responses to existential threats of terror in a self defeating way. The government has as repeatedly shown by terrorist activities embarked on symptomatic treatment, PR gimmick and hogwash promises to stem out terrorists, to stop terrorism in its tracks.  

Eastleigh has been a victim of the terror attacks; it has suffered greatly from the acts of the marauding terrorists that hide among the many faces of generosity and trusting Somalis. The government actions are reactionary. This is purely a short term plan formulated by some myopic goon in the Ole Lenku circus of security clowns.

Sunday 7^th April, 2014, it’s a brightly sunny day, I am in a cyber shop in Marsabit, checking my mail, no worries of police harass, no worries of terror because in “far off” places of Kenya like this one, insecurity is a major problem but not on a level of terrorism. Communal fighting and inter-tribal wars are part of the growing up in Marsabit but it is not as scary as terrorism. I am waiting for the page to load. Then in walks these three kids, boys between 10 and 13 dressed in brown Kanzus and varied jumpers over them. A curious perversity makes me watch the kids, see if they are here to log into Facebook or whether it’s some online game they want to play. The slightly older one hit Google and types in “Ibrahim Rogo” and when the search result returns he dutifully clicked on the Images under the result tab. The pictures that came up on the screen were very graphic, blood, police, guns and corpses. More shocking was the little boy’s mystery of the faces on the search result. He is pointing to the pictures and says

“this is Samantha’s (white widow’s) husband”

“this is Aboud Rogo’s brother”

“this is  Masjid Musa”

“this is how Aboud Rogo was shot…this is his body in the car”

I am in shock! How does he know all that? I lean back and secretly snap a few pictures of them on my phone. And ask them how I could also access those pictures. The youngest boy excitedly says

 “There are so many others you can find….type Samir Khan”

I do it and he says “click on images”

Voila!!

Samir Khan is all over my screen. Posing with an AK47 gun.

I look at the boys. One is sucking his thumb. They are glued to the screen.

Something just ticks in my mind. I finish what I am doing and watch the kids. One suggests that they Google search “illuminatti” the older one says

“it’s the same thing as yesterday”

They paid and left. I ask the lady at the counter if those children frequent her cyber. She says. They were here yesterday and the day before.

This is not an isolated incidence., this is how children and young people are radicalized and in Marsabit they are so many. About 58 young boys and girls from Marsabit are purported to have joined the Al-shabab, there are many sympathizers of Al-shabab in Marsabit.

If the Kenyan police and government want to do something on fighting Terrorism in Kenya. They should start from the grassroots. Not undertaking such PR and superficial responses as the Eastleigh case.

While KDF is fighting the al-shabab in Somalia, young people are being radicalized in their back yard, taught to grow up with a flawed outlook on life, community, religion and their lives.

Images and pictures have a lasting impression on the mind. 

Whoever controls the images controls your self-esteem, self-respect and self-development. Whoever controls the History controls the vision". - Dr. Leonard Jeffries

On GAY and African reactions!

Desmond Tutu once said “Kenya is a sexually dysfunctional” society, I was in form four, naïve. At the time I took the statement as a just another foreigner trying to act as an expert. Well, even in the early 2000s, sexuality in Kenya was a liberalized sector to the extent of Tutu calling it Dysfunctional. Only one other time have I read about such a bold statement; made by Taban Lo Liyong when he said East Africa is a “desolate literary desert”. Such sweeping generalization, bold statements like Tutu’s invokes a strong response, it looks insulting. So many years later, today I have the mind and exposure to say a little something on Tutu’s remark.

Just the other month a lot of hate, bile, rancor, passionate banter, the identity of Africa was on the same line proclaimed from the rooftops of conservative corners, the epistolic pages, apostolic proclamations of the sinful nature of a foreign sin in all African landscape; men of god across our land awed congregations with profound sermons on ‘pure sin’, “a naked sin”…now don’t ask me if sin has different degrees of purity or anything like that. This naked sin as a local pastor put it is dependent on several African states passing anti-gay laws. Some of us who shouted for the gay movement listened over and over to macklemore’s SAME LOVE and followed all our support with paradoxical harsh tags #NoHomo lest we are taken to be gay or some effeminate wuss!!  We said ‘be and let be’. While the blood breathing conservatives, former altar boys with Eucharistic and Sadaka loyalty, church choir, bible study mums and Dads, the pan Africans, Die hard Homo sapiens, overnight Bio-experts explained how the human body is a perfect machine that never confuses its functions, how each cell, each organ should work for the rest on and on and on. On the other hand the believers, said God, the mighty perfect God made man without a “flaw”. They reduced all the dreams and ambitions and people in the gay circles to just one word “flawed”, defying God. They lived a regimented biblical life.

Enter Gay debate and the high minded libertarians with their equally high sounding tendency for fanciful proclivities instantly rearranged the extent of their beliefs on liberalism, they donned morality gowns and walked like monks, they ran from their idyllic beliefs and became irrationally emotive. They changed color and quoted the bible. Intellectualism died, libertarianism died, they died. If it is all about morality, bible, Jesus and pastor’s profound sermons then why should we be blind to other equally “immoral incidents of the devil ruining the African purity”, take any incident from our national archive of sordid subjects; for instance the narcissistic exhibitionism on TV, Maina Kageni on morning drive where we wash the dirty linens of our “immorality”…

“My wife is so dirty she wears my under pants” said one regular caller…Mwalimu King’angi has a database of them…

“I can have sex with 10 other men without my husband noticing”

Why shouldn’t we, in our practiced responses and reactions to reoccurring sins, then find ways of incorporating “this other sins” into the national prayer breakfast as a special prayer item? Basically, let’s not be a nation of multiple moralities and selective moralities.

The other group of the clenched fist, nostalgically naïve, little “Shaka’s”, “Kintu”, “the true African”, “Django” the young African who came running chest thumbing, a little late for the party, when all was almost done and the die had been cast, woke from little villages inside their heads, looked the other way from the reality of their own lives and said

“Oh mother Africa, what cant they try to do to you? Why can’t they live you alone…? Oh mother Africa…Now they want to confuse you and let men have sex with other men….oh God...America…. Amerikah… A!!-Merry!!-Car!!….they heap all unaccepted cultures from A-Merry-Car and ship it to Africah!! …now they want to change our mother land to A-freaker!! Unacceped!! No…! no way….Go Museveni…the big finger in the American face…..Mugabe the only African with balls to face America, tell them this is Un-African!! This is purely an American….western….Euro way of doing things….it is anywhere else but African!!

These newly conscious defendants of Africa, the legion, true sons, the shirtless, well muscled, village goons, skinny, sure footed, spectacle donning, suited and speeding in university halls, idle sitting in government offices, church goers and bible worshiping people stood up, held hands, watched the setting sun and sang a new creed…..they clenched fists, raised it high, faced the sun and cried to mama Africa, the big woman in the world.

They just said this Gay thing is un-African. Not from Africa. Not for African pleasures. Not by Africans.

Shy minds fail to contend and transcend such nakedness, their imaginations reach a point where it just stops….naked men, the ass and a hard phallus and even when it breaks itself from the imaginative stop sign… they turn their face the other way. This free thinking and wondering imagination can’t be honest it should be sanctioned and subjected to suspicion. Like amateur liars many distanced themselves from all this same sex issue…Men having sex with men!! If it sounds bad, then it must be bad, if pastor says it is unforgivable then God speaketh; don’t think. Oppose. Don’t reason. Just Oppose. Let your imagination not transcend the disgusting perversion. Naked men. Eeeeuww!! End of reason. Beginning of argument. Passionate anger. End of the debate. It is Un-African. 

you must read this UN-AFRICAN WHATEVER YOU MEAN!!

UNAFRICAN- whatever you mean

Let’s be done with the gays and their supporters and haters for a while. Let’s think Africa. This confusing land, the concept of Africa and see it as many see it. When we say this or that is Un-African do we mean that……..?

1. 
   

Africa is an inviolate space that we ran to, it turns to an abstracted blanket that rivets our sentimental certainty about something trite - in that space of joining hands and condemning differences Africa becomes a seamless canvas that links the continent into one thing- the same thing- same mores, same belief, same attitude almost the same mental frame and approach to everything. Africa becomes the ritualized strokes of a painters brush, uniformly same color. No nuances. No disconnect. Mandela is Mugabe and Mugabe is Mandela. Our bad and our good all work for the better of our land…our mama land.

    2. 

Africa is the end of imagination. What we can’t understand, what we don’t want to understand. Anything that bursts the bubbles of our “African” beliefs and interests (whatever those may be) must be foreign, from out there in the world, the ugly world that is out there in the East, the orient, the West, America, Europe. We pull whole continents into our simple individualistic and differing worlds. We carry the continent with such simple beliefs that if me and my friends, my family and my community don’t practice and believe in this or that other ish then it is out-African. We will coin terms to show how it is from far off. From an alien’s nest-Other places.

   3.
Mother Africa- mother land is not a land anymore, not a geo-region anymore but an idea. An Idea that is too simple and basic in its outset that it lacks originality and the ability to mutate into something complex. Africa becomes the concept of aping others, copying and pasting others…other civilizations. It becomes hard to believe in this deep held idea of Africa that we can have home grown murk, homemade sin, which can make the worst of foreign murk and sin look like child’s play. In that idea-Afrique an African becomes a sinless deaf, blind, dumb holiness and in Culture’s word ‘Humble people who see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil’…I’m an humble African!!

    4.
Africa is a linkage to our past- to our ancestors, it is an identity and when some people embrace anything that is new and modernly “imported” then this becomes a betrayal of its people, the violation of a sentimental purity. Defiling Africa as handed down by our pious, perfect past and ancestors. We benumb ourselves to the new generation Africa holding the cultures in contempt. We fail to acknowledge the digital post modern Cities and problems that African’s are part of. When I hear this is un-African then I hear; - I’m resistant to change, I wear conservatism on me and wish to pass it to my future progeny like an important heirloom.

  5.
Africa becomes hubris, moral superiority, the saint in a morass filled world, a sinful, ungodly, shetani run world. We are holding on to a past fading fast, a fire whose warmth and heat is slowly ebbing out, a past long gone – refusing to believe that the adolescent stroking his penis in front of the mirror with a picture of a beautiful face- African, American or a news paper clipping of a photo shopped face was not made in Africa or that “queer” flamboyance by that saloon working sassy man- or the trans-gender boy-girl calling hotels asking them to accommodate people whose sexuality is not clear cut into male or female but an intersection of both…people like him/her.

I wish I could lift my clenched fist, face the setting sun, set my jaws and cry out to “mama Africa”- fight back the tears and say “they will try violating you, mama- But I am here…I will die first”

The world is what it is. No point detaching oneself and acting morally superior. Dear Young African, next time before lapsing into those un-African litanies kindly consider that Africa is so disconnected. The uniformity that you are looking for is non-existent.

Whatever limits of your imaginative faculties please try removing yourself from the multitudes, instead of drawing them into your own realm of fetishes. Whatever your quirky fanatism or deeply guarded beliefs kindly stop invoking such un-resurrect words as Culture, African purity.

KISUMU- A Glimpse

The transport system in western Kenya and Nyanza has long ago broken down and is in shambles- both its hustle and bustle – an ancient primordial one and in the new way which all things ineffective and slow i.e. service delivery has come to be regarded in Kenya- Kisumu was more an analogue city than its desired opposite-the Digital post modern hub of the great lakes region!

I was sited cooped on a “sambaza” suffocating from the stifling heat inside a fourteen sitter that now carried at least 20 people; waiting for the tout to conduct his calculations- get his cash from the brokers- wait again as the two carried out other calculations moving from passenger to passenger asking how much each had paid, hurriedly jotting at the back of a receipt book- the whole process taking almost a whole hour from arrival to departure by which time you were already tormented mentally- being packed very close together, with all the sweat, the omena smell from somewhere or a smelly armpit right in your face.

Kisumu city in 2013 is a clumsy boy whose growth and progress has been clipped by an egoistic approach to life- to the simple and finer details, it has succumbed slowly- it clung to its past and made its present in many aspects a murky affair- in business the clumsy boy loomed large- fisher folk do not just abandon their riverbank lifestyles and become instant success in trade- its ego impedes the enterprising nature needed. This is pardonable. Indians, the descendants of coolies, railway laborers are doing wonderful running the supermarkets, hard wares, quick food joints, bookshops and fancy hotels while the Somalis, going by two broad names Moha with a raised inflection on the -Ha and Abdi with an extra i, supply and compete amongst themselves in selling china made electronics while their hooded women, sitting inside big bou bous and Ninja headgear like miniature mobile tents- dash from one joint to another seeking “change” or an item urgently needed by a customer. Watching them run their businesses occasionally shouting an incomprehensible order to the lanky aides hanging around, enticing any potential customer with subtle pleas “aisee jeans…apti….shatti….smart….warriah…bei special” Is a funny performance- these part is a demarcated Somali territory! Garissa lodge it is called!

Kisumu as a city has its elements of backwardness- stark villages loomed and hovered around the excesses of the city- in the exaggerated urbanites. The bravado filled younglings running the streets. The city is in a tight traditional embrace with its village ancestry- the fodder on which it thrived. The matatus are the cord that mark the embrace- the cord that feed the city with the village fodder.

The rural parts has its finer share of these hangovers- remnants of rebel Christians- those early churches set up in the colonial days by native priests are thriving- while life is dreary in the villages on weekdays, it becomes frenzied on Sundays with all the true, Africanized, Christian cultic movements- the uniformed groups of drummers with flagged forerunners their pennants raised high and in diverse colors of red, green and yellow. The congregations with their elaborate church dresses run along- in slight jog timed by the drummers pace. Churches like these mushroomed with astonishing speed giving the region the more number of priests and bishops- aloof men of god, in an even and exaggerated tone of piousness.

I have lived here for four years as a student but never in my four years have I ever resolved the prejudices that slowly crept in and imposed itself on me- there was always a lurking uncertainty even at its most serene- a certain edginess to life; sudden surprises from the old man cursing in perfect English or the young touts modification of verbs and shouting “the car is wenting!!- Comic relief from the grandiose obsession with good grammar and big words that both the traditional Kisumu and its urbane side love to indulge in.

Strangers can spark conversations in seconds, diving into deep exchanges of worries, concerns and love, instantly finding quorum, bringing out the other side of the city- the bravado filled young men listening to the old accomplished “know-it-all” elders who spoke with that aura of yore- big English words!! Adjectives in Kisumu come in twos- each one with its own modifier.  

Damn cold, triple looting, Collective amnesia, Self grandeur, Kisumu Dala, Raila Odinga, usual fundamentals, swaggerific Oliech, magnanimous Mariga, humongous wallet. The stereotype has merged into life; it has morphed into the truth. From the outside this looks like a performance that sustains an ego but looking keen and deep the intersection of this prided lies and grandiose self flattery is the reality.

This is the stuff that made Kisumu a city that stooped to a subtle belief of African inferiority, when people from “outside” pointed it out as the Lingual center of braggarts…the common response is-“but do we say?” Or “it’s our weakness” …soon enough the accused lapses into those facetious verbiage…

“You know we Luopeans, what I mean to say my dear friend, you know being a Luo is actually a lifestyle…” these has been repeated so often such that if any of these statement had long ago been made in jest, it now remained at an intersection of a norm and the hollowness of a shallow truth. You just do not know whether this is a mocking sarcasm or a tightly held belief.

Our Matatu is well on its way now. Passed Bandani, The Driver is busy skirting potholes, chavakali now, shouting a word of greeting, Lela, competing with other drivers for the lone passenger by the roadside, Daraja Mbili and talking, stopping by the traffic police and zooming off. The people inside the matatu are uncomplaining; more passengers board and squeeze us more. You don’t have an option. The matatu operators can do as they please. These problems in the matatu sector, I gathered, had not always been these way, ineffectively run a now, with the 2007 election and the subsequent 2008 violence; the kikuyu had lost a lot of investment and were forced to exit from Kisumu; many now fear a repeat of the loss they incurred. They are shy of returning but slowly a few daring ones have found their way back into the sector and may over the coming years transform the regions transport system once again.

I was almost in Maseno when a curios excitement happens. In her efforts at alighting an elderly woman had without intending or noticing she had knocked down bag and vanished into the dark night. The bag fell on the pavement shattering what seemed like a glass or a flask inside the bag;  that’s when a lanky pastor who had until now been sitting silently spoke up. The pastor from one of those interior village churches – dini joroho or legio maria bishop wore a long turban, flowing robe and a big sword shaped cross; the man of god was numbered ISRAELI O.J right above the forehead on the white turban with red string, the letters sewn into the fabric with a carefulness but still coming out like the hand writing of a child unsure of the letters. Bishop Israeli O.J was now disturbed; he is craning his neck and calling out to the tout…

“Kondakta?” he called out calmly

“kondakta? Naulisa hiyo ni bag ya bisop?

“Conductor? I am asking if that’s the bishop’s bag that has fallen?”

Now the tout said it was and drove the calmness out of Israeli O.J who broke into a litany of accusatory laments

“kama mumevunja kikombe ya sacramenti iko sida”

‘if you have broken the sacrament’s cup, there is trouble”

‘I am saying if you have broken the sacrament’s cup you are in trouble.”

“nasema kama mumefunja kikombe ya sacramenti nyinyi iko kwa sida” he said this over and over until it became clear that the whole matatu was knee deep in some devilish shit… 

These traditionalism and traditional approach to life in our cities and villages will endure.

This Aggression

Its 5pm there is brightness and certain calm in the air-usual normalcy, a few cows by the side of the road graze unattended. I am with two colleagues from the office going home, talking, feeling accomplished for a day’s work done and I, particularly was feeling a little self important- I made a few Gs in a few hours. Ahead of us are these school children playfully going home- in that careless abandon children can take life, freedom. Then one of them bolts and runs towards us, at least it was in our direction, glancing back frequently with the others urging him to ran faster, then a man emerges hot in the boys pursuit, the man, barefoot, with clenched fists and a set jaw is determinedly catching up with the boy and noticing the hopelessness of his escape the boy crouched behind us and says

“Please uncle, stop him”

A scuffle happens and before we could restrain the barefoot man, he had landed two successive punches on the little boy, who was now faking a serious cry. Sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes.

“K&*mako, utajua leo mimi si babako” says the man, still seething from anger.

I am holding him. What is it bro? Is he your younger brother? What has he done? I am trying to administer a quick therapeutic talk-to-me-bro leave the kid alone dose.

‘Can you imagine he was throwing stones at me? From that end of the road to down there…he has been following me…I will kill him’ he says

But he is only a child, you just don’t punch children like that, report him to his parents, or the teachers. Do you know you can go to jail for this? We say, trying to instill some thoughts into this guy’s head.  We lead him away as we go our way and a beautiful girl brings his shoes and takes over from us- his girlfriend.

“you are lucky….I would’ve killed you….I would have buried you’ he kept repeating, even as his girlfriend tried calming him.

The little boy too, now out of any immediate danger ignores the threats and in a bold move or a faked courage before his mates is throwing threats as well.

“You will see me”, he says “don’t you always pass next to our house? I will show you”

…………but beyond the strong language, clenched fist and the seething anger, the bare foot man is just is just one example in a series o increasingly unreasonable responses to incidences in today’s society’s; I bet you have many examples of a man who killed his wife, children and then hung himself or the other one who stubbed his 12 year old over the loss of 20shillings, or how a simple brawl turns into a shocking death. It is unlimited the number of cases these days that makes you ask “why?” why people are becoming increasingly irritable, increasingly complex with their emotional responses? What is it with all these aggressive outburst? A keen look at the trend will bring you into a clear pattern of releasing pent up anger, frustrations, fear, inadequacies which all breed a level of aggression that knows no bound.

Today the socio-economic and political demands on individuals breeds a higher degree of seriousness, hurrying, worrying, wanting, needing, seeking, a heighted level of feisty, touchy need for order, of predictable preciseness for things to work as we want them to be, for people to react as we want them to, for everything to aid us in meeting those demands placed on us by the environment in which we live. This seriousness, this hurrying limits our own interactions; breeds an heightened feeling of our self awareness, our own grandiose importance, the belief that our life’s purpose is of a greater than anyone’s, our ambition is the bigger call than others,  the bubbles of our own beliefs becomes a guarded entity- a private space that needs no invasion, no exposure. This sanctions our, concerns, our actions towards each other- placing a ceiling on how far our intimacies in the society can go- how deep the roots of our love can go.

Everyone is in such a hurry, the hurry of life- hurrying home to catch the evening news, hurrying to meet a lover, hurrying to catch a bus, matatu, hurrying to catch up with a life that is increasingly, ever increasingly becoming elusive. Hurry because our fears do not allow us to look around- to take in our environment- our struggles may make the life of others such an inconsequential and trite affair- in a world growing more individualistic there is a new morass, an increasing need for normalcy, an obsession with predictability,  for things to be in their place. In the hurry, amidst the shuffling feet, the fast moving bodies, thoughts, ideas, and feelings- we become blind to each other, we become numb to each other’s needs, concerns and feelings- we do things because we have to –we do not stop one moment to consider others- to entertain such a now nonsensical thing as the beauty of our environment, of otherness- paying for services, paying our bills, looking at each other but not seeing, the veiling our pain, hurt, hope, love, life, beauty, the murky, because these  will make you vulnerable, weak, before other people. This morass makes your life; your needs and ambition make the life of other not to matter in the quest of our own struggle.

This makes others invisible, needless, objects, tools made for you to achieve your own needs. 

THE MENTAL CAGES OF MARSABIT

I am from a small town, Marsabit , it is a beautiful place, beautiful not in the sense of scenic aesthetics- you know the flowery lanes, clean streets, tarmacked roads and the sort but beautiful nonetheless. The beauty of small towns like Marsabit is its people, the smallness of their beliefs, the depth of their small convictions, the communal sense of being, the extent of their hate and love, their gossip, their pretenses, their lies and truths, laughter and tears- the simplicity of even their complex issues and Ideas, of daily living. The ease with which one can assume many things and just be okay, the seriousness with which even the slightest of things can be brought to life...one minute an issue is just a small murmur in the air, then it becomes a quasi-secret gossip to be whispered, then a few hours later, a full blown concern, truth with people swearing, phone calls are made, and confirmations sought…from the villages where the issue is rumored to have happened, then phone calls from the villages to the town to seek for more information.

A section of Marsabit Town

I am touched by the communal side of my small town. I have on more than one occasion been confronted by people, strangers who have without a care let me in on the darkest sides of their lives, their problems, their challenges and the gate pass into their lives, into their dreams and fears is just their knowing me…knowing somebody I know….knowing I am so and so’ s son, brother, lover, father, mother or niece; friendship is kindled ….with just your name you can have cousins, uncles, clansmen, in-laws materializing out of total strangers. This is community. You can walk into people’s homes and have free lunch, free bed and engage in a long talk with the members of this household and walk out as easy as you came. Or strike lifelong friendships by just a few minutes of talking.

Yet, this communal outlook is this town’s greatest challenge. There is something sinister that lurks behind the welcoming smiles, their too trusting loyalty, and the ease with which people can take in convictions and clasp it tightly with their lives. This loyalty, the undivided love that is offered too freely, it can be seen everywhere, in schools, in the market, in the village, in households- it has been passed on like an infectious flu- like something necessary, like fashion and any kind of dissent is frowned upon- if it’s against the communal think- keep it to yourself.

There is some mild sycophancy, an instantaneous unshakable fanaticism, rumors and speculations, spontaneous worries fly back and forth and in just a few minutes various versions, modified for various ears- the conspiratorial, the impressionable, the doubters, the fanatics each of them blowing like hot airs rife and palpably in the air! The fodder that feeds propaganda and in this way suspicion is bred, nourished and nurtured to live whole lives- lives bigger than human life, and the suspicion supersedes propaganda and transcends into hatred, into blood, into murder, revenge- crosses border and grows into an international crisis- the Oromoland, into the Burjilands, into the Gabra areas of Ethiopia. Cousins and relatives in Ethiopia wonder what is happening in Kenya and send a few guns and horses to go fight off aggression to the respective community- then the buzz dies down, slowly, the angst goes silent for a few hours, a few weeks, months and possibly a few years- then the rumor begins and previous scars are piqued, rancor boils and the suspicion grows into propaganda, the propaganda into suspicion, suspicion into fear, fear into hatred and hatred into impulsive wars and on and on ad infinitum goes the reign of rumor in the land of the gossip. Gossip and rumors have a way of growing wings to fly, have some mutable characteristics in my small town, the capacity to remake itself into funny tales, into shocking news, into war cries, into songs even.

And when my friend often says “you will run mad, reading so many books” I will never take those words seriously than my worry about who hears it because I may wake up two weeks later to people’s sympathy or a distant relative coming all the way from the village  asking my mum

“How is he now? We heard he ran mad after reading so many books?”

Or just wake up a new person, with strangers regarding me in a new light, with awe because they heard that I read so many books and I am supposed to behave in a certain bookish way.

And somehow this communal naivete, this too trusting loyalty is in the hands of a few, it is easily manipulated, it is a switch box that can effectively unleash raging currents of hate, love, sympathy, contempt, love and life- those who thrive on anarchy are using it- a few months ago the local leaders gave a simple decree- do not buy from two communities and do not work for them- then the loyal people, communally decided in that mob way of thinking followed the decree and overnight we had meat, whole steaks, fillets and entire goats rotting in the butcheries and people being beaten by hooded goons in the evening for defying the decree to buy from “marked shops, butcheries, wholesalers” there were hushed whispers, fear of unseen eyes watching, one women was beaten while her husband watched because she had a “concubine” from the “marked” communities,  there were more  cases of tearing of shopping bags and open pouring of purchased goods from the marked shops. The poor suffered, business men suffered, casual workers lost their jobs and daily wages, they returned home to face their hungry children, then slowly life came back and business is now returning almost to normalcy.

And just yesterday I was walking around the villages, and the many settlements around town for a simple exercise, a polio monitoring drive. I walked into many compounds and homes and walked out. In all the homesteads I was more than welcome; I was kindly treated, served tea and ate those small tumandazis, popular in our town…sweet. I ate lunch in one of the households and then my host talked about peace in general for a while, then not realizing my feigned interest, she leaned closer and in that conniving way of crafty elderly women she said almost whispering

“You know so many of them have died, everyone is hiding their shame”

Pause

A picture of the backside Marsabit

“I was in Moyale recently, believe me there is more to the war in Moyale than you know…..they are using spirits…jinn…. They tried burning the house of one of them and it could not catch fire…..can you imagine they even bombed it and it could not catch fire…..”

Surprise on my face

“Yes!!….every attempt at burning failed until they had to call the sheikh….a sheikh who came and in front of everyone cast out the jinn….11 of them…can you believe….Jinn…11..”

I listened carefully, putting all the oohs and aahs and mmmhs as demanded by her dramatic narration; she delved into details of exorcising the jinn…she painted the picture of a jar of fresh blood found under the bed….the sheikh standing in the middle of the house while cats appeared and disappeared, with unseen dogs barking from the many rooms….I endured all her talk until the jinn finally disappeared and the onlookers looted and burnt down the house….with just one bomb….boom!!

I sat there trying to act normal, refusing to psycho-analyze her, trying to believe that she too did not believe what she was saying and that maybe she was high on something she accidentally took. That maybe this is a lie….and she may say something like….heyy stop listening…am just pulling your leg. But believe me she is not alone, I have heard this talk more than once but I have always banished it to the back of my mind, locking all those tales into a tight cage somewhere in the past. The other time, a sheikh was accused of casting demons into six madrassa going children, (there is even a video clip of this somewhere), the local leaders, chiefs, councilors and a local MP were present…the crowd was a big one, the sheikh and demon possessed girls sat on opposite sides with the crowd watching them in awe. Then the girls began talking in funny tones and the crowd almost ran away….the demons/jinn in the girls were confessing before a powerful sheikh….how they came from Somalia and they were treated to chicken blood or something like that! And that they were here for some sinister affair!!

Unbelievable is your thought now….but this is something that is happening, this directionless-ness, and confusion, this murky, voodoo, fanatical, primitive, ungodly ways belong to this century. To this present; It is a village in a supposedly post modern city. This village will endure- this traditionalism will mutate into another form, an amorphous state of our backwardness, it is the intersection of primitive traditionalism shifting into something more sinister, more traditional, more backward and obsessive; imprisoning our thoughts, caging our minds into small cages of aggression, irrationality, fanaticism especially of the region-political nature, propaganda, confusion and anarchic gossip. I avoid some of my childhood friends who have stuck in some state of mental quick sand because in one way or the other they will delve into that irksome Illuminati talk, they will vent their anti-west, anti-American supremacy sentiments, talk about the new world order as if that matters then say a few things about Jesus….about Prophet Issah and eventually narrow down and zero-in on me

“Please do not die a Christian” they will say. 

THE DOWNSIDE OF PATRIOTISM

Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself.
—Philippians 2:3

A few years ago I was in the southern section of Ethiopia and one evening while flipping through the channels, bored by the Ethiopian Amharic broadcasting television stations; I chanced on one broadcasting in English and was enjoying some talk show about something African (I don’t remember what). I became so engrossed and was aroused by the old man who having watched me asked

“Do you understand what they are saying?”

I understood speaking or even understanding good English in Ethiopia especially the southern side is something that is not always seen. I nodded and added

‘Yes I do’                                                

The disbelief on the old man’s face was pardonable

‘…all of it?’ he said with his hand making an expansive sweep.

‘All. of. it’ I answered back

Then the elderly man in a way that has ever since been a part of my thoughts whenever I think of Kenya’s supremacy or lack thereof, or whenever comparisons are made between Kenya and other African states, or whenever any inappropriate comparison is made for the sake of malice or some covert agenda the old man looms large in my mind.

‘You know the Kenyan education system is good BUT their military is nothing’ he said, and the way it came out was more than disparaging, it was both a mocking sarcasm of Kenya and a confirmation of the supremacy of Ethiopian Military. Coming from a history of militarism and protracted civil war I just shrugged the old man’s sentiments as just a rash conclusion without any relevance whatsoever to how my understanding English was a representation of Kenyan education system.

Other instances have taken place since then, all adding in one way or the other to the growth of an idea at the back of my mind. One such instance was that of my Ugandan schooled Kenyan roommate whom we often in friendly verbal plays disregarded as just another kid who schooled in ‘a very third world state-Uganda’ with Museveni’s militarism being infused into him through the school curricula.

And on another instance in a weekly evening poetry/spoken word session in one of the varsity lecture halls one blogger stood up and going by the weekly theme of “paying tribute to Kenyan Defense Force”, he made some positive remarks which eventually shifted to the Kenyan regional supremacy.

 “Kenya is a super power” he said and went on to bash Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, the two Sudan-s, and Ethiopia. He created such a negative picture that made Eastern Africa states such tiny names that clung to the mighty Kenya-Dwarfs that need not our attention.  I sat there thinking How naïve!

But in mid last year, a young beautiful Belgium lady came to Kenya from Ethiopia through Moyale and on a journey to Lake Turkana we had enough time for interaction. Whenever she talked about Ethiopia and how good it was I subconsciously found myself telling her of similar better things in Kenya. Had it not been her pointing it to me, several days later, that I seemed to be selling Kenya as better than Ethiopia, better than anything Ethiopia could offer, while I hadn’t even seen the part of Ethiopia she was referring to. I wouldn’t have known the shit that my patriotic zeal was painting about me-about Kenya and Kenyans. It was such a blind groping that never thought that there could be other better things, places than Kenya in such “backward” places as Ethiopia.

I have over the years come to regard this with some seriousness; I am not, most of us are not any different from the Ethiopian elder in the remote Oromo land. The blogger in our spoken heart I have referred to because One’s state encompasses the very ideals that constitute ones identity, the body of pride and all that is good in any state elicits the same kind of response all across the world- the flush of patriotic sentiments, both sadness and joy. And it is part of this patriotism ingrained in citizenship through years of socialization that manifests when ‘others’ seem to invade, to supersede the complete body of beliefs and attitudes one holds about their state.

I have made the conclusion that patriotism is on a large extent negative... bear with me…I am making my case.

But what is Patriotism?

The standard dictionary definition of patriotism reads “love of one's country.”  Patriotism can be defined as love of one's country, identification with it, and special concern for its well-being and that of compatriots.
(read more)

Patriotism is negative

American political theorist George Kateb, argues that patriotism is “a mistake twice over: it is typically a grave moral error and its source is typically a state of mental confusion”. He further argues that patriotism is “a readiness to die and to kill for an abstraction … for what is largely a figment of the imagination” (Kateb 2000, 901, 907). Kateb conceives a state as “it is also constructed out of transmitted memories true and false; a history usually mostly falsely sanitized or falsely heroized; a sense of kinship of a largely invented purity; and social ties that are largely invisible or impersonal, indeed abstract …”

Patriotism is deceptive; it is a farcical self flattery

Leo Tolstoy found patriotism both stupid and immoral. Despite this, patriotic deception is alluring; it is scurrying away from truth in matters dealing with our realities – our identities. It often entails lying to yourself. Isn’t it baffling when eventually the scurry from the truth, reality reaches a point when it can no longer hold together- when the deception “self-consumes” and self abashment begins in bitter earnest when like Morgan “you do not see nothing to smile about”- the dawn of reality on the prison of lies. This reality becomes a guarded entity- we can self condemn, poke fingers in our affairs and yodel all we can but one statement made even in jest, or anything that seems to slight the spirit of our state from the outside, from other people, from other states will break the self bemoaning about our inadequacy to proclaim a mighty stance of self flattery; a patriotic zeal in which we find ourselves in a narcissistic self adoration. The state becomes a neo-liberal fetish, a glowing jewel that is to be guarded and protected. This self adoration surrounding the state by its citizenry is informed by thoughts like “we are good, they are bad”, “our bad are better than their good” which is an extreme form of patriotism whose mantra is “Our country right or wrong”.

Kenyans on twitter

My thoughts on the portrayal of “our supremacy”, or “patriotism” as a negative thing has often been amplified by Kenyans on Twitter. Not in a positive way but a very negative line of subtle #self deception.

The Kenyan rampage on twitter on any African states that provokes, bursts their sentimental patriotic bubble is a threat that should be eliminated with ridiculous hash tags #someonetell………. and at best the mob psychology that lies dormant even in the highest circles of our most respected i.e. the #culturecreators in the Kenyan society including both its elites and politicians becomes alive, it possess them in showing solidarity in attacking covert enemies from trying to mess with us.

c'mon 

Finger pointing, name calling or mocking banter of the inadequacies of others in Africa is not on the western scale of specks and logs in eyes but a famous adage of a baboon that not seeing its own ass laughs at and ridicules other baboons’ asses and in Kenya we have reared a baboon, and the finger of the famous baboon is #someonetell……hash tag. The claptrap banter of an egoistic citizenry expressing their patriotic sentiments and conceptions of ‘Kenyan supremacy’. The total disregard of existing realities, absolving our own weaknesses; showing our strength by pointing to the weaknesses of others is what the declaration of our ‘supremacy’ is pegged on.

And just the other day I came across an article by Kingwa Kamencu on Why Nigerians are miles ahead of our writers in the Daily nation of Friday, October 25, 2013. In this article Kamencu tries to draw a comparison on why West Africans are excelling in the literary world while East Africans are trailing behind. She asks

So, why aren’t East African writers hitting the jackpot of fame, analysis, money and acclaim like their West-African contemporaries?

She quotes Parselo Kantai who in self flattery says “The East African project is in a way more interesting than the Nigerian one.”

The article is apt, it is timely too but Kamencu spoils it when she subtly brings out the comparison like it is a battle, a sort of competition, a war that Kenyans ought to win

Even with the understated war for supremacy between Nigeria and Kenya seen on internet spats, Nigeria is in truth not the only country our writers need to fight.

What Kamencu in her article did was give a voice to ‘our’ belief. The belief that we are better than Nigeria and we could outdo them by just putting in place a few things; a vibrant publishing scene, Good PR for our writers, I searched the article to try and see if she has recommended learning from Nigeria or west Africa. But there is nothing like that, since she already has declared a war between our literary scene and the Nigeria one, she thinks there is not a chance for a collaboration between Kenyans and Nigerians working to improve each other. This is further amplified when Tony Mochama nails it

Mochama suggests looking further afield for challenge and inspiration. “We could look to the US where they have set the bar because of their dominance. They have an exciting tradition of literary magazines - The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Dog And Pound and others.

But couldn’t we look up at Nigeria and West Africa for this inspiration and challenge you may want to ask!! And here Mochama says

….As a third world country, India would be an example of how to write in an international language but still break away from the West,”.

I am not trying to belittle Kamencu or Mochama but they seem not aware of the negative connotation that seems to lurk behind the comparisons being drawn and the recommendations being put forth or if they are, there is a deliberate pitching of the East against the West in the African literary scene. There is an underlying patriotic tone that is tied to Kenya and East Africa in this piece. It is not on the extreme end of patriotism since Kamencu has been careful to notice and acclaim the superiority of Nigeria without lying.

How do we as Africans view each other in the face of Patriotism?

Each state has a single one sided story of the other, when it comes to self comparison. We can’t detach Biafra, Boko Haram, the con men, political upheavals when we think about Nigeria. Or fail to see hunger and starvation, press censorship in Ethiopia. Or when we think about Somalia all one sees is the war, the famine and big bellies. Problem steps in when we fail to transcend these “single story” about others in our outlook. When we start sweep our own murk under the carpet.

This distracted and divided image shapes our perceptions of the ‘African problem’. No one feels like part of it, we thus end up conceiving the continental problems as outsiders, as if we are not part of the murk. How do we deal with regional integration, pan-Africanism or the unity of Africa? When we envision the African problem not as a single bloc but fragments of the otherness informed by the convictions of one’s own superiority?

And if you had not noticed most people when thinking/talking of African problems rarely consider their own state, this is always a thing that comes with human nature; wanting and wishing to distance themselves from problems.

Can’t each one of us disavow and just tone down the superiority of the other? Couldn’t we instead work with each other, to learn from each other? Re-conceptualize our image and our problems, Collaboration instead of Competition.

 “The love for one's country is in many cases no more than the love of an ass for its stall” J.B. Zimmermann