From the kings of shoot foot.

The list of shame allegedly is making its rounds on e-mail. I wait eagerly for it to make my inbox so that I can read the names that I already know are there. No doubt the Deputy Prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Agriculture minister William Ruto are there. Both are in many Kenyan’s eyes guilty of organizing and perpetrating PEV, whether you defend on support them boils down to whether or not you feel their actions were justified. Millions are on ends of that divide. But there’s a marked difference between the two which tells us even if the real list is ever published who is likely to survive and who is probably going to enter the political backwater if not a cell.
William Ruto has spent the better part of the few weeks since the report was published in a public endeavor to discredit the report. These actions come a little too late. He’s gathered an army of MPs that can only hold one stake holder hostage, but not the country. He’s forgotten that, and he could provide the piece-meal PNU a rallying cry…and worse yet for him allow KANU a return to the Rift Valley. A collapse of ODM sad though it may be would not be a collapse of Kenya or even the government. Even if snap elections were called; the numerical advantage of the PNU-ODMK partnership would probably give mandate to that group. The masterminds of the violence had assumed in error that they would be in soul ownership of the government and sweep the events under the rug. Luckily for all Kenyans this did not happen a coalition government means that all purported the violence to see justice on both sides. On the other hand Uhuru has been the wise criminal, and showing that he knows politics. He has kept quiet for the most part and has refused to rock the boat. Frankly he’s been or at least pretending to be busy on other things. Uhuru seems to understand that it is innocent till proven guilty and has not gone on a PR disaster that will ruin his ultimate ambition of the top seat (a seat that Ruto himself covets). His tactics have boded well with people like me who feel that even if his hands are covered in blood; he doesn’t seem like a raving lunatic hell bent on his own ends. This probably makes him even more dangerous than Ruto, you don’t exactly extremely threatened.
The list is full of other names, who have responded in line with their intellect. We will not withhold judgment. There are no surprises as to whose going to be on the list…the surprise no doubt will be if our politic can handle this situation well. My bet they’ll push themselves in to irrelevance…I mean what can you expect when you have Ntimama supporting you?

What came of my Sorrow

Anyone been keeping up with the news in Kenya knows that the waki report on the events of January have been published on www.dialoguekenya.org. For those who don’t know me well know I deal with crisis in my own way. Typically while its all going down I remain in the moment and let the emotions catch up later. Yes I know there are exceptions to that but mostly my brain takes over in times of crisis…so during the events of late December and early January I did what I thought best, remained optimistic, and cerebral. January passed as an intellectual exercise on the woes facing a developing country such as Kenya. Waki report opened the emotions that were pent up over the months, and I was struck with great sadness. The only time I have felt anything similar is when I lost my Grandmother. I was mortified by the spirit of the violence in the Rift Valley. This wasn’t just a reaction to the election but acts of hate and retaliation. Elsewhere you got the sense of election anger, in the rift you got the impression from both sides that people finally had an opportunity to do what they sought to do for ages. Now issues of “historical injustice” and protecting their own have been touted as explanations, but that’s not adequate looking at our history holistically and is not the reason why I write today. I write because Kenya is a land where when a business fails a church is put in its place. Kenya is a place where there’s a high so called moral bar, but for all our religion and thou-shalt-nots when push comes to shove we’re murderers and rapists. My great sadness and anger is that our hypocrisy is not the kind of a man who falls and gets up but still strives for the ideal; our hypocrisy is that of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Faced with this realization I’m left with the choice of bitterness and anger, or taking some action. I’m categorically against one-man crusades, and I’m just not the bitter angry type. My thoughts are divergent from radical rhetoric. I still believe in Africa the idea, the continent, the hope…but I’ve lost my pride as a Kenyan. I viewed my “Kenyaness” furthermore my ethnicity as a sweet gift from God, but now I struggle to see the beauty and the magnificence of it all, I need to recapture it. Talking with my father about things he often harks back to a time where citizenship was part of the Kenyan identity. The second definition of citizenship is “the character of an individual viewed as a member of society; behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen.” I believe the time to look at the rights we have as Kenyans has passed and the time to look at our duties has arrived. Was it not said in a perfect New England Accent “ask not what your country can do for you…?” During the elections millions yelled “haki yetu” (our rights), I challenge we change the tune to “faradhi yetu!” (Our obligation) Our government is poor and there are many in need, we who can need to step up. We need to stop back-benching with grandiose suggestion and do the little we can to take our country forward. I am the worst offender I speak often and loudly of what is needed to change the country and follow it up by getting in to an overloaded matatu. Ultimately I brood with the feeling that all when Kenya fell it was not Kenya that let me down…it was I who let my country down. I’ll begin my road to redemption by collecting trash along the road on Saturday…