Mentalacrobatics

Blogging Positively - Live chat on NOW!
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Instructions:
Go to the chat room select “English” and then press “Next”. We will create other chat rooms for other languages if the opportunity arises.

In commemoration of World AIDS Day Rising Voices will be hosting a live chat. This chat aims to build on the foundations laid by the first chat we had back in April which asked the following question: “How can citizen media be used to supplement and improve the mainstream media’s coverage of the AIDS epidemic?”

Date: Wednesday, December 3rd
Venue: http://www.worknets.org/chat/
Time: 15.00 Nairobi time:
07.00 (New York, EST) - 10.00 (Buenos Aires) - 12.00 (London, GMT) - 14.00 (Cape Town, Beirut) - 15.00 (Nairobi, Moscow) - 17.30 (New Delhi) - 18.00 (Beijing, Manila) - 21.00 (Tokyo) - 23.00 (Sydney)
Login instructions: Login using your name and then select the room you want to join by clicking enter. Once in the room, select a font colour on the left side of the screen, then join the chat.
Chat Facilitators: Serina and Daudi

This weeks chat will start out focusing on two Rising Voices grantee projects, REPACTED in Nakuru, Kenya and AIDS Rights Congo based in Brazzaville. We will learn how both organizations have implemented blogging and video outreach programs to spread awareness about their initiatives in AIDS prevention and advocating for the rights of HIV-positive individuals.

Other discussion topics include: What are the factors to weigh when HIV-positive bloggers go public about their status? How can blogging support networks form online? What about online forums? What are other new media tools, such as mapping mashups, that can be used effectively?

If there are other topics that you would like to discuss during the chat, please respond with your ideas. I hope that as many of you as possible can make it.

David Sasaki of Rising Voices writes:

As a primer to the conversation I encourage you all to take a look at a recent post written by Juliana Rincón on Global Voices about AIDS awareness through video. Especially fascinating is a video podcast produced by QAFBeijing, which interviews South African grand justice Edwin Cameron, the country’s only government official who has gone public about his HIV status.

I will be sending out a reminder email on Tuesday with a link to a video of a fascinating conversation among the members of the Breaking the Silence in Kwa Mashu project about the fear of discussing HIV status in their community.

Check out Global Voices’ World AIDS Day 2008 coverage.

Blogging Positively - see you there Wed 3rd December.

The BBC reports:

A US-based Nigerian news blogger is being held without charge by Nigeria’s secret service.

Jonathan Elendu was taken into custody on Saturday when he arrived in the capital, Abuja, on a family visit.

The State Security Service (SSS) has refused to allow his lawyers access to him and denied him a medical visit.

Jonathan writes Elendureports.com.

This is ridiculous. You do not hold people without charge, you do not refuse access to lawyers and you do not withhold medical treatment. Regardless of what you think about Jonathan or Elendureports.com you cannot and should not do that. Especially if you call yourself a leader and want us to treat you as such.

What is it with these heads of states or “big” politicians who act all tough but cannot stand some criticism or dissent? Sending the secret service to round up critics is not tough; it is sad, pathetic and sign of very poor leadership.

Via Afromusing – thanks.

What is Kelele?
Kelele is an annual African bloggers’ conference held in a different African city each year and run by an organising committee in that city. Kelele will be held for the first time in August 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Why Kelele?
Kelele is the Kiswahili word for noise. We are organising a gathering of African bloggers in the tradition of historical African societies where everyone has a voice. Where society has room for debate and discussion. With too many voices marginalised or simply ignored in Africa society today for a variety of reasons we believe that technology in general and grassroots media tools such as blogs in particular represent the most powerful way in which to give Africans back their voice. We are gathering in Nairobi in August 2009 to make a powerful, positive, inspirational noise that will be heard across the continent and beyond. KELELE!

The theme of Kelele ’09 Nairobi is Beat Your Drum – we want to connect the traditional Africa method of getting your message across vast distances – the talking drums – to the 21st century and the tools we use today to get our message across, blogs and the Internet. We anticipate that this conference will continue to be called Kelele wherever it is held. For example Kelele Nairobi ’09, Kelele Accra ’10, Kelele Cairo ’11 and so on.

When will Kelele ’09 Nairobi take place?
August 2009. We have tentatively booked the 13th – 16th August 2009.

Here is a summary of the proposed programme:
Day 1 August 13: Arrival in Nairobi and official opening
Day 2 August 14: Conference Day
Day 3 August 15: Skills/Training Day and Outreach Day. Official closing
Day 4 August 16: Sight seeing / departure

Sister events
The African Bloggers Awards, which aims to recognise the top blogger from each African country. The winner from each country will be invited and sponsored to attend Kelele ’09 Nairobi.

Budget
Every successful event needs the backing of some great sponsors! We’d like to invite all organizations with an interest in blogging, Africa and citizen media to become a sponsor of the inaugural African Bloggers Conference: Kelele!

There are a variety of ways that you can become involved as a sponsor for Kelele - your contribution doesn’t only need to be financial in nature. If you’d like to find out more about the sponsorship opportunities, please email daudi.were AT gmail.com

For more information please contact
Daudi Were – daudi.were AT gmail.com
Erik Hersman - erik AT zungu.com
Ndesanjo Macha - ndesanjo AT gmail.com

To celebrate the end of another week and to herald the beginning of the weekend, a bunch of Kenyan bloggers/blog readers/blog enthusiast/secret bloggers/potential bloggers/relatives of bloggers will be meeting at Alpenhofs, next to Prestige Plaza on Ngong Road at 6pm TODAY Friday 3rd October. Nothing formal, no agenda, just catching up to find out what people have been up to, making new connections any excuse to spread some good blog karma. It looks like some very interesting people are going to be coming and so should you. Really. You have no excuse no to come. Spread the word.

Now that the child’s play (gymnastics, swimming, equestrian, kayaking etc) in Beijing is over the JOGOO of Africa roars (as much as a JOGOO can roar anyway).

The only country that is worthy of a seat next to Kenya is Jamaica. As for the rest of you, you can steal our athletes with PetroDollars, LegoDollars and MacDollars but until you start eating ugali you haven’t got a chance.)

In other news

our dear (younger) brothers from Uganda, this is what we meant last time. Hehe ati dethrone Kenya in Nairobi. Never talk badly again!

(Balanced, non jingoistic, rational coverage continues after the Olympics etc)

Now That Amos Kimunya Has Resigned -Release Our Civil Society Colleagues

To the Commissioner of Police and the Government of Kenya:

We demand the unconditional release of our patriotic colleagues in the civil society who were brutally manhandled and arrested this morning as they exercised their constitutional rights to demand the resignation of Amos Kimunya as Finance Minister.

Their right to freedom of peaceable assembly was brutally violated by members of the Kenya Police. We demand their unconditional release for they have committed no crime. The Police officers who directed the assault on Ann Njogu and her colleagues must be subjected to appropriate discipline by the Commissioner of Police.

Kenya is not a Police State and Kenyans will not surrender their constitutional freedoms or their right to complain against wrongdoing, or to speak against grand corruption and impunity.

The arrested members of the civil society must be released.

In any event the man they were protesting against, former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya has resigned his office and stepped aside to facilitate investigations into the subject matter of the protest of civil society. In the spirit of a transparent enquiry into the role played by numerous public officers and institutions in the grand corruption saga that is the Grand Regency Hotel ‘handover’ and sale, it is morally and legally right that no one should be punished for speaking out for the Kenyan people in their time of need.

July 8th 2008 Mwalimu Mati www.marsgroupkenya.org

Patient: Amos Muhinga Kimunya
Occupation: Member of Parliament for Kipipiri Constituency
Previous positions held: Minister of Finance, Kenya
Notable quote: “I would rather die than resign.”
Cause of death: Death by Hubris

The Kenyan government, like most governments around the world, is well versed in the art of deploying and utilising smokescreens. As the name implies the purpose of the smokescreen is to hide something from view or atleast divert attention away from an issue or subject that the government would rather was not noticed, leave alone discussed or debated at all. These smokescreens come in various forms but they all share some of the same characteristics.

For example the smokescreens usually contain something completely ridiculous which leads us to wonder what planet members of our government come from. This was the favoured tactic of the Moi regime. Here is an example. Did you notice how when there was a negative and potential very damaging story about the government dominating the news agenda one of Moi’s ministers would stand up and give a speech in which he would make some ridiculous claim? My favourite one was that Kenya was about to bid to host the Olympics. Predictably we would all get outraged and froth at the mouth and spend the next month partaking in debates with our friends and colleagues, remarking to each other that there are other priorities for the government to focus on, we would chuckle at the idea of the creaking Kenyan infrastructure being asked to host such a large event, and we would write articles to display our intellectual fortitude informing the minister that Olympics are hosted by CITIES not COUNTRIES so Kenya could not bid for the Olympics but Nairobi could. Of course by the time we had exhausted all this energy we would have forgotten what issue we were discussing before the minister made his ridiculous statement. And as we laughed all the way to our bars and coffee shops content that we were smarter than our ministers, our self proclaimed Professor of Politics was laughing at our constant ability to be played.

More recently we have seen another smokescreen deployed occasionally. When difficult questions started surfacing about what we now call “Anglo-Leasing type contracts” the First Lady would go out and do something totally ridiculous, such as raid a private party at the World Bank country director’s house in her pyjamas. When the questions about corruption would not stop the First Lady would either storm a police station and demand the cops arrest somebody or storm a media house by herself in the dead of the night and proceed to slap reporters – an act that is 110% guaranteed to dominate the media’s new agenda. Where was Kibaki, we would ask, why didn’t State House intervene when the First Lady’s security detail first reported her irrational and illegal actions?

Well maybe State House did not intervene because they had just deployed their smokescreen. And soon afterwards whispers about medication being deliberately withheld from the First Lady to ensure her irrational behaviour continues started to surface. These days whenever the First Lady does something outrageous I check the newspapers from the previous week to try and figure out what they are trying to hide.

In June 2008 we have been thrown yet another smokescreen, this time by the Minister of Finance, Amos Kimunya. This smokescreen, brilliant deployed it must be said, centres around Budget and the issue of whether Members’ of Parliament should pay tax on their salaries and allowances. Of course they should. That is obvious and indeed it is ridiculous that in 2008 we can still debate this. Of course Members’ of Parliament should pay tax on their salaries and allowances. Predictably many MPs are resisting all attempts to pay tax and that is the debate that has dominated the Kenyan news agenda in the past couple of weeks.

This debate about MPs and taxation is a smokescreen which Mwalimu Mati the CEO of MARS Group Kenya has exposed with his usually thoroughness. If MPs paid tax the Treasury would save between Ksh. 600 million and Ksh. 700 million. That is good money. However, Kimunya’s latest budget is full of waste, which runs into the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of shillings. And that is even better money. And all this is probably going to pass unscrutinzed by a parliament full of MPS whose only point of concern in this Budget is whether or not they are to be taxed.

Please download [pdf 48 kb] , read, blog and circulate widely Mati’s article. You can download [pdf 48kb] it here.

Some shocking statistcs:

1. Last year the Government of Kenya budget for entertainment of its guests amounted to Ksh 5.7 million per day for EVERY day of the year.
2. The Governemnet of Kenya spends Ksh 3.995 billion on rents per annum and only receives Ksh 239.368 million per year from property income and rent.
3. Last year, the Government of Kenya spent over Ksh 6.7 million per day every day of the year on foreign travel. This is set to increase in this budget.
4. Did you know that State House Nairobi has 149 cars? Did you know that this year Minister of Finance wants to buy Ksh 73 million more worth of cars for State House? Did you know that last year a similar amount of money was spent on cars at State House? Did you know that the Government budget for cars for 2008 has gone up by 1 billion shillings, even as public attention is consumed by the debate on MP’s allowances?

And the best one

5. Every year the Minister of Finance presents lump sum budgets for the National Security Intelligence Services, the Armed Forces and the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission. This year their collective budgets will pass the Ksh 47 billion mark – and yet they will be no debate on the budget items in them because the Minister of Finance has helpfully provided none.

Ksh. 47 BILLION!

Kenyans let us demand that our MPs accept that they have a duty to pay taxes but let us not allow this debate on MPs allowances to distract us from the bigger picture. Do not be fooled by the smokescreen! Demand equally that your MP take his or her constitutional responsibility seriously and scrutinise Amos Kimunya’s ridiculous Budget.

Please download [pdf 48 kbs], read, blog, and circulate widely Mati’s article. You can download it here [pdf 48kb].

So here we are at another conference on Africa, full of Africans, held outside Africa at an Asian economic powerhouse. This all sounds very familiar. In 2007 the African Development Bank Group held its Annual Meetings in Shanghai, China, from May 16-17. It is easy to become cynical. What is the world coming to, after all, when Africans are unable to host their own meetings? How can the African Development Bank take its annual meeting to Shanghai, is there no African city that can host our top bankers and economists? Why do 40+ African Heads of State have to fly half way across the world to Japan to sit down and discuss issues of crucial importance to the continent? It is easy to become cynical of the whole TICAD process and dismiss it as yet another example of the never-ending talking shop of conferences on Africa.

That would be unfortunate position to take and would be missing the point. The multitude of problems facing Africa require a dedicated African response. That is established. “African solutions to African problems” is the rallying cry heard from cabinet rooms to street corners across the African continent. These African solutions, however, cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the world. Rather active, positive and accountable engagement with partners is required. These partners may be development organisations such as the numerous UN bodies, these partners could be individual countries, such as Japan and China. China is one of the 24 Non-Regional Members of the African Development Bank and only the second to host the Annual Meetings after Spain in 2001. Japan launched TICAD in 1993 to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners.

At TICAD the focus is on two general objectives: Ownership and Partnership.

1. to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and their partners
2. to mobilize support for African-owned development initiatives

Rather than viewing these occasional meetings hosted for Africans outside African as an insult to our independence we should consider them an alternative type of forum, which may just produce some concrete results. After all our African Heads of State gather regularly across the continent at African Union meetings and the results of those meetings usually leave a lot to be desired. Take the African Union meeting earlier this year in Addis Ababa held while Kenya was at the height of violence, a situation the Heads of State refused to address as they collectively buried their heads in the sand. Meetings being held in African is no guarantee for success.

Another advantage of holding a high level meeting such as TICAD outside Africa is that it removes the pressure of acting as host from all nations leaving the Heads of State and ministers to concentrate fully on engaging with each other positively. It is an added advantage that TICAD is hosted by the very efficient yet extremely polite Japanese people (and I am not just saying that because I am a sitting on a 16MB broadband connection – although it helps). Heads of State are ferried from one venue to the other rapidly and safely with none of the megalomania that usually accompanies our African presidential security details.

Japan has proved herself to be a host worth listening to because she listens and acts on what she hears. The TICAD process is very much one of dialogue. This is reflected in the growing support for the process. At TICAD III in 2003 23 Heads of State came to Tokyo, this time round the number has double to over 40 Heads of State/Heads of Governments attending. Every single African country, bar one, has a strong delegation here. The only country without a delegation is Somalia. One clear indicator of political success in Africa would be a strong Somali delegation at TICAD V in five years time.

[Photo Credit: Heads of State/Government at TICAD IV. Copyright: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan]

TICAD IV | TICAD

This week I am in Yokohama covering the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) IV for AllAfrica as part of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) press team. I am not here as a delegate but as part of the press corps, which I feel is significant.

This is another example that increasingly the line between the traditional mainstream media and citizen media is blurring rapidly. The rest of the UNDP press team here at TICAD is made up of traditional journalists from print, TV and radio, now they have a blogger not only on the scene but embedded with them as another outlet off TICAD coverage. We saw during the 2007 Kenyan election, how bloggers in particular and the citizen media in general stepped up to cover angles of the election that the mainstream media were not covering and/or were ignoring. We also saw bloggers step up and fill the gaps when the mainstream media was gagged in a draconian ministerial ban on live broadcasting. Bloggers as part of a traditional press team is a welcome move, long may it continue.

I have watched this change in the role of bloggers with interest. At TEDGlobal in Arusha last year the Google PR team was enthusiastic and insistent that bloggers joined the traditional journalists at any Google announcement. At Highway Africa, Africa’s biggest conference for journalists, bloggers have graduated from being a sideshow at the Digital Citizens’ Indaba (albeit a very significant and extremely worthwhile sideshow) to being included in the main conference programme. Indeed the Digital Citizens’ Indaba is now a draw for traditional journalists, at least those with the foresight to see where the future lies. In January Internews Kenya organized a media forum entitled Media Coverage of Post Election Violence Before and Now. It was an opportunity for the media in Kenya to reflect and to critique each other and themselves on coverage during the 2007 elections and the violence that followed. It was refreshing that I was invited as a blogger to take part in that conversation as an equal member.

Coming back to TICAD IV, it will be a challenge to find the correct tone and angle as a citizen journalist as I feel there will be no point in reporting what happened and who said what to whom as the traditional mainstream media seems to have the covered. If there is anything you feel I should look at please let me know in the comments or via email.

If you are interested in following TICAD or want to know what it is all about have a look at the website. If you want to see and hear what is going on in the main hall check out the Live Broadcasts. There are more than 40 African Heads of State/ Heads of Government here; surely you will find some them fascinating!

TICAD IV | TICAD

Viewers of today’s feature presentation, The Massacre at Anfield 3, may feel they are watching a repeat of last years feature, which we reviewed on Mentalacrobatics here.

We would like to assure all our viewers that we at Anfield are professionals and thus will never tire of spanking Chelski in the Champions’ League semi-finals.

We would also like to point out to our viewers that it is not our fault Chelski suck. Like many of our viewers we are disgusted that sub standard teams such as Chelski are allowed to participate in such a prestigious competition.

We would like to remind our viewers that winning the Champions’ League requires pedigree, power, passion, panache, pride and a Liverbird on your chest.

YNWA

Date: Today, Friday April 18th 2008
Time: 1400 GMT, 1700 Nairobi, 1600 Sweden, San Francisco 0700, New York 1000, New Delhi 1930
Venue: http://irc2.globalvoicesonline.org/chat/irc.cgi

This afternoon, I am talking part in and helping host a Rising Voices chat on the HIV/AIDS and Citizen Media, to which you are all invited. The main chat host is Serina (Kipepeo Nyeusi). Rising Voices is the outreach arm of Global Voices. Rising Voices aims to extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting online media activists around the world and supporting their best ideas.

Recently Kenya has made big strides in the fight against HIV/AIDS for example in 2006 the estimated adult HIV prevalence rate was 5.!% down from a peak of 9% in 1997/1998. The number of annual deaths from HIV/AIDS in Kenya has dropped from a peak of 120,000 in 2003 to 85,000 in 2006. ART programmes have averted about 57,000 deaths since 2001.
However the still much to do and 85,000 people is a lot of people.

(Figures from National HIV Prevalence in Kenya written by The National Aids Control Council and STD Control Programme. Nairobi, Kenya June 2007.)

What can we as bloggers/readers of blogs/generators and users of citizen media do to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS? As they saying goes, we may not all be infected but we are all affected. Please note the examples I give are from Kenya as that is the country I know best, but this chat is open to everybody and I see from the Rising Voices email list that some of our brothers and sisters in Latin America will be joining us which is brilliant. This chat is open to all!
Please join us today at: 14.00 GMT for our online chat.

Date: Today, Friday April 18th 2008
Time: 1400 GMT, 1700 Nairobi, 1600 Sweden, San Francisco 0700, New York 1000, New Delhi 1930
Venue: http://irc2.globalvoicesonline.org/chat/irc.cgi

HIV/AIDS & Citizen Media: Proposed Agenda:

• Organization Involvement – What we hear, what we see, how we perceive it
• Importance of Citizen Media
• How can we ensure we focus on stories that main stream media avoids?
• How do we ensure that we focus on the human element of the story?
• Should our main role be telling the story or empowering those affected to use the tools we are using to tell their stories direct?
• What can we learn from others experiences on different parts of the planet?
• Technicalities / Technical challenges
• How do we select whom to approach to case studies for the project?
• How do we approach those we select?
• How do we deal with possible initial suspicion?
• How do we deal with language barriers?
• What computing tools are available?
• How can we best utilise these tools?
• Do these tools have any cost implications?
• Legal Issues
• What steps will we take to ensure we have consent from third parties documented?
• Will material be covered by copyright?
• If so who will own the copyright?

See you there!

The world did not come to a crashing halt at the beginning of March 2008. This would not be significant if it were not that in January and February 2008 many people in Kenya wrote, spoke and acted so irresponsibly that I could only conclude that they expected the world to come to a halt or at least to go through some great cosmic ctrl-alt-del sequence which would result in collective memory loss leading us all to forget what they said, wrote, did. But the world did not come to an end at the beginning of March 2008 and as I said at the beginning of the year, many people would look back at their words and actions and wish that the world would forget. Not so.

I have just driven down Ngong Road, in the heart of Nairobi, at noon on a Thursday and the road is practically empty. You may remember that this is not the first time this year that roads in Nairobi are clear of traffic, and perhaps more significantly, clear of any public transport, in the middle of the day. We have been here before. But this time it is different and this difference is what highlights the hypocrisy in Kenya today, which will make many people wish that Kenyans would forget their irresponsible words and actions.

This week Kenya is suffering (again) under the actions of the barbaric Mungiki militia. An illegal group whose preferred modus operandi includes, but is not restricted, to beheadings, forced female circumcision, public transport and rent extortion.

Mungiki has been around for a while (for some background information please read Kenyan Pundit’s post which links articles on Mungiki) and the group has been influential for a while. For example you could ask anybody who was student at JKUAT during the time of the 2002 Kenyan general election about the role played by Mungiki in Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential campaign and you will hear some interesting stories. (JKUAT lies on the road between Nairobi and Uhuru’s constituency).

I remember driving up to JKUAT in August 2002 when election fever was rising to pick a friend who was studying there and driving into the heart of one of Uhuru’s roadside campaign rallies where Mungiki provided the “security”. They had completely taken over the whole road from Githurai to Thika and to say they were intimidating is to say the least.

What I like about Mungiki (and this is perhaps their only positive characteristic) is that in the reaction to their latest activities Mungiki helps expose the hypocrisy in Kenyan society today.

Take as a first example the reaction of the Kenyan police. In the past three months we have seen first hand and up close the brutality of the Kenya Police towards Kenya citizens who were trying to march peacefully and legally towards Uhuru Park in protest against having their votes stolen. Even non partisan groups were unable to march. A women’s peace group which had organised authorization from the Minister of Internal Security, from the Provincial Administration and had informed the police, were greeted with a ring of police officers telling them their peace match had been cancelled at the last minute when they were just about to set off.

Time and time again Kibera would be ringed by heavily armed police and you would be lucky to make it on to Ngong Road leave alone get anywhere near town. I recorded a show down between the police and ODM supporters in Hurlingham where an army of police officers was deployed to ensure that ODM supporters get nowhere near the city centre. Similar shows of force by the police were deployed on Thika Road and Jogoo Road as the police moved swiftly to ensure that all major roads into the city were in their control. The same occurred in cities and towns across Kenya.

How time changes things. Two months ago Ngong Road was empty because of a heavy police presence and their indiscriminate use of force (including live bullets). Today Ngong Road is empty as Public Service Vehicle owners withdraw their vehicles from the streets because the police cannot stop the Mungiki thugs who demand over 90% of each vehicles earning and burn your matatu/bus if you refuse to comply. You could say that in both cases the police are responsible for empty streets.

In a sentence: two months ago Ngong Road was empty due to a large police presence, this week Ngong Road is empty because the police is conspicuously absent.

Why is it then that the same police force that cracked down on the peaceful protests in the past couple of months are reluctant to take on a group that has openly challenged them to armed warfare?

I do not buy the popular opinion of the day that Mungiki caught the police napping, that the police had no idea what was about to happen. Come on now. Security analysts reveal on TV that the police received calls as early as 5am from members of the public who had seen Mungiki members begin their activities of destruction, 10am the police were yet to respond. This is the same police force that sent lorries packed with police in riot gear into Kibera on Saturday when a rumor went around that perhaps some people were considering starting a demonstration to protest at the lack of a power sharing agreement.

Internal Security Permanent Secretary, Mr Cyrus Gituai, told The Standard that the police had expected Mungiki to strike on Monday at 6am, but instead went on the rampage at 3am, three hours earlier.

So the police decided to stay in bed until 5am or what? Come on now.

These double standards are by no means restricted to the police.

For instance, why is it that some bloggers/commentators who were complaining about the post election violence in general and the inconvenience of disrupted public transport in particular, were largely silent on the violence Mungiki perpetrated BEFORE the elections and are silent on the violence and disruption perpetrated by the same thugs this week? Why is it that those same people who were cursing Raila for not controlling the thugs in Rift Valley are now silent? Have you noticed how the responsibility for the violence two months ago was laid squarely in Raila’s lap individually, “Kenya is burning”, we were told, “because Raila is power hungry”. I wait to hear where they will appropriate blame this time round but I suspect they will remain silent or those who do speak out will blame, “the entire political class” which of course includes Raila. That is the duplicity that Mungiki exposes.

That is not to say that the political class is not implicated as well.

Why are politicians who have been screaming (rightly) that the police should get to the bottom of the post election violence are now screaming that the police should “negotiate” with Mungiki? Why not extend this call for negotiations to include other militia groups such as the Saboti Land Defence Force for example?

Why is that politicians who were quick to call for the annihilation of any protestors in Rift Valley and Nyanza are now going to great lengths to explain that Mungiki rises out of a disadvantage upbringing. Aren’t many of the youth who rampaged against the government in Rift Valley disadvantaged as well? If Mungiki revolts because it is up against the wall with nothing to lose doesn’t this extend to youth from other communities? Why call for the arrest of youth in Rift Valley with no mention of their grievances yet call for negotiations with Mungiki and demand that the police investigate their grievances?

Lastly, why are those who cheered when the army moved against the Saboti Land Defence Force not calling for the army to deployed against Mungiki? If indiscriminate killing is seen as viable method to bring about peace in the Mt. Elgon region why is not also being practised in Kibaki’s hometown which has been under attack by Mungiki?

I will let you draw your own conclusions to these questions. The duplicity and hypocrisy displayed on this would be laughable if it was not so serious. What we do know is that when Mungiki falls there will be tremors all the way to the top of Kibaki’s administration according to the BBC. (To be fair I should mention that Kibaki’s Court Jester issued a statement in response to the BBC report.

A while ago the East African blogosphere was rocked with controversy that began when a Kenyan blogger called the Tanzania president, Jakaya Kikwete, a “dumb-ass bitch”. Some Tanzanian bloggers took exception to this insult and stated so in their blogs. In return some Kenyan bloggers took exception to the Tanzanian bloggers taking exception and the KenyaUnlimited aggregator was full of posts quoting Voltaire (which was bizarre in itself as surely someone who complains about your insult has as much right to be heard as you do with your original insult).

Throughout the year as I continued to interact with Tanzanian bloggers I came to learn that a significant number of them (Tanzanian bloggers) do not have much confidence in Kikwete and many of them view his presidency, to put it politely, as a disaster, especially when they reflected on his economic policies.

This raised a number of questions in my mind.

Firstly, if these Tanzanian bloggers are not at all impressed with Kikwete’s presidency why did they take such strong exception to an insult lobbed his way by an insignificant and inarticulate Kenyan blogger?

Secondly, why did the Kenyan blogosphere find it so hard to understand why the Tanzanian bloggers were outraged by an insult to their president?

Is it because Kenyans have thicker skin, are mentally stronger and are used to verbal sparing and thus can roll with the punches?

Perhaps.

Is it because Tanzanians are more eloquent, more mature and civilised and thus will not stand for insults?

Perhaps.

My understanding of why these two siblings, Kenyans and Tanzanians, could disagree so fundamentally on this issue can be summed up in one word.

Statesmanship.

In a sentence: the history and tradition of statesmanship within the Tanzanian ruling elite, and the complete lack of statesmanship within the Kenyan ruling elite.

At the risk of launching a Platonic argument of gigantic dimensions let me define it thus (quoting Wikipedia);

To rule or have political power called for a specialized knowledge. The statesman was one who possesses this special knowledge of how to rule justly and well and to have the best interests of the citizens at heart.

As Kenyans I believe we find it hard to understand the notion of statesmanship, as it implies that those in the political elite in Kenya should be driven to implement policies that have the best interests of the citizens of Kenya at heart.

How can we understand this when the Kibaki government claimed it did not have enough money to build the 500,000 homes it promised in its election manifesto of 2002 yet somehow managed to find USD 12m to spend on new cars (enough to send 25,000 children to school for eight years)?

How can we understand this when the Moi regime fleeced the country of at least US $600 million in less than three years in what we now call the Goldenberg Scandal?

How can we understand this when the extended Kenyatta family alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres — approximately the size of Nyanza Province — according to estimates by independent surveyors and Ministry of Lands officials, making them the senior members of what Michael Mundia Kamau, inspirationally, calls the KenMoiKib Farm?

Our three presidents to date have failed the statesmanship test and failed it badly. Even Jomo Kenyatta, whom increasingly seems to be loved more by non-Kenyans than Kenyans in much the same way that love for THE Emperor seems to grow the further you get away from Ethiopia, is no longer spared. I can even go as far as stating that if you stand on any street corner in central Nairobi and shouted in a loud voice, “Kibaki/Moi/Kenyatta is a dumb-ass bitch” you would be ignored at the worst but probably be applauded by one or two people. Now imagine standing at the corner of a street in Dar-es-salaam and shouting “Nyerere is a dumb-ass bitch”. If you managed to get out alive and made it to Nairobi I would probably finish you off myself and I am Kenyan. Why?

Nyerere was a Statesman.

True his economic policies may not have been the best but here was a man who was big enough to know that the presidency in itself did not make him who he was. Here was a man big enough to walk away into retirement to sit under his tree in his shamba and enjoy his family. Here was a man who understood that the most powerful thing he could do was to give up power.

The greatest disservice Kenyatta did to Kenya was dying in office, during the election of 1975 when it was clear he was no longer the force he used to be he could have choose to step aside and step into greatness. He did not, 3 years later he was dead, and this in turn gave birth to the president-for-life syndrome which manifests itself today in Moi still aching for power after 25 years in StateHouse and which made Kibaki think he would be failure if he had lost his presidency in the general election 3 months ago despite a career in politics of over 40 years.

How can you be a megalomaniac in Tanzania when Nyerere was not? How can you claim the presidency as your birth right in Tanzania when the father of the nation walked away for it to give room to others?

This is what the Kenyan blogosphere failed to understand at the time. That while Tanzanians may not be too impressed with their current president, they are VERY proud of their institution of Presidency.

Of course statesmanship is not restricted to men. One of the most enduring images of the Kenyan post-election crisis was of Grace Machel during a tour of Internal Displaced People camps hugging a woman closely, whispering words of comfort as the woman wept and wept. Here was Grace Machel, the freedom fighter, former minister, and campaigner for children and for human rights, reaching out and bringing some humanity to IDP camps. Where was Kenya’s grossly overpaid First Lady at the time? Busy slapping Members of Parliament who had the audacity to suggest that her husband should get serious about sharing power. There are many things you can call Lucy Kibaki but not even the most rabid Kibaki supporter would call her a statesman. On the other side of the coin, you just try calling Graca Machel a dumb-ass bitch and see where that leaves you.

While the eyes of the nation were focused to Kofi Annan who lead the team of Eminent Person conducting the mediation in Kenya following the post election violence, the rest of team of eminent persons was often over looked, Graca Machel and Benjamin Mkapa. Mkapa is a Tanzanian diplomat and like Nyerere a former Tanzanian president. You see people; there IS life after Statehouse. Here is man who was President for 10 years, handed over at the end of his term and is now a Statesman who helped us resolve our election disputes, happy to sit in the background and immerse himself in the nitty gritty while the world’s media focused on Annan. That is an example that our political elite should be following. How many countries do you think would welcome Kibaki or Moi to help mediate their election disputes? Not many, unless they were planning on, “doing a Kibaki”.

On Sunday before Kibaki read out the list of his new bloated and grossly immoral cabinet he had the audacity, the AUDACITY, to stand there and brag to Kenyans about the “statesmanship and sacrifice” the political elite had displayed. Kibaki seriously needs to be reconnected with reality. Shuttling between Statehouse and State Lodges, hiding behind his security detail, and pushing Kenya to the edge is NOT statesmanship leave alone sacrifice. He also said the new cabinet, “underscores our nation’s leadership to put the collective needs of the country above everything else.” Is there anyone who thinks a bloated government and expensive cabinet is what our country needs? Mwalimu Mati writes on exactly why this is a disaster.

As Kenyans we have to address this issues quickly. Statesmanship is not an option. Statesmanship is vital for a healthy African society. Statesmanship is African to its very core. Without Statesmen we will not progress.