Voice and Vote

The tribal catch 22... We Do Not need it in Kenya!

2011-12-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

It is the people of Kenya who must be as tall as giraffes and look all around, not get stuck in small houses and windows... photo by Martti Lintunen of Finland

No doubt this is a marvellous photo. See many more giraffe in the article. My kind friend and photographer Martti Luntinen is reminded of curiosity by this photograph. The giraffe has already climbed the stairs outside. It is on second floor. It could reach the third floor. But with its head inside the house, it cannot see the third floor. What is more is that it's neck could be stuck in there. That is not place for her. It is a giraffe in the wrong place? Many Kenyans are not using their grace and voice to resolve the problems of xenophobia that we all face for being different.

Back to the photo. The house is beautiful. It is fine that it is old. Something happens to both the beauty of the giraffe and of the house however. We only get to see the giraffe's flank and wonderful legs.It is still beautiful. I know that her eyes are powerful but her vision is not for seeing inside beautiful houses. She must see above trees and in the long range. He must see better than a gazelle. We, the people of Kenya have to see far and wide for us to love the 'other'. We must stop building little 'tribal' homes now. It is time to build a home called Kenya. The mentality of if everything is not in my house then it cannot be anywhere else must vanish. And State House must not be run like an elders hut.

The politician who called himself a giraffe was Moi. I do not know. What I know is that if we have a Kenyan Awakening, we shall be better for it. We have weaknesses but none as dangerous as our view of 'us' and 'them'. I am going to talk about Kenya's weak point at this time and before- tribalism.

The giraffe and the leopard or cheetah have something in common. I found out about cameleorpardis when I wondered about the relationship between a giraffe and a camel. We must not get held by stereotypes. They are awful. Between a giraffe and a camel, there is a strong link. However, alone in the bush without birds, without elephants and other animals, giraffe would be unhappy. Crocodiles too would be unhappy alone in rivers. No matter their tears.Hippos too. No matter their eyes. Diversity is great in humans too.

It was not just that Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki have been tribal in their approach to national life. It was also the way of the British. The wound is deep but we must heal it. We must find a way, like a giraffe does to see and to drink water. We cannot waste time on this, it is dangerous. Once reason is clouded one can never tell what happened. Our words must be clear especially this coming year, an election year. No to this blindness! We must lead ourselves, we cannot trust the politicians.

Tribalistic drivel robbing Kenyans of power to reason and common sense

Many of us in Kenya, but not all of us have seen how a giraffe drinks water. The gracious animal puts its front legs astride and makes room for its long neck to fall to the ground. Then it 'whoops' down as I like to imagine gulps and gulps of water, gallons in the end. They run like a river down a long throat. The joke about a giraffe that has a sore throat I heard often.

I wish that we in Kenya learn to look outside of ourselves, outwards. It is hard to do this when those in power look inwards all the time. Into their 'house'. The speak of 'our people' meaning 'our tribe'. 'Our presidential candidate' (whatever that means if he or she is tribal), our own (US) versus the 'other'. Right now this discussion is worrying. I remember it towards 2007 and an election that ended in 1 333 deaths, massive rapes and transmission of HIV/Aids virus and the growth of suspicion and even a word I dislike but is real. Hatred. No matter what, we have to try and be above the big challenge humans have with 'otherness'. Remember the lioness who brought up an oryx? She did not care that this was another species.

Stamp of Kenya pic by Philo Ikonya

I wish that Kenyans such as Hassan Omar the head of the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights could help us with the truth.. I completely agree with him and was incensed and said it on media about Kenya Revenue Authority being so Kibaki's people top heavy. Kibaki, I lost hope after your election in 2002 when you started inviting old men and business pals to State House once again making it a home of buddies of your age and ridge.

I expected better because your children and grandchildren I saw were not so tribally educated? When my poet friend and I found your daughter drinking at a pub, she was not drinking traditionally from a horn. She was on her own. She drank silently in a corner. My poet friend told me she always did that. Judas had before told me that you also used to drink long and hard alone in your garden in the mornings. And that was not traditional either. What is this about tribal leanings?

I saw Moi take us back to a place of tribe that many of us had left. I saw education retreat to villages when people could no longer go to secondary schools outside of their home areas. I saw us dwindle from a people who were becoming a nation of many different nations of Kenya into people only aware that the President is of this or the other race.

We must enrich Kenya with better presence in a whole spectrum of society. This should be so in Civil Society and that is not all. Kenya needs a very strong group of leaders with moral authority and voice but who are not going into politics. Our politics like politics everywhere perhaps but more so in Afrika is not ours. It is so divisive and dangerous that even as some must go into it, others with clear and well heard voices must remain vigilant outside of politics. This level of leadership must be cultivated. We cannot talk of Kenya as if a president were enough. It is not possible. We must change things. We must recognize leadership not just at a political level but at many other levels of our society. We have to be there to staring without blinking. Watchful.

By John Berga of Stavanger in Norway
(Eye of giraffe in Kenya)

Omar, teach us to be above political rhetoric no matter what his own goals may be. I remember the MP for Kikuyu was of interest to Omar Hassan before he got his posting and so were many others. I remember Hassan Omar protecting me and other human rights defenders so very often. At that time we did not think, at least I have never thought of us as group from here and not there. We cannot do it now. The people are as tall as giraffes and they have good eyes. We cannot allow ourselves to lead them to look into small windows if they want to see Kenya as one house with many rooms as my photo shows. There will be many doors of exit and entry. It is dangerous to join in sectarian chats on the presidency because you could have millions of misled voters belonging to a group you talk against digging in and insisting and we all saw what happened in 2007/2008.

Seize your freedom Kenya ! Take it once and for all. Kenya has had 48 years of independence and we arenot free

Itbehoves the Uhuru or independence generation, and even younger generations ofKenyans to awaken. We have to light a different fire. To do that, we have toborrow some fire from somewhere. We do not have to re-invent the discovery offire.

Look.Mohammed Bouazizi awakened the Arab world. Look. You have known fighters forfreedom in Kenya. They were never fighting for one tribe. They did not fightfor a presidency and no land. We, today are threatened with a diminished scope.

Wemust light ourselves up inside and awaken. Forget about just voting anindividual in. Make yourself feel and be as important as the Head of State.Kenya is your country. The Head of State is you. It is not the person who will bevoted in as president. It is all of us. You will be the president of Kenya.Then the president of Kenya will live like all of us. Then the president ofKenya will be someone who knows that all of us are that person and those closeto her or him in whom we invest our power through our vote.

Itwould be strange to vote in a new constitution and we did that in August 2010,get more freedom and still remain as at independence only level. We must claimour space. We must be and are important. We are the people who have to say.

Ifa young person is busy talking this or that tribe. If a person is looking atmany millions of Kenya as just a tribe who have no right to this and that, thenthis person has grown older than the oldest and erred. You may think I live inan ivory tower.

Daily,we are told what politicians did. How they travelled, what they ate. Whovisited them. Where they are going tomorrow. And where are we going tomorrow,2012 as a nation?

Politiciansare the headline news of our country. They have become the main thoughts thatwe have. So often, they speak. You do not hear of an agenda. The media does notpush them to tell us why they want to become presidents.

Or why they sit together across ethnic divides whenever they need a position. And as for Omar, Omar is every group of Kenya, that is why he is heading a human rights organization in Kenya. The Kenya National Human Rights Comission. Watch out for Kenya all of you, not just for your own agenda.

By Marisa Fushile

Justice marching into Kenya's judiciary

2011-12-08T18:27:00.001-08:00

Let justice flow like a new river in Kenya

So many sing that they want to be there when saints go marching in ... to be in the number. Not so many sing that they want to stand up and be counted for justice on an unknown street today, tonight when a woman is being arrested and molested for nothing. Not many. Not many of us sing that we want to be there to see to the end of impunity. To be there when presidents will know and feel and understand that they like all others are not above the law. These words "above the law" have been said of presidents in Kenya and in Africa for so long.

So, It is with a flourish that I open the doors and see that there are people marching into justice in Kenya. I see that justice has occupied some space. I hope that Kenya's new Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga, who says on facebook call me Willy, remains that justice. I hope that Kenyans rise with him to protect this justice in floods... It is important, he reminds us to be good citizens. A good citizen in his definition must know, understand and respect the constitution.

Last week, December 5th to 8th 2011, Kenyans reviewed the reports of the Eminent Persons who were called in when in 2007/2008 the country went ablaze after elections. The report cards are frank and serious. The Chief Justice has told all of us that we have to accept and show better signs of wanting to implement our new constitution passed by the people of Kenya on AUgust 27 2010. Kenya is not going to fiddle with injustice at any time. In fact, she shall protect justice according to all her signatures also to international conventions. The Rome Statute is key here. Finally we are standing up to claim what we have struggled for decades. If as Justice Kriegler says we lack political will, if we the electors are not wise this time round in 2012 and violence ensues in Kenya, it will be a disaster. In 2008, Justice Kriegler said that if we do not reform and follow the right course what we had in Kenya in 2007 will be like a Christmas party in comparison to where we could end up if we do not stop political shenanigans and get on with the job of making sure that the rule of law is followed.

I want to hear many Kenyans singing that they want to be in the number. The number that will not take up violence to retaliate regarding the electoral procedure. The number that will plant justice in their hearts and forever walk together with the others without discriminating race or gender or tribe. Blessings of peace beacon Kenya, let none be distracted!

I will say am proud of Dr. Mutunga's work at this moment and the work of the Eminent persons, Kofi Annan, Graca Machel and Benjamin Mkapa will not be forgotten.

Eyes on Kenya as state attempts to influence who will replace Ocampo in 2012

2011-10-15T02:59:00.000-07:00

By Philo Ikonya

Right: The Deputy Prosecutor of The International Criminal Court, Gambian Fatou Bensouda, meets Africans in Oslo on 14th October 2011. In the picure, Philo Ikonya in exile from Kenya, and Benta H- Kenya.

The name of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, ICC,Luis Moreno Ocampo sends shivers down the spines of some Kenyanpoliticians. But it is the hope of those who look for justice in the International Criminal Court. “We will go to Ocampo,” the people said when justice failed athome. And they did. Those called before the court as suspects regarding theplanning and execution of violence after the 2007 election are in for days ofanxiety. Could they hope for better times after Ocampo's tenure as Prosecutor is over in 2012? Some of them have dared think so and even began acting.

Summoned to the Hague have been: Uhuru Kenyatta the finance minster,William Ruto, Eldoret MP and Henry Kosgey, Head of Opposition. The ex-Commissioner of Police Hussein Ali, Francis Muthaura the Cabinet Secretary anda radio journalist Joshua Sang too. The ICC is in the early part of interrogation and this part of the process will determine if the ICC will press charges against them regarding the use of a militia gang and the Kenya police to kill those who were opposed to Kibaki’s party.

There are many others in Kenya, not before the court who the name Ocamposcares the wits out of, for he has much instore in terms of evidence, the only thing that counts before the law. Ocampois, much as some may dance at the airport at home each time they return fromthe Hague, very well equipped. In the conference, the Kenyan media was said to be misleading Kenyans when it gives great coverage to such sideshows as essential matters of the justice and protection of victims and witnesses require more attention. The return from an ICC session should be a sober matter. In Den Hague, the court has witnessed strange Kenyan's strange behaviour as suspects are escorted by large numbers. Kenyans have been advised to keep their expectation of justice from the court but to look to other organs to help towards a peaceful election in 2012 and in good time. Eyes are on Kenya.

Post Election violence led to the deaths of 1 333 persons andmay be more. Some 500 000 and upwards were displaced in days. Women were rapedin great numbers. Genocide was at Kenya’s doorstep. Now some hope that asOcampo’s term comes to an end next year, maybe things will change at the Hague.The ICC will not change in terms of its mandate and statute.

Ocampo and the success of the ICC, said the Deputy Prosecutor FatouBensouda, A Gambian, speaking in Oslo “Is not to be judged by the number ofprosecutions in his tenure which started in 2003, but by its impact. Bensoudawas speaking at a conference organised by African Information and Development(ACID). She said she was happy that Africa is fully behind the ICC inspite ofthe propaganda that has been spread in an argument that the ICC is only after Africanfailures. She took on such points and reduced them to sheer cheap talk as shereferred to the Rome Protocol with great clarity. The meeting was opened by the South African Commissioner in Norway H.E.Sisulu, BR who always does Africans in Norway proud in her insistence onpeace and justice. There are 55, 000 Africans in Norway.

Luis Moreno Ocampo

Ocampo was elected by consensus in an Assembly of State Parties tothe Rome protocol in April 2003. On that day he said:

"I deeply hope that the horrors humanity has sufferedduring the 20th century will serve us as a painful lesson, and that thecreation of the International Criminal Court will help us to prevent thoseatrocities from being repeated in the future."

The Kenyan politicians and others, summoned to the ICC hope that things could be different for them, without Ocampo at the ICC. That way theythink, one of them, Uhuru Kenyatta would be elected president of Kenya.

First they got many to use the propaganda that this court waswestern and only going for Africans. Then they got the AU and Gadaffi to try and help them out. The ArabSpring undid all the work they had put in. Some including Kenya's president Kibaki, had earlier suggested that theyunsign the Rome Statute as did Sudan, Jordan and the United States of Americain the past. This did not work. The Bush Administrationunsigned the U.S.A. in May 2002.The effort Kenya made to get the UN SecurityCouncil to enforce a deferral on their case failed too.

Civilians can impact the ICC

It is to be noted that states that are not party to the Rome Statutecan refer cases to the ICC as can civilians of any nation and also the UNSecurity Council. States that are not party to the Statute can be investigatedby the ICC on the basis of the fact that it hosts citizens whose countries areparty to the Rome Statute.

Information received Friday 14th October, in Oslo while the DeputyProsecutor Fatou Bensouda addressed the meeting on the topic: The ICC and Afrika, which way forward?indicated that some Kenyan politicians, led by the ones who are summoned to theHague are doing their best to see that the next prosecutor will be someone whocan sympathise with them.

They are thinking that since Ocampo’s term ends next year, theirsalvation would lie in a new prosecutor who would not be as determined asOcampo has been on their case. They forget that there is a bench of judges anda plethora of other ‘cogs’ in this justice system.

Will justice be Africa's shield and defender?

Many judge Africa by the political leaders who fail the continent. Anumber of concientious African leaders, some of them who have died recentlyhave left a legacy of peace and change in Africa. The name of the late WangariMaathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Tajudeen Rahman kept coming up in inspiringand positive comments. Botswana was singled out as a country that is notallowing justice to be tampered with in its strong support for the ICC.

The idea that Kenya will try to support a new male prosecutor fromAfrica as the one who takes over from Luis Moreno Ocampo and who will be malleable is base. It is not intelligent. Thequality of wisdom lacked in Kenya’s election gone awry.Kenyan leaders only looked at raw power, more votes and not at the law. Thousands of peoplewere made to feel the nation as an ethnic reality were cheated into violence. Those trying to influence the ICC’s Prosecutor’ssuccession do not know that the ICC is organising a number of things to copewith its duty. They are trying to get a possible candidate from a countryneighbouring Kenya.

Do they know that the ICC has a very strong African personell andone of them is a Deputy Prosecutor in Mrs. Fatou Bensouda? Shehas her eyes trained on peace and justice in the world.

It is about the law and ICC’s mandate, She says urging all to readthe Rome Statute. She wants to see justice not being hampered by borders. Bensouda if one is to judge by a few hours with her yesterday is magnetic in her pull for justice. She told us that she feels the urgency for Afrika where women in many places have to choose between going to fetch water and be raped or having their husbands killed all because some people do not want justice and peace. Behind her vision is powerful international support. Voice and Vote has learned, she has support froma big number of countries in Afrika and around the globe.

She is focused, energetic and young. She is passionate about theurgency for justice for so many, especially women, in Afrika so abused incrimes against humanity. She was moved deeply when a man in the audience narrated the situation in Darfur and called on the ICC to continue its quest for justice in Sudan. She thinks of Dafur andother places where justice is not being done and sleep becomes a luxury. She is ready to work and remindsall that civilians can call upon the court.

Kenya is holding a General Election in 2012

But first she must hold her peace. Those summoned before the court have been warned to stop using tribal blocks of people to argue that the country is being treated unfairly or for political mileage. Uhuru Kenyatta has particularly been engaged during his own defence in blaming Raila Odinga, the current Prime Minister. Uhuru and Ruto are in an alliance with Kalonzo Musyoka to push one of them, Uhuru Kenyatta, with the backing of president Kibaki, for the presidency in 2012. Kibaki terms are over.

When Uhuru keeps blaming Odinga saying that he is being crucified for Raila’s sins, what is happening to the people of Kenya is the widening of the ethnic rift between the Luo and the Kikuyu people which the British opened to an incredible degree in Kenya’s colonial days.Citizens must lead to end this abuse which politicians and colonial powers used to rule us.

The last election in 2007 ended up in a deadlock and a peace processhad to be set in place. The ethnic card is played in the making of political parties and more viciously it was used in the tension and violence that ensued after the 2007 election.

The eve of 2008 raged with violence. Kenya was on fire for the earlymonths of that year. After the death of 1333, many rapes and abuses of humanrights, the International Criminal Court swung in investigations not onlybecause Kenya is a signatory to the Rome Statute but also because the thejudiciary system had lost credibility. The Chief Justice then Gichuru, swore Kibaki in fast before Kenyans could rationalise the outcome.Only the local Kenya Broadcasting Corporation was allowed to televise in some instances.

It was Koffi Annan, Graca Machel and Benjamin Mkapa who camped in Kenya to bring the peace. Kenyan civil society was praised for the role it played at a difficult time. The International Crisis Group’s Nairobi office had sent in Comfort Ero who addressed the meeting. She said Kenya ‘ s case the “saving grace” of the ICC.

The matter of a local tribunal to redress this had been debated in Kenya. A memberof Parliament had worked on a bill which Parliament did not pass. The ICC begunwork to see if some Kenyan authorities had committed a crime against humanity.

2012

Kenyans may be in for a hard time. Organised violence becausesomebody did not win an election is deadly. The devil is in the planning. Whichever way this case goes, Kenyaneeds wisdom. The legacy of Wangari Maathai and Tajudeen Rahman should not goto waste. Kenyans must look at our ancestral deep roots of justice and peaceand keep doors open to hope. It is not a case that will be easy.

The Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC Mrs Fatou Bensouda says that theICC only moves on strong evidence and that Kenya’s case is not likely to be aseasy as the Kenyan politicians seem to be thinking. “The ICC only moved becausethere is strong evidence against those who have been summoned,” She says.

Voices from the continent cried out to her. The voice of Darfur waspresent. Ethiopia and Eritrea too. The discussions on Ivory Coast and Liberiaand Somalia were profound. One could not help but note that commitment toAfrica is strong here. Africa’s must come to overflow.

In the conference, Her Excellency Sisulu spoke about Africa’s growing economy in manycountries. She said African solutions must be found for Africa. She regreted the loss of Wangari Maathai whodied on September 25th but said that the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to twoAfrican women is encouraging.

She quoted a Chinese philospher on peace Lao Tzu (570- 490 B.C). HisHoliness the Tibetan Dalai Lama, and Nobel Peace Prize winner 1989, was denied a visa by the South Africangovernment recently. He had been invited to attend Nobel Peace Prize winner1984 Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday celebration on 6th October 2011.

Kenya had done that before quoting China as a trade partner. The bigpowers, China and the USA are not party to the Rome Statute. This, Comfort Erosaid is the ICC’s single most significant problem. And yet, it is the easiest.It does not only a signature but the realisation that justice is indivisible.No justice, no peace. That humanity is threatened by those who would beviolent. This wisdom has failed. Russia has signed but not ratified the RomeStatute according to Wikipedia.

Dr. Abiola Ogunsola, British born Nigerian lecturer at the Universityof East London and a feminist was articulate on women of Africa who said it isthe place where the “I can!” spirit is fully alive. This is the spirit thatleads African Foundation for Developm.nt, AFFORD, which she represented andwhich fosters that Africans abroad invest in Africa. It was touching to hearhow Somalinas like Dr. Abdi Hassan are in a program which allows them sixmonths of living in Somalia, a country he loves, to try and build peace andcontribute to growth.

A poem for Wangari Wa Maathai, a tribute

2011-10-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Li-Ou/Maathai-Wangari.htmlhttp://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Li-Ou/Maathai-Wangari.html

We saw and felt her energy speaking like a girl! I danced with her in a meeting and she was full of vigor! That was in Nyeri. I was in Oslo in June 2009 when she gave a wonderful speech. I shall not let her go quietly into that gentle night.. I rage! (Dylan Thoma's Poem)

Kenya has lost a brave, bold and humble warrior for freedom and the environment. Wangari Muta Maathai
( her biography is titled Unbowed) is going to be sorely missed in Kenya.

She was the first woman to become a doctor and a professor in Kenya. She is a Nobel laureate for Peace.

Wangari's voice united Kenyans. She was loved. She did not care for ethinic connections. She was just. She fought relentlessly for women and she planted trees and helped poor people to do the same. This way, they not only generated an income but also helped clean the environment.

Like most Kenyans I met Wangari. And felt that she was a friend. She was like that.

Wangari Wa Maathai
died on26thSeptember 2011

Poem for Wangari
byPhilo Ikonya ©

Afterthe tears- Wangari
Trees are celebrating - Wangari
The rivers singing - Wangari
The women rising - Wangari
The girls winning - Wangari
The world is dancing- Wangari

Itis breathing - Wangari
You cured our lungs - Wangari
You cleaned our water- Wangari

Andas for poverty - Wangari
You run it out of town- Wangari
out of our villages - Wangari
On barefeet - Wangari
With ABC and 123 - Wangari

Dictatorstremble - Wangari
Kenya victorious - Wangari
The earth so precious - Wangari
Wangari smiling Wangari

Idress myself with meaning- Wangari

Inyour name faith- Wangari

Ofthe leopard- Wangari

Boldlike courage – Wangari

Focusedand pouncing- Wangari

Boldmother of the land- Wangari

Daringkeeper- Wangari

Ofland and freedom- Wangari

Gowell- Wangari

Restin Peace- Wangari

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wangari Wa Maathai was the 2004 Nobel Prize Winner and the recipient of many other awards for her exceptional commitment, focus and courage. She linked up environmental issues with governance and indicted corruption. She was behind the women who stripped naked at Freedom Corner on the last day of February 1982 to force president Moi to release political prisoners. These prisoners of conscience had spent years languishing in the underground cells of Nyayo House and Nyati House just because they spoke their mind against Moi. IT was a very dark period in Kenya. Wangari was the only beacon of hope. After this the Release Political Prisoners organisation which now works for the disappeared of Kenya (some over 600 people in the days of President Kibaki.. see Philip Alston's Report.. ex Chief of investigations, UN.

You can read more about these brave women some of whom have lived to mourn Wangari.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4187015

Wangari stood up alone against President Moi, a very dangerous man at the time. He wanted to build Times Tower right inside Uhuru Park. Uhuru means freedom and it is there that the Freedom Corner where women stripped is. She won this battle. But again like in the case of the release political prisoners times, she was beaten, humiliated, arrested and taunted.

In 2002 the people of Tetu Constituency elected Wangari to Parliament. It was such a joyous ocassion. She had wanted and had bid for the presidency of Kenya in 1997. Kibaki elected president in 2002 felt threatened by Wangari at all times. That is the way I saw it. That is why she was made an assistant minister for environment regardless of her more sophisticated knowledge and commitment to serving nature. That is why this president cold shouldered her before cameras in a UN meeting.

But it is he and Moi who mourn her now. And she will have a state burial. For this, I have none of them to thank. I thank Wangari for her resilience and her ever beautiful smile.

Only a very giften woman can be this simple and humble. She left a message that will inspire you. Look at it in seconds here on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw

Now, isn't that refreshing?
Thank you Wangari!

The natural colour of your skin is lovely! Come my sister

2011-07-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Keep you black skin sister, I love your hair

Inspiration. Thinking about it, we fly with the sprightly spirit in the word! A la Ariel in The Tempest, we all propose to find inspiration off the ground, flying around somewhere. Topics about inspiration i agree have to have some air in them, some desire to be up there. And there is no better way of being inspired than starting in the way of loving oneself.

I do not know if many African men bleach their skins but it is common with the sisters. Whereas one can understand a need for a change of hair style, the skin is a rather sensitive and important organ to destroy! It is not dead cells!

I was walking with my friend PL in Oslo. She is so beautiful and of ebony color. We went into a shopping mall. I noticed that PL was uncomfortable. I looked at her and I got the hint. Trying on some smart and expensive stuff was an older looking woman (you never know about age these days) and she had bleached her lovely African skin to some non natural Fanta like look. In some countries in Africa such people are actually called Fanta girls. You can always tell the natural so called lighter or brown skin from this one. She also had harsh pencil lines for eyebrows. This type of woman has to have a long wig. I had seen a totally blond one in Heathrow only last week. A sleek woman had it on. A little girl gifted with more melanin was looking at her. I hoped she was not asking where she could get such a wig.

I think we have to inspire ourselves by loving our natural self. No need to fly. Just touch your skin and love its own color. I fear the west did a lot of damage to our psyche and this is not going away.

Black dolls

On the other hand, I was so happy to see a father drawing his little one on carrier. Next to the chubby caucasian baby was a lovely black doll. I loved that. It was inspiring. I believed that baby would never think not to love anyone for reasons of darkness. I do hope that this person treats all people well and without prejudice and not just loves dolls. As for shop keepers and sellers..stock more of these! Make them famous. We in Afrika for ages had only Caucasian dolls around. Often you find black ones at home now but they are most often made of fabric meaning big toy makers may not be fully into the idea. I feel we must try out best to give a whole people their self esteem back. I mean also in India where casts dominate and the darker one is apparently the less beautiful or important they are. We are simply equal. Skin is not a gauge even for beauty!

I think in that behaviour of hating one’s own skin many are to blame. Models are normally chosen even if African from the less dark Africans. I was shocked to hear that from Judy, an African -American. She said she felt small and black and all her lighter colored friends got the jobs. Shame. We made her feel small. In some countries you can live in a suburb depending on the shade of your skin. We shamed South Africa for apartheid, fought and won but we are guilty of not having moved as a world without colour bar! Two old words still applicable ! At home in Africa also many people praise their ‘brown’ child above the darker one in some cases. I know we are free to love our natural ‘blonds’ but not at the expense of hating who we are naturally. But fine, do what you like with your body and hair! You are free. Only remember that this is often based on despising oneself. I dislike it very much especially to see someone like that in Europe. I know that there even tablets for it. I know many famous people did this and that to self.. but how can I inspire your spirit if you hate your body? It is hard. We see these as very separate but they are deeply connected no doubt!

In my house and stories, I have lovely black dolls. I am not afraid to quote from my work because this is genuine. Of course am not saying eliminate the caucasian one! Look@ Kenya, will you marry me? my latest novel published in May 2011. I have:

“They need to sit on my little arm chair at home and 'eat stories' and food. I need them. They are dolls with black hair and skins. Lovely dolls dressed colorfully. Meet Savaiva. Savaiva does not have clothes on. She used to wear clothes before. Now, she ties a loose cloth over her shoulders. This loose cloth, is expected to cover her below the waist. Someone beat her up. Someone tore off her clothes. Did you hear the silence? Silence must be broken, this pain must break the the silence, like a flood breaks banks, and pours out. “ Philo Ikonya ©

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“I forgot to tell you. I made Pamoja long, long ago. She keeps all our history close to heart and always tells it to her younger brother Umoja and his friends. When she speaks, all the girls gather around her long pleated skirt that spreads out on the ground so that they can all sit down. She is the pillar that stands in a skirt but who the skirt honors in its round wide shape, like a home. She is a griot who does not only recite history; she tells people what signs of trouble to watch out for. She is not the only seer in the village. One of her stories is about how women see. She says that women have to sight many, many moons in different shapes and forms. The world does not understand them easily for women will say just what they see in the smallest crescent of the tiniest moon. Men like these women are rare. Now you have met many of us, but do not worry. We are easy people. You are one with us. Together, we are of many colors and we like how we look: tar, chocolate, café au lait, black, ripe mango color and tea au lait and even white like milk. Baba brought me a brand new Caucasian doll from Nairofii. I did not remember giving it a name. It could eat and drink and cry. We were all amazed. Maybe he got it as a gift, may be he bought her in a shop. Everyone in the family and some in the village talked about the doll and how wonderful she looked with long blonde eyelashes that fluttered over her beautiful blue eyes. Differences should fascinate.

“How did she go to the toilet?” became a common question. As if it could be any different, except of course in a doll that has no life. All ours do. The question was a good one in the village. The Caucasian doll one day asked a question. It was about her mother's nipples. She asked if she had just seen them on De Gado's mother. Same darkness. She wanted warm milk. The same milk. We were happy she did not ask that same old tired question, “Oh, why are the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet the same color?” Did you think that some peoples blood was really blue and others white? I get tired of this story. It nearly tore Kenya apart when she was young in 1962. It wanted us apart and separated by color of skin. We somehow beat it. De Gado asks if we really did or if we just pretended to. I did not expect that our children still had to deal with it both at home and abroad. It is so strange a fascination. It is too old fashioned. Kenya will you marry me? Philo Ikonya©

Honestly, President Kibaki!

2011-06-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

President of Kenya

Mwai Emilio Kibaki

June 2011

In which direction are you steering Kenya?

It is June 2011. The people of Kenya are starving again. Some have died of hunger and from boiling and drinking the hot juice of poisonous wild berries. This happens as usual in Turkana. I saw the images of starving women and children in 2009. I saw them dying and I could not sleep. I screamed. I cried out loud with two young men. We were arrested and accused of Illegal Assembly. Three people in an assembly? We are out on bond for many similar arrests.

The next day we saw your sleek motorcade heading out of State House. We tried to tell you our pain but you could not be reached. Your motorcade, just like Moi's, is too powerful and fast. It can crush us to death too. On 18^th of February 2009, I was arrested on Parliament Road for explaining to the people that our politicians do not care about our land. That we do not starve for lack but because of greed. Your friends do not tell you the truth many people say, but do you not see for yourself?

Besides the hunger and the thirst to death, many people in Kenya cannot afford the prices of food today, and that has been proven to be due to corruption on prices. It is not about the price of fuel from Libya and if it were, we also know that you have not addressed the question of oil prospection in Kenya properly. You preferred to work with China on this. China is slow to find oil for us for very obvious reasons. Her company, the media and others told you in 2006, drags its feet on this. Canadian companies took a shorter period to find oil in neighboring Uganda which is now bullying our islands and you are quiet.

Mainly since you are a graduate of the London School of Economics and you endured much under KANU, I wanted to hear you speak un-doubting leadership so that the youth of Kenya would stop crying. I wanted to hear your voice regarding the many disappeared youth of Kenya, and specifically in Central Province and if you could not speak, I wanted to see a positive impact of action from your office.

Some say that you have built up good roads in Kenya. This means that more tourists should flock to Kenya to fly around too on Kenya Airways and other crafts. But Mr. President, there are many types of roads in and out of a country. Some say that you are a calm and quiet man who no longer calls his people Pumbavu, and not to be disturbed, but Mr President, I wish I could hear your voice heal Kenya. I wish I could see you talk to her about values that we share. I wish I could see them become part of your legacy. I wish I would not see your mind protecting people summoned by the International Criminal Court. Above all, I had wanted to see the difference between you and the former presidents of Kenya, especially Moi.

When Moi left office, he wanted Uhuru Kenyatta to become the president of the Republic of Kenya. Moi openly said he disliked Raila very much and you have learned from Moi not to heal this hatred, knowing full well that it brings two big communities in Kenya into a confrontation which has tended to define Kenyan politics since it was introduced by the British colonialist in Operation Anvil and many other hideous actions against Kenyans. Where is your wisdom? Are you any different when even after Uhuru Kenyatta features among six men summoned by the International Criminal Court at the Hague for the post poll violence of 2007, you would support him?

Honestly, Kibaki, am so ashamed of you. I have not forgotten that some months ago, you burned my Grandmother’s granary so that you could see the words as you swore yourself back to power on the strength of a flawed election. I cannot forget this because many people, {the government figure is 1, 333} died. 500 000 people, if figures could be so round, were displaced and it has taken time to change their names from Internally Displaced Persons, a name they got overnight when their homes and livelihoods were burnt up in hot fire, to Kenyans who are striving to begin again. The Waki Report is trashed.

I am ashamed of you because you live at a time when the world, especially in Kenya where Justice is supposed to be our shield and defender, the disappearance of even 6 people, should keep you sleepless. But your government shuns the truth about the disappearance of hundreds. Disappearance of people is not to be tolerated in any society, Mr. President. Now, the denial by your government of a report by Philip Alston a Special Rapporteur of the UN, that over 600 young men have disappeared in your time as president in Kenya, is not a footnote to your history.

I could not care less where these people come from. I do not want to here list names so that I then should continue answering questions just because these people come from one region. No. I ask for them as I would ask for any disappeared human beings in any part of the world. This word 'disappeared' is not to be taken lightly. It is a serious indicator of impunity in a government. A terrible and worrying sign for the future. Disappearances, whether in Chile, Colombia or anywhere follow those in power to their graves. You know, your government has denied consistently, a report on the disappeared people of Kenya, the desaparecidos.

At the London School of Economics and before in Makerere, you were brilliant. In 1978, when Moi could not stand the liberty of the pen, you attended the launch of Petals of Blood, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Traditionally, justice is not foreign to any of us. We know that actually most Afrikan societies believed and pursued justice. Could you please tell me why you do not see what I see or feel what poor people feel? You endured pain under a dictator. I am surprised that in your time, more than any other justice and human rights are so often cited as things from the West and people who stand for them ridiculed and not appreciated. In the community in which you were born in 1932, it is said, and this is still repeated in an active proverb, that one pays here on earth for what is done here on earth. Wathi urihagirwo o thi.

Have you noticed that you pay practically nothing while you set up the rest of the community you hail from up for trouble? Would you be shocked to know that many of us from that region were surprised that you were vying for presidency in 2007? Could plain prudence not tell you how the country was going if the national intelligence did not? Intelligence? They say their reports on the violence awaiting Kenya in 2007 were ignored. How you make our children pay for your sins!

We have our own Kenyan constitution since August 2010. After many years since the first effort to get a new constitution in 1991, we gave ourselves one that is quite different from the Lancaster Constitution. We support and are signatories to many international conventions and organs of justice. We see reason in facing the difficulties of this world with a global perspective. Almost all nations on their own could turn despotic, after all they are ruled by human beings and we all need to watch out. Kenyans have been alive to the course of justice for many years. I am ashamed however, that I have to register in my days the times when this country, Kenya, has been least of what was expected, many years after independence. Why are identity documents such as Identity Cards and passport still an issue in Kenya? Why are millions of youth kept down by this unable to participate fully in their national lives?

Why has the Republic of Uganda disrespected our boundaries? Why are you silent about Libya and the rest of Afrika? Do you not care for our continent? Why would you receive Museveni of Uganda at home while his opponent lay in a Kenyan hospital being treated for injuries caused by Ugandan police brutality? What do you think about police brutality in Kenya? Why did your government secretly invite Omar Al Bashir to the launch of our new constitution? Why did you visit Gadaffi in the past to discuss oil in Kenya when you knew too long he had been a dictator? Why did your government reach out to him to try and kill Kenya's case before the International Criminal Court?

I used to know it in my deepest self, that forty years after independence Kenya would harvest her endless struggles and fill her granaries with wonderful produce, a great name. I was sure I would play my role in bringing this forward. I thought you were one of the most rational persons in our country and I threw my weight behind your unspoken dream in 2002 as did most of the country. We believed what other people said of you- Kibaki tosha. Most of the time you were quiet and watching as if when you got the chance to lead us, we would fly as smoothly as this plane on which am writing this article after so many months of thinking. The craft flies without hesitation.

I have to tell you that since a year and half ago I have been away from Kenya not out of choice but in exile after my life was made impossible by people who work for you, I have seen so many changes. I have seen how people focus and move their country with collective responsibility step by step to its future. Step by step to its greater security. I have been always in Kenya, in spirit I never left and with the news I see that Kenya marches on the same spot. Marches through the sun and the rain.Marches through winds. Marches in the dust. Marches and marches and marches. You must tell those who are pleased with you to challenge you much more. Psychopancy is not new. As long as mothers fear for their children and for the country, we cannot say you are succeeding!

On 31^st December 2010, Kenyans celebrated Six years since the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. You talked about the possibility of reneging this ratification, why?

I have seen that your Parliament has recently moved a motion to withdraw from the Rome Statute. Before this, I had heard you make this consideration as if jokingly many months ago. If the you, as the President of Kenya signs this into law, I will always remember that you sowed the seed of doubt and showed little regard for the ICC first.

On 15th March 2005, Kenya ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Kenya became party to the Statute as country number 98 and today the ICC has 108 members. The Statute entered into force for Kenya on 1st June 2005, a day Kenya celebrates having received internal or self governance from the British in 1963, Madaraka Day.

Coming back to today, if the people who died as a result of post poll violence, normally quoted as 1 333, they maybe more, do not get justice, if the women raped and those 500 000 displaced people do not get justice can we say we have internal self government? We are the ones who have failed to provide justice for them.

But honestly, Kibaki, you know that before December 30^th 2007 when the presidential results of the General Election were announced almost in a way that mocked us the people who celebrated your inaugration after your first election in 2002, you never had a doubt about the ICC. Now you do because it does not suit you. I know that I have seen how you regard the international community as one that bothers Kenyans from time to time, but the signing of a statute is a different matter. Can we really say the people have internal self government today?

I feel that Kenya has sold out our self governance yesterday. Indeed in the first place, the people should have been the main celebrants in the promulgation of the new constitution which we say, we the people of Kenya, give ourselves.” Instead military power took centre stage and we did not even know our full guest list.

In an endless night of watching rights abuse with only a few candles left to burn, I see Bashir astride our lands in Africa, from Chad to Kenya, Cairo and Sudan and I see a graveyard of human rights without hope as Africa looks more to China today. Who will stand with us? The U.S. A is not part of the I.C.C and Europe is being bashed as the colonial past machinery in Africa. Yes, we can stand alone and we did, but how does the world justify international diplomacy, the UN and all the money we pay to have a ministry of Foreign Affairs, and all that Diplomatic Corp in Nairobi from where it serves the Horn of Africa? We are, especially we the women who are raped daily in Congo and in Darfur and other places, betrayed all the time. Where do we begin?

Kenya has bound herself by law to facilitate the work of the ICC because Kenya has signed up to do so. Kenya did not do that. A valid question is, therefore, what does any law, including the constitution of Kenya mean to the Kenyan state? You said we Kenyans are difficult people. Why should we be easy in the circumstances. Honestly, Mr. President, tell me, is your heart concerned about the future generations of Kenya, our children? Really?

I am not writing to ask for presidential pardon which you excercise in your prerogative of mercy as Head of State. I am writing to remind you that we do not need to pray about corruption in Kenya, as you asked us to do the other day. In being against corruption we can answer our own prayers. I am full of questions about where and how you want Kenya to remember you. Remember I was always interested in speaking out and you were once told that when I was introduced to you at the Democratic Party offices where you had an office and they called you Chairman. Even then, I have to point out, you really did not have much time for ordinary people as they are poor. I wish for Kenya, a good change. I imagine that you will not tolerate Kenya falling back into violence in 2012.

Next year we have another General Election, there is little time but we had plenty of it for healing after your election disagreement with Raila in 2007 and 2008 when Kenyans were organised to kill one another because of your votes.

Philo Ikonya

Kenyan

Writer in Exile

The eyes of a hungry child: Is there or isn't there oil in Kenya?

2011-03-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

The eyes of a hungry child

By Philo Ikonya

- Is there or isn’t there oil in Kenya?

In memory of J. M. Kariuki, 2th March 1975.

Who among our politicians today can be interested to the point of obsession with the ‘eyes of a hungry child?’ like J. M. Kariuki was in his days? Who? Who cries in the same breath for Pokot, Kiambu and Shimo la Tewa, as he did? He represented the peoples' voice in Parliament, he was it.. who is there today for our voice?

We daily follow what politicians are planning and saying in Kenya but they do not reciprocate our interest by leading people to more consciousness, a deeper level. What am I talking about?

I feel those who are powerful through our votes in Kenya do not exercise their power and use the platforms we give them to make us into a nation.We should never have expected them to do that. We have to do it ourselves. But we have to make this work easier by electing people who act upon what we voice and also voice it themselves. People whose minds even go beyond our own thinking, people with foresight. We are tired of the ones who cannot even with the benefit of hindsight see how important it is that Kenya becomes more cohesive by means of zeor tolerance of corruption and impunity.

Those we have today are unable to help unite our nation against things that others have conquered on our continent and in which we should be the giants to watch. We have to spend so much time on tribalism, police brutality and harassment, the Hague, makeshift parties to deliver votes for tomorrow that we forget the urgency with which the sick in Kenya need medical improvements.

We forget to start challenging the making of the budget to be read in June today. Now with the crisis in the North how will the cost of paraffin be affected in Kenya? Why has this government dragged its feet on the prospection of oil in Kenya using Chinese firms rather than the more efficient Canadians who have sealed their deals in Uganda and Ghana?

If we discover oil in Kenya will we grow like Ghana or become a Nigeria? Will the oil be used as in Norway to benefit all the people or be grabbed as are minerals found in Kenya also by politically connected individuals.

The East African newspaper exposed this problem challenge of our poor work at finding oil in 2008/2009. Today, toer edia tell us that African countries: Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and others are forecast to improve their growth to higher digits in 2011, with Ghana reaching double digits provided our politics improved. This is what has failed Kenya for so long. http://www.economist.com/node/17493372

Yet Kenya was poised to improve based upon her agriculture. Are we serious about making this happen and helping many walk away from a poverty that kills?

J.M

Today I remember J.M Kariuki’s sharp vision for Kenya. I remember that he was young in his days. I remember his strength in Parliament. I remember he spoke out for the poor, and I am poor. I remember that he did not know me. I remember hearing of Terry and her struggle against a government turned monster. I remember hearing of her for very long before the day she tapped my shoulder on Loita Street on 14th of February 2009 and told me never to stop.

I know that J.M Kariuki like all of us had his faults. I know the history some unleash when you begin to see a hero, but I know that for some reason, unless we Kenyans allow ourselves the luxury of wasting our lives and that of generations to come, J M Kariuki was one of those people born with a spark that lights fires. He was not only charismatic but also dedicated. People like this are not found in droves. If they were many problems we have in Kenya would not be.

Conciousness

When I read how Kariuki spoke about ‘the eyes of a hungry eyes’ in the Hansard, how he spoke up for the widows and orphans of Mau Mau I know what he would have said about HIV positive people, I know what he would have said about IDPS today, about our youth and children. I know. And because I know it, I keep hearing it.

I know when I read him something stirs and burns like when I read Steve Biko, King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi. The list is much longer.

A deeper consciousness we need today. A more justice driven consciousness is a basic requirement. We cannot live as if Kenya is something we must use and dispose of, it is here for other generations. Let us demand a solid legacy, a nation where resources benefit us all.

Heart: See the tears and feel the desperation of voices that run like rivers of tears for Shahbaz Bhatti. 4th March 2011

The voice and the vote- in honor of Mohamed Bouazizi

2011-02-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

He had probably never voted but he had a voice and it deserved to be heard. We need to raise the bar for democracy in many places. We accept countries that play around with the voice and the vote. We snub out voices. We pretend we won and are representing the people or even as in my own country, simply steal the votes and then kill the people to get power. This must be made history.

When Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire, there must have been other young people hauling carts in different cities who were dying of hunger. I know some Kenyans were dying in famine. Thank goodness his deed led Tunisians to wake up. What has followed was history boldly stradling countries and we watching every moment as all this happened. Let Bouazizi's action probe our consciences.

Bouazizi Lit a Spark

by Mohja Kahf

"...when Mohamed Bouazizi poured inflammable liquid over his body and set himself alight outside the local municipal office, his act of protest cemented a revolt that would ultimately end President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year-rule."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201111684242518839.html

I was living in a dark

cave as long as war,

as dank and sick as sanctions.

I was hungry as invasions,

I’d forgotten what hope

even tasted like,

crouching low and deep as fear,

and it started long before

I was born and looked to go

on and on beyond my death

and to swallow up my life.

We were living in the dark;

Bouazizi said enough

half-existing, and stood up—

not for Tunis or the nation

or me, or Liberation—

for himself, his human self.

In despair of a life

worthy of a human being,

Bouazizi lit a spark,

and he had some kerosene

and the spark lit a spark

and he set us all on fire.

And there ain’t no magic beans,

no quick stalk to paradise,

and the rubble’s full of rocks,

and the road is full of snakes.

But the wind is at our backs.

We can see horizons now.

A dictatorship has cracked,

and the border closed with fear

ain’t a border any more.

And the keys on keyboard fly,

as my fingers reconnect

human rights to human beings.

And it isn’t over yet;

it’s an avalanche begun,

danger falling through the air,

and the earth is shifting plates,

and the map is changing shape,

but I know now what I can do

and I know what you can, too,

and there ain’t no goin back.

Mohja Kahf was born in Damascus, and emigrated with her family to the USA in 1971. She is a poet, essayist, sex columnist and a professor of comparative literature at the University of Arkansas. She believes that the growing body of Muslim American literature has reached the critical mass where it might be considered its own genre, including works like “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Khaled Hosseini’s novel “The Kite Runner” and “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid, as well as her novel and poetry.

http://penatlas.org/online/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=465&Itemid=16

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/books/12veil.html

--
Shailja Patel
www.shailja.com
Twitter: shailjapatel #migritude

If you embrace IMPUNITY, you steal the voice of the vote.

2011-01-31T16:15:00.000-08:00

Gado can really do
what no one can undo.
humble man so gifted.
pencil in poety united.
Thank you for inspiration
in XYZ educaation!

Taseer 's Roses

2011-01-12T00:57:00.000-08:00

I saw them roses of the world
They bloomed and grew in many colors
White, black, pink and not only red.
Roses bloomed in the world,
the whole world.
No one threw them away
Look-
They turned in an instant
and became roses for Taseer.
Roses for voice.
Roses for Taseer.
Roses. Roses. Roses.
Roses for Taseer.
Roses
White
Black
Blue
Indigo
Pink
Roses
Roses,
Roses for Taseer.

Roses rose.
They rose in all colours,
for Taseer.

the dead red strewn petals vanished.

I remember that on this day, I really had to inspire myself before leaving home.. and i did it..

2010-12-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

I found this line by GN today 5th Dec 2009. "Please get sometime and visit the following blogspot to read on one woman story". I googled it.

Thanks George Nyongesa for coming in to help and for recently standing by me when others would ridicule my passion for change. They say we write and do not do, that we speak and have not done anything. When we reach some of them we find out that they do not understand communication and standing up for issues helps us to examine ourselves as a nation.

I will always remember that woman's pain as she told me to speak on and to speak out... and I believe this is a prime role for a writer...this writer.

Some think we betray...We reach some of the people and talking nicely to them means giving out money.. and we refuse to do that. It is not the way to change a country. I was happy to find this. Sometimes almost buried under snow instead of being on hot streets.. one wonders again, what they are doing. Some would think I escaped dust... as if I did not walk around Nairobi barefoot in protest. I am in protest even now in exile and that is what my conscience bids me. I know that I was not in the first line of fire...but did I have to wait for that?

Monday, February 16, 2009

10 million cuttings for 10 million Kenyans: A Valentine Story.

By Philo Ikonya

I stepped out wearing my sackcloth and many cuttings of the starving people of Kenya that have been coming in our main three newspapers in one brown envelope. It's Valentines Day so I will also drape a red sash and speak to the ladies in red without alienating them and ask them and the men in town to remember to make a donation to the dying.

I cut out faces of children, old women lying down, old men with long rib cages seated stooping forward with all their flesh turned into little sacks of skin sagging down to their loins. Life petering out in this Kenyan famine of 2009 in Baringo, Ukambani, Pokot. Three dry provinces but also in the dry zones of our more fertile areas such as Ndeiya in Limuru.

And yes, I found her too. The woman my friends and I had called the ‘face of famine.' She demonstrated the plight of this hunger so well as she lay out there in Pokot land; rising and falling with her bony frame with eyes already wide open with pain and long limbs devoid of flesh, a shrill voice, that told of pain. She hit the headlines for a few weeks and then stopped. Is she still alive? The media had explained that maize had been transported past this woman and many like her - to Sudan passing by a road a few kilometers from where she lived.

The stories were heartrending telling of how mothers fed their children on wild berries that kept them from going to the toilet often so that their tummies would hold. Mothers asking their teenage daughters to sleep with truck drivers (this is a live wire of the HIV/virus) to get a meal for the family for the day.

I cut out photos too of our politicians. The famine is artificially created by graft in the country and yet, the president sat with guests from the Diplomatic Corp and others in a sumptuous breakfast one morning to proclaim that 10 million Kenyans were faced with starvation and death. An emergency; he declared. And some 35 billion Kenya Shillings were needed. The good people responded to the appeal with some money. Kenyans too quickly organized interventions such as collection points for maize flour despite the shooting food prizes that other governments in the world were trying to mitigate. Here Kenyans had been arrested before the famine for sounding the alarm that the prices were skyrocketing and that people in Nairobi slums and other places were living on Ugali (maize meal) and salt instead of vegetables and meat. I cut out their fat and oily faces… and their disagreements on many fronts the latest having been the failure to establish a Tribunal to investigate political violence.

I also cut out faces of ordinary Kenyans struggling and winning in athletics, masses of people under the banner of People Power. These I put in my victory envelope. There were great things to celebrate here and our failures in politics are the exception to the rule in Kenya’s other actions. This is what we have to win. The battle of getting every Kenyan to redeem their vote from association with war and bloodshed and then to vote without considering tribe but looking for change.

Cut out of course, were the scandals that hit the headlines. The stolen and imported maize involving not just the agriculture ministry but also a cross section of our very well paid MPs. I cut out maize stems looking good and full. Kenya never lacks maize because of the rain. And the fuel scandal expressed with a pump over stacks of bank notes. Stolen too.

As I set out with all these cuttings to buy manila paper and glue and stick them and use them not only to discuss generosity in donations but also the Change our country must allow or fall again, the song; Someone is dying Lord Kumbaya,” came to mind. I remembered the last time we sang it, this time last year, Kenya was on fire.

In the first spot I stopped, someone tapped my shoulder and asked me if she had seen me speaking somewhere. I told her yes, and there was a flow of compliments… I had just been wondering what the town mood would be like when as she introduced herself, I looked into her face and we said it together: "Terry Kariuki. The Late Josiah Mwangi Kariuki’s widow. JM."

She stood there looking into my eyes and telling me how voices were important. I felt my skin creep and tears came to my eyes as she spoke of what happened to her vocal and popular husband who was so angry about greed in Kenya. He spoke very strongly for the poor and suggested well thought out policies in Parliament. He was assassinated on March 2nd 1975. Terry and I parted on the note of how much work remained to be done. I did not lose a chance to speak to people and to tell them to speak to others about our country, and the hope we have for new political leadership.

Here was a lady, clad in wonderful clothes, an expensive coat and shoes, she held a wonderful bouquet of roses. The flowers were set beautifully and the flower pot covered with love hearts and a cellophane paper for their protection made a soft swish sound. Angela about 4ft8, looked great, her dark skin beamed delight, a strong and confident woman, after a compliment on the love those flowers told, she spoke to me in the Nakumatt Lifestyle corridor as if we had an appointment. Tears came to her eyes, and I had not yet even put up the pictures on my poster, as she listened to why I was on the streets that day. She was moved to act and she said she would support our cause and left her contact. She understood how important it was for her to get many others in her social milieu to think of change. Later I would weave between wealthy looking men buying flowers, why even some big shots and a reminder of the unga touched them with one I once worked with even hugging me. But in all conversations, it was clear, the middle and upper class are anxious.

At Jeevanjee gardens, a Bunge la Mwananchi session was on. It was about change in leadership. I made my contribution and also talked about flour- the Wabunge were already organized and had a book of goods collected for the poor. I made my contribution as Mumbi and Nduta, two sisters present went to a bench with me to stick the cuttings to the manilla paper.

The theme: Corruption = Death.

As we were about to finish, we noticed the return of a big police vehicle (we had been told it had been driven from there earlier and thought we were safe) and we left the garden as they reversed in. I was doing a solo thing because groups of Kenyans on the streets talking change are often arrested. I have one court case for singing about freedom and that is enough.

Joined by another activist and the two girls we set off carrying our graphic poster. A pair of sisters were eager to know what this was all about and explaining to them, they gave thanks and promised to spread the message: Support the dying today, vote in new leaders tomorrow.

Two seconds into Tuskys supermarket and a former classmate bought flour for contribution, a woman alone with her little one also paid up for more and I bought 20 kilos. Our kitty had started to swell. With the receipt stapled onto the poster we could now stand outside the supermarket and urge others to make a contribution. We paced the Muindi Mbingu Street and in the end we had spoken to about 300 people. They kept coming out to listen to us in little constant groups of between 15 and 30. It was at this point when I looked up and saw activist George Nyongesa in the crowd. He took to this so heartily and when we finished, he asked me to go with him on the following day outside some churches. He told me he believed now change can only come to Kenya if we speak to people one by one with the zeal of missionaries. It was not going to come through organizations. We have started to move.

We have just come from four more hours of activity and we estimate about 500+ people listened and some spoke to three of us, activist Kamotho having joined us. Many said they had given up on their vote but now they would go out and tell others there is hope. Others gave their addresses urging us to stay in touch with them. Many were raging with the desire for change and saying they only wish we could all meet.

You see, on one side of the banner we had a victory message with someone lifting a trophy out of a mammoth crowd with the heading: People Power. Here, hope and victory were discussed and we shared that we would not believe in hopelessness ever but that we would do our best, especially as Christians- most of the people were going to three churches in the area- to move our country ahead. All the people we spoke to were encouraged to speak to many more and to keep doing it. They could not hide their happiness and some of them thanked us profoundly ( even prayed and blessed us) as we thanked them for the work they had prepared to do by stopping to share – just for a few minutes.

It is impossible to forget the faces of the poor men who listened so keenly and spoke of the pain they bear in their hearts and the faces of rich and happy girls. And Terry Kariuki’s? Her look and words will remain etched and recorded somewhere no camera or TV can reach. Her sparkling and searching eyes with a smile of life turned pain will not go away. Will what her husband and: Mboya, Ouko, Bishop Muge died for, one day be achieved? JM is the man who said Kenya will become a country of 10 billionaires surrounded by beggars.

Today, 10 million die, they are not just food insecure- that is a polite name for death.

Bjornson, its time to speak to us! U inspire!

2010-11-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

What I like about Bjornson is that he is a silent giant that is awakening. He was one of the four giants of Norwegian Literature along with Ibsen, Kiellands and Lie. Ibsen got the best attention.

I am inspired by Bjornson in many ways!

Being great and silent but talking at the right time.
Making us question what is the meaning of relevance!

Being a political activist.. although I prefer people who vote
I love it that Ibsen said to him that his own life.. Bjornson 's is literature.

Influencing politics deeply without being in Parliament or in Government.
Encouraging Norwegians to use their own language and not Danish.

Making an artistic contribution to the Norwegian National Anthem in his own words.
Making royalty in Norway have to discover how to fly a flag at half mast at his death.

Being relevant to me today.

Now that his centenary is being celebrated in Norway, I found a corner in his honour and took this photo. The photo is great but the sad thing is that the friend who took it is in hiding. Her brother disappeared in Pakistan, a rather common story and she suffers so much wondering if she will ever see him. She was outspoken and ended up in refuge. But the dead also speak and all governments should learn to respect freedom and justice!

Leading the Night

2010-11-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

This novel by Philo Ikonya, Leading the night, is almost out. The cover is not loading here.. but with time it will. Philo is excited!

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12c4fc43ca3a9278&mt=application/pdf&url=http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D6815fab758%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12c4fc43ca3a9278%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26realattid%3Df_ggjdw59l0%26zw&sig=AHIEtbQMcgbIaOZtY8emQ3jPFB45mrmKXA

Haunted

2010-10-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

31.October.2010
Halloween here...

I wrote this poem in 2001. I was inspired when I found it today. It was in a printed out email to Diana who used to work with HABITAT in Nairobi. When I was reading it, I at first thought I was reading a letter from Diana to me but it was the opposite. I liked the first line..

Dear Diana,

How are you doing? Just some questions for you and a poem to share. Remember the International Women s Day card woman?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon I went. A woman appointed politician had given me two appointments and canceled them. Diana had asked me to see her because she run an NGO dealing with empowering women. ..but I ended up saying.. "..but I am still going strong. You may have read some articles recently in the Nation. One on alcoholism and the devastating effects on women and families. It is the men who drink mainly. I should have said the other was about myself and my work in the villages and my desire to change the way our local councils were run. I was urging young people to go in great numbers into local governance. .. I ended up saying .. "It must be busy towards Istanbul+5.

That was the time. My own letter inspired me many years later. I can tell that I so much wanted help for my project to move young people to run in local councils. And I was doing that myself later in two months because there was a by election. I must write an essay on that interesting experience. My diary was carried in the Daily Nation then in the pages edited by Makokha on Fridays. He got some trouble after he run that article. He was so gracious. He did not share the absolute details. But I still remember the senior editor who was annoyed at my having been so well covered! ha! ha! ha! Nothing stops some of us.

Fools.. stop(**That year, president Moi on International Day called women fools.. and they clapped.... as he spoke. Only a couple of them were disgruntled. It was replayed on BBC for a long time.

We met a woman Mau Mau fighter who was disabled. Pinky Ghelani, then Miss India Kenya organised for a wheelchair through Dr. Thakkar of Avenue Clinic and we got her a wheelchair. It was inspiring to see someone who had not left her houses for years look around the village and smile. The smiling woman said, "let us go to church." Many children followed us around the village singing. This was sad but inspiring too.

Haunted

I am haunted...
By images of women
Who can't move any more.

Women who lie
In social commas
Waiting to tie
The knot with the Full stop.

Women who looked at
the fools stop*
While singing the cheap song
Os some free kingdom
and lost their gait.

They stopped dancing on
African paths altogether,
the load on their back
was too heavy - firewood,
Fire without a flicker for their warmth.

But could they have changed
it for a colorful basket?

Now I'm haunted by
Women sitting on
plastics made by men.
They threw away the sack,
for small change.

I am haunted by deliriously learned women!
I'm haunted by their exclamations and
Question marks?

And still I see immobile women
who were once movers.
Ng'endo, once a Mau Mau figther
Now slithering along her back.

Rose and Rose submerged.
One by a bomb, made by hands of men
The other without shelter, dying
because mean drove the dozers
which demolished homes...

And another and others, imprisoned by
poverty and poor health...no -one to stroke
their tired backs.

Women blind and heavy with child.
Woman sick and child dying and sick too.
Dying of Aids without aid,
-of diarrhoea, tuberculosis burns and pneumonia still,
And many, so many , dying of hunger,
They haunt me all...

Yet
Still must I dream, for the dawn must come.
Must come in Africa too.

Haunted

It is not the camera.. it is the eye

2010-10-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

The photographs are beautiful. Look at that Leopard coming down a big tree. Martti Lintunen Finland and made this photo in Kenya and all these wonderful pictures in Kenya. He is published by Gummerus in Finland. He has more than 60 books to his name. His great grandfather was a photographer as was his grandfather. The good eye runs in the family. The book Savannin Sankarit is beautiful. What is splendid about it is that Lintunen has given PEN Kenya the right to publish this book in Kenya, Norway or elsewhere. Thank you for a practical way of showing solidarity with us and helping build our centre Martti Lintunen of Finland.

Thank you very much for the kind dedication to me and our determined efforts to grow! This is great. It is inspiration walking the talk!

Martti Lintunen says that for him a photograph is a way of taking notes.. it is a note he makes and can write from it. Thank you very much M. Lintunen. Soon I will have a photograph of your book put up here!

The other book you gave to me and signed: To Philo Who does not forget. The message is after you saw my poems and how I do not want to forget our history and how people have suffered a long the way. Thanks for that, I did not know it. But more important is to see that you wrote for children who in their lives might have to deal with a very difficult issue. The suicide of a loved one.

Thank you for sharing
for baring what many cover
thank you.

I am very inspired by this kind gesture and the extent to which writers go to give what they have and to share words so that others can find meaning. Thanks.

Afrika's Kup

2010-07-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Afrika’s World Kup is Mandela

By Philo Ikonya
© 18th July 2010

Afrika’s world Kup
is always lifted up,
it’s made of gold from
Johannesburg,
where I mine family tears,
of hope.

In the world today, July 18th,
All hands in service become Mandela’s,
Our mothers and many other winners,
of freedom marathons are lifted up.
daily Our feet of bronze we give in,
to be part in this Afrika that smiles.

So we too, lift her Kup up,
And fill her with own diamonds,
from her waist in the Congo,
and her Angola dances all the way,
enough water in exile,
near the Nile’s extra miles.

Afrika’s Kup is full,
without the pull of Aids attached.
and AID with strings so strapped.
Look at the sun setting on this Kup,
faded and fading, the biggest star.
But we lift this Kup high,
with pride and love we can!
Mandela the world celebrates you
today,
We, forever!

Happy Birthday Mandela !

World's Cupped Challenges

2010-07-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Unexpected Nordic Headache

If you do not take pride in the Sami,
display their costumes and ways,
and let us hear their tune in the Maasai,
If you cover lineage thus descended,
How can I expect that you wish me a win,
me a win in our world cup?
Me a stranger darkly knocking at your door?

If at home I cannot accept my tribal neighbour,
and I seek refuge and cry out against racism,
how strange should I say I am,
this is not even Pythagoric, Greek wisdom is
quite straightforward- I fear the finances are not.

Spain has brought the World Cup home, but you tremble
When you hear her name, the next bridge financially shaken,
How should I expect the sound of a continent that mines gold,
diamonds and bronze but remains starving, to ever make sense to you?

But how will your eye pass beyond, beside the singing river in town,
Romany, Romany sing again and again, heads down scarves on,
romance dead, times bad, times hot and cold all the time,
Give me a crown Ma, Give me a crown, give me a kroner,
Just one kroner, my wife and I and my children are starving,
as did our ancestors. Give me a crown Mum on Monday and on Saturday,
every day, Ma.

How can I expect a total, if I never say I know the whole,
How can I hive out a corner, call it my percentage of the age,
How can I then expect those not in the circle,
to sing a song that all will hear?
Who will cover the world with a cupped hand and shout justice?

Philo

Bantu Mwaura's first anniversary, I celebrate his poem The Cactus

2010-04-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

I would like to remember Bantu Mwaura with a poem that tells of his strength as a person and thinker. A poem which in hard times inspires me.

Cactus

Sand
Water-less, and
Dry, drrry
Dust
That's the environ

But even then, green
Albeit the sandy dirty green,
Thorny and brutal
Because of the brutal surround
Yet
Fleshy and juicy
Amidst the brutal dry dust

What will!
What power!
What strength!

That will to be
against non- existence
The power to live
amidst death
The strength to grow
against all odds
To strength
amidst all weakness

The cactus
Defies
The social laws.

Bantu Mwaura

Bantu Mwaura will always be remembered in Kenya and beyond for his good work. I will remember him as one who was a sentinel on duty for a people through his pen. May he be in peace. We will live in hope inspite of the pain of his early departure. Shailja Patel, a poet and author of Migritude is spot on with a memorial to be held on 8th May at the Kenya National Theatre.

She posted the appeal below for we must see Makeba and Mekatilili, Bantu's children continue to live the life they lived when their father was alive. Bantu Mwaura left us on 27th April 2009 in comforting Susan and the young family he left behind, we are in solidarity with a great colleague gone beyond the borders of breathing.

Dear Friends,

There will be a first anniversary memorial celebration for Bantu Mwaura at the Wasanii Restaurant (Kenya National Theater) on Saturday 8th May from 2:00-6:30pm. An exhibition will also take during the event. If you would like to present anything during this event kindly let me know and I will pass the information to the organizing committee.

Thank you. Your presence will be highly appreciated. (Kindly invite additional people not included in this listing)

Warm Regards,
Susan Bantu
sbantu@brookhouse.ac.ke
Psychology Teacher; School Counselor and Roundsquare Rep.
Brookhouse International School.
________________________________________

Bantu Mwaura Children Fund
Bantu's family and friends have now set up an education fund for his daughters: Makeba, aged eight, and six-year-old MeKatilili. Bantu was passionate about learning, as a scholar and teacher. This fund is a way to support his children on their educational journey, and honor the memory and legacy of our friend.

This account will be drawn only thrice a year, exclusively to pay for the children’s school fees. Please circulate this information to others who knew and valued Bantu.

Checks, transfers or deposits should be directed to:

Account Name: THE BANTU MWAURA C. E. FUND
Account number: 0151306093400
Bank: Standard Chartered Bank, Moi Avenue, Nairobi, Kenya

For quick assistance at the bank ask for:

Mr. Kinyanjui Kombani (The Business Financial Consultant- Standard Chartered Bank)
Email: Joseph.Kombani@standardchartered.com

Contributions can also be sent via Western Union, PostaPay or Mpesa to:

Mrs. Susan K. Bantu
Cell: + 254 720 318 984
Collection point: Nairobi-Kenya

Any questions can be send to:

bantumwauraeducationfund@yahoo.com

or

Mrs. Susan K. Bantu
Cell: +254 720 318 984)
Email: wanbantu@gmail.com

Bantu Mwaura

Cactus

Sand
Water-less, and
Dry, drrry
Dust
That's the environ

But even then, green
Albeit the sandy dirty green,
Thorny and brutal
Because of the brutal surround
Yet
Fleshy and juicy
Amidst the brutal dry dust

What will!
What power!
What strength!

That will to be
against non- existence
The power to live
amidst death
The strength to grow
against all odds
To strength
amidst all weakness

The cactus
Defies
The social laws.

Bantu Mwaura

Am What did you think? I am so proud am Afrrican!! Watched Good Hair movie?

2010-04-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

In my village if you suddenly said you were proud of, in this case it might be about, something, people asked you who asked you? Well, I am not in my village right now and if they did, by the way now they would not cos they wait to hear what I say since am supposed to know, but now the strange thing is that the world might ask the same question!

I actually thought that saying one is proud of race and color and hair was old ... like you know.. James Brown.. Am black and proud.. but eeh? As again they would say at home, eeeh? or iiiii, is it?

Travelling and living in western capitals major ones and also villages in this part of the world.. you re-learn that people have never got too settled with black skins. I am so happy to be in mine.. I do not know if am more African than my caucasian friend Kari but I know from children I have met here and from my own experiences in the west that race/color issues have not come down by degrees ... sad but isn't it true? Well, am not sad! I am so proud and always so happy just to be, that I even envy myself at times! And I love the babies and children who almost always want to jump out of their prams to check if they saw right and am ever surprised by the parents who can never tell why their 3, 4 year old is insisting on lagging behind and they pull them up. I think this rule of do not stare has killed our natural tendencies.. Welcome to Africa! In some rural parts the kids will just run after you and sing.. sometimes they will say mzungu.. not hiding what they have seen.. and you will just have to love it if you want to stay sane ( like my friend) because no one will stop them and they will be many! Natural wonder.

Today am very happy I found this blog.. on an Easter morning.. talk about resurrections! I have always wondered about my African hair! I sing to it cos I love it!

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/dreadlocks-how-to-maintain.html

I have just been getting crazy thinking what we got into with chemicals in our hair and not loving our natural skin ( mine is by the way just in case.. ) and hair. I was so proud to sit and watch Good Hair in Innvik, Oslo during Africa Cinema week just before Easter 2010!! I was so happy that I have been a natural hair girl for so long and only had a crazy interlude which is over.. .when chemicals knocked on all our doors.. But I remember always the frustration of Rose my hairfriend in her hair salon in Westlands! I would get all done and she would be combing every single hair smooth and then I would jump and ask her.. is there anything you can do to make it rough!! to make it "kinky looky even if silki!?". She would eye me troubled.. locks were not common, I was supposed to be trendy...in a posh embassy office! Then I got my last quarter of hair in the nape.. dreadedd.. and in Central Province when some women discovered it as I went about doing some social work, they asked me if I am Mungiki as did police in Nairobi last year.. now that I have a full head of locks seemed to think!

And before that Rosie as we used to call her, had coped with doing my hair by washing it and then plaiting it immediately.. even when it had chemicals and undoing it after drying it to give me a wild and kinky look... and it had worked for sometime!! And then, after 2007 elections with the violence.. I cut off my long hair.. all of it!! and now feeling so happy that campaigns and social work where dress mattered like that.. and not in an office.. i could lock my hair.. I did that! Someone did it for me.. I could not wait for the first growth to lock it! My hair is soft and I had a hard time locking it and am so happy to know that unlike people believe.. it can be so clean and healthy.

I now wash and style my hair on my own.. cannot believe it.. but this is what made me so happy when I watched Good Hair and sat there seeing the tortured heads of our sisters and brothers.. and human hair! I had never put this extension of human hair on my head!! I simply could not believe the price and the name! And I always asked my friend Rosie why it was called Human Hair? And she always told me it was from horses and etc.. cos something would make me think if it it human hair.. it should be my own..

Ooops.. in Good Hair I get to discover this is...is... human hair and is shorn off women in India!1n the temple.. Oh, no!

But this is hair thing is a big industry.. and it does get to women most! But look if you can have 1 000 dollars on your head.. well, you are free.. but for human hair extension.. you know, it shocks me! The women who give their hair in India get nothing.. it is the men who trade in it mainly in suitcases!! It all gets so terrible for me.. But you may continue wearing your huge hair.. the world haas made us think that is the only way of being. And, yes, I remember my caucasian friend in California also wearing a blonde extension.. it is not a black and white thing but Chris Rock who does the investigation in the movie does not go there! But the lesson is there.. let's at least save kids from havoc on their heads with chemicals.. and let us get them from the beginning to affirm, " MY hair is afro, kinky or whateva.. even locked but i love it!" In Kenya, it is not allowed for kids to go to school in dreadlocks.. but some escape with chemical treatment!!

For so many, we thank Ocampo and ICC for ....

2010-04-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

... moving fast to deal with the Kenyan situation because it was shameful that Kenya fell this low through the work of those elected to look after the people. I hope the expressed desire of the ICC to open up the Kenyan case means real thorough work that leaves our nation healed at least by the attempt to give justice!

I was shocked that we fell this low.. and have never recovered from this and like most Kenyans, the post poll violence of 2007 became an ugly reminder of the fact that we have not yet build a nation even if we got independence in 1963!

May this woman who is standing outside a church in which many were burnt alive be heard above! May her cries be a shrill reminder of shame to those "leaders" and local people who did not attend the memorial ceremony including government ministers and MPs a year later at the church because they said they were not invited! They should have been there to hold a burnt nation in their hands as one! And many of us Kenyans can say along with this woman and others who were killed that we too did not invite these calamities to our land!

non violence in Kenya

2010-03-28T02:59:00.000-07:00

TOWARDS A JUST SOCIETY IN KENYA - NON VIOLENT OPTIONS

You can’t change Kenya only because tomorrow you want the biggest office in the land! I respect those who want to go for big offices but let them be sure it change not only for them to get there!) That might not make any difference to system so deranged!

Summary of a talk at a public forum, sponsored by WAJIBU, at the Goethe Institut, 2 July 2009

Philo Ikonya

I think that we are no longer asking if a revolution will come to Kenya. The question we are asking is: how will it come about? Will change be peacefully achieved? Will it be non-violent? I am here to talk about non-violent options.
But we must take note of where we are. I see a Kenya that always has had violence somewhere: for instance, the violence represented by the disappeared and the assassinated. And then there is teargas to meet you if you speak out about the many commissions investigating the violence and which have not brought an end to it.

Beyond that, there is the violence of poverty, of deprivation.Those hit by this type of violence may even be totally unaware of the violence of corruption, of greed and inefficiency in the management of public funds. These people are daily covered by the dust the big vehicles of our MPs blow on them as they pass them to represent them in Parliament. This is the same Parliament that rejected the formation of the Local Tribunal investigating the post-election violence and unanimously defended its hefty salaries and perks. It is also the Parliament that refused to have any extraordinary sessions around the country or to agree to bury the dead together after post-poll violence.
What are our options, faced as we are with the fact that our inability to heal such deep rifts might spark renewed violence?

My option

I believe in justice. I have faith. I believe that other people have and have had this same conviction and that their faith has helped to bring about change in the societies where they lived and live and that they have brought some measure of peace to the world. I believe in searching for peace even in the eyes of a policeman hitting out at you. For they, the police, are victims. I am going to be blunt and say that the peace and stability that Kenya experiences today, the small measure of peace and stability if you prefer, is actually a result of violence. For when some people see violence in terms of blood and spilt entrails, they start working for peace. But if the types of violence surrounding them are invisible to them they may not act.

Seeking justice

Ignoring situations only breeds more violence. Those who turn a deaf ear to injustice fail to see that they cannot expect good things only for themselves. For it is has now become obvious in Kenya that people would rather die than remain poor for generations. Their dignity is daily experiencing an affront that they cannot tolerate. In the past in Kenya, about 500 people were killed for the rape of two Maasai girls during the construction of the railway. We do not go for death but where is this burning sense of punishing gone and left us with a huge stone of impunity on our plates? In Senegal, some women opposing slavery committed suicide. Kenyans do not need to do this. Here we die everyday in many ways and we have already had too many martyrs dying for this nation. Do you know how many people die monthly from consummation of illicit brews and how many in our hospitals and homes from neglect?

But, when seeking for justice, there is no place to hide. All of us should work boldly to obtain it, for, as J.M. Kariuki said, we cannot afford to have a government for the few. Part of justice is the right to livelihood: that we can eat well, sleep under a decent roof and have access to sanitation that does not ruin the environment. We must allow ourselves no matter if we are in comfort now, no matter how peaceful things might be for you just now, to cut deep and see if we are enforcing justice all around us for without it, we cannot expect peace.

Non-violence

We may get somewhat disconcerted when we hear the words peace and non-violence. Living as we do in a violent environment, we must make a definite intention to seek peace. We cannot afford to be passive while others are preparing violent ways.
Alternatives to violence exist and they include incessant action so that everyone may possess:
• Reminding public office bearers including the principals that they are humus… for this nation, just manure. Humility in office to serve.. and all the ministers and people in power are humus from which the word humility comes and humility here means living the truth, not a funny posture or inability to assert one self. It does not mean preaching to others all the time and doing nothing ourselves. We elect our leaders. We are to blame when they are poor.

• Enforcing a new type of leadership that shuns corruption through an election
• Renewing fearlessly our governance arrangements in education and health
. changing the minds of those who would police and meaning of policing as service....
• Finding ways of leading disenchanted young people to connect their plight of deep unhappiness to hope and faith. If you think they are in militias for fun you are mistaken.
• We must open deep inside the heart and mind of every citizen to love a return to self and to African ways of democracy and peace and plant the longings that we take for granted for hope and faith that it is possible even if it takes reggae.
• Transformative power must be accessible to all and that includes creativity.
• Renewing our commitment to the values and laws in the new constitution ( if we get it and if we do not get it, finding spaces to repeat and reconnect with these values.)..
• Media agenda setting for justice and hearing of all.
• Enforcement of rule of law
• Proactive willing and open communication on how we feel about others.

• Non-violent communication.
• Principles and techniques, that is obtaining peace knowledge, both traditional and new.
• Pro-activity in the prevention of new power-related violence.
• Ability to deal with cultural conflicts.

The Kenyan context

When we talk of Kenya, we mean Kenya as the entire nation; we look at the haves and the have-nots and at those who could have had more but instead have helped the have-nots to move up. We also look at those who put up barriers that prevent others from moving up.
We look at the marginalized. They face poverty, political marginalisation, discrimination related to ethnic origin, tribe, age, sex, beliefs and everything else that can make one different from the majority and therefore vulnerable. On the other hand, we are also looking at the individual person as a driver of change. In other words: we are not asking, what can we do? We are saying this is what I, we will do. We are accepting that individuals act in thousands of ways against situations that are unjust. We are taking into account that our small actions matter and when done in their thousands, that they can trigger an unstoppable momentum. Each person may prefer to do their own thing with regard to what they face individually as human beings. However, when we find we are facing similar problems we need a major joint solution to give greater meaning to our small efforts.
We have poverty in terms of what to eat and drink. But we also have poverty of ideas. Every day, all of us, anywhere, can wake up with an idea that will help us and our children get through the day. Let that bind us together and not tribal origins.
Upon waking up in any slum, a person’s first concern is where to find a toilet. One can find that toilet peacefully or fight with someone else to use it first, the way we used to see people fight to enter a matatu. (public-service vehicle) Similar fights are going on every day with respect to space, food, privacy, work. We are always struggling to serve those close to us because we feel our dignity needs this. Yet, these are the things that can fuel violence.
It is estimated that in Kibera there is one toilet for every 200 people. This is violence. Violence does not only happen when you pick up a machete. It happens whenever you have poverty, a deep and hopeless poverty, a poverty that is tolerated by the powers that be to the extent that the person born into it knows he will die in it. It is when people are trapped by this kind of poverty and at the same time surrounded by a show of affluence by the haves that physical violence becomes a means of self-expression. It is at this point that people no longer care if they die, how they die and who dies. It is not a matter of putting projects in Kibera and Mathare. It is urgent to put a project into the hands of all Kenyans who are soon planning to move to Mathare or Kibera because of rural poverty and to rehabilitate and close slum life standards. Yes, it is.
Someone says it: “a child who dies of hunger today, it is murdered.” We cannot have peace in a world where people are regularly murdered in this way. Many poor people die, either slowly or violently, simply because they are poor. The statistics tell us that 100, 000 people die of hunger every day, and every seven minutes a child below ten dies of hunger. Going to such places to say, “Peace be with you!” does not work if there is no jihad against the causes of injustice.

What drives change?

Change does not happen without millions of movements taking place first in the mind, then physically and finally in our national decision-making and government action. There are serious unresolved socio-political issues. Why do we have so many failed states? Why are people creating wealth at the expense of others all the time?
There is a possibility of overcoming these barriers so that social justice and stability are reached. And there is a way of overcoming inequalities through a non-violent approach.
We need individuals to embrace the prospect of change, especially change for the poorest and for the most marginalized. We must have a government that understands its people and listens to them because we say we are a democracy.
You saw how people in an area called Kiserian in Marigat spoke about the pain of violence caused by fifteen people dressed in black, who came into homesteads and killed cattle. One man said; “ My shamba lies there dead, for this livestock is my shamba. What am I supposed to do and I have a family to feed and children in school?” When you see dead cattle and, at the same time, children who have had to quit school because they were forced to close, you touch and smell violence.
It was refreshing to listen to Wangari Maathai on a BBC forum challenging us by asking why Africa tops in most negative things: disease and poverty and (I guess) ignorance.
Acting in a non-violent way is not breaking anything. In fact, in our circumstances, being non-violent actually means being prepared how to handle violence all the time. Violence is here and I cannot wish it away. We know it. We see reports of abductions, murders, militia operations, grisly road accidents. We go to places like Kenyatta National Hospital or our own district hospital and find violation instead of healing.
There are ways in which anybody – including those in power – can stem violence and create peace. Regardless of who you are, you can benefit from what the organisation, Alternatives to Violence offers: training to people to act in a non-violent way.

Transformative power- Creativity

We have power that lives in us, is around us, something that speaks to us without words, no matter our educational level or class in society. Do I trust in my own power? My first word in this sharing was “I”. Do I trust in myself and in the power in others to seek peaceful solutions?
How? We should make it clear that we not only expect the best from ourselves but also that we expect the best from our leaders. Accepting personal responsibility for situations is vital. What role did I play in the last election, either before of after? Do I truly care for my country, for people in this country? Do I affirm them? One way of caring for others and affirming them is listening to their concerns for they also have knowledge.
People are not lesser human beings because they are poor. In fact, Africa is not a poor continent. We should not be ashamed of ourselves; we should believe in ourselves and in our African ways of solving conflics. Violence is active… you have seen what horrible photos you can get from it. Reconciliation must also be active. The plight of the internally displaced is too evident of the fact that we are not serious about proactive reconciliation.
Non-violenct communication
Right now you can opt to have the kind of dialogue that either creates peace or reminds others of the things that create discontent.
Think before reacting. This is especially necessary with our politicians. No one is supposed to follow another blindly. Try unexpected solutions, including humour. Let us laugh at ourselves and at our strange ways of acting or being. Let us try to enjoy our strengths and weaknesses together.

Transforming leadership and media

Whatever else happens we must transform all the levels of power in this country: the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature. We cannot afford to continue in the same mould. We need bold radicalism in our choice of leaders. We must dream of eradicating the slums, creating jobs in millions. Stand up, you visionaries, industrialists and act for your country today.. Do not begin by doing it in order to get a post in government or parliament. Let the people re-define parliament as bunge la mwananchi (people’s parliament) have done; let the people redefine what they understand a parliamentarian to be: namely, a mjumbe, the bearer of messages to government. Let our Parliament reflect the true face of Kenyans.. not just the rich and connected!
We must participate in our media and to be the ones who tell our local radios when they are being tribal. After all, only if you speak the language broadcast can you catch the nuances! I would have wished to see a program of reconciliation produced and followed by every media station in this country and especially by those that led people to violence. What non-violence programs or ways are being put in place? Who will be allowed to dominate Kenya’s public space tomorrow? The fourth estate must play their role, just like community radios are doing. They must play a major part in turning this pyramid of a few rich people on top upside down!

My boquet of wild flowers

2010-03-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

My bouquet of wild flowers for you

By Philo Ikonya

©2010

I will give you new wings, photo by Marisa Fushille, Lake Nakuru 2010

A village for their garland in a far land

From our one quarter acre plots, we only saw their spiraling pipes irrigating coffee from afar, as we fetched water on our backs from rivers hidden between steep hills.

We ached to get out of mud houses. Our life was mud. We touched it to plant, we sang to it weeding crops and we coaxed it to harvest. We mourned to it when we buried our dead in the rain. And who can forget what it is like to carry water on your back and walk on muddy ground? And there was no consolation on hot red soil either and the search for the shade of a tree in the hot season.

Why do you today steal land from Kenya’s Mau water tower? This is the water that irrigates all our land in Kenya and beyond. If you can steal this one and go free, why was my Father detained? We will protect our Aberdares, Mt. Kenya and other water towers. We refuse to anger the river, lake, and sea gods and to kill our children and animals! We are proud villagers with the courage of all fires. We ask questions for people, flora and fauna.

Justice denied

By Philo Ikonya ©
March 1, 2010

I will give you new wings,
I will take away the sting.

Wings of hope,
Sting of pain.

But I will ask for justice,
Even for these.

That fall in the mud,
Of disease caused by us.

The planet sighs and sinks.
How can it fly?

Wings fallen in mud,
Flight stolen in height.

I will seek the balance,
Birds of the air had nests,
before you came to power.
Not not even children do,
See IDPs their new name.
I seek justice.

For you

For your voice of justice
In Kenya,
For your ringing truth,
I give my thoughts.

For your pain of loss,
I breathe with your life.

For the sweat of your brow
For the poor,
For the widows of Mau Mau
For their children,
I live in hope.

For you just having been,
J.M. Kariuki.
A Mau Mau detainee
Who flew high,
Before they cut your wings,
And drove pain in you.
We stand by not watching
We work.
Children of many generations
For Kenya,
because of you,
J.M.Kariuki.

Your spirit never died,
It flew with new wings of justice.
It is everywhere,
And high on Ngong’ Hills.

2 March 2010

Gift

Inside me there is an outpouring. It is the kind can only be shared intimately. I will share it with you in writing. I hope you will feel like sharing more. I have a little prose, a proverb, a poem.. here held by a string of words are many of these. They make a wild boquet in my hands.

Something overflows there in my soul, where the hills are no longer hills, where mountains are inside rivers and rivers are inside mountains. If I had known that I was going to meet you here in this moment, I would have come in a dress made of soft glass so that together we sit on this unusual carpet of weeds and see everything. My dress would have been a camera.

The grass, it is so soft. I remind you my beloved, that we must never block the air from it, by the way we sit and hold our hands as we share our sunset. Air is their life as is ours in our breath. The overflow is powerful and it takes me on my wings, off my dainty feet that tried to dance towards a police van that had come for my arrest. I am extremely angry that they killed you. But your spirit flies here.

In our dreams we fly from point to point. In this very special meeting in this river without mountains, our souls merge. I feel no resistance to oneness, and I wonder if this ardor will consume me.

Should I not now take out some book that with its sweet or powerful words will save me from becoming the useless clod of mud that the police van wants to collect?

This outpouring is for my land, what have you done for yours and for your neighbour’s land? I wept for mine. Then I learned to fly on the wings of beauty. I took my country’s furniture for repair. I stood on the mountain that used to rain snow on the equator and saw it facing many faces facing it with tears of blood for justice.. justice to the grass not just to the throne.

I did had not looked at it this way, that if the people prayed facing the mountain the mountain is the one who faces them. I saw this in the mirror of the river that is in the mountain and I cried with sweetness when I saw it; after this I then cried with pain because the mirror of snow was breaking and breaking as a glacier, it was moving dangerously towards all the people that prayed facing the mountain and yet, it is the mountain that faced them.

Every drop of water, and every particle of it was a mirror of realities behind realities. If I tell the man of powers to read messages in those mirrors, the leaves will become soft copies of injustice. Take my outpouring, if it touches you, take it and pass it on. In remembering you, I want also to save the green that is defiled every time we are unjust! I wish we all held each other in love. But no. Many are in exile.

South Sahara Sno wing

When white gentleness that is nobody’s color
Falls on my shoulders gently,
Lights up the sky and,
brings more light,
Makes me a carpet for my tired feet,
Says many good mornings with every little drop
Snow becomes my best welcome,
My heart is warm.

It falls on my black and together we make two
It falls on the red of our flag and joins up with
That green of peace unraced.
It falls all around on green,
and I see my way again.
So many drops of snow allow me
to jog and smile.
And the moment tells me,
it is like no other.
Never mind those who,
Cannot see beyond color!

I got off my camel and left it warm,
sun shining in my land but nowhere to step.
Drought and hunger,
And amazing snow silence;
In the heat of pain and death,
I shouted with my voice,
and they took me to jail.
Here is a new land giving,
safety to my back
And here,
snow becomes,
my best welcome it does!
Sometimes in the contradiction of time,
Lies an eternity!

in 12/12 "arts united 4 Iran'
12. Dec 2009

No to tales,

No to tales here
That the war is so old,
They will never know peace!
Every pain is new
All sinews know
And we are those bones!

Pen the gun!
Isstt!! Gunfire!
Women are judges
It is time for peace!
In Iran,
They dress in green
and sing their voices:
Children want to rejoice
and refugees a choice
this the song of our soul,
Green sits on black!

I join in chorus
No to woes,
No to Wars
No to tales
Of war unending.
My drum in unisong
Is calling the day,
we long for it
when women
will womb time spend
to reach other levels
without the sound of the gun
Their titles gladly to take!

Women of Iran
Are strong fighters,
Fighters for peace
In peace!
Mohammed Ali knows this,
Shirin Ebadi is progeny!

So,

No to tales here
That the war is so old,
They will never know peace!
Every pain is new
All sinews know
We are those bones
And now sing in green!!

Street thoughts early in the morning

24th Nov, a bright morning

Delirious, you swung in my language
hitting words and phrases,
eager to learn what my ancestors
said in their original words,
finding changes,
our tongues warmed up.

And the two of us discovered our own language,
and that morning the sun rose for us,
just to remind us it is one bead,
that around the earth, same earth,
swings to wake the moon!

We ride in on the edge of an early morn,
with clear light and softness for the face,
we rode so high and the morning hope,
did see us tremble in our own words.

Here the gods take the sky, ring it and dry it,
and hung it out over humankind in winter.
There is the church I could not see yesterday at midday,
there is a face today so bright and a baby,
looks at me with amazing persistence from tiny cot,

Little bogir* who ever you might be,
When the pram is done and you take the tram,
Don’t let the world cheat you as Mother has not,
That color is where to begin the heart to meet.
The colours in this colourful bead you want,
Are all one, black in red and green and white
Blue and grey in yellow is ripe.

*bogir is boy/girl

Freedom Vigil for Aung San Suu Kyi on her birthday
June 15
Tags:
• Burma
• Cambodia
• Kharbhih your souls are ours
• Mo Suchua
To many pulse women we know;
Mo Suchua, Aung San Suu Kyi and Hasina Kharbhih

Your souls are ours

Mu Suchua,
If they take you to prison;
When you step in prison,
because you spoke your truth, to them;
and it was bitter than gall;
if they open the prison door’
and turn the key, and you remain in,
remember this, Mu Suchua, they have not locked your power.
You have it in your heart, and all over the world, your souls are ours,
For your love for Cambodia, sing freedom, let us sing!
In your love for Cambodia, we love you Mu Suchua,
you who stares like a lion at the face of evil,
speaks clearly like faith in the face of power,
speaking truth to power, speaking truth to evil,
frightening them till their hearts and tails recoil,
and you bringing love; to women who keep dancing!
In your love for Cambodia, We thank you Mu Suchua.
With tears in our eyes, Mo Suchua, but never mind our tears!
We the women of the world, who stand up for all children,
we the women with a pulse that runs faster as children fall in Gaza,
we the women who refuse to keep silent.
we the women; Mo Suchua.
Take with you Aung San Suu Kyi spirit,
when they turn the key your souls are ours,
we turn up our cry!
We arrest ourselves for her house arrest we give our souls,
we know of her pain in Burma, arrested in our wombs,
we have given many births, and she was still under arrest.
Many suns have risen and set, calling the moon to her turn,
our daughters and sons grown tall as Aung San Suu Kyi!
and she, minute by minute serving a sentence; and finally the ridicule.
tell, me, who should be trying who?
Aung San Suu Kyi, should try Burma and then the world,
as she holds hands with Mu Suchua and our sister Hasina.
Hasina she says no to human trafficking,
Hasina today she walks to court gallantly,
Hasina she holds her files of a firm called Impulse!
I like it Hasina I see the passion!
But to Hasina they send a woman to beat her,
Hasina is beaten and threatened today, this afternoon
Outside court and police watching,
But before nightfall we are all there; from four all corners of the world,
We have come, via internet pulse,
to pick up Hasina!
The way attorney Ann Njogu came at midnight
to get me out of dark and lonely and wet cells,
Only male cops for my falls but her soul was mine,
We are now here to touch and heal Hasina’s wounds,
The way Laetitia came to soothe mine!
They ask us how can these women dance across nations with such a pulse,
Hasina in … in Shuuuling…never mind the best have not heard of it,
Aung San Suu Kyi… you know our uncles and fathers fought in Burma,
brought by the British the innercore of violence,
all the way from our villages still madmen walk,
singing of when they were in Burma and touching medallions!
and then they ask us how we dance to continents with our souls of peace?!
Free our history! Free Cambodia! Free Burma! Free Kenya! Free the world!
They tied up the world’s women and turned away,
you put structures in the hands of men with and vested them raw power,
you know our aches come mainly from the same source,
if we follow the river to the source, we will get our cure,
and use it like manure to sprint to the future,
the past is bleak but we learn from it.
So if you go into exile Hasina Kharbhih, if you do,
if you have to be taken away to a place of peace,
remember to talk to all nations of peace and justice,
remember we are here dancing with you,
bleeding and dancing in the revolution of women of peace!
Our souls are yours!
Mu Suchua dancing,
Dancing with Harriet Tubman,
Spiriting blacks to freedom!
Aung San Suu Kyi, writing,
dancing with Gertrude Stein,
writing of ourselves and for strangers.
making Hasina Kharbhih go, Stein tells Hasina,
the strangers, ‘dear friend, are an afterthought!”
and all women dance along to “make many mad!”
but making any one who would claim sense think!
Sophie Dowallar drums to the beat,
Sings to da beat.
Drums to da beat, dala na, dala na Mama!
Making world women go marching and dancing!
Women, the lords of the dance!

12 Comments
So beautiful
On June 15, 2009, JaniceW wrote:
Philo, it's so wonderful to hear from you again. I see the spirits of all the women on PulseWire rising up in dance, moving to the rhythmic flow of your words, as they carry their love and strength to these three women. A truly powerful and beautiful poem. Thank you!
Philo, I'm very worried about
On June 15, 2009, Kizzie wrote:
Hi Philo!
I'm very worried about Aung San Suu Kyi. The world is really helpless, we don't know what should be done about the dictatorship in Burma. The real change is going to come from within. Remember the 2007 protests? The Burmese people are very brave and resilient. They need all the support they can get.
Have you read Aung San's writings? She is very touching!
On June 15, 2009, jadefrank wrote:
Hi Philo!
When I saw your picture in Voices Rising, I could not wait to read your new journal as I enjoy your writing so much. What a moving tribute to the courageous World Pulse women who are being persecuted unjustly in their own countries. Please do write a follow-up journal with details and reflections from your vigil tomorrow. I will light a candle as well.

Hi Philo!
This is my favorite part:
We the women of the world, who stand up for all children,
We the women with a pulse that runs faster as children fall in Gaza,
We the women who refuse to keep silent.
We the women; Mo Suchua.
Take with you Aung San Suu Kyi spirit,
When they turn the key your souls are ours,
We turn up our cry!
and:
And all women dance along to “make many mad!”
But making any one who would claim sense think!
Sophie Dowallar drums to the beat,
Sings to da beat,
Drums to da beat, dala na, dala na Mama!
Making world women go marching and dancing!
Women, the lords of the dance!
I love your posts always, and your poems are so great!
Maria
Wonderful
On June 25, 2009, LOGWELL wrote:
Hi Philo,
This is a very powerful and creative poem for an equally strong and powerful woman. Yes indeed, women , the lords of the dance.
Cheers
This moves my soul as I'm
On July 6, 2009, Lycia Ora wrote:
This moves my soul as I'm sure it does so many others who read in your words what our own hearts and souls have been yearning to cry out to the world. Your words speak in that universal language of unity, courage, strength and resilience that is every woman. Thank you for speaking for all of us.
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan

Sink conversations

I was washing some dishes in my kitchen. My radio was on BBC World Service but by now it was fading in the background as the tap water run and I put some green lemon liquid soap on a green scouring pad, and I let the warm water run.

The water was not warm from electrical heating, in fact, I do not have heated water in my kitchen here in Nairobi where I live in a gorgeous little flat near Uhuru Park. No it was naturally warm water due to the warm temperatures with us even as May sails in. It was very hot in the preceding months of this year 2008, but we hardly had time to realize it was so hot, as Kenya was on fire.

Well, I was washing the orange specked plates that I have and as I went on from a plate to a cup, suddenly a great feeling of victory filled my heart and mind. I remembered how until recently, I had no time for these chores. I was busy campaigning for political office. Someone else had to do them. I failed to get office. I heaved a sigh of relief.

It felt so good to just do put the drops soap on the scouring pad and clean! You know the typical light scouring pads we have there? The ones that usually come in dark green, and clean quite well? I wonder if this is what my pen would be doing in an elective office if I had managed to get in? Cleaning up? Or would I too be making things less clear?

The soap, which I had noticed for the first time on the supermarket shelves only this year, politics can make you blind, was great. It lasted very, long. Very, very long and was better than the one we used to use when my assistant was here. Why had I not noticed it was going to waste in my own house? Would I have noticed office irregularities if I had taken office and the oath of office?

The soap- was soft and true to its label, kind on hands. If it had already been several years on the shelves had active life made me run to the same shelves and the same counters all the time?

Had I lost time to explore new things in the three years that preceded the election? Would I have had the time to notice its loss of quality were it to happen and asked questions in Parliament on behalf of women who usually end up being the ones who buy these things?

I would shudder that it would eventually lose its good quality but for now, nice suds, a feeling of clean, no clinging grease or thin films, just so joyous!!!

I loved this, standing at the sink and cleaning dishes. I always remember that feeling of ‘oh, professional women like yourself, should be doing far more important things than wasting time in the kitchen! Do they know about the sink conversations?

I heard his voice again, and beyond the voice a certain feeling of, I had learned to describe it now, frustration? I think so, I refused to give in. Why would anyone or society always prescribe where one should be? I decided to always go against the grain. Why did I have to feel that something was being robbed off me, me alone in the kitchen cleaning up? Could I not make this my daily creative meditation? Why not? Could I manage to be creative at the sink? I decided to enjoy it.

The little suds are off the plate, the water gushes from my taps. My kitchen view is into a garden with jacaranda trees and a lot of green. Green grass. A tree or shrub but quite high with bright red petals of flowers on it declares to the world that green can hold up red. Both are colors of our flag with black of course.. and a streak of white for peace, they said.. as if black is for war? Clotheslines. Many of them for all the people living in this silent and quiet block of flats; where really only I had a child in block A are minding their various businesses. All the other kids who usually come up to play in the small sitting room on a second hand playstation live in blocks H, F and C are on holidays. There were days I had many as 12 kids of all ages here, to see my son.

Zzzreeee goes the water and am through. I clean up that little yellow yoghurt slipped off my son’s cup and I am ready. I want to make the kitchen sparkle clean, but it will take some long practice hours to clean up a nation.

**************************************************

I

I think of your new wings
When children play.
When the light comes
And everything comes alive.
See what I hear
Near me, far away but always with me.

Part two

Poems set free

My poem’s house

Will you come into my house?
Said the mouse to my wide eyes?
A one room house,
full of toys and games too!,
There is in our room tea,
bread and sweet jam and poems to eat!

And at night,
the moon and the train,
Come to whizz us off,
as we sleep on our bed,
And off we go to dream land!
zuum, zuum, zuum!
Yes, I come, I said!
With my eyes wide open!
To a world of sweet poetry
am flying like a butterfly!

Sing a Song! a song, song!

Songa Songa!

It is time for fun!
Bring your laughter!
Leave your hunger.

Songa, songa!

And tell your anger,
to wait a little longer,
It is time for fun!

Songa, songa!

Tell the flying bee to fly away!
as on the river we dance,
Tell the duck to join in!

Songa, songa!

Leave your anger,
Come to my left,
Come to my right,
Hold out your hands,
In a circle we go!

Songa Songa!

Maize

Maize, maize
Me you amaze,
Where did you get your gaze?
So many teeth on your face,
Your soft hair you keep combing!
And coming back to us!

Maize, Maize
You never laze,
Your gift of strength to all you give,
Maize maize on you we lean,
And with beans you make good food!
For us to eat!

Maize, Maize,
I smile at your grace,
I love your wide smile for me,
And with your dry cob,
Many don’t know,
I light a fire and keep all aglow!

Ringing and singing

I hear bells ringing
Girls are singing!
Bells ringing I hear,
Boys are singing too,
There are songs in my ear!

The grass is singing here,
There are no tears in our eyes!
Cows are munching, moving and looking,
We want to play skipping and kicking!

The world is smiling,
Winking stars are peeping,
Behind the moon and clouds in the night!
And now am sleeping,
Dreaming and dancing and skipping and singing away!

Mosquito Mbu!

Mosquito, Mosquito will you go away?
Mbu! Mbu! Umbu!!! mbu, mbu!!
You came with the rain and what did you bring?
The rain brought grain and you brought pain,
With your sting and sting on wings!

Mosquito, Mosquito, don’t play with me,
Am inside the net, you go outside my tent,
And look for the rain again!
Mosquito, Mosquito the rain brings gain,
You just ask the sun to play in the plains!

Mosquito, Mosquito, sting none of us!
You must go away a monkey to tease,
Pleaaaaaaassseeee, you marry the sun!
With your zeeee and zeeee and zeee!
Umbu! umbu! umbu!

Sunshine

Sunshine on the hill looks like golden air,
Sun on brown leaves looks like lovely fire!
Sunshine on the grass is a shining green carpet,
Sunshine in the wind is like a moving car.

I love the hills in the golden sunshine!
The sun bathes the trees, earth is so clear!
The grass grows up tall, its hands in the air!
And I stretch my hands and feet and dance!

I catch a berry it is for mum,
I catch a leaf it is for my goat,
I catch some sticks, they are for my drum,
Tum, tum, tum, tum! tum! tum!
I touch the wind behind my coat!

I run like the wind, a tree to plant!
I look at the sun and I know my dream,
I ask it to shine and shine for my pet,
My goat goes meeeeh, meeh, meeh!
An ant goes, tat, tat, tat! tat ! tat !

The flower

See that flower in the morning!
It greets you and you smile!

See that flower when the sun is up,
It greets you and closes up!

See that flower in the evening,
Smiling at the moon and waiting.

See that flower in the night!
Not afraid of the dark it says goodnight,
and goes to sleep after greeting God!

Where are you?

River, where is your head,
and why is your tail?
River, River, so long you are,
Your head in the mountains,
Your tail in the sea,
How do you see,
As you go to the sea?

River, River,
I saw you from the bridge?
Never in a fridge,
I saw you from my boat.
As rowing I went.
And the sun it smiled
At your tail in the Indian Ocean!

Are you one river or many rivers,
the whole world over?
River, river you are so clever,
ears and eyes all over,
Some homes in the lakes,
and others in the ridges,
You are so clever river, river,
I want you to stay clean forever!

Fishes in Lake Victoria

Small fishes, tiny Omena,
They swam so fast for Amina,
Tiny fishes, so sweet and swift,
They swam so fast to their granny fish!
To keep them safe!

Tiny fish saw big fish,
And they run away quickly,
Saying, Away, Away, Away,
Big Tilapia comes to swallow us!
Tilapia, Tilapia, you go away,
Grandpa will come and fish you for Sofia!

The wind's faces

The wind blew like a skirt,
And in its art, danced so alert!
It picked the papers,
I saw them dance!

It picked too,
Old Mr. Tumbo’s tie,
It danced and danced,
With it in the dust!

The wind blew again,
Like a soft touch on my face,
As a breeze above me,
Wind on my face,
Wind on my nose!

The wind’s face in the morning,
Chilly and biting at 6am,
I run off to school!

The wind’s face at 12 pm,
Warm and inviting,
It called me for lunch!

The wind’s face in the evening,
A blanket in the sky,
It is sleepy, I spy!
And I snore, snore, snore!

I love you Granny Akitelek!

Granny Akitelek,
How are you?
I love your face,
So full of stories your mouth!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your cake,
You bake it in the sun,
And it is fun,
to eat it all day long!
It is a sweet potato!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your ears,
They dance with beads,
That swing from ear to ear,
And warn me when danger you hear!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your eyes,
They shine like beads,
And a secret they tell!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your soft hands,
After so much hard work,
They are kind to me!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your hard feet,
They walk and walk,
And bring berries to eat!

Granny Akitelek,
I love your heart,
It is big and bright!
And so full of warmth!

My mum sent me

I run fast,
I want to go past,
those ones playing football!
Today I cant go, kick, kick!
With other players in the field!

Today, I must kick, the ball as I go,
And play the football of family!
I am playing for daddy,
Am the goalkeeper,
Who is a sweeper with a smile!

Today am playing for mummy,
With my sister’s pain in the tummy!
Am the doctor in the house today,
So that my sister can run fast tomorrow!

I kick pain away with the medicine I bought!
I kick dirt with my broom without sorrow!
I fly like a wing with a swing!
I am the goalie, my sister the striker,
My mother cheers and dad has no fears!
We are a team in joy and sorrow!

Thank you earth for peanuts!

Thank you sun for under the earth,
You keep things that are sweet to eat!
Oh, sweet, sweet potato,
When goats smell your vines, they bleat!
You keep nuts and potatoes in a secret store!

Thank you earth for above yourself,
You show off beans of so many colours,
This one is fat and plain red,
This one is tiny and maroon,
This one is brown and black,
This other bean is just so sweet!
You like beige and I love green!

This other bean is just dark black,
With a white slit around its top!
This other one is a cowpea,
Drying in the sun,
and full of hope!

How I love your fields of bean,
And their Creator who cares for my health!

I like these sounds to hear

The sound of food boiling in the pot,
rurururuuu, ruuuurrruuuu, ru!
The sound of rain falling on the roof,
Tatatatatttta, tattatttat, ttatttaaaa, uuuuuhm!
And I asleep on Saturday morning,
In my blanket deep!

The sound of birds telling stories,
Wi, wip, chwi, che, kwin, kwi, kwi! In the morning!
The din of the town where dad beats tin,
Din, din, din, din, din till it shines!

The sound of my mother singing lullabies,
oiyooo, Oiyooo, Oiyooo, Oiyoo, lulla lulla lullaby!
And reading stories, telling stories, as she also counts,
One story, two story, three story and here is glory!
All these sounds to me are money!
All these sounds to me are honey!
All these sounds to me are life!

My aeroplane

I drew my aeroplane and it flew,
Flew in my mind,
Flew in the wind!
I made my aeroplane and it flew!
Flew in the sky,
Flew in my hand!

One dry maize leaf,
It had for wings,
One stick in the middle,
It had for body,
And its engine me running,
Fast and singing,
aeroplane fly, aeroplane fly!

Then I looked up in the sky,
Saw a big jumbo,
floating there,
Pilot Jambo!
How is it there?
Come along and sit I heard!
Excited I jumped in
Two hundred people sat and flew,
Not a problem, they watched films!
Flew in my mind,
Flew over my land!
I must wake up,
And run to school!

Grasshopper affair

Grasshopper, grasshopper,
Do you kiss the sun?
No my son, No my daughter.

Grasshopper, grasshopper,
You have pretty wings.
Yes, my daughter, yes my son!

I love to hop along,
As to school you go,
I love to learn your song,
As In school you sing and play!

My wheelbarrow

I love my wheelbarrow,
and it is full of things for me to borrow!
A lesson of kindness,
A lesson of generosity,
Like the wheelbarrow be kind,
And generous with your work!

I love my wheelbarrow,
It knows how to follow,
My arms as I guide it along!
Learn how to listen,
Learn how to lead,
Like the wheelbarrow does in work!

I love my wheelbarrow,
It showed me to be miss World,
Be clever and happy,
Hardworking and strong,
Carry and oil your skin,
Open up paths in your village!

I love

Oiling skin in the sunshine,
With castor oil brand new from the shop!
I love smiling at toiling granpa,
Telling loving granma my stories too!

I love watching rivers flowing,
Singing songs to birds,
Listening to the wind blowing,
Dancing with all my soul!

I love seeing the rain falling,
Dancing to its Creator,
Watching beans growing,
And the early sun glowing,
So sweetly on their leaves!

She looks like she is dancing?

Sometimes, just sometimes, something holds her down or seems to hold her down. But not her. She moves, she walks along, jogs, runs, plays and she is new again.. and all this time they think she is dancing. She creates. She writes. She moves on.
From clnics in Rwanda to painful burials in a village in which post poll violence took lives, making women, children and youth wear a crown of thorns made by politicians.... and now they skip the long delayed mass burial... and all of them have valid reasons for not being there...
Women watch and wonder. They knit. They light little fires. They twist their lips and make sounds about motherland. They walk, they run, they skip... and the people think they are dancing. We have endured... post partum blues of a nation. And someone says to us... or to her... in unconquerable Kiswahili..." eh, ni nini mama naniiiii?" ("what is the thing mother of thingy?") and somewhere else... " iiii ni kii nyina wa twana?" ( hey, what is it mother of children?)
Why should she not be this uneasy? And she writes and moves, looks and prays and sometimes sees a black cloud as she passes past State House. She sees it on a bright and shiny afternoon.. she sees it. It hovers above the trees... flies up to the top and hangs about there... a black cloud of death. And she cleans the road... and picks up papers and she hums... she sings. She also remembers the high cost of milk... but most of all, the black cloud hovers that there and darkens and does not fall in rain....What will make it rain?
You see, they say she is dancing and singing like all women do, they say. She looks like she is dancing..and they do not see more.

“Feel Line”

When you think am shy,
I smile.
I know my strategy.
I am wonderful,
warm and harmless.
But I am.
Me.
And please,
Just call me a lion.

The ness is in unnecessary
Not so easy to spell,
But said.

When you think I do not know,
I smile again.
I am quick reader.
I know my prey.
I am sharp eyed.
I am,
Me.

When you say,
I am all feelings.
I laugh.
I know brains.
I am sharp.
In body and speed.
But I am.
Me.

Our love Chirchir, knows no tribal borders!

2010-02-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

To Chirchir

You are the girl who has half my heart and
I have half yours.
2 Hearts in one.
Tongues?
I speak half of yours and you speak half mine,
Language of love in one.
Chichir,
They burnt our house
And said it was Mr K’s
As if many of their names do not
With a ‘K* begin.
I lost my head.

Chirchir,
we share the same sounds so sweet like yours.
Only years of hardship made tribes disagree.
So Chirchir, wait for me,
I have never met tribe,
Only you.
You, and I do not even have half a tribe.
Wait for me, I love you.
I am coming to look at you,
in the mirror of our eyes.

Chirchir.
With tenderness, let us wipe hatred away
And give everyone water to drink.
Love, Kamau.

2010-01-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

inspiCourage note!

to Ida Wells- Barnett 1862- 1931

Marian Wright Edelman
Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
The Trumpet of Conscience

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou

Dear Ida Wells- Barnett

I write regardless of the years that have passed since you were born and died. Your dates are 1862- 1931. You are American. You made change happen because you preceded Rosa Parks in refusing to be mistreated in May 1844 when you were asked to give up your train seat in what they called the white section. You were removed by force and sued and you won the circuit court, but the judgement was reversed by the Tennessee Supreme Court! You used your pen to fight racism and you wrote, “I felt that one had better die fighting injustice… than die like an animal in a trap!”
Ida, the world honors you to this very day. I congratulate you! It is a great thing we have advanced so much in communication! I can Google your name and find out a lot of things, almost feel your heart and see your mind. It is almost possible to live through centuries with reading and internet. But I have to tell you a sad thing and I do not know how this will inspire us but it will make us think! We still have racial, tribal (this word and negative ethnicity bother me but I have no other) tensions. We have problems being just- I really like your struggle for it was about justice for all and not just color- to people and we base it on color or language differences! People do not see black in white still … or white in black. Humans are very careful about whether is black or white or if one has a mixture. Differences are welcome if they are preferred for beauty and so on... but when they are used for injustice.. you cannot be happy. And just to imagine that before you other people fought against slavery (18th Century)! It is getting real boring!
I wanted to tell you about the last story I read in this regard! You will not like our headlines even today and the realities are subtler than headlines. You see, the other day we read about Sallie Sanders who got keys 40 years later for a house unjustly taken from her. Her parents were not there to enjoy this. They were dead already. How sad!
Woman Gets House Keys 40 Years Later
Judge: Hamtramck Violated Rights Of Blacks In City
POSTED: Monday, January 18, 2010
UPDATED: 7:26 pm January 18, 2010
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. -- Part of a discrimination case that started in the 1960s was settled Monday when a woman was given the keys to a new home in Hamtramck.
"It was justice denied," said 6th Circuit U.S. Appeals Court Judge Damon Keith.
"I call it Black removal," said Keith. "They would go into black neighbourhoods, completely wipe it out and then didn't try to relocate them."

Just imagine Ida! But I must keep my focus on justice! And struggle for it! So, I keep reading about courage! Below and above are some quotes I liked.

Yours,
Philo Ikonya

inspiCourage note

Marian Wright Edelman
Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
The Trumpet of Conscience

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou

Stay with us, Mandela. a letter to Mandela

2010-01-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

12th January 2010

Dear Nelson Mandela,

I am writing to you to firstly thank you for having worked so hard for freedom. I always feel that I have you to hold up in many places when much of what comes from our different countries is not very good. I am a Kenyan recently moved to Oslo as a guest writer under ICORN ( International Cities of Refuge Network). I am a human rights activist and writer.

I grew up and went to school in the Rift Valley and not in Central Province where I was born in Kiambu and somehow, my identity in terms of pronunciation of words in my mother language was modified by exposure. Now I speak my mother spoken Gikuyu, English, Kiswahili, Spanish, a little Italian and French and now am learning Norsk. I studied Linguistics and I understand Latin as a root language. I long very much to learn Lingala and also Maasai and once am comfortable with Norsk these are the languages I want to learn this year.

Thank you again. When I, sometimes like today read about Mau Mau in Kenya and remember the stories my father used to tell us about his time in Manyani camp, I miss my father very much. He died in 1991 at a time when I had not analysed things enough for me to thank him for his part in the struggle which seems he passed on to me in a special way with his actions and words.

So, in this letter, I want to thank more than one hero through you. I thank my father, and so many people I have met who fought for freedom. I thank many women who suffered untold things and whose sufferings when told even by a third party leaves one shattered. I have been reading Britain’s Gulag ( the end of brutal empire in Kenya) by Caroline Elkins recently. I thank also the children of Mau Mau times. So brutally were many of them treated, dying on mothers’ back sick and without any form of relief.

The other day I watched Amandla. I thought so much about Vusifyile Mini, Thandi Modise ( the woman who got a baby in prison just before she killed herself), the children of Soweto, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and your letter to him outside prison..and the workers especially the free on Thursday nannies.. and I thought you too and this is partly why I have written. I thought about the long struggles of African people to be free. I thought how Kenya has never found the remains of Kimathi Wa Wachiuri and reburied them with dignity like South Africans did with Mini’s. I thank them for that. And I thank those who wove the struggle with song and brought it to us in Amandla. Thank you for song in the struggle South Africa. For perhaps only in her song and literature can Africa show its true brilliance to the world.. before it overtakes in other fields such as technology and on discovering the cure for many disease still incurable, Aids included.

I have been reading the memoirs of Ahmed Kathrada and see so many people of Asian origin in Africa struggle to help us weave like Gandhi did, a cloth of perhaps cobwebs which as the Ethiopians say, can tie down the marauding lions which I sometimes see as those leaders who refuse to behave like good lions.. simba and guard our homes..our countries. I therefore want with this background and a little more to ask you three questions. But before that, a little more.

When I arrived in Olso, I have been here only two months and one week, I hardly used to dream. Not even about my Mother whose last embrace as she sat on a couch in my flat which I was soon to vacate lingered on me like the 'physical' memory a mother has of the clinging of a child whom she had to abandon at a tender age to go to work or to a trip, did I dream. I still remember that feeling of something is missing from my chest, what one feels after putting a baby down particularly we in Africa who are so used to carrying babies strapped on our backs. But I did not dream of her. Instead, I regularly, when I remembered my dreams, they were of police attacking me or us in demonstrations. I do not think I dreamt out of fear as am very courageous and was often talking ot them to see why it was wrong to torture people or not to allow us to demosntrate and that it was a pity they went against us with such roughness when we were fighting for principles which if they disappear on a society- when no one is vigilant- irreparable damage is done, damage which haunts a society for generations as you well know.

Well, I had one more dream in those early days and I recorded it as I used to record my police nightmares. It was a dream which only had one word in my Mother tongue and you are the one who said it. The word is, ‘huranira’, which I would translate as ‘struggle for me’ although the root of the word, hura, mens beat..which also includes struggle as in many languages of the earth. This dream was short but so clear, I sent it to a friend. And it is this dream and the history of my mother language that has made me write to you. But still before my questions, let me share with you a little more.

I would like to write a happy letter to you. The kind of letter which you would celebrate, a letter which would leave you smiling and not recalling the pains you have had nor the pains of Africa. I always see in a bracket that a time of greater happiness for Africa was knocking at our doors when you were in prison and that we failed to cease it and keep it intact, for you and for our children, so that when you came out prison our celebrations would last. I refer to the time one breathed deeply hearing Nyerere speak, the time of Nkurumah, the time of Pan Africanism with all the names in it from Blyden to Marley and in between all those powerful people like Lumumba Patrice, Sankara, Seko Toure and our American and Latin American brothers and so on.. Azikiwe Nnamdi.. and so many others.. and yourself.

Today we also have voices we can glory in; the elders of Africa: Mandela, Koffi Annan, Graca Machel, Wangari Maathai, Desmond Tutu, Ellen Jonson and others I may not know and perhaps of some in the list we may not all agree.

Now, my three questions. Africa has disconnected itself from its ancestors as a continent.. what do we do when it is so obvious for instance that Kenya prefers to forget persons like Kimathi wa Wachiuri, Me katilili wa Menza, Somoei Arap Koitalel and then rush in to call for help when things go wrong because we have destroyed the silent place in every leader/politician that must be distilled to know that Africa cannot play around longer with issues of justice and freedom? Why should there be Africans in exile now, after your own imprisonment and the exile of many others in the past? Why so many refugees even? Why should Somali children be happy to fall and play in the snow.. if they cannot return home too to play in their little rivers and sunshine? I would not mind if they could play in both countries. Doesn't the blood of famous children such as the children of Soweto and other martyrs such as Biko and Chris Hani suffice?

Africa is so blessed. So full of resources, so full of human love.. ubuntu. .but what prevents us from spreading the power of liberation that vibrated with song from south to north and east to west?Who rules the world Mandela? Who makes DRC such a pittance to look at when it is so rich? Who makes Somalia fail when for 15 years she resisted the British attacks at Darvenish?

My other question how will we save our languages of ancestry if they are spoken by people who refuse to use even traditional democracy to help integrate us all? Why should we, women be proud of my ethnic group that first of all does not count on me and then when there is trouble am suddenly thrown into its brackets to be blamed for being this or that tribe and sometimes even killed? Yet,if I forego my mother language and links with culture, does that mean that my ancestors will abandon me? Who will help us make clear that ancestors like Shaka Zulu fought for justice for the people they belonged to as they knew them then but now will fight for all of Africa. Who is helping us define our identity in the struggle? Who can unite Africa?
Do we agree that our languages are weapons of war when they conserve so much wisdom in their proverbs? Who is stealing us?

Now, then, the last question refers to your message in the dream. Are you looking for young Africans, the other generation like Obama’s that is not showing up with enough strength in my country, to go and meet leadership at the grassroots and generate hope for a world in trouble? Are you truly saying to me and to many others, huranira.. struggle for me? I hope so. Your brave words encouraging new leadership even if few are badly needed and will always be remembered.

I urge you to stay with us Mandela. Do not go. The night and the day are both as long as the evening shadow, the sun has refused to stand still at midday so that we can show the brilliance of Africa with her skirt spread out proudly yet decently carrying her children on all her sides.. making strides. Do not go and if you must, as we all must, tell Dennis Brutus to make a team up there or down there with the ancestors because still the struggle is long. Still it has not started. Stay with us, Mandela, do not go the going of the gone. Stay in our dreams. Let me hold on to mine. And work to teach the children that all of you did not labour in vain. This then, is my message to you. I must give it in tears and in pain, but I am a word, a story and I was born to tell.

With all my affection and with my wounds open sincerely, to heal Africa, if you bless me now, because after, I may stagger with doubts. I ask for that blessing now, father of our people.

Your daughter,

Philo Ikonya

we are not abroad for winter holidays or fun but we live on..

2009-12-19T06:23:00.000-08:00

Naivasha’s mother and son

At this point
I could not,
Tears never have
been enough.

Mother wears
A halo of dark blood
Still flowing
Water and blood
Around her head.

Child yells for hours,
Mother returns no more
Father had gone before.
Him they tore for marrying
across the valley of tribe.

How can eyes look
How dark can life be?
Which song?

Me Katilili and Nyanjiru?
Medusa and Athena,
Oedipus and Lear,
All such tragedy
Combined and worse,
Kimathi and Oneko,
A nation here lies dead.
Orphans sit by watching.

Tragicumulus.
She lay there,
Active hand under the chair
The door almost closing on her
Little child yelling on a chair.
I heard death.

I took personal;
Responsibility
And because am free
I set up my own trial.
The judge is very harsh.
I wore my sack for strength.

Where were you before
We to this came?
Did this happen in this land?
Where was your strength of prophecy?
The shrines, did they die?

I stand condemned,
And may be never healed!
And this is my land.
It crushed my mind.

Even as I, western streets cross
Capitals shining from afar,
with my son in tow
To safety,
When they ask me
How is the winter?
This child still cries in me.

Philo ikonya©

her name means rain and he calls her

2009-11-23T05:18:00.000-08:00

He mumbles in his sleep

Nyaaam,
Nyammburaaa,
Nyam buraaaaa

Her name means Rain
and she is real,
and she is slender,
and he needs her.

Rain falls in the slums,
he mumbles in his sleep,
Nyambu raaaa aa,
Nyamburaaa.

Rain falls on the sea,
he sees water,
he touches Hope.
Rain falls drum drum
into the red mud of our slum,
he feels fear;
but fear touches hope and;
for love he gropes!

Raindrops drip through little places,
and on he dreams.
As in the waste material roof,
Hope begs a home.
Dumpsite touches red disease,
hope touches blood.
He dreams in the distance
of senility streams,
His love named after rain
like a river of hope,
Oh, Nyamburaaaaa!

And rain drums on parts
of tin for a roof like a lullaby;
aching feet and soul
can really hope, drip drip.
We share the rhythm,
it fills the air,
we share tiredness,
it brings us sleep.
We share the desire, of love so deep;
beyond slum sleep is beauty too.

Hope Rain; drum on;
Hope drum Rain Hope!,
the rich have nightmares
of a loveless shore,
The poor man’s heart rivulets
of love; rain our soul,
hold our heart!
The soul of a nation,
the thread of humanity,
our much needed stroke!

Kouma holds on to muddled dreams,
trembling on,
asks himself,
Do you know her, Nyamburaa,
have you seen her, Kouma asks?
Have you seen her lovely white teeth,
he mumbles,
Nyamburaa, who brings the rains?

Sun rising imperceptibly,
like a grain of wheat in a sheaf,
and by a ray of sunshine gently
touched and basked.
Like a grain of sand bathing alone,
like a raindrop falling and splashing,
into greater water in the sea.
Water hugging itself in hope,
mumbling gum Nyambura’s
Forehead kissing,
The magic moment
of Hope even here,
he grasps and takes
to the other life!

The Night is day for those with a vision

2009-07-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

The eyes are stars in the night

By Philo Ikonya

They say the eyes are the windows of the soul and we add they are stars in the night, the night that is part of day. And no one can lead the night alone, it takes also the many constellations each one twinkling in its own radius. And when all the rays of light unite, nothing can stop them. No darkness can stop them shining and shining. The night is led by the moon and many other stars.. and they are always there, the moon and the stars even in broad daylight.

Do not ever lose hope my soul. Do not ever forget that humanity has made terrific journeys through difficult nights and lived to tell of victory. Tonight I remember as if they were my own black brothers and sisters the Jews in Auschwitz camp. I read about it all in Viktor Frankyl's ' "Man's Search for Meaning." I remember too the agony of Kimathi Wa Chiuri our own Kenyan's last days and his letters to us. I try, I just try to answer them. I never could.

I remember many young people touched and smiling as we sang to our beloved nation Kenya: songs of liberation. Songs of Justice. Songs of Peace. Songs, always songs that we feel are all part of our national anthem.

Come then with me where the stars and our own eyes and vision are our light. Come with me there and see it is possible. We cannot be fainthearted. It is not enough to believe. Act. Act for change.

G.K. Chesterton

"What art thou man, and why art thou despairing?" wrote the poet. God shall forgive thee all but thy despair. Man also may forgive you for blundering but never forgive you for despairing."

G.K,gender? N.B. Squeezed by pain, women do not know despair- Philo Ikonya

KENYA VOTERS ALLIANCE: ARREST DRAMA PHILO IKONYA AND FWAMBA NC FWAMBA(IN LAST PICTURE-IN WHITE SHIRT)

2009-07-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

KENYA VOTERS ALLIANCE: ARREST DRAMA PHILO IKONYA AND FWAMBA NC FWAMBA(IN LAST PICTURE-IN WHITE SHIRT)

KENYA VOTERS ALLIANCE: OUR WAR WITH THE CORRUPT

2009-07-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

KENYA VOTERS ALLIANCE: OUR WAR WITH THE CORRUPT

2009-02-11T03:18:00.000-08:00

see www.amkakenya.blogspot.com

It was a wonderful time at the Uhuru Park, reading to children and with children in both Kiswahili and in English. It was great to read about Obama too in a book that I wrote about him and that was coming out when i started this blogspot. That was before he was elected. I will be back on this...

Philo

if you ask me to lead the night...

2008-11-03T03:10:00.000-08:00

For Obama's night, My dawn

Even if you do not ask me to lead the night,
I will.
With the gentle firefly,
the little village one wick lamp
the one in a tin, without a glass cover.
And the one in a bigger frame with a glass cover,
I will put it near the wires that one day will bring power
power to my village for us to see.
I will lead the night.

I will lead the night with the light of the moon,
Other stars twinkling to remind me
of African wisdom divine
I will lead the night with my skirt folded up,
Lead the night walking to hope!
Lead the night with the light of dawn,
Lead the night,
Lead the night.
Lead the night till sunrise.
Asking the sunset still for its blessing,
To lead the night still.
Lead the night of hope.

"The night is darkest before dawn!

Dreaming to the top

2008-11-03T02:56:00.000-08:00

Listening to Martin Luther King Jnr's I have a dream in various languages of Kenya, was like listening to a peal of church bells calling us to a unique service. You might prefer a mass. A healing mass. It happened to us; a sweet surprise. The translations were done by girls from the a poor settlement in Nairobi's Eastlands. An area that Barack Obama visited when he was here in Kenya.

The reading in Dholuo, moved writer Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye to tears and all of us. We are just beginning to walk up the hill from the valley of despondence where post-election trauma has left us. Words are medicinal and powerful. That was such an amazing experience. Yes! the peals of bells that touch our humanity making us want to move to some better place. I start my journey with the youth in tow this time. I must fire them with the dreams of our fathers before Obama is declared the 44th President of America, tomorrow.. my longest night waiting for the results, till they come. Not a wink. And if I wink, I will be dreaming Gandhi. He is in the background, ever so silently, swaying the world.

Today my son and his friends will look at the dummy of "The Kenyan Boy who became PRESIDENT of AMERICA and smile. They have been telling me they love it.. .I hope you like it too.