KIbaki, the Minister for Justice and Parliament violate Kenyan laws

Field Marshal Dedan Kimaathi. Kenya's freedom is hard won!

Today, Thursday 31st May 2012, President Kibaki of Kenya was praying with all the 'important' people of Kenya in a posh hotel. This is what is called National Prayer Day. It is not held in a church but in a Korean owned hotel in the city.  It is reported that he told Kenyans to behave well. He told them that if they behave well, God will bless them all. He told them that Kenya will then remain one country. During the prayers, other speakers said similar things. The event is organised by MPs. The Parliament Speaker had elegant things to say about equality. In the feast, for that is what it was, there were some heads of media houses in Kenya. They too had gone to pray. The American ambassador in Kenya hit the headlines with his wife because he prayed in Kiswahili. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/US+senator+wins+applause+with+Kiswahili/-/1056/1418016/-/f635e5z/-/index.html So diplomats were praying as well. It was a sumptous breakfast at the Breakfast Prayers in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world- Safari P.  I have a quick statement to make. There is no need for praying especially out loudly and in high regalia when on the other hand you are breaking the law of the land and not following the constitution. The people of Kenya can be united under the constitution if it is followed because it is the law of the land. Kenya's freedom is hard won. The truth is the Constitution of Kenya which was won with a long and determined focus of thousands of Kenyan reformers and which  we gave unto ourselves on 27th of August must keep the nation united. The rule of law is not a choice. We are all equal under the law. But we are not and we are not free? The truth also is that the majority of the people of Kenya are in the shackles of poverty. Kenyan people are desperately trying to move as one. They are held back by political machinations. We need leadership. 


At the National Prayers, the burden of making Kenya went back to the individual.It is they who can shun negative ethnicity, the people. But this only grows when appointments in Kenya are skewed in favour of some ethnic groups, when they are unitlaterally done and when they are done in contravention of the Constitution. I think we should not bring God into this in this manner. We should just do what should be done and then hope to make it acceptable as sacrifice as at by the rivers of Babylon. "Let the works of our hands and the meditation..." President Kibaki talked about democracy having matured. There were no boos but only toasts. The spirit of nationalism was again turned only to the individual as happens in bad economics and poor religion. As well as that corruption and diseases were also framed as individual struggles.. Kibaki then asked Kenyans to accept and defend the unitary state of Kenya especially now that Mombasa is speaking about cessation (ill advised but rooted somewhere) and then came his crunch.. that this is because we are preparing the coming to ground of the 47 counties. This is where the crux of the matter is.

 Two weeks ago, President Kibaki appointed 47 County heads without following the Kenyan constitution. The Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee has said that President Kibaki violated the law by unilaterally appointing 47 county commissioners. In a report tabled in Parliament, this Commission pointed out that President Kibaki violated Article 232 of the Constitution of Kenya. The law sets "Fair competition and merit as basis for appointments and promotions." Besides, there should be public participation  through a policy paper or legislation. The president has broken the law.

This is not only ridiculous as he is the president in a government of national coalition but also dangerous because this is exactly what he did in the year 2007 with regard to the Electoral Commission of the time. The aim was to influence the General Election even then. That happened. Kenya was at the brink of civil war. Crimes against humanity were committed. Four individuals are indicted by the International Criminal Court. Among them is Uhuru Kenyatta whom Kibaki would like to see as the next President of Kenya. How did the president further contravene the constitution? He did not only do so by unilaterally appointing who will be in charge of 47 counties in the country. He also violated Chapter Four, The Bill of Rights, Article 27 on Equality and Freedom from Discrimination which states that: "... the State shall take the legislative and other measures to implement the principle that not more than two thirds of the members of elective or appointive bodies shall be of the same gender".  He appointed men. Does Kibaki have the interests of Kenya at heart? County leaders are as influential as the Provincial and District Commissioners as well as Chiefs were in Kenyan politics in the past. We know how that system was abused by the powerful.  Counties are part of a structure of the devolution of power to the people.  Does anybody listen when we say that 52 % of Kenya's population is made up women and that nothing will work out in leadership especially at devolution level if women are left out? Well?

The Centre for Rights Eduaction Awareness CREAW has one to court on this matter. The Court has declined to stop these appointments.

But President Kibaki is also not facilating the following of international law. Kenya is a signatory to the Rome statute, something which Kibaki regrets. Frantic efforts have been made also to make the African Union help move a case before the International Criminal Court in which some Kenyan politicians, a civil servant and a radio journalist are indicted.. Some months back, Gadaffi had promised to help Kibaki win this battle, but that was before the Arab Spring. 


The Constitution of Kenya states that "Any convention or treaty signed by Kenya shall form part of the laws of Kenya". This makes the International Criminal Court a part of Kenya's judicial system. The effort to show this court as alien and to move it to Africa has been Kibaki's idea of justice. This ICC is the court Kenyans took recourse to because the local system failed us in our greatest hour of need. It is remarkable that Kibaki thinks this is something we should not have done. He once wanted us to renegade the Rome Statute. That failed. He does not know that in any case even countries that are not signatories can still have cases heard by the ICC if the citizens of such a nation are determined to take them to the ICC . 


Now then Kibaki has not stopped to see Kenya as Kenya without himself and his friends in politics. He insists on moving this case in which the ICC has indicted four men among them Uhuru Kenyatta and Francis Muthaura, his close friends to Arusha, Tanzania. He wants to move the case to the East African Court of Justice. Here he believes justice will be served in a different way. He went to a meeting with presidents Kagame of Rwanda, Kaguta Museveni of Uganda and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania to move them to do this. I was surprised to see him make do this in the name of a few people whose political careers he believes he should save regardless of the fact that the ICC has indicted them. This means that those who died in violence 1 133 of them, people who were maimed and women and men who were raped, all the collective trauma we cannot describe here which we went through does not matter much. The destruction was immense. We know how the 600 000 who were displaced stayed in camps and part of them resettled over a longer period than it should have taken, whilst many of them remained unsettled. The main reason on Kibaki's mind is that Uhuru Kenyatta should not be in a court process now because he wants to vie for the presidency of Kenya. There could be fear too of what the case may come up with and what that will mean to him in relation to the crimes against humanity committed in Kenya in his tenure. After all, the ICC insists it has evidence that meetings with Mungiki militias were held in State House.

A month ago, President Kibaki appointed moved Mutula Kilonzo from the ministry of justice because he has been consistently in support of the International Criminal Court. Mutula Kilonzo is a lawyer. Now Eugene Wamalwa also a lawyer has been appointed the new Justice Minister and Mutula Kilonzo is in education. Again it is clear. Eugene Wamalwa belongs to the group of 7 who work with Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto who is also before the criminal court. What is shocking is that Eugene Wamalwa, the minister of justice, is breaking the Kenyan law by not following Chapter 6 of the constitution which lays out matters of integrity for those who would be leaders in Kenya. I wonder how this minister of justice has responded to an article in the media that charged that the Kenyan Chief Justice, Dr. Willy Mutunga is threatened and fears for his life. I wonder how Kibaki responded to that. As for future presidency Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto William fail that test. They have to wait until their names are cleared by the International Criminal Court. Uhuru can wait. No one has to be in politics or in a specific position. But he and Kibaki and Moi act as if they are under oath that Uhuru Kenyatta must become the next president of Kenya. Are we superstitious or what? Justice must be respected. Our constitution too. The country needs this. But again Uhuru Kenyatta is determined to run for the presidency despite the fact his hours before the court will weaken grassroots presence. He and William Ruto. They keep talking from a  moral high ground. In the meantime the ICC has convicted Charles Taylor to 50 years in jail for crimes against humanity. He is the first ex president to receive such a sentence for his involvement in deaths. 

Uhuru Kenyatta has the backing of all the MPs of Central Kenya and many others. In fact, most of the  people who speak his language are supporting him too. Only two weeks ago did he launch The National Alliance Party. President Moi is the one who first supported Uhuru Kenyatta for the presidency in 2002 and that was against Kibaki who won largely because Raila Odinga supported him. Calls for Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto to drop their political engagement continue coming in http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/Uhuru+and+Ruto+told+to+drop+presidency+quest/-/1064/1417496/-/f41x1az/-/index.html The Kenyan Parliament should take this head on. 

But Parliament is a legislative which is faced with dissolution itself unless it works hard to implement laws on time. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/Kenya+Parliament+dissolution+looms+/-/1064/1415590/-/t49gj6z/-/index.html

Because of the breaking of law, the disregard for the rule of law, Kenya is facing a complex situation politically. It is a less stable nation since the post poll violence of 2207. Some young men from different ethnic groups have set up organsiations to try and seek for justice in terms of economic advancement. Kenya is a weaker country since she invaded Somalia to fight Al Shabaab supported by Al Queda.  Kenya is bleeding. Security means a lot to a country dependant on agriculture and tourism. Because of corruption, a large group of alcohol drinking and unmotivated populace, many fatal accidents have happened. One only needs to read media reports. Youth are disoriented and easily to be found for hire by politicians. This is not the Kenya we expected in 2012. The president should uphold the law of the country and fill the land with hope.  It is too late for him, perhaps.

What is most intriguing is why Kibaki has to openly support a candidate from his ethnic group for the presidency. This way he has trapped almost all of the Central province voters again. He knows that this kind of politics sways the country dangerously. He saw that in 2007, but now it does not matter. Moi too said he supports Uhuru Kenyatta at the funeral of Njenga Karume, an MP who also worked closely with Uhuru Kenyatta but who knew how to speak to the 'other' side, meaning Raila Odinga. Once again Raila Odinga is getting demonised.  This negative ethnicity environment is what will lead to the breaking of Kenya. This is the wisdom that I hope God gave to Kibaki after his prayers.The problems in Kenya have more to do with the lack of leadership than with the people. Kenyatta, the father of Uhuru was the first president of Kenya. He said in a Kikuyu proverb that "the kingship would never cross River Chania". This meant he was not even ready for leadership from Nyeri let alone Kabarak where Moi comes from. What does this saying really mean? It means that a certain rich group of families try never to let the office of the president go to the hands of 'outsiders'. This group is distinguished by its wealth. Uhuru Kenyatta is the 17th richest man in Afrika, according to Forbes magazine. It is not entirely distinguished by one tribe, genetic borders can be crossed with a few special rich families. Kenya is very tribally divided just now. Most Kenyans are getting fundamentally Christian. The rift between the rich and the poor in Kenya is the fundamental problem. There are far too many people who die, die and die in the slums and elsewhere- They are dead Lazarus.  It is a few, the clique of the rich politicians, who  pray and eat in the style that reminds us of Divas. Devolved power to the counties was envisaged as part of the solution to this problem.


If we survive these divisions it will only because of the people. It will not be because as America says today, she will make sure we have peaceful elections. The International community were there and not too far from what led Kenya to burn in 2007/2008. Furthermore, our relationship with Somalia seems to be influenced by some foreign policy for Kenya did nto have the budget to invade Somalia a country Kenya has worked with for peace over many years. If Kenya makes it over tribal tensions it will not be because president Kibaki has led well. A good leader does not appoint county leaders unitlaterally when there is such a high level of mistrust and discontent. Kibaki's government has not shared  resources and opportunities with all ethnic groups. The marginalised are hardly ever mentioned. This is why he does not need to ask God to hold the country together. He first needs to make sure that everyone in the country feels that they are not closed out of prosperity through opportunities because of their ethnic background. Today, June 1st, Kenya celebrates Internal Self Government granted in 1963 before independence in December of the same year. Young Kenyans on fb are very critical of what is going on in Kenya. Some of them wrote that there was nothing to celebrate on the 1st of June 2012, Madaraka Day, in Kenya. We could at least have celebrated the constitution but Kibaki hardly refers to it anymore. Let the ordinary person have the courage to keep focused on justice and to keep saying that we are not doing well at all.

Lillian Ikal Angel ei and Lake Turkana 2012 Goldman Prize

Lillian Ikal Angelei

"She comes forth with good news of a happier Turkana region!"

It has come as fabulous news that Lillian Ikal Angeleil had been awarded the 2012 Prize for environment for her work on Lake Turkana in Kenya! Mobilising a community of Friends of Lake Turkana was her idea of changing the fortune of many people stuck in very difficult conditions around this lake in Northern Kenya. Lillian Ikal Angelei deserves every accolade. Congratulations!

What I like most about her work is that she set herself a specifi target and worked to achieve it. Most of us in Kenya know that there many threats to our environment. We remember the awareness Wangari Maathai raised. We treasure it. We see rivers and lakes shrinking around us but we are not all able to do something concrete to intervene. Lillian is saying that we can.

I remember a friend of Lake Turkana in Nairobi. A young man who used to tell me about this problem. I wonder if he is still there to celebrate the progress. I had seen much suffering in his life. I used to see him from time to time in the dust and hot sun on the streets of Nairobi.

For when an environment dies, with it too are many people at risk. Lake Turkana is beautiful. I remember too that many make money from the Lake in one way or the other. I do not remember some of them, quite well heeled, helping to protect the Lake. Here is a view of fishing baskets on another blog . I see they are for sale. http://www.artflakes.com/en/products/lake-turkana-kenya-nigel-pavitt-4 I hope that this famous photographer in Kenya is a Friend of Lake Turkana. I hope more minds and hearts are for marginalised Lake Turkana area and other zones of Kenya.

This is the song of hope we long to hear. I wrote in Kenya, will you marry me?

"From that day music and floated everywhere in my mind. Wherever I went I heard the song that was planted deeply in me. It burned in me like a CD. I downloaded it in my soul. I heard it in many languages. In Turkana, in Luo, in Taita, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German, English, Gikuyu…  I heard the same song of love for my country that he put in my breast.

I hear this song swirl around the hills at Hurri, Limuru and at Cherangany and Chyulu at the same time. I hear it sang by the village singer in Kigiriama. Even the parched throat singer of Kamasasia in Turkana drinks it. I hear her and she says she will not stop singing even as she sits and stares at endless sand at the end of the road, where Sudan begins. This singer sang longer than any other. Her voice was carried by the mirage in the sand to Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. I  hear an echo but I am not sure. I think I can hold the notes that sing our song long enough. I must find a way; it is in our feet. Afrika is, in our mouths, hearts and heads. We are alive for this. We must find a way." 

excerpt from Kenya, will you marry me? by Philo Ikonya. Langaa Publishers, Cameroon



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Global News | Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in constituency, determined to win seat

 http://philoikonya.blogspot.com/


I hope that Aung San Syu Kyi wins this election in her constituency because she deserves it. I know that she is one person who has never asked what her country has done for her but has stuck with asking herself what she can do for her country just like her late father.

That she believes in democracy after so many years of suffering actually from a lack of it and therefore house arrest makes her my winner in so many ways. Aun San Syu Kyi always!

I am glad she has no fear. Aung Sang Syu Kyi will continue to inspire the world. She is incisive and deep. May Burma see her light. She will not lose her voice if the vote fails her but am waiting for the news without sleeping in a far away land. I shall celebrate her quietly always in my soul.

She wrote in her speech Freedom from Fear

"It is not power that corrupts but fear.. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kind of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the worng path to spirte those against whom one bears ill will, and moha-gati is abberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption.  I wish we were all so analytical in our languages regarding corruption. I hope the whole world learns about the four agati!

If her votes are corrupted, may those who do so hear her words above again and again in their mother tongue! May these words haunt them all!


Global News | Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in constituency, determined to win seat

Philo Ikonya reads at Rådhuset to mark World Poetry Day and her work as a writer in Refuge in Oslo

Lioness at Samburu adopts an Oryx

World Poetry Day (UNESCO)  1st March 2012. I was invited to read poems at the City Hall in Oslo, Rådhuset. This is a great honor and the speeches about my work were unexpected and wonderful. The venue was Munchrommet. Edvard Munch is famous for great art and I had the honour to get so many photographs done in a great hall. See them in the link just below. My theme was motherlands and that included Kenya, Norway and the whole world. For everywhere someone calls home is a motherland.

Avslutning for fribyforfatter Philo Ikonya - Deichmanske bibliotek - Oslo kommune

Namunyak, wise lion......

Maybe you should claw us!

You are greater than

greedy presidents.

With the focus of a cat,

you feed and care for those,

outside your clan and plan,

tribe and specie and race,

the dearth of Somalia,

and the diamond sides of Congo, the world....

I read a poem about a lioness called Namunyak, the lucky one. She lives (d) in Samburu Park in Kenya. She adopted oryxes and gazelles (babies) six times and she fed them and protected them from being eaten by predators. Ordinarily these animals are eaten by lions. She inspired me with regard to tribalism and other forms of discrimination and non-acceptance of the other. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1746828.stm

This poem and others can be found in This Bread of Peace, a Lapwing Publication, Belfast, by Philo Ikonya  2010. You can find it here as a google book.http://books.google.no/books?id=COxEHp9hLW4C&printsec=frontcover&hl=no&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

I also read Loved from Out of Prison - Love Songs. This book is available as an e-book in English on Kindle
 http://www.shahrazadeu.org/en/content/philo-ikonya-available-kindle and available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Out-Prison-Love-Songs-ebook/dp/B006VXIZMK

Avslutning for fribyforfatter Philo Ikonya - Deichmanske bibliotek - Oslo kommune

 

NAMUNYAK OF THE MAASAI

They called her Namunyak.

I would have called her Sankara,

Makeba, Wangarĩ or Ellena.

Me katilili or Nyanjirũ.

Who mothers Afrika?

In Namunyak is all these.

She is the mother lion,

hidden in Samburu Park,

in Kenya, under a bush

and sun bathing

her dusty golden coat.

They call her Namunyak, the lucky one.

She spreads peace to all, not greed.

Yes, Bahati, Bakhita, Mũnyaka.

Ma Lion what is your secret?

You feed and adopt six baby oryx,

six even times, quite odd.

You know the oryx are usually your food,

but you feed your victuals,

and not to make sumptious

a feast later.

You protect with all your strength.

Maybe you should claw us!

You are greater than

greedy presidents.

With the focus of a cat,

you feed and care for those,

outside your clan and plan,

tribe and specie,

the dearth of Somalia,

and the diamond sides of Congo.

In Kenya,

three presidencies you beat,

all of them fallen, on the sword

of tribal discrimination,

the rim of the nation weakening

till collapse.

You beat countries giving visas

with grudges, strings attached and

humiliation, I say often, of the poor people.

Would you redeem humanity?

One of their own,

is always, the rejected,

prophet,

rubbished,

and offered gall

for wine.

With love you are so powerful,

your neighbours they kill human Albinos

to get rich of a sudden on death!

Would you cut our own chains?

The misery we tie around our necks?

You come home to find,

Mzee Lion has eaten your oryx.

For one, you mourn and fume,

for long. You get five more

to no harm.           

Have you seen how our fear has ‘children’ these days,

Fear with grandparents and roots?

Have you seen the fears of children today?

You sit there six times,

a puzzle, posing they think.

To your lesson,

We are here to give honour.

I dress you with a mane.

Incredible mother of beauty.

Karibu Mama.

Hakuna matata.

Come Japanese to see your Nisei,

San with Nikon,

snap, snap.

Another face of Africa.

Eyes open wide,

People of all races are back,

do they turn to make Africa?

Is pigmentation enough?

Come American Indians,

Australians.

Come all to take an image of harmony home.

Come they with verses spoken long ago.

But you just sit there Namunyak,

And I award you for feeding your food,

sensing life in disaster.

To peace and freedom.

You challenge we give to suckle.

Delicadamente

Dedicadamente

Na upendo wa amani,

Mkate huu wa amani na wa uhuru.

Feed, house,

Water,

Keep it,

Like in safe villages or,

cities,

in the jungle,

in your style.

 

Nest of Stones: Kenyan narratives in Verse

By

Wanjohi Wa Makokha

I have powerful contemporary writing in my hands. It’s close to me. It is enriching to read and reflect on Wanjohi Wa Makokha’s Nest of Stones: Kenyan narratives in verse published by Langaa Publishers, 2010.

Makokha went to Berlin to study for his doctoral thesis in Literature. Soon after he left, Kenya was burning in political strife born of the announcement that Kibaki had beaten Raila Odinga in the presidential tally of votes on December 30th 2007.   

Suddenly, even if the causes were not so sudden,  Makokha saw our motherland on fire, he saw people burning. He beat the winter’s cold and burned with his pen. Politics had driven a fatal machete between Kenyan and Kenyan with the excuse of ethnic differences. The subtext is tribe or ethnicity, the context is political manipulation of differences and injustice over years of  opportunities not always based on merit to people who bear certain names.

Many of us believed and knew that we were beyond that for years but that politics plays this card with efficiency. It was a nightmare. Makokha writes:

  “The sudden death of a mother is sad,

Sadder still is the death of a motherland.

There comes a time when a nation can be killed by its citizens’ ill emotions.”

Indeed, I have had an interesting journey Nest of Stones.  I remember alerting Wanjohi Wa Makokha that this book was out, apparently before he knew it, on a facebook chat.

Nest of Stones is Wanjohi Wa Makokha’s debut poetry volume. It is great reading. More of his work is soon rolling out of the press. In the meantime, he continues posting many poems on facebook, not unaware of the evils of piracy which are unrelenting far into Eastern African coasts but daring who will to take and eat. This Sunday morning (18. 03. 2012), a friend has just picked up these lines fresh from his Timeline on facebook and sent them to me for this article. Here are our Terms of Reference. Or ToR... in the theater perhaps also of the absurd.

    

     THEATER of REALITY (ToR)

Whisper:

(Pressure pressure pressure ni ni ni…
...Pleasure pleasure pleasure si si si…)


                       Shout:

                       A palanquin above our days, these days
                     And poets compose comedies recited now

                 Deep into the night that we are becoming

                     Who will be the moon? Who will act lunatic?

                   And who will take my role as a crescent howl

                That rises from the divine coffin of A. Ginsberg?

                Hear this howl oracular like a song under duress

              A solomonic howl from America faraway to Africa!

            A howl heraldic…interpreting our age, yes who? One

        That’ll like our civic anthem turn into a palanquin of riddles

        Writ with graffiti of Moloch, a canopy above our new act!

       Behold our theater of civility acted under duress! For via it

    We find it our national hobby howling national dreams at night!

   Scientists predict prosperity will emerge like energy in this way

  Just like meaning hatching out of this poem read under pressure…

If we all re-read these lines upside down, from right to left, politically.

In Nest of Stones, Makokha is forceful and provocative.  True that his choice of a word here and there would have thrown one precious and late Mzee Maruge of Kenya who who was learning to read and write in his late 80s so that he could read the Bible and claim justice regarding Mau Mau.

As our own strange ways would have it, this man who flew to the statue of liberty in the USA courtesy of promoters of free primary education, ended up being one of those names that the poet cannot pronounce and died in his 90s homeless and disoriented because of the violence that occured in Kenya in 2007/2008.  He was an Internally Displaced Kenyan Person. And he was lucky to be. Many did not survive this period.

But Makokha has with other writers active in during period recorded our despondency and strength in verse. In Germany, as Kenya was getting destroyed, he was running around dishevelled pain for motherland dress in robes of words howls for his country. Now he says to the people:

“These things within, fellow citizen!

That stir hot life, fellow citizen!

And like  a ripe ulcer, fellow citizen!

Chews awning holes, fellow citizen!

Can we remain complacent? Are we all, including writers to be caught in the “theatre of civility” ?  Can we pretend that we have a constitution and onot live according to the act?

Are we swallowed by unseen mouths? Here we are in classrooms or blogs or fb away from the madding dust of the maddened and bleeding crowds raising our voices. For we know that ultimately voice is voice and it can fly over the alps, oceans and deserts for like a boomerang it always returns.

A nation that will kill its own people has rejects those seen as foreigners before. We fail to see humanity in one, we fail to see it in all. We rejected the Nubi who were stateless in our land for years and a few of us rich ones sit on the poor. We watched Idi Amin throw out Asians but many of the people in the land too could not stay or live. Our children will find it hard to see it. We must wake up now! We have one word between us. Life.

In Nest of Stones Makokha says he is a bard. I will call him a poet and singer of verses from Afrika. Malenga wa Panda Damu, the man in whom blood rises ( whose blood is at crossroads) has traversed barriers of locality and language. Blood is blood and always found in the same blood groups across races. Malenga wa Panda Damu is saying important things. His pen name is Wanjohi Wa Makokha. This book leaves all of us convinced that Joseph Siboe Makokha ~his real name~ is gone with the poetry but not with the wind.

You will hear the sound of stones he casts burning with fire going past your ears, to the desert sands and flying..and see them being hurled at us to wake up. Wanjohi Wa Makokha will be standing there sturdy and firmly yelling again. Come listen to him. Come read him. He is carrying universes that tidy us up. Come read how he acknowledges his roots in all Kenya. See how he sets one big table for writers and teachers in which I want to put Kisa Ameteshe at the head.  

Words must from shore to shore fly. Our books* are borne by winds and the voices of our ancestors.  They are midwifed in cyberspace bearing Cameroonian wings of words that once upon a time Camara Laye served us like rice as we first read The African Child and sat down In the Radiance of the King!

A word like a curtain may hide a world only from those of who dictionaries. But Makokha’s energy tears through the walls. He is swimming in knowledge others may not have. It is up to his pen to decide how the economy of words and communication functions in different contexts. His poetic licence and power is not in question. He chooses, palanquin, Soubriquet and a bard. 

No soft nest, Wanjohi Wa Makokha makes, no soft nest. And why should he when he  wrote his lines at the peak of events that drove many clinically insane. He and us were lucky to survive it. Insanity at the time made more sense.

“Most of the poems in this collection emerge out of the howls of th souls that were burning and bleeding to death in Kenya during the world infamous Post-Election Violence (PEV) of early 2008 and late 2007”

Blood and life issues. What do they mean to us? Will all those Kenyans who have known that tribe is not a wall against justice, love and peace stand up with the poet? How we tackle this today may mean progress or lack of it for the next one hundred years for millions of people. It is no levity. We shall be all gone. We shall leave a legacy of shame. Come on, let’s take what it is good in this thing and hurl the rest into the gullies and caves of our land. We know we can declare our guilt and turn things around in word and deed.

Biological make up has ceased to be the only identity that makes a group of people align to a political party, country or even village in developed nations. It took them time. In many parts of the world, the language one speaks determines whom they know and support. Injustice uses every crevice if we are not awake. When see it we must say it because it has no shame.

This is a serious challenge in a country that would have democracy. Wanjohi  Wa Makokha is eager to point out in a country where ethnic origin has meant many things including death when disagreement  on the number of votes X politician gets in comparison with ‘Y’.

‘eX’ ‘whY’ Chromosomes in politics

The ‘chromosomes’ and genetic disorders of politics often mean bloodshed. Malenga wa Damu Panda is a Kenyan not only beyond confinement by narrow domestic walls but able to see that genetic formation should not spill over into judgement .  Before his next volume,  we must press this first one into our nation and conscience firmly and forever.

We have known liberators. We have tasted freedom. We have gained independence but must be vigilant to keep ourselves beyond being enslaved by the greed for power which comes first for politicians, making life meaningless.

Makokha’s word believes in the freedom we struggle to achieve. Our foreparents have done their best, it is our turn to take what we wish to and to define our freedom. We are not yet free. This is a matter of life and death.  

Makokha fasted when Kenya was burning. He could not live in a world where all was normal as our motherland burnt. He found Schiller’s old house and found solace in writing his soul out in there. He changed physically.

“ I lost weight. I became dishevelled. I wore my hair and beard to lengths unknown before to me and my colleagues.”  

Now we cannot forget this in 2012 when Kenya  has another election.  Not now when the search for justice for the dead and the displaced is on. The facts and realities must remain.

That in the fourth decade of our freedom we in Kenya had

1, 333 persons die because of a competition of votes. That we in Kenya had half a million people displaced, homeless, when we know that we are the shelter of Somalis, Sudanese and Congolese people who are always seeking a home in Africa from us as their lands suffer. And many others.

We cannot forget

Indeed as Micere Githae Mugo writes in a foreword to Wanjohi’s work of poetry and quoting her friend our sister Ama Ata Aidoo of Ghana, we do not want to ever suffer from what Aidoo calls “Self-willed amnesia.”

Those writers who captured the bloody deaths and wounds of the violence that shook Kenya after the General Election of 2007 in all ways: camera, social media, books and articles have

accomplished something great. This is a situation we should never forget.

But many on facebook see tribalism to task although maybe it is not possible to something meaningful on those pages. I rush back to Makokha. I was thinking of Kenyans who like Makokha can do what so many get stuck in negative politics.

There is a huge constituency of mixed us. No ethnic group is on its own anywhere in the world. Makokha takes a hundred per cent from each of his parent’s tradition and claimes both. This should scare those who alway think that blood and genes must confine our dynamism as an individuals. Confound them as Makokha has done.

In these days of multimedia, allow me to quote a chat. Yes, an fb chat. I like expression at its most spontaneous level.  I asked Kyalo if i could share this. He wrote to me in a chat on fb as we discussed Kenya: “I am young person but i really don’t know when we start looking at our elves as Kikuyus, Kambas coz in school we are one” I responded it is when the question of power over others comes in that we start to see tribe. I need to dig deep for a Kenyan identity to come up untainted by genes and blood. We all need to. There are many ways of doing it. Makokha writes.

 “ We shouldn’t continue in silence to brood these unnamed emtotions deep within us. That afflict the land we call mother.”

Kenyatta Kenyatta and misunderstanding of Freedom or uhuru in Kiswahili, which is the president's first name

Fathers and sons, sons and fathers 

One day I was outside a shop in Kiambu. An old man called me. As I went close to him he took a step inside the back of the door of the shop. I kept a safe distance. I could hear him. He talked carefully, I listened. I had been driving a political process quite successfully. I thought that the old man was going to give me some tips.

I remember this man’s grayish and torn coat. He had a stick. He wore akala rubber sandals which I love and also wear.  He told me, “Daughter, you will come to hear this. Moi is going to support the son of Jomo Kenyatta for the presidency. He has acted like a man should, Moi has, he has chosen our son."  

I was utterly shocked. I told him not so. I told him that was not possible. I will always remember he was like my first radio news that day. He told me it would be so. He told me this was freedom as understood by Kenyatta when he named his son Uhuru. He told me Moi was a afraid of dead Kenyatta.  He switched off. He told me not to quote his lips which had spoken. He told me to read the mood of the people, not books. 

Moi was leaving office in 2002. The constitution did not allow him to defend his seat. He had been in power for 24 years. This act by Moi transported his succession into the realm of myth.

Uncharacteristic

But Moi had been quite averse the Agikuyu in word and deed. It is documented. Kenyatta Wa Muigai did not manage to make the people see him  as a true father of all the ethnic nations within the nation? How did this come to be? With time the reason for Moi's strange decision came to be narrowed into a small legend, created to make meaning. It was Kenyatta’s wish that this son named Uhuru for freedom, the son of Ngina and Kenyatta would rule. It was a promise he had made, the people said and he was scared not to fulfill it. We are caught in myths which make community will the will of the gods. We need independent thinkers, the world, our world has changed.

There is Jomo Kenyatta wa Muigai the man, and Kenyatta the myth. Jomo Kenyatta is called the father of the nation in Kenya. He played a role. He is closedly associated with the coming of independence to Kenya but there are those who point out that he was not the strongest of fighters. Kimaathi and others were. It is written he was a betrayer who knew how to take advantage of the fighters by hobnobbing with the British whom he abused verbally but settled practically. He also freely called our parents who also fought for freedom names. They often had to switch off the radio when Jomo Kenyatta spoke dirty words.

Jomo Kenyatta made mistakes. Still he was the first president of Kenya and he named his son Uhuru in 1961 and with great intent. This does not mean we could not have had a more competent president. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga stepped aside for him to become the First Prime Minister. After that Kenyatta proceeded to become the President of the Republic of Kenya. I often complain that he lies in the maoseleum when others -especially old men- believed he never could have died.  Certainly  clear to me is that his life did not mean that his progeny will always be in politics. It is a matter of simple wisdom.

Presidential ambitions

In the world, many people have wanted to be presidents and they never became presidents. They have contested and lost. Others were favoured for the presidency but they did not become presidents. Some like the 'Bushes' seemed to inherit the presidency but all presidents have had children, most of whom never became presidents. It is not a necessary thing in anyone’s life. It is something that happens and works for some when they work for it. There are many people who would have made great presidents but did not become presidents or even politicians for many reasons.

Uhuru Kenyatta should help Kenya come to terms with a difficult time by trading his ambition for the Kenyan presidency in exchange for a stronger nation. He is a good businessman. He has been charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Things are not the same. The 2010 Constitution of Kenya, Chapter 6; requires moral integrity of leaders. He and William Ruto and two more are charged. But these two continue to behave like twins promising each other support. They together push to rule Kenya. They have been to their home districts together telling the people that it is Raila Odinga who is causing their woes. 

It is a time  for silence Uhuru and Ruto. Maybe one day, Kenya  will accept you as  presidents. For now, many say you, Uhuru, should resign as Prime Minister. Uhuru has many businesses and immense wealth to protect. He makes the profile of former not future African president. For sure he will live to enjoy his immense wealth and do more business.  

Moi talked these young men into believing that only smart rich males could lead Kenya. Moi made no secret that the others fell short of Uhuru. He was his best.

Today, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto should stop mixing up issues of justice and the ICC with their presidential ambitions. If they love Kenya, they should stop polarising the people, mobilising them against Raila Odinga. It is time to act more responsibly now. The Hague is not about Odinga. It is about people who were killed, raped and maimed. People who became homeless due to organised violence. It is about evidence. It is about money. Their campaign is about employing dirty machinery to keep power and protect wealth. Whereas Uhuru Kenyatta was Moi's choice, William Ruto was not and is trying for the first time for the presidency. I address Uhuru. 

Dear Uhuru Kenyatta,

In those days, headlines read that your star was rising and rising. Many people heard you and loved you. You had not actually done a sterling job with the ministry of Local Government to which Moi appointed you. You were riding on history in the minds of those who would not be critical. Your task should have been to heal the rifts Moi caused and not widen them, for to be the father of a nation does not exonerate one from error but burdens with responsibility.

I remember that on past radio talk shows you easily got support from all corners of Kenya. You looked like good currency. You looked Jomo. This went on for sometime. I remember that when Wariara the wife of Njenga Karume died you and Kibaki and Moi were at her funeral in Kiambu. There were many other people. 

I remember since you were just in front of me that the old men saw you as your father, Jomo. I remember and still hear some of them call you, “Baba!”  (Father!) and you turned back and shook the hands of many poor old men. Fathers and sons. They felt blessed. They turned to one another and said, Nota Jomo! He is just Jomo. Jomo Kenyatta wa Muigai. I too thought that was smart. You were so down to earth.

 Were you yourself? Before that it always seemed to me that you were not the one who wanted to be a politician. It seemed that- in 2001 when Moi brought you for a walk to Kiambu after the Democratic Party had lost local council seats to Kanu- it was his plans he was fulfilling. And Kenyans called you a project. I want to hasten to say, it is time to be yourself.

It is time for real personal analysis. Look, upon Moi still lies responsibility for how Kenya stands today. He nursed your friend Ruto out of poverty to political ‘success’. Even if Ruto severed his links while he lasted with Raila, he had to acknowledge that Moi made him who he is. You too were one of the dolphins that Moi was training. With you were Kalonzo, Mudavadi, Ruto and Sunkuli. Moi’s son was counted too. Sons and fathers.  

You got to believe that like your father you had to become the president of Kenya. Kibaki and the council of elders tells you the same. Many young men believed in you in Central province. Groups of youth, young men followed you. But some groups start as babies, become monsters and they eat themselves and their children. Who can define Mungiki?

In all this there is a complete misunderstanding of freedom. A denial of Uhuru or freedom. You do not have to be Kenya’s president now. Perhaps you might with years to come. It is as simple as that. If you love this country and if you want to lead it better than your father did, it is better that for now or forever, you lend it your name in rebuilding its broken down moral fiber. 

Do not hold on to Deputy Prime Minister. You have much work to do. You need to build your moral credibility. If you still want to be the president of Kenya some day, the thing to do now is to move from this desire. The tide has turned against you. It is not true that you will win by insisting. You will need to submit your whole self to the process of justice at the Hague. You have been charged with crimes against humanity. If you are not guilty, you will be released. You can then talk to Kenyans again and continue building the nation at any level.  

Read these same messages from different people. Step out of political hubris. Maybe if you understand freedom or Uhuru to be the good of us all in Kenya and beyond you will do a great service with the shredded moral credentials that you have now.

It will take humility. It will take wisdom. It will take true love for our nation that you stop jeorpadising Kenya’s future and even resign as Deputy Prime Minister and start again.

With hope that you will open your eyes and see.

Sincerely,

P. Ikonya

Writer in exile

Philo Ikonya is a human rights activist

Author

 This Bread of Peace, poems

 and Leading the Night, a novel

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

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, 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 are not free

It behoves the Uhuru or independence generation, and even younger generations of Kenyans to awaken. We have to light a different fire. To do that, we have to borrow some fire from somewhere. We do not have to re-invent the discovery of fire.

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

We must light ourselves up inside and awaken. Forget about just voting an individual 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 be voted 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 of Kenya will be someone who knows that all of us are that person and those close to her or him in whom we invest our power through our vote.

It would 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 claim our space. We must be and are important. We are the people who have to say.

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

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

Politicians are the headline news of our country. They have become the main thoughts that we have. So often, they speak. You do not hear of an agenda. The media does not push 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