May be we were colonized too late and for a short period! Just may be

LET me begin with the conclusion. When a system remains steady it does so because any tendency towards change will normally be met by increased effectiveness of the factor(s) which resist the change. So therefore, for example, loose government and its consequences bring the reformers into power, but their tight rein soon provoke restiveness and the desire for release. hardly any strong tendency in a country continues to the stage of disaster; before that extreme is reached corrective forces arise which check the tendency and they commonly prevail to such an excessive degree as themselves to cause a reaction.

Yet we know of countries that are unstable. In fact our own political system is unstable. Our neighbor Uganda is unstable regardless of what President Museveni says. Our other neighbor Somalia is completely beyond instability. It is failed. Egypt is unstable so is Tunisia and many Arab countries. Sudan, yet another neighbor was and still will be even after the split between the Arab North and Christian/animist South.

I am not feeling very well myself!

It is a routine Friday morning in Nairobi. I am pondering many things, more particularly ethnicity and corruption in this country. I might at some point in the day dash to court to earn a livelihood. I am not sure yet. Lately. No that is a lie. From our independence the Kenyan judiciary has been managed with breathtaking incompetence.

But that is not what I want to discuss here save to say that I actually think that factors like objectivity of interpretation of the law by the courts and stricter enforcement of contract play a much greater role in the luring foreign direct investment into a country than many people actually realize.

We live in a time of failed and failing institutions.

But the Judiciary is not the only failing institution that has lately surpassed lowly expectations in this country. We have a political leadership and a civil service that is emblematic of crass ethnicity They too are failing. And then we have the citizenry not faring any better. Tribalism is at the core. Individually and collectively, in church pews and corridors of power, in schools and in offices; in open market and in the Capital Market, police force and in the military; everywhere chokes with tribalism. And that is dangerous for as nation.

So often then I ask myself the question whose answer I think I know. What is wrong with us?

The problem is fairly simple, simply put; WE WERE COLONIZED TOO LATE AND FOR A SHORT PERIOD. Our leaders are primitive pure and simple. They might have gone to London School of economics, Oxford, Harvard, Yale but these prestigious institutions did not go through them. One might be forgiven for assuming that they saw the future and knows exactly how it works.One thing I might say to lower down the many raised hands is: LOOK AT SOUTH AFRICA. Could it have turned out an economic giant without the iron fist rule of the white minority?

TRIBALISM IN KENYA

Recalling our history reveals that there has been, since our founding, a preponderance of the President’s trbespeople appointed to positions that matter in the public service. In President kenyatta’s time, the public service was firmly dominated by the kikuyu tribe. When President Moi came to power upon Kenyatta’s demise he simply reversed kikuyu appointments with kalenjin appointments.

Tribalism kills. Three years ago we were met at Armageddon. The incumbent had just stolen an election that was suppose to be free and fair-we wrongly assumed. He stole it to perpetuate a tribal staus quo in a corrupt Government that had marginalized sections of the country ostensibly, because they mostly tended to vote in the opposition.

A revolt by many tribes led by Kalenjin and Luo ensued and hundreds were burnt or hacked to death in the Kalenjin dominated areas. Most of the victims were Kikuyus. Kikuyus retaliated in their own small way whichever way they could and with the assistance, we are now told by the International Criminal Court (ICC), of the State. The International community intervened, thankfully, in our ‘internal affairs’ when it became quite clear that we, steadily and surely, Somalia-bound unless we changed track.

At some point during the restructure of the state-which process by the way was as a result of the total collapse we nearly experienced, we were all agreed, when it seemed impossible that perpetrators of crimes against humanity would be prosecuted in courts such as the one I was in today, that the Hague should take up the investigation and possible prosecution of the perpetrators. The Hague would eventually take up the cases.

Fast forward to the year 2010. Summons have been issued to five top guns, (a deputy prime minister; the immediate former police commissioner who over saw police liquidation-in-broad-day-light, ‘anti-kikuyu people; a ethnic kingpin of the kalenjins; Head of the civil service and Secretary to the cabinet-the man closest to the president; a long service kalenjin politician, and one vernacular-speaking fm station journalist), referred to as the Ocampo six (Ocampo is the Chief Prosecutor at the Hague). Instead of focusing on implementation of the new constitution, rebuilding State institutions and uniting a fractured citizenry, the Government, a section of it is now busy shuttling through Afrcan capitals seeking support to discredit the ICC at the forth coming AU meeting In Addis Ababa Ethiopia. It claims that ICC is ‘eating’ into our sovereignty.

The question in my mind is: ‘What do we make of the arguments they ( friends of the Ocampo six) made when they were for the Hague?’ In reality by sovereignty they mean their ethnic hegemony not our national interest. To them everything else must be subordinated to the predominating interest of their key tribes-people and by extension their. Meanwhile the victims of the post-election violence-people who once owned houses and had stable lives, are still languishing in want in camps for the internally displaced.

Government is necessary only when it is responsive to the citizens, protective of the citizens, individually and collectively, supportive of citizen’s individual effort at economic maximization and accountable to the citizenry. This mongrel is none of these, at least not in the way I would expect it\ to be.

Yet we appear to be in a cycle of bad leadership to ‘reformers’ who then become exactly like the leadership they have replaced. Remember my conclusion at the beginning!

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May be we were colonized too late and for a short period! Just may be.

 

LET me begin with the conclusion. When a system remains steady it does so because any tendency towards change will normally be met by increased effectiveness of the factor(s) which resist the change. So therefore, for example, loose government and its consequences bring the reformers into power, but their tight rein soon provoke restiveness and the desire for release. hardly any strong tendency in a country continues to the stage of disaster; before that extreme is reached corrective forces arise which check the tendency and they commonly prevail to such an excessive degree as themselves to cause a reaction.

 

Yet we know of countries that are unstable. In fact our own is politically unstable. Our neighbour Uganda is politically unstable. Our other neighbour Somalia is completely beyond instability. It is failed. Sudan, yet another neighbour was and still will be even after the split between the Arab North and Christian/animist South.

 

It is a routine Friday morning in Nairobi. I am pondering many things, more particularly ethnicity and corruption in this country. I might at some point in the day dash to court to earn a livelihood. I am not sure yet. Lately. No that is a lie. From our independence the Kenyan judiciary has been managed with breathtaking incompetence.

 

But that is not what I want to discuss here save to say that I actually think that factors like objectivity of interpretation of the law by the courts and stricter enforcement of contract play a much greater role in the luring foreign direct investment into a country than many people actually realize.

 

We live in a time of failed and failing insttitutions.  

 

But the Judiciary is not the only failing institution that has lately surpassed lowly expectations in this country. We have a political leadership and a civil service that is emblematic of crass ethnicity They too are failing. And then we have the citizenry not faring any better. Tribalism is at the core. Individually and collectively, in church pews and corridors of power, in schools and in offices; in open market and in the Capital Market, police force and in the military; everywhere chokes with tribalism. And that is dangerous for as nation.

 

So often then I ask myself the question whose answer I think I know. What is wrong with us?

 

The problem is fairly simple, simply put; WE WERE COLONIZED TOO LATE AND FOR A SHORT PERIOD. Our leaders are primitive pure and simple. They might have gone to London School of economics, Oxford, harvard, Yale but these prestigious institutions did not go through them. One might be forgiven for assuming that they saw the future and knows exactly how it works.One thing I might say to lower down the many raised hands is: LOOK AT SOUTH AFRICA. Could it have turned out an economic giant without the iron fist rule of the white minority?

 

Tribalism in Kenya

 

Recalling our history reveals that there has been, since our founding, a preponderance of the President’s trbespeople appointed to  positions that matter in the public service.

 

In President kenyatta’s time, the public service was firmly dominated by the kikuyu tribe. When President Moi came to power upon Kenyatta’s demise he simply reversed kikuyu appointments with kalenjin appointments.

 

Tribalism kills. Three years ago we were met at Armageddon. The incumbent had just stolen an election that was suppose to be free and fair-we wrongly assumed. He stole it to perpetuate a tribal staus quo in a corrupt Government that had marginalised sections of the country ostensibly, because they mostly tended to vote in the opposition.

 

A revolt by many tribes led by Kalenjin and Luo ensued and hundreds were burnt or hacked to death in the Kalenjin dominated areas. Most of the victims were Kikuyus. Kikuyus retaliated in their own small way whichever way they could and with the assistance, we are now told by the International Criminal Court (ICC), of the State. The International community intervened, thankfully, in our ‘internal affairs’ when it became quite clear that we, steadily and surely, somalia-bound unless we changed track.

 

At some point during the restructure of the state-which process by the way was as a result of the total collapse we nearly experienced, we were all agreed, when it seemed impossible that perpetrators of crimes against humanity would be prosecuted in courts such as the one I was in today, that the Hague should take up the investigation and possible prosecution of the perpetrators. The Hague would eventually take up the cases.

 

Fast forward to the year 2010. Summons have been issued to five top guns, (a deputy prime minister; the immediate former police commissioner who over saw police liquidation-in-broad-day-light, ‘anti-kikuyu people; a ethnic kingpin of the kalenjins; Head of the civil service and Secreatary to the cabinet-the man closest to the president; a long service kalenjin politician, and one vernacular-speaking fm station journalist), referred to as the Ocampo six (Ocampo is the Chief Prosecutor at the Hague). Instead of focusing on implementation of the new constitution, rebuilding State institutions and uniting a fractured citizenry, the Government, a section of it is now busy shuttling through Afrcan capitals seeking support to discredit the ICC at the forth coming AU meeting In Addis Ababa Ethiopia. It claims that ICC  is ‘eating’ into our sovereignty.

 

The question in my mind is: ‘What do we make of  the arguments they ( friends of the Ocampo six) made when they were for the Hague?’ In reality by sovereignty they mean their ethnic hegemony not our national interest. To them everything else must be subordinated to the predominating interest of their key tribes-people and by extension their. Meanwhile the victims of the post-election violence-people who once owned houses and had stable lives, are still languishing in want in camps for the internally displaced.

 

Government is necessary only when it is responsive to the citizens, protective of the citizens, individually and collectively, supportive of citizen’s individual effort at economic maximization and accountable to the citizenry. This mongrel is none of these, at least not in the way I would expect it\ to be.

 

Yet we appear to be in a cycle of bad leadership to ‘reformers’ who then become exactly like the leadership they have replaced. Remember my conclusion at the beginning!

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