What will that 'reconciliation' bring? Olara Otunnu is an individual; he is not
the entire Acholi people who have so far been massacred by the so called
"historical forces", of evil, if I might add. If Mu7 needs to reconcile with
Olara Otunnu, how about he reconcile with every Acholi, from babies to the old,
individually, to bring about lasting peace?
When we look at the economy, security, then political environment, there is
noway in hell any sane mind can suggests Mu7 reconcile with anybody or anybody
reconcile with Mu7, in Uganda. Period. He can reconcile with himself, but
Ugandans must collectively resolve to see his back out the window!
I am pasting Peter Okelo's article on what Kenyans need to do to save the
country. Mr. Okelo's vision is what any African country needs, including Uganda.
Substitute Kenyans with Ugandans and there is no need for reconciliation.
Ugandans cannot reconcile with buffoons who have caused more suffering than
even late Amin; Ugandans are more wretched than ever before and some yap about
reconciliation??
The Mu7s must be removed from power, and only a peoples' approach is needed
of which the FDC is on the right track, from the perspective of strategists.
Ocii
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The President Kenyans(Ugandans) Deserve
(By Peter Okelo, Dedicated to Wole Soyinka (c) copyright)
It is a humbling and an ultimate honour to be elected president of your
country. It is equally a honourable and grave gesture for an influential and
equally eligible group of individuals to say-with the deepest conviction of the
heart-that they support a single individual for the post of presidency-and in
so doing hope to continue seeing and recognizing the nation in one individual,
who in turn is not only a symbolic entity, but a national investment, a centre
of potentially whole-nation-nurturing energy and inspiration.
Such collective support is not only a recognition of the true nature of the
presidency, but a truly trusting and daring investment by the ones
relinquishing potential power in favour of a national symbolic ritual rebirth,
continuity through material, social and economic development. The objective of
this kind of decision should surely be the strengthening of a national vision
that in all intentions and hope should lead to the strengthening of national
consciousness with great ramifications.
History demonstrates that it is the consolidation of this national
consciousness that is the true asset of a nation, especially a nation like
Kenya that is, from an optimistic perspective, struggling away from the false
consciousness marked by the pitfalls of ethnic centred awareness. One is
reminded here of Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and the rather
prophetic chapter entitled "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness". Perhaps
every serious politician should make this a bedside reading, just incase time
is available during one's busy political life.
It is for this single reason of the willingness to uphold the nation and
national unity that there will always be a reserved special respect for the
'founding fathers'-Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta (to name but a few, very few indeed)-who
through concessionary dialogue placed the nation before their individual
aspirations with varied degrees of selflessness. Likewise, there will always be
a common contempt for those who had to be tumbled over the edge clinging to
power; do we really have to go through the list?
It is not an overstatement to say that we in the present Africa owe much of our
freedom to not only the collective effort of freedom fighting African brothers
and sisters but to the relentless, unwaving passion, passionate dedication
shall we add, and national vision of the same pioneers.
This article is not a campaign for any candidate, but a most sincere
contribution to a national debate about my country. It is long since campaigns
of fervor and favour found place in my mind. Emotional distancing has a way of
casting an illuminating light on one's perception, consciousness and matters of
social, political and economic nature. There is much at stake when you are
dealing with the destiny of a nation, and neither fervour nor favour is what I
would like to use to analyse the situation at hand. My only hope is that those
who we may directly or indirectly entrust with this crucial task of selecting,
voting for, or nominating candidates who may ultimately become leaders,
presidential candidates, make the best choice in the interest of the nation,
not in the interest of a narrow concern.
For the purpose of this article, we shall concentrate on the presidency.
There are two kinds of presidents; the president we want and the president we
deserve. As we move ever closer to the elections, Kenyans have, once again, the
enormous task and burden of choosing the president they deserve. The same goes
for parliamentary and local government leaders.
The situation in Kenya is not unlike that in many non-African and African
countries; the choice of a leadership directly affects the urgency and the
quality with which the matters facing the nation are tackled and addressed. I
would not like to paint a stereotypical negative picture here. I am very
conscious of the picture that is characteristically painted of African
countries-they are always the repositories of all that is negative and
undesirable.
No, I do not believe in such sweeping paint-brush analysis that only falls all
too well within the framework of a pattern of representation I have intimately
experienced, spent half my life writing about, and know all very well. Without
conversely painting a rosy picture either, may I say that Kenyans like many of
their millions of sisters and brothers across the African continent, have come
from far, have come a long way, and have so far done much to improve life and
much still awaits to be done. What has been done collectively has enabled those
of us who were born 'yesterday', after the period of 'classic' colonialism and
internationalized racism, to thrive. Some us have fallen by the roadside
though-there are those who would say allowed to fall-in 'peace', while some
have enjoyed freedom, much abundant freedom, choice, real and potential growth.
I do recognize, in measured objectivity, that even though Kenya achieved
independence some 44 years ago, and that though much has been done; the general
feeling seems to be that much could still be accomplished, indeed could have
been achieved, if only the bud of potentiality could be aided to go a little
further than to be trapped in apparent circular ritual motions of
possibilities.
Every time I come back home to Kenya I find resilient, creative people who are
able to live their lives with little help from the outside, much of which does
not really reach them even at a time when the country significantly relied on
international aid.
I find people who are able to live without the handouts or welfare assistance
that their counterparts in the so-called developed countries take for granted.
On top of this though, Kenyans generate wealth, massive wealth, with little
help from outside. They prop up the government with their daily offerings and
efforts of nation building in various forms including the payment of tax. The
true wealth of the nation resides in this resilience and self-reliance. Yet
this may, ironically, be downfall of the nation-as it makes huge savings upon
the back of a resilient population short-changed paradoxically because of the
population's spirit of self-reliance and resilience.
There is a strong and compelling, irresistible feeling, that Kenyans, given
more concerted effort by the leadership and collective participation, would
truly do much more than just survive the immediate situation. Kenyans, like
many across the continent, struggle against some quite artificial hurdles and
face mammoth tasks and issues that truly need to be addressed, sometimes most
urgently. We know the issues, the yawns of need-water, food, education,
employment, inequity and inequitable distribution of wealth, power, and
opportunity. Shall we really go on counting?
It is true that Kenyans are caught up in a presidential system. So much power
is centered on the president. In a presidential system, solution to critical
problems facing a nation can be traced directly to the president's office. Much
hinges on the presidency as it were. The president is then a critical power
point in the leverage for change and national improvement.
Solutions to critical problems facing the nation can be authorized, initiated,
influenced, sanctioned or altogether discouraged by the president's office.
This centralization of power partly explains the individual and collective
strong desire to fill and occupy the office. The aspiration is all but very
natural, very human indeed. The desire and freedom to opt for the highest
office in politics is a sure welcome sign of democracy in Kenya unlike some
years gone past when merely contemplating such possibility would have easily
seen you through to the detention holes of Shimo La Tewa, or Kamiti Maximum
Prison for lack of a better alternative more permanent in effect.
Remember the days you had to look over your shoulder to whisper a breath of
dissent? Have we forgotten the days Koigi wa Wamwere grew long dreadlocks of
symbolic defiance in hope and resistance-a resistance collective and national
in scope-anticipating and refusing to give up a stubborn vision of emancipation
from artificial claws of a system that was more bent on tearing away dissenting
voices? Have we forgotten the trampling boots and batons, the detentions
without appearance or trial?
It is these enduring images-if they have not already slipped into the oblivion
of collective-memory comfort lulled by the passage of time-that should remind
the national psyche that Kenyans will need more than an individual instinct,
more than ethnic collective sentiment, to bring further change to the lot of
the nation; I mean the whole Kenyan nation.
Kenyans will need an almost artistic engineering of individual, collective, and
ethnic aspirations focused on this crucial office, with the ultimate objective
of surpassing the attractions, and traps, of this luring office and focusing
energies on Kenya as a nation, for further dramatic outcome that will continue
to serve all Kenyans.
Such selfless socio-political engineering, if I do recall accurately from
memory that sometimes fail us all too often, was witnessed during that artistic
collective ballot-coup of the 2002 elections that saw the ascendancy of NARC
and the graceless almost unbelievable departure of the former president Mr.
Danielle Arap Moi. How the nation held its breath... If there is a god of
political national emancipation, that day s/he walked unambiguously bare feet
upon the Kenyan soil, bearing a brilliant flame of a rekindled national
optimism about a shared destiny.
But hijacking of dreams is possible even on the ground, not just mid-air, so
seems to be the general feeling demonstrated by the latter results of the
recent national referendum.
The point I am trying to labour with here like a hunter who has lost his tongue
is that Kenyans will have to choose the president they deserve, not merely the
president they want. No, this is not semantics; the president is an
inspiration, a national steam engine, a galvanizing factor.
The presidency is a national investment. Kenyans will not be investing in an
individual; they will be making an effort to invest in an institution. The
crucial task for Kenyans is to transform the presidency from an office for an
individual personality into an office symbolic of national investment-the
investment of national hope, national spirit of struggle with the oddities of
life, the investment of national energy, of national dreams, dreams of
families. If we should use the image of money for those inclined toward
monetary imagery-think of the status of the presidency as a bank account and
the cheque you deposit therein, your vote, not as a flimsy piece of paper but
our national collective life asset.
Like the ritual protagonist in Wole Soyinka's Art, Dialogue, and Outrage,
Kenyans will have to transform the presidency (and choosing of the presiding
member of the Kenyan public-for the president is first and foremost a member of
the Kenyan public) into a deeply and seriously significant ritual figure, a
practical effective symbol of national common good, common endevour, a common
investment of collective destiny, not of a handful chosen few.
No, this is neither rhetoric nor some petty play with words; Kenyans stand yet
again, in this ritual moment of political renewal, at a crucial point of
enormous collective constructive possibilities. Kenyans have the choice and
freedom to indulge in splendid vanity clouded by ethnicity or to open up these
possibilities by transforming this office into a demystified institution of
collective good, not a chair for occupation by a personality.
With all due respect to those who may have a differing opinion, I would say
that there is a way in which Hon. Mwai Kibaki has managed to transform the
office into a less mystified human institution rather different from the
previous image of his predecessor-an image of an apotheosized figure
bewildering the public. Nevertheless, Mr. Kibaki has not succeeded in
exercising an entirely effective intervening presence when such intervention
has been an overwhelming collective desire. That such desire had to be finally
expressed through a national referendum is not only a vindication of this
observation but a historic statement regarding the need for presidential
intervention and initiative in response to crucial national matters, like
constitutional review to cite a case in point, rather than a by-standing,
removed silent academic objectivity that may be construed by the public as
bordering on indifference to collective national expectation.
Thus the responsive birth of ODM. One is reminded by that brilliant author Wole
Soyinka (I know him all too well having spent half my life studying his words)
that a man (read woman, child, youth, and nation) dies in every instance of
objective indifferent silence over crucial potentially life-threatening
situation...
The seriousness of our conditional collective fate dependent on presidential
choice is well known to us, or have we forgotten all too soon? If we do not
make the right choices, not only with choosing the president but
parliamentarians too, we risk the well known-collective incarceration in
detention cells of poverty ghettos; barbed wires of artificial layers of
humanity (layers used to provide restricted development of a wealthy few);
hopeless repetition of hope in seemingly everlasting motions of possibilities
like Wole Soyinka's Yoruba metaphysical Abiku as life wastes away; thirst and
waterlessness while Kenyan money build skyscrapers and splendid apartments
overseas; hunger and continuous international begging when we can and actually
do feed ourselves without help. We still risk artificial poverty that is held
up like a bait to attract foreign aid rather than a shameful stigma that should
be minimized. Should we go on counting the risks?
Think about it; have we really ever sat down as a country to debate how many
water boreholes could be built in North Eastern region if only we used some of
the money that gets stashed away overseas? Have we ever paused as a nation to
think that the not so privileged, in the words of Tracy Chapman (blessed be her
philosophical musical talent), 'May not just want handouts, but a way to make
an honest living'? As I do tell my language students repeatedly; privileged is
a verb in every social situation where some people are actively enabled while
others are deliberately disabled.
So what kind of president do Kenyans deserve I here you ask. The moment is
urgent, promising, exciting, and pregnant with positive possibilities.
Kenyans need and deserve a president passionate about Kenya. A Kenyan president
passionate about development, a president sworn to the reduction of poverty
(poverty eradication is a rhetorical academic illusion, we have been there),
provision of water, a president who prioritises the equality of Kenyans and has
equity policy, not just equality for a few, a president tirelessly pursuing
policies that will ensure the decentralisation of resources, power and
opportunities so that a child from the El Molo tribe can have and drink water
like a child from the Luo tribe regardless of any perceptions of comparative
ethnic significance and priority supremacy. A president who does not fear
saying that people are more likely to die, not so much from disease as such,
but from negligence and opportunistic circumstances that rein in when you
simultaneously have a weak biological and moral immunity. A president that
wakes up early in the morning to talk to people about their collective
good and prosperity. A president ready to eat Skuma Wiki and Ugali if that is
the price of honesty and truth-lest people lose their dignity.
Currently tribe seems to feature quite prominently, once again, in the debates
about the forthcoming ODM presidential race and national presidential
elections. I submit here, and stand to be corrected in my claim, that tribe is
good. Tribe is one of the most natural identity definitions that one (anyone),
a child, can receive from her or his community.
I do want to note here that I am focusing on tribe, not its ideological
expression-tribalism, which mistakenly sounds like a philosophy, if only for
the presence of the -ism suffix that in turn reminds one of Wole Soyinka's ism
to ism for ism is ism in isms and isms inspired by absolute schooled
schizophrenic schism. Have you read Wole Soyinka's Kongi's Harvest? Remember
the Moi days when if you put the play on stage you also attracted stealthy-clad
dreaded CID members into the unsuspecting drama theatre audience-especially at
Nairobi University? A mere book, a mere play... never mind.
Tribe is good because tribe is a tool in the hands of a sincere administration
with a national collective vision. Tribe and tribal affinity saves a
governmental administration the grassroots engineering efforts necessary for
national population mobilization. But again, tribal identity and affinity is a
potential double refraction-it can be deflected and aimed away from national
objectives, or it can be refracted effectively to become part of the
multiple-tribe-tributary streams that irrigate a collective national farm from
which all equally pick the fruits of independence, Matunda ya Uhuru as those us
in Kenya and the currently molding East Africa block would put it in Kiswahili.
Nevertheless, tribe-centered consciousness in its virulent form finds
expression through retrogressive cracks that run across a national body
initially held together by the preliminary national social conscience and
struggles for independence. An example of a restricted vision inspired by
ideological manipulation of tribe-ethnicity, a crack in the national psyche, is
the vision of Majimbo and its brainchild ideology of Majimboism-another pseudo
philosophy-which constitute a pitfall in the molding of a National
consciousness. This is another ism that Kenyans should dump with the utmost
possible contempt and skepticism. Many Kenyans irrespective of tribe have
collapsed and fallen through similar narrow-focused crook-clan-cracks... Why
does national memory fail us so soon? Is it because history has taken a back
seat? Is it because we are so young we do not remember?
Kenyans should dump Majimboism and similar isms into the pit latrine of
historical retrograde backslide. And why should we do so? Because provincial,
district and constituent demarcations are more than sufficient administrative
instruments, tools, for genuine non-partisan national government.
Secondly, we should dump such sentiments masquerading as philosophy because in
essence, a Jimbo (the word from which the plural Majimbo originates), the
geographic region, is an imaginary and yet potential physical demarcation of a
'hopeless' vision (a dream that has given up hope) inspired by perceived and
real unfulfilled desires and frustrated collective ambitions usually of a
socio-economic kind.
The next president of Kenya, my fellow Kenyans, has the task of deflecting such
vision away from an ethnic-service target and instead using the opportunity of
collective fervour of tribes to continue the molding of a truly national
awareness.
In reality unequal distribution of the Matunda ya Uhuru constitute a defacto
and rather distorted Majimbo since Jimbo as we have seen, is not really a
physical demarcation, it is in essence a retrogressive mark of a restricted
collective vision. The collective vision finds a physical definition in the
Jimbo boundaries. It then follows that contrary to traditional perception,
Jimbos can exist without their realization in actual geographical delineation;
and this is the worst form of Jimbo since it is fluid and dispersed, yet real.
Such Jimbo can be explained away, denied, even as it serves a few, a handful.
It can be effectively masked, clothed in national costumes and songs. But when
the sun goes down, the cows go to the surreptitious architects of the
clandestine Majimbos-not to the collective tribe as such. The tribe is
(normally) used as an instrumental stepping-stone in the game of camouflage.
The collective body of the tribe is not usually the beneficiary of the
clandestine Jimbo. I here submit, as an illustration, that the Nyayo era and
system clothed in national costumes, celebrated with songs of presumed national
vision sung so long by Kenyans, served a narrow section of society, not a whole
tribe.
Disguised Jimbo 'system' is comparable to a pattern of driving where the driver
signals left but turns right. The next president has the enormous task of
molding a parliamentary democratic vehicle of national collective vision. A
vehicle whose driver-being the president assisted by the VP, the Prime Minister
if ever one is constitutionally permitted, and parliamentarians along with
local leaders-will signal right and turn right, indicate left and turn left.
In closing, as I once wrote in the Daily Nation; the first president of Kenya
Jomo Kenyatta and the 'founding fathers' (not to forget mothers-wherever there
is a father there must be a mother...) struggled and led this country out of
the hell-hole of institutionalized international stark naked colonial racism;
Mr Daniel Arap Moi tried his bit with the 'Nyayo philosophy'; Hon. Mwai Kibaki
is still free to run for office if he so wishes like any other free Kenyan and
is doing his best building on the inheritance from those who went ahead with
some remarkable mixed results-in this respect the next president and her/his
team would do the nation a great service by building on the current trend of
revenue collection and the country's dependence on its own resources rather
than donor benevolence which normally come with baits, fishing rods, and
strings attached.
Finally, the next president has a mammoth task ahead-to demystify the
presidency and turn it into an excessive-power-devolved institution, an
institution that glorifies the life and effort and labour of Kenyans, not the
other way round.
Postscript:
I did not intend to publish this article, even though I wrote it many months
ago. I had hoped that I would not have to publish it anywhere at all, that it
would end up being an exercise in academic imagination. However, there comes a
moment when one has to make a contribution to one's country, however little
such contribution may be. This is my contribution, this is my most sincere
vote, and I hope that somewhere in the maze of my inaccuracies and misguided
ideas, fellow Kenyans of whatever origin will find some tribeless accuracy and
ideas that they can identify with, pick and use, as we prepare for elections.
As to who to secretly choose or nominate or finally elect as the next president
of Kenya; I would be misguided to tell you that. Kenyans are very resourceful
people, they will decide-do I have to recount the daylight results of the
referendum? It is not a good idea to underestimate the collective will of a
people, so I would best let the Orange... well the ball, rest where it is-with
Kenyans. The brilliance of the Orange is in your vote, so to speak.
The writing is on the inside walls of the secret ballot box-if we enable the
inscription of collective vision and national social conscience without
deliberate distortions (remember Mlolongo?). Let us give democracy yet another
growing chance, we have come from far and we still have miles to go. The test
of our collective national dream is the undistorted image we see in a
44-year-long tunnel ahead of us... What do we see?
(Please pass this open letter to all Kenyans you know. Write to the author:
[EMAIL PROTECTED])
The writer, Peter Okelo, teaches Language and Communication.
Bwambuga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Netters,
It is a great idea if Museveni could seek reonciliation with the whole of
Uganda than cherry pick his points for it. I do not how easy it is for my dear
Friend and Brother Olara Otunnu to walk straight headed to reconcile with
Museveni before he walks to his own Kith and Kin to reconcile and seek for
their blessings. I think Mr Piwang should focus his efforts more on bringing
Olara Otunnu home and at the same table with everybody else to champion this
reconciliation bid. I wonder whether he will have a sleepful night really.
Just thinking aloud.
Bwambuga.
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