It’s All Over Now: Kubali Matokeo? No. Time to START Living, if #WeAreOne.

A lot has changed since the late hours of Saturday morning. Life has needlessly gone to waste. Our inept governance and disaster response reactions have once again come to the fore. Even worse, our inhuman opportunism in moments of human pain further sullied a bloody backdrop.

15 years ago today, we were heading towards 50 days from our first involuntary encounter with Al Qaeda. 212 were dead, and countless lives scarred by a disaster I was too young to fully comprehend. 

The only thought on my mind, on August 7^th 1998, was my 11^th birthday the following day. Would they cook chapatti at my grandma’s – where I was heading, seated in the passenger seat of a matatu, as news of the bomb blast broke on the dashboard dead ahead of me – or ugali?

4 months ago, Storymoja Africa asked me to imagine the world with them. Gladly, I did. Imagination is the stuff of dreams, you see, and boy do I love to dream. What I care for more than dreams, however, is to see these dreams come true. I wait patiently to make them be. 

What happened on Saturday, while I had imagined it before, is no dream. It is a nightmare, the easiest kind of reality that comes from imagination. It was, however, no surprise to me. 

Last month, days before the August 7 memorial, I happened to be at Memorial Park. The park sits at what would be our Ground Zero – the site of the ‘98 terror attack. Let us now recap what we learnt then, and how we have applied it since. I’ll save you the trouble with one statement:

A lot has not changed since the late hours of Saturday morning.

As I learnt while talking to someone at our Ground Zero cenotaph, only the direct victims of what is now a fatefully insignificant tragic statistic in Kenya’s history actually remember it. The park may be called a ‘memorial,’ but beyond it simply being a commemorative plaque of one dreadful event in Nairobi hiss stories, the monument is now a simple revenue collection bin. 

That some choose to piggy-back on the park to fill their piggy-banks is hardly new. It is also, sadly, no news. Your government is still inept. Your morality is still for sale to the highest bidder. Your public utilities are still inutile. Your health system still sucks. 

You still don’t know who you are; still can’t tell what you need from what you want. 

You will still sit on your arse and wait for the next tragedy – small or monumental, natural or otherwise. You will wait only for you to react; to say, to never think or act independently.

“Stupid is as stupid does. Are you happy with your life today? Time is a blessing, that ticking clock has been sent to remind you that your life is valuable.

It is also futile; it has a beginning and it has an end.”

• Seven Sentences

And so tomorrow you will wake up. It may take longer than 24 hours, but tomorrow you will wake up. You will shed your patriotism. You will lose your nationalism. You will lose your leased ideals and leeched morality. Latch on to your good old need to feed off your brother’s flesh.

Indeed you will accept, you will move on, your choices will have no consequences.

Already you wonder what these tens of lives lost, these disquieting tens of hours under siege have done to your money. What they have done to Kenya’s economy, and if we can recover. 

Already you replace past silent tragedies with this latest loud one. 

Already you are marveling at the picturesque pictorials of gore, talking about the effectiveness of their insensitivity. Already you are rising up to defend your respective tribal leader’s squirms or otherwise squeamish action during the skirmish. 

Already you are baying for blood. 

Accusing your Eastleigh brother, that Somali Arab-looking brother you don’t know, for the acts of terror inspired not by race or place, but by creed. Already you are talking of reactions to these terrifying actions of terror. You have killed – if understandably so – every last gunman in that mall. Make no mistake, dear KDF , for I applaud your patiently conclusive reaction. 

It was, after all, in self-defense. You were, after all, doing a job that should only be yours as a last resort.

A job you did in defense of inhabitants – temporary or permanent – of Westgate, who on the day became hostages and victims. It is by no fault of your own that every possible trail – it would seem – as to whom and the wherefores of the attack, runs cold. 

We are left in an all too familiar position now, however: that of shooting in the dark.

People died in 80 odd hours from Saturday morning. They died at a rate, perhaps, of 1 life per hour; a rate, more so, of countless hungry, overall. Countless wept, overall, but few of these weepers were conscious, sadly. 

Nigh fell. Many prayed. They did the natural thing when confronted by the unknown. They went for the unseen.

That is no critique, this atheist might add, for the unseen comforted me too. I went for my music. And while unlike any god this music could be heard, I had but my own interpretations of this music to go by. 

In this way I was similar to some religious folk; but not to those who rely on what is interpreted to them of what they believe to be their own script.

That kind is no different from the ilk that shot to death unconfirmed denizens in the dozens of dozens.

But already, dear hustler, you have returned to Kenya to help ‘calm the situation’ down… to "participate in security briefings." 

To consult. 

Because these attackers chose a time when you were not here to strike. Of course they did it in spite of you, not to spite you, dear hustler. Don’t come chasing waterfalls, while your colleagues sit chasing after doves in and outta parliament.

"We hope that some people will begin to contextualize what is going on and begin to appreciate the challenges that Kenya is going through, the region is going through, and the complications that are brought by what is going on here."

H.E. the VP of Kenya, W.S. Ruto, in "The Hustlers also Cry".

What does it matter? After all, opportunity – bloody or otherwise – is for the strongest to reap from. 

 

"In light of the circumstances and the views heard during the hearing, the Chamber excuses Mr Ruto from the proceedings.

For the moment the excusal is permitted for one week only, subject to any further requests that Defence counsel may make if need be to extend it,"  

Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji swallowed. Hook and line sunk.

This too shall pass. Not because we are a strong nation. Not because we are unscarred; because we are oblivious to our own bloodshed. At the least, this time around, we have a common enemy. Who that enemy will be, however, remains to be seen as the year closes down. 

I am worried. Not slighted, for that would imply – if only by similarity of sound – that it was slight. Worried, you see, sounds to me like war. It sounds like all out warfare unto the few in my town who think they know, while knowing not. To those who forget to feel, because – and get this – they have bills to pay. 

We all have bills to pay. We all need passion. Yet passion pays no bills. So ask yourself this:

“If you don’t like what you are doing right now, if your [life and work don’t] wow you…then why are you still doing [that]?”

• Seven Sentences

To paraphrase one of my favorite quotidian reads, quoted and attributed extensively through this post, is it simply because family responsibilities? Or is it because financial security? Perhaps it’s because some other lying, cheating, stealing reason?

“A good dream won’t make you poor, if you think it through, if you plan it well…”

• Seven Sentences

So if you’re doing what you don’t mean to be, then every time you are asked why you’re still at it, forget every other excuse, and give this reason:

I cannot think my dream through. I cannot plan it well enough to follow it through…

 

Only say you care about the world if you care enough to suffer through doing something to impact it. Regardless of what happens to you through it all.

The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Right Now Is To Simply Keep Doing The Same Old Thing.

Look What We’ve Done

What have we done to the world?

What about all the peace that you pledge your only son?

                                                - Michael Jackson, Earth Song.

Nairobi, Sunday 22nd September 2013

A man whose voice I wanted to meet died yesterday. A soul whose words I was dying to pick floats away to the unknown. This man I never met. I had not the pleasure of hearing him speak. Not once did I have the knowing want to hear him, not once having truly known him.

I remember sitting in the room, staring at my itinerary. Only 6pm, yesterday. Counting the men sat up front in the panel that met East with West, wondering.

Wandering whispers had been going round my electrified world, about gunmen in a mall. Hijackers, the loud repeat went. Custom had me less than kindly about the soft digital voices. It was a happy day, a day of joy.

A first, in many days.

I remember saying that privilege is our problem, our very lack of true being. I remember thinking of privilege as multifaceted – as a list of bubbles we need blow away. I even said, after thinking little of it, that the gunmen were fighting privilege.

It was a happy day, you see. A day of joy.

A first in 3 days for me, since the festive Storymoja Hay had begun. 

It was a sad day elsewhere, I later saw. A day of grey, mere hours into a loveless warfare of disbelieved belief. Awareness everywhere.  Voids of conscience filled up, bit by agony bit, with violent information. 

I was happy. Oblivious. Peacefully lacking awareness, disconnected from the world around, plugged into a literary Utopia. 

Then I saw the missive a friend bottled into my sea of inter-netted waters. 

What about it? They gave a kill order 10 days ago, I had thought. Hijackers are probably dead by now, I breathed in. There couldn’t possibly be more to this than simple burglary-gone-bad. 

Maybe, even, just a sick fundamentalist retaliation for that classist war of emotion and word gone by. A war that was electrified and shared. 

A war whose weapons lay down 4 months before yesterday. A war whose only weapon was a wordy affair laced with shades of class, and the art of Café. 

I was dead wrong.

One call and I realized how wrong I was.

Malli was in the parking lot, looking. Calling. I went out in a haze, slightly piqued at her for getting me out of the world of poetry Fatou had engrossed my self in. The lovely Fatou; a queen of projected soul from Sierra Leone. She sounded, I think, like sex on the imagination. Her words pricked, her bosom heaved, her eyes soaring to the skies of the roof. 

She would later say, of her country’s civil war, how much she felt. How – even whilst away through it all – she was its victim. A window to her mind’s heart would crack open, and she would tell me. She would speak to me of the friends and uncles who died, the mothers and sisters who got their legs undone, their sanctity defiled. Her soul forever soiled by a vivid living memory. A memory of what was. 

A memory of what would soon be, for me?

I could not forgive her, sitting in the car park with a mutual friend, for getting me away from Fatou. 

But the conversation turned, and I did. 

The man beside Malli, with the dreaded locks, spoke. 

“See what your religions do?”

He’s an atheist, Malli explained. I shrugged, indifferent.

“At least your hair would have survived the gunmen, Freddy. Are there any dreadlocked Muslims?” he said, his tired hurt eyes arresting my heart.

The gunmen, I soon learnt, were more fundamentalist than I had thought earlier. Creed killers; killers masked by creed, swathed by hatred, hidden by race, their faces hidden behind their killing shields. Socked, soaked with the blood of dozens of innocent lives they had taken indiscriminately, turned Nairobi into a killing field.

They were Mujahedeen.

A chilly wobble I have not felt in many moons shook my core as I walked back to the room, the haze I left it in replaced by an uncertain daze. 

A man from the West was baring his heart out in word when I got in, gradually levitating spirits, relegating conscience back to the drop. He sang a second poem out, did Kwame, and I felt my conscience ease back into the oblivion of bliss.

If you know your woman

…your sins are enough for her to leave and never return.

                                                                - Kwame Dawes.

Yet the unoccupied seat continued to linger in my mind’s trunk. Where was Kofi?

***

In an ideal world, where bullets know who’s guilty, I’d say guns were a necessary evil.  In the world I live in, bullets have no mind, but reckless freckled kills of their own. My euphoria dissolves at once. Kofi, it emerges, has become one of these freckles. 

¹And death, when he comes

to the door with his own

inimitable calling card

shall find a homestead

resurrected with laughter

and dance

and the festival of the meat

of the young lamb and the

red porridge

of the new corn.

He is now some body. Somebody I did not used to know. Somebody I know now. Somebody I can only now ever know by his documents:

²On this dirty patch

a tree once stood

shedding incense on the

infant corn:

its boughs stretched across

a heaven

brightened by the last fires of a tribe

They sent strangers and

builders

who cut that tree

planting in its place

A huge senseless cathedral

of doom.

***

If I’m going to die young, it may be from a piece of mechanic metal, tarmac-ridden by intoxicated thought. It may be from a piece of sharp metal, of a shrapnel-led existence making do with my material. 

It’ll be by a serf-inflicted bullet through my brains, not self-inflicted bullets in my mind. 

Free thought. Free to think and think freely, thinking alone. Not with the group-thinking faith that brainwashed a gun into taking away one of the great minds of our times. Kwame Dawes, hours before he found out that his uncle Kofi had been killed in the Westgate Mall terror attack, had said to those of us gathered at Ford Hall, that although our fathers’ “sense of self was so brutalized, they gave us something to hold on to.” 

It certainly was not fear. 

I hold on to the world, and the world doesn’t need to be changed. Change is always evitable unless you can become the world, feel the pain the world does. 

If I am to die young, I will have lived old. I will have been happy; having held on to my bold peace, in bold scattered pieces. 

As will my body rest. 

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success. But the man behind the label knows defeat far more intimately than he knows triumph. He can never be absolutely certain that he has achieved his intention.

             - James Baldwin; Eight Men, in Nobody Knows My Name.

Kofi Awoonor (left) and Kwame Dawes (right)

^1-2 Excerpts from Poems written by the late great Kofi Awoonor.

                              Lived 13^th March 1935 – 21^st September 2013.

Uongozi: Same Script, Different Words... Pt III

When Intentions meet Choices, Lasting Consequences are borne

Leadership, in my book – written by a life wrought with diverse experiences, observation, interaction, and experimentation – is the art of influencing oneself or others, through conscious or subconscious thought, speech and action.

It is also the science of knowing what one wants in life, and accepting it regardless of any perceived or real consequences; insofar as the individual stays true to themselves, and to their principles.

Leadership is open to constructive critique, and ready for detraction. It must never cower; leadership is not about being afraid of making mistakes. It never embraces failure.

Good leaders look at situations with as objective an eye as the subject of one’s self, or others, can be. They take any mistakes they make in their stride. True leadership, however, also entails never ignoring mistakes made; it is about learning to take them as negative feedback, and using this feedback to better – or completely remodel – the thought, speech and action processes that get one to the point of collision with unforeseen realities.

Leadership is simultaneously the pursuit of abundant – and specific – lessons to learn from, and the sharing of these lessons with others through action or speech. It is the relevant use of these specific lessons learnt, over time, in a holistic sense as per the attendant situation. 

However, leadership does not entail blazing a path for others to follow. This is to say that good leadership, in its purest form, is not a conscious effort, but a lifestyle. It is a lonely road; interconnected with narrow boulevards that do not require justification or solicit compliments. These streets are ideas spoken in action that seeks to complement its surroundings, not clash unnecessarily with them.

Leadership is important because whether applied inwardly or outwardly, insofar as it is applied properly, it seeks to identify salient issues and find equitable solutions for them; even if we, personally, emerge to be the problem in hand. In fact, by recognizing that we have a choice to make in every situation we are faced with, and that we have the ability to deal with these choices’ consequences, we are at peace with ourselves.

While global issues such as world peace remain within the dynamics of our day to day lives, eventually, it comes down to a simple truth: we come into this world alone; we leave it alone. If we are not at peace with ourselves, it follows that it is simply impossible for us to be truly at peace with our environs, and their inhabitants.

A true leader is cognizant of the fact that they, as well as their community’s world, are influenced by their environment; be it national, regional or international. They will remember this, even as they feel the pain their people live – if not merely exist and survive – within. While Emotional Intelligence, defined as ‘the ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups’, is a necessary facet of leadership, it must be complimented by a realistic and wider perspective view of the factors that prevail on any individual or community, for them to be prepared to coexist with others, as well as each other.

This is why I believe that it is essential for any leader to be at peace with their inner selves first. To lead themselves first, before they think of leading – or, arguably, before they are allowed to lead others. The truism goes that we should ‘be change that we want to see’; and while altruism is an admirable quality when applied thoughtfully, including all stakeholders in every step of the thought, speech and actions on the way, the aforementioned truism can hardly be ignored.

Only when the public has become a collective of self-led individuals can development truly be sustainable. Responsibility ceases to be a burning ball to be tossed around; leadership disengages itself from the idea that it is a ‘hot seat’; it becomes a series of personal choices, ones that we learn to embrace and be liable for. When Emotional Intelligence is guided by a holistic perspective, on an all-inclusive path, pathological altruism can arguably be avoided.

Pathological altruism is defined as ‘behaviour in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.’ ^[1] Instances of misguided altruism would include tribalism, nepotism, racism, classism, and the culture of giving handouts in the name of social responsibility.

Numerous practical examples exist to demonstrate the fact that the handout culture is as much a part of the problem – in Kenya particularly, Africa and the world in general – as it has tried to be a solution. 

One of the most widely read and visited urban cases in point would be Kibera slum, in Nairobi. Ironically, many residents of the new Kibra constituency in Kenya may never read a book, or visit any place beyond their own microcosm of life in the slum.

Whereas the hardware is important to any solution, it is essential to remember that the software is just as crucial, if not critical, to its sustainability. This is to say that any leader who throws money and assets at a problem, without putting in the necessary man-hours in thought, is heading blindingly fast on a collision course towards failure. Real value can only be adjudged on equitable exchange of significance, where both parties – the leadership and the people led – emerge satisfied. Good leadership is conscious of this balance in the exchange of value.

The most important quality a leader should have is that of confident thought and action. Indecisiveness, however subtle, is a sign of weak leadership. This is not to say that a leader acts rashly, or worse, brashly; careful thought, drawing from specific lessons learnt in the past, should be applied in the making of bold yet calculated risks. The process must be as expedited and expedient in manner as each presented scenario requires.

Further, leadership, in the socio-political context, entails the making of leaders. By this I mean that a good leader does not simply lead themselves, or others. Their confidence is infectious, and they engage themselves in the process of showing – not telling – others, how to lead themselves; this sets off a chain of choices for the rest: to lead themselves and others, or not to. Confident leaders lead; others make choices, become leaders, by observing them.

In the global context, leadership also entails realizing that while problems are diverse and situational all over the world, solutions are practically always possible when discourse towards progressive action is encouraged.

As of 2013, there are 39 states in the world recognized as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, HIPCs. A Joint Initiative designed by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank, it ‘ensure(s) that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage.’ ^[2] 

Of the 36 HIPCs whose debt reduction package has been approved, 30 are in Africa. By many accounts, there are between 195 and 205 countries in the world. Including the newest – the Republic of South Sudan – Africa, both continental and islanded, has 54 of these countries.

Are we, as Africans, satisfied with having 30 of our own classified as both ‘heavily indebted’ and ‘poor’ countries, in a worldwide list that features less than 40 countries? Should the Pan-African agenda be proud of this damning statistic? Should we, as Kenyans, be happy that we do not feature in this list? Forget that over 50% of Kenya lives below the poverty line; a line that is as physical in class separatism as it is real in the pain of watching a child go hungry.

Granted, the poor and the hungry – usually one and the same – made certain choices that have brought them to the point where they are passengers in their own lives. Or have they? Do slums exist more in their inhabitants’ minds than they do in the murky drainage systems, and systemic hygiene cancers standard to slums? 

Do slum inhabitants consider their surroundings ‘poor’ ‘murky’ or ‘unhygienic’? Perhaps most debatable is this question: whether in the mind, or in the environs, who has put the slum in the man?

Finally, ‘a good and lasting legacy’ is my parting shot: it is what true leadership, whether personal, interpersonal or communal, means to me. That when you, as a leader, are gone, those who are left behind are better for your having been; that they have learnt to always be as they were when you were, even when you no longer are.

Should your leadership’s intentions be true to all stakeholder’s needs, your choices made based on these intentions be purely good, then the consequences would be the right legacy; and one that can stand the test of time.

Uongozi: Same Script, Different Words... Pt II

The Essence of True, Pure, and Good Leadership 

Leadership, in my book – written by a life wrought with diverse experience, observation, and interaction – is good, pure and true. It means knowing what one wants in life, and accepting it regardless of any perceived or real consequences; insofar as the individual stays true to themselves, and to their principles.

Leadership should be open to critique, constructive and detractive. It must, however, never cower, because leadership is not about being afraid of making mistakes; it is about never embracing failure. It is about looking at situations with as objective an eye as the subject of one’s self can be, and taking any mistakes made in one’s stride. Leadership, however, entails never ignoring mistakes; it is about learning to take them as negative feedback, and using this feedback to better – or even completely remodel – the thought, speech and action processes that get one to the point of collision with an unforeseen reality.

Leadership is simultaneously the pursuit of abundant – and specific – lessons to learn from; lessons which may in turn be imparted to others. It is the relevant use of these specific lessons learnt over time, in a more holistic sense; for instance, a good learner will contextualize lessons learnt in computer hardware and software communications, as appropriate, in actual human relationships. By realizing, to further elaborate, that while both the technological hardware and software of our times have to exist harmoniously for maximum efficiency, the same lesson can be inferred to stand true for physical and non-physical aspects of human relationships. This can be justified by recalling that machines were invented to make human work easier.

However, leadership does not entail blazing a path for others to follow. This is to say that good leadership, in its purest form, is not a conscious effort, but a lifestyle. 

It is a lonely road; interconnected with narrow boulevards that do not require justification or solicit compliments, but instead seek to complement their surroundings, not clash unnecessarily with them.

Leadership is important because when applied inwardly, it acknowledges that we, personally, are the problem. By recognizing that we have the choice to make in every situation we are faced with, and that we have the ability to deal with these choices’ consequences, we are at peace with ourselves. While global issues such as world peace remain within the dynamics of our day to day lives, eventually, it comes down to a simple truth: we come into this world alone, and we leave it alone. If we are not at peace with ourselves, it then follows that it is impossible for us to be truly at peace with our environs.

The truism goes that we should ‘be change that we want to see’; and while altruism is an admirable quality when applied thoughtfully, the aforementioned truism can hardly be ignored. 

Only when the public has become a collective of self-led individuals can development truly be sustainable. Because then, responsibility ceases to be a burning ball to be tossed around, and leadership disengages itself from the idea that it is a ‘hot seat’. Leadership then becomes a series of personal choices, choices we have learnt to embrace and be liable for.

The most important quality a leader should have is that of confident thought. Indecisiveness, however subtle, is a sign of weak leadership. This is not to say that a leader acts rashly, or worse, brashly; careful thought, drawing from specific lessons learnt in the past, should be applied in the making of bold yet calculated risks. The process must be as expedited and expedient in manner as each presented scenario requires. 

Further, leadership, in the socio-political context, entails the making of leaders. By this I mean that a good community leader does not simply lead themselves, or others. They engage themselves in the process of showing others, through their thought, speech, and action how to lead themselves. They are leaders, and so the rest become leaders through them.

In the global, African and Kenyan contexts, leadership entails realizing that while problems are diverse and situational all over the world, solutions are practically always possible when discourse towards progressive action is encouraged. There is a communal leader in all levels of society, and by finding a way to bridge the gap between these leaders’ access to each other, an equitable solution to specific problems can indeed be achieved. 

It would be instructive to remember, also, that there is no need to reinvent the wheel: especially in the Information Age, where access to information has been greatly increased, locating problem-solving techniques has become far a much easier process. The goal, once these techniques have been learnt, is to apply solutions to real problems, and to have adapted the solutions as per the problems at hand.

The adaptation process, for sustainability’s sake, would further need to be appropriate to the problem’s environment: local capacity of the people affected by the problem would have to be increased through training, and the hardware used made out of locally producible technology. 

In terms of software, which here refers to the thought process involved in seeking solutions, the local capacity would need a change in mindset to understand the solutions developed, ideally through culturally-sensitive trainings in a locally-appropriate language.

As of 2013, there are 39 states in the world recognized as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, HIPCs. They have been identified by a Joint Initiative designed by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank, so as ‘to ensure that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage.’

Of the 36 HIPCs whose debt reduction package has been approved, 30 are in Africa. By many accounts, there are between 195 and 205 countries in the world. Including the newest country – the Republic of South Sudan – Africa, both continental and islanded, has 54 of these countries.” 

Are we, as Africans, satisfied with having 30 of our own classified as both ‘heavily indebted’ and ‘poor’ countries, in a worldwide list that features less than 40 countries? Should the Pan-African agenda be proud of this damning statistic? Should we, as Kenyans, be happy that we do not feature in this list? Must we forget that over 50% of Kenya still lives below the poverty line, a line that is as physical in class separatism as it is real in the pain of watching a child go hungry?

Granted, the poor and the hungry, usually one and the same, have made certain choices that have brought them to the point where they are passengers in their own lives. Or have they? 

It is debatable as to whether slums exist more in their inhabitants’ minds than they do in the murky drainage systems, and systemic hygiene cancers that are standard to slums. Even more debatable is whether the slum inhabitant considers his or her surroundings as ‘poor’. But perhaps most debatable is this question: whether in the mind, or in the environs, who has put the man in the slum? 

Only by responding to this question can we possibly claim to have a basis for progression to any sustainable desired objective.

Finally, ‘a lasting legacy’ is my parting shot: it is what true leadership, whether personal or communal, means to me. That when you, as a leader are gone, those who are left behind are better for your having been, and have learnt to be as they were when you were, even when you are no longer present.

Should the leadership’s intentions be true to the people’s needs, the choices made based on these intentions purely good, the consequences would be the right legacy; and one that can stand the test of time.

Uongozi: Same Script, Different Words... Pt I

UONGOZI: The Essence of True, Pure, and Good Leadership |

An Essay's first draft...

“Numerous areas in rural Kenya are over three hours’ walking distance from the nearest  watering hole, leaving many Kenyan countryside residents without proper access to clean  water. Water Mobile Cart, WMC, is a weekly service delivery initiative that distributes fresh,  clean water directly to your home for a monthly subscription fee.”

The above are sample problem and solution statements that would feature in a leader’s thought processes. This is because, in my view, leadership means possessing the ability to not only perceive actual problems in a society, but to go beyond them and find suitable solutions. 

In the example above, the leader would seem to have gone further than the simplistic phase of stating a problem and its solution; he considers the fact that for any community to appreciate  and own a solution, they should – ideally – buy into it. 

Numerous practical examples exist to demonstrate the fact that the handout culture is as much a part of the problem, in Kenya particularly and Africa in general, as it has tried to be a solution. 

One of the most widely read and visited urban cases in point would be Kibera slum, in Nairobi. Ironically, many residents of the new Kibra constituency in Kenya may never read a book, or visit any place beyond their own microcosm of life in the slum. 

Whereas the hardware is important to any solution, it is essential to remember that the software is just as crucial, if not critical, to its sustainability. This is to say that any leader who throws money and assets at a problem, without putting in the necessary man-hours in thought, is heading blindingly fast on a crash course towards failure.

Further, the thought process, should it not be inclusive of the people whose lives are affected by the problem, will usually end in disappointment. Leading is as much about listening as it is about thinking, showing and telling. It is also instructive to note that said inclusion would need to come in the planning, execution, and maintenance stages of problem solving. This is what true leadership is about: finding effective ways to involve the community being led, in the journey to their desired destination.

The kind of leadership that is pure, good and true is important because if left to our own devices, we – as Kenyans, as Africans, as citizens of the world – have far too often been the architects of our own destruction. Leadership is about showing, through consistent action, thought and speech, a path towards the betterment of society. Take the following instance, as my second example, into consideration:

“As of 2013, there are 39 states in the world recognized as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, HIPCs. They have been identified by a Joint Initiative designed by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank, so as ‘to ensure that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage.’

Of the 36 HIPCs whose debt reduction package has been approved, 30 are in Africa. By many accounts, there are between 195 and 205 countries in the world. Including the newest country – the Republic of South Sudan – Africa, both continental and islanded, has 54 of these countries.” 

Are we, as Africans, satisfied with having 30 of our own classified as both ‘heavily indebted’ and ‘poor’ countries, in a worldwide list that features less than 40 countries? Should the PanAfrican agenda be proud of this damning statistic? Should we, as Kenyans, be happy that we do not feature in this list? Must we forget that over 50% of Kenya still lives below the poverty line, a line that is as physical in class separatism as it is real in the pain of watching a child go hungry?

Granted, the poor and the hungry, usually one and the same, have made certain choices that have brought them to the point where they are passengers in their own lives. Or have they? 

It is debatable as to whether slums exist more in their inhabitants’ minds than they do in the [1] murky drainage systems, and systemic hygiene cancers that are standard to slums. Even more debatable is whether the slum inhabitant considers his or her surroundings as ‘poor’. But perhaps most debatable is this question: whether in the mind, or in the environs, who has put the man in the slum? 

Only by responding to this question can we possibly claim to have a basis for progression to any desired objective.

The answer to this question, while considering the fact that the slum in question is not only physical but mental, is the most important test of any leader’s capacity to lead. The most important quality a leader should possess is the ability to place himself in the shoes of his people, without forgetting that he has a role that transcends anyone’s personal gratification. This is to say that while the ideal leader must be conscious of his community’s woes, he must also remember that his own personal interests, and those of his people, are compliant to outside forces. 

Bringing together the first and second examples given above, allow me to demonstrate why I believe my statement on the best quality of a leader to be true. 

The initial problem, as stated, is that there are ‘numerous areas in rural Kenya’ which are more than ‘three hours’ walking distance from the nearest watering hole’, and therefore ‘many Kenyans in the countryside’ reside ‘without proper access to clean water.’ A true, pure and good leader will also be cognizant of the fact that his community’s world is influenced by its environment, be it national, regional or international. They will remember this, even as they feel the pain their people live – if not merely exist and survive – within. 

While Emotional Intelligence, defined as ‘the ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups’, is a necessary a facet of leadership, it must be complimented by a realistic and perspective view of the factors that prevail on any community, for the community to be prepared to coexist with other communities within its nation, region, continent or the world. When Emotional Intelligence is guided by a realistic and holistic perspective on an all-inclusive path, pathological altruism can arguably be avoided.

Pathological altruism is defined as ‘behaviour in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.’ 

Instances of misguided altruism would include tribalism, nepotism, racism, classism, and the culture of giving handouts in the name of social responsibility. This, mind you, is to name but a few. Real value, however, can only be judged on an equitable exchange of significance, where both parties – the leadership and the people led – emerge satisfied.

Good leadership is conscious of this balance in the exchange of value. Therefore, the Water Mobile Cart in the first example would have the vision to enable the community’s self-supplyof water in the long-term; the leadership of WMC would possibly be conscious of the UnitedNations Millennium Development Goals, MDGs; it would also know that water provision to poor communities cuts across MDGs 1 and 7 – that is, first, eradicating extreme hunger and poverty; and seventh, ensuring environmental sustainability. Such knowledge, plus the fact that MDG 8 envisions ‘developing a global partnership for development’ would be vital towards empowering this hypothetical community beyond reliance on the leadership of WMC.

A lasting legacy; that is what leadership means to me. That when you, as a leader are gone, those who are left behind are better for your having been, and have learnt to be as they were when you were, even when you are no longer present.

Should the leadership’s intentions be true to the people’s needs, the choices made based on these intentions purely good, the consequences would be the right legacy; and one that can stand the test of time.