Ghururi Ya Mutula Verdict: It’s ok NOT to mourn him - Pt 2

Continues from part I

But if-by-Mutula you mean ‘the consummate Wanjikus' Katiba (Kenya’s constitution) and rights advocate and defender of recent years,’ a man whose mantra can be equated to “thou shalt not kill nor sit in the council of conspirators planning the death of another man;” if-by-Mutula you mean the defender of the justice system so rigorous he believed that ‘our duty is not to do justice; the fundamental duty of a criminal defense lawyer is to zealously represent his client within the bounds of the law, and to defend the justice system which is hinged on the principle that no man shall be found guilty of a criminal offense unless the prosecutor proves his case beyond any reasonable doubt;’ the man who believed that ‘to do otherwise would be to invite anarchy in the justice system,’ because ‘many innocent people may be condemned to death or imprisonment if the standard of proof was to be lowered below "any reasonable doubt," and would advice that ‘in contrast, the duty of a prosecutor is not to simply prosecute, but to do justice.’ 

 If-by-Mutula you mean the ‘vintage’ legal mind ‘under whose able tutelage’ his daughter, Kethi Kilonzo, ‘many years later had the audacity to stand in court and pursue what her father opposed in 1992 and 1997: the petitioners' case to have the results of a presidential election annulled on the basis of "glaring electoral malpractices";’ one in whom the law coursed his veins so much that ‘as a defense lawyer in a criminal case he would, as required, discredit the witnesses, facts, assertions, evidence, or whatever the prosecutor presents against his client, "within the bounds of the law", even though he may know or believe it to be truthful or accurate,’ and dutifully ‘present any viable defense, no matter his personal feelings about its true merit;’ if-by-Mutula you mean the defense lawyer who would we never knowingly present false testimony, but would use true testimony to whatever benefit he could for his client, no matter how horrific the crime or evil the defendant,’ because ‘factual guilt plays no role whatsoever in the duty of a defense lawyer to zealously defend his client, and there should never be a moral dilemma once a lawyer assumes the duty to defend.’ 

If-by-Mutula you talk of the defense lawyer whose ‘brief was to use whatever tools were available under the law to obtain an acquittal, dismissal or the best possible outcome, whether based upon fact or law, whether capitalizing on a tactical error by the prosecution or advantage offered to the defense,’ and whose ‘function as such was not to judge, or impose his sensibilities or morality, but to defend his client,’ because ‘that is as it should always be if the justice system is to have any credibility,’ then by all means, like this separation of law from moral dilemma quoted extensively from Wanjiku Revolution Kenya’s post, I too ‘hope that as we prepare to inter the bones of Snr. Counsel Mutula Kilonzo, we will understand his roles during the KANU days and in the recent years. That he was simply a good lawyer, who did his duty according to his education and training. And so may the Lord rest his soul in eternal peace!’

Yet like @WanjikuRevolt goes on to ask, ‘how can we reconcile ourselves with Mutula the tax evader who earned over 1 billion from a single case representing a Wanjiku tax-/pensions-funded institution?’ 

And right here is where the entire fallacy falls apart. In the past 15 months, Kenya has seen 4 high-profile politicians perish, among them John Michuki, Njenga Karume, former Vice President (VP) George Saitoti, and now Mutula Kilonzo. The first two died naturally, a cardiac arrest and cancer respectively cancelling them out rather quietly. The last two, however, died rather mysteriously, with the former VP – then Internal Security Minister – and his then assistant minister Orwa Ojode, crashing and burning in a contentious helicopter ‘accident.’

Now a lot has been said about these four men, and particularly about how they acquired their vast wealth; I will not delve into that. Even more has been said about their double-edged political personalities, pro-status quo before the end of Moi’s era, yet somewhat effective and ineffectual in almost equal measure during Master Kibaki’s reign. I will avoid getting sucked into that easy wormhole just as well. What is more interesting to me is the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their equally very dead compatriots; that these 4 ‘Good, Bad & Ugly’ men have been more equal in mourning than the 1000+ who died in the 2007/08 Post Election Violence (PEV); that they deserved multi page-spreading obituaries and state-funded ads reminding us that they have died.  Never mind the little ignominious detail that the families which survived them have more money to better lick their wounds with than the 600k+ who survived PEV, but died as citizens to be reborn as refugees in their own land (IDPs). 

A sickening development I noticed on my Social Media timelines was the prevalence of universal condolence messages to Mutula’s bereaved from Kambas and Luos, while Kikuyus and their consorts seemed universally cynical. I feel the need to remind you of your lanes, people. You belong in that lower echelon of many that died during the PEV and went by unnoticed. Not in the upper stratum of creamed crops whose death becomes a national event and tragedy.

One death is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic

                             –       Joseph Stalin 

The Kikuyu and the Kamba have, in my mind, coexisted rather well in the past, and it was only in the run-in to the elections that there emerged differences. How reconcilable is yet to be seen, but it was rather telling that old Kikuyu people I know, for the first time in my life, shared the little-known ‘fact’ that the Kamba were the most ruthless Home Guards during the colonial Emergency period. That may well be so, and the fact that the Kamba collaborated with the British is hardly a secret. Neither is the fact that some of the most rewarded collaborators were from the Kikuyu community. That it was used as a deriding fact to demonstrate the general population of our Kamba people’s affinity to “collaborate with the oppressors,” or cross over to the dark side, if you like, was rather telling of my people’s contentment to subsist upon a microcosm of the crutches of the very same dirty tribal linen that so paralyses them.

When the news, quickly captured in images distributed transversally on Social Media, that Kalonzo Musyoka had broken down as he relayed the news of Mutula Kilonzo’s death to the people gathered at the funeral he was attending when he received the news, the first responders disparaging his act as a campaign maneuver were from my tribe. Now I’m not one to rush into the defense of ANY politician’s intentions, and certainly not one as convoluted by double standards as the former Vice President. I am equally not one, however, to let tribal bigotry – however nuanced – simply slide.

Mutula Kilonzo admittedly separated ethics and emotion from his practice of law in life; in death, we should not be expected to be ethical or emotional in our analysis of his passing either. But we should be logical. No one man is all good or all bad: he defended the despotic Moi and made a trailer-load of money while at it, but was instrumental in the constitutional reforms, and depending on who you choose to believe, was a humanitarian – a Rotarian – with the reform agenda etched deeper in his heart than any of our remaining crop of August House(s) bosses. 

Not only is it ok, however, NOT to mourn him. It is also in one fell swoop ethical, legal and hardly a moral dilemma NOT to. It's a choice, like everything else.

The Return of MOI: Kenya's Post Erection Insolence

Everybody loses it, I have oft found, continue to find. Perhaps this is why, in writing this piece, I sat and took a long hard think as to how I'd say what I need say, and appear not to bitch. Appearances, however, are a tart cliché filled with deceptive pastry.

This is not a bitch post. My mother had it tested.

I have also oft found that I disappoint people a lot. More on appearances -- remember them? -- than it is on the deliberate intention to deceive. The appearance that I fit into a box: the 'one of us' box; the 'not for us' box; the 'uptight' box; 'the easy-go-lucky' box...and much more recently, the '(not) Kumbaya my Lord' boxes. 

Recently, however, a new series of boxes has seemed to emerge. The 'serious', 'loaded' or 'seriously loaded' box, depending on where the boxer stands. 

You see, I decided to start a company. I have done business before, but this time I chose to go it the long hard narrow way that is incorporation in Kenya. 

Being as I find action to be incorporated in thought and speech, I talked about the company; it was soon to be that the company took on a life of its own. A story, one oft finds, that I will tell another day; since that is not why we're assembled in this dark cyber room, pretending to speak to you. 

We're gathered here today, dear brethren and sirens, to cast our minds back to the days when Kenya was born. 50 years ago, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. 

In fact, Wrong Turn kinda-dead wrong.

Kenya was born of the fecal matter that sprung out of the Race for Africa. Just in case the wording fools you, we're talking about race in a 'Hey ye! hey ye! scramble, let us partition Africa's scrambled eggs' kinda way. 

The Race for Africa. Not the colored race, nor the colorful races. 

Those races are not the kind we speak of. The race we do, today, is the same one that invaded - and continues to invade - the dusty 1, cave-dwelling 2, Provincial Roman populace 3 now known as Africa. The same one that occupied, annexed -- and continues to occupy, annex -- this land, named for all intents and purposes after some king-doomed place, in or around present-day Tunisia4. 

The race -- your History books will tell you, if you bother yourself with them -- that colonized and civilized my ancestors. It continues to colonize and civilize their children's great grand children.

The Race for Africa. The only race that has been for Africa. The violent race; a bloody winner-takes-all race; one that named, shamed and took Africa, continues to name, shame and take Africa.

The capital race; a Capitalist's race wrought in steel, iron and capital murder; not a colored race, nor a colorful race.

Even the people who live in the continent called Africa certainly are not for it. They spring from it, in more ways than one. They are sometimes born in it, into it; sometimes they choose to live in it, fly into it. 

Always fly in. 

You don't hear Amistad-like stories of people drowning in their boat-fulls; on their way from Spain, crossing the 15 odd Strait of Gibraltar kilometers into Morocco, and to the blissful freedom of oblivion's claws.

The Strait of Gibraltar as seen from space by NASA, 14 April 1994.
(North is to the left: The Iberian Peninsula is on the left; North Africa on the right)

What you do hear, is those born in it, when given the Green chance, springing the blank off of her sperm-fulls of potential blanks. If they're lucky enough to be worth their host country economy's while.

Yes sir, Frank Njenga sir! Ladies first...

The people of Africa, as she is now, spring from Africa. Spring; not from what it was when it wasn't Africa, but from what it is since it has been Africa. For over half a century towards the 19th Century's close of business, before the boss said there would be no pay for overtime, the dusty slum-dwellers of the black land were prepped. 

Lubed, more like, by a hegemony -- an informal governance, if you will -- of military superiority and economic dominance. That, and the influencing promise of slave-ship detours to Religiosity.

Long before the land- and mind- grabbing began -- long before the lines drew, the mines blew -- there lived a Berber named Leo Africanus. The Moorish 16th Century diplomat and author is said to have written of the land west of the Nile Valley, in a Descrittione dell'Africa.  A Description of Africa in which he proposed that his home was aphrike, from the Greek Αφρική. With the suffix φρική, meaning "cold and horror", and a prefix that to this day means 'without', he described his home as being 'without cold or fear/ horror.' He is also said to have traveled to Timbuktu and back - literally, before it became a European byword for inaccessibility.

He never once crossed the Sahara, nor saw Nigeria, Kenya or South Africa. He did see a lot of the Songhai Empire, travel through Cairo to Constantinople and Bologna. Go figure. 

The Rhodes Colossus: Caricature of Cecil John Rhodes, after he announced plans for a telegraph line and railroad from Cape Town to Cairo. December, 1892.

The irony that you - supposedly - are going to figure, is that the man after whom Africa was more likely christened 5:

• did not see most of what he described, but rather relied on what he was informed of. 

• did not see Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa, countries supposedly synonymous with Africa today. See Africa Rising narrative.

• quite possibly did not intend to describe any more than his own knowledge. That is, he described what lands he conquered -- also later known as 'discovered' -- in his travels. Mostly North Africa; this he compared, one might imagine, to what else he had seen. Namely some bits and pieces of Italia, Anatolia (Asia Minor) and what lay in between.

This is what became of Leo's knowledge, in 1600.

 'A Geographical Historie of Africa' was proclaimed.

To Africanus, however, aphrike was what he knew; and he certainly knew a lot. Quite like many of our own leaders, wannabe leaders and pretend leaders today do. He had read, you see. He had been told, you will find. He had also traveled and seen some, and concluded that what he had seen -- related to what he had read, and been told to think -- was true. 

He had not, one finds, experienced every nook and cranny of what landmass became Africa; much - again - like many of our African Union peeps. Peeps who be presidents: many simply peeping abroad and sipping high teas as their small portions of the cake Africa rot in their mouths.

I am no apologist of Europe - or Britain, for that matter - in as far as her Colonial History is concerned.  I am no apologist of Africa -- or Kenya, for that matter -- in as far as her recovery, or pretense thereof from said history, is concerned. 

But; inasmuch as facts be considered, then the following remain true:

• Kenya is not Kenya for Kenya's interests.

• Neither is Africa for her own interests.

• Being Kenyan, Ugandan, Burkinabe or South African (what does this even mean? Where does South begin?) counts for naught in as far as bread puts up tables.

Who, pray tell then, is African? Who is Kenyan?

I am who I am. I think -- dream even -- but not like Umair Haque does, or thinks I should or shouldn't. I do, but not like my brother and friend Boniface Mwangi  may or may not think I should. I say, but not as my good foreign friends -- TED -- and gooder local enemies -- GOK -- think I should. 

My thinking -- my dreaming, even -- and my doings and sayings, are my own. They should not come to be sought to presume that I have this, that or that there. This being money and women, as they go together... oh so tenderly well. That being expensive phones... and that there?

That there being leadership. 

Because I will, by default, likely disappoint these boxes. At the very least, my appearance will.

      .::0 To be continued 0::.

Ps: This is still not a bitch post. It was the return of moi, French for me. Or the return of My Own Interests. Or the return of President Moi. 

To see what actual bitch posts look like, contact me here, here and here. They may or may not really be bitchy.
____________________

1-4. From Africa's Etymology, see hypotheses on: dust, cave, Africa Province - capital city being Carthage - and Ifriqya - being modern-day Tunisia.

5. My own presumption, based on little actual knowledge.

* The next installment of today's piece features: Kenya's colony, and how it led us to where and who we are to date, our post election insolence, and 'my own interests' culture... 

DISCLAIMER: It may or may not be titled as follows. 

"From Kenya to Africa: One Big School Full OF FAKE Bitches."

Post-Election Insolence: Same Script, Same Cast, Different Lanes (Part I)

April 26th, 2013: 

Under the influence of an inspired State House PR team, and a brilliant presidential speech-writer, I find myself in the unfamiliar position of becoming President Kenyatta’s unofficial fan-boy. And going by my Social Media timelines, it would seem that I’m not the only Kenyan above the ignorance of tripping over myself at what must be this president’s burliest mascot – his smoke, pun unintended, and mirrors.

There was the YouTube video of bloopers from the campaign trail, aired live on Citizen TV – among other nationwide visual couriers of new agendas. What self-respecting PRO could in their right mind have passed up on that kind of marketing? A nice touch you’ll find available for download at Image-improvementfordummies.co.ke and cleanasababysbottom.com. 

Characteristically much later came the Cabinet Secretary announcements, anticlimactically revealing only four of a possible eighteen nominees. The images depicting UhuRuto with their sleeves rolled up with the red, blue or matching ties could not have been lost on us either, a leaf copy-pasted straight off President Obama’s playbook; as was the setup of the presidential platform at the foot of the pillars of State House, and the “brotherly love” approach to handling the media.

The immediate hullabaloo over this delay in cooking up a cabinet was counterbalanced by equally loud calls for patience, since the process of selection would only do Kenya good, hence requiring diligent input by the two Jubilee leaders. Opinionistas were quick to delve into the matter, adding the fact that it allowed Parliament to begin the vetting process on the four, notably the nominee to the National Treasury. A road sign was quickly erected, reminding us of the immediacy of the budget reading, and pointing directly at President Uhuru’s ingenuity in prioritizing that appointment. Even more pedestrian crossings allowed us to cross the reality that department of state appointments in democracies such as the motherload United States are also conducted in similar fashion. Hail the dapper UhuRuto for style, they said.

After ascertaining that we’d had enough time to mull over this perceived letdown, yesterday happened. The now sixteen member council of nominees’ credentials have since been turned into fodder on massive multi-page spreads in the National Press: a young and virile team of technocrats with the résumés, frequent flier miles and Varsity qualifications – read Diaspora education – to back them. It would be difficult to dig into a good majority of these consummate professionals before they’ve had the onus of a Cabinet track record to look back on; and so for the most part, Kenyans chose to eyeball the two final nominees, who had the ignominy of a hangman’s noose in the form of their past performances hanging over their heads.

It was indeed a masterstroke distinctive of this new regime’s style when the two final nominations came. The execution was flawless…introduce the less-maligning Balala first and fast as Mining Secretary, and what with Kenyan women’s obvious goo goo gaga reactions to both Andrew Kenneth and then-President Elect Uhuru’s son, it was hard to disagree with that logic. Much especially so when one of the bigger stains in Kenya’s conscience – if she had one – was announced next as Lands, Housing and Urban Development Secretary. A fellow blogger went as far as inaugurating the indelible ink used by the IEBC to mark voters’ pinkies as ‘the Ngilu’, aptly summarizing her hard-to-be-rid-of hard-as-nails Die Hardness. 

  

In the interests of being fundamentally unKenyan, however, let’s spot and point out the obvious flaws in this action by the president, and the equal and expectedly opposite overreaction by the public. First off, if the past 7-odd years of Mr. Kibaki’s governance have shown us anything, it’s that we the duly submissive wananchi have an impressively sturdy level of BSc, aka Bullshit compliance. After an initially quasi-smooth beginning to his term, Señor Kibaki’s government began experiencing hit after hit of graft allegations on a grand scale. Cabinet Ministers who would go on to survive both terms in cabinet were at the heart of these scandals, and no less than the Prime Minister, at the time, as well as the current President and his Deputy have since had their fair share of the corruption allegation cake.

Our national ego however quickly massaged our national conscience into submission, cushioned by echoes of a booming economy that peaked at 7 percent+ growth in 2007. Secondly, even after the election violence slammed the brakes on this impressive trajectory in the eve of that year, our precocious National Accord did precious little to bring to account all the evils of the 3-odd month chaos that rocked the country, preferring instead to lock them up in a cabinet of faux peaceful oblivion. I will hereby declare my silence on the awkward little topic of how far up that cabinet’s annals the matter of the two Suspects-in-Chief’s involvement is filed. 

Fast forward through Mr. Kibaki’s second term, right past the fact that the economy has never quite recovered to its pre-07 election pregnancy glow, police brutality caught live on tape, Ngilu’s ‘Kusema-na-Kutender’ government contract policy for her family, and arrive at the fact that these four politicians that will possibly make up Cabinet are a precipitate remnant of the systemic cancer that permeates Kenyan politics. The fact that we’re reacting so strongly to two cabinet ministerial appointments belays the beleaguered truth that the President and his Deputy are not saints either. Their power is so much more potentially weary for Kenya’s economy than a couple of Secretaries could ever be. 

Moreover, there is also the little matter of the illusion of transparency – a cousin to the delusion of maturity that was peddled regarding our peaceful elections. Mock transparency concerts have become a favorite national pastime for us. Initially given to the impression of them simply being a little passing crush, I am wont to keep that false hope up given the vetting committee that awaits this panel of preeminent secretaries. A committee that itself wrought down the Integrity bill to its bare bone to escape vetting. Yet the same institutions that have been vetted include the IEBC (Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission), the SCoK (Supreme Court of Kenya) and the SRC (Salaries and Regulations Committee) among myriad others. And look how far ahead of the imaginary pack that has taken us! 

Vetting is a superficially pointless attempt at presenting us sanctimonious facades, behind which still sit the deep-seated structural flaws we are yet to take off our collective feet.

So as you and I continue to exercise in our national training grounds for BSc, it would behoove us to continue upgrading our UXp (User Exercise in patience) coz it’s gonna be a long ride. If UhuRuto really wish to preside over a nation devoted to balancing the historically set up equation of inequity, they might want to start by cutting their flair for the dramatic and convincingly turn their images on their heads, and with that, all the attendant melancholy their half-baked policies could inflict on Kenya.

How much BS is too much BS? Kenya is the perfect case study establishing that there is simply no answer to that question. Hopefully in Part II remember to bash the insidious Cord leadership, but for now, this seems sufficient.

    On a sidenote: 

      Of course I too thought the appointments yesterday represented one region, and part of one region alone. Runda, Nairobi. Or Muthaiga et al. The nominees have a lot in common with President UK, not least in their overwhelming affinity for the Queen's language, and an inescapable half Kikuyu + Kalenjin composition. And before you jump on my throat, I am a Kikuyu, so by stereotypical thought I readily admit to being a thief and first cousin to the president. 

That being outta the way, what I'd like to add is the fact that we need a rollerskating kinda cabinet, not a credentialist/ tribalist kind. Credentials follow the set norm. As does tribalism. Rollerskating needs you to practice being on the board - and granted, fall off it as many times as Edison's light bulb moments anti-orgasmed - till you find a way to stay on top of the board. And begin to muster it.

Viva Afrique: The Good, the Bad & the Shame of Tana Country

It’s been a month since I presumed to have what it took to level an entire county and claim that the bad and ugly in it could possibly be whitewashed by the valiant frontline made up of these young men and women: men and women of a tender age, who have risen against the tall order that is a nightmare of conceited – and bigoted – perceptions and misconceptions about a people.

While I retain the optimism with which I wrote my first piece for Storymoja’s Imagine our World, life is a continuum of moments that can – if we so choose to let them – define us.

As I write this installment on literacy in a far-flung county, the country rests against a backdrop of mutiny: in the teaching ranks and in parliament – where Members broke into the veritable rabble they truly are, to mock teachers’ pay demands with redundant chants in their support. Here’s a thought: give up the ‘astronomical emoluments’ you have been granted after you ‘arm-twisted the treasury into paying’ towards your personal kitties to ‘[buy] a sinuous limousine.’ That alone would raise nearly Kes 2 Billion for the teachers’ kitty.

But rather than sit here and develop a cancerous multi-headed dragon of an ulcer – with every single one of your portraits pasted on all their foreheads – let me remember that you are but a mirror of our own society. You’ll be happy to know that your narrow-mindedness is not unique to your class. Oh no. An educated man I know had this to say of the teachers’ industrial action:

“TSC [Teachers’ Service Commission], kindly transfer all those teachers shown demonstrating in Nai[robi] to far flung counties. ‘Choices have consequences.’ North Eastern & Tana would do!!!”

A very poor sentiment, coming from the ‘ruling elite – the stratum educated enough to know better’; what he seemed to be saying was that the teachers’ demonstrations are wrong, as is the North Eastern region, and Tana County… I did not spare him a piece of my mind; I never do, when I have a piece to spare.

To quote a friend, “I think people should listen as much as they speak [if not more] to avoid the reckless mouthfuls being thrown around. It is also important that people know that their opinions, regardless of how informed they are, will not be universally accepted; and they should be comfortable with this thought. That should be a good place to begin from.”

Chanting slogans such as “Choices have consequences!!!” does not make anyone right. A nation whose baggage of unresolved historical injustices spills into a little brother and that gives us the right to ape it? Because we have more historical injustices unresolved, all tightly packed up, accepted as part of our own litany of disdainfully ugly usikondes? Kenyans do, after all, love a sideshow. This is reflective of our own society’s lack of a sense of direction, and its general good logic of ‘acceptable’ mediocrity.

Moving on, while there is of course an aspect of sideshows-becoming-the-issue, what with the Susan Tujuanes, KTN presents: laughter, KTN presents: Ciku, Art Caffe brouhaha et al; whether it’s the issue or the sideshow we discuss, it’s all very classist. Susan the classy girl who does ‘not do fries’ went ham on a poor Joe from Eastlando, so the slum that is Kenya’s mis-educated online banditry goes ham on Susan. Art Caffe staff alleged to be racist, classist, and whatnots, and so the lower caste that has never stepped into Art Caffe reacts. One fortunate lady actually has no idea what a croissant is – or crossiant, as the menu at The Mug calls it. Cue the French Mandazi retorts from the so called upper caste.

Instead of focusing on collaboration, coming together to understand each other and forge ahead with the understanding that we coexist in ONE bloody country, we result, always do, to the lowest form of wit and shared witticisms. You don’t need to imagine it: this failed state of mind is our world.

Yet creative collaboration, even with real issues in our society, is not only necessary to progress. It is critical in our development beyond self-interests. Why does your face always have to be on the landing page of every website you own? Every issue there is to talk about? What, pray tell, do you do with your time, other than sit around and wait, hoping that another Huddah shows her boobies so you can get credits for the most retweets and shares? Or are you retarded enough to believe those shares mean anything in the market?

Nairobi is trying, if not hard enough, to be LA. A newly made British ‘friend’ says we’re building a copy of California’s infrastructure with nearly zero of its industry. I 100% agree. And while I realize that many feel they have no employ, or choice of employ, that thought in itself IS the problem. Until we realize that the people are, ideally, stronger than The Industry and The System combined, and remember that Post-Election Violence in 08 was not a Horror Movie, there’s no changing jerk. Hence there’s simply no point talking about it either.

But we’re living in a country that gives no damn about itself. Because if you feel your job sucks bad ass, it’s your fault you’re there. That you earn shit and so need tips which don’t flow from dark skins is not your employer’s fault. You made a choice; it has its consequences. The ‘nyeuthi’ guys being generalized as having been served only to give a ceiling of 50 bob tips don’t live in the bubble these generalized high-tipping wazungus and absolutely ignored other races do. I guess we can rest the classist vs racist case in pieces.

Tips are not essential to your job, so quit acting like they are already, and get a real job. Where you get paid for what you do, and how you do it, not because you think you deserve it! Watch a few sports – I’d suggest football – and soon you might learn that deserving to win, and winning, are two very alien concepts.

As we established earlier, having an opinion does not entitle anyone to being listened to. Ergo, you do not have to listen to me.

However, if you’re still reading, another opinion:

“Not everybody is like that; many accept the choices and conditions of others. I’m an agnostic atheist, hopelessly straight, 1% biker, geek, nerd, Gamer, and much more similar crap, but I accept people of all religions, homosexuality and all the spectrum of consensual sexual orientations, weekenders, cagers, athletes and whatever, so long as they do not want to change me, from my freakiness to their freakiness.
At the end, it’s a question of tolerance, of quid pro quo.”

We’ll call this a re-introduction to my piece on Tana County. Simply because talking about literacy, with all this fucking illiteracy floating about, beats the shit out of any conceptual framework I would intend to pass on through any form of report on the Tana County literacy project.

I’ll end with a couple of quotes from a Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi talk:

On Classist separations of complaint:

“Complaining about our problems is an art form [for Nigerians]… But if a European were to say the same things … to recite the same litany of complaints exactly, Nigerians become defensive; sometimes angrily so. I have always been curious of this brand of defensiveness, which I myself often exhibit, by the way. It seems to me that we have it because we assume that the complaining Nigerian is aware that Nigeria is not only about its problems; is aware of the human complexities; knows of the intelligence and ingenuity of people; knows how they cry and laugh; knows what motivates them; what they aspire to, and what they find meaningful. And we suspect that the European – entrenched in a view of us as ‘needers’ of charity – does not know these other stories, about us…”

On the illusion of Privilege:

“That I understand the structural setup of the world, speak better English and send my relatives money, does not make me morally or metaphysically better … than them.”

Occupy HELB, says the Fiddler on my Non-existent Roof

Tom, as Rabbi

“Rabbi! Rabbi! Is there a prayer we can say for the Tsar?”

“Yes! May God bless the Tsar…and keep him far far away from us!”

-          Scene III of Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Dear HELB*, 

(*Higher Education Loans Board)

90%Sold Out, you say?

Where have I heard that sold out threat before? Oh, yeah, that’s right. Every new skyscraper that litters the lines in Nairobi’s horizon has that pitchfork aimed at our sights, long before it’s actually complete.

Every event organizer threatens that advance (cheaper) tickets are about to sell out, despite tickets also being ‘available at the gate’. Every other radio show host will promise you juicy call-in sessions that are (I swear!) unscripted. Safaricom threatened to trap all unregistered trappers in the whole of Kenya oga oh. Digital TV threatened to go ham on Analog TV late last year. 

We’ve become a society that feeds on – nay; gobbles up and hobbles off with, to use pigliamentary language – Public Relations exercises and marketing gimmicks. I have no doubt that this SMS I received from you during the course of this week was inspired by State House’s hyperbolic antics.

Your loan balance is Kes. 888,888 for Idno. 2xyz2abc. Repay your full University Loan by 6^th June 2013 and get a full penalty amnesty; contact HELB - 0711052000

Sender: (no name) HELB 

Received: 18:43:27 0y.05.2013

So allow me to respond in kind, dear no name.

I will not contact you.

As we have already established, I have no money. See text you sent me above. In case you need advance settings on that simple message, I will be willing to assist. Bank statements from my 2 money changers should bring you to tears. I can assure you that they will be no joy drops, either, as the Revenue Authority may well choose to alert you. Simply put, even my Mpesa statement - nay, Okoa Jahazi Account! -  is by and large a casting call for phantasmagoria. *Google is your friend, dear no name*

‘History records that money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance. ’

         -          President James Madison

I am willing to pay.

If I could eat will, I would be one helluva fat man. Complete with the willing wrist and neck chains, glistening with will as I stand on a podium of will, next to the president of will, and chant willingly about the will of the Kenyan workers' ill will against the House of Common thieves. I am sure, however, that you understand that will is not yet a currency. As soon as it is, however, I will more than likely pay you.

‘You can be killed just as dead in an unjustified war as you can in one protecting your own home’

       -          Will Rogers

I have not refused to work.

This is not a statement of my lack of intent to pay. I know you bureaucratic types have a way of selecting what you listen to, and even then you've already filtered out what you hear. 

This is a statement of my lack of ability to pay. 

Show me the money, and I will quickly give it to you. So in the spirit of giving back, and all, how about you give me back my dignity before you attempt to take away my liberty?

‘We don’t have to worry about anything. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit.’

          -          Will Rogers

Of course, to quote Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof (the movie), "we don't eat like kings, but we don't starve either."

I will not be threatened.

You said there’s a penalty amnesty? I wish, oh how I do, that I had 2 weeks of my area MP’s salary. The current one, not the one he wants. 

Then I would, in order of priority, buy a quarter acre of land in some Savannah of the un-silicon kind, buy a trailer container, use it to ‘develop’ said kaquarter, buy a mattress and fit it midway into the container, then – and only then – I would send you the change.

In the meantime, take a chill pill as my MP and I negotiate. 

Unfortunately, he is not a cougar (that’s an older woman into younger boys, no name) – and I don’t roll that way, neither does he; I haven’t heard it on Ghafla! anyway. If he was a she, an actual she, not a he-she, I would consider giving him some.

‘A man only learns by two things; one is reading, and the other is association with smarter people.’

              -          Will Rogers

Find yourselves a book. Or else look for smarter people. You’re reading one right now, by the way, no name. Thanks to your Loan, Varsity was a blast. The reading part, the partying part and the women part; we even learnt to do all three at once. Don’t believe me? Google the World’s Loudest Library (@pmbclibrary)

Are you so out of touch with reality, in your penthouse offices and leafy suburban bliss, that you forget why you gave me the loan to begin with? Because I could not pay my way through Varsity on my own; now you’re going to sit there paying for this bulk SMS system, advertising rigorously that I pay ‘or else’?

You are called the Higher Education Loans Board – higher education is pointless if I will not be working anywhere without being either underemployed, or overworked and underpaid. Then you expect me to simply watch as you deep your claws into that piggy bank I call an existence? Whatever happened to a saving culture?

‘We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.’

                 -          Will Rogers

I have a right to peace of mind, and a piece of meat in my daily meal. Not the 3-course you’re on as you demand your money back! And you have the right to a piece of my mind. I’ll try serving you to your fill.

                     

If I were a rich man ... there would be no questions. When you're rich they really think you know

I will put up my own house.

This particular one is a message from my ol’ man. He may be my guarantor, but there is absolutely no way he is paying that loan. He says, by the way, that you can find him on Twitter, and he'll gladly reiterate that sentiment. 

I wouldn’t have it any other way. He builds his own houses, and I will build mine. If that means the penalty (Kes. 5,000 a month is it?) will continue to dig a hole through my as torn pocket, then so be it.

I have after all been out of Campus for two years, and by my estimation of my own worth, I should be paying the Revenue Authority at least Kes. 15,000 a month. That, over a duration of 24+ months means I owe the Government of Kenya at least Kes. 360,000. By my reckoning, I have at least 2 more years before my loan, plus the monthly penalties, gets that far. I can live with that…scratch that; I can SURVIVE with that.

‘Ten men in the country could buy the world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.’

                    -          Will Rogers

Just as I will pay my own bride-price should it come to that, I do not expect to be emasculated any further by having the man who foots my bills when times are thick (whale-skin thickness, not your regular hide) and has fed me regularly over the past 24 months, also have to pay my dues at no name.

***

Incidentally, what is the world coming to when a man has to take out a loan to pay back a loan he was granted as a student loan? Forget interest-free loans, President Uhuru…we want a rebate!

So as we plan to #OccupyParliament in less than 48 hours, I challenge every defaulter who has defaulted not by choice but by lack thereof it, to join me in asking President Uhuru to budget for a government bail-out of we the meek.

I do not seek to ask for a handout. I seek to receive a scrapping on the BS penalty that ignores the fact that I need to earn to pay back my dues. So before any Salaries and Remunerations are upgraded for 400 odd able-bellied men, how about the richest man in Kenya by Forbes’ account help us #OccupyHELB?

Think of it as indemnity for the youth, Mr. President, and your soon-to-be parliament.

"He's right and he's right? They can't BOTH be right!"

"You know; you are also right."

                                       - Fiddler on the Roof 

If we deserve to ‘accept’ your nomination of political devil incarnates who have ‘moved on’ and reincarnated as technocrats, don’t we deserve to also give the youth a second chance to pay back their student loans interest- and penalty-free?

As a man who appreciates more flair and panache in a speech than Kibaki, I’m sure you can relate with this one.

‘There is one thing in common with all revolutions (in fact they are pretty near like wars in that respect) nobody ever knows what they are fighting about!’

                                                  -          Will Rogers