Up Yours, Dear Kenyan Mangina: Go Suck a Real Dick ||

Now at this festival, there was perhaps no more indicative a bullshit session of Kenya’s faux liberati scum as the forum dubbed ,“The! Future! of Men!: What is it like to be a man in Kenya today? of Men!: What is it like to be a man in Kenya today?” 


It was moderated by the consummate prick that is Oyunga Pala, supposedly in conversation with his little big dickmate Biko Zulu, but eventually groped by the now infamous Tony Mochama.We both know you came to drool at Biko, little girl. So sad you were that he did not show, you pulled off your panties and put the roof on fire. But did not squirt it off at the end, when it really was the least you coulda done.


I will not sit here and talk about what has been extensively cataloged by every feminist blog between here and kingdom chick-bean-flicking cum. As an audience member, I did that. Internal monologues between me and myself, and later with one puny cocked weasel Yule Mbois Mndialala who thinks himself some sort of autonomous wankster god on Facebook.


The session turned out quite as I had expected. In these Kenyan *spaces,* the right to doublethink has categorically been displayed as a privilege the *mens* should – make that capital, underlined, bold *Must* – check. It is whipped out in such fancy colours that you, the menses, actually do. You do check these privileges your dick gave you over her pussy.


Women have been silent for so long in Kenya, the second they grow a pair of brain cells, they feel they own the privileged right to whip it out and shut you up with it.


Who said that victims cannot be graceful victors? All I see in these streets are victims walking around either moaning about their victimized little minds, or masquerading as victors to manifest their victim mentality in every puny argument their weak ideas present:

‘manslamming’this, 

‘manspreading’ that, ‘maninist’ this… 

‘manspreading’ that, ‘maninist’ this… 

[Caution: spoken with a loud curling Kilimani twang, or else...] 

What is it with you little bitches and your manventions? Ok, I get that you need to vent your manly frustrations, but really? You gave yourselves a label, so we need one too? Don’t we already have enough in our liquor cabinets?


Don’t you see that these one-size-fits-alls will be your undoing?


Tell me, dear little femininely shamed slut of a feminist, how when a man drinks himself silly and has his way with your tired but equally drunk hung-out-together-all-night ass, it is rape. It becomes rape when you wake up, remember your inhibitions were more than slightly off their ticking rockers, and so you could not have been in any position to give his drunken ass consent.


I will wait for you to swallow that.


As a matter of fact, I will rephrase it for your weak little bitch-fitting brain-denying cunt: he was high, his cognition holds up; you were high, yours does not. How can you turn around and look me in the eye, away from your place of invisibility, as you sing that doublethink back into my ear?


Do you even realize how vile that parseltongue is to me?

At the Future of Men rolling in the Hay session, you and your ilk stormed the house.


Check.


You were pricked by Tony and the like.


Check.


You stormed out.


Double twice check.


So you proceeded to whip your imagined dicks off onto the mic, and refused to back down when it was your turn to. Order, dear little vadge-badge, applies to you too.


If you grab the mic off my hands because your fragile little angina tells your vagina that it needs to bring its monologue out into the public, and so fuck me as I wait for my turn to speak:

*you are that little mansplaining, manspreading, manslamming prick you so love to detest.*

Start acting aware of your surroundings. Get away from your phone’s little screen and tembea fucking Kenya. Otherwise you will get plowed down by people who are also unaware of their surroundings. And for the life of your (un)born sons and daughters, little bitch, get a life and live it.


Screaming bloody murder and oh “not all men” means all men, but “no means no”?


Will you stop and get a hold of your export brains before they fall completely out off your imported bra?


In closing, here are the immortal words of T.O.K., the same ones you danced your skinny ass off to before it grew fatty cellulite and made you a fat angry bitch:

No way, Jose, we nuh go ever stay, a gurl fi know she haffi give it up

before we pay…

Coz if she don’t play, then we don’t pay!

Think about that too, every time we pay your way for a lay. Because if I have to hear you claim to have more sensible investments than we do, coz you got land and shit? You and your funny nanny of a fanny will see how gaskets truly blow.


Yelling how there's a mansis up in every nigga-fucking large hall that lets you pander your Bull. How there are no men left up in this bitch.

Bring it! What? We right here, We're not going anywhere.We right here, This is ours and we don't share... We right here, Bring your crew coz we don't care...

- DMX, We Right Here

If you can't find a good one, so you wanna whip up your own little mangina to Lorde over, get the fuck outta my way. I am human. You can take that broken groupthinking gender kaleidoscope and shove it where my sunny little dick will never shine.


And now, in true closing, I will quote my friend Smitta Smitten, the one y’all tried to smite – all hail, ye mighty smiters –

“oh dear, better legal gold than legal lead…n both are better than legally dead!”

Now go manfist your Audre-manifesting self or some shit. I'm out.

Signed,

Marquis de Sadness 

Member of the World Fuck You Media. 

Ghururi Ya Mutula Verdict: It’s ok NOT to mourn him - Pt 1

Nairobi. 30th April, 2013 |

I wrote this post in the dead of the night, perhaps hoping that I could publish it in said ungodly hours. Partly because my significant other, aka consort, disclosed to me how she thought my blog was becoming rather “sudden” lately. Translation: it has gone Ghafla. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that mheshimiwa Senior Counsel (SC) Mutula Kilonzo’s hardly gone cold yet, which in Kenyan and African circles decrees that thou shalt not speak ill of him. Let alone suggest that he not be mourned. 

It also might explain why I opted out of entitling this piece “How to write about fallen heroes”  [though scumbags would be the actual term I circumvent in this case, depending on whose story you’re reading.] 

Which is precisely what I want to get into today: the scumbag/ hero that was Mutula Kilonzo, a concept otherwise referred to in political discourse as an “if-by-whiskey.” This is the subjectivist fallacy – meaning a claim that something is true for one person but not the other – supposing that a response to an inquiry is contingent on how it is made; is it made using strong negative connotations, or using strong positive undertones? That is to say, ‘was Mutula Kilonzo a scumbag?’ or ‘was Mutula Kilonzo a hero/saint?’ This is the same ideology that would have you pointed at the MAUMAU* or South Africa’s ANC (African National Congress) as terrorists on the one hand, and freedom fighters on the other. Ditto the Taliban, the Afghan Mujahedeen, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia…oh, sod it! the Middle East.

The same creed can be applied in doublespeak, thereby seeming to assert both faces of the matter at hand, and acting on the listener’s subjectivity to concur with whichever part he or she supports. In essence, when well-executed, the if-by-whiskey allows skilled politicians to take a position without taking it. Listen to Obama often and you’ll pick up on this nifty little trick.

In its original context, the if-by-whiskey draws this name from a speech delivered during a trial in 50s America, as to whether alcoholic beverages should continue to be forbidden or legalized. In essence, it was a reversal of Kenya’s Mututho Laws, seeing as liquor was illegal, and the lawyer who made the speech was looking to have it authorized:

“My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey:

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, then certainly I am against it.

But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools; then I am certainly for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”

-         Noah “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., lawyer, State of Mississippi

Now, let’s ignore the obvious political incorrectness of some bits and pieces of the speech – it was, after all, 1952; blacks and women still had no tangible rights in the good old US of A. The 19^th Amendment to the US constitution, establishing women’s suffrage in 1920, was still in its youth, and it would be another 13 years before the Voting Rights Act outlawed the prejudiced practices accountable for the pervasive disenfranchisement of ‘niggers.’ All that overlooked, was that a great speech or what? It had everything so well orchestrated and maneuvered that I could picture the jury nodding in agreement. As were you, possibly, and I, certainly.

Remember how I mentioned the listener’s subjectivity, though? Well it would seem that “when [the jury] said whiskey [they meant] the devil’s brew . . . that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous[ness]” and not “the ale that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on [good fellows’] lips.” It would be a long 14 year wait before this legislation came to pass.

I hear you want to think, “Why the extended analogy?” Well, here’s why:

i.                    It’s an analogy from the legal canons, for one, one that fits SC Mutula’s first love, one that he so thrived in.

ii.                  It allows me to make use of my “if-by-Mutula” relativist fallacy.

Now if-by-Mutula you mean ‘the dead object that does not agree with my living spirits,’ the University of Nairobi lawyer who persecuted innocent ‘student leaders who served a decade or so ago at the height of Moi's KANU rule,’ arguing that they should be suspended for 55 years; if-by-Mutula you mean the scumbag who ‘spent the better part of his illustrious career entrenching the skunk that today pervades so many sectors in the Governance of Kenya,’ minting his firm billions while at it, or the ‘late newcomer in the reform process who was part of the brains that negotiated a heavily imbalanced power-sharing accord leading to a rancorous Grand Coalition Government in which he was rewarded with a ministerial position;’ if-by-Mutula you mean the man who ‘was very much a pro-establishment intellectual care-giver,’ the man who, had he ‘chosen to advance the rule of law and positive jurisprudence on certain cases in this country’s history, Kenya would have made massive leaps in the manner those in government handle public properties and human rights,’ then ‘in all fairness, let those who mourn him wipe their tears in somber ululations, but let those of us denied the luxury of shedding crocodile tears by knowledge and appreciation of the checkered past of the fallen legislator toss champagne (if you can afford it) and breathe a sigh of democratic relief, knowing so well that nature has rebalanced the earth.’ 

If-by-Mutula you refer to this despicable man, then ‘as to whether he deserves to be remembered as a reformist, I leave such niceties to his pack of irrational mourners, and people who lack the core to put his past in the political context it belongs,’ because ‘this is a sad week with spasms of celebration by true revolutionaries, and as they say at the University, "a comrade is always right"!’ If this be your Mutula, then like my Alma mater comrade and Facebook friend Dikembe Disembe, quoted extensively in the last two paragraphs, ‘I will not mourn Mutula Kilonzo. Period.’ I acknowledge that ‘it is indeed shocking that I remain indifferent even as the "country as a whole" is engaged in mourning,’ and I will accept the insults ensuing from the partisanship inspired by my labeling him thus

Continue to part II

* MAUMAU - Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru, literally translates from Swahili to White Man Goes [back] Abroad, African Gains Independence. Note how MAUMAU sounds waaaay cooler than WMGAAGI. It was the freedom fighter/terrorist organization that fiercely opposed British rule in Kenya.

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.

Mourning Kilonzo: This Is How I See It ~ by Dikembe Disembe

Saturday, 27^th April 2013

About an hour ago, I made one line comment that simply read 'I will not mourn Mutula Kilonzo. Period.' Well, I have received quite some flak from friends and strangers alike.

To my close friends and those who've lived around me to know what I care most about or hold dear; they know the demise of Kilonzo is not one of them.

Now, to strangers and other feeble characters who escape to my wall to get a bearing for their own lives, it is indeed shocking that I remain indifferent even as the 'whole country' is engaged in mourning.

I will never castigate anyone feeling sad tonight. I will not want to know why; and I never pass judgements.

Mourning is a very personal affair. In this information age, we have mourned every passing leader, whether Kenyan, African, or the world. We have mourned even those still alive. we recently mourned Margaret Thatcher even when her own country celebrated her death with beers and so forth.

So why am I not mourning Kilonzo?

I am not mourning Kilonzo because I made it a point not to mourn when the dead object does not agree with my living spirits, and yes, Mutula does not.

Having been a student leader, I have come up close with disciplinary cases involving students. After a year of sitting in these committees, I came to empathize with student leaders who served a decade ago at the height of Moi's and Kanu rule, particularly in the '90s.

One particular case is worth mentioning. The case of Christopher Owiro and 300 other students Vs the University of Nairobi.

Around the 28th November 2000, students convened an informal meeting, kamukunji, at the University of Nairobi to protest the introduction of the parallel degree programme. The feeling then was that the programme would deny bright and needy students a chance to pursue higher education as well as dilute university education itself.

Needless to say, the event degenerated into a riot. The University closed the following day and SONU was disbanded. Thereafter, there were suspensions and expulsions. When it opened in 2001, Marx and others had been axed. They took the University to court.

The university lawyer then was Mutula Kilonzo. This very dead Mutula Kilonzo. Appearing before Justice Kasanga Mulwa, this good lawyer argued that these students should even be suspended for 55 years! The man who represented these students was Erick Mutua, the current Law Society of Kenya Chairman. As was expected, the judge stayed the decision of the University and the students proceeded to the court of Appeal.

In the Court of Appeal, Justices Samuel Bosire (found unfit by Judges and Magistrates Board) , Phillip Tunoi (now in the supreme court), and Emmanuel O'kubasu again upheld the decision of the lower court.

Mutula Kilonzo spent the better part of his illustrious career entrenching the skunk that today pervades so many sectors in the governance of Kenya. A late newcomer in the reform process, he was part of the brains which negotiated a heavily imbalanced power-sharing accord which led to a rancorous grand coalition government in which he was awarded with a ministerial position.

Until it was clear that the Jubilee Alliance, the G7, would not nominate Kalonzo Musyoka for the presidency, Kilonzo was very much a pro-establishment intellectual care-giver.

As to whether he deserves to be remembered as a reformist, I leave such niceties to his pack of irrational mourners, and people who lack the core to put his past in the political context where it belongs.

There are cases in this country which had Kilonzo chose to advance the rule of law and positive jurisprudence, Kenya would have made massive leaps in the manner those in government handle public properties and human rights.

So in all fairness, let those who mourn him wipe their tears in sombre ululations, however, let those of us denied the luxury of shedding crocodile tears by knowledge and appreciation of the checkered past of the fallen legislator toss champagne (if you can afford) and breath a sigh of democratic relief, knowing so well that nature has rebalanced the earth.

This is a sad week with spasms of celebration by true revolutionaries. As they say at the University, "a comrade is always right"!

The Complete Post from Wanjiku Revolution's Page - Ghururi ya Mutula

Wanjiku Revolution Kenya: "A compatriot tackles our moral dilemma in mourning Mutula Kilonzo. Do we mourn the consummate Wanjikus' Katiba & rights advocate and defender of recent years or the lawter defender of Wanjikus' resource looters and oppressors Moi and his KANU clique? Joshua, let me throw a spanner in the works, how do we reconcile ourselves with Mutula the tax evader after earning over 1 billion from a single case representing a Wanjiku tax/pensions funded institution?"

Via J. Nyamori

I am sure a few people wonder how Mutula Kilonzo, the bright lawyer, could sleep at night after helping his client, Daniel Arap Moi, whom he knew was guilty of rigging the 1992 and 1997 elections beat the legal system. In fact, many have used this argument to doubt Mutula's honesty as an MP and Minister in the later years, especially in defense of constitutionalism and human rights. It must have even appeared ironical to many that Kethi, many years later, definitely under the able tutelage of the vintage Mutula, 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 elections annulled on the basis of "glaring electoral malpractices".

Every time I hear or read of such arguments, I am reminded of a discussion I had with my late father, James J. Nyamori, in 1992, when I was 17 years old. As a lawyer, he was then handling one of the many Court of Appeal pauper briefs, this time seeking to overturn a High Court judgement that had condemned his client to hang for murder. For a whole week, he would pour through legal books and legal authorities. He was a disturbed man. His worry was that his client had very slim chances of surviving the nooseman's rope. He knew his client was guilty of the offense but hoped that he could get him out, at least on a technicality or weak point in the evidence.

As a young man struggling to find his grounding on the prevailing value system, I was appalled. How could my dad struggle so much to get someone who had obviously murdered out of the hook? This is the same father who had a few years ago introduced me to his value system, which included the rule that, "thou shalt not kill nor sit in the council of conspirators planning the death of another man." And I knew he was not doing it for the money, as pauper briefs paid very little from state coffers. I however decided not to confront him with the question until he was done with the case.

When the Court of Appeal, sitting in Kisumu, finally gave it's judgement, dad came home very excited. He celebrated his client's acquittal but told us how, after the court rose and the Judges of Appeal left the room, he walked to the dock and admonished his client for "a murder so foul", advising him to submit to his creator and repent. I was confused: how do you get a murderer out of the hook then you ask him to seek repentance? I told my father of my objection to his excitement and reminded him of his council to me a few years earlier that, " thou shalt not kill nor sit in the council of conspirators planning the death of another man."

I vividly remember the argument my father advanced that night as we ate fish together. Every time I hear or read others condemn Mutula, Wako, Abdulnassir etc, for their apparent tinkering positions, I seek counsel on the advice my father gave me that night. He told me that the fundamental duty of a criminal defense lawyer is to zealously represent his client within the bounds of the law. He declared " our duty is not to do justice, but 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...To do otherwise would be to invite anarchy in the justice system. Many innocent people may be condemned to death or imprisonment if the standard of proof was to be lowered below, 'any reasonable doubt'." He went further to advice that, "in contrast, the duty of a prosecutor is not to simply prosecute, but to do justice."

He explained to me that his duty as a defense lawyer in a criminal case is therefore to 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. He told me that a defense lawyer must present any viable defense, no matter his personal feelings about its true merit. He told me that while a defense lawyer should we never knowingly present false testimony, he should use true testimony to whatever benefit he can for his client.

My father went on to quote one of his lecturers at the school of law, I cannot remember the name, who he always taught him that, "Your role as a defense lawyer is to defend the justice system, and in this case your client, no matter how horrific the crime or evil the defendant. Your brief is to use whatever tools are 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 the defense." He told me that factual guilt plays no role whatsoever in the duty of a defense lawyer to zealously defend his client and that there should never be a moral dilemma once a lawyer assumes the duty to defend. "My function is not to judge, or impose my sensibilities or morality, but to defend my client, that is as it should always be if the justice system is to have any credibility", I remember him say.

I therefore hope that as we prepare to interr the bones of Snr. Counsel Mutula Kilonzo, we will understand his roles during the KANU days and in the recent years. He was simply a good lawyer. He did his duty according to his education and training.

May the Lord rest his soul in eternal peace!

Fuck Kenyan Hospitals: Nyahururu, Nairobi, Aga Khan Hospital…

This is not about vengeance. This is hardly about small glories, for there is no glory in what I am about to do. This is about acceptance…moving on…and most importantly, growing a pair.

Last year April 16, at the very first installation of Poets and Writers Online - POWO – I was introduced to the ever so misogynistic concept of pussy blogging. It basically refers to a form of blogging where you the blogger worries about everyone’s opinion but your own…it, quite simply put, is spineless blogging.

School Kenya

 

I am quite the fool

Stuck in a fork

Any turn I go

Is bound to blow

Chuck me a clock

Coz I don ‘twanna be cool.

For the longest time, I have been exactly that. A spineless blogger. Censoring my posts for the sake of conformity. Self-censorship, they say, is the worst kinda censorship.

The gloves, however, are fully off today. In light of Bringing Zack Back Home, celebrating my ma’s 4^th anniversary in exactly a month, my friends – Patricia, Jewels and Ann – who all lost a parent within the past 3 months in Kenyan Hospitals, I grow a spine today. I intend to retain its services for a while longer than just today. So watch this space…spiny post titles will probably tick you the fuck off. But I figure if I don't get to piss someone off, I'm probably not doing a good job blogging, and might as well shut down this site and sail off to Neverland. Just to warn you. For next time, and all.

On July 12^th 2008, something fatefully fucked up ripped through my already dysfunctional family; driving from Karatina, where my sister had been feted for being the best girl in Nyeri district’s secondary examinations (KCSE):

·   My mum and sister got involved in a car accident. My sister survived unscathed. Physically, that is.

·   10 days later, after hours and millions of shillings of Intensive Care, ma died. On my sister’s birthday, in the wee hours of July 22^nd. Yes, the same sister whose graduation it was.

·   10 more days later, after hours of agony for me and my two sisters, and countless hours of conflict with each other and others, we buried ma. August 1^st…precisely 1 week before my 21^st birthday.

Perhaps you now wonder…so why fuck all the hospitals listed?

Here’s why:

·     My mum walked herself into hospital and came out in a body bag 10 days of neglect and malpractice later. She had internal bleeding, sure. When she checked into Nyahururu Private Hospital, she was more concerned about my sister, who had fainted, unable to bear watching the gang of Matatu guys who, after hitting ma’s car had then gone on to yank her out the wreckage and ‘discipline’ her.

·     The doctor who realized ma had internal bleeding scheduled an operation. Intestinal Surgery, or something of the sort. What he forgot to do, allegedly having come from a bar to the operating table, was leave an opening for waste removal. Standard procedure, med students tell me. Cue the infection that killed my ma.

·     At this point, we decided to ambulance her to Nairobi for better treatment, and away from catatonia; a 6 hour ride, due to the state of the roads in Central Province, for it could have taken 3. We get to Nairobi Hospital, and they deny her entry. After giving her a quickie checkup at the lobby, and refusing her admission without something like 600 to 800,000 shillings on the spot. It was around 10pm, either Sunday 13^th or Monday 14^th. 

·     The Aga Khan University Hospital, gracefully admitted her, at around 1 am the following day, after some skillful negotiations by my old man – a retired Kenyan Major, my uncle – a high ranking retired CID officer, my cousins Jon and Nick – both professionals, the latter a Lecturer and Nurse at the Aga Khan University Hospital. I will be eternally grateful to these and others involved for that gesture. Giving ma a peaceful end. 

·     Fuck Aga Khan Hospital! The very next day after ma got admitted, she kept touching her chest, and I kept telling the doctors that she was trying to tell us something. Something, about her chest. The doctor said that she was complaining about the tubes. For 10 days, they operated on her twice or thrice – didn’t do the bill any ill, I'm sure – but never once did a thing about her chest.

·     Post mortem revealed that ma’s organs went into shutdown sometime around 11pm 21^st July 2008 (my sister’s birthday) and that her ribs were broken and had perforated her lungs. She died trying every day for 10 days to tell us about her broken ribs.

Cool Kenya sucks,

Cool Kenya ducks,

Cool Kenya fucks,

And yes; Cool Kenya…

Can suck and fuck a duck.

·     Then the reception has the audacity to simply include procedures going to hundreds of thousands of shillings that were not performed on ma, and lumping them onto the carpet size receipt they prepared along with her body bag.

The first time I walked into the Nairobi Hospital, ma had exhausted all her options trying to prove to herself that what I had, which led me to convulse ever so vigorously and pass out, was not epilepsy. In a fit of last grasp straws, she took me to the Nairobi Hospital for a CT scan, MRI and all that brilliant med techno gizmo stuff. Eventually it proved only what I told her after the first fall…what the doctor at a Nakuru Hospital after one of the most comprehensive blood work in the history of comprehensive blood works corroborated…what the Sister at the Starehe Boys’ Centre and School clinic told her on our first consultation, when I fell rather dramatically during Roll Call…what my uncle at Kenyatta Hospital suspected before he suggested a brilliant Neurologist at Kenyatta…what the neurologist said after a coupla physical tests…

The last time I walked out of the Nairobi Hospital, my mum’s organs were essentially ticking time bombs waiting to explode her to Shangri-La.

The last time I walked past the Nairobi Hospital, last week Tuesday, was almost exactly 4 years to the day I last walked out. Feet dragged me past the Silver Springs Hotel, all the way down past the entrance to what is now to me but a mere symbol of Kenyan pomposity, and the ludicrous lethargy of common thoughtless thought. I walked a mile in those shoes, to a business meeting, and for the first time in four years, felt my mum’s presence in me.

I can hardly say any more right now. Just 3 things. FUCK YOU all!!! Fuck Aga Khan, Fuck Nairobi Hospital, and FuckFuckFuck Nyahururu Private Hospital. 

But mostly fuck me to darned hell and never back. Fuck us all. 

Fuck us for paying you, Kenya, every day - to kill us. Fuck us for donating blood to your blood banks, Kenya, only to never receive it in time; when we need it. Despite needing it. In spite and pure malice of the fucked fact that it is available and goes to waste in 72 hours anyways. 


Fuck us for being too scared to come out and say we were angry for these gross atrocities masquerading as Health Services. And Fuck Kenya…

Because matter-of-factly, if ma were important (read rich) enough – somehow – these same hospitals would have found a way to keep her alive.

In a more objective piece of relativity, I now do not accept exploitation in any way. And neither should you. Argue, like I do, when the matatu guy insists that you should sit in fours on a 3 seater. That is what art and protest means to me. At least it did when I walked off a jav yesterday and refused to pay the conductor when he tried to pull that stunt. Argue, like I just did, when the shopkeeper charges you, this morning, 14 shillings for the same egg you bought at 12 shillings yesterday. The same egg you can buy at 10 shillings elsewhere. If you don’t fight for your rights, however puny they seem, who will? Do not ever expect me to help you exploit me…or others, for that matter.

To conclude, I will quote a certain gentleman, who in chairing his last meeting as president of a Rotary club in Nairobi, said ‘I thank you for reaching within to embrace humanity this past year, and wish you, for the next year, peace through service.’

                                                                    

Let's School Kenya

So we no more fool Kenya

Pull Kenya

Outta pointless Kenyan drool

Full Kenya

Only then will we get Kenya outta stool