Enough with the propaganda already, Jubilee! An Opinion Piece by @BettyWaitherero. #KenyaniKwetu?

The following is a piece by a good friend and colleague, that on Tuesday Annoyed Powerful People [perhaps the same Dark Forces our beloved president once talked of], who proceeded to Force her To Pull It down [as they did with his hand on the Accord he signed with Mudavadi]. 

These words are her own, and have become part of her pain lately, with bile, vitriol and threats sent her own, and her parents way, ever since:

By Betty Waitherero Njoroge 

I think parents should do more than just pay for their teenagers school fees; they should go out of their way to forge a sound relationship with them, one that is not based on arrogance and violence but on mutual respect and love. Teach your kids how to be honest and clear minded adults, because the result of just ignoring your teenage miscreants is one Muthui Kariuki. (ed: same guy now coordinating the threats...) 

Talk about a juvenile delinquent; Muthui Kariuki is the epitome of a childish deviant. As government spokesman for the backside of the Jubilee government, Muthui is really good at his job. In between issuing threats while claiming to be accommodative, this character has the audacity to claim that Raila Odinga’s politics are “chest thumping, hateful, arrogant and toxic.”  

The pot calls the kettle black. For someone who has a record ZERO accomplishments as a civic leader this hot head sure brings a mouthful of trash to the table. By the way, he is a perfect representative for the Jubilee government which, despite having several stalwarts with over 20 years experience in government, have also a record of ZERO accomplishments.  

Or as one colleague expressed recently, within the first 100 days of the Kibaki administration 1 million children went to school under the free primary education program; within the first 100 days under the Jubilee administration all children were out of school.  

Of course, when you are busy doing nothing and yet being paid 76 times the average GDP, you need a mouthy person to sidetrack the people by saying all sorts of ridiculous things about perceived enemies.  

We are now to believe that despite Jubilee forming the government, and despite Jubilee dominating Parliament, the Senate and the County administrations, Raila Odinga is still the bane of Kenya and is somehow behind the many problems Jubilee is actually not dealing with.  

The propaganda machinery in this government needs to improve by the way. Couldn’t they try something more intelligent than filling the daily news with stories of men shagging livestock? Or repeatedly insulting a man you claim is insignificant. When it comes to stupid utterances, none can out do Muthui Kariuki.  

I don’t know what’s worse, some wannabe loud mouth or a president who is busy posting his latest status update in a rugby shirt. Each time I see his photos of how he was where laughing with who I feel so nauseated. Meanwhile his deputy is busy reinventing reality by calling himself a hustler. Is it the pain of the lie that makes him cry so much or what?  

A man who made a fortune through corrupt means turns around and calls it hustling, another one who spends his time goofing off turns around and complains to teachers about the high wage bill meanwhile he does nothing for the economy and in fact sanctions ridiculous expenditure.  

Now look here – why were our children out of school while you decreed that 250 million kshs will be spent on giving a retired 80 plus year old an office? Then you say the wage bill is high. It looks like it’s only high when you have to do the right thing and pay the service providers their dues.  

Meanwhile, I expect that the next thing the government will say out its backside AKA Muthui Kariuki is that there is no money to pay for the free maternity despite it being a Jubilee campaign promise. That won’t surprise me at all, because there is money for luxury planes to Congo Brazzaville and money for retired old fogeys to have an office but no money to pay teachers and of course no money for hospitals.  

I don’t even know how Uhuru Kenyatta finds the temerity to attend social functions. Wait. I get it now. He isn’t president, he is a celebrity! That’s why if he wears a rugby t-shirt, automatically he supports the rugby team with funds right? Where is that money coming from, if there is no money to pay the teachers?  

This government is beyond redemption really. Rather than attempt to be functional we are going to be submitted to 5 whole years of propaganda and hogwash. Pictures of matching ties and laughing buffoons coupled with lurid tales of political bogeymen meanwhile the entire system is incapable of any form of decent service delivery. All of this will be conducted via the dumbest outlets no less.  

This post was published on Kenya Today, with the understanding that we all have right to freedom of expression.

Mad Men: A Flight of Stairs in the Dark

#Np Theory Of A Deadman – Hate My Life  

A boy updates his Facebook status. His Facebook status updates his Twitter, and his Twitter sends word to his Linkedin. All it takes is one hit, and one message — through these intricate interconnections — becomes public; becomes, for solicited prostitutions of view.  

A girl far-far away in South Africa to his Kenya, who is the boy’s boss – and incidentally tapped into his networks – sees his update. A girl calls a boy and asks him why he has not responded to her email from 6 hours ago.  

We live in a world where technology is making public figures of anyone with a key -board or -pad. The World, Thomas L. Friedman remarks, is Flat. 

What this flattening does not take into account is just how much technology complicates life. If a fire breaks out in a traditional village deep in the heart of Kenya’s not-so-Silicon-Savannah valley, chances are that one hue and cry gets the neighbours out. I witnessed a couple of instances deep in Laikipia county, where one scream was all it took to marshal a fire brigading troop of young men, women, elders, living dead and ancestors to the scene of a fire; to putt it out collectively. 

There are no electric lines in the village, you see, to add insult to the incendiary injury. There are no gas cylinders, you will find, to hinder prospects of getting too close to a flame. There are no worries, moreover, that a call to put out fire at 6 O’clock – be it am or pm – will stop you from getting home, or to work. There is no traffic jam or one-for-the-road to consider. No all-nighters either, no trans-nighting...unless of course it's the kind that goes "ooh, aah..."

In the communes, the people live together, work together, fight together. Sure they will disagree. But – so I found during my 6 month stay in Sipili Ng’arua – they have a lot more that unites them than divides them.  

How? If ‘your fire’ spreads out onto ‘our grass fields’, then ‘my cows and goats’ will starve before the next rains come; two months from now, I could lose my source of milk, source of income. If ‘your trouble’ spills over past ‘our grass’ and levels ‘our children’s school’, then ‘my money’ – spent in piecemeal building up the school’s infrastructure – will be lost. If, heavens forbid, ‘your flames’ fan through all that and burn down ‘my forest, my crop, my hut’, then I have no firewood, no home, no clothes, no food…

I’ll be damned if I let your fire burn me!  

Just because I update my Facebook and Twitter doesn’t mean I’m ignoring your Inbox or Direct Message. Social Media is about being social. Being social is about expressing yourself. Express … your SELF. Talk, that is. 

Do you stop talking every single time you receive an email or text message? Do you stop eating or walking? Does your digestive tract halt, or your 'Last Enzyme Standing' lift up a placard hailing ‘ye majesty the Royal Baby Mail’? Do you park your car to the curb and pay a parking fee just to respond to that glorious seed of corporate communication?  

Inboxes and Direct Messages are simply over-glorified text messages and emails. They are personal, should remain in that realm.  

Who says life revolves around that email, so much so that you sit around waning and waxing, twiddling your thumbs, awaiting a response? When did communication become the equivalent of actual tasks?  

Unless I am absolutely in love with you, absolutely available or do not need to think about my response, then where you come off expecting immediate responses absolutely beats me. Let me rephrase: I work offline. I don't work online. I cum online...and vent. Occasionally say something sensible, but mostly, I work offline. So deal with it...your little Inbox or DM will be got to if and when it is got to. 

Yet urban life does seem to revolve around emails: that email a client is waiting for; that email your boss sent that pissed the silently flowing shit out of you; that email your Badoo layover sent you with a NSFW attachment; that degrading email copied to everyone and their dog’s flea’s sister’s mother, sent to you by that little mind, with its little car, and a fancy little dress laced with fancy little ‘imported airs’ of self-importantly caffeinated weaves in a dainty little furnished apartment. We have become such narcissists in our own little worlds that nobody seems to think through what their actions do to others’ state of mind.  

Further, John Perkins – an Economic Hitman – released Confessions thereof in 2004. This self-confessed former pecuniary mercenary, helps kill off democratically elected presidencies – with a bullet, a polity or a policy. He then turns around and tells you about it. In a book; a book that is for sale. 

In other words, I was once a thief, rapist and murderer, and have severally crushed little babies under the soles of my feet, but now I’m saved; praise Jesus!  

Perkins' book, while affirming Graham Hancock’s The Lords of Poverty – a book as relevant in the late 80s as it is now – also plays on the same layers that both books attempt to expose. I get that passion does not pay the bills, but if at all he was really interested in doing his pretty little Sacrament of Penance, Self -Mortification and a bit of -Flagellation, how about not selling the books, Lil' Johnny?

Reading either book – or both, I would recommend – opens your eyes to the frailties of our system, and why it is that we are consistently asked to fanya kazi kwa bidii, utalipwa nothing’-i. Why we are now being told that the country Africa is such a hopeful one, riddled with opportunity as it rises. Why every other speech by the ‘criminal president invited to the UK’ begins and ends with youth and women, and is laced with chants of go ye for the and multiply Enterprise.  

The lines between which, dear sheeple, you do not read, are these:      

• That guy in Diaspora was told the same story when he left Kenya on a Green card to The Land of Opportunity, of Stars, of Stripes. They assessed his strengths, profiled him, saw how he fit in and would benefit their system, and told him to pack his bags; he had won. He could come back 5 or 10 years later, he decided, before the checks and balances designed to keep him there, benefiting their system, tightened their noose around him.     

• That guy who has a cozy job, with a picket fence in Suburbia, nice big-breasted female to warm his loins, and a sports car as large as his cajones, is paying out loans to his employer, and mortgages and insurances and assurances to his Shylock, that keep him mark-timing in his own mediocrity, so sio eti hakupendi, but appearances must be kept up boo-boo.     

• This president you call Tyranny, Prince of the Arable Buyers of Souls, is not a rebel to the World-System-against-Kenya cause. Dear NSIS, you can sit here.     

• And finally, who do you think these businesses Tyranny is telling you to launch – with not one clue how to run it, and where to but the ground – are supposed to benefit? In a system as officially inept and prohibitive, unofficially corrupt as ours? Boo-boo, your ass is in someone’s pocket. So think before you do shit that will feed itself back to you in spadefuls the size of Mongolia.  

All this faux feminism belching around, giving women a sense of propriety and men a sense of importance for allowing women to be, simply works into a larger system of oppressive mindsets that boil down to little else but money. You want her; she looks good, doesn’t she? She’s independent, isn’t she? She can buy her own shit, and she buys it in ships of shit-loads. So you buy it in jet-fueled plane-fulls of it for her. Win-win, you think to yourself, aye?  

You tell her that you are pro-choice. She can have an abortion any time she feels like. She can pop as many pills as she wants, can’t she Ms. Pro-prevention? Meanwhile, the Pharmaceutical giants and baby-skinning doctors are laughing all the way to the bank.  

The same goes for the faux Green Revolution, faux Social Business, faux Micro-financing, fashion faux pas, KENYAN MEDIA, some foreign media, a lot of SOCIAL MEDIA, Holly’s wood… Basically, Imagine your World, then try see what is not infiltrated by greed and bids of insanity. Especially, try see what box you’ve fit yourself in, and what other boxes are just dying to add your massive shep'herd-ity into them.  

 

Question: between you, dear sheepish thinker, and the intellectually challenged/ mentally disabled/ mind-numbingly crippled/ mentally fucked up/ crazy stupid/ foolish asylum dwellers, who is more mental?  

Who is the mad man? 

We’re 7 Seconds away…  

and there’s a million voices,  

to tell you what you should be thinking  

so you better sober up for just a second…  

And when a child is born,  

Into this world  

It has no concept,  

Of the tone, 

the skin  it’s living in…  

#Np Neneh Cherry  & Youssou N’Dour 

 _______________________________________________________________________________

—  Fred Wambugu, preferably known as Freddy, is a writer/ entrepreneur with a liking for agro ways. Both the loud-mouthed, angry “for no reason” and the arable kinds.  

When not farming or talking, Freddy imagines his world with Storymoja Africa, is an Industry and Market Researcher with Eronia Inc Ltd. and is the founder of inThync Kenya.   For more details on the writer, he has suggested that we tell you to scream at him on @french_freddy or Yule Mbois Mndialala.  

Disclaimer: He will holler right back. Loudly. Or lovably.  In other News, does a bio need to have an ‘I’?

The Struggle Within, The Struggle Without: #OccupyParliament [Part II]

"Assembly, demonstration, picketing and petition.

37. Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities."

 Continued from part I

All well and swell, were it not for the fact that some overzealous protestor(s) went round, intimidating fellow protestors by threatening to ‘beat them down’ with their placards if they did not sit down. 

I walked across the road at this juncture; about 10 meters from where the protestors sat. The interpretation of peaceably and unarmed  seemed to be persistently tested by loose nuts in the crowd repeatedly. Not once, by the organizers, however.

By now, the show-of-force shock-and-awe campaign by the police forces was becoming more and more effective in its choreography; horsemen galloping past protestors and back again, trucks full of GSU - as well as Riot - policemen, cruising back and forth.

• I had been consistently expressing my reservations to Aficionado, and as I watched the Swine Truck back up towards Parliament, we mused at what was going on. As soon as I realized there were pigs in the truck, correlating the pigs to the chants on slaughter, I expressed my hope that it was not going to be slaughtered pigs on display.

One of the men next to me, apparently fed up with my bickering, turned on me with a barrage of bullets disguised as words. Questioning my ‘allegiance’ and basically giving me the ‘if you’re not for us you’re against us’ speech. 

Two things: 

I will never sit and watch in silence as something I believe is wrong goes down.

And, at the end of the day, symmetry is overrated. 

I was not there to join protestors, but there to protest. For Kenya, not for Occupy Parliament, so to speak. That is to say that some of the protestors could be wrong, and I wouldn't have had to join them in being wrong. 

But Kenya, whether wrong or right, I had to defend. 

This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world. And while she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her, when she smiles

-          Nine Days

• When the pigs were finally let out, the first thing I saw was the pighead held high, bloody where the neck had been cut. I have since come to learn that the pighead was not part of the protest. Not by the protest organization’s doing anyway. A madman in this market had thought it striking imagery to bring the head with him. 

And it was, striking imagery. 

An image that struck back.

Because, I maintain, this is what triggered the forceful dispersion of the otherwise largely peaceful protest. This head, added to the blood that was bought by organizers at a slaughterhouse in Dagoretti and poured on the pigs – which then went ahead to have their feel and fill of the macabre display of body fluid – only served to further aggravate the image.

That, right there, was strike 3.

Leave and Bicker

At which point, frustrated at yet another chance to shift perceptions, I left. The fact that this was a successful protest is not in contention here. That it was. Hugely successful, in getting the will of Kenyans across. More successful, in getting across the foot-down-on-them response by this government. 

But the few sour elements, elements that Bonnie and crew could not in truth be expected to control, sallied the display.

I got away, fast and furious, and by the time I got to the Hilton Hotel, the Fire Brigade was headed up Moi Avenue, in a series of beelines and turns, for the protestors.

Hear Jeer, and Sneer

On to Social Media for the due post-mortem then. There were those who sat back, heard others complain about the blood and ‘slaughter,’ and in turn sneered their responses at those who jeered. 

The most common criticism was that we who protested the sideshows in the protest had missed the big picture.

That those who had a problem with how things were done should get off their arses and do something that can be judged, not simply bitch about everything. True.

As you tell 'complainers' what to do, from within the confines of your Internet Security.

That the politicians’ pay rises were what we should have focused on. True.

Yet a sideshow was in fact created, in the way of the pighead. The pigs and blood alone would have been no major issue to me, turned off as I am by blood. The head, though, was overkill. And not the organizers’ fault.

But until Boniface Mwangi explained that yesterday morning, we whose sensibilities were so offended, had no way of knowing that it wasn't.

Like the legend of the phoenix, all ends with beginnings … We’ve, come too far, to give up, who we are. So let’s, raise the bar, and our cups, to the stars…

-          Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers

Hear Jeer, Cheer at Jeer

Then came the pig jokes on Twitter. Which soon accepted and moved on to Facebook and Parliament. Some were admittedly hilarious, but once again, the big picture was missed by Kenyans eager for a Retweet based on the lowest form of wit; ridicule.

Hear Cheer, Jeer at Cheer

Soon enough the people who cheered on the protestors' bravery, in the face of being mauled by the hounds that are our Kenyan anti-riot forces, were subjected to sniggers; one particular tweet referred to protestors as being on the street for their own amusement. 

It’s hard not to lose your cannons when such bullshit flies across your timelines.

They forgot that as they cracked their jokes, deriding the protestors, we – those who were beaten and those who were missed alike – had managed to do something the idle armchair philosophers had not.

We were heard. We could not be ignored.

I had a dream, it was golden. There was a king, he sent soldiers. They had orders to tear us apart. So we ran and ran, and they chased and chased. We were huge, we were tall. They were weak, they were small. And at last we were free, we could save. Sound the horn, call the cavalry. Together we’re invincible.

-          Lemar

In Conclusion, I understand now, what Bonnie and crew, what we, did on Tuesday. They know, they must, that the pigs and blood will be a whip to sensibilities and sensitivities, and a harsher whip to those sprung off their hips. 

Yet, I can only imagine, they have a pragmatic approach to their protest and activism. Bonnie got ribbed by government security once again yesterday, center of focus that he is; but he understands that the good of the many overrides the good of the one.

Until you have done something for humanity, you should be ashamed to die.

-          Horace Mann

We need to end the heartbreak warfare. Lose the grey areas and pick a side. Either you are with the protest or against it. If you are for, then be for; express your opinions either way, but at the end of the day, remember the issues.

Are you still talking about the protest? Some, a good number, are. International and Local Media included. Discourse has been resurrected, a new kind of discourse. A passionate form of discourse, whether for or against, the revolutionary road. That, is victory. 

• On a sidenote, those who were arrested have been charged with animal rights abuse. Do we have animal rights' legislation in Kenya? Like my friend Michael asks here, was the case in which a porn director at the Coast was charged for engaging women in bestiality last week, also charged on animal rights' abuse?

• The police have said that they were forced to act with violence because the rights of Muslims were impinged upon by the use of pigs to symbolize MPs in the struggle. First off, I’m sure it would have made no difference if the pigs were actually vultures shot down and weighed down with stones, so as to not fly off.

And, are we really going to sit here and pretend, in this country, that we give that much of a damn about Muslim sensibilities, in justification of hosing down and tearing up peaceful protestors?

Excerpt from a post on Seven Sentences.

• We each only have 24 hours in a day, but greatness breaks time down, examining each action frame by frame, bringing forth much clarity. 

• The ability to see clearly, prioritize and make great decisions in a heated moment, marks greatness. 

• How can you learn to slow down time? 

• You must learn to relax and become the master of your emotions.

Plagiarist Beginnings: In League with Clay's Court, and Other Extraordinary Gentlemen

~

These are the Confessions of a literary 'one hit' wonder man.

Originally uploaded at Memorial Univerity 

~ 

On July 7, 2007, I was fortunate enough to be bored with proceedings at the Carnivore Grounds, sometime between 1 and 2 am. Come to think of it, it was actually 8^th July. I have a thing for dates, and the general correlation of numbers to situations.

Why I remember the date, perhaps? Because it was Saba Saba (7-7), a date immortalized by the number of times it inspired dread in my childhood owing to the magnanimous fimbo ya nyayo that clamped down on dissent annually on the date due to its significance in Multi-party politics? I can recall the many times I scaled walls as a kid to escape the onslaught of General Service Unit (GSU) policemen unleashed by Moi's hounds. Ok, that one's a lie. I wasn't scaling walls to escape them, but rather to watch them manhandle women and children - and a few potato sacks - from within the confines of my gated community, aka the ¼ acre plot we shared with 15 other tenants under Lord Landlady's eagle eyes.

But that ain't it. That's not why I recall 7^th July 2007 so vividly. It's a less nationalistic reason, that being that my birthday falls on 8th August, aka Nane Nane (8-8) – not really – and the chicita I was wooing then was celebrating her birthday on that day. 7^th July. It made for a quite interesting – in my mind – opener to the said woo conversation.

“Your birthday's 7^th July? Mine's 8^th August! We're meant to be together! [sick]”

Anyway, as I said earlier, I was fortunately – in retrospect – sufficiently bored sometime between 1 and 2am at Carni. Which is how I found myself gravitating away from the chicita, who'd been filling my eardrums to percussive inefficiency with the drole humdrum drones of how her soon-to-be ex was such a pig. Somewhat fortuitously, I escaped to the Dormans stall for a mug of coffee, and happened to end up engaging with one of the few chaps I found grabbing a caffeine fix himself. While the details of how or why this conversation began escape me - despite my being a teetotaler then - it would end up serving as quite the encounter.

We got a-talking about the legal profession with my new-found curious amigo amicus curiae, given he was venturing towards legal study, as was I at the time. After quite the exchange of ideas, banter and whatnots, he would then go on to ask me if I read blogs, and suggest a particular one. Being as I was the archetypal young man then, prone never to ask for directions, I omitted the fact that I had no clue what a blog was, content in the knowledge that my amicus omniscientae Google knew what it was. [Ok, that's the end of the terrible amicus inventions.]

The blog he recommended that I read, was thinkersroom, when he was still on Blogger.com. The blogger whose literary fodder was so good (still is, only less frequent) for so long that he was cited severally by International News outlets long before blogging became every [wo]man's accessory. And ignominiously, the same man whose works were subjected to a poor 'publicity stunt' by none other than Clay Muganda, who reprinted his work on his column in the Daily Nation's pages, citing it merely as 'available on the Internet.'

I was reminded of plagiary, and my own not-so-humble beginnings as I read Nyanchwani's blogpost last week, about how men should never be the good guy to women; one MMK (Media Madness Kenya, perchance?) chided and derided him publicly in the comments section about using two pieces of writing without citing them; I stopped myself in my own tracks before I could even consider rising up to judge him. I think it's only fair that I not be so quick to cast stones, given my own glass house being built on its own small foundation of plagiarism.

I. Plagiarised. @Roomthinker. No point justifying it. An explanation, nay – an elaboration of how it happened – I will, however allow myself.

It began when I started, in the second week of July 2007, reading Roomthinker's posts. Boy were they good. I enjoyed them a whole lot. So much so that I started pulling down some of his posts and saving them on my laptop, just in case, for some reason, his blog were to ever go down. As a purveyor of all things literal, that possibility could not be allowed to ever mutate to reality. I was soon in my first year of campus. 2007-2008's PEV happened,and  as I proceeded to my second semester in Varsity, I had a brace of pals – making up the trio of witty, literary musketeers we were – with whom I discoursed everything, from what women know or do not know they want, to what the implications of religion and God's existence – and the lack thereof 'Him' I proposed – meant to life. It was only logical, then, that we would discuss the posts I had saved as copy-pasted word documents on me trusty lappy as well.

A rather unexpected development, however, followed said logic. The posts I had saved on my machine were the only resource I had to share with them of Thinker's work (the Internet, in Moi University Main Campus Eldoret, was a major luxury then, compared to a need for sustenance in the way of supper.) They read the pieces in silence, then congratulated ME for such an affluent degree of sense, reason and wit in equal measure.

I had an option right there. Fess up – technically I hadn't lied yet – to the fact that it was Thinker's work.  Or take the credit for Roomthinker's writings and musings.

Copied from Class Guides

Since we're here discussing plagiary, we can all guess how that option went down.

It doesn't end there though; oh, how I wish.

In 2008, my old lady went to 'rest with the angels' (ironic, that, coming from a professed atheist, no? I tend towards the view that because she believed that's where she'd go, that's where – to her – she is.) My first ever Facebook note was my own lamentation of her passing, and soon I was publishing regularly on Facebook.

I proceeded to post this article lifted off Thinker's blog to my notes, without expressly stipulating that it was 'written by Roomthinker,' or, since I wouldn't actually have known to call him that then, 'initially posted on roomthinker.com by owner.' Immediately, I get a host of comments, especially from womenfolk who liked my writing, telling me how “THIS IS AWESOME!” and I was the “Greatest writer I know!”

Sema conundrum! Especially since the chap who 'introduced me to Thinker,' so to speak, was perhaps the second Facebook friend I added back in 07. Meaning he could read my notes. Cue the cover-up. Edit note settings; exclude @Archermishale from viewing this note!

It was all downhill from there. I did not once say that I wrote the piece, but I did not once correct those who very eloquently thought I had either. At the time, I was writing a lot of Facebook notes, and soon we had moved on to the next good (not “Greatest that ever lived!”) post I actually wrote.

I was also one of a clique of writers, one that has so far produced such success stories as @wagaodongo, @midegaodero and @yenyewe, that was known as Plus254. We had (and still have, somewhat) Facebook groups and pages, campus magazines and at one point even a website, that worked towards building our literary skills collectively. The same piece would go on to be published on our website under one of my past aliases; again, not one word. Having come this far, I figured I might as well be outed by anyone else. I certainly wasn't ready to do it myself.

But unlike Nyanchwani's blogpost, my indiscretions went unnoticed, or at the very least those who noticed weren't as savvy or brazen as the guy who blasted Nyanchwani. Or maybe it was too early in Blogger's days for there to have been an audience big enough to notice, a luxury Clay Muganda's post was not afforded. Neither was Barrack Obama, nor his Deputy Joe Biden, 20 years before him. I like to think that having battled such bigwigs (detest, absolutely, this word and how it's used on Twitter) Thinker had no time to slug it out with juvies.

Today I do not copy anyone's work, and when I base mine extensively on any piece, I am quick to link back to their original work. Thinker included :)

By the time I started out blogging, I'd done academic writing, learnt how to cite works read in writing my journal articles, and basically, matured. I did, however, put up @itsnowrc's post about Nairobi's ChipsFungaz on my blog, a popular post – judging from the close to 7000 hits it's had since. It was well credited, linking back to his site, and I made a point of contacting him randomly on Facebook, informing him that I'd used his piece on my blog. Had he had any reservations, it woulda been pulled down instantly, but as it turns out, he was easy, and I made a new friend to boot.

Why the big effort at elaborating my plagiarism? Well, for a moment as I was writing the piece I did on Mutula's life and death recently, I paralleled the if-by-Mutula fallacy to my own fault start as a writer. Questioned the questionable beginnings based on plagiarism, linking them to Mutula's dark ages, and the rather self-styled writer I now am to his proposed post-Moi renaissance. 

That thought disappeared as fast as it had shown up; after all, my plagiarist foundations did not defend a despot and legally jargonize the rigging of an election, making billions while at it. It only made me seem better than I was at the time; and I got not one cent out of it! At least Clay Muganda got a couple geez outta Thinker's work, though he did go on to lose his column for a while. The Daily Nation's management, including Charles Onyango-Obbo, handled the matter rather diligently, I might add.

So, to the beginners out there. It's easy to fall into the trap of using other people's ideas and claiming them to be your own. In fact, many creatives out there are afraid to let their work be seen, on the off chance that someone will like and copy it. To the first, I say do the easier and ethical thing, and simply credit your sources. Ignoring the misplaced energies spent trying to cover up your theft, it could save you a cereal bowl full of blushes at best; at worst, you could find yourself in a legal conundrum, what with copyright, trademark and patent laws slowly strengthening in Kenya thanks to institutions such as KECOBO, the Kenya Copyright Board, and KIPI, the Kenya Industrial Property Institute.

Borrowed from Pla(y)giarism vs Plagiraism

To the second, I say learn to put yourself out there as an artist. Sure your work may get copied, stolen, reprinted and whatnots. But you know what I do? I take copycats as a compliment. Copycat killers often are big fans of the original killers' work. It's the same here, only that amidst all the copying, stealing and reprinting, someone out there takes notice of what you're doing. 

And you get the call. 

Meanwhile, the copycat has no idea worth selling, and gets tangled up in his own web of lies eventually. 

Brand Kenya Thrives on: 'Criminal' President Invited To UK

Full disclosure: This post was in initially intended to roll out dubbed "5 ways an ICC Suspect presiding over Kenya works for us," but the attendant flaws in the statement, coupled with the opportunity for free Content Marketing that arises with the phrase «« 'Criminal' President Invited To UK «« trending worldwide overruled that prospect. That, plus I don't do lists.

So here's how Brand Kenya's thriving on Uhuru's election as president:

Criminal? Meh...

1. The hype - No news is bad news. That's Journalism 101. If anyone has disproven and proven that, it has to be our beloved President Uhuru Kenyatta; in two distinct ways, no less:

a. No News = Bad News

Approached in this way, it can be argued that we already know that Uhuru Kenyatta is a suspected 'war criminal,' what with the talk preceding his election that our choices would have consequences. @TheWorld, we are still waiting for that one to come true, but we're more inclined to believe that sheer pragmatism does not allow for any such eventuality.

b. There is no News that = Bad News

Approached from this perspective, it's a mere matter of looking at how Uhuru Kenyatta's political career received a boost as soon as the charges against him achieved global status. He went from an ignominious typing-error-not-misappropriated-funds Minister of Finance, to a full-fledged political force and undisputed symbol of Kenyan Sovereignty. It's all in the packaging of content and how the story is told. Thank you, @TheWorld. We couldn't have done it without you.

2. Increased Civil Liberties - The laundry is already dirty. It is also already being aired extensively. That's a plus for civil liberties and free expression in Kenya. After all, what could possibly be said about President Kenyatta and his Deputy Samoei that could trump allegedly orchestrating the killing of 1000+ human statistics and displacing over 600,000+ more? Thank you, @TheWorld, for giving me the opportunity to criticize my president and get away with it. Again, probably couldn't have done it without you. [Re: Dennis Itumbi, a Kenyan blogger who was in the last regime arrested and harrassed, somewhat deservedly, for hacking into private networks and releasing information into the public domain, now gets invited to State House. At the very least.]

3. Bragging Rights - Kenya can now tell Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, North Korea et al to SUCK IT!! Rome statute my bloody thendecks. That, dear @TheWorld, is to say hiney, posterior orifice or other such colorful words. We still run this mother.

4. Scapegoat vs Against-[t]all-odds - If the presidency fails, we can resoundingly blame foreign interference and create conspiracy theories linking Raila Odinga's foray into @TheWorld with his return and subsequent trouncing of the various institutions that played into Uhuru Kenyatta's election; notably, his allegations of Uhuru's bribery, against the electoral board - IEBC and the Supreme Court - SCoK. If, like water off a duck's back, the charges and resultant hype fall off the shoulders of this presidency's success, then it's three whoops and one keg of malt Tusker (@TheWorld, that's a Kenyan beer) per family. Because the world said "go this way," and we swam counter-current and came out of the raging waters unscathed. And whatnot.  

5. Entertainment factor - We certainly do not lack much in the morbid and morosely delectable humor that having our beloved MPigs comes with - @TheWorld, that's a term of affectionate reverence we use to address our endearing  MPs [Members of Parliament] for obvious reasons; the other option is substituting Member with a synonym and aptly dubbing them Dicks/ Cocks of Parliament, but that's too much work, and we're inherently lazy with our civil rights. However, the conspiracy theories that have sprung up, uniting many Kenyans across tribal lines against a common foe at State House are inspiring; take that! tribalism. "Cat got your tongue?"..."No, that 'Criminal' President Invited To UK cut it out!" "I suppose the dog ate your homework?"..."No, ICC suspect burnt it." "Man died of heart attack? Helicopter crashed?"..."No. War criminal eliminated ICC suspect." 

Maybe that last one wouldn't be too funny if it turned out to be anywhere near true, but at the least we could say that ideas for assassination have somewhat improved since the last hyped one. The man who shot himself in the head, strangled himself, then self-immolated (cremated?) himself.

In any case, it does not seem like UhuRuto's purported 'graveyard shift' at State House is one bit affected by your criminal stories. Soon, we hope, 'Criminal' President Invited To UK will turn into 'Criminal' President Invited To US...but then again Obama's Got 99 Problems But A juvenile delinquent 'brother' in Kenya Ain't One!