SOULFUL NAISOUL...

I salute your soul reader!Allow me to lay bare my soul to thee. Am sure you have it all figured now-its a soulful thing today..Perhaps some graphic breakdown would bring this closer home-picture this, I'm all alone in my solitary cubicle-my secluded forum of self-contemplation and meditation as well as reflection on the troubled times in my dear country.Its been said before-by whom my memory fails me-that every being craves a moment of uninterrupted quiet and towards the pursuit of the foregoing,seeks a zone, a place or a secluded point, call it a 'Peace zone" if you will..where he/she can lay idle for hours undisturbed and reflect aloud to him/ herself while strangely removed from the chaotic planet we live in. At this moment and place, the said being is able to enter into the world of sages and philosophers, without any literary critic checking over his shoulder sneering or questioning his motive, his flow of thought. So when the said creature obtains the said peace zone after the long search, it becomes a daily tussle to protect the said zone from infiltration by any unwelcome third parties or aliens if you are into science fiction...so this creature called Felix has also found his 'spot' and here I am all in deep philosophical mode(some rate it as shallow thinking enveloped in deep nasal overtones of veined intellectualism, which is all semantics if you ask me...as Joseph Pierce averred,""Seeing within changes one's outer vision."

Anyway so much for digressing..i started on the premise that its a soulful feeling in a furahiday nai evening with soft soul music playing in the background...the heart in a sober soulful mood.Talking of sobriety, its always amazing to consider the statistical figures on the sober rates in a normal Nairobi night-a close friend who i can bet my whole life cannot be anywhere near sober at the present has done a survey of Nairobians and his conclusion is that more than 99% of the nairobi adult population on Friday nights are always intoxicated on some ruaraka products or its kin thereof.so at this soulful moment i have my thoughts on the unsober nai people at this time..come with me lets go into a mind of my friend who right now has downed five and counting of them ruaraka froths and he is thinking-am on top of the world! YEAH I GOT MY STUFF ALL SORTED YEAH! but the next day the reality hits home-the economic situation in the domestic scene is not as rosy as the alcohol-induced vision had led him to believe! with the so-called leaders who have made it a point to make life so unbelievably hard for everyone still sitting pretty on the reins, the youth has little recourse but to go back to the dreams-inducing pints only to escape the harsh reality.

Thats why this soulful being has refused to go the self-lying way and face the reality-i will stay sober this night and face the hard facts of my life with a sober mind, i will never waver in my resolve to be the change i can be: can I be part of the movement cruising towards changing the leadership course of this country not just a generational change but a values change..a change towards a regime which appreciates and rewards merit, promotes forward-thinking and nationalistic patriotism and where on lack of aging is not viewed negatively but as a sign of the untapped potential. because flow with me here, let's us unravel the illogacility of the Kenyan governance system: we have allowed ourselves to be ruled and governed by a group of angry, myopic and terrified toddlers trapped in the deceiving bodies of 60 and 70-year olds which ideally should bring forth wisdom if the grand old book is to go by but which has come to be synonymous with unfettered greed of power and our meagre resources...oblivious of the seething and mounting rage on the streets...rage of a people who cannot believe the things the current crop of "leaders" are doing to this country: letting its poor citizens die unattended in their grassy homes with no food on their plates, hungry children who poke at their parents asking for food to feed their empty stomachs but whose parents bend their faces facing the ground unable to look back at their children and tell them "we have nowhere to get food" ""the ministers have sold the reelief food!" "relief food cannot be brought to the country due to state bureaucracy!"...rage seething at the unwanton killings of innocent and defenceless Kenyans even extending to the unarmed voices of the people like "Mtumishi" while the rest who try to speak out in the valley of death are silenced with death threats and go underground...rage at a state unwilling to arm and properly train its security forces to protect itself from the militia gangs that roam the villages in the country like lords in the medieval days-how do they the old men (in their newly blackened hairdos as if afraid that they are not black enough)face the orphaned families of the men in blue killed in the street showdowns with the militias killed because of having low power weaponry, how? They keep on siphoning off resources from our depleted silos claiming that they need to service their "philanthropic" actions but we all know better! It is a troubled land....so this soulful friday night, i remain reflective of these words by Eduardo Galeano in Days and Nights of Love and War:"To be alive: a small victory. To be alive, that is: to be capable of joy, despite the goodbyes and the crimes, so that exile will be a testimony to another, possible country.... Joy takes more courage than grief. In the end, we are accustomed to grief." I wonder where this how low we have come as a country....the treatise continues...I Remain truly yours..FK

A LOVE LETTER TO THE NATION BY SHALJAAH PATEL

I Came across this blog post by a Kwani regular, shaaljaah patel and the now slightly fading sickening feelings that were overwhelmingly going through my mind, and through many others, the ECK peeps made the soap opera-like election results announcement and the immediate sweaaring-in by the CJ(do you now wonder why the Man on the House on Top of the Hill today no so merit in the LSK petition against the CJ!!) came all back flooding. My parting shot:shaljah Patel..you put into words what most of us were unable or incapacitated by the then prevalent circumstances from vocalising..the mixed feelings of utter hatred, despise and disbelief at what the defunct ECK led by its cowardly chairman failed to stand for the country rather than let it go to the dogs...call it a hate letter or love letter to the nation.. the point was made....the sickening feeling of the ECK betrayal and foul play still remains...as the coalition partners, they of different wombs forced to co-exist, bicker and threaten each other..we all remain aware that never again shall we let a single or few individuals bring down this country again...in this we remain..united..patriots...here goes the post:Lets forgive but never forget....
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Kivuitu letter
An Open Letter to Samuel Kivuitu, Chair of the Electoral Commission of Kenya
Mr. Kivuitu,

We've never met. It's unlikely we ever will. But, like every other Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief will not.

You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and transparent election to the people of Kenya. You and your commission had 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills, technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of your peers in the field - leaders and experts in governance, human rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of 37 million Kenyans.

We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a record 65% of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in lines for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet facilities. As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful minister lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the despot who looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en masse, against the mindblowing greed, corruption, human rights abuses, callous dismissal of Kenya's poor, that have characterised the Kibaki administration.

But Kibaki wasn't going to go. When it became clear that you were announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, where the returns were being announced. Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in.

You betrayed us. Perhaps we'll never know when, or why, you made that decision. One rumor claims you were threatened with the execution of your entire family if you did not name Kibaki as presidential victor. When I heard it, I hoped it was true. Because at least then I could understand why you chose instead to plunge our country into civil war.

I don't believe that rumor any more. Not since you appeared on TV, looking tormented, sounding confused, contradicting yourself. Saying, among other things, that you did not resign because you "did not want the country to call me a coward", but you "cannot state with certainty that Kibaki won the election". Following that with the baffling statement "there are those around him [Kibaki] who should never have been born." The camera operator had a sense of irony - the camera shifted several times to the scroll on your wall that read: "Help Me, Jesus."

As the Kenya Chapter of the International Commission of Jurists rescinds the Jurist of the Year award they bestowed on you, as the Law Society of Kenya strikes you from their Roll of Honour and disbars you, I wonder what goes through your mind these days.

Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes, their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations, churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food, water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma, Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya?

I bet you haven't made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I'm sure you saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Imagine that here in Nairobi, Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling levees. But the same root cause - the deep, colossal contempt of a tiny ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal refugees are children. The human collateral damage of your decision.

And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it grinds down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the mortuaries of Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left behind. Every woman, girl, gang-raped.

Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don't. I have nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head:

Remember how we felt in 2002? It's all gone.
(Muthoni Wanyeki, ED of Kenya Human Rights Commission, on the night of December 30th, 2007, after Kibaki was illegally sworn in as president).

There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise.
(John Steinbeck, American writer, on the betrayal of internally displaced Americans, in The Grapes of Wrath)

Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi....kila siku tuwe na shukrani
("Justice be our shield and defender....every day filled with thanksgiving" Lines from Kenya's national anthem)

I soothe myself back to patchy sleep with my mantra in these days, as our country burns and disintegrates around us:

Courage.
Courage comes.
Courage comes from cultivating.
Courage comes from cultivating the habit.
Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing.
Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions.
(Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner).

I wake with a sense of unbearable sadness. Please let it not be true.....

Meanwhile, the man you named President cowers in the State House, surrounded by a cabal of rapacious power brokers, and a bevy of sycophantic unseated Ministers and MPs, who jostle for position and succession. Who fuel the fires by any means they can, to keep themselves important, powerful, necessary. The smoke continues to rise from the torched swathes of Rift Valley, the gutted city of Kisumu, the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa. The Red Cross warns of an imminent cholera epidemic in Nyanza and Western Kenya, deprived for days now of electricity and water. Containers pile up at the Port of Mombasa, as ships, unable to unload cargo, leave still loaded. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, the DRC, all dependent on Kenyan transit for fuel and vital supplies, grind to a halt.

A repressive regime rolls out its panoply of oppression against legitimate dissent. Who knew our police force had so many sleek, muscled, excellently-trained horses, to mow down protestors? Who guessed that in a city of perennial water shortages, we had high-powered water cannons to terrorize Kenyans off the streets?

I am among the most fortunate of the fortunate. Not only am I still whole, alive, healthy, mobile; not only do I have food, shelter, transport, the safety of those I love; I have the gift of work. I have the privilege to be in the company of the most brilliant, principled, brave, resilient Kenyans of my generation. To contribute whatever I can as we organize, analyse, strategize, mobilize, draw on everything we know and can do, to save our country. I marvel at the sheer collective volume of trained intelligence, of skill, expertise, experience, in our meetings. At the ability to rise above personal tragedy - families still hostage in war zones, friends killed, homes overflowing with displaced relatives - to focus on the larger picture and envisage a solution.

I listen to lawyers, social scientists, economists, youth activists, humanitarians; experts on conflict, human rights, governance, disaster relief; to Kenyans across every sector and ethnicity, and I think:

Is this what we have trained all our lives for? To confront this epic catastrophe, caused by a group of old men who have already sucked everything they possibly can out of Kenya, yet will cling until they die to their absolute power?

You know these people too, Mr. Kivuitu. The principled, brave, resilient, brilliant Kenyans. The idealists who took seriously the words we sang as schoolchildren, about building the nation. Some of them worked closely with you, right through the election. Some called you friend. You don't even have the excuse that Kibaki, or his henchmen, might offer - that of inhabiting a world so removed from ours that they cannot fathom the reality of ordinary Kenyans. You know of the decades of struggle, bloodshed, faith and suffering that went into creating this fragile beautiful thing we called the "democratic space in Kenya." So you can imagine the ways in which we engage with the unimaginable. We coin new similes:

lie low like a 16A (the electoral tally form returned by each constituency, many of which were altered or missing in the final count)

We joke about the Kivuitu effect - which turns internationalists, pan-Africanists, fervent advocates for the dissolution of borders, into nationalists who cry at the first verse of the national anthem:

Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.

O God of all creation
Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty
Plenty be found within our borders.

Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity of our country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humor, and action. Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude.

We tell the stories that aren't making it into the press. The retired general in Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm. The Muslim Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as "tribal warfare", "ethnic conflict", for an audience that visualises Africa through Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond.

I wish you'd thought of those people, when you made the choice to betray them. I wish you'd drawn on their courage, their integrity, their clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you'd had the imagination to enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans.

But, as you've probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn't really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A clumsy groping for something beyond the word 'heartbreak'. A futile attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment. This is a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation. This is a long low keening for my country.

Shailja Patel