Whether you take the home with you or abandon it to the dust, the road entices and engulfs. Swallows and spits you out. You see new faces, different stars, remember old faces and familiar stars. Dance and rejoice. Sawa sawa?
So I promised I would let you know. Four flowers are out. They bloom so quickly -- every hour there is a change!
There had been some anxiety between us as I feared that I had overwatered my friend. But she (he? - it? - why is English's non-gendered single pronoun so personality-less??) recovered and now my room smells like white petals.
[This is very short I know, but my desk is covered with things to read so I must attend to it...a la prochaine!]
Yesterday I bought a plant. It's a small little plant -- not even in real soil. The three main shoots sit inside a glass vase, and their roots swirl round some lovely terracotta coloured pebbles. They are very pretty roots, big bulbous blobs with silky tassels pressing against the glass.
All in all very cute. I believe we have already bonded. At least I think we have; it hasn't really said much yet, and I don't know what it thinks of my room, which can get a bit chilly. I put it on the windowsill during the day but at night move it to the desk so it doesn't get too cold. Also that way we get to sit together and try to understand regional economic integration and other exciting topics.
Apparently -- and according to the picture that came on its tag -- it is going to have lots of pretty white flowers. They are supposed to be quite smelly too. I hope it blooms soon. It has been very grey of late here and is still getting dark early. Even if it's not outright raining, there is always some form of water falling from the sky. Plus tonight we had a thunderstorm, which is a rare event. So some little flowers in my room would be nice.
One thing I have noticed in magazines lately in the last year or so is adverts from Dow Chemicals touting their "human element". Now as many of you know, Dow bought Union Carbide back in 2001. Union Carbide -- as in the corporation that owned the Union Carbide Pesticide Plant in Bhopal back in 1984.
In light of that history, I find their slogan kind of -- well, very sick. One of the worst examples of corporate irresponsibility, dishonesty, and abuse. Sure enough, from a google search, I find that other people feel the same way about the company. And from their work and others I find many other reasons to find Dow's "human element" campaign very disturbing.
Twisted and poisonous are two words that come to mind.
Wow. I just read more. I had no idea how despicable this corporation's record is.
"We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,/ but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have/ the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless/ furnace of this world. To make injustice the only/ measure of our attention is to praise the Devil./...We must admit there will be music despite everything."
Well hello. I find myself back at my desk. Here, where it feels like home, which is nice -- especially when coming from my other home. There are beloved people all over! Thanks be for them.
I was on a plane and several trains -- in transit -- on January 11th when all the protests against Guantanamo Bay were going on, so I couldn't participate. I did however recently buy a book that I thought I would share with you. You should most definitely check it out.
It's called Poems from Guantanamo: the Detainees Speak. Put together by a team of volunteer lawyers who first visited the military detention center in November 2004, it provides a rare glimpse into the suffering going on 'inside the wire'. I think the first thing to appreciate is just how incredible it is that these poems have been shared with us. The introduction to the book is harrowing. Some excerpts:
"My colleagues and I -- all volunteer lawyers -- first visited Guantanamo in November 2004, after receiving 'secret' level security clearances from the FBI. What we learned from our clients on that trip was shocking. During the three years in which they had been held in total isolation, they had been repeatedly abused. They had been subjected to stress positions, sleep deprivation, blaring music, and extremes of heat and cold during endless interrogations. They had been sexually humiliated...They were denied basic medical care. They were broken down and psychologically tyrannized, kept in extreme isolation, threatened with rendition, interrogated at gunpoint, and told that their families would be harmed if they refused to talk." (1)
"It is difficult to see how hope can flourish in such an environment, where the only contact with the outside world is an occasional visit from a lawyer or an infrequent and heavily censored letter from a relative. Indeed, dozens of prisoners have attempted suicide by hanging, by hoarding and then overdosing on medicine, or by slashing their wrists. (The military, in true Orwellian fashion, has described these suicide attempts as incidents of 'manipulative self-injurious behavior." When three detainees successfully killed themselves in June 2006, the military called the suicides acts of 'asymmetric warfare.") (2)
I don't know about you but those last few sentences really made me want to throw up. I don't really know what else to say.
Most poetry written by inmates gets thrown away, so the poems in the book are only a few of many other creations that will never reach the eyes of the outside world. Go read them.
For more on the book, read this Guardian article (and anothere here) which has other related links. Buy the book from Amnesty International here. The site also has links to info about their campaign to close the detention centre.The book's full citation is: Falkoff, Marc (ed.). Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak.Iowa City: Iowa UP, 2007.
I got a text yesterday from another friend in Kenya -- telling me to hope. Yes, telling me (as in the person sitting in a hotel in North Carolina) to hope. So I am hoping and believing in the spirit of his words (also read this about grassroots peacebuilding). And I will continue to try to add here any resources I can find about what has been going on in the country since the elections.
First -- this article offers an overview of the political situation and explains why the violence that has occurred is directly linked to two main factors: first, the strategies of political parties and politicians involved in the election and second, the fact that where extreme levels of poverty and inequality exist, politicians have much power to manipulate people and whip up violence. The result of this corruption and abuse of power is that people suffer. In particular, it is often the young who suffer. They are the ones who in many cases voted for the first time only to see the promise of free and fair elections disappear in smoke. They are the ones whose hope was smothered by politicians' greed and inability to swallow their pride and do something about the post-election violence. It is young people who are recruited into gangs supporting politicians at all levels and it is young people who die in the largest numbers.
So what can you do? Well, one of the absolute worst things people in the international community can do at the moment is to draw metaphors to other situations and to generalise -- we need to try and understand what is happening and not put it in terms that make a grabbing headline. Think of all the complicated dimensions of your country's political system -- everywhere is this complicated. Kenya has its own history, its own political institutions, its own politicians, its own troubles -- so go and read up from sources other than some of the major media houses (though BBC has put up a worthwhile article with links to blogs and I just found this article in the Canadian Mail and Globe which offers a more informed perspective).
Why is this important you ask? Well, from Kenyan Pundit: "One key resolution was for those of us [in the Kenyan Diaspora] who have access to the media to demonstrate that the situation is a lot more nuanced than Kikuyu vs. Luo and than “tribal war” - this tag by the international media is leading to piecemeal solutions being offered that won’t really address the underlying issues."
For a list of resources I compiled yesterday (in particular blogs from various perspectives), see my previous post from Friday. And go here for a news video from the streets of Nairobi today. There's also a link to other videos taken by reporters with mobile phone cameras. Such journalism deserves your attention.
I'll try to post some articles that will give you some background on the political system as soon as I can later this week. For a start, read the article I posted at the start of the entry.
And - to help directly, please donate to the Kenyan Red Cross Society, who are an excellent organisation providing much needed aid to internally displaced people and others in need. For info on them and how to make a donation, go here.
Reports on the events following Kenya's 2007 elections have now been featured on news outlets around the world. There are also many Kenyan bloggers covering the events with much more insight than you'll find in most of the articles in the US/UK media in particular.
For example, read this piece of citizen journalism from Nairobi and please skip to the bottom of my entry for links to more information. For a comprehensive list of blogs covering events, go here. Visit Kenyan Pundit's blog for important information about the last few days and go here for Insight Kenya, a new picture blog. Firoze Manji sums up the current state of affairs well onPambazuka News: "It is the Kenyan people who have lost the election" as does Mukoma wa Ngugi in an article here.
My entry that follows here is not seeking to describe or explain events; it's just the thoughts occupying my mind right now.
....
In the past two years, I have begun to know a little bit more about Kenya than I did before. I had visited the country when I was very little but did not have the chance to go back until 2006, which was when I started this whole blog. I returned for a short visit in early 2007 and hope to return in a few months.
I don't know what it was about my trips, but they were full of random meetings and chances to listen to many people. And my visits, however brief, left me with very dear friends. Friends of great grace and generosity, humor, and kindness. People that I think about and communicate with on a regular basis -- cell phones and e-mail mean regular conversations aren't totally thwarted by distance. Indeed, I was surprised by the depth of the friendships that were created in such a short time and how they continue to enrich my life.
This past week, reading the news, my friends and their families, friends, and neighbours have been on my mind all the time. I don't know if thinking about people and hoping for their country does any good. I pray that it does.
If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know who Madi is -- a friend I met when travelling with my friend Tiffany in Coast Province in summer 2006. He took us under his wing and showed us all around Mombasa before taking us to his Ngomeni, his village and adored island just north of Malindi. I visited him and his family back in January. I heard from him today in a text which began "Just pray for our beloved country" and went on to describe his views on what unbelievable steps politicians will take to stay in power.
Others have been in touch, but it is hard for people to find credit for their phones. People are also having trouble making it to internet cafes. In a few places, there is no electricity to charge phones either.
As I said above, my knowledge of Kenya is still very limited, gathered from short visits, meeting a few people, and a small amount of historical research. But I have seen enough to feel angry at the greed and pride of politicians who think they can continue to deceive their people. Enough to feel horribly sad that people die because, to put it simply, people with power lie and steal.
It happens all over the world (I am in the US as I write after all) and has happened for a long time. Once in a while though, individuals stand up to say enough is enough. People are capable of putting others before themselves, I believe this. Change can happen.
So to Kenyan politicians, come on, your country's people are watching you. The world is watching you. Prove that you're capable of thinking of someone other than yourselves. Prove that you really do care about the millions of people who have to live the outcomes of your actions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - For a list of blogs covering events, go here.
"Our beloved country, the Republic of Kenya, is a burnt-out, smouldering ruin. The economy is at a virtual standstill and the armies of destruction are on the march in the Rift Valley and other places.
In the midst of this, leaders — who are the direct cause of this catastrophe — are issuing half-hearted calls for peace, from the comfort of their hotels and walled homes in Nairobi, whence they are conveyed in bullet-proof limousines.
It is unbelievable foolishness for Kenyans to destroy their economy, their homes and their entire way of life in the name of politics and on behalf of people whose lives of comfort and luxury are going on normally."
"Political leaders on both sides must be told in no uncertain terms that they are currently in great danger of losing their credibility in the eyes of Kenyans and the international community because of systematic killing of the innocent sweeping Kenya, destruction of the economy and the spread of disaffection throughout the land."
Read the rest. To read an opinion critiquing this campaign in the newspapers, go here. Oloo does make a good point that security alone does not bring justice.
Tears are rolling down my eyes as I’m writing this.
It is a sad day for Kenya when Ruto and Kosgey are the guys arguing for justice and fairness.
It is a sad day for Kenya when Karua and Kibwana are defending rigged results.
It is a sad day for Kenya when Kivuitu is cracking jokes at the state house swearing in ceremony while lives are being lost for people who could care less (10 people already dead in Kisii, 2 dead in Kakamega, at least one in Kisumu).
It is a sad day for Kenya when Kibaki who pledged to be a one-term president and is only president because Raila said Kibaki Tosha can now not be bigger than himself and his cronies.
It is a sad day for Kenya when a cabal that has been in power since independence still controls the countries destiny.
It is a sad day for Kenya when millions of first time young voters have had their voice ignored - how do you tell these people that their vote matters in 2012?
It is a sad day for Kenya that Kenyans will no longer trust the one avenue they have - the ballot box.
It is a sad day in Kenya that the democracy that has been painfully and slowly nurtured since 1992 has been damaged in one day.
It is a sad day.
There are a lot of clips on YouTube about the alleged rigging. Here is Kosgey from ODM addressing Kivuitu, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya:
On Tuesday night, Mr Samuel Kivuitu made a damning admission that he announced results of the fiercely contested presidential election under pressure. ...
I am thinking of dear friends and hope they are safe.
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I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about an article I had read for class with which I really disagreed, but I only just published it on this blog. When I wrote it I was still feeling a bit frustrated so I left it in my drafts box to read over at a later date.
The current events in Kenya however brought it back to my mind and pushed me to put it up here.
Here are a couple lines from the article, written by Bratton and Logan in 2006 about voters in African democracies:
"They have not yet made a personal transition from mere voters into fully engaged citizens." "Can Africans be helped to become rights-demanding citizens?"
I had to read these lines twice to be sure I wasn't imagining them.
It's hard to demand rights when you don't have them, whether or not you want to make a "personal transition".
It's hard to hold a peaceful demonstration when the police use live rounds to clear the crowd. It's hard to understand what's going on in your country when the government bans live broadcasts. And it's hard to check on family and friends when there is no more mobile phone credit available.
