Seek more info please.

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.