I’ve heard many views concerning the school strikes that have hit our high schools in the last month. Everything from drug abuse, to an inadequate supply of teachers. In my view as an upstanding member of society who feels the pinch of buying a loaf of bread or losing my youth in traffic jams, I can only smile at the current situation. It is truly sad that a life has already been lost in this spate of strikes but the reality is the chickens have come home to roost.
Oh ye Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/Prof/other Minister its about time you realized that what you are seeing is your own making. When you hear those students chanting so and so must go, don’t you hear an echo of yourselves? Don’t you see a juvenile, sorry I take that back, don’t you see a uniformed peer doing exactly what you would do? But when you do it we don’t attribute it the use of drugs (though this cannot be completely ruled out with some of your lot), neither do we attribute it to an inadequate supply of police. Nay, when you are chanting, the clarion cry is that of injustice, that of grievances gone unheard.
I don’t encourage the insanity that these strikes are likely to deteriorate to but how else do these students express themselves? They don’t have sycophants like some of you to sing your songs and cry on your behalf, all they have are themselves. Neither do they have the clout to speak to the media and to the masses and go unpunished; all they have is the comfort of numbers, a sea of voices, a faceless crowd where standing out is not to your benefit.
What should be done? Well I’m not sure; you could go ahead demolish kiosks as has been proposed. I mean why not make a few more enemies in the name of fighting injustice? Why not render another family destitute in the name of creating a safe environment for students, if that family wants their child to have a safe environment (financially and meeting their needs) they should just send them to high school, where the Kenyan government and you oh honorable minister will look out for them.
But, oh venerable minister, there is an option in which Kenya is leading the rest of Africa in. Maybe, just maybe you could dialogue with them (for those of you who still are unaware of what this is, it is where two parties have a sit down and actually hear what the other to say.) But I understand how this could be hard, after all, dialogue with renegade national parties and diehard criminals is nothing compared to dialogue with these vile, aggressive, unruly masses called students (no, I wasn’t describing your playmates oh minister, you needn’t take offence.) After careful consideration I take back dialogue as a situation, instead lets just all blame the other person, then blame drugs and when that does not work we can look forward to you oh minister getting together with your playmates, (who if they went to school they will all attest to how difficult the general paper was) and discussing amongst yourselves, what ails our schools. Then after long pointless discussions of how in your time (for those who went to school) such cases were unheard off you’ll be ready for the next election where you’ll show the students that they are but amateurs in civil (this word is used for lack of a better, more ‘socially’ acceptable word)disobedience.
Dear minister, if you want to change this current situation then I recommend that you take legal action against the person to whom this letter is addressed and charges should be everything the students are being charged with (though I’m sure its not a comprehensive list, it is a start) I’m sure you’ll find the charges fit.
Yours truly
A patient sufferer of your incompetence, short sightedness and unrelenting ignorance
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
dear mr. education minister
I’ve heard many views concerning the school strikes that have hit our high schools in the last month. Everything from drug abuse, to an inadequate supply of teachers. In my view as an upstanding member of society who feels the pinch of buying a loaf of bread or losing my youth in traffic jams, I can only smile at the current situation. It is truly sad that a life has already been lost in this spate of strikes but the reality is the chickens have come home to roost.
Oh ye Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/Prof/other Minister its about time you realized that what you are seeing is your own making. When you hear those students chanting so and so must go, don’t you hear an echo of yourselves? Don’t you see a juvenile, sorry I take that back, don’t you see a uniformed peer doing exactly what you would do? But when you do it we don’t attribute it the use of drugs (though this cannot be completely ruled out with some of your lot), neither do we attribute it to an inadequate supply of police. Nay, when you are chanting, the clarion cry is that of injustice, that of grievances gone unheard.
I don’t encourage the insanity that these strikes are likely to deteriorate to but how else do these students express themselves? They don’t have sycophants like some of you to sing your songs and cry on your behalf, all they have are themselves. Neither do they have the clout to speak to the media and to the masses and go unpunished; all they have is the comfort of numbers, a sea of voices, a faceless crowd where standing out is not to your benefit.
What should be done? Well I’m not sure; you could go ahead demolish kiosks as has been proposed. I mean why not make a few more enemies in the name of fighting injustice? Why not render another family destitute in the name of creating a safe environment for students, if that family wants their child to have a safe environment (financially and meeting their needs) they should just send them to high school, where the Kenyan government and you oh honorable minister will look out for them.
But, oh venerable minister, there is an option in which Kenya is leading the rest of Africa in. Maybe, just maybe you could dialogue with them (for those of you who still are unaware of what this is, it is where two parties have a sit down and actually hear what the other to say.) But I understand how this could be hard, after all, dialogue with renegade national parties and diehard criminals is nothing compared to dialogue with these vile, aggressive, unruly masses called students (no, I wasn’t describing your playmates oh minister, you needn’t take offence.) After careful consideration I take back dialogue as a situation, instead lets just all blame the other person, then blame drugs and when that does not work we can look forward to you oh minister getting together with your playmates, (who if they went to school they will all attest to how difficult the general paper was) and discussing amongst yourselves, what ails our schools. Then after long pointless discussions of how in your time (for those who went to school) such cases were unheard off you’ll be ready for the next election where you’ll show the students that they are but amateurs in civil (this word is used for lack of a better, more ‘socially’ acceptable word)disobedience.
Dear minister, if you want to change this current situation then I recommend that you take legal action against the person to whom this letter is addressed and charges should be everything the students are being charged with (though I’m sure its not a comprehensive list, it is a start) I’m sure you’ll find the charges fit.
Yours truly
A patient sufferer of your incompetence, short sightedness and unrelenting ignorance
Oh ye Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/Prof/other Minister its about time you realized that what you are seeing is your own making. When you hear those students chanting so and so must go, don’t you hear an echo of yourselves? Don’t you see a juvenile, sorry I take that back, don’t you see a uniformed peer doing exactly what you would do? But when you do it we don’t attribute it the use of drugs (though this cannot be completely ruled out with some of your lot), neither do we attribute it to an inadequate supply of police. Nay, when you are chanting, the clarion cry is that of injustice, that of grievances gone unheard.
I don’t encourage the insanity that these strikes are likely to deteriorate to but how else do these students express themselves? They don’t have sycophants like some of you to sing your songs and cry on your behalf, all they have are themselves. Neither do they have the clout to speak to the media and to the masses and go unpunished; all they have is the comfort of numbers, a sea of voices, a faceless crowd where standing out is not to your benefit.
What should be done? Well I’m not sure; you could go ahead demolish kiosks as has been proposed. I mean why not make a few more enemies in the name of fighting injustice? Why not render another family destitute in the name of creating a safe environment for students, if that family wants their child to have a safe environment (financially and meeting their needs) they should just send them to high school, where the Kenyan government and you oh honorable minister will look out for them.
But, oh venerable minister, there is an option in which Kenya is leading the rest of Africa in. Maybe, just maybe you could dialogue with them (for those of you who still are unaware of what this is, it is where two parties have a sit down and actually hear what the other to say.) But I understand how this could be hard, after all, dialogue with renegade national parties and diehard criminals is nothing compared to dialogue with these vile, aggressive, unruly masses called students (no, I wasn’t describing your playmates oh minister, you needn’t take offence.) After careful consideration I take back dialogue as a situation, instead lets just all blame the other person, then blame drugs and when that does not work we can look forward to you oh minister getting together with your playmates, (who if they went to school they will all attest to how difficult the general paper was) and discussing amongst yourselves, what ails our schools. Then after long pointless discussions of how in your time (for those who went to school) such cases were unheard off you’ll be ready for the next election where you’ll show the students that they are but amateurs in civil (this word is used for lack of a better, more ‘socially’ acceptable word)disobedience.
Dear minister, if you want to change this current situation then I recommend that you take legal action against the person to whom this letter is addressed and charges should be everything the students are being charged with (though I’m sure its not a comprehensive list, it is a start) I’m sure you’ll find the charges fit.
Yours truly
A patient sufferer of your incompetence, short sightedness and unrelenting ignorance
Friday, June 27, 2008
FARE THEE WELL
we've been travelers upon this journey to the stars
One for all and all for one we used to say
Sharing the tears, sharing the laughter
We really didn’t care what would come after
All that mattered, is we had each other
Brothers at arms, to each others side we were sworn.
But....
What we were, we aren’t...
All we had is all we have...
We only tell stories of days gone by
And nothing of the adventure that lays ahead
We are like old men in the winter of our years
Remembering the good times yet, we aren't done living.
My brother at arms, you are now a stranger,
I don’t know where i lost you
Was it in the last battle?
Or was it by a roadside?
That i know not,
What i do know, is our journey together is at its end
Fare thee well, oh brother,
Fare thee well, trusted friend
Fare thee well...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
faceless crowd
This is one of those things people write and address it, to whom it may concern. Yeah that’s right, im not sure who this is to, only that I want to write. I want to tell my story. Ever watched people walk by and asked after them? Who are they? Where are they from? Why are they here? Where are they going? Questions that more often that not cannot be answered or have no answers.
Have you ever lain on the ground looked up into the sky and traveled? Traveled beyond the veil that is the sky into the space that it actually is. Drawing yourself into the depth that is and not be bound to what it earthly? Traveled beyond the realm where time and decay exist to the place where rejuvenation is constant, that a blossom is remade every time you look at it, that instead of fading, it becomes ever the more brilliant.
Most people will read this and see it as the ramblings of a dreamer- the very people who confuse the standard of life with the quality of it. Most people being afraid to dream have shackled themselves to that which is ‘safe.’ That which they know the outcome, that which predetermines where they land should they jump. But where is the adventure in that? Where is the discovery of what you are capable of? Where is the experience of that which is unknown, undiscovered… that which has been said not to exist only for you to realize. It does!
I beat myself for being so common place…not that common place is bad…it just doesn’t offer an adventure. How then can I trust my God when I already know the outcome? Does it need faith to sit down on a chair you can already see? Or does it need faith to close ones eyes and after twirling oneself a number of times then proceed to sit down? Is that simply faith or foolishness? Where do you draw the line….is there one really? Or is it what is faith to one is foolishness to another? And while I’m at it why do I return to the very world that brought confusion in the first place to seek a definition?
When I look at life, I ask myself. What really matters? Then I know the answer…if it does, it doesn’t need justification. Yet so many of us will seek to justify the doubts that will cross their minds rights now concerning what we think matters. Sad….that’s what it is….sad.
My mind hurts from being told what it can and cannot do. I saw a mad man once and ask myself this question….is he really mad, or is he just free? Free from the binds of society which sets to determine how high you can jump because were you to jump higher than that it would be unnatural; it would be out of the norm. It would make others feel small and commonplace yet, they fight to remain commonplace, to blend in with the crowd.
‘Its all about fear,’ somebody says but mine is this. What is there to fear when already you lose everything when you do? Sadly…I’m afraid!
I close my eyes and open them, just another set of eyes in a faceless crowd…or are they?
Have you ever lain on the ground looked up into the sky and traveled? Traveled beyond the veil that is the sky into the space that it actually is. Drawing yourself into the depth that is and not be bound to what it earthly? Traveled beyond the realm where time and decay exist to the place where rejuvenation is constant, that a blossom is remade every time you look at it, that instead of fading, it becomes ever the more brilliant.
Most people will read this and see it as the ramblings of a dreamer- the very people who confuse the standard of life with the quality of it. Most people being afraid to dream have shackled themselves to that which is ‘safe.’ That which they know the outcome, that which predetermines where they land should they jump. But where is the adventure in that? Where is the discovery of what you are capable of? Where is the experience of that which is unknown, undiscovered… that which has been said not to exist only for you to realize. It does!
I beat myself for being so common place…not that common place is bad…it just doesn’t offer an adventure. How then can I trust my God when I already know the outcome? Does it need faith to sit down on a chair you can already see? Or does it need faith to close ones eyes and after twirling oneself a number of times then proceed to sit down? Is that simply faith or foolishness? Where do you draw the line….is there one really? Or is it what is faith to one is foolishness to another? And while I’m at it why do I return to the very world that brought confusion in the first place to seek a definition?
When I look at life, I ask myself. What really matters? Then I know the answer…if it does, it doesn’t need justification. Yet so many of us will seek to justify the doubts that will cross their minds rights now concerning what we think matters. Sad….that’s what it is….sad.
My mind hurts from being told what it can and cannot do. I saw a mad man once and ask myself this question….is he really mad, or is he just free? Free from the binds of society which sets to determine how high you can jump because were you to jump higher than that it would be unnatural; it would be out of the norm. It would make others feel small and commonplace yet, they fight to remain commonplace, to blend in with the crowd.
‘Its all about fear,’ somebody says but mine is this. What is there to fear when already you lose everything when you do? Sadly…I’m afraid!
I close my eyes and open them, just another set of eyes in a faceless crowd…or are they?
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
justice a.k.a. amnesty
The question of amnesty irks me every time I hear the foul mouthed politicians utter it. Sure I am Christian and I do believe in forgiving, but even forgiveness comes with admition of sin. I’m angered when I hear purported leaders calling for the immediate release of suspects of the post election violence as though these people were arrested, on their way to buy bread from mama Kamau’s shop down the road. How can they speak with such a disregard of the atrocities that were committed? How can they speak with such disregard of the trials that thousands faced at the hands of these people?
Why didn’t these politicians who are now so big on blanket amnesty ‘forgive’ Kibaki on what they said was a stolen election? Or is it they have now seen the light (or is it the shine from their new state owned 4x4s)? Why did they continue to bay for justice to be done when they thought it was they who were wronged? Now that they are driving around in their big cars, and receiving their tax free salary every month they are suddenly ‘touched’ by the plight of those who killed in their name, those who raped in their name, those who stole in their name. I wish I could say that these politicians are that selfless but I cannot, not as a Kenyan with a fully functional mind. There is more to this call for amnesty than meets the eye (I will not be the one to speculate that the actions of these youth is what propelled a number of these amnesty ambassadors, into their plush leather seats, with electric heating (disregard the fact we live in the tropics.) These politicians care about Kenyans for only three reasons; to provide the statistics required to get donor funding or should I say pocket money (53% of Kenyans live below the poverty line, please help us we are poor), to give them a base number of votes to which they can apply their math skills (they haven’t discovered the trick of creating votes from nothing) and to faithfully pay them at the end of every month for their lack of service. Oh there is also the factor of the masses cheering them on as gods, but with their bloated egos or is it apparent ignorance they might even cheer themselves on despite being unpopular (a number of politicians last year kept saying how their people wanted them back but they strangely did not get any votes)
I remember a slogan, NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!!! being chanted four months ago. Is granting amnesty to people who haven’t even asked for forgiveness JUSTICE? Is releasing one of those youth who killed a woman’s children justice? That she can always meet him on her way to the shops, and his very presence taunting her as to how much she has lost, adding insult to injury that her loss wasn’t enough to warrant justice, her loss wasn’t even enough to warrant an apology from his lips. That she, is not worthy to be a Kenyan citizen, as justice is guaranteed to every citizen.
Yet again I ask this question, if these ‘leaders’ are national leaders, why then do they still use terms as watu wetu? Aren’t the aggrieved people their people too? Or did these people deserve what befell them unlike those who have been detained?
Even in Rwanda where amnesty was given to SOME of the people who played a part in the genocide, they asked to be forgiven. They faced the families of those they killed, looked them in the eye and apologized. Why then should politicians in Kenya want anything less? Those who are saying that it is their children who have been arrested, is that to say that those who were killed belonged to no one?
If these politicians are so genuine about theirs calls for amnesty (genuine in that they believe this is true justice and that their ‘people’ have done nothing wrong) , I dare them to call out the survivors of the post election violence and in front of them, yell at the top of their lungs for their peoples’ amnesty. But this is only if they are genuine about their reasons for it. If not, they may as well continue to call for amnesty in their strongholds, where their mentally impoverished delusional sycophants will cheer them on even if these politicians chose to defecate into their mouths. That leaves the rest of who are Kenyans (those who it is okay to kill, rape, harm, steal from, etc) to only pray that somehow, justice will be done…
Why didn’t these politicians who are now so big on blanket amnesty ‘forgive’ Kibaki on what they said was a stolen election? Or is it they have now seen the light (or is it the shine from their new state owned 4x4s)? Why did they continue to bay for justice to be done when they thought it was they who were wronged? Now that they are driving around in their big cars, and receiving their tax free salary every month they are suddenly ‘touched’ by the plight of those who killed in their name, those who raped in their name, those who stole in their name. I wish I could say that these politicians are that selfless but I cannot, not as a Kenyan with a fully functional mind. There is more to this call for amnesty than meets the eye (I will not be the one to speculate that the actions of these youth is what propelled a number of these amnesty ambassadors, into their plush leather seats, with electric heating (disregard the fact we live in the tropics.) These politicians care about Kenyans for only three reasons; to provide the statistics required to get donor funding or should I say pocket money (53% of Kenyans live below the poverty line, please help us we are poor), to give them a base number of votes to which they can apply their math skills (they haven’t discovered the trick of creating votes from nothing) and to faithfully pay them at the end of every month for their lack of service. Oh there is also the factor of the masses cheering them on as gods, but with their bloated egos or is it apparent ignorance they might even cheer themselves on despite being unpopular (a number of politicians last year kept saying how their people wanted them back but they strangely did not get any votes)
I remember a slogan, NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!!! being chanted four months ago. Is granting amnesty to people who haven’t even asked for forgiveness JUSTICE? Is releasing one of those youth who killed a woman’s children justice? That she can always meet him on her way to the shops, and his very presence taunting her as to how much she has lost, adding insult to injury that her loss wasn’t enough to warrant justice, her loss wasn’t even enough to warrant an apology from his lips. That she, is not worthy to be a Kenyan citizen, as justice is guaranteed to every citizen.
Yet again I ask this question, if these ‘leaders’ are national leaders, why then do they still use terms as watu wetu? Aren’t the aggrieved people their people too? Or did these people deserve what befell them unlike those who have been detained?
Even in Rwanda where amnesty was given to SOME of the people who played a part in the genocide, they asked to be forgiven. They faced the families of those they killed, looked them in the eye and apologized. Why then should politicians in Kenya want anything less? Those who are saying that it is their children who have been arrested, is that to say that those who were killed belonged to no one?
If these politicians are so genuine about theirs calls for amnesty (genuine in that they believe this is true justice and that their ‘people’ have done nothing wrong) , I dare them to call out the survivors of the post election violence and in front of them, yell at the top of their lungs for their peoples’ amnesty. But this is only if they are genuine about their reasons for it. If not, they may as well continue to call for amnesty in their strongholds, where their mentally impoverished delusional sycophants will cheer them on even if these politicians chose to defecate into their mouths. That leaves the rest of who are Kenyans (those who it is okay to kill, rape, harm, steal from, etc) to only pray that somehow, justice will be done…
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