Thus ends this one-in-twelve month,
O Februarists of all
Persuasions!
As in all other years
Packed with the good and the, urgh,
The ugly est!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Prof. E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo, RIP
Some time between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Thursday, February 26th, as I looked out of a window on Gandhi Wing (at the University of Nairobi), I thought I saw Prof. Atieno-Odhiambo stop to talk spiritedly to someone I didn't know. He, Atieno, was headed toward The Fountain of Knowledge, from the direction of Central Administration. My first thought was, "Ah, so Atieno is in town" (in Nairobi visiting us, his former colleagues at UoN, as he occasionally did during his many years at Rice University in Texas). On closer look, however, I saw that it was not the Prof. but someone else entirely. Someone I didn't know either. The person who had momentarily looked like Atieno "became" (morphed into) another before my eyes. Well, it so so happens. And so I dismissed the scene as one of those things, and didn't give it another thought -- concluding that Atieno must surely still be at Rice.
So I was quite taken aback last night at around 9.20 p.m. when my sister-in-law told me, and my wife confirmed, that -- according to the day's Standard newspaper (which I hadn't fully "gone through" yet, as the day had been filled with errands and an early graduate lecture) -- Prof. Atieno-Odhiambo had died (of 'dementia', as reported by his wife) at a hospital in Kisumu City, Kenya, on Wednesday, February 25. That was, incidentally, the same day that George Rarieya (Uncle George) died. I was quite, quite taken aback! I hadn't known that Atieno was back in the country. My thoughts suddenly ran back to that Thursday scene, and I just shook my head in disbelief as I recounted it (my wife, Joan, and her sister giving me a telling look).
When we got back home I checked The Standard and confirmed that it was really true.
Atieno was a leading scholar -- in Kenya, Africa and the world. He ventured boldly beyond the presumed boundaries of his discipline (history), and so extended them. He was much respected, and much liked, by many who knew and remember him (and who are still here) at the University of Nairobi. One of his most memorable works is the one he co-authored with David William Cohen, titled, Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa.
S.M. Otieno had been a dignified and very professional city lawyer with a deep sense of what it meant to be a cosmopolitan Kenyan, and what it meant to be charitable. He was a true embodiment of the Kenya (and Kenyans) we want. He had married across ethnic lines, but the cultural-and-legal controversy surrounding his place of burial, following his death in December 1986, sparked off the worst inter-ethnic animosity (since TJ Mboya's assassination in Nairobi 1969) between members of the Kikuyu and Luo communities -- to which his wife and he respectively belonged.
So I was quite taken aback last night at around 9.20 p.m. when my sister-in-law told me, and my wife confirmed, that -- according to the day's Standard newspaper (which I hadn't fully "gone through" yet, as the day had been filled with errands and an early graduate lecture) -- Prof. Atieno-Odhiambo had died (of 'dementia', as reported by his wife) at a hospital in Kisumu City, Kenya, on Wednesday, February 25. That was, incidentally, the same day that George Rarieya (Uncle George) died. I was quite, quite taken aback! I hadn't known that Atieno was back in the country. My thoughts suddenly ran back to that Thursday scene, and I just shook my head in disbelief as I recounted it (my wife, Joan, and her sister giving me a telling look).
When we got back home I checked The Standard and confirmed that it was really true.
Atieno was a leading scholar -- in Kenya, Africa and the world. He ventured boldly beyond the presumed boundaries of his discipline (history), and so extended them. He was much respected, and much liked, by many who knew and remember him (and who are still here) at the University of Nairobi. One of his most memorable works is the one he co-authored with David William Cohen, titled, Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa.
S.M. Otieno had been a dignified and very professional city lawyer with a deep sense of what it meant to be a cosmopolitan Kenyan, and what it meant to be charitable. He was a true embodiment of the Kenya (and Kenyans) we want. He had married across ethnic lines, but the cultural-and-legal controversy surrounding his place of burial, following his death in December 1986, sparked off the worst inter-ethnic animosity (since TJ Mboya's assassination in Nairobi 1969) between members of the Kikuyu and Luo communities -- to which his wife and he respectively belonged.
Perhaps even more insightful and intellectually riveting is the book, again co-authored with William David Cohen, titled Risks of Knowledge: Investigations Into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in 1990. I read an extensive excerpt a few years ago, and was greatly impressed.
Surely, Atieno-Odhiambo has died too soon!
He was one of those few you always looked forward to seeing again, with feeling, upon their return, however brief, to the country. It was not supposed to be like this!
P.S. 1. For an obituary by David Cohen, posted on March 4, click here; 2. Click here for Cabral Pinto's opinion, posted on March 6th.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Diagnosis, Treatment
The solution is in the diagnosis.
Yet there's a winding road between them.
________________________________________________
Footnotes (therefore):
1. The symptom is not the cure
2. The cure is not the symptom
3. The patient is not the treatment
4. The treatment is not the patient
5. The ailment may elude cure
6. The cure may have no ailment
7. The diagnosis may be wrong
8. The patient may resist treatment
9. The patient may have no treatment
10. The treatment may kill the patient
11. There may be complications
12. There may be malpractice
13. The healer may not be Goodenough
14. The problem is part of the solution
15. The solution is part of the problem!
Yet there's a winding road between them.
________________________________________________
Footnotes (therefore):
1. The symptom is not the cure
2. The cure is not the symptom
3. The patient is not the treatment
4. The treatment is not the patient
5. The ailment may elude cure
6. The cure may have no ailment
7. The diagnosis may be wrong
8. The patient may resist treatment
9. The patient may have no treatment
10. The treatment may kill the patient
11. There may be complications
12. There may be malpractice
13. The healer may not be Goodenough
14. The problem is part of the solution
15. The solution is part of the problem!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Obama's First Address to A Joint Session of US Congress
President Obama, wuodwa, delivered his first address to a joint session of Congess in Washington, DC, yesterday (February 24th). It was in effect a State of the Union address, and he was in his usual eloquent and dignified element. Nor only that, his message was, as we have come to expect, from the heart. There was no talk-for-talk's-sake there, which is easy. Click here for the full text.
Ahmedinejad, in Obama's Fatherland
In August 2008, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, paid a state visit to Turkey. Prior to the visit, there was much debate in Turkey concerning what the visit portended.
Last week, the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, paid a state visit to Kenya -- the first by a Turkish head of state. He came bearing gifts.
Hot on his heels, Ahmedinejad began his own two-day official visit to Kenya yesterday (Tuesday, February 24th), as the first stop in his two-country African journey, the other being, bafflingly, the Comoros. He also came bearing gifts, and the promise of improved contact.
Kenya has a long historical link with the middle east or Asia Minor as a whole. However, I see no triangular geopolitical connection, or timing, in the Iranian's visit to Turkey, and in the near-simultaneous Turkish and Iranian state-visits to Kenya? Was Kenya discussed in Ankara? I don't think so -- but you never know, Obama being who/what he has become. Was America? Perhaps. Is Kenya growing in stature, given its strategic location? Perhaps not, but it should be. We, another lot, will make it.
What is certain is that there has been no public debate, none at all, in Kenya concerning either visit. One would have thought that Ahmedinejad, in particular, would come in for some heated commentary. There have been private conversations, to be sure, about what Obama (what America) might think about all this. But Iran and Turkey are our long-standing trading contacts. And both leaders have been a study in proper diplomatical protocol and personal humility while here, as far as I can tell.
More to the point, is there any gain to Ahmedinejad in his visit, at this time? I'm still scratching my head. He did come because he was invited -- invited to come at a time of his choosing. What I know is that, while he is here, Tehran is scheduled to commission its first nuclear power plant; built, ostensibly, to generate electric power for the country.
Iran has a historical trade and cultural link with Kenya, particularly the Kenyan coast -- which traces as far back, perhaps, as AD 600 to AD 800. A number of Kiswahili words, in fact, have Persial roots; and there are people, Kenyans, on the Kenyan coast with Iranian roots.
Iran has been a major proponent of "Dialogue among Civilizations" -- a drive which predates Ahmedinejad's Presidency. It was Mohammad Khatami, a former Iranian President, who coined the term to counteract Huttington's more confrontational idea of Clash of Civilizations. Khatami persuaded the UN to declare 2001 the year of Dialogue among Civilizations. There was going to be an "Indian Ocean Rim" component of this dialogue, we had been made to understand. Alas, 2001 was also to become the year of 911, and this really muddied the waters.
May the dialogue begin anew, and perhaps here!
Last week, the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, paid a state visit to Kenya -- the first by a Turkish head of state. He came bearing gifts.
Hot on his heels, Ahmedinejad began his own two-day official visit to Kenya yesterday (Tuesday, February 24th), as the first stop in his two-country African journey, the other being, bafflingly, the Comoros. He also came bearing gifts, and the promise of improved contact.
Kenya has a long historical link with the middle east or Asia Minor as a whole. However, I see no triangular geopolitical connection, or timing, in the Iranian's visit to Turkey, and in the near-simultaneous Turkish and Iranian state-visits to Kenya? Was Kenya discussed in Ankara? I don't think so -- but you never know, Obama being who/what he has become. Was America? Perhaps. Is Kenya growing in stature, given its strategic location? Perhaps not, but it should be. We, another lot, will make it.
What is certain is that there has been no public debate, none at all, in Kenya concerning either visit. One would have thought that Ahmedinejad, in particular, would come in for some heated commentary. There have been private conversations, to be sure, about what Obama (what America) might think about all this. But Iran and Turkey are our long-standing trading contacts. And both leaders have been a study in proper diplomatical protocol and personal humility while here, as far as I can tell.
Most important of all is that Kenyans love and welcome those who, unlike the Artur Brothers, visit them with a clean heart. They love Queen Elizabeth, for example. They didn't care much for Presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, who, while visiting East Africa, avoided Kenya like the plague while they were in office. Obama was here in 2006, as Senator. So was Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt a hundred years ago (in 1909), after he had left the White House. That was just eight years after the Uganda Railway reached Kisumu (that same rail by which, upon arrival in Mombasa, Roosevelt travelled inland to Nairobi), eight years before my own father was born in Seme (some 35 km from Kisumu), and eleven years before Kenya became officially a British colony. In his wonderful and really, really captivating 2008 book, Kenya: A Country in the Making 1880-1940, Nigel Pavitt notes that Roosevelt stayed in Kenya for eleven months, shooting game and doing stuff. He had some wild ideas of his own, but his "relaxed, friendly manner" earned him many settler admirers here. Pavitt's book is proof that seeing is truly believing the magic that's Kenya (click here for a review of the book).
Is there, though, any message for Obama in Ahmedinejad's visit to Obama's fatherland? A sort of ugali or pilau diplomacy, perhaps? A possible coffee or chai tete-a-tete? An exploration of contact opportunity in a country of contacts and contrasts?More to the point, is there any gain to Ahmedinejad in his visit, at this time? I'm still scratching my head. He did come because he was invited -- invited to come at a time of his choosing. What I know is that, while he is here, Tehran is scheduled to commission its first nuclear power plant; built, ostensibly, to generate electric power for the country.
Iran has a historical trade and cultural link with Kenya, particularly the Kenyan coast -- which traces as far back, perhaps, as AD 600 to AD 800. A number of Kiswahili words, in fact, have Persial roots; and there are people, Kenyans, on the Kenyan coast with Iranian roots.
Iran has been a major proponent of "Dialogue among Civilizations" -- a drive which predates Ahmedinejad's Presidency. It was Mohammad Khatami, a former Iranian President, who coined the term to counteract Huttington's more confrontational idea of Clash of Civilizations. Khatami persuaded the UN to declare 2001 the year of Dialogue among Civilizations. There was going to be an "Indian Ocean Rim" component of this dialogue, we had been made to understand. Alas, 2001 was also to become the year of 911, and this really muddied the waters.
May the dialogue begin anew, and perhaps here!
Many More Years of This Day
First it was my wife, Joan, who wished me a happy birthday and asked how it felt. I hadn't noticed any change I said.
Perhaps later in the day. Perhaps not, really.
It was Rege next, who shouted it out while I was in the bathroom. And then he was gone to school.
He's a big boy now -- a man, he insists. Not the skinny lad he was when he was littler -- before all the iron pumping and the rugby (like Kwach). I myself was into basketball at that age, but so do some things go. As others don't.
Then Kwach, the eldest, wished me before he too rushed -- to work.
Then Chikka -- only girl in the house (beside her mother, that is):
-- How old do you feel?
-- Eh?
-- How old do you fee-eel?
-- forty two! (without hesitation)
-- Yeah, you're as old as you feel.
-- Sometimes I feel like 25. (Was I stretching it?)
-- Ha ha ha!
Her mother, beside her at the dressing table, took note of that, with a chuckle spiced with her take on this day. And she added, besides:
-- I feel like...exactly 22.
-- That's the way (I added)
Though what I should really have said, if I was into that kind of talk, was, "Yenyewe!"
By which token she was even younger nineteen days ago! Perhaps nineteen at heart.
In my house, we eat a lot of cake in February, for some reason! In my father's house there were not so many rooms -- though we added some.
February is a nice and cosy month, most of the time. Certainly for Februarists! Stretched by the savouring, it ends none-too-soon. Too much sugar. Spoilsports, I venture to say, are the exception that affirm the rule -- when we shutter our windows and remain quietly inside. In the creeping shade that's creeping all across Africa, quietly inside.
And none-too-soon.
And then there are other events which do not spoil but simply be, tagging with contending, inescapable reality days such as this: Like (Joan's) Uncle George's passing this very same day, revealed to us as we drove to work.
Everyone I know that mentioned his name called him Uncle.
Lucky the day that ends as it had begun. And lucky those that see it through. Things, so many things, happen.
__________________________________________
P.S: Brian, who hadn't woken up when we left, and who opened the door for us without a word when we returned home at nine in the night, comes to me some twenty minutes into nine (can you see the conspiracy?) with a smile in his face and an envelope (with a signed card) in his hand:
-- Here's a surprise birthday card (he/they surprise me alright).
Perhaps later in the day. Perhaps not, really.
It was Rege next, who shouted it out while I was in the bathroom. And then he was gone to school.
He's a big boy now -- a man, he insists. Not the skinny lad he was when he was littler -- before all the iron pumping and the rugby (like Kwach). I myself was into basketball at that age, but so do some things go. As others don't.
Then Kwach, the eldest, wished me before he too rushed -- to work.
Then Chikka -- only girl in the house (beside her mother, that is):
-- How old do you feel?
-- Eh?
-- How old do you fee-eel?
-- forty two! (without hesitation)
-- Yeah, you're as old as you feel.
-- Sometimes I feel like 25. (Was I stretching it?)
-- Ha ha ha!
Her mother, beside her at the dressing table, took note of that, with a chuckle spiced with her take on this day. And she added, besides:
-- I feel like...exactly 22.
-- That's the way (I added)
Though what I should really have said, if I was into that kind of talk, was, "Yenyewe!"
By which token she was even younger nineteen days ago! Perhaps nineteen at heart.
In my house, we eat a lot of cake in February, for some reason! In my father's house there were not so many rooms -- though we added some.
February is a nice and cosy month, most of the time. Certainly for Februarists! Stretched by the savouring, it ends none-too-soon. Too much sugar. Spoilsports, I venture to say, are the exception that affirm the rule -- when we shutter our windows and remain quietly inside. In the creeping shade that's creeping all across Africa, quietly inside.
And none-too-soon.
And then there are other events which do not spoil but simply be, tagging with contending, inescapable reality days such as this: Like (Joan's) Uncle George's passing this very same day, revealed to us as we drove to work.
Everyone I know that mentioned his name called him Uncle.
Lucky the day that ends as it had begun. And lucky those that see it through. Things, so many things, happen.
__________________________________________
P.S: Brian, who hadn't woken up when we left, and who opened the door for us without a word when we returned home at nine in the night, comes to me some twenty minutes into nine (can you see the conspiracy?) with a smile in his face and an envelope (with a signed card) in his hand:
-- Here's a surprise birthday card (he/they surprise me alright).
Monday, February 23, 2009
Ruto Wants Waki's Envelope to Head to The Hague, Now!
William Ruto, energized by his emphatic victory against a vote of no confidence moved in Parliament last week, over the maize scandal, has now turned his attention to that other matter of post-election violence, in which nearly everyone believes he was so complicit that his name cannot but be in the list in Waki's envelope. In a surprising move, he declared over the weekend, as reported in the media, that Kofi Annan should take Waki's envelope straight to the Hague. To him, all this talk of a local tribunal and a two-month extension of Waki's deadline is merely a waste of time -- a beating about the bush -- which he will have none of.
In this, Ruto is openly disagreeing with Raila, the Prime Minister, who is mulling another initiative to establish a local tribunal as an alternative to the Hague, despite that idea's recent rejection by a Parliament in which Raila's coalition has a slim majority. And I agree with him. Raila even reported, astonishingly, that Annan had allowed Kenya a two month extension, at most; astonishing because nobody seemed to know that Annan had the mandate to extend/alter Waki's deadline, and nobody, except perhaps Raila, believes that he has. Let's let it go now!
The country's future political health clearly requires a visit to the Hague. The paradox is that a presumed culprit is all for it, while those who would presumably benefit from his fall -- and who would like to see him suffer and out of the way -- rather nervously want to keep him as far away from that same Hague as they possibly can! He wants to go, but they don't want him to -- a perfect sado-masochist bind.
Are there beans they fear he will spill, even as he falls? Might such spilling lead to their own irreparable fall -- their own inevitable path to that same place? I see that Sudan's Al Bashir is increasingly and publicly beside himself with trepidation arising from his own likely indictment by the mighty ICC, a date with which is not a picnic -- and from which, in the end, no one can hide. If Ruto was, he seems no longer to be; but someone else apparently is! What is it that someone knows that Ruto knows that shouldn't be known by Tom, Dick and Harry -- and Wanjiku?
If President Kibaki and Raila -- who on a previous occasion Ruto had said should be the ones going to the Hague (since, he had argued, all post-election violence was carried out in their name) -- want a local tribunal for the spanner-boys, the small men, of the violence, that's fine. However, the big boys should all be headed to the Hague, to meet their match. They can have all the time they want there, as we watch with waning interest from afar. All that may be far from good for many, but it will be good from far for just as many.
In this, Ruto is openly disagreeing with Raila, the Prime Minister, who is mulling another initiative to establish a local tribunal as an alternative to the Hague, despite that idea's recent rejection by a Parliament in which Raila's coalition has a slim majority. And I agree with him. Raila even reported, astonishingly, that Annan had allowed Kenya a two month extension, at most; astonishing because nobody seemed to know that Annan had the mandate to extend/alter Waki's deadline, and nobody, except perhaps Raila, believes that he has. Let's let it go now!
The country's future political health clearly requires a visit to the Hague. The paradox is that a presumed culprit is all for it, while those who would presumably benefit from his fall -- and who would like to see him suffer and out of the way -- rather nervously want to keep him as far away from that same Hague as they possibly can! He wants to go, but they don't want him to -- a perfect sado-masochist bind.
Are there beans they fear he will spill, even as he falls? Might such spilling lead to their own irreparable fall -- their own inevitable path to that same place? I see that Sudan's Al Bashir is increasingly and publicly beside himself with trepidation arising from his own likely indictment by the mighty ICC, a date with which is not a picnic -- and from which, in the end, no one can hide. If Ruto was, he seems no longer to be; but someone else apparently is! What is it that someone knows that Ruto knows that shouldn't be known by Tom, Dick and Harry -- and Wanjiku?
If President Kibaki and Raila -- who on a previous occasion Ruto had said should be the ones going to the Hague (since, he had argued, all post-election violence was carried out in their name) -- want a local tribunal for the spanner-boys, the small men, of the violence, that's fine. However, the big boys should all be headed to the Hague, to meet their match. They can have all the time they want there, as we watch with waning interest from afar. All that may be far from good for many, but it will be good from far for just as many.
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