Barack Obama's two-year campaign for the White House displayed, in virtually all his speeches, policy statements and promises, a determination to deliver, not just change we could believe in, but six sigma leadership as well -- and not just for the United States. It was going to be change of Renaissance proportions, or so it often sounded (for more on the Renaissance, click here).
To mark the first 100 days of his Presidency, report cards are flying in from all over the planet. And they are all, it seems to me, quite good. All, that is, bar perfection -- and bar the likes of Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove. This morning, on CNN, some journalist types were asked how they rated him. I saw several 9/10s and one 7/10. That was getting close to accurate, but I sensed that they were suppressing some of their enthusiasm. There was no need to. It is early days yet, and if you feel that something's good, it's good. Go ahead, say it. I believe I heard one commentator say that Obama has been the most effective US president since FDR. He wasn't mincing words -- there were no words to mince.
So, how do I myself rate his Presidency over the 100 days, in terms of hard-nosed policy actions and nuance, in terms of substance and even form? I say, without equivocation, Six Sigma! Hard days will surely come in the days ahead, as the same rubber mets more of the road, and the ratings may/will slide. Comes with the territory. But things look pretty optimistic right now, around the world generally, despite the economic meltdown and the very recent outbreak of swine flu.
As a Kenyan, I have even more reason to be enthusiastic, given the kind of toxic, roller-coaster, self-serving leadership that our President, Mwai Kibaki, and Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, continue to display here at home. It is a shame tempered only by the knowledge that Obama, one of us, shines by example elsewhere; and that, precisely for that reason and that example, all is not lost.
Didn't Kenneth Marende, Speaker of Kenya's National Assembly, reinforce that essential optimism in the substance and nuance of his Solomonic ruling yesterday afternoon in Parliament, when he declared himself (to the collective relief of the nation) interim Leader of the House Business Committee for as long as Kibaki and Raila Odinga (the One Sigma duo) fail to agree on one, and publicly wrangle? Let Marende hold the seat till 2012, if you ask me! Who knows, perhaps we have just dicovered in him Kenya's Plan B!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
July 18: Mandela Day
The Nelson Mandela Foundation and 46664, Mandela's Aids awareness trust, are launching a global campaign to officially declare July 18 Mandela Day, worldwide. July 18 happens to be Nelson Mandela's birthday.
I enthusisatically support this initiative.
As the campaigners frame it, Mandela Day will be an occasion to celebrate Mandela's life, and "will serve as a global call to action for people to recognise their individual power to make an imprint and help change the world around them for the better." We will all be called upon, on that day, to spend 67 minutes in the kind of civic action that can add significant value to the world around us. The suggested 67 minutes remind us of the fact that Mandela's own human rights campaign started 67 years ago, in 1942.
It goes without saying that actions within South Africa itself will be crucial to really kick-starting the campaign for a global Mandela Day. South Africa, as a country, should quickly declare an official Mandela Day within its borders, and preferably make it a public holiday, if this is not the case already. Then AU countries should follow. Then the UN. Individual countries will of course be at liberty to decide whether or not, and/or when, Mandela Day becomes a public holiday.
I enthusisatically support this initiative.
As the campaigners frame it, Mandela Day will be an occasion to celebrate Mandela's life, and "will serve as a global call to action for people to recognise their individual power to make an imprint and help change the world around them for the better." We will all be called upon, on that day, to spend 67 minutes in the kind of civic action that can add significant value to the world around us. The suggested 67 minutes remind us of the fact that Mandela's own human rights campaign started 67 years ago, in 1942.
It goes without saying that actions within South Africa itself will be crucial to really kick-starting the campaign for a global Mandela Day. South Africa, as a country, should quickly declare an official Mandela Day within its borders, and preferably make it a public holiday, if this is not the case already. Then AU countries should follow. Then the UN. Individual countries will of course be at liberty to decide whether or not, and/or when, Mandela Day becomes a public holiday.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Poromoko [Swahili Haiku]
Niri Tereza.
Dunia kitongoji.
Siku ri-zi-ka!
[Haiku in Swahili
(with a Tanzanian accent)]
Below is my English translation of Poromoko,
touched up using my poetic licence:
Found me on the skids.
The world's a marginal place.
I was not ass-u-aged!
[Alternatives to the last line: I was not satisfied /
I made no nothing / Day, be em-pow-ered]
I might as well have written the seven-syllable line as:
"The world's a seductive place". To me at least,
there's a thin line between Kitongoji (= marginal,
peripheral, peri-urban place) and the word that, I think,
intuitively and perhaps happily derives from it
(certainly in 'fertile minds'), Kitongozi (= Seducer), itself
treated, here, as a derivative of the more prosaic,
proletarian and Eastlander word: Kutongoza (= to seduce).
Dunia kitongoji.
Siku ri-zi-ka!
[Haiku in Swahili
(with a Tanzanian accent)]
Below is my English translation of Poromoko,
touched up using my poetic licence:
Found me on the skids.
The world's a marginal place.
I was not ass-u-aged!
[Alternatives to the last line: I was not satisfied /
I made no nothing / Day, be em-pow-ered]
I might as well have written the seven-syllable line as:
"The world's a seductive place". To me at least,
there's a thin line between Kitongoji (= marginal,
peripheral, peri-urban place) and the word that, I think,
intuitively and perhaps happily derives from it
(certainly in 'fertile minds'), Kitongozi (= Seducer), itself
treated, here, as a derivative of the more prosaic,
proletarian and Eastlander word: Kutongoza (= to seduce).
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