Showing posts with label Baby Boomer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baby Boomer. Show all posts
Saturday, July 02, 2016
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Siege and Paper Memories
May 9th 2016 was the date that CORD (Coalition for Reform and Democracy), Kenya's opposition coalition, had set for another demonstration at -- another siege of -- the IEBC (Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission) offices in Anniversary Towers, on University Way -- just across the road from the iconic gate of the Main Campus of the University of Nairobi (UoN). So what you first see in the picture-frame of the video below (taken at just about the moment ten turned to eleven am) is the UoN fraternity at the gate, witnessing the build-up to the promised demo. The squat building just inside the campus -- at the far left, next to the gate -- is the office of the students' union, SONU. Legend has it that many decades ago, in colonial Kenya, it served as the mortuary for early Nairobi Africans. The large building to the right is Hyslop Building. The smaller structure next to it is Science Building. The Fountain of Knowledge is farther to the right, well out of sight in this frame of (the camera person's) mind -- and in the order and coming disorder of the day.
Back to the picture-frame: Barricading University Way -- as if laying preemptive siege on a single-minded horde that's yet to arrive for its own siege -- and looking west, is but one contingent of the Riot Police, in full gear, mobilized for the occasion and recently re-tooled for rapid, and potentially vicious, crowd control. There are dancers, too -- CORD's passionate ramming rod for such events -- in the street, just in front of the police vehicles, slyly whipping up the passions, raising its very body heat and flexing its soft underbelly and easy to read power. But you can't see them in the still. You simply have to take it from the chronicler.
IMAGES: Of Siege
I'm just thinking: Harry Thuku -- Besigye's precursor, to a degree -- never had such abundance of attention and such seasoned avant garde when he was arrested in 1922, nearly a century ago and less than half a kilometer away, across what is now the Main Campus. But he has a road to his name now. So the Main Campus is triangulated by three roads: Harry Thuku Road, University Way and Uhuru Highway (which by some sort of sleight-of-hand belongs to Kenya's current President). UoN shares the triangle with the National Theatre, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, some offices of the British Council, and a Synagogue that somehow always remains invisible even to those who routinely see, better still sense, it. Some would argue that Harry Thuku Road actually runs through the Main Campus, slicing the engineering sciences and certain varsity sections off the triangle -- of which, nonetheless, they are an integral part.
Mothers Day having just gone by uneventfully on Sunday, no one was seriously expecting to see the Mother Of All this Monday -- the Mother of All Demonstrations. Still, there was palpable suspense all over here, and, as I gathered, all over town. Suspense but hardly fear. Clear anticipation of some version of blood, sweat and tears.
In the calm before the storm, I casually walked by, by the tail of the beast, but did not escape the unblinking eye of the camera. The picture-frame stirs into motion when you press play, and plays. Over and over as often as you press. Which is what one did later that evening, not knowing what one was about to come upon oneself. And then one saw oneself. Out of body. Look!
Look, I later shouted out in a tweet, to no one in particular (which is how it is in Twitterverse), "The man casually crossing 2ward #KoinangeSt in a white shirt, a briefcase in his left hand, is Yours Truly"
Look!
HERE: The tweet exchange that Nyar gi Jommo and I had following that exclamation
Now, back to earth:
UoN may be at the edge of downtown Nairobi, but it's the city's intellectual epicentre, much to the chagrin of those who are chagrined. Over the years, too, politicians of various persuasions have gravitated toward it, seeking to tap into the idealistic energy and numerical power of its student "form of life" -- or to smother it with sanctimonious flabberghast. When UoN students get in a foul mood, the whole city sits up -- with a little shudder, perhaps, which is not of course how it's supposed to be. The academics, on the other hand, have quietly gone about the business of advancing disciplines and growing careers, under difficult circumstances. In the process they have raised UoN's global profile to surprising heights, without really sensing how their individual inputs add up to this. Yet much of this fuzzy input remains to be added still.
READ: Can the University Help Make Better Cities?
The location of IEBC offices on University Way was not without expected though unstated collateral benefit to CORD's protest organizers. This despite the fact that UoN students were only recently back after some three weeks of forced closure -- just prior to which a disaffected faction had burned the insides of that very SONU office I have alluded to, perhaps thereby, with subliminal intent, 'cremating' its mortuary past, at last. Moreover, end-of-semester exams were beginning this very same week. When I crossed, then, it was the calm before the gas and water storm that could only be guessed at ahead of time. You could sense it, even downtown. The calm did come to a teary coda.
WATCH: Gas and Water Storm I
WATCH: Gas and Water Storm II
Here's @NyargiJommo's impressive picture of the day
I remember.
I remember back in 1968 when we demonstrated against 'Russian' occupation of sovereign Czechoslovakia, a country which doesn't exist anymore in the form(ation) that we fought for. A few of us highly motivated student types, members of NUKS (National Union of Kenya Students) -- which ceased to exist decades ago too, but whose Secretary for Foreign Affairs I was that year -- walked a few streets (including Kenyatta Avenue) one morning in downtown Nairobi, in holy but momentary anger and baby-boomer disgust at the occupation and the abduction of Alexander Dubcek, leader of The Prague Spring. A contingent of uniformed but unarmed police walked closely behind us, uttering not a word, the better to keep the peace -- which was under no threat. Hardly any of us knew how to pronounce Czechoslovakia, and so there was a cacophony of pronunciations -- which was fun in itself and an eye-opening reward for the marching.
The city hardly knew that there was a student procession that morning, unless you happened somehow to be nearby, until we, brave souls, appeared on national TV that night, in black and white. Alors, there were more policemen than students there on that grand occasion! It was the policemen (seemingly) who were demonstrating, and we students paving the way -- forward. Hilarity! I don't know if that video still exists at KBC. It would be fun to see it again. There was no KTN in those days, you may recall. Nor no NTV. I think if you saw the video you'd chuckle too. And perhaps shout: There goes the prof, again! It would be to be back to the future.
I remember.
I remember back in 2002 when we marched from Kombewa to Holo, in Kisumu Rural Constituency, to protest against the rigging of party elections through the eleventh-hour "direct nomination" of one of the aspirants for the Parliamentary seat. Nobody at headquarters in Nairobi listened, and there was no structure to besiege at Holo. We were too far away to have impact. A number of those who made the decision were expected to be on University Way this May 9th, and did indeed show up -- to fight against rigging and that sort of thing. The irony was palpable, but that's how things often are.
And so I crossed University Way and ran some errands, away from the camera's wide angle -- unaware for the 'moment' that I had not escaped capture.
UPDATED: May 14, 2016; May 16, 2016.
Back to the picture-frame: Barricading University Way -- as if laying preemptive siege on a single-minded horde that's yet to arrive for its own siege -- and looking west, is but one contingent of the Riot Police, in full gear, mobilized for the occasion and recently re-tooled for rapid, and potentially vicious, crowd control. There are dancers, too -- CORD's passionate ramming rod for such events -- in the street, just in front of the police vehicles, slyly whipping up the passions, raising its very body heat and flexing its soft underbelly and easy to read power. But you can't see them in the still. You simply have to take it from the chronicler.
IMAGES: Of Siege
I'm just thinking: Harry Thuku -- Besigye's precursor, to a degree -- never had such abundance of attention and such seasoned avant garde when he was arrested in 1922, nearly a century ago and less than half a kilometer away, across what is now the Main Campus. But he has a road to his name now. So the Main Campus is triangulated by three roads: Harry Thuku Road, University Way and Uhuru Highway (which by some sort of sleight-of-hand belongs to Kenya's current President). UoN shares the triangle with the National Theatre, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, some offices of the British Council, and a Synagogue that somehow always remains invisible even to those who routinely see, better still sense, it. Some would argue that Harry Thuku Road actually runs through the Main Campus, slicing the engineering sciences and certain varsity sections off the triangle -- of which, nonetheless, they are an integral part.
Mothers Day having just gone by uneventfully on Sunday, no one was seriously expecting to see the Mother Of All this Monday -- the Mother of All Demonstrations. Still, there was palpable suspense all over here, and, as I gathered, all over town. Suspense but hardly fear. Clear anticipation of some version of blood, sweat and tears.
In the calm before the storm, I casually walked by, by the tail of the beast, but did not escape the unblinking eye of the camera. The picture-frame stirs into motion when you press play, and plays. Over and over as often as you press. Which is what one did later that evening, not knowing what one was about to come upon oneself. And then one saw oneself. Out of body. Look!
Look, I later shouted out in a tweet, to no one in particular (which is how it is in Twitterverse), "The man casually crossing 2ward #KoinangeSt in a white shirt, a briefcase in his left hand, is Yours Truly"
Look!
HERE: The tweet exchange that Nyar gi Jommo and I had following that exclamation
Now, back to earth:
READ: Can the University Help Make Better Cities?
The location of IEBC offices on University Way was not without expected though unstated collateral benefit to CORD's protest organizers. This despite the fact that UoN students were only recently back after some three weeks of forced closure -- just prior to which a disaffected faction had burned the insides of that very SONU office I have alluded to, perhaps thereby, with subliminal intent, 'cremating' its mortuary past, at last. Moreover, end-of-semester exams were beginning this very same week. When I crossed, then, it was the calm before the gas and water storm that could only be guessed at ahead of time. You could sense it, even downtown. The calm did come to a teary coda.
WATCH: Gas and Water Storm I
WATCH: Gas and Water Storm II
Here's @NyargiJommo's impressive picture of the day
I remember.
I remember back in 1968 when we demonstrated against 'Russian' occupation of sovereign Czechoslovakia, a country which doesn't exist anymore in the form(ation) that we fought for. A few of us highly motivated student types, members of NUKS (National Union of Kenya Students) -- which ceased to exist decades ago too, but whose Secretary for Foreign Affairs I was that year -- walked a few streets (including Kenyatta Avenue) one morning in downtown Nairobi, in holy but momentary anger and baby-boomer disgust at the occupation and the abduction of Alexander Dubcek, leader of The Prague Spring. A contingent of uniformed but unarmed police walked closely behind us, uttering not a word, the better to keep the peace -- which was under no threat. Hardly any of us knew how to pronounce Czechoslovakia, and so there was a cacophony of pronunciations -- which was fun in itself and an eye-opening reward for the marching.
The city hardly knew that there was a student procession that morning, unless you happened somehow to be nearby, until we, brave souls, appeared on national TV that night, in black and white. Alors, there were more policemen than students there on that grand occasion! It was the policemen (seemingly) who were demonstrating, and we students paving the way -- forward. Hilarity! I don't know if that video still exists at KBC. It would be fun to see it again. There was no KTN in those days, you may recall. Nor no NTV. I think if you saw the video you'd chuckle too. And perhaps shout: There goes the prof, again! It would be to be back to the future.
I remember.
I remember back in 2002 when we marched from Kombewa to Holo, in Kisumu Rural Constituency, to protest against the rigging of party elections through the eleventh-hour "direct nomination" of one of the aspirants for the Parliamentary seat. Nobody at headquarters in Nairobi listened, and there was no structure to besiege at Holo. We were too far away to have impact. A number of those who made the decision were expected to be on University Way this May 9th, and did indeed show up -- to fight against rigging and that sort of thing. The irony was palpable, but that's how things often are.
And so I crossed University Way and ran some errands, away from the camera's wide angle -- unaware for the 'moment' that I had not escaped capture.
UPDATED: May 14, 2016; May 16, 2016.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)