Whoever said religion is opium of the people won’t be more right. Only that in Kenya we have taken to smoking religion literally. So Kibaki is urging our ETHNIC-based church to help stem the unrest in our secondary schools. Given the sectarian nature of the present church, such a paradoxical request amounts to entrusting a flock to the care of marauding wolves.
The Catholic church has a reputation of sponsoring and founding top performing schools nationwide that were hitherto unique for their sense of unrivalled discipline. But not anymore if the recent spate of violence is anything to go by. All the catholic parishes are headed by locals who have fallen to such low levels so much so that they would as well double us village councillors. You can bet you lunch that just like Kibaki is only comfortable touring Central and Eastern provinces, Cardinal Njue would find it very difficult to preach objectively in Mogotio.
Mocking God
Kenyan politicians have serially abused the pulpit as a launching pad for politics. Add to that their penchant to prey into our collective insecurity while sacrilegiously invoking the name of God in vein and you get a nation knocking incessantly at the door of hell. We better stick to our two traits of deception and fraud and localize it all the much we care. Extrapolating to the high heaven may just earn us God’s singular wrath.
Religion has been used the world over to unify people for its selflessness. But in our shores the tribal cancer has gnawed the fabric leaving our clergy shameless political cheerleaders bereft of any moral upper pedestal on which to offer hope and guidance. By challenging the church to review its role as sponsors of learning institutions, Kibaki is being typical Kenyan leader who is uniquely defined by our immaculately he clothes deception disguised as offering leadership. Well, lies never hurt but self-deception can be morally very fatal.
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10:53
KNHCR report on post-election violence
» Kenyan Pundit The full report is available here. Unfortunately, no politicians are actually named for reasons given here. EDIT: Link to the report fixed - sorry about that. Also apparently the politicians were named in last Saturday’s Nairobi Star…anyone have the names (God I miss blogging from Nairobi)?
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9:06
One Dollar Homes, While Stocks Last
» For Love and Money One Dollar Homes, While Stocks Last
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8:00
What Twitter’s Global Failure Means for Africa
» White African
Why this is Important
Biz Stone let the world know that Twitter’s SMS service is no longer active in Africa - or anywhere outside of the US, Canada and India. To most people in Africa this means absolutely nothing, as the penetration rate for the service never moved beyond the few fringe users amongst the technology elite.I’m guessing that at least half of this blog’s readers are wondering why they should even care about this news. After all, it sounds like some new trendy mobile/web app has failed to expand outside of North America - how is that news for Africa?
Twitter represents a change in communication. By acting as a global gateway for updates via SMS (or the web), that then updates all of your followers, Twitter succeeded in breaking ground in one-to-many messaging. There have been a couple times over the past year where Twitter was used in Africa to get news out that wasn’t possible in any other format.
Two examples come to mind, specifically addressing humanitarian uses; first, there’s the case of it being used in Egypt to help a jailed user, and second was when Juliana used it during the Kenyan post-election violence to update about events in Western Kenya in lieu of a blog post.
Soyapi wrote a post a couple months back talking about the potential for Twitter in Africa. In areas like Africa where mobile phone penetration far outstrips internet penetration, Twitter ends up being an incredibly good way to update friends, family - or in the case of businesses and government, the general public - about things that are happening.
What’s Next?“Realizing that a lot of people in the developing world have migrated from their home villages to cities both within and outside their countries and continents, they still need to some updates about the goings-on in their home towns.”
In our globally connected world, if your service can’t cover the globe, then you need to open it up for communication between similar services. What we really need is a platform that allows Twitter-like applications to “talk” to each other globally. If I set up a similar platform in West Africa then there should be a way for Twitter users in the US to also accept my updates. Closed gardens in this case create single points of failure. (I’m interested in the less restrictive Identi.ca platform.)
This global contraction by Twitter creates opportunities for others. Jaiku, recently purchased by Google, now has the ability to grow deeper into other regional markets. And, if nothing else, Twitter has done us all a favor by launching a global pilot project that proves out the usefulness of this type of service. Launching country- or region-specific clones of this same type of service is now a real option.
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4:16
Githongo Releases Statement
» You Missed This NEWS RELEASE
Thursday 14 August 2008 - For immediate release
Githongo to return to Kenya
John Githongo, former Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in the Kenya Government, is to return to Kenya after an absence of over three years. He is currently Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford, and Vice-President, Policy and Advocacy, of the relief, development and advocacy agency World Vision.
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Also published in Kumekucha today: Passionate mistakes in relationships
Small Business Kenya: Secret of success that should not be secret
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Mr Githongo has been invited to address a meeting of the Kenya Human Rights Commission in Nairobi on 20 August.
In a statement issued in London today, Mr Githongo said that he had been invited back by Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.
"I have been greatly encouraged by both the Prime Minister and the Vice President," he said, "and now believe that it is time to return home and make any contribution I can to the future of my country. Kenya has faced severe problems in recent months, and some of these remain. But I have complete confidence in the ability of Kenyans, at all levels, to confront and surmount them.
"I intend to speak my mind on what I feel needs to be done. I have no political affiliations. My obligations are solely to the people of Kenya – particularly the poor, the dispossessed and those in need."
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3:39
Upgrading... please wait
» Memories, Sentiments, Rants and Raves We all struggle with issues(read habits/people/things) in our lives that we know are not the way they ought to be or the way we want them to be. Sometimes at first attempt we set our resolve and its done. Most times we have to try, try again and just when we think we have nailed it, we get tempted or distracted then relapse. After one too many times, i decided to turn my issues to someone i have known all my life, God. With the help of my Ma and my bible study group i asked them to help me pray for an unspoken need. Unspoken need is when you need people to pray with and for you but you cant tell them the details.
I started by asking God to prune me, to rid me of all issues that were holding me back as well as derailing me. Truthfully, it is an easy prayer but i wasn't ready for what would follow. First, was persons who to me i needed their friendship, you know familiarity,sense of belonging, i love them , good times among other reasons. I found myself telling God the role and value of each person that He impressed to me to let go. Some habits and beliefs that were inculcated in me since i was a kid, words that i use because they capture my sentiments accurately. Some of the habits that i have learnt while growing up which define the woman that i have become as well as a few "survival" mechanisms.
Then i asked for the ability to say NO, which for me is particularly difficult to say to people i love and mean alot to me. Maybe even to say no to responsibilities that am asked to take on yet do not have the time but go ahead and pile them on. I am learning to say no with or without explanation depending on the situation as well as the person asking. This has allowed me to focus on fewer things which greatly improves my quality of work plus the added benefit of my very own free time to do as i wish.
Like most people in this day and age i wish i could just flip a switch and issues would be resolved, unfortunately that is not an option. I was reading my journal last night between 2005/6 and while a lot of issues have been resolved there are a couple that have remained the same. Yet some of those resolved issues when i wrote them in they seemed insurmountable, now its like they never were. Change is hard but necessary and am still being upgraded yet some of the things that am most grateful for is the support, people who are real and progress bar that keeps moving.
So what are your issues?
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