17:37
Either Kibaki must have been religiously reading Kumekucha or thinking on the same wavelength as his apologists here. This may be the only way to reconcile his attempts to give national wings to the MOVE ON mantra. He started it over the weekend in Nakuru telling the IDPs to forgive and promptly made it the central plank of his Kenyatta day speech.
Ours is a country raped of any future and crying for direction from scoundrels with no BALLS to take challenges head on. Instead they perfect DECEPTIVE maneuvers to bandage national wounds that will surely consign us collectively to septic trauma. But you cannot blame nor envy Kibaki given the fact that Waki and Kriegler report both point fingers at two institutions at the heart of his fraudulent presidency. Before you shout stuck record please tell that Waki who has also chosen to address the cause and not cherry pick symptoms.
The heads of ECK and the police force are human and would not go down with a fight. The cupboard is full of skunks whose order is guaranteed to intoxicate all and sundry. The stinking details are too scary to imagine and faint hearts would better do with amnesty which they have been all hitherto opposing before the mask was removed from close buddies who schemed and financed murder of fellow Kenyans within the hallowed precincts of State House.
Kriegler may have been too cautious only sticking his neck on ECK. But not Waki who went the whole hog and looked the horse in the mouth and called it bluff in three apt words, IMPUNITY, IMPUNITY and more IMPUNITY. Expecting the same person who personifies impunity extraordinaire is not only naive at best but akin to recommending self-amputation of your very limbs at worst.
Unbreakable Hague noose
Poor Kenyans, we are stuck in a rut as we remain collectively hostage to poor, deceptive and fraudulent leadership whose singular agenda is to auction every facet of our country to the highest bidder. The supporting acts of Libyans have had their paycheck and so do Ugandans. Meanwhile Kibaki only remains comfortable with tried and tested fear of the unknown by selfishly cautioning that implementing Waki and Kriegler recommendations will plunge Kenyan into further into acrimony. For Pete’s sake we are at the bottom of the pit and we cannot fal any deeper.
Even Kofi Annan concurs that our problems are all rolled up in IMPUNITY and preaching forgiveness will only succeed in entrenching the same beast. We cannot afford the luxury of Moi-like hollow slogans of peace, love and unity. But thank God for small mercies. Waki must have foreseen the dithering and playing dice with Kenyans’ lives.
Waki's Hague option is not only LETHAL but a masterstroke and timeless too. Kibaki is better advised to act now when he can use incumbency to manipulate things in his favour. Gerrymandering will only see him plucked from Othaya to the Hague Charles Taylor style. Time is priceless and Emilio cannot buy in this case.
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12:04 Displaced African Review:Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina
» The Displaced African Enclosure: [download]
When Steve not only sent me a review copy of his book, but also allowed me to interview him (please refer to the previous podcast) I knew I had to do something special to say thanks. So I came up with a:
My-goodness-isn’t-that-the-most-original-thing-since-cubic-zirconia-idea
I called it:
The Two Days of Steve
Yeah, I know, my creativity took time off to make room for the blatantly obvious :P.
Yesterday was all about getting to know the man. Today is all about the man’s book.
I got Coach Caroline on the phone with me and we had a freewheeling discussion about the impact the book had on both of us.
The discussion was very loosely scripted and we had a discussion more like a radio show than a podcast, which is what I was after.
Lest You Forget:
The book is Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. You can find out more about the book using the link below:
I hope this is of value and service to you.
The Podcast
Things Discussed
1) What we both loved about the book?
2) The practical nature of the book
3) Things I would have improved about the book
4) The things that surprised us about the books.
5) The ideas that deeply resonated with both of us
6) We had a feel good session (I think she made me blush as much as my complexion would allow
)7) We had a lot of debate
8 ) A lot lot more
Any feedback, tips, hints and you are free to leave a comment below and/or hit the “Contact” button at the very top of the page and get in touch with me.
One Quick Final Thing
For those who want to support the release of my first ever information product, or just want heaps of videos and interviews with experts that teach them all they need to know about podcasting, please check out the site: www.MyPodcastingTutor.com.
Have one of those days that is so awesome you rename it “Perfection-Crammed-into-One-Day”,
Mwangi
Update on 28th October 2008: Steve Pavlina linked to this review of his book, among many many others. Check it out on this article entitled: More Book Reviews (there were that many)
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10:45
The Faith of Barack Obama
» What An African Woman Thinks Diane Fanning, who insists that Barack Obama is a “closet Muslim” is as good a prompt as any to get me started on my long overdue long overdue review of the book The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield.
Mansfield, by the way, also wrote about the faith of G. W. Bush.
In this book, he guides us over the landscape of Obama’s religious heritage, stopping occasionally to draw our attention to landmark features, but, for the most part, content to let us look around us and think what we will about what we see.
That’s what makes this book a refreshing read—Mansfield’s studied detachment from both subject and object.
He reaches way into the past to set the stage, describing Obama’s maternal great grandparents as strict Methodists, his grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, as freethinking Religious Sceptics who nonetheless “Believed in a God of some description”, and his mother as one who declared herself an Atheist while still in high school.
There was also, of course, his biological father, who had rejected his Muslim faith and became a fierce Self-determinist, believing that man’s fate fell on his shoulders alone and that “Religion is superstition,” and his stepfather, who practiced Islam with a “folk edge.”
Mansfield describes Obama’s time in Indonesia as a “religious swirl,” what with attending a Catholic school where “he crossed himself” and prayed what Catholic prayers were required of him by the Nuns then later, he went to a public school where, because he was listed as Muslim on account of his stepfather, he was required to undergo two hours of religious instruction in Islam each week and then to top it all, as always there was his mother’s detached spirituality, her Atheism.
He moved back to Hawaii when he was ten. He grew up with the Bible and the Koran and Baghavad Gita and a host of other philosophical and religious literature. His mother took him to Church on special occasion, but she also took him to the Buddhist temple, to the Chinese New Year celebration, to the Shinto Shrine, and to the Hawaiian burial sites.
And, when he went out into the world as a young man, he found that this heritage of religious detachment, this absence of an “unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith,” rendered him unable to connect, and was yet another way in which he did not belong.
This was the state of the man who came to the south side of Chicago in 1985 to work as a community organiser for the Developing Communities Project and came into contact with the Trinity United Church of Christ.
Obama embraced faith “to find belonging among a people,” and his journey to faith was an intellectual one, more Peteresque than Pauline in nature. But embrace it he did, and for those only persuaded by the symbolism of rite and ritual, you will be pleased to know, I hope, that he answered an altar call, walked right up to the altar and prayed The Prayer.
Trinity United Church of Christ is now perhaps the best known hub of a black liberal theology that “arises organically” from the black faith experience. As Mansfield paints it: A picture of a black Jesus is displayed prominently. The church is spotted prominently with congregants wearing African attire as “uniforms of a worldview.” That worldview?—“Unashamedly black, unapologetically Christian.”
Jeremiah Wright the Controversial, became a minister at a time when blacks were increasingly leaving Christianity and joining other religious traditions that seemed to align more naturally with their life experiences. Religious traditions such as the Nation of Islam and the Black Hebrew Israelites that is.
In response, conscious or otherwise, he began to frame the Christian faith in strong liberation language and became an unwavering champion of the oppressed—of everyone who had been consigned to the lowest rungs on the world’s pecking order. All the while, Jeremiah juxtaposed this Liberal Black Theology with the traditional Christian gospel where sinners can and must be saved and thus ushered into the Body of Christ and the practice of Spirit-empowered Christianity. To him, it seems, there was no contradiction twixt the two. He simply found the space where a global religion resonated at a community level and brought home what was proclaimed on the mountain.
As Obama sought public office, according to Mansfield, what caused him to re-examine his faith and frame it thoughtfully for the public and political space was his run against Alan Keyes in Chicago for the US Senate. As a result, he articulated a Common Ground approach for the expression of religion in public affairs. He came to the conclusion that “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values,” but that, at the same time, “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square.”
Through this articulation, he became the public voice of an increasingly vocal Religious Left in America which was determined no longer to yield the religious high ground to the previously undisputed dominance of the Religious Left.
In the last chapters, for context, Mansfield briefly describes the place and role of faith in the lives of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush, styling them as the four faces of American Spirituality. It would seem to me that, if there was time and space to dig deeper, it would soon become clear that there are far more than four faces of faith in America. Still, for this political season, perhaps these are the ones that matter.
I worked for ten years for an organisation that was born to and raised by Evangelical America. In reading The Faith of Barack Obama, I see the many ways in which he discomfits them. He believes other religions are merely “different paths to the same place.” He has a high level of comfort with ambiguity, with not knowing the answer and not being privy to all knowledge. A “studied uncertainty” permeates Obama’s faith, and “doubt is at the heart” of his religion, leading him to proclaim that “religion at its best comes with a big dose of doubt.”
This, is not how its done in Evangelical America folks, unless you’re part of the Emergent Church whose leanings are decidedly leftward.
I, however, who find myself grappling with questions of identity and faith, increasingly teetering at the edge of belonging of this faith, find strange comfort in his stubborn refusal to bow to the considerable pressure to confine his expression of faith to a narrow, prescriptive pre-determined experience. It’s about grabbing onto God and not letting others tell you which piece of him you can or cannot have. And so I find that I have yet another reason to cheer Barack Obama on. As if I needed one.
Mansfield himself comes to the conclusion that Barack’s faith is “who he is at the core… the well he will draw from as he leads.” And for that reason, it is important to know what that faith is.
I say this book is definitely worth a read, especially if you’re trying to get your mind around who this man is. And it’ll please you to know that Mansfield’s style is very straightforward and easy to read.
*UPDATE: I was thinking this while I was writing this post but, rereading it, I see that it is not explicitly stated so I'll just come right out and say it: the only thing wrong with someone calling Obama a Muslim is that he's not. Else, his being Muslim or not has "So What?" written all over it.
My. two. cents.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
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9:16
There’s a Problem with Seed Capital in Africa
» White African .flickr-photo { border: solid 0px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
John Balen of Canaan Partners, originally uploaded by whiteafrican.Wherever I go in Africa, one of the consistent comments that I hear from young entrepreneurs in the technology space is that there is no way to get started. There is little seed capital and very few angel investors to be found. That’s a problem - and it’s true in East Africa as well as South Africa.
In a conversation with John Balen, General Manager of Canaan Partners - a top tier Bay Area venture capital firm, over breakfast this morning at PopTech Fellows we discussed a few of these challenges. Canaan has operations and offices in India, Israel and the US, which means that they have some experience working in areas with non-traditional VC ecosystems.
Problem: The Investment CommunityIt turns out that one of the main problems in places like Africa, which is somewhat similar to places in India, is that the investors have to be educated first. Seed capital and early venture funding is a high risk proposition. There are few investors who care about technology, and those that do are interested in the later stages of investing.
A common problem in Africa is finding young entrepreneurs with a good idea, generally technical in nature, and they need about $5000-$10,000 to handle operations and build out of their technology in the first 6 months to a year. If they can find a local funder, that person generally wants an inordinate amount of equity in the operation - anywhere from 40-80%.
Some serious education in the investor circles in Africa needs to take place.
Lastly, there should be some recognition that a lot of the young entrepreneurs need some help. Beyond the funding, just giving some help in learning how to set up and grow a real business is hugely important. Introducing potential partners, helping broker deals and giving advice on how to hire employees are ways that investors grow into being a true partner - and African entrepreneurs badly need this too.
IdeasI’m interested in seeing some Y-Combinator style venture funding companies AND communities developing around different regions in Africa. Groups that only fund the very early stages of development ($5000 - $15000) for very short periods of time (3-6 months).
I know there are some individuals doing just that, but let’s talk about communities around this space. What I think would be interesting would be to see these individuals band together and create real communities that connect with and plug in to the community in much closer ways. Become part of the local technology ecosystem and really learn how to find promising individuals and foster them to greatness - and make a lot of money along the way.
As John Balen said, “It’s hard for large VC funds to invest in small enterprises.” This is especially true in Africa, so why not figure out a way to foster earlier stage investments as a community of smaller investors?
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9:01
Of Redesign & Afrigator 45 best in Africa
» Afromusing You might notice the snazzy new design, and the realignment of things on my blog, I just completed the redirection of the RSS feeds on Feedburner, so please note the new RSS feed link. The old feed link should redirect to the new one, but in case it does not, please just re-subscribe.
If you ever need to redirect feed links, check out this post for the short instructions.
The theme of the blog is based on Firebug, it was customized and given the ‘Mweshi treatment’ by the talented designer Mulumba.
I switched hosting companies from Locomotive Media, which was actually powered by wind, to Dreamhost. I racked my brain quite a bit about this, but the fact that Dreamhost offsets its carbon emissions made my decision easier. Granted I would prefer to use a data center that actually uses renewable energy like I did before, Dreamhost offers a very good deal and gobs of space for further growth.
It is quite an honor for me that my blog is on the list of Top 45 Female African bloggers, I am so excited! The email Lester sent had a really cool picture that captures my excitement. Yay! to blogging, and here’s to a relaunch of Afromusing. Thanks for the honor AfriGator, and thanks to Mweshi for helping me switch hosts. Cheers!
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7:04
Relationships
» Black Looks For some people relationships are paradise but for others, they could be dire warnings of frayed emotions to come. As a translesbian of African descent I am an avid “people watcher” and if I watch anyone, I watch women in particular as a lesbian and I have found that anything that happens in the straight [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Relationships", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/10/relationships.html" });
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