Mashada Blogs » What An African Woman Thinks

« Expand/Collapse

What An African Woman Thinks

April 27, 2009
1:36
The Other One About Talking About Corruption
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

I know corruption isn’t funny, but this quote from Chris Blattman’s blog, quoting Betsy Paluck, tickled me some:

Everyone is talking about corruption in Southern Sudan. It's on the radio; leaders talk about corruption. But it's not clear that people understand what it means. When it rains too little, you'll hear people say, "well that is just corrupt."

So, we are not the only ones talking (and talking and talking) about corruption.

Post the comic relief moment, though, it did raise important questions in my mind: when we’re talking about corruption here in Kenya, are we all talking about the same thing? Are we all being flagged off at the same point? Are we navigating the landscape with the same map? It might actually serve to go back to the basics, to drill down to the definitions, to painstakingly spell out the “this is what corruption is.”

Which persuades me to pull my tongue out of my cheek about that handbook on corruption developed by the National Anti Corruption Steering Committee. Maybe they were onto something with that. Again, important to note, to underscore, to emphasise that this is not a book on how to be corrupt. (Yeah, so it takes a while to pull the tongue out of the cheek.) Speaking of which, did someone ever obtain a copy of that? I haven’t.

As long as we’re still talking about corruption, I’m not eligible for it, (my time, it appears, is long come and long gone sigh) but I’m certain that many of you are eligible for this World Bank essay writing competition on corruption. Specifically: Fighting Corruption through Collective Action in Today’s Competitive Marketplaces

Got thoughts? Put them down and send them along to those World Bank folk. More about that here. Hurry on over, the deadline’s looming.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
April 21, 2009
18:41
Dambisa Moyo Talks Dead AID on Norwegian TV
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

Dambisa Moyo to a well-meaning politician in Norway which gives 1% of its GDP in AID:

“Africa would like to be like Norway, would like to be able to stand on its own two feet, would like to be able to participate as an equal partner, not as a junior partner, not as a beggar on the global stage.

As we know, Norway did not become Norway today from sitting back and relying on other people to provide education, healthcare, security and infrastructure.The government in Norway provides an environment where entrepreneurs and private sector Norwegians can flourish and develop…

The fundamental problem is that AID allows African governments to take a back seat. They don’t have to encourage Africans. They don’t have to report to Africans as the government in Norway reports to the Norwegian people. That’s not the case in Africa. In Africa the government can sit back and allow the Norwegians to provide us with healthcare, the Americans to provide the infrastructure, the Chinese to provide electricity or whatever…”
I love her tone. It rings to me as firm but at the same time quite gracious. She's got something to say but she's not dressing up in full combat gear and brandishing an AK47 to get it said. She's assertive but not combative. Just what the doctor ordered.

PS It’s not a hefty clip and it’s well worth a watch, both to place the above quote in context (to see for example how she isolates three types of AID and speaks here for the most part about Bilateral government to government AID) and to listen to the comeback arguments of the Norwegian politician who, as far as I can tell, goes only be the name Raymond.

I'm now about to finish reading the book.

Sure, she makes some sweeping statements where more nuanced arguments might be made, and perhaps it's all been said before, but the conversation she has revived (or at least inserted a young African woman's voice into, which in itself is refreshing)is an important one. Hopefully we are on the brink of a time when the people standing on opposite sides of this 'great question of our time' can drop their defences and engage in earnest, neither squirming uneasily or unduly defensive, each giving as good as s/he gets.

It's my window, but I don't own the view.
9:29
Dispatches from the Centre
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

*same post, different title

A couple of carefully selected stories about some of what is going on in central province. These are of the mild variety just to hint at some of what is going on far from the limelight.

The first story is of a young man trying to go about his business who encounters a force greater than himself:

A young man in a certain village in central province is going about his own business, trying to make a living and all of that life consuming stuff. Then one evening a friend invites him to go for a walk or for a visit.

Why not? So, off they go together.

Next thing he knows, he’s walked right into an oathing ceremony. Just like that. It had all been staged, apparently, and his friend knew right where he was leading him. Once you’ve walked into one of those ceremonies, they say, the only way you can leave alive is to take the oath.

This happened to a particular young man who decided he wasn’t going to give in so easily. He thought his best escape was religion. So off to the most Pentecostal local church he went, to stage an encounter with the lord and become a born again Christian because everyone knows you can’t serve two masters, right?

As the story was told to me, the Mungiki on hearing of his newfound faith, sent him a congratulatory note for his newly pledged allegiance and then appended a reminder that once he belonged to them, there was no way out, really, he was theirs.

In the end, he stole away in the middle of the night to somewhere else he judged to be safer. Nobody knows where. A few nights later, his wife and child followed.
The second story is of a rural town that depends on agriculture:

There were Lorries that regularly went into a certain rural town on market day to buy farmers’ produce for transportation to Nairobi. One day, as the Lorries approached the town, they were stopped by the Mungiki, who demanded payment before they could do business in the town. The payment was made, but come the next market day, and the next, and the next, there were no Lorries. Farmers stood forlornly by the wayside, as their produce went bad.

Finally, for lack of options, they negotiated with the Mungiki: “we’ll pay you,” they pledged, “but please, don’t harass the people who come to buy our produce, else we’ll starve, you and us, both.” The agreement thus reached, business unusual resumed.
*Update. A third story is found here.
Residents have, since August last year, been forced to pay Sh15 a day for semi-permanent homes, Sh100 for timber-structures and Sh800 for permanent stone buildings. Those residents who do not pay are raided, their homes broken into and property stolen, or even killed. Many of the motorcycle taxi owners became angry when the sect members decided to levy a Sh300 per person a day "fee." The boda boda operators, like other residents, were expected to deposit their "fee" at strategic places at Kerugoya Stadium.
Several holes had been dug and a plastic bag was inserted inside and held down by a stone. You were required to stuff money inside the bag and walk away. Some of the sect members are located at strategic places within the area and take note of all the people who have paid.
The question is, do these things matter when they happen to other people, far away from where we are, or has it all become too much to care about?

At the tail end of the Allafrica.com story, you will find what is the alleged explanation for why Police are not acting in the face of the growing Mungiki menace, or, as it is known in other places, why they are not doing their job:

Last week, area police boss Herbert Khaemba told the vigilante group that the police were unwilling to take any action because of accusations that they were carrying out extra-judicial killings.
In plain English: they are sulking as people are suffering, killing and being killed.

But hold on there's more:

Police joined the convoy of vigilantes riding motorbikes at Kagio and followed them as they moved through the different towns.

So the Police, having miserably failed in keeping the peace, have morphed into a vigilante support squad?

He [one of the vigilantes who was interviewed] claimed that they had been allowed to carry out the operation by the police.

"They [police] have given us a paper to say they are supporting us. They are helping us. They have given us recognition and they know what we are doing and are behind us," Maina said at the end of the operation yesterday.

In other words, a complete breakdown of order. Which has led, in the end, to this kind of madness.

God. Help. Us.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
7:54
Growing Older, Getting Bolder
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

The older I’ve become, the more open I’ve become to confronting my beliefs and my assumptions. To grappling with the whatifs. (Yes, Virginia, there are whatifs and that’s ok, so take a deep breath and get a grip and all of that.)

The older I’ve become, the more open I’ve become, also, to not knowing. I laugh, now, at how, in my youth, I had all the answers. Seriously, I was full of it. There were no loose ends back then. Everything was either black or white.

Now, I struggle to pull the ends together, let alone tie them. These days, black and white overlap all over the place. It’s disconcerting sometimes, but most of the time, it’s empowering. I’m constantly left breathless by the discovery of a new layer of meaning or by being challenged to see something in a new way. Which challenge may come in the form of a book, or a song, or a conversation. Or even, in the form of an encounter with someone who has chosen to be different.

Speaking of which, I used to love a particular provocative quote I found on the banner on Iman’s blog. I forget the words exactly, but it was all about yellow rivers, red trees, blue grass. And why not?It's my window, but I don't own the view.
April 16, 2009
18:07
Let's Talk About Celebrities and Africa
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

I have been following the spectacle of the race to a million followers on twitter between Ashton Kutcher and CNN since very early Wednesday morning (or very late Tuesday night), depending on where you’re located.

I first caught wind of it when Kristie Lu Stout reporting on CNN from Hong Kong announced that Kutcher was looking to beat CNN to the 1 million followers mark and that when he did, he would pull a prank on Ted Turner. Soon after, Larry King threw back a taunt, and an appearance on Larry King Live entered into the bargain. There was mention, also, of a prize for the millionth follower. I don’t have a sense of how much buzz all this created.

Somewhere along the line, however, probably an hour maybe two after this announcement was made, suddenly, he added the Mosquito Nets for Africa angle. Even that evolved. First he said he’d provide 1,000 Mosquito nets if tweeps helped him cross the 1 million follower mark before CNN. Then someone told him he really should be donating 1,000 nets anyway, which he promptly conceded and on account of which he raised that number to 10,000 nets. That finally seemed to win him the kind of attention he was looking to garner and today, as I understand it, the race is tighter than it was on Wednesday and the tape at the finishing line is in sight.

So, it’s official: Africa trumps pranking Ted Turner, a head to head between Larry King and Ashton Kutcher and a mysterious prize to the nth follower for garnering attention. Because, let’s face it, it’s about the publicity. The race to get to the one million mark came first. The mosquito nets for Africa were an afterthought. It was about figuring out, by trial and error, what would move the tweeps into action. He tried this, he tried that, and finally, he hit on the magic formula.

As @remarkabletweet succintly put it, it’s “Classic PR Genius.” Which @itsjustmimi heartily agreed with, tweeting enthusiastically: “The man's a business/pr genius.”

Oh but we already had a clue about the power of Africa to sanitize a reputation or a cause. Remember Lindsay Lohan announcing her post-rehab plans a couple of years ago to go on a humanitarian mission to Africa?

My only response is to harken back to this post from my past. And point you, also, to the thoughts of fellow afrophiles.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
April 15, 2009
2:33
NCCK: Be the Voice of Reason
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

So either it’s calmer now, or all the burying my head in the sand has paid off. Because there was a week back there, the post-Kilaguni-talks-fallout week, when I thought the politicos, who had long ago hit rock bottom, had finally received the heavy duty equipment they’d ordered (with tax payers money, of course,)and began to drill downward. And no, this is not a search for black gold.

(Eish. Please. Wharrr? And all of that other exclamatory jazz.)

But me I can’t rant about the politicos right now, imagine. I’ve been digging deep inside to find the rant but the rant is gone. There is no more rant.

But I can rant about the NCCK.( To the non-Kenyans, that would be the National Council of Churches of Kenya). And, I will.

What have THEY been smoking? So they stumbled and fumbled when the nation needed them most at the beginning of last year, so they’re desperate for atonement, so they are desperate to be relevant again in the national scheme of things, so they’re speaking up and speaking out.

Good for them.

Methinks, though, that they haven’t thought through their call for new elections and they’re just rushing into the melee spouting what words will come. Harsh indictment, I know.

But.

I put my ear to the ground to find out whether the churches, which have been the indisputable kings at the grassroots these many years, have instituted any new electorate education campaigns this past year or so. Nada.

I made enquiries about which new, different, possibly promising new candidates for parliamentary office are popping out of the woodwork. I heard a few names, but word is that these people are building/consolidating their base in readiness for 2012 and are far from ready right now.

On top of that, we do not yet have that new constitution and the Electoral Commission has yet to be overhauled and restructured to a reasonable level of effectiveness.

All of these factors give me to understand that elections held at the end of this year would only serve to wind us all up again, use up our scarce national budgetary resources and at the other end of the process, churn out the same old crop of people to jostle for position and ignore us all over again, and perhaps even result in some of the election ugliness that we’re still struggling to recover from.

What’s the use, I ask.

Things that the NCCK should be doing instead:

Educating voters nationally on their rights, creating spaces where people on the ground can discuss in detail how to hold their current leaders to account, what qualities they want in the leader who will represent them in parliament in 2013 and what specific deliverables they want out of their leaders. (Because God help us, come 2012, we have to grab this nation by its collar, drag it kicking and screaming if we must, and set it on the path to becoming the nation we know it has the potential to be).

Being the voice of reason, sticking their noses in the business of our political leaders, calling them on their missteps and excesses, reining them in as best it can, holding them to account and fearlessly speaking the truth at the pulpit and in the public space and doing best it can to live up to that truth, therefore reminding Kenyans who they are at their best.

Refraining from speaking when it has nothing of value to add.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
April 07, 2009
11:46
The 100th Monkey Syndrome
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

We live, we learn.

I’ve never heard of the 100th monkey syndrome before today. I was chatting with a friend, yadda yadda yaddaing about the same old thing: what will it take to turn our beloved country around, when he pulled something he called the 100th monkey syndrome out of his back pocket and flashed it at me. I drew a blank. As in I did not have one and a half clues to rub together.
The 100th monkey syndrome? Now who is that and what does he have to do with the length of Pinocchio’s nose?

Soon enough, off I went to the interweb(s), to find out.

(Note to self: have to have a conversation with DaddyCool, the father, about what his process would have been in finding the answer to this question way back when he was my age.)

In the meantime, here’s what I found out:

The 100th monkey syndrome is a theory about how learned behaviour spreads within a given population. It was popularised in a book titled the 100th Monkey by Ken Keyes. Here’s the excerpt I found at WowZone.

(Keep in mind as you read this that Ken Keyes offered it as a parable/legend and that there are disputes about whether the experiment actually took place and whether, if it did, its results were authentic. Still.)
The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.
Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED!
By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea. Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.
But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
Interesting, theory/parable/fill in the blank, eh? Very Tipping Point a la Malcolm Gladwell-ish, actually. I'm especially fascinated by the idea that the adults learnt from the children. What do you know.

Food for thought if nothing else. So, application time. How many monkeys do you think have learned how to wash their sweet potatoes in the stream in Kenya? How far do you think we are from the tipping point, from the 100th monkey? Is there a fastforward button? How do we expedite the process?
It's my window, but I don't own the view.
April 02, 2009
2:43
Africans Talking: Random TV Moment
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

So this morning, as a conscious act of procrastination, I switched on my television and stumbled upon the tail end of an interview of two West Africans by Janet Mbugua on KTN’s Sunrise Live. Although interview is really what it should have been, not what it actually was. Somewhere along the way one of the interviewees grabbed the show and literally ran away with it.

Let’s start by giving the interviewees the descriptive names Cool West African #1 and Cool West African #2 because the KTN editors didn’t think to do a simple thing like keep their names onscreen while they spoke just in case, you know, we didn’t recognise them or something and we weren’t in at the beginning of the interview when they were, presumably, introduced.

Anyhoo. Apparently this was a conversation about what the G-20 summit has to do with you (and me). At least this helpful bit of information was on screen.

Cool West African #1 was really fired up and going going gone. Seriously, we were choking, cough, cough, in his dust, cough. Like I said, I caught only the tail end of the session during which he made two very interesting points with gusto and a smile. (I’ve paraphrased here a bit, and perhaps, maybe, added my own emphasis).

Point number one in reference to Aid to Africa: Say between you and your wife you make 50,000 Ksh a month and you have three children you have to feed and educate and cloth them as well as take care of all the other expenses that come with your life and lifestyle. Does it make sense to budget for 100,000 Ksh every month in the hope that that friend there will plug in an extra 10,000 Ksh and the bank will give you 20,000 Ksh and so on and so forth? Who anywhere in the world encourages any family to do this? Isn’t the common sense thing to do to buckle down, eat the cake you’ve got while all the while doing what you can to increase its size?

Point number two in reference to Corruption in Africa: To aggravate matters in Africa, corruption is a serious leak in our bucket so that even if additional funds are being poured into it, a significant portion of them are just leaking out and going to pad secret Swiss bank accounts. So Cool West African #1 strongly suggests that corruption should be treated as mass murder, because when you think about it, when you steal maize destined for the marginalised and as a result, people starve to death, or you build bad roads in order to pocket some of the allocated funds and people die on those roads, aren’t you committing an act of mass murder?

Cool West African #2 and Janet Mbugua tried to get a word in edgewise during Cool West African #1’s totally awesome extended rant but they just ended up being background noise, poor folk. You should have seen it. You would have enjoyed it.

OK, end of procrastination already. Off to do the thing that I’ve been dreading all morning.It's my window, but I don't own the view.

← March 2009 (10 items) May 2009 (3 items) →

Feeds

What An African Woman Thinks