I am accused of unconsidered optimism from time to time. Today, I am relieved about the possibility of peace across the country. With a huge side order of disgust, I allow myself some relief in this handshake that two old friends could have made weeks ago and saved a thousand lives; but which they found inconvenient; until now.

Who are You? Who am I?
This threadbare security blanket has been exposed.
We live on the knife-edge of denial.

Read more from JC Mureithi here.

Speaking yesterday before a Congressional Hearing in the US, the head of Kenya's statutory human rights body asked the US congress to exhort the International Republican Institute to release the results of an exit poll taken after Kenya's December 27th General Election. Exit polls are by practice one of the fall-back options when an election is found to be difficult to call on account of the irregularities in its process. This is especially so where the pollster is an independent organisation whose credibility will stand up to scrutiny, and whose findings will be respected by both sides. So it is that Maina Kiai's statement bears looking into, even as he joins the great list of Kenyans discredited in the public eye this last month. He, for sure, is not one of the independent institutions.

Read more from Stephen Wanyama here.

The Central Bank of Kenya governor has put out the following press release on the recent unrest and its effect on the economy and our prospects for resuscitation.

Read more here.

Last week, I treaded where angels dread. I talked about what I believe has plunged our beloved country into chaos.

I received overwhelming response. Readers concurred that we have swept the ugly truth under the carpet for too long. That is why we are consumed by passions we cannot control. I also stirred the hornet's nest, so the barbs came fast and furious.

Read more from Nancy Mburu here.

I was working late in the library yesterday when I got an email from an aquaintance I hadn't seen in almost 7 months. He was concerned about my welfare, wondering if my family was OK following the coup in Kenya.

I was stunned; had there been a coup in Kenya in the one week that I had decided to focus on my school work? Thankfully, his concern was misguided – French newspapers had mistakenly reported that the political instability was some kind of political coup. He felt that I was in denial: what else short of a coup would drag so many notables into this previously quiet, at least in the international scene, country? Surely the level of political upheaval in the country matches the scale of the intervention?

Read more from Nanjala here.

Last week, I suggested that Kenyans would not lose their country to thugs and criminals. I nearly changed my mind this last weekend and with good reason. But even after all this, I still think we shall and must save our country.

Last Friday when having a drink with some friends at a local pub in Nairobi West, I was aghast at the discussion taking place. And this was going on among some Kikuyu friends. They were tired of the mayhem and murder of Kikuyus by gangs of marauding Kalenjin warriors.

Read more from Kamale T here.

A few weeks ago as the country fell apart around us, and in a moment of untempered and cursing anger I wrote an article, which I then proceeded to submit for publishing on these pages.

A few days went by, and still I did not see it published. So I wrote one of the editors and asked about my submission."Your article was very well written, it was brilliant in fact. Unfortunately, with the current situation in Kenya we have decided not to publish it.", was the reply I received.

Read more here.

I was to Kenya twice last year. The first visit was in June - I hadn't been there for a while and was returning with the intention of registering as a voter. One of the first things I noticed, returning to the country of my birth was that the country was more polarised along ethnic lines than ever before.

It must be said that both sides were going at it, the one side blaming the other for the hogging of public wealth and resources, and the other alleging subversion, sloth and a hate campaign inspired by the other. Since I've had some experience of (and written against) anti-black racism, I had absolutely no desire to even remotely cooperate with either side. I decided not to vote, and so didn't register.

Read more Daniel Waweru here.

The way Kenyan citizens are living out and working through their country's crisis offers insight into how boundaries of ethnicity, clan and class can be overcome, writes the anthropologist Angelique Haugerud.

Read more here.

Last evening, I was informed that my colleagues for the firm I work with that our UK office had dressed down last Friday for Charity, and that the benefitting charity was the Kenya Red Cross Society.

This is a regular custom at their office every Friday, althought most of the beneficiary charities are UK-based. On the odd occasion, I have managed to get donations for African calamities such as the suffering in Sierra Leone or the famine in Mali some time back. The rule for the dress-down is simple, you donate £2 and get as a result to wear jeans and sneakers to work. They raised a sum of £200 which I topped up with my small donation of £50. The cheque will be handed to the Kenya Red Cross tomorrow.

Read more from Kamale T here.

The time has come, in my view, for Kenyans to stop and take stock. Many of us are angry at some of the accusations and counter-accusations that are flowing back and forth in our country, in our media, and in many other fora. But the time has come for us to stop and take stock.

An analogy comes to mind. Imagine two men charged with carrying a precious glass case containing a valuable crown across a large valley. They have no cars, no bicycles; the only way they can get from point A to point B is to hoist the rather heavy glass case, mounted on two sticks, onto their shoulders. About half way there, the two men enter into an argument and the first man shoots his compatriot in the knee. The man at the back is equally angry and somehow manages to shoot his friend in the knee as well. Both of them are lying on the floor, writhing in pain but still strong enough to trade accusations and counter accusations. They fail to notice one thing. The case is broken and the crown is lost.

Read more from Nanjala Nyabola here.

A Montreal professor arrived in Nairobi recently. He came here two weeks after the well-publicized chaos began, and it was interesting to hear him relate the impression outsiders have of Kenya as a country where burning buildings, mass riots, and dead bodies have become the norm.
Once you’re on the ground, he said, the picture that emerges is a calmer one, “where a number of local disasters are embedded in a matrix of peace.”

Read more from Arno Kopecky here.

The extensive commentary on Kenya's troubles has tended to blame ancient tribal rivalry, cynical political calculation, or a combination of the two; with the corrupted electoral process seen as providing the unintended catalyst - or worse, the deliberate instigator that awakens latent tribal hostility. British imperialism has also received its expected share of criticism, for inventing the now-indigenous Kenyan practice of divide and rule (see Caroline Elkins, "What's Tearing Kenya Apart? History, for One Thing ", Washington Post, 6 January 2008).

Read more from John Lonsdale here.

Kenya has seen a string of inefficient and kleptocratic (self-enriching) rulers, and recent weeks have seen a disputed election and tragic ethnic violence.

Kenya is far from alone. The politics of fear, division and violence are a too common feature of African politics (as well as the West's not so distant past). How is it that weak, inefficient, and sometimes criminal rulers stay in place in a democratic society? Why can they enrich themselves and stay in power? What path charts a way out?

Read more from Dr Blattman here. You can also read more from his blog, Chris Blattman here.

Currently, in these times of great duress, we have two options of making ourselves heard in Kenya: a) business as usual, scurrying around with our heads low to piece together whatever pieces we might still have at hand (and this does not really count as ‘being heard'), and b) mass action, rallies in the streets chanting some(one's) political slogan. But whose voice is being heard? and how is the message interpreted?

Read more from David Obura here.

A few days ago, I had a discussion with a friend who works for a Kenyan media house. As I was not in whole-hearted agreement with his view that one side of the political divide was culpable for our present state, I was left in no doubt that I was a traitor to my own.

What is demanded it seems is ethnic, not, political persuasion. And there's the rub. How do we even begin to bridge the ethnic divide, because it does exist, how do you reach out to the other side when doing so may well lead to alienation from your own ethnic community? This is thr true tragedy of our polarised society, and a situation that I have found is not unique to myself.

Read more from Lucas Mboya.

The Kenyan media industry gave to the 2007 General elections intense, unparalleled, often partisan, coverage. This coverage has been blamed for the chaos that has engulfed the country after the final result announcement.

But this is not a black and white issue, and the media is not wholly to blame.

Read more from Toni Kamau here.