Ngwatilo

So, I’m really about poetry and music, rather than political commentary. Though with the ridiculous politics we play in this country as politicians, businessmen and ordinary folk, without even thinking, defies any elegance poetry would offer, and further, requires first a surface level look, before we can get to the pearl poetry grows. I neglected [...]

So yesterday, i was in a number 24 Nissan matatu at 5.45pm heading up past Nairobi West. At the roundabout that joins Langata road, my matatu lurches forward into the roundabout in the middle of traffic, as matatus are wont, and nearly rams into this woman driving a pickup. She is in the roundabout nearly [...]

Business as usual did not prevent the violence that sprung up at the end of December 2007. Perhaps what University of Nairobi Student leadership require is some teaching on what non-violent demonstration entails, either from civil society or their own faculty. Such a course ought to teach how to prevent violent demonstrations carried in the name of “University Students”, because it is they that are ultimately responsible for that name.

It is stupidity to instead tell them not to demonstrate, in my opinion. They’ve already crossed that bridge many times over the years; it is their modus operandi. Actually, precisely because they are wont to protest every so often, we ought to have invested in steering their need for protest in more positive turns. This time around they said they wanted to do it peacefully, they received permission to do so. Did we help them achieve this? I would argue that giving them the opportunity and space to do so was only half the task.

My argument follows a simple premise, that by virtue of the fact that they are in University and in one of the more academically respected universities in the country at that, they are: 1) a people driven by reason – even the more intelligent among us; 2) they have already worked hard to be where they are and as such, they are committed to their education, to learning, to the social and economic development of themselves, their families and their communities, to the preservation and fulfillment of the desired “bright future” – in summary, university students are not hooligans.