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.
There’s a lot happening, as you may have heard elsewhere, but there’s little to write about here in any kind of public-private manner. Most of is just details, and it is impossible to write well about details when there is no ruling theory or idea or vision. Before anything has happened. It is fluff; messy [...]
In these days leading up to Barack Obama’s inauguration, Kenyans have left the euphoria of November to reflect on the possibilities the Obama moment has brought for change in their particular lives. Concerned Kenyan Writers, an online collective of writers and scholars who came together during the 2007 post-election violence, have engaged in lively debates [...]
I’ve just tried to watch the 9pm news tonight and mostly failed, the first twenty minutes went to the media bill, choreographed a little with an interview type session within the news talking about how draconian and evil the Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill 2008 is. The guy being interviewed (will try to check who the [...]
