In Kenya where armies
of tires and rocks burning,
arrows and pangas bloody,
fight
to quench hate, renew apathy;
in Ukambani the wind blows at will, as usual,
kerosene is up, regardless, men and women
continue their pleas to their sky and God for rain.
Later in the starry darkness, they listen closely
to the radio for news of how much closer the
trouble has traveled.

Trying to be gentle, more productive, and more effective with myself…

Perhaps South Africa this past fortnight does not feature as prominently because there are other more important things to report in the news, perhaps because the South African Situation cannot be as easily explained to Americans as the Kenyan one was, perhaps the West is now bored with African crises, having eked their fill from the Kenyan crisis earlier this year – (they are chewing curd?), Perhaps the news is there, but Christmas and New Years romance are long past and well, 40 people dead and 20,000 displaced is the way of 2008. it’s not 350 dead and half a million displaced in acres of White tents.

South Africa this past fortnight is harder for me to understand because there did not seem to be any leadership for the gangs, but they were gangs, and therefore were organized, even if a little. But political or economic leaders didn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Although economic leaders need not always be wealthy or prominent – they must only capture the imagination of a people and suggest a path for them which they grab urgently. But what are their leaders saying to their communities? As we noted here, its one thing for leader X to say at a media conference “stop the violence, this is your brother/sister.” and another thing for him to go to the particular community which he leads and say “Stop the violence, this is our brother/sister.” So, indeed, where are the South African black leaders?