I am in Philadelphia and am meeting with Africa Action tomorrow morning at 10:30am in DC to discuss situation in Kenya and ways that those in the Diaspora and others can be taking action. Please come if you would like, otherwise I will try to make it to the Wilson Center before the event ends. My # is 267-528-2971.

Addressing victims at Burnt Forest, Kibaki cut short his speech for about five minutes when the arson attack was brought to his attention.

“Angalia, wanachoma nyumba zetu nyuma yako… (Look! They are burning houses behind you),” the crowd shouted.

The President turned around to look at the thick smoke billowing in the sky, but appeared not to immediately realise what the crowd was beckoning him to see.

He asked, “Ni nini? Wachana na hao wachome, tutaonana nao. (What is it? Let them (arsonists) continue. We will deal with them,” he said, when he finally saw the source of the smoke.
The incident caused a temporary security scare as the heavy security personnel guarding the President were put on high alert.
Kibaki was addressing displaced families at Arnasens High School.
Earlier, clash victims shouted down the President when he told them to take their children to school next week.
“Tutawapeleka wapi? Shule zote zimechomwa (Where will we take them? Schools were all burnt),” they shouted, interrupting the President’s speech.
For the second time, the victims interrupted the President, protesting at his directive that they channel their grievances through local chiefs, claiming the chiefs were biased.
The President assured the families Government would rebuild the schools. “Since you don’t trust the chiefs, take your grievances to any Government official you trust,” he said.
MAN

I have thought of calling kenya another pariah state. I have wished to stay in diaspora not to mind about kenya. But I feel that I got duty to make Kenya rise again. That is what is keeping me thinking about Kenya.

It is sad that ethnic animosities have been the main stroy locally and internationally. Even those presumed to be educated have been consumed in this nonesense. I for one, I am inclined to abolish tribal tags on my lapel if that be for the good of society. But how can a leopard remove its sports? near imposibility. I believe that if we chose to live together in peace for the sake of the common good, we can.

I am looking at the future with this desire that a movement will rise which will seek to heal wounds so far caused by our ethnic animosities. I know that you and me and my children can start this movement. For those with us can stand and move and those against us can be excluded. Kenya is bigger than anyone.

The other personal thing I feel about is how democracy can betray us. I am not sure democracy is anything if anything is possible with it! I am sure that unless there are fundamental changes, voter turn out in the next general election (if any) will be very minimal- the antithesis.

May Kenya live on high-that has been my prayer.

May it be your purpose to seek friendship outside your tribe. That is why I dont like tribal groupings be it in the universities or in diaspora. I have always noted that those groups unless they are for cultural nights are events that nurture prejudices- I know from my own people and I have severally told them that it is not good for us.

We continue later.

Please do release those figures,

It’s my understanding that some media house journalists were physically present when results were announced on the ground and in other cases the media obtained confirmation of the results from ECK returning officers at the actual polling station where counting took place; before the “cooking” occured.

Discrepancies need to acknowledged and condemned irrespective of party affiliation, but the only way Kenyans can do this is if we know who did what, where.

I look forward to more updates on these figures.

I’d like to share a few concerns that I think can no longer be ignored. I am not a political analyst, I’m not a historian, so if there are some points that are overly-generalized, please know I’m happy to have clarification. And remember, this is the opinion of ONE person, not a statement representing an entire people group.

I dare say it’s pointless for Kenyans, living in Kenya or in the diaspora, to pretend we do not belong to different ethnic groups. We are all Kenyans yes, but for how long have we been Kenyans? And for how long have our different ethnicities been just that? We are different, and the more we keep ignoring and hoping the difference will go away, the more we’ll set ourselves up for disaster. It’s like the proverbial Ostrich with it’s head stuck in the sand. The problem won’t go away. I don’t mean to be tribalistic, ethnocentric or plainly, a bigoted Kenyan, but it’s ironic that most everyone will agree that i) after independence Kenyatta settled Kikuyus, many who were squatters working for white settlers, on what land belonging to Kalenjins whom the whites had shoved off to “reserves” so they could plunder the land. ii) Moi did not help solve that “land” issue, just ignored, and perhaps as is said, used it to his favor in land clashes that rose up every now and then. iii) Somehow, for about 40 years, these people groups stayed in territories where they were distinctly different: Kikuyus among Kalenjins or whatever. iv) they called it home (which is odd, since I don’t know if doing business in an area makes that your home, as in, if a Kalenjin was settled working in Kiambu would that make that his home town? It’s a very westernized concept that is not true to Africa.

Nevertheless, why the big explosion now??? It seems that the country, in the past five years, has changed so drastically that suddenly the little flames of discontent toward the Kikuyus that would rise and get quickly squelched has turned into a horrible inhuman show of hate that has resulted in so many dying and so many displaced Kikuyus from the Eldoret area. Why NOW? That’s the question I ask. What happened in the past five years that there is so much hate or that the hate is now right up on the surface? I was in Eldoret up until a week or so ago. I heard the hate. I myself was harrassed before the elections by Kikuyu taxi drivers and I remember thinking, “are they aware that these people won’t take any more of this behaviour and do they know to prepare for the worst?” Of course I still didn’t think things would actually turn into armaggedon. And I didn’t realize those Kalenjin youth (I’m assuming they are the ones who did it) would burn down a church with women and children in it.

So I’m ashamed at what my people have done. And I fear they’ll do it again, and get worse, if the situation is not sorted out once and for all. And for all the Kikuyu that have been hurt, killed, lost family members, accept my sincere condolences, and please appeal, in letters, in blogs, in person, to our leaders, to fix this problem. It could simply be “jealousy” that your people are seen as successful and that the president took care of his people and left the rest of the country in the dust, I don’t know if all that is true; it could be, as a friend of mine said, that a very few lot of “bad apples” have soiled the reputation of the Kikuyu people among other ethnic groups; it could be, as is the case in my own group, deep resentment over what is seen as Kikuyu “taking over” their own land and area and town;

it’s not right that you should die. it’s not right at all that anyone should be kicked out. But we must see that land is a very sore subject when there’s always been controversy over how it was handed out. And was it the settlers fault or the government? And can it be solved now, and if so, how?

I’m sure it’s too late to do anything about the l and, what will be will be, but what can we do to teach the country to not fear other ethnic groups so much that the fear is turned into blind hate and innocent children are killed?

Do we allow the ethnic “jokes” anymore? Do we enforce only Swahili be spoken in public places? (I had a matatu tout in Nairobi tell me quite clearly that he would not speak to me in English or Swahili, only Kikuyu) so do we send all our people to some sort of training camp (Communist style re-educating) and teach them tolerance and dispel negative stereotypes? Do we allow for “Devolution” a.k.a. “Majimbo-ism” for a change? I’ve thought hard about the horrible stereotypes I heard among my people about Kikuyus living in our area and I was appalled. I thought actually, perhaps they should try life without Kikuyus, see if those stereotypes were all false (i.e., the carjackings near Timboroa and Burnt Forest are Always carried out by Kikuyus because no Kalenjin would attack, etc, etc) horrible way to put an entire ethnic group in one box. So perhaps with Majimbo, the highway banditry would stop, perhaps not, then they’d see that perhaps, people are just people. I don’t know. There’s no easy solution, but somehow, we have to stop pretending we are “One” Kenya. We are a country yes, but we are so different sometimes you can see the differences in physical appearances, let alone speech, names and experiences. It’s easy for the dominant group, in this case the Kikuyu, to insist we are all one Kenya, because, let’s be honest, they seem to have benefited from spreading all over Kenya more than others (I’m sure there’s plenty of other people groups living in areas out of their ancestral lands, so forgive the generalization). Nevertheless, in light of what’s happened, let’s be honest! I happen to know that many Kikuyus love their group, teach their children their language and their cultures, so admitting that we are all different culturally is not a bad thing. Starting with that may be the way to go, THEN, showing how much we share in common, as human beings, as Kenyans, as East Africans, as Africans… as classmates, workmates, and in the case of two in my family who have inter-married, spouses, one of my nieces is half Kalenjin half Kikuyu, the poor child should never have to see what’s going on in Kenya today.

It’s time we began to acknowledge our differences, and to actually celebrate them, and s hare the richness of our diversity. We may realize that to be different is OK. Something to be celebrated, not something to be shunned and covered under a very thin sense of “nationalism” that these past few days has proved to be too fragile to lean on.