Eastern Caravans, Western Odysseys

[Onyango Oloo]

A Raconteur's Dispatch from Conakry, Guinea Republic:

To arrive West, we had to go on an Eastern caravan, before trekking northwards- in order to snake our way southwards and downwards to this Mombasa evoking Atlantic capital-port city that kisses the face of this West African nation.

Yes, we are finally in the land of

Sekou Toure, a contemporary neo-colonial mixed up society that along with Mali, Ghana and other nation-states in the region, rose like an impoverished phoenix from the ruins, bones and fables of the


Songhai, old Ghana and Mali kingdoms- with legends like

Mansa Musa,

Sundiata,

Ibn Batuta,

Askia Mohamed,

Samori Toure memorialized and immortalized by a thousand and one griots from Timbuktu to Ougadougou to the Caliphate of Sokoto.
It is ten minutes after six and I have woken up on the third floor of the


Camayenne a first rate hotel in


Conakry, a city drenched with so much Pan African history and anti-imperialist struggles. And what brings me here is very much connected to that Pan Africanist and anti-imperialist project. We are joining Africans from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, Guinea and other AU member countries to participate in the 4th edition of the annual African Social Forum- which last year was held in Lusaka, Zambia.

Onyango Oloo is among at least a dozen Kenyans from the loose network of social justice, civil society and non-profit formations that together comprise the broad umbrella dubbed the Kenya Social Forum. Last night, along with fellow wananchi and wazalendo like Wahu Kaara, Patrick Ochieng¡¯, Maina Mugo, Jacqueline Ngina, Francis Kimweny, Kiama Kaara and Ann Wanjiku Thuo we disembarked from Air France flight #762 from Paris at around twenty five minutes past nine Guinea time. We did not emerge from that dilapidated and litter-strewn airport until an hour before midnight. Shortly I will fill you in on the bureaucratic and corruption drenched fiasco that we endured before being deposited, literally at a quarter past midnight in our respective hotel rooms.

But first let me tell you a little more about the trajectory of our flight....

Continued...

[Onyango Oloo]

Due to some regional, linguistic, bureaucratic technological and cultural miscues and misinterpretations, the particular Kenyan delegation almost did not make for this African Social Forum.

Here is NOT the place to launch a trenchant critique of the fumbles and muddles that we have all transformed into a lesson that will go to our collective planning for the World Social Forum that is coming to mount its sixth edition in no other place but our very own city in the sun, Nairobi.

One of the main casualties of the poor planning was a last minute travel booking that put eight of us on a Dubai bound Air Emirates excursion that transitioned into another regional and cross-continental odyssey to the pays of

Zizou Zinadine Zidane,

Yannick Noah, Michel Foucault,

Yves St. Laurent and

Edith Piaf.

These centuries hovering over so many national skies gave me ample time not only to sample Lata Mangeshka, , Nat King Cole, Bob Marley, Fairouz, Cheb Khaled, Dolly Parton, Alanis Morissette, Miriam Makeba, Cold Play, Michael Jackson and other artists on the in-flight entertainment channels but also to take in at least two full-length feature movies- Goal! and Cinderalla Man.

Imagine this:

after that sumptuous multicultural mainstream cultural smorgsabord, I still had to time to peruse, glean and revise newspapers and magazines like Khaleej Times, Gulf Times, the Independent of London, The Times of London,, African Business, The Financial Times, the Economist and an old copy of New African- remember the one that talks about how Africa Developed Europe?

Quite a few golden nuggets in all those by-products of slaughtered trees- transmogrified from former green representatives of our planet's life to newsprint ranging in texture from expensively glossy to cheaply sand-paperish.

Here are a few self-explanatory excerpts and samples:

Africa Battles for Trade Justice- African Business # 315, December 2005; Failure in Sudan: The Killing Needs to be Stopped Again (covery story, Economist, December 3rd-9th 2005); $ 300 billion lost a year to bribery in Arab World says official (Khaleej Times, Thursday, December 1, 2005); Sudanese children protest violence against women and children during a protest in Khartoum yesterday (caption of a picture appearing on Page 10 of the December 1st edition of the Dubai based Gulf Times; Bamako denonce l¡¯expo coloniale (p. 9, Liberation, left wing daily published in France); Rosa Parks' predecessor to get her civil rights recognition at last ( p.39, Independent of London); West¡¯s first woman suicide bomber (a front page Times of London caption accompanying a picture of the late Muriel Degauque, a working class Belgian woman who embraced militant causes in the Middle East); Deterrent life terms for the"poison race killers" of Black British 18 year old Straight As student Anthony Walker who was hunted down by two white racist thugs- Paul Taylor, 20 and Michael Barton, 17 and ended up with an ice- pick embedded in his skull. Both must serve 24 and 18 years respectively before they are eligible for parole¡­(Times of London);"Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret locations in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck questions crowding in about the flights that could mean Britain has complicity in torture..." (Independent, Friday, December 2, 2005, p.24); Putin ally is implicated in money-laundering probe( front page, Wall Street Journal, Friday-Sunday December 2-4 2005); North Carolina man is set to be 1,000th execution today ( USA Today, Friday December 2, 2005); "Tweedy Browne, the influential US activist fund manager, is so concerned by the state of corporate governance at carmaker Volkswagen that it is considering scrapping or scaling back its assets in Germany. The fund manager, which has $13 billion of assets under management and has pushed through change at several companies- including Conrad Black¡¯s Hollinger- has begun talking to other VW shareholders in a bid to force out Ferdinand Piech, the carmaker¡¯s non-executive chairman..." (front page story in the Financial Times).

In all those papers and magazines, two stories stood out for me and that is why I will give slightly longer extracts below:

Archbishop Who Champions Britain[/img][/b]- p.18 City Times insert in the Khaleej Times

Some people think John Sentamu has the charisma and the courage to call for the re-establishment of the things that were once fundamental to the UK. Already the solemn, dull-as-dishwater senior Church figures who resent and even fear his lofty appointment have been heating up the telephone wires with their plaintive calls to each other.

And the razzmattazz enthronement at York Minster yesterday of Dr. John Sentamu as Britain¡¯s first Black archbishop did nothing to quell their nervousness.

His spectacular arrival on a boat, the M&S picnic for 3,000 instead of a formal lunch, the dancing tribesmen from his homeland, his bongo playing and the way he hammered heavily on the west door of the Minster like a circus muscleman instead of formal taps of previous new archbishops- here was Archbishop at his ebullient best.

Typically, he¡¯d accepted no whispered advice to moderate his approach.

The negative voices, of course, belong to churchmen who have let congregations slump to their lowest records since the Reformation, and the Church¡¯s influence on Britain itself and the way we live to be dismissed as an irrelevance.

On an average Sunday morning, the Church of England admits that barely 700,000 people are in church, and even this is down one-third from a decade ago. But the real figure is believed to be more like 500,000, less than one in a hundred of the British population.

Some people think John Sentamu, 56, is the man to change all this¡­.It took this former lawyer, who fled from Idi Amin¡¯s murderous Uganda in 1974, to remind us recently that the British Empire was not all bad, to attack the debilitating effect of multiculturalism and to call on the English to rediscover their national identity. It is Arcbishop Sentamu, a man whose house the National Front once tried to burn down, who has condemned Left-wing dogma that demands the integration of English identity in order to encourage minority groups to develop their own separate cultures¡­[/i]


Film on French Riots is turning point for game technology
By Mike Musgrove, Washington Post

The fires from last month's riots in France barely have been extinguished, but the tensions that gave rise to them have been given the artistic treatment- in a short film posted on the Web last week, using videogame characters instead of human actors. The film, called The French Democracy, is inspired by real-life events that led up to the riots. It tells the story of Muslim French citizens of African descent who face day-to day harassment and discrimination and who reach the boiling point when news surfaces about two teenagers who were electrocuted in a transformer station while hiding from the police. The 13-minute film was made using a new computer game called ¡°The Movies¡± that lets players take on the role of movie moguls charged with managing a fictional studio¡­

[Onyango Oloo]

Enough of the world news.

Back to real- time regular programming here in sun-drenched and ocean swept Conakry, Guinea.

When our contingent touched down last night, we did not see any visible signs that there was anybody to receive us- despite the fact that I had called ahead a few hours previously from Paris reiterating all our flight information details.

Our truncated nightmare commenced from that point.

A senior police officer grabbed all of our passports and invitation letters and asked us to follow him-all this within the customs and immigration area. We could not exit neither could we stay in line to be processed like everyone else. Soon an African woman attired in nice Guinea designs started gesticulating to us in frenetic French and anguished English to"calm down, calm down" even though our point of agitation had not even been reached. No one was really identifying himself or herself even though each new person offered "to take over from this point on". A wiry clean-shaven Christian man with a Muslim name is the only who could converse in English- all this back and forth repartee a sad commentary on the linguistic imperialism bequeathed to us by the descendants of St. Jeanne d¡¯Arc and the mythical St. George.

Oops!

It is inching past seventeen past eight o'clock here at the Hotel Camayenne which is located in the Conakry leafy neighbourhood of the same name. My third floor hotel room overlooks a neatly designed swimming pool down below and about twenty metres from the pool is the Atlantic Ocean daring hotel guests to choose between a shallow artificial pond and a deep organic watery playground. Wahu Kaara called from the lobby reminding me to come down because we all had to take our breakfast before jumping into one of two cabs to go over to the Palais du Peuple for the third day of the African Social Forum. I will continue writing in the evening when things begin to wind down at the ASF.

Well it is about 18:36 and I am back at the Hotel Camayenne, this time not in my room but in the Business Centre where it costs an arm and a leg to surf: half an hour you cough up 6,000 Guinea francs; one hour sets you back 10,000 Guinea francs. Yesterday¡¯s exchange rate here at the hotel pegged 3,900 local francs to 1 US $. Do the math.

At least the internet connections are hypersupersonic by African standards.

Like I was saying, last night everybody and their pet gecko wanted to take a bite out of the hapless Kenyan delegation. When we left last evening we had paid for the visas many times over.

Today at the forum we did blow several whistles- James Maina Mugo



and Onyango Oloo-

over the fact that the organizers could have done better rather than abandoning us to the voracious appetites of the official and unofficial Conakry airport authorities. A Sierra Leonian woman interviewed me later- as did the Nigerian correspondent of the Gleaner Online.

But that is not the only thing we did.


Wahu Kaara and I were among five panelists who participated in the plenary session whose theme today had to with the build up from Conakry (African Social Forum) to Bamako (one of three sites of the WSF 2006 Polycentric meetings along with Caracas and Karachi) to WSF Nairobi in January 2007. There were some interesting interventions from the floor but I will not go into it. For lunch Patrick Ochieng¡¯ of the Mombasa-based Ujamaa Centre and I decided to patronize a local kawaida mkahawa and we feasted on a delicious meal of catfish (remember I am talking of the fish, not the feline!) served with steamed rice and sweet potatoes. Yummy! Is the word I am looking for. During the breaks we met lots of vijana, wanawake na wazee from Liberia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and of course the bulk of them were from the host country. The vibes of the forum were a mixture of high energy and low apathy leaving one with extremely mixed feelings. But I can report that my conversations with the 4 person Liberia crew were unanimous in their contention that George Weah (they refer to him by his middle name, Opong¡¯) lost the runoffs fair and square- not just because of political inexperience but due to the fact that many of his storm-troopers were former ex-combatants and especially former child soldiers- and even more chillingly eerie, some of the notorious war lords and discredited fat cats. One silver haired, obviously educated and upper-middle intelligentsia type mockingly referred to the Liberian soccer megastar as a "Thousandaire" who was not really that rich. Both at the hotel and the Palais du Peuple there were fabulous fabrics on display at scalper prices. I have negotiated with some two law students from the university to accompany me to their version of Gikomba/Maasai market where I may avoid all those mzungu/mtalii mark ups from the cash hungry.

[Onyango Oloo]

Let me switch gears and conclude with a piece that I completed a couple days after the Big Orange rally at Uhuru Park:


Folks:

I have a small confession to make.

As everyone knows, this last weekend was dominated by one humungous event in Nairobi- the Uhuru Park Orange Victory Rally. Estimates vary as to the number of attendees- conservative figures round it to around 250,000 while more robust projections peg it at half a million strong. At any rate, even if you take the lower figure, it is still ten times the number of Bananiacs who were bused in from across the country to the same venue a week or so ago.

As everyone also knows, I have been among the most enthusiastic opponents of the Wako Mongrel and made no secret of my support for the Orange Movement on the question of the just concluded referendum.

Here is the shocker:

Onyango Oloo Did NOT attend the mammoth mkutano wa hadhara even though it was held on a Saturday and Onyango Oloo was not only in Nairobi, but less than fifteen minutes away from Uhuru Park the whole time the Orange extravaganza was unfolding before live television cameras and ongoing radio commentary. I was not sick; I was not attending a funeral nor had I been kidnapped, carjacked or nabbed by plains clothes cops.

And NO, I was Not sulking or morbidly boycotting the mass meeting.

As a matter of fact, I not only wanted to attend to the rally but had asked some of the key organizers for a chance to convey a brief message from some of my Kenyan comrades and friends abroad.

So what happened?

A simple thing really:

I was smack in the middle of another event happening at the struggle soaked Ufungamano House.

Of course our event was dwarfed many times over by the Orange rally. We had planned it way in advance- in fact preceding my arrival in Kenya at the end of October and canceling or postponing it was never an option.

Let me fill in the blanks a little.

Several months ago a position opened up with a Nairobi based social justice organization and I immediately applied.

The name of the organization is the Kenya Social Forum- and it is the coming together of various progressive civil society organizations such as the Mombasa-based Ujamaa Centre, the Nakuru based Kenya Land Alliance, the Nyeri based Futa Magendo Action Network, People Against Torture, Kenya Debt Relief Network, Daughters of Mumbi, Huruma Social Forum, the Social Development Network, SEATINI, Release Political Prisoners, BEACON, Coast Social Forum, Econews Africa, Citizen Assembly, Mulika Communications Trust, Pamoja Trust, KUPPET, Solidarity Africa in Action Network, EACOR, Kenya Human Rights Commission, Bunge la Wananchi, KCOMNET and many others.

To cut a long story short after many applications, short- listings, long distance job interviews, recommendations I was offered the job of National Coordinator of the Nairobi-based Kenya Social Forum and I immediately accepted.

I was thrilled at the opportunity of coming back to Kenya to work professionally and politically with scores of comrades and compatriots that I had admired and sought inspiration from for many, many years- including much younger militant Kenyan youth who have of late lit a patriotic fire under the derriere of otherwise consistent veterans of the Kenyan democratic and reform movement. Having lived in Canada for close to 18 years, I was moved at the prospect of permanently relocating to my motherland at a time of such a momentous mass democratic upheaval. True I had followed, chronicled and commented on contemporary Kenyan political struggles continuously from my Montreal and Toronto vantage points, but I was always cognizant of the fact those wazalendo who were here at home, on the frontlines of daily makinzano, mapambano had a grasp of the complexity of issues to an extent that Kenyans abroad could never hope to fathom.

Another great attraction of the job had to do with an upcoming global event.

Since the year 2001, tens of thousands of activists from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific had made a point of mounting a progressive counterpoint to the annual gab fest of the leading capitalist powers. While the G-8 fat cats sipped cognac and choked on caviar during their January get together in Davos, Switzerland under the rubric of the World Economic Forum, anti-imperialist activists, environmentalists, feminists, anti-racism campaigners, indigenous people¡¯s representatives and the motley crew of assorted socialists and leftist gathered for the World Social Forum. The WSF was initially the initiative of Brazilian progressives- from PT party members to MST (Landless Movement) foot-soldiers and their local and international allies- who chose the city of Porto Allegre to provide an alternative, democratic and political space for progressives around the world to challenge the neo-liberal agenda. The very first WSF was naturally held in Porto Allegre as were the next two. In 2004 the meeting took place in Mumbai, India before reverting back to its Brazilian birth-place earlier this year. Next year the WSF will take place simultaneously in three locations as part of the Polycentric approach: Karachi, Pakistan; Bamako, Mali and Caracas, Venezuela.

But in a world first, the 6th edition of the World Social Forum will be coming to Africa. More than that, it will be held right here in Nairobi, Kenya. We expect upwards of 200,000 delegates to attend the ten day event in January 2007. We consider this first and foremost an African triumph. The bid for the WSF was the collective endeavour of the Kenya Social Forum, the Uganda Social Forum and the Tanzania Social Forum and it was backed by other African social forum formations. I will be sharing more about this momentous occasion in the days and weeks to come¡­.

Anyways, when I touched down at JKIA on Sunday, October 31st, 2005 I literally had to hit the ground running. A few hours after my arrival, jet-lagged and all, I found myself taking copious notes at a KSF Steering Committee. On the agenda of that meeting was a two day gathering scheduled to take place at the Jeevanjee Gardens on November 25th and November 26th, 2005.

Also known as the Kenya Social Forum, the two day event was to provide a space for Kenyan activists and civil society actors plus their counterparts in Uganda, Tanzania and elsewhere to share their aspirations, converse, dialogue and even struggle with one another. The theme of the forum came to be known as Beyond The Referendum: Another Kenya Is Possible.

The long and short of it is that our just concluded Kenya Social Forum predated by months the Orange Rally at Uhuru Park which you will recall was originally slated to take place on Wednesday.

Our meeting at Ufungamano House, if we overlook some rather glaring glitches and sputters, was very, very invigorating and eye-opening- at least to the writer of these lines. James Maina Mugo of the Nyeri-based Futa Magendo Action Network kicked off things with a bang by leading the participants in a rousing Gikuyu freedom song; SEATINI¡¯s Oduor Ong¡¯wen gave a bilingual overview of the World Social Forum and the evolution of the Kenya Social Forum; Mzee Peter Njoroge of Losscoff gave moving accounts of how coffee farmers in the Mount Kenya region are being ripped off by the government through its politicians and parastatals; BEACON and Daughters of Mumbi had interesting and educational activities in the tents erected outdoors; a youth-based theatre group from Korogocho gave a very polished performance detailing the lives of flower workers and what they undergo at the hands of their bosses and other local parasites; a member of the Huruma Social Forum gave a rousing address underscoring the need to go back to the mashinani, inspiring the audience with how a low income community in one of Nairobi¡¯s poorest neighbourhoods had managed, through self-help to build close to 70 permanent housing units for their members and how they were well on their way to set up a people¡¯s clinic that would offer free services to the public; a youth leader from Mathare challenged the middle-class scions of the suburban¨Cbased NGOs to move beyond their comfort zones and go and work directly where millions of ordinary Kenyan wananchi live; Wafula Buke came all the way from Bungoma to exhort the participants about often forgotten patriotic and social justice values; Wahu Kaara gave an incendiary intervention about the revolutionary imperative, African resilience and the need to move from the concept of civil society to civil commons; the popular education/theatre trio who call themselves People for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enthralled all of us with their creative take on two unemployed workers beholden to their slum lord- transforming this to be a metaphor of Southern nations in the debt vice-grip of international financial institution and urged Kenyans to look beyond the mainstream contestations for political power; the Mt. Kenya Squatter group, a choir from Nyeri did a very poignant number asking over and over again why some Kenyans have been forced to be refugees within the borders of their own country...

This tale shall continue to be told on another day. The Business Centre at Hotel Camayenne are closing their doors for this Saturday...

Onyango Oloo
Conakry, Guinea