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Post by Onyango Oloo on Feb 23, 2006 19:41:37 GMT 3
A Smorgasbord of Seemingly Useless Words from Onyango Oloo
1.0.Scatter Shot Overture…
The other day I was riveted by a snap in one of the Nairobi dailies- an arresting image (pun fully intended) of a strenuous and nerve wracking tussle and stand off between burly, baton wielding riot cops and a trio of scared but defiant screaming primary school children clinging on to their head teacher somewhere in the Donholm neighbourhood.
Kisa na Maana?
The kids were protecting their mwalimu mkuu from arrest after teachers and pupils of said primary school protested the demolition of their school.
By the way, it has been interesting to see the near total silence at the imminent sale of the Madaraka Estate in Nairobi- threatening tenants who have lived there for more than twenty years with homelessness.
Another random tit bit:
The World Bank is pressurizing the Kenyan government to fast track neo-liberal reforms- with privatization as the centre piece. This World Bank exhortation is finding an enthusiastic flag waver in the editorial pages of the Daily Nation - the same rag that is spearheading the anti-corruption zealotry.
Is it entirely lost on Kenya’s largest selling newspaper that privatization is the hand-maiden of past, present and future Anglo- Leasing scandals- especially in the absence of constitutional and democratic reforms?
I am writing these words in the business centre of a certain hotel in Nakuru named after a wild animal not normally found in Kenya. Earlier this afternoon I took time off to go and pay my last respects to one of my close relatives who passed on quite recently and quite suddenly. The only bright spot of my trip to the deceased home was the 411 unleashed by Mr. Mwangi, my amicable taxi driver who pointed out estates like Flamingo, Shauri Yako; told me about the KGGCU houses on Maasai Road; pointed out the way to Langa Langa and Shabab and Section 58 ; I found out today that there is actually a street in Nakuru called KANU; saw the real estate that was grabbed by the Goldenberg majambazi etc.
Nakuru should be my home town- after all, I was born here. But all those memories of myself as a baby waddling in these here parts were wiped out decades ago, leaving only my mother’s recollection of how I was born in a house as opposed to a regular hospital…Years ago, stopping over in Nakuru I was always stung with what to me was a frigid embrace of the cold air. Something must have happened- even Nakurians were complaining today of the stifling heat. Is global warming catching up with this market town I wonder?
CONTINUED>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Feb 23, 2006 19:48:32 GMT 3
2.0. Neo-Liberalism: The Mother of All Scandals in Kenya It is always fascinating to see how many Kenyans shake their angry fists at the latest leakage migrating from the corridors of power to the front pages of our newspapers. For instance, right now we are all throwing a veritable fit at revelations that those fat cats in the cabinet and in parliament have once again awarded themselves another obscene hike in terms of perks. Yet we are unmoved at the real scandals that do not make it to the headlines- the daily hunger of millions of urban and rural dwellers; the matter of fact lay offs, retrenchments and other economic crimes committed against the working people by the government and by local and international capitalist employers every single hour. Last weekend I was hanging out with one of my younger cousins- and this particular Sunday I was shocked to find her at home. That is because she works seven days a week- including some very odd, weird and back-breaking night shifts. They are paid a very paltry sum; when they work on holidays and weekends they are NOT paid time and a half. She was half-joking that she long ago gave up any hope of eye-balling and bagging a life mate- because she was forever working. Whenever they as much as whimper about the deplorable conditions their employer simply oinks and snorts that whoever is unhappy is free to walk out anytime and meet dozens of potential recruits champing at the bit to take their place. She told me that one of her employer's clients ships on a daily basis goods worth four million Kenyan shillings. My cousin’s tale of woe is replicated on a thousand factories, godowns, farms, offices with her case standing out as one of the milder forms of exploitation in Kenya. This is not the place to detail the plight of millions of people like my other family members who have been unemployed for years and have to eke out an existence doing the oddest of odd jobs- when these can be secured. I look forward to the day when the cases like my cousin's invoke the same headline grabbing and street marching indignation like the shenanigans of fat cats who steal from the wananchi "legally" and illegally. At the moment many Kenyans who fit my cousin's profile are simply too exhausted from the daily grind of kutafuta riziki to raise their tired fists in protest. But the time is soon coming when the waves of land occupations and spontaneous squatter struggles in the countryside will find their urban editions. For now, let the overfed creatures who are gorging at the public feeding troughs have their appetizers, entrees and desserts of corrupt lucre. They will be too constipated to hear the rumbling tummies of the starving and exploited wafanyikazi . The Jamaican reggae poet and social prophet  Bob Marley once sang: Them belly full but we hungry
A hungry mob is a angry mob
A rain a-fall but the dirt it tough
A pot a-cook but the food no 'nough
You're gonna dance to JAH music, dance
We're gonna dance to JAH music, dance
Forget your troubles and dance
Forget your sorrow and dance
Forget your sickness and dance
Forget your weakness and dance
Cost of living get so high, Rich and poor, they start a cry
Now the weak must get strong
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation."SOURCE: www.bobmarley.com/songs/songs.cgi?thembellyThe same social commentator also observed: The sun shall not smite I
By day, nor the moon by night
And everything that I do
Shall be upfull and right
And if it's all night
It got to be alright (Repeat)
Your mamma won't lose this one
You're the lucky one, under the sun
If you make me move
Then you know you got the groove
All night, it's alright All night yeah!
It's alright
Working on the forklift, in the night shift
Working on the night shift, with the forklift
From A.M. to P.M.
Working on a night shift yeah!
Well if it's all night
Warehouse, you're empty yeah!
Right around the corner
Bring your goods
Go around the other corner
Bring your suitcases
By the sweat of my brow
Eat your bread (Repeat)
All night, alright (Repeat)www.bobmarley.com/songs/songs.cgi?nightshiftThe German poet, dramatist, Marxist and literary theorist Bertolt Brecht wrote the following lines: Questions From a Worker Who Reads Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man?
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions. Bertolt Brecht The same author also said: To Posterity
1.
Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.
Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?
It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)
They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil --
Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!
2.
I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.
3.
You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think --
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.
For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.
For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do no judge us
Too harshly.
translated by H. R. Hays
Bertolt Brecht Let those lyrics and poetic interventions wrap up this essay for me. Onyango Oloo
Nakuru, Kenya
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2006 20:20:59 GMT 3
Oloo:
why are you saying all these things when deregulation, privitization and cut backs have nothing to do with an imperialist project? This is why the imperialist are so delighted to have Chavez and his likes in power. I am sure that they wouldn't mind at all if we end up with a socialist government in Kenya ama? They'll sit back and take it just as they did with Lumumba and Sankara.
Should we not just be focuses on Kibaki must go eh?
cheers
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Post by aeichener on Feb 24, 2006 10:55:26 GMT 3
I am writing these words in the business centre of a certain hotel in Nakuru named after a wild animal not normally found in Kenya. I am sorry to hear that (for I know the hotel *shudder*). If you don't like Merida's cold money charm and feel too young for Kunste, maybe Midland's would be more convenient next time: it's halfway centrally situated and a lot of people meet there. Allow me to express my condolences. May the earth be light to him or her. *Hips* I never went on drinking sprees there, but Kanu street (its dens and hookers) seems to have totally displaced all the former joints and hangouts. And Langa Langa (where I stayed last time) is only a stone throw away. Have a look at the railway station. Enjoy the architecture (sadly neglected, but one of the best modern buildings in entire Kenya). See the impressive murals (what a political statement), and have a lunch upstairs in the railway restaurant (don't worry, it only *looks* closed ;-). For you as a politically averted being, that will be a wonderfully instructive time warp: especially the aforementioned white highlands murals in the station hall, and the recollection of the past in a restaurant with full early 1960s ambiente (*nothing* changed), where you are still having your tea with tattered Imperial (EAR) silverware. The fish was fresh and good, incidentally. I too remember the cold nights. Alexander |
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Post by politicalmaniac on Feb 24, 2006 23:30:32 GMT 3
eichner
I lived in NKU x 15yrs on nd off.
Kanu st was it!
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Post by politicalmaniac on Feb 24, 2006 23:31:22 GMT 3
had lots of friends in sulwe too:)
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Feb 25, 2006 9:05:08 GMT 3
Oloo:
why are you saying all these things when deregulation, privitization and cut backs have nothing to do with an imperialist project? This is why the imperialist are so delighted to have Chavez and his likes in power. I am sure that they wouldn't mind at all if we end up with a socialist government in Kenya ama? They'll sit back and take it just as they did with Lumumba and Sankara.
Should we not just be focuses on Kibaki must go eh?
cheers
Greetings from Nairobi. Say hey to the Captain and the young Field Marshall. Cheeky, cheeky you. I can see your tongue firmly in your cheek. Thanks for your feedback. Check your inbox... OO
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Feb 25, 2006 9:18:10 GMT 3
Political Maniac and Alex:
I have enjoyed reading your descriptions of Nakuru.
Alex: never knew you were a NKU insider! Ditto for the maniac who is political.
About the hotel- I was part of a group of people using the place as a workspace- we were herded there and cooped up for a few days- had to rush back to the Kenyan capital because of a desk overflowing with other work...
OO
NBI
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