NOT YET CANAAN

[jakaswanga]

NOT YET CANAAN, searching for Joshua.

1. THE YOUTH HAVE THEIR SAY

It was a tantalising vision. The evolution of decrepit Kenya into a semi-paradise Canaan. And all of that under none other than the veteran Joshua, Amollo Tinga (His coterie of corrupt Nyanza governors –---who have miserably failed to give a glimpse in real-time of that Canaan in the past half a decade--- not withstanding!).

O yeah, it was a tantalising vision alright ---Canaan, and in a nation infested with Christian mythology it had good propaganda import, but the torment of Tantalus it has been this morning after. Uhuru Kenyatta's all things stay the way they have been –--all those ills which have been listed like corruption----- has won the day, and it seems without the need for a run-off too. It is like badboy Ouru was a hard-nosed pugilist, saying: life is Sh!t, and it will continue to be in Kenya; anybody promising otherwise is a cheat, elect me and lets make the best of it!

Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto could not have pulled this off without a 100% backing of the youth in their nations, the Kalenjin and the GEMA, plus their fringe allies. In this sense 'Wanjiku' has served a ruthless lesson, in the so-called political master class genre. Young 'Kenyans', first time voters, embraced their nations (otherwise called ethnicity) with a ferocity which leaves no doubt about the nearby future. This ---Gikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin etc--- Nationalism is the way to go in Kenya for the time being. Don't call it ethnicity any longer. Don't even dare think of it as tribalism any longer. If you do, you will miss its fundmental imperial aspects and considerations which, for instance, have propelled Kenyan thieves like Anne Waiguru to electoral stardom. This is an emerged force impervious to negative sloganeering. It has an own (nationalist) narrative of heroism which owes no loyalty to Kenyan sensitivities. It is a froce which has claimed the scalp of Bomet Isaac Rutto, the one-time personification and flagflier of DEVOLUTION. Raila Odinga the father of devolution and second liberation, and his Canaan tales for Kenya, didn't move nor sway the youths any, no, they stood firm on their rock nationalist feet. (Perhaps they reckon the Kenyan state has betrayed them beyond demanding their loyalty anymore! and better their own man at the imperial seat, for some healthy trickle down. It is worth a short anyway, what do they have to loose!? even kids can be ruthlessly pragmatic in their calculations of survival)

Nationalism is not dead, all world mighty and conquering as finance capital may see itself. On the contrary, from Korea to Iran, Russia to China, it will be the major rallying force. And so to little Kenya, our multi-nation state which, therefore, with the dotcom generation having spoken so clinically clear-cut, must revisit Dr. David Ndii's 'Dissolution White Paper', aka Divorce option. The obvious compromise, meseems, is more power to the regions. That means more devolution.

When nations emerge with the confidence we just seen, it is important to PESA POSITION, you know, like the DEVONSHIRE WHITE PAPER was a 'pesa position' for the colonial long-distance thinkers. It was floating the balloon of independence at a later date for the colony, reminding the then competing elites, that their historical tenure, was tenuous to say the least.

(more illustrations later on that Devonshire quip on a later essay #and the Rwandan quagmire).

If a satisfactory compromise is not booked for rising nationalism, the tide tends towards the most radical form of autonomy which is independence.

NB: Dissolution of Kenya can of course also go the opposite direction ---economics of scale, melting into the Union East African State, itself a federal province of the African Union at a much later date.

The Kenyan youth have spoken. Raila should concede ---Like HRC to Trump! In his own Siaya backyard, his cousin Rasanga can barely hold his head above water on the Nicolas Gumbo challenge. And why are the youth disobeying the popular party's wish in the Holy Land? –--It is because ODM rigged the Siaya primary. (Jim Orengo doesn't know this detail of course. I will wait for the new arrival, Dr. Otiende Amollo, Gumbo's able replacement in Rarieda, to explain why Rasanga can hardly beat Gumbo after Oburu Odinga declared Gumbo a mole. If Dr. Amollo plays poker like his fellow lawyer Orengo, he will notice how quickly lots of Rarieda people will first smile at Rafael Tuju before they notice him!)

The election could have been rigged yes. And I am sure it was here and there. But my problem is different today. I think they were stupidly expensive, and they you get this! When a community pays 50bn for what they can have for 10Bn, it is a disregard for sense and a waste of scarce resources which unnerves me. It also informs me it is not about taking care of the future of the country. And then of course Wafula Chebukati did not come top of the interviews. Wrong price plus slightly less than the right person for the job is a guaranteed mess. That one I know.

Okay, where is that mess-cleaner called Matiang'i!?

2. A POLITICOLOGIST'S NIGHTMARE: ELECTIONS AND EMERGING NATIONS IN AFRICA

[jakaswanga]

SPARRING WITH MY IN-LAWS

1. THE TRIUMPHALIST SPIRIT AS MY MOUNT KENYA FRIENDS REVEL

I studied the data, my face Spartan. Some will remember that painproof lass who stood nonplussed, exchanging pleasantries with his old professor, as a trapped fox tore his entrails. We had gathered for a yap-yapping session with my in-laws. It was, thanks to modern technology, face to face, yet holographic. They demanded I bow down in glee, as if to kiss their Muthamaki's feet, then rise to raise both my arms unto heaven, while letting the whole neighbourhood ring with my chants of Ouru Akbar! Halleluya Kamwana!

Here is the Preliminary data which presumably was doing the Sparta fox to my insides, while my mount Kenya in laws theatrically busied, devising ever more hellish instruments of psychological torture.

*NATIONAL ELECTIONS SUMMARY-2017*

*GOVERNOR’S*
1) Jubilee 25
2) ODM 13
3) Wiper 02
4) Jubilee affiliates 02
5) NASA affiliates 03
6) Independents 02 (Laikipia and Isiolo)
*Senate*
1) Jubilee 24
2) ODM 13
3) Wiper 03
5) Jubilee affiliates 03
4) NASA affiliates 04
6) Independents 00
*Women Reps*
1) Jubilee 26
2) ODM 10
3) Wiper 03
4) Jubilee affiliates 04
4) NASA affiliates 03
5) Independents 1 (Meru)
*MPs*
1) Jubilee 141
2) ODM 63
3) Wiper 20
4) Jubilee affiliates 24
5) NASA affiliates 38
6) Independents 04

A rout it would seem! the parliament a ONE-PARTY STATE of sorts! Then there is the double-edged loss of Nairobi county. Raila beat Ouru to the count in the capital, but Sonko wiped out Kidero. There is a deadly nuance there. More about that later.

OF FREE MINDS

Kenyans who do not enjoy an intense (even intellectual intimacy) with their compatriots from other nations –--former tribes sometimes called ethnic groups----- suffer a miss beyond their comprehension. But that is the idea, the idea authored at the elite divide-and-rule school. You see, were Palestinians and Israelis to know one another intimately, be comfortable in their humanity regardless of their (you know) differences, that wall between them would be so stupid a project, the two peoples would die of shame! --But forgive them for they know not what they are missing, Father.


A map showing the walls of Nairobi according to party affiliations!


Nairobi wall separating the The Haves from the Havenots.


The border between women and men in Kenya. (Women come from Venus, men from Mars). Their orbital patterns must never cross. Sex and species procreation? No, they are incompatible.


This used to be the wall between Whites and Blacks in South Africa,
......
before they realised apartheid is a civilisation run a ground, a titanic at the bottom of the sea. Well, fishes of the deep are very happy down there, I can assure you. But just a pity that all the humans in that habitat are dead.

Not that they know it though!

Just saying.

That is why those who want to make sure the two compatible peoples (who share a small plot in the middle eastern, sorry, Nairobi ghetto) continue to doubt the humanity of the other, those whose mission is to perpetuate the degraded humanity between peoples, they do everything to make sure the two parties suffer no intimacies. No, no intimacies whatsoever, not even the explorative, innocent boy-meet-girl ones in school.

This means half-Palestinian half-Jew is a human breed which just don't (and wont?) exist in the middle east!
No, for that, the Arabs and Jews would have to fakfak some. But No, even over their dead bodies they don't, do they!? All they do is fack each other up at every opportunity. Since loving is too, too risky; in that they could discover they like the loving more than the killing. –--God forbid!

But between us The PeopleOfTheLake, and our nemesis in these elections, The Mumbi's of Mount Kenya, there is, behind the scenes, more inter-national facking and confirmation of one another's humanity than the politicians preaching animosity would dare admit. Just like, behind the scenes too, the inter-class business linkages of any two national elites purporting enmity in public, tend to be more intimate and enmeshed than they would have their followers believe. In this quagmire of necessary hypocrisies, the hearts of Kenya tick many a healthy beat, and around the clock 24/7 at that.

We the people in the daily grind of life can separate the stupidities of incumbent power. An emperor and his cohorts always deludes itself in its permanence and infallabiiity. To that, it generates a web of lies which even her best functionaries get lost in. That is how it comes that a man of Matiang'i's calibre spends a whole security briefing castigating social media and denying police killings. He then swears Kenya is completely safe and secure, which means OPERATION LINDA NCHI is drawing to a close and the troops will be withdrawn soon.

But I am sure the corruption of power did not allow Matiang'i to compute LINDA NCHI is a security operation to secure Kenya! No, Matiang'i is soley consumed with the POST ELECTIONS troubles! a stupidly narow definition of national security within a nation at war abroad. The body bags from Somalia don't feature in his consciousness. No priority. May be that is (def-cab-sec) Omamo's brief! –--who cares!?

I do. I and my Mount Kenya pals do. That is why when the government didn't know who Major Geoffrey Obwoge was/is, we resolved in our small way to light candles and keep it a relay (like the Olympic Torch) until one day the prisoner was released, or the body came home.

Yap!

So I have a very healthy relationship with my in-laws. Of course for practical purposes when we yapyap Kenyan politics, I am pitched as a Railamaniac, a conceited hubris-prone good-for-nothing omena-eating academic; and they (MK) as oathed ultra Mumbist supremacists, die-hard Muthamaki loyalists and natural born thieves!

The state is then set for some riotous Kenyan banter. Totally politically incorrect!

But before I continue, some really offside Kenyan humour from the city.

[jakaswanga]

But before I continue, some really offside Kenyan humour.

From mechanics to 'watu wa mkokoteni':

Top 10 hustles by different communities in Nairobi

 By Nairobian reporter 6 days ago, Share this Story

Nairobi is a cosmopolitan city with people drawn from all parts of Kenya and the world.  This is why it’s referred to as a ‘melting pot of cultures’ where people from different communities in Kenya do anything to put bread (and sometimes bacon) on the table.
Indeed, the city draws strength from the diversity of its 42 communities. Without intending to entrench tribal stereotypes, here are 10 most prominent communities and their hustles in Nairobi:

1. The lake side crew

If you want your wall unit ‘kupigwa randa’ properly, then please look for guys from the lakeside. If your car’s body is all bumpy and scratched, then seek out Omosh Auto Express.
He will work wonders, as these dudes make for good automotive engineers and mechanics around River Road, Kirinyaga Road, Quarry Road and a host of other roadside garages.
They also make for good mtu wa mjengo.

2. Mt Kenya gang

These are the owners of downtown Nairobi (Nyama kima). They do all manner of things: they are the matatu touts plying almost all routes, they run shops, boutiques, bars, soko, hotels, DVD stalls, as well as sell ‘bottled tap water,’ roadside mutura and mahindi choma. Also, all mkokoteni ni zao!

3. The ‘Baengele’

Usalama unaanza na the ‘Baengele’ as these papas are the original ‘Kenya Rungu.’
Their sisters Nafula and Nabakolwe from Khalaba and Khwisero make for the best ‘DJs,’ spinning dishes in the kitchen where they display singular talent in preparing and clearing sembe.

4. Gaaki, otherwise?

The few educated Mochamas in Nairobi write, while others spend most of their time selling bananas in vibandas. Others from Nyakemincha walk around pulling mkokotenis and selling salty sugar cane from Gesusu.
Those who have spent part of their lives in Kisii town walk around in buses preaching the gospel they were taught at Nyamira Seventh Day Adventist. They also make for very smooth-tongued con artists!

5. Murumes from ‘leafy’ suburbs

See Also: Nairobi kuna mambo: How Luthuli Avenue traders will change their story to con you

When in need for some leafy stimulation from alele, kangeta, asili, giza or mogoka, look no further than a kibanda where a Murume will most likely call you with choice words, while listening to ‘lenge’ (reggae) music that glorifies ‘njah lasta fala’ (Jah Rastafari).
Gatwiriis have an untamable love for onywaji and most are waitresses. They have no qualms giving kichapo to those who skive with ‘mbills’ (bills).

6. The Mwashumbes, Mwakideus

If you want tasty tasting mahamri, samosa and mshikaki, the Mwashumbes are the people you are looking for, and their eloquence in Kiswahili will have you buying more than you need.
They spend lot of time visiting one another. Their good Kiswahili has opened doors for many of them in media where they rule FM stations.

7. Aiyee! Walalo

They operate shops, mostly in ‘Little Mogadishu’ (Eastleigh) where they provide employment to the ‘Baengele’ besides promoting Murumes via chewing veve in bulk.
Most are also in Kiamaiko market, where they transport choice goats for slaughter to their Borana brothers. 

8 Wakanesas

They are of great help to Nairobians, carrying luggage for travellers in town in addition to operating handcarts. Despite their wiry frames, they also make for efficient mjengo and kibarua guys.

9 Kip-somethings

They are professional security officers in the police force when not working for a parastatal or as bank tellers. They never live in slums and neither will you find them working as hawkers, at least not in Nairobi. In Eldoret, they are newspaper vendors.

10 The ‘Ndawuos’

They sell herbal paraphernalia in jerrycans, twig ‘tooth brushes,’ akalas and other leather products like wallets, sandals, Maasai belts and rungus.
They also beef up security in the estate where they are known to be fearless in the face of danger and have no mashida mingi clubbing thieves to a pulp!

Yap, Kenyan urban humour!

[jakaswanga]

CONTINUED BLUES

So there we were, our latest samsung (Galaxy-S series) megapixels doing justice to our expressions, whatever the distance. Thus did they my Spartan act commend as I conceded, faced with the data. But just for the last moment, fighting against hope, like clutching at straws, I beseeched them to give me a sign, if it was the quality of my mpando-wa-kando addicted ICT experts which had done me in, outsmarted at every algorithmic twist by better Gikuyu whizzkids!

Then did they grin, and propose a deal. If I made it worth their time. –-Like in that Lucky Dube Song (they wanna hear me cry … Mayo Mayo Mayooo! together as one I am a patriot), they would tell me a Gikuyu story, behold, about a man named Lwanda Magere. He apparently was ubeatable, ubwogable, he was rock solid, until the equivalent of Hellene of Troy entered the game and he melted. And the rest became history.

Hmmm, i love that kind of tale. I would drop my Spartan mask for it! I gave them what they wanted to see!

They wanted to see the hollow grooves below my eyes, courtesy of the hot tears of sorrow which burnt down my cheeks, grieving the Odinga loss.
They wanted to enjoy my swollen eye lids, tortured from the sleeplessness of the endless squinting at unforgiving fluorescent screens.
They wanted to amaze at my torn lips, bitten in half as every result portended a massacre at the ballot box, or the computer vaults at the tallying centre.
They wanted to hear my Luo legal whine, claiming once again Gikuyu wit at pragmatics –--murder, had stopped Luo hubris dead on its tracks.

They wanted to see me wince and writhe like a pinned centipede, explaining how a Luo ICT expert with the secret codes which could dissolve the Kenyatta dynastic run, was romping around town with ndogondogos as if he were King Kok, and death-proof! (they assured me it made many a Kikuyu day in bars; and there are cheeky songs about it already; a Kerher prick ending up dead in a bush smoking his dick after dipping it in a Mumbi chick!)

That one Felt like the fox tore a piece off my heart, but I remained Spartan.

They reminded me to go figure. Muthamaki Kajomo had derided The Enigma with contempt: 'kila wakati huyu mtu kulialia ameibiwa kura ya uraisi; si yeye pia aibe ashinde!' You could hear the campaigning president saying KUMBAFF silently to punctuate the jest. (#remember: ''Hey, Kaggia, what have you done for yourself lately? Paul Ngei is now a millionaire I hear, and so and so has so many farms! How about you? Mr. NothingDoing!')

They wanted to hear me assert a foolish claim, that the combined punching power of the trio Musalia Mudavadi, WetaMos and Kalonzo Musyoka, can be worth anything more than a feeble cough at a marauding Hustler Singh, running amok rustling their livestock and homesteads at will!

Etc etc

The wanna hear me sing TOGETHER AS ONE! We move on!

I am a Duuuuuuuuubbi!

POST SCRIPT

A few weeks before the election, my Gikuyu solicitor was kidding me about the mentality of his Mount Kenya political class. Treachery he said, while cutting to pieces a Ruto paper effigy to what sounded like Voodoo animations, was their life blood. 'It is Odinga who insisted no Kenyatta no Uhuru', he winked at me.
I nodded. And frowned, the chants.
'Those are not voodoo chants, comrade, those are the oathing incantations my father in law sings as lullabies to my children. They are a variation of the oathing hymns he took in Kiambu forest in mid 1960s, when KPU was formed and there was a threat of Nyeri uniting with Nyanza to uproot Kiambu!'

'Oops'! I squealed, 'endelea baba, MV Mapenzi by DDC!'

'It is Odinga who insisted Kibaki Tosha, no!?' He frowned again.
Again I Uh Huhd. My eyes wider.
'You know the joke around our many FM stations?' he licked his lips.
'No, I don't speak the divine language that well!' I shook my head.
I will tell you tomorrow –--I will let you work on your Uhuru Tosha speech for Raila tomorrow well, a variation of it! Damn these batteries are not as smart as our software on this Samsung things!''

continued.

[jakaswanga]

THE JESUS JOKE BY THOSE WHO SPECIALISE IN TREACHERY

'Oops'! I squealed, 'endelea baba, MV Mapenzi by DDC!'

'It is Odinga who insisted Kibaki Tosha, no!?' He frowned again.
Again I Uh Huhd. My eyes wider.
'You know the joke around our many FM stations?' he licked his lips.
'No, I don't speak the divine language that well!' I shook my head.
I will tell you tomorrow –--I will let you work on your Uhuru Tosha speech for Raila tomorrow well, a variation of it! Damn these batteries are not as smart as our software on this Samsung things!''

Read more: jukwaa.proboards.com/post/new/9577#ixzz4pkQckPbG

I listened to my solicitor. His demeanour was troubled by dark clouds he already percieved on the horizon: The succession constellation. Stars like Governor Mutua of Machakos in his re-election acceptance speech, moved quickly to the next election. In one swift sentence he focused the attention of the nation on the still wet corpses. ---Kalonzo is buried he said. If not dead, then buried alive.

Even if Dr. Alfred is only a masterful propagandist skilled at at hot air blows, his shot across the bow made many an ambitious fella duck, to ponder the chessboard, or the stars, depending on ones inclination.

My main man shared his thoughts:

'Jesus was a kind man who always turned the other cheek. The gentlest of hearts. That is why his Kingdom will come, but in heaven, not here on Earth, where it is Hammurabi. Planet Earth is no place for gentle hearts in power. This is why we have never been more scared.

'You see William Kipchirchir is not a statesman type like your high-minded Joshua, the perenial looser. Your Joshua is the ever-turner of the other cheek for us to smash them all! but the Singh, like Moi the senior when he became of age, we fear, is a vengeful pastoral Kalenjin. He was with you Fishermen in that PENTAGON sh!thole. There you uncut boys humiliated him out, whereupon his punchback has stunned your pet hero, Joshua, two elections in a row now. If –---God forbid!---- we betray him (too) in 2022 after he has Toshad Ouru twice to the top, woe be upon the House of Mumbi, since his vengeance against Mount Kenya folk in the rift will be Biblical! On the other hand, if we fail to betray him, and instead facilitate his crowning as the Bananaland Emperor, we dread his presidency will be payback, since, unforgiving in infantile vendetta, unstatesmanlike as is his predisposition, he will remember it was Gikuyu securocrats who betrayed him to the Ocampo ICC and nearly ruined his career. That one about blaming Raila for it was of course a Goebellian SUPER LIE --so outrageous it shocked folks into belief!

''Men who would lie that big for power, you know very well your folly to trust them! This is where Gideon Moi comes in. '

–--'Eh!' I interjected. 'Like father like son. You Mumbi's once underestimated Arap Moi. You called him the passing cloud. Then it became a monster and stuck a quarter century long! And were it not for Joshua's selflessness, who knows!? It is a dangerous gamble!'

'GM is the soft compromise. Gideon. We are not changing the winning team. The tyranny of Kalenjin and GEMA numbers must continue to produce the DICTATOR of Kenya and his majoritarian senate and Mpigsty. Gideon has no grudge against us. Mzee Kibaki let his father keep all his loot, and he wont mind doing a number on the man who dispatched his father from the Kalenjin chieftaincy, and nearly cut down the fledging dynasty. He is a natural ally of the Mumbi Muthamaki, a safer gamble as a safer pair of hands than the upstart and kill-all vengeful Baba Anna!

'You Luos are meanwhile grief-stricken widows. Yours is to continue frothing inside the black veil, –—Ai Ai Wololo Mayoo, exercising your poverty-stricken arms throwing stones for a day or two, until the adrenaline subsides and hunger sets in, and you go knocking Jubilee doors, not to loot, but to supplicate for jobs ----O odd jobs if any! In the main, disoriented, as those whom you thought were allies abandon you, you willing forlornly accept comfort from any quarters offering bread, which means you are ripe for those inheritor rapists you told us are called 'terrorists!'

'The House of Mumbi might even come for you in full. After all, The Muthamaki –-His name be spoken with awe, has given you a lifeline called Rapho; and that phat babe Omamo, if I were you, I would put her to very maximum, Kaliech use! A bird at hand, there a saying about it and the bush!'

POST SCRIPT

NB: HABEMUS CEASAR!
Wafula Chebukati and his clerical band of challenged tellers did really keep us waiting. But they were good natured to a fault, wow, they occasionally put up acts of stunning naiveté. It made them have something of the endearing innocence of a wobbly but lovely child. Such can be excused all cheek and evil. But finally it was an anti-climax. The wait had been so long that when it finally came, it was a sleepy affair. The adrenaline had dipped. Chebukati himself nearly fell asleep reading the presidential counts in all 47 counties, full names and all those tongue-twisting Kenyan pentasyllables. A fellow commissioner, Roselyne Akombe, had to repeatedly pour cold water on the Bukusu face to keep him stiff on his feet.
Even at the last moment when he began... 'by the powers conferred upon me I hereby declare' ...
and people started clapping, he had to exasperatedly warn he had not finished his sentence yet. How the hell do you know who I'm going to declare President? he snarled jokingly, his face a surprise as if his teleprompter was flashing the name of William Ruto as the duly elected Prezzo!

Finally he got it done with! And we had a president. A continuation.

Lets get this thing done with. The congratulations!

And the court cases!?

Well

[jakaswanga]

THE OTHER VISION OF CANAAN, EVOLVING

FROM THE EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE TO THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA, TO NDII'S FILING FOR DIVORCE


It has been quite a ride. The rough and tumble over the past 200 years which has resulted in today's 2nd republic of Kenya.

Since that year, 1885 in Berlin, when the borders were drawn, there have been many tinkerings with the model, many panel-beatings and upgrades, and also revisions and reconditionings, all which mean the pre- and post-colonial forms of state are ever a work in progress. –--Men at work, in line with the patriarchal pilarity of modern capitalism in all its savagery.

Unearthing the dynamics of this stormy voyage through history will help us better put Dr. David Ndii's latest 'modernization attempt' in perspective. Ndii says it is time for curtains on One Kenya. It is so broke it can't fix without a period of living apart together. ---D-AMN, he has once again spooked the country, and worse, given our laziness, it is a perfect fit into the Raila-Kenyatta ongoing stand-off.

That is guaranteed to evoke some vitriolic responses, heavy on hysteria, light on content. Either way I am game.

ONCE UPON A TIME THE WHITEMAN CAME


Well, we all have a rough idea of how it all started. The consequences of the industrial revolution in far lands.

(Hidden here is an exposure on Otto von Bismark's imperial imperative to host the infamous 1884-1885 Berlin conference).

But in a bird's eye-view, this is what we saw. Speke and Grant, Speke and Burton, Rebman and Kraft, Dr. David Livingstone I presume …...

The explorers came first.

Our primary textbooks overlow with their exploits, their civilizing missionaric or financial zeal, preludes to mass extermination. Also, to a lesser extent, we heard tell in school of the petty jealousies of the early European explorers who came to map the region, find fortune and fame, feel free to indulge their evil selves and, patriotic cover granted, lay claim of the lands for their Queens, Kings, Gods and sponsoring societies.

These explorations needed loads of cash, apart from the physical bravery and adventurous spirit.

We also know the language and the mentality of the era –---the Europeans discovered this and that. And in their social Darwinism, never mind Sidi Mubarak Bombay and Kabuki Supeke taking charge of the expeditions as tropical ailments disabled the whites, the explorers considered the natives savages better banded together with the wildebeests roaming the Savannah. So we learn the Europeans discovered mount Kenya (Kirinyaga), Lake Victoria (Sango/Nalubaale/Nam Lolue), Lake Tanganyika, the Indian Ocean and hard-core sex. They also discovered the Luo removed six lower teeth for the express purpose of expelling bones from fish which they swallowed whole in copious amounts; the Kikuyu kept women and goats and used the two words interchangeably; the Masai kept cattle, ate puszy, drank elephant milk, and boasted hooded cocks whose reasons for the design, needed to be kept secret from European women back at home. In deed –-----(it would take close to a century, howbeit, before this intel permeated the European fairer sex, infesting them with foaming anti-christian curiosity, leading to wave after wave of white puszy invasion unto Maasailand. To this day the sturdy morans are still hard pressed to put down this plague of raging fantasy. There are no more lions for the Masai to kill to come of age, the Chinese railway builders poached all of them, so the pacification of marauding tourist puszy has become a welcome rite of passage for young morans, some of them mimics from neighboring tribes since business is good. It is an industry whose economic benefits to Kenya the CBK governors have praised: the Masai c.ock is the goose which lays the golden egg, the unflinching resolve which keeps the foreign currency reserves at levels which buttress the ever nervous shilling.)


As I hinted, less known is the love of these early explorers, missionary or not, for black women. John Hanning Speke for instance fell in love with his consort or mango, a lolita named Meri. She didn't fall for him, but put her heart to facking his brains out. She recognized in him a hot-blooded journeyman seeking console puszy but unable to recognize prostitution while he participated in it. Speke was even a bit of a pimp, for he procured choice women for select members of his entourage to cement their loyalty and bonding. So Meri didn't lose sight of the transactional nature of the affair: he rewarded good, he was rich, it was maximum sex for maximum goods: an exemplary quid pro-quo.

Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Great Victorian Adventure will include previously unpublished accounts of Speke's unrequited love for an 18-year-old African woman called Méri – his "beautiful Venus". He was dismayed by her unsentimental honesty in telling him that her reason for being with him was so that she "might die in the favours of a rich man". He wrote of his parting gifts to her: "A black blanket as a sign of mourning that I never could win her heart… a packet of tobacco in proof of my forgiveness, though she had almost broken my heart; [but] I only hoped she might live a life of happiness with people of her own colour as she did not like me because she did not know my language to understand me."

Companion Richard Burton would never forgive him for such amorous indiscretions with savages.

Anyway, published or not in Europe, Africa too has her oral and genetic records, and if one cares enough to wander the villages in the jungle, they will chance upon descendants of even David Livingstone. He never married and was a monk of 100% celibacy? That is just one version I tell ya. Remember William Ruto breaking down in Church after in 2013. He declared God had made him and Uhuru Kenyatta, presidents of Kenya. Another version is from the loosing side: vifaranga vya compiuta!

So too it is with David Livingston's sex life, or any other mighty explorer of the African bush and hinterland.

But I digress.

After the explorers reported the vast wealths to be had for a picking, came the greedy traders –---colonialism was always a commercial venture, an economic dynamic. This is where we find the CONCESSIONS to companies like the legendary Imperial British East African Company, IBEACO, 1888 Mombasa. William Mackinon, the CEO, was an entrepreneur of global scale, a kind of EXXONMOBIL of his time. He was the proprietor of the British India Steam Navigation Company, 1856, which expanded to monoplise trade around all ports from the Far East, the Indian Ocean, The Gulf and the African Coast. He was therefore deemed well-matched to spearhead the British thrust into East Africa. incorporation into exploitation for profit –--This story is important because, currently, Donald Trump in his back to Afghanistan policy, is outsourcing the American influence in Afghanistan to private profiteers, military contractors, and other such non-nation building entrepreneurs.

But it was not to be.

Administering East Africa as a private fiefdom proved beyond Mackinon and his for-profit company. The natives proved a troublesome, very costly lot to deal with. Some, (like the Buganda and Batoro) were even organized into Kingdoms like Far-away England, and insisted on state relations and exchange of accredited diplomats from whoever ruled the land the company men came from. IBEACO had to go to war, enter local politics beyond their competence, and that was a route to bankruptcy.

Even today, the USA is the greatest war machine on Earth, but it is an expensive affair. Check the debt of the USA. And what stage of her population are actually in the soup-line! War, even for super powers, does not come cheap.

This financial problem was finally resolved in 1895 when the British government made Uganda a protectorate and paid the (IBEA) company £250,000 to surrender its charter to the area that is now Kenya. The East Africa Protectorate was then proclaimed, with Sir Arthur Hardinge as the first commissioner.

All this time, far off Zanzibar remained the 'local administrative capital' of the East African protectorate! But by 1904 Nairobi had effectively taken over. Somewhere along Mombasa and Machakos would serve for short durations. But that is a story for another day.

To all practical purposes, the Sultan of Zanzibar –--who all this time had, according to a treaty, retained a 20-mile coastal stretch as his dominion, was of course out of the game. By 1890 Zanzibar itself was a British protectorate, and in 1896 the British had enthroned, after the famous 36 minute war, their favorite puppet on the sultanate, Hamoud bin Mohammed. And soon after the Berlin conference of 1884, the British and Germans had secretly signd an MOU to divide up the continental possessions of the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Zanzibar had long ceased to be relevant to the future of the East African protectorate.

ENTER LORD DALAMERE

In 1897, Lord Dalemere arrived in Kenya. And this is significant. Because he would be a pioneer of sorts, (LARGE SCALE PLANTATION AGRICULTURE, labour intensive). Also he would be a politically dynamic man full of the future, though in this case he was quite a man of his time, for the future he was full of was exclusively that of the white settlers. The natives were irrelevant appendages. That makes him like an another IBEACO executive, only leaner, and pledged to stay the hard ride.

Meanwhile, after the purchase from IBEACO, the territory later to be'Kenya' vacillated in control between the foreign office and colonial office, both offices far away in London. It was the establishment of a powerful commercial, white-settler driven large-scale agricultural operation in the protectorate which decided the issue of wherefrom the protectorate would be run. COLONIAL OFFICE.

It was also this economic fact (commercial agriculture) which forced the capital to shift from Mombasa to the interior (1905), near the Highlands which, under Delamere's aggressive lobbying, was now the Whiteman's exlusive settler Highlands, and doing roaring business! to the cost of the natives!

THE GIKUYU NATIVES?

By law, these were now banned from owning land, the very land their ancestors had bequeathed them. Such a situation needs a hard man to enforce. A military man of sorts. DEDICATED LOOTENANT! ---And in deed it was a military man, Lt colonel Jay Hayes Saddler who was appointed first governor in 1906, with the first semblances of full local administration put into place.

There was the so-called ORDER IN COUNCIL WARRANT.

An Order in Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the Queen by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (Queen-in-Council), but in other countries the terminology may vary. The term should not be confused with Order of Council, which is made in the name of the Council without royal assent.

This provided a constitutional framework for the governor plus both legislative and executive councils. --lo, The trappings of a modern bourgeoisie state, of the separation of powers.


That is Kenya 1906, and of course the historical parallel beggars, that with the new constitution promulgated in 2010, with DEVOLUTION as the flag post of the second liberation, there is a governor near you, with all the trappings of that ORDER IN COUNCIL of 1906 English parliament.

Better late than never, I always learnt to say!

By 1920 there was another landmark in the evolution of the East African protectorate, now fully a royal dominion –---the governor was a civil servant of the colonial office in London. In 1920, another ORDER IN COUNCIL constituted the East African protectorate as BRITISH CROWN COLONY of Kenya, annexing all that area except the 20 mile coastal strip known as the protectorate of Kenya. This was in theory under the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

A crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony and since 2002 known as a British Overseas Territory, was a type of colonial administration of the overseas territories of the British Empire. Crown, or royal, colonies were ruled by a governor appointed by the monarch. By the middle of the 19th century, the sovereign appointed royal governors on the advice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies

These details are no small matter, since ideologues of the Swahili secession movement, from which later groups as the Mombasa republican movement (MRC) would refer, have used the exclusion of this coastal strip from the ORDERIN COUNCIL document which certified Kenya an official British Crown Colony, to make hard their legal case for separation.

Of course the annexation of the British protectorate into a full-scale colony in 1920, would just be the start of an extensive period of African awakening and agitation of Afro Kenyan nationalism. This African Kenyan nationalism, by the time it won independence in 1963, wasn't interestedd in tales of council in orders which gave the coastals their exclusivity, or other colonial deals which promised inhabitants of the Northern Frontier District, read Somalis, a referendum on where they wanted to belong!

NB: There is a phrase known as creating new facts on the ground which then annul old agreements. A good international example is the 1948 UN document on the establishment of the state of Israel. There is a near 50/50 division of land territory. Then came a war, and more wars, some of them 6 days only, and, as they say, history is written by the victors or, victory creates new facts on the ground, basta went old agreements. But in human history, new facts created on the ground can, –---- in the case of a peoples fighting for their national determination, yet distanced from both their land and aspirations, subjugated and opressed by a power however almighty, ------- be the continuity of an intractable problem, only now more vicious.

What the post-colonial elite now offer the coastals who may still wish for their own separate political entity more far-reaching in autonomy than what is on offer by the governorships, is what the American state offers the native Americans. Marginalised life in a reserve, or assimilation into the mainstream. And into this steady as she goes sails the ship, comes David Ndii with his mutinous conch! Abandon ship, it is limp stricken.

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION.

All history is that of the oppressor and oppressed, said Marx and Engels in the communist manifesto. But in a modern era, the duo insisted, it is between capital and labour. And that this is the motive of modern history.

I think it is a good national exercisise to investigate, if the JUBILLE-NASA antagonism is merely a disguise form, a masquerade or confusions form in which the contradiction between capital and labour now manifests itself, temporarily, an animation, a virtual simulation sort of.

The dominance of the emergent nationalist discourse, unrecognizable dubbed tribalism, is also the dominance of the petit liberalism ideology of the local comprador. The bandit bourgeoisie appear on the historical stage in a role of leadership to fulfill a mission beyond their capabilities. The mission of national liberation, which, in this materialist critique, is the revolutionisation of the productive forces toward maturity. The petit bourgeoisie, inadequate in this historical task, can only get the people behind them by engaging in an ideological regime which denies the differentiality of the nation, denies the irreconcilability of certain contradictions within the neo-colonial framework which they are a facilitatory quisling to. Such an ideology will be a kind of fascism, a radical totalitarian nationalism which mobilizes emotion behind ONE DIVINE LEADER, King, Muthamaki, Ker Madit, or some other such paramount invested with the holy Spiritus of a people. ---This is One nation, one destiny, under one man. This subsumes all fundamental contradictions within.

That is an absolute negation of class consciousness.

It is also a siege mentality, wherefore healthy dissenters are mad, treasonable excreta, excommunicated. The petit bourgeoisie answer to the neo-colonial crisis is thus fascitoid escalation, as it were, xenophonic and exclusive ..... the tribe votes to a woman behind thier man.

The real answer to Dr. Ndii's pitch for divorce, methinks, lies in the articulation of an alternative vision of the post-colonial state. An alternative form of organization, and I will propose it has to be labour oriented. This brings me back to the role of labour in the shaping of the anti-colonial struggle, and why it was the TRADE UNIONISTS who ruled the day. –--Arap Moi was a teachers representative in the begin. So was Chege Kibichu, Tom Mboya, Kaggiah, Fred Kubai, and the other big names who, to the dotcom generation, intoxicated with identity obscurantism, denote only 'tribal lineage'! And so the ball rolls into the court of Francis Atwoli, Wilson Session, Akello Misori, Ouma Olga, Seth Pancake, Muga Kolale …. And the rest of the men in organized labour. Labour goes by trades. A clear alternative organisational form to KANU-esque madness.

The future of Kenya, I propose, is outside the realm of the current political parties, even as they register between them 92% electoral turn-out. They are settler-ideology party incarnates. They are inheritors and purveyors of the colonial order. They cater for the interests of the minority, parasitic elite, while the mass of the people are in squalor and the cities, mostly sewebelt swamps.

Consider David Nd ii's divorce option, an inarticulate vision like the DEVONSHIRE WHITE PAPER revisited. It Recognizes the inevitability of a state responding to the needs of the majority, but knows not how to rise above its time. Otherwise, divorce is as good as a rest in domestics, before the cycle starts to repeat itself within a new union!

But let us not tell stupid horror stories of Armageddon on the mitosis of Kenya! Why not Free at last as a battle cry? It all lies in our hands.

THE DEVONSHIRE WHITE PAPER

[jakaswanga]

PERSPECTIVES: The Devonshire white paper

1923: Ati Kenya is an African country and the interest of the native must be paramount.

That is it, the thrust and import of the Devonshire thingy.

A “White Paper” is an authoritative document or guide that informs readers concisely of a complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter.

Its purpose is to help readers/actors understand an issue, solve a problem or make a decision.

The Devonshire White Paper was a document written in 1923 by the Colonial Secretary, Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, regarding the status of settlers (of all races) and natives in the Colony of Kenya.

Right. Below is more detail of this curiosity.

‘Kenya is an African country and the interest of the natives must be paramount’.

The genesis of the Devonshire White Paper lies in the Legislative Council (LEGICO), which was established in 1907. The LEGICO consisted of three official members (civil servants) and three non-official members who were settlers nominated by the governor to represent white settler interests.

These settlers, who were led by Lord Delamere, started to demand for elected representatives, quoting one of the foremost canons of taxation; “no taxation without representation.”

Needless to say, such demands did not include the rights of Indians or Africans.

Nonetheless, the settlers’ demands bore fruit in 1916when they were allowed to elect their representatives who sat on the unofficial (opposition) side of the LEGICO. In 1919, Governor Northey appointed some settlers on the Executive Council in recognition of their contribution during World War 1.

In the meantime, the Indian community was disgruntled about being sidelined while benefits were being dished out to white settlers in the political and economic arena. Many Indians were in the colony by virtue of having built the Uganda Railway. They had stayed behind after completion of the railway line in the hope of making their fortunes in the rapidly growing retail business sector. In the event, they began to demand for representation on the Legco. In response, the colonial government allocated three nominated seats (two Indian, one Arab) to sit on the unofficial side of Legco in 1911.

Some of the demands by Indians included being allowed to purchase land in the White Highlands, denied to them by the “Eldgin Pledge” of 1908, which assured Europeans that they would be the only ones who could own land in the Kenya Highlands.

The Indians also pressed for relaxation of immigration rules to allow more Indians to come to Kenya, which the settlers strongly rejected, as they were already outnumbered by Indians.

Other events happening, concomitantly, in southern Africa only helped to embolden the settler community in Kenya in their quest for supremacy. The Union of South Africa came into being in 1910, giving the Boers self-government and overlooking the Africans in that country. In 1923, the white British settlers in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) were granted self-government, again ignoring the rights of Africans.

Following suit, a delegation of white settlers was despatched to London in 1923 to meet with the Colonial Secretary to demand, amongst other things, self-government under minority rule. They also demanded that the migration of Indians to Kenya be stopped forthwith. When the Indians caught wind of this strategy, they also sent their own delegation demanding their rights outlined here earlier. In addition, the missionaries who were sympathetic to African interests sent a Dr Arthur to be an observer in the London talks.

In an unusual show of restraint and fairness, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Devonshire, dismissed the settlers demand for self-government stating in a landmark ruling:
“Primarily, Kenya is an African territory, and His Majesty’s Government think it necessary definitely to record their considered opinion that the interests of the African natives must be paramount and that if, and when, those interests and the interests of the immigrant races should conflict, the former should prevail. Obviously, the interests of the other communities, Europeans, Indians and Arabs, must be severally safeguarded. But, in the administration of Kenya, His Majesty’s Government regard themselves as exercising a trust on behalf of the African population, and they are unable to delegate or share this trust, the object of which may be defined as the protection and advancement of the native races.”

The Devonshire White Paper was a milestone for African interests as it provided proof of the British Government’s commitment to its “dual policy” towards the Africans on the one hand, and migrant races on the other. However, grand as it may have sounded, the impact of the paper was not felt immediately, but many positive changes regarding the welfare of Africans were slowly put in place.

The Phelps-Stoke commission of 1924 brought into being technical schools for Africans, like the Native Industrial Training Depot (NITD) in Kabete. African interests were represented by Dr Arthur in the Legco from 1924 eventually being represented by the first African Eliud Mathu in 1944. The Indians were denied the right to buy land in the White Highlands, but immigration was not stopped and they gained five more slots in Legco.

This paper served as a guiding light for future governors to heed the aspirations of London regarding the natives of Kenya. It saved Africans in Kenya from going down the painful route of South Africa and Rhodesia.

It saved us from the PAINFUL route of .....? eh, author thinks Mau Mau was a walk in the park!

Anyway I find this Devonshire thingy an important flash. Obvious is the point --the primacy of African interests in their own land, yet so far ahead of its time, the white paper is dark and ominous. –---Things like Mau Mau still lie ahead. Things like Daniel Arap Moi for 25 years too! And PEV 1 after Kibaki's theft of the national dream!

In other words, I will be developing a narrative branding the present ruling elite of Kenya as non-representative of the aspirations and the will of the majority natives, even as the politicians point to their electoral largesse and African authenticity.

Remember how a drunken Ouru Kenyatta and a lame thinking Ruto Singh thundered at Judge Maraga and his gang of four: 'who is these thugs to overturn the will of 10M Kenyans!? Wait until we win again, we will fix them! --wakorofi wa kununuliwa!'

Still I say, Gluttonous Mpigs and their party leaders who are products of rigged elections don't have the legitimacy to awe me. Thieves who have confined Kenya to the damned quarter of the most corrupt nations on Earth, don't impress me with protestations of patriotism, honour nor worth, nor oath of office. They are worms distending the –--public wage--- belly of a land, pilfering her scarce budget; they are jiggers infesting the feet of the land, making her a straggler on the industrialisation circuit. They are settlers perched at the top of the social pyramid, sucking off the land's cream and oppressing the mass with large scale squalor and intense impoverishment.

I have a pretty concrete idea of how the 2nd liberation 'Devonshire White paper' should read: The Kenyan state shall respond as a priority to the material needs of the masses; the government shall institute policies economically favourable to the producers of wealth, farmers and workers.

(But refer: during the short life of the second liberation, Anyang' Nyong'o sacked all doctors; Hellene Wasilwa jailed doctor union leaders; Kazungu Kambi (on behalf of Uhuruto) wanted to confiscate the KNUT building in Nairobi as part of a stratagem to destroy the teachers Union; Striking Nurses have been fired 3 times over by old and new governors alike; and God knows what ills have befallen produces in the agrarian sector. Then there are the rigged elections which are a blatant betrayal of the peoples will.

That, is a settler regime which becries a WHITE PAPER. Lest the nation open a red chapter.

In 1923, the (Kenya crown) colony was more or less the private property of the Queen of England. Her Majesty and Royal Highness, as supreme landlord, then leased this tract of her land to chosen white tenants, aka settler lords, who then proceeded on her behalf to run Kenya as their private property, if not fiefdom. Later some would claim God gave the vast tracts to them, that it was previously uninhabited, the most fertile portions waiting to be the whiteman's highlands!

In this period, African interests –--if any--- are not on the table, any table, let alone the big political table at the LEGICO. The battle is apparently/ostensibly between the two POLITICALLY/INSTITUTIONALLY dominant groups, both immigrants: the whites and the Indians plus a bit Arab. It is a capitalist exploitative system, but it is also a colour hierarchy, a skin colour caste system. –--Capitalism is manifesting itself as a tyranny of skin colour, race.

Remember, for all those obfuscations, the economic system is large scale commercial agriculture, and it is based on backbone-breaking coerced African labour. The land has been acquired for free, the labour to work it too, more or less free. Africans are also severely taxed to generate funds to subsidise the farmers on crop failure; and, in addition, the Africans are banned from engaging in economic activities which, in anyway, bring them into competition with the settlers and Indians. This surely is a great formula for accumulation while it lasts!

It was a set-up which gave the perceptive Lord Devonshire the creeps. He was seeing storms at the horizon approaching, mighty storms many within the elite classes were oblivious to. He felt his hand forced to mutter his misgivings. And Holy Sh!t it was something!

In an unusual show of restraint and fairness, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Devonshire, dismissed the settlers demand for self-government stating in a landmark ruling:

“Primarily, Kenya is an African territory, and His Majesty’s Government think it necessary definitely to record their considered opinion that the interests of the African natives must be paramount and that if, and when, those interests and the interests of the immigrant races should conflict, the former should prevail.

Today, who are the rulers to whom the LEGICO, Parliament and Senate, is a kindergarten fiesta? Are NASA and JUBILEE Mpigs, drunk with their invisibility, behaving like the Indians and White settlers of yonder, demanding their supreme minority government (NO NUSU-MKATE), while oblivious to the suffering masses whom –---(the politicians think, through the gimmick of periodic farcical elections)----- they have under lock and key!?

Today, many decades after the large scale colonial agriculture has evolved to other things, how does modern capitalism in Kenya express itself?

How does it insidiously define the African groups to be excluded from social power? excluded from gainful education, excluded (regardless of talent) from highways to the top!? How does the 'caste system' work today, manifest itself daily!?

How do we decide which Wretches and Poor Dears be confined to the sh!tbelts and polluted swamps –------the city reserves now called slums!?
What exclusive codes of belonging does the current elite use to pact their people to give them legitimacy, like in elections? (ethnicity is obviously one of them; how about Moses Kuria's curious obsession, foreskin of the male lid? how about religion?
How for instance, are the Ogieks treated in their native Rift Valley?) The Who!?

Many Kenyans of course never heard of the Ogieks!

Time for a 2ND LIBERATION DEVONSHIRE WHITE PAPER

In case you forgot, dear reader:

A “White Paper” is an authoritative document or guide that informs readers concisely of a complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter.

Its purpose is to help readers/actors understand an issue, solve a problem or make a decision.

The (ORIGINAL KENYA) Devonshire White Paper was a document written in 1923 by the Colonial Secretary, Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, regarding the status of settlers (of all races) and natives in the Colony of Kenya

No, today I am not thinking about Dr. David Ndii and his white papers scribled with tidings of divorce! Not that kind of white paper please, since the bandit or settler-ideology bourgeoisie are historically late, whether they captain the Unitary republic of Kenya or the Peoples Republic of Kenya; whether they lead the GEMA republic, Federal Rift Valley republic, Luhyalandia, or the Kavirondo confederation!
Ooyo,
Bandits are bandits, there is no point divorcing one bandit only to marry another bandit!

[jakaswanga]

THE PLUTOCRATIC, FEUDAL CAPITALISM OF KENYA

Some observations on the road to Canaan!

Let us endeavour to answer WHO apparently 'OWNS' KENYA NOW. This so that a clear white paper can emerge.

–--There is a historical parallel in the wings, devonshire stuff!

In an unusual show of restraint and fairness, the Colonial Secretary, Lord Devonshire, dismissed the settlers demand for self-government stating in a landmark ruling:

“Primarily, Kenya is an African territory, and His Majesty’s Government think it necessary definitely to record their considered opinion that the interests of the African natives must be paramount and that if, and when, those interests and the interests of the immigrant races should conflict, the former should prevail.

Today, who are the real power brokers to whom the LEGICO, Parliament and Senate, are a kindergarten nuisance? Are NASA and JUBILEE Mpigs, drunk with their invisibility, behaving like the Indians and White settlers of yonder, subjects of the crown in feudal bondage, yet, childishly unconscious, demanding their supreme minority government (NO NUSU-MKATE), while oblivious to the suffering masses whom –---(the politicians think, through the gimmick of periodic farcical elections)----- they have under lock and key!?

Today, many decades after the large scale colonial agriculture has evolved to other things, how does modern capitalism in Kenya express itself?

How does it insidiously define the African groups to be excluded from social power? excluded from gainful education, excluded (regardless of talent) from highways to the top!? How does the 'caste system' work today, manifest itself daily!?

How do we decide which Wretches and Poor Dears be confined to the sh!tbelts and polluted swamps –------the city reserves now called slums!?
What exclusive codes of belonging does the current elite use to pact their people to give them legitimacy, like in elections? (ethnicity is obviously one of them; how about Moses Kuria's curious obsession, foreskin of the male lid? how about religion?
How for instance, are the Ogieks treated in their native Rift Valley?) The Who!?

Read more: jukwaa.proboards.com/posts/recent#ixzz4sBHqW3oE ....

And that linear, sharp-gradient graph of indebtedness to China, what volumes does it speak, now that power issues from the strings of the purse?

NB: (Revisit the confessions before parliament of the former Transport CS, the recently acquitted engineer Joseph Kariuki s/o Immaculata, on why we set aside all our procurement rules to 100% accommodate the Chinese financiers of the SGR, incidentally now the Jubilee flagpost project!)

But we continue to

CONSOLIDATION OFTHE KENYAN CAPITALIST STATE, NECESSARILY A PLUTOCRACY?

Why does the Kenyan ECONOMIC ELITE have to underwrite RIGGING of elections, the way they recently did, when Chebukati's IEBC sh!itted all over itself!?

–--Of course I am referring to former Obama secretary of state, the mercenary John Kerry and cohorts, as the chief spokesman of RIGGING IS GOOD, let us move on!

Why does he do it!? (also underwrite the HRC clan rigging out Bernie Sanders during the DP primaries!?)
But first, locals.

Kenya is the largest economy in the East African Community, with a gross domestic product of US$45.31 billion in 2013. Two recent studies into fortunes of Kenyans have identified a small circle of the richest individuals who control the bulk of the country’s wealth.

The names listed here have featured top in a survey by London-based firm New World Wealth and also on Forbes.
Although the bulk of the wealth is controlled by just a few, another report from the Central Bank of Kenya indicates that the number of Kenyans who have Ksh 100,000 or more in their accounts stood at 1.1 million.

That is a measure of the political independence gained.
So who is in the money?
Let us try open sources.

WHO IS WHO IN THE MONEY HIERARCHY

Number 1: Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah is said to be the richest man in Kenya at the moment. He is consumer goods maker and Bidco’s chief executive officer.
While Forbes estimates that Shah is worth a conservative figure of Ksh 68 billion, New World Wealth put it at a staggering Ksh 144 billion.

Number 2: Naushad Merali

Merali is the founder of the Sameer Group that deals in construction, agriculture, property, IT and finance. Forbes estimates that he is worth KSh 53 billion. Half of that amount, according to the Kenya budget 2015/2016 can modernise military and police equipment, lease police and prisons vehicles, provide all police officers with a medical cover.

Number 3. President Uhuru Kenyatta

Different reports put president Kenyatta either at position two or three. He is valued at KSh 48 billion with investments cutting across almost all sectors of the Kenyan economy. He owns vast tracts of land too.
KSh 48 billion can provide free education in Kenya complete with food and buying school equipment for one year.

Number 4: Chris Kirubi

Kirubi, popularly referred as DJ CK is the owner of Capital Media Group and has a huge stake in Haco Tiger brands. He is the chairman of Centum Investment Group.
He is estimated to be worth KSh 29 billion. This amount of money can help Kenya Power connect almost all homes through its rural electrification programme.

Number 5: Manu Chandaria

Industrialist Chandaria is the chairman of Comcraft group and is estimated to be worth Ksh 27 billion.
Ksh 27 billion is the equivalent of money allocated for paying all MPs and running parliament for one year, including providing allowances and other benefits the legislators enjoy.

Must Read: 9 Profitable businesses to start with Ksh20,000 in 2016

Chandaria chairs boards of many government and non-governmental organisations in the country. Some of these include; Mabati Rollings, Kaluworks, Uganda Baati, universities as USIU, Technical, and banks as Bank of India, previously Standard Charted Bank, among others.

How independent are they, from external capital, or do they operate as a subsidiary? Ie, a local, nyapara class?

We will have to unravell that.

And then the political elite: who is who in the money hierarchy? and how much deference to they offer the controllers of economic purse strings? Again ---interesting juice from Kalonzo Musyoka memoirs, but more open sources lifts the veil

Revealed! Top 8 Filthy Rich Political Families Who Own & Run Kenya

April 8, 2014 at 2:55 pm

The wealthiest families in Kenya have a rich political background. Political power and money seem to be entwined if the recently released report on Kenya’s wealthiest families by a British firm is anything to go by. Here is the list of families that are considered centi-millionaire and virtually control 50 percent of Kenya’s wealth.
The following are the eight richest political families in no particular order;

1. The Kenyatta Family

The Kenyatta family is estimated to be worth between $100 to $1 billion (Ksh 8.6Billion – 86 Billion). Jomo Kenyatta was the founding father of Kenya and his son Uhuru Kenyatta is the current President. According to the British report the family has vast interests in Banking, Tourism, air travel, education, insurance, telecommunications, dairy farming, mining, energy and real estate. What is yet to be substantiated is the exact acreage of land the Kenyatta’s own.

2. The Moi Family

The wealth of retired President of 24 years Daniel arap Moi’s family is believed to run into the billions of shillings. The Moi family has invested heavily in insurance, media, manufacturing, air travel, transport, tourism, maritime and freight. The family also owns huge chunks of land.

3. The Biwott Family

The total man Nicholas Biwott has vast interests in energy, mining, telecommunications, tourism, agriculture, banking and real estate. He is a major shareholder in Kobil. His wealth is estimated at $100 million to $1 billion (Ksh 8.6 Billion to 86 Billion).

4. The Odinga Family

The Odinga family has a rich political life. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was Kenya’s first Vice president during Kenyatta reign while his son, Raila Odinga, acted as the Prime Minister in the Grand coalition Government. The family has vast interests in oil and gas, manufacturing and agriculture.

5. The Kibaki Family

Former President Mwai Kibaki has invested in tourism, agriculture telecommunication, banking and in the fashion industry. He owns large tracts of land.

6. The Saitoti Family

The late Prof George Saitoti, the longest serving vice president during Moi’s reign, invested in real estate, horticulture, the hotel industry and tourism. His wealth is estimated to be between $30 million to $100 million (Ksh 2.58 Billion – 8.6 Billion). Saitoti died in a helicopter crash in 2012, but his family still benefits from his investments today.

7. The Nyachae Family

Simeon Nyachae was the undisputed king of Kisii during the Moi reign. The seasoned politician who served as a chief secretary, provincial administrator and cabinet minister has invested in transport, agriculture, banking and logistics and is reported to own ranches in Zimbabwe, Australia and South Africa.

8. The Michuki Family

The late John Michuki who served in the Kibaki administration in several different ministerial portfolios is worth between $30 million and $100 million (Ksh 2.58 Billion – 8.6 Billion). His interest range from tourism to agriculture and real estate.
[Source; african.howzit.msn.com]

Oops! Pharaonic!

Is ours a meritocracy? Or is it provable for sooth, that those in whose hands wealth/power is concentrated in Kenya today, and therefore control the state and wield tremendous social power, Their Lordships, for instance those who have captured the state like the royal inheritor Ouru Kenyatta and his deputy the Hustler Singh, have proven business acumen and market originality which explains their super accumulation, and loneliness at the top? Or is it provable, beyond dirty allegations of neither substantive nor substantiating thrust, that they are merely the bloody exploiters of state power, beneficiaries of state clientellist linkages, profiteers of nepotistic business appendages, bureaucratic graft cartels, and therefore are merely social tapeworms riding long on the public purse!? Aka kleptocrats?

If so, they are explicants of the political economy of primitive accumulation, neo-colonial style. This is a well-documented path in Africa. The richest names of Africa –--Mobutu, Nguema, Mubarak, Kenyatta, dos Santos, Idris Chad D., Bongo I$II, the Run-away Tunisia man …..., they tend to have a thing with the states they led. Also, with various degrees of success, they bequeathed their kindred to lead those states.

THE COLONIAL SETTLER ECONOMY REVISITED

What was the micro-economy of the colonial, settler economy of Kenya?

Sources are abundant, from government economists of the era, to bankers both mercantile and commercial, to (limited) import-substitution industrial plant venture manufacturers, to dedicated experimenters with monoculture on raw slave-labour, to turning the whole of the Savannah as one limitless ranch! (somebody looked at the migrating wildebeests and gaped: WAAWU! If all those were my cows! I would supply burgers to ten Earths, right here from EnglandKenya! –-I mean there was no shortage of dreams in the whiteman's highlands! Most of them taking the natives for granted, if at all noticing the natives too could have dreams of their own, concurrent or opposant!

This taking of natives for granted is the point I want to pursue. Because within that mentality is engendered the tragedy of histories. But the neo-colonial elite is also doomed to RIG or ignore the peoples will, because they can NEVER resolve this contradiction of leading the liberation, championing the popular aspirations in public rallies, while cold-bloodedly moonlighting as local nyapara's of imperial capital. -----
It is important to underscore this point which is the horn unto which Wafula Chebukati's rears have been impaled. A free and fair election for the wretched of the earth don't sit good with empires!

And so, Impunity. Supported by state force. An intensified contradiction.

This necessary impunity, is the same impunity with which the settlers ruled, and it nurtured the Mau Mau resistance. The same (necessary) impunity of the Kibaki clique it was, which imploded Kenya into an explosion of ethnic mayhem. It is a pretty invariable script. The peoples will at discordant tango with the impunity of the rulers.

The people can be fcucked many times over, but not forever.

NB: REPEATING ELECTIONS IN 2017, IS ANY OTHER RESULT POSSIBLE?

Why are we, after going to the polls of the 8th of August and speNding $1bn, going for a repeat on the 17th of October, same year, under the same conditions!?

It is also important, on the sidelines, to import the changed political dispensation within Kenya which has made it possible for a court to null a presidential election, demystifying the elite, reminding that far from being down and out, Wanjiku of Kenya is not Wanjiku of Rwanda, nor Uganda. The power balance in Kenya is sharper, more brittle.

But before answering that point in some financial measure –---as an expression of the macro and micro economic contradictions of capital, a quick look at the micro-economy of the settler state on a very sensitive issue: debt.

SETTLER DEBT servitude

Credit was mandatory to keep the farming industry running. But many farmers were actually not professional farmers, leaving a lot to be desired in (pioneer) farm management. They were mostly import lords who had gotten land for free, and could leverage these tracts against fat loans, which, in the general rule, they could not repay with the produce from their lands and poorly-run farms. Local Merchant banks and London-based commercial banks moved in for the kill. In exchange for long-term credit they (1) undertook to market the produce (2) determine the interest rates [high] and (3) decide the price of the produce in the external market (flat rate!).

The was obvious invitation to Kartel practice, and the abuse came to pass, much as has been the relationship between our sugar-millers and cane-growers. A feudal lordism which explains our sugary blues in the cane-belt: peonage or serfdom.

The settlers, especially the small scale farmers, ended being badly in debt, and even the legendary Dalamere wasn't far from bankruptcy! He was basically a credit junkie, like Uhuru Kenyatta's government today, or any other in Africa you might care to mention, even Greece!

This micro economy lies behind the Devonshire white paper. The treasury in London was being lobbied by worried banks to guarantee the bad/toxic debts of the crown colony. At the same time the colonial office was aware, that the self-government demanded by the likes of Delamere would end up a financial disaster, to the cost of London!

The man writing the Devonshire paper had firmly looked at the books! the accounting books!

(An unusual show of restraint and fairness, the historian I quoted reported. I grinned, coz he missed the financial reports from the era, impinging on the governor's consciousness!)

Just saying, whatever is happening on the political front, always keep an eye on the MONETARY FLOW. –---Even as the politicians insult one another day in, invoke the name of God and the people day out, throw mud at the courts or with choice vocabulary savage the private parts of the mothers of independent Judges, always keep on eye on the MONETARY POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Yeah,

Keep an eye on the deficit and how it is funded, check the financial books and how they are cooked, or the accounting doubled (upped debt ceilings!). That canyon between expenditure and income, that quick swamp where finance ministers pretend to walk on air like Jesus on water, is the real crocodile smiling at a step you want to take!

That billion we have just burnt for nothing on august 8, the subsequent crash of the NSE, the reported freezing of business decisions as the campaign period is extended once again, is a warning to capital:
You need an accommodation with labour. Kenya is up for a new deal. It could be Nusu Mkate, it could be Ndii's divorce, or a parley more original and stable! --to the delight of all, for a while!

Lets think! and together have a drink!

Ciao!