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Post by OtishOtish on Jun 2, 2012 19:37:52 GMT 3
This is more than poor judgement, RR. Its a revelation of something within the man. Really? well, your opinion. I think it might be of better consequence to write to the newspaper with a response to his article. Innuendo about his character - as seems to be part of the irate response here - is simply self defeating. Its not much different from what he did. But, to each his own. It's far from self-defeating: There is quite a bit of satisfaction to be had in paying him back in his own currency. And he might learn something from it, so it's what one might describe as "win-win". |
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Post by jakaswanga on Jun 3, 2012 14:32:22 GMT 3
To put Magutt's school in context, I was looking for an earlier article penned by Jared Okungu a few years ago in the Kenya Times. It tore savagely into some aspects of the Western Diaspora, with quips about washing dishes and the rest of menial labour. I always wonder what the Kenyan obsession with this is. --When you have seen forensic pathologists wading through gruesome mass graves in former war-zones, dish-washing does not look that horrible anymore!
But can anybody unearth this Okungu article? I have failed to locate it.
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Post by nowayhaha on Jun 3, 2012 15:42:40 GMT 3
To put Magutt's school in context, I was looking for an earlier article penned by Jared Okungu a few years ago in the Kenya Times. It tore savagely into some aspects of the Western Diaspora, with quips about washing dishes and the rest of menial labour. I always wonder what the Kenyan obsession with this is. --When you have seen forensic pathologists wading through gruesome mass graves in former war-zones, dish-washing does not look that horrible anymore! But can anybody unearth this Okungu article? I have failed to locate it.
Are you talking of this article ?African's spoilt exiles have nothing to give there countries Diaspora Jerry Okungu Lately, I have been following events of direct relevance to a host of foreigners who claim to be Africans but happen to live abroad, notably in Western Europe and North America. The other day there was a summit in Abidjan, organized by a group known as the African Community Abroad, in conjunction with the government. As high profile as the gathering to discuss the brain drain was – and it included Ali Mazrui, all the way from New York – it never received the prepublicity that would have allowed the diaspora's prodigal sons to meaningfully engage with their cousins back home. I am told the organizers, functionaries of the Ministry of Planning and National Development, wanted to avoid involving locals because some chapas were involved! When one was afterwards challenged at a local pub to explain why he had declined to invite home grown intellectuals who had braved poverty and torture during the dehumanizing illegal years of corruption without bolting like the cousins being feted by the government, the official hurriedly swallowed his beer and departed. Let me spell out some basic facts about the so-called African Community Abroad. This body was formed with the good intentions you would expect to find in any group which has alienated itself from its roots and is haunted by guilt, nostalgia and sentimentalism. Right now, there are three types of Africans living abroad. The first consists of those who left Africa between 1960s and 1990s to pursue further studies. At the expense of poor parents and villagers who sacrificed chickens and goats to raise the money to buy them tickets and fees, they left for colleges in Canada, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. Landing in hostile lands, they suffered culture shock and economic hardship. A number dropped out of college, others found odd jobs to survive. As years turned into decades, with no papers or savings to speak of, their chances of returning home empty-handed to face poor villagers became ever more remote. Faced with possible repatriation as illegal immigrants, some found partners of convenience to marry to legitimize their stay. In all fairness, how could we expect this group, which left our shores at the tender age of 19 or 20 and is now in its 40s, 50s and 60s, to adapt to turbulent, jobless Africa? This group has nothing to offer Africa and Africa has nothing to give them. The best way of dealing with them is to treat them as distant relatives. They stopped being Africans a long time ago. The second group consists of those Africanans who, having been educated locally and abroad at the tax payer’s expense, found it difficult to realize their lifetime dreams of creating wealth. They looked at the African economy and salary structures in the civil service. They compared their earnings with those of counterparts in the West. They decided society was shortchanging them after their long sacrifices in the education system and bolted for greener pastures, moving their families to the first world. This lot belongs to the category of economic refugees that left the country voluntarily when Africa needed them most. In their own words, they had to choose between country and cash. They chose cash. Among this group, a number have retired in their countries of adoption and have no intention of returning because their young families know no other home than New York, Geneva and London. The only time some of them return, as Wole Soyinka, Chinnua achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Njeri did recently, is when someone invites them to pontificate on the international seminar and conference circuit. They come back because someone else is footing the bill for their first class tickets, five star accommodation and an irresistible daily allowance. The last group consists of those Afrians who fled political persecution, intimidation, torture and general frustration. These are the people one must accord the prestigious title of "political exiles". But there is something curious about this group. When they fled, they didn’t move to neighboring African countries like Uganda, Cameroon, Togo, Ethiopia or Tanzania. They chose New York, London, Stockholm and Toronto. The reason was simple. These were the cities with the economic and political resources to allow them to reassert themselves, offering a flow of support funds for their continued activism. They did this with a certain success, not for the rest of Africans, but for themselves and their immediate families. As the struggle for reform gained momentum back home, they remained conspicuously indifferent, claiming -- rightly or wrongly --that the regime still targeted them for persecution. Ten years after the first multiparty elections in Africa like in Kenya with Moi and Kanu, their preferred persecutors, out of power, some have yet to find reasons to relocate to Kenya. Let’s face it, the Mazruis and Ngugis of this world have been out of this country for more than three decades. If they were in their thirties when they left, now they are in their sixties. Some of their students, like Prof Chris Wanjala, have retired. Very soon, the Ngugis and Mazruis of this world will be asked to hang up their boots. How then, can we look to them to influence the world on our behalf when in their prime, thirty years ago, they never managed it? With all due respect for the founders of African Community Abroad, there is not much you can do to help Africa as Africans, because you are not Africans. But we are ready to welcome you home as our distant cousins and foreign benefactors for our poor villages, just like any missionary white American from Nebraska or Colorado. Welcome home! |
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Post by OtishOtish on Jun 3, 2012 16:45:29 GMT 3
To put Magutt's school in context, I was looking for an earlier article penned by Jared Okungu a few years ago in the Kenya Times. It tore savagely into some aspects of the Western Diaspora, with quips about washing dishes and the rest of menial labour. I always wonder what the Kenyan obsession with this is. --When you have seen forensic pathologists wading through gruesome mass graves in former war-zones, dish-washing does not look that horrible anymore! But can anybody unearth this Okungu article? I have failed to locate it. Jakaswanga: It's basic human psychology. A person would like to go abroad, but he fails. Why not comfort himself by thinking that all those who did are in fact miserable and that he is better off for not having made it. That is why you will never find the "obsession" among those who have sepnt time abroad. It is also a reflection of the backward way in which we view manual labour and how people imgaine ah-brod-oh (as they say in the Oga movies) A relative who visited me some time ago, on his first trip outside Kenya, expressed amazement that wazungus and even university students were engaged in manual labour! [The bit about the wazungus was both funny and sad, reflecting a very unfortunate inferiority complex.] |
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Post by mank on Jun 3, 2012 22:26:51 GMT 3
With the recent news about a Kenyan cannibalizing a Ghanaian in the US Magutt may want to revise his story and expand his argument that
... life is not that hunky-dory for some ‘diasporians’. A number lives in the underworld, unable to come back home or make a decent life for themselves.
I think the news fits with the direction he was taking there. However it is not clear how the general direction he was taking contributes to his objective point, that Kenya diaspora has made unreasonable demands against the government. |
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Post by OtishOtish on Jun 3, 2012 23:21:06 GMT 3
Magutt lives on what is called second-order fame: he is known for being known, not for anything he has actually ever done. People who control certain media see him writing here and talking there, assume there must be something behind it, and invite him to do some more; and so it multiplies. But if you try to find out what exactly he's ever done that would give him grounds to look down on others, or even what exactly he does for a living now, you will draw a blank.
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Post by mank on Jun 3, 2012 23:26:49 GMT 3
To put Magutt's school in context, I was looking for an earlier article penned by Jared Okungu a few years ago in the Kenya Times. It tore savagely into some aspects of the Western Diaspora, with quips about washing dishes and the rest of menial labour. I always wonder what the Kenyan obsession with this is. --When you have seen forensic pathologists wading through gruesome mass graves in former war-zones, dish-washing does not look that horrible anymore!
But can anybody unearth this Okungu article? I have failed to locate it.
Are you talking of this article ?
African's spoilt exiles have nothing to give there countries
Diaspora
Jerry Okungu
Lately, I have been following events of direct relevance to a host of foreigners who claim to be Africans but happen to live abroad, notably in Western Europe and North America.
The other day there was a summit in Abidjan, organized by a group known as the African Community Abroad, in conjunction with the government.
As high profile as the gathering to discuss the brain drain was – and it included Ali Mazrui, all the way from New York – it never received the prepublicity that would have allowed the diaspora's prodigal sons to meaningfully engage with their cousins back home.
I am told the organizers, functionaries of the Ministry of Planning and National Development, wanted to avoid involving locals because some chapas were involved!
When one was afterwards challenged at a local pub to explain why he had declined to invite home grown intellectuals who had braved poverty and torture during the dehumanizing illegal years of corruption without bolting like the cousins being feted by the government, the official hurriedly swallowed his beer and departed.
Let me spell out some basic facts about the so-called African Community Abroad.
This body was formed with the good intentions you would expect to find in any group which has alienated itself from its roots and is haunted by guilt, nostalgia and sentimentalism.
Right now, there are three types of Africans living abroad.
The first consists of those who left Africa between 1960s and 1990s to pursue further studies.
At the expense of poor parents and villagers who sacrificed chickens and goats to raise the money to buy them tickets and fees, they left for colleges in Canada, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Landing in hostile lands, they suffered culture shock and economic hardship.
A number dropped out of college, others found odd jobs to survive.
As years turned into decades, with no papers or savings to speak of, their chances of returning home empty-handed to face poor villagers became ever more remote.
Faced with possible repatriation as illegal immigrants, some found partners of convenience to marry to legitimize their stay.
In all fairness, how could we expect this group, which left our shores at the tender age of 19 or 20 and is now in its 40s, 50s and 60s, to adapt to turbulent, jobless Africa?
This group has nothing to offer Africa and Africa has nothing to give them.
The best way of dealing with them is to treat them as distant relatives.
They stopped being Africans a long time ago.
The second group consists of those Africanans who, having been educated locally and abroad at the tax payer’s expense, found it difficult to realize their lifetime dreams of creating wealth.
They looked at the African economy and salary structures in the civil service. They compared their earnings with those of counterparts in the West.
They decided society was shortchanging them after their long sacrifices in the education system and bolted for greener pastures, moving their families to the first world.
This lot belongs to the category of economic refugees that left the country voluntarily when Africa needed them most. In their own words, they had to choose between country and cash.
They chose cash.
Among this group, a number have retired in their countries of adoption and have no intention of returning because their young families know no other home than New York, Geneva and London.
The only time some of them return, as Wole Soyinka, Chinnua achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Njeri did recently, is when someone invites them to pontificate on the international seminar and conference circuit.
They come back because someone else is footing the bill for their first class tickets, five star accommodation and an irresistible daily allowance.
The last group consists of those Afrians who fled political persecution, intimidation, torture and general frustration. These are the people one must accord the prestigious title of "political exiles".
But there is something curious about this group.
When they fled, they didn’t move to neighboring African countries like Uganda, Cameroon, Togo, Ethiopia or Tanzania.
They chose New York, London, Stockholm and Toronto.
The reason was simple.
These were the cities with the economic and political resources to allow them to reassert themselves, offering a flow of support funds for their continued activism.
They did this with a certain success, not for the rest of Africans, but for themselves and their immediate families.
As the struggle for reform gained momentum back home, they remained conspicuously indifferent, claiming -- rightly or wrongly --that the regime still targeted them for persecution. Ten years after the first multiparty elections in Africa like in Kenya with Moi and Kanu, their preferred persecutors, out of power, some have yet to find reasons to relocate to Kenya.
Let’s face it, the Mazruis and Ngugis of this world have been out of this country for more than three decades. If they were in their thirties when they left, now they are in their sixties. Some of their students, like Prof Chris Wanjala, have retired. Very soon, the Ngugis and Mazruis of this world will be asked to hang up their boots.
How then, can we look to them to influence the world on our behalf when in their prime, thirty years ago, they never managed it?
With all due respect for the founders of African Community Abroad, there is not much you can do to help Africa as Africans, because you are not Africans.
But we are ready to welcome you home as our distant cousins and foreign benefactors for our poor villages, just like any missionary white American from Nebraska or Colorado.
Welcome home!Good grief! Has Okungu ever left the homestead his mother placed him after birth? If he has, then by his own standards he is a foreigner to his mother and his siblings. We belong to the world, not the spot to which we are born. We can move half the globe away and still belong with our people, or we can remain there and still not belong. We belong where our minds and spirit put us ... not where our bodies are placed. The person who goes overseas and never returns may still belong with home, yet the person who never goes anywhere but wishes he was never born at his place may not belong. The Okungus and Magutts have their own issues to deal with, which they unfortunately exhibit as someone else problem. |
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Post by roughrider on Jun 4, 2012 11:09:06 GMT 3
Ok folks. Just for fun, please update the psychoanalyses given the following info:
1. Both Joseph Magutt and Jerry Okungu have been members of the diaspora. In fact Jerry, particularly spent time in the Netherlands and in the US. So I suppose the idea that 'they have never gone anywhere' and are 'criticising those who are successful' needs to be re-evaluated.
2. And Joseph Magutt
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Post by OtishOtish on Jun 4, 2012 14:58:20 GMT 3
No problem. Here we go.
Perhaps they failed there or were even deported, both of which can be quite traumatic and in fact more traumatic than being denied a visa. Maybe a Diasporan dishwasher stole somebody's wife. We would need to know more, and, esepcially in Magutt's case, that look's very tricky. Especially in Magutt's case, can you tell us where he was overseas, when, and what he was doing there?
Let's focus on Magutt, who is the real subject of this thread.
You seem to know Magutt quite well; or, at least, you can reproduce information that he feeds people. Please provide, using an independent source, some more details, for example the dates and jobs he had at these universities. I doubt that even Magutt will give you those. Nor will you be able to find much on his academic qualifications.
In particular: "Kenyatta University where he serves both in management and teaching capacities". For quite some time he has claimed in his writing and media appearances that he is a lecturer there; the "management" bit is new and suitably vague. What evidence do you have that any of this is true? Please don't say it's because Magutt told you! Weka information hapa: job-title, department, starting date.
"Reader" is a very senior academic title in the UK, and, until not too long ago, existed in most commonwealth universities. So people tend to think of that when Magutt tells them "reader in politics and international studies". It turns out Magutt is not and has never been anything of the sort anywhere; he really just means that he reads (literally)!
By the way, I never claimed that he was criticizing those who are successful; he seems to be criticizing those who, in his eyes, have not been successful. What I wanted to know is this: apart from managing to do very well at being slippery, what great thing has been successful at that makes him feel he can sneer at others? So far, I see no real answers, and reproducing his own propaganda won't do.
[quote author=roughrider board=general thread=7007
post=98867 time=1338797346]Ok folks. Just for fun, please update the psychoanalyses given the following info:
1. Both Joseph Magutt and Jerry Okungu have been members of the diaspora. In fact Jerry, particularly spent time in the Netherlands and in the US. So I suppose the idea that 'they have never gone anywhere' and are 'criticising those who are successful' needs to be re-evaluated.
2. And Joseph Magutt
[/quote]
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Post by mank on Jun 5, 2012 3:55:02 GMT 3
Ok folks. Just for fun, please update the psychoanalyses given the following info:
1. Both Joseph Magutt and Jerry Okungu have been members of the diaspora. In fact Jerry, particularly spent time in the Netherlands and in the US. So I suppose the idea that 'they have never gone anywhere' and are 'criticising those who are successful' needs to be re-evaluated.
2. And Joseph Magutt
The idea that living in Netherlands or wherever is by itself an indication of success is as silly as the idea that living in Netherlands makes one less related to his/her people. And the fact that someone who has lived in Netherlands would be the same one trying so hard to insult others for living there, is rather strange. At issue here are the insults these people hurl at others.... not at where they themselves live or have ever been. |
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Jun 5, 2012 6:49:26 GMT 3
Ok folks. Just for fun, please update the psychoanalyses given the following info: 1. Both Joseph Magutt and Jerry Okungu have been members of the diaspora. In fact Jerry, particularly spent time in the Netherlands and in the US. So I suppose the idea that 'they have never gone anywhere' and are 'criticising those who are successful' needs to be re-evaluated. 2. And Joseph Magutt My friend you had better recheck your facts. I do not think making a one or two weeks' trip abroad qualifies one to be or to have been a member of the diaspora. Whereas I do not know much about Okungu, I think I have a fairly good knowledge of Magutt and certain that he does not a have the lived experience necessary to make one draw the kinds of conclusions he's made and in the manner in which he did. When you rely on hearsays as I am sure he did, it must come out as clearly as such. But when you masquerade to own the information and be way off tangent as he did, it leads to more questions towards your person than the information itself. |
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Post by roughrider on Jun 5, 2012 9:46:00 GMT 3
Mank and others…
There was a suggestion that the genesis of these stories are people who are jealous because they have never been abroad. The truth – and the point I was making, rather obliquely - is that the most aggressive, unfair attacks about some people in the diaspora washing dishes, nursing invalids, cleaning dead bodies at morgues and generally living miserable, lonely and aimless lives are precipitated mostly by diasporans on fellow diasporans. Not a day passes without one such attack being launched on-line.
I think Magutt and Okungu have freedom to say what they said. And of course we have right of reply. As I indicated, Magutt spoke in a way that suggested particularly poor judgment, especially since he was writing in a National newspaper. The videos I have seen of him reveal a certain pompousness that puts me off (probably unfair, but that is me).
PS: I do not know Joseph Magutt personally. But I have seen his name on documents and email traffic that suggest he may have been diasporan; and I lifted that profile from Facebook. Maybe it is a long con game. I really don’t care. I think I am still naively trusting and old fashioned to think that you wouldn’t publicly claim, for example, to have taught and managed at 'university of this' and 'college of that' if it were not true. Because that is the easiest thing to verify!
The reader thing is hilarious but depends on how one sees it, really. He probably means he reads quite a bit.
But even then and even if Magutt has not set foot outside the country, he can still research diasporan life abroad and report to other Kenyans his findings. I think there is some over-sensitivity on this issue, when it should be a normal discussion.
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Post by jakaswanga on Jun 5, 2012 20:07:57 GMT 3
To put Magutt's school in context, I was looking for an earlier article penned by Jared Okungu a few years ago in the Kenya Times. It tore savagely into some aspects of the Western Diaspora, with quips about washing dishes and the rest of menial labour. I always wonder what the Kenyan obsession with this is. --When you have seen forensic pathologists wading through gruesome mass graves in former war-zones, dish-washing does not look that horrible anymore! But can anybody unearth this Okungu article? I have failed to locate it.
Are you talking of this article ?African's spoilt exiles have nothing to give there countries Diaspora Jerry Okungu Thank you! I believe strongly this is the missive I had in mind! ------------------------------------------------------------ Personally am very late to this Western diaspora thing, (but now I will remember to 'pontificate' and display a 'diva complex' at our local bar!) But when one has been just living and working across the border in the neighbourhood of Kenya, that does not qualify as 'diaspora' in as far as I understand Kenya! I mean Bujumbura cannot even match Nakuru, and Kigali is less than Kisumu; and you come home with Akamba from Busia not some fancy flight to JKIA! hence you can't walk with a swagger nor 'tweng'! And neither Maggut nor Jerry would bother you! No, 'diaspora' is the western! that is where washing dishes can reputedly earn you more than a doc at home. One of my uncles, a Mboya airflift who came back an economist only to be detained and denied employment as a KPU man, endlessly sang to us the blessings of dish-washing. He had washed them in between his studies, and built a small plot in a town --three not very spacious doors: one his family lived in, one they rented out, and the third they conducted some ka-shop business. And so they survived his detentions and trials. [Omera lwoko sende ulayani kata uchaye, an okonya chal nyasaye omiyo ok akwede da!] Though much scorn you pour on dish washing overseas, brothers, I wont denounce it since a divine blessing in my case it has been! But I still think the 3 million Kenyans in the diaspora are still the biggest cultural asset Kenya has. These are people who have been exposed to the total cruelty of how other civilisations conduct themselves. The viciousness of the USA tears illusions, cultural illusions, psychological illusions, intellectual illusions. Her harshness is a purification ritual for those who have to rely on themselves, their wits and sheer ability. [The children of African oligarchs who stole from public koffers are insulated from the reality of relying solely on their abilities, so I ignore them]. Some minds of course 'knock' --like the young student who killed and ate his room mate, but in Kenya we kill our wives or brothers too! My reading is that this purification process as the western diaspora experience, creates a greater dynamic ruthlessness than is evident back home. An example of this dynamic ruthlessness can be for instance putting a greater value on time; expecting maximum service from the set price otherwise crying foul and demanding money back! Aspiring to a different professional standard --and this is how returning criminals from the USA took over the Lagos scene in Nigeria! [they had studied the Italian-Sicillian maffia]. it is not for nothing that most Africans who led the anti-colonial struggles woke up fully to the nature of the beast in the metropolitan motherland. That radicalizing experience and its historical significance, I see people like Magutt and Jerry unconscious of. |
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Post by OtishOtish on Jun 6, 2012 1:19:52 GMT 3
Roughrider: What people like Magutt do goes beyond, and is worse than, merely "dissing: some Diasporans. What they do is reinforce unhelpful attitudes, especially among our youth, as to what sort of work is valued and what sort is to be held in contempt.
One of the time-bombs that this country is sitting on is that of high youth-unemployment. Leaving aside that money meant to help with that just gets eaten, it helps neither them nor the country (where everything is crumbling and almost nothing seems to work) to be told that certain types of work are beneath contempt. It doesn't help when they get told this by slippery people who seem to be respected, admired, and enjoying the good life but who don't even seem to have a proper job, let alone happen to be making any meaningful contribution to society.
The message that should be going out is that all honest work is valuable and all who do such work as as valued as the rest who do fancier things
The message
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Post by tnk on Jun 6, 2012 1:28:58 GMT 3
Roughrider: What people like Magutt do goes beyond, and is worse than, merely "dissing: some Diasporans. What they do is reinforce unhelpful attitudes, especially among our youth, as to what sort of work is valued and what sort is to be held in contempt. One of the time-bombs that this country is sitting on is that of high youth-unemployment. Leaving aside that money meant to help with that just gets eaten, it helps neither them nor the country (where everything is crumbling and almost nothing seems to work) to be told that certain types of work are beneath contempt. It doesn't help when they get told this by slippery people who seem to be respected, admired, and enjoying the good life but who don't even seem to have a proper job, let alone happen to be making any meaningful contribution to society. The message that should be going out is that all honest work is valuable and all who do such work as as valued as the rest who do fancier things The message otishotish you've hit it in fact you have succeeded in summarizing very well a huge societal problem that needs to be urgently addressed. [will come back to edit/add to this in a little bit] |
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Post by mank on Jun 6, 2012 18:25:10 GMT 3
Mank and others…
... I think Magutt and Okungu have freedom to say what they said. And of course we have right of reply. .... They have the freedom to disagree with, but not to insult the diaspora. It is a fact that some (if not all) of us are struggling in foreign lands ... after all we are in these lands largely on account of our labour, and we have to offer of it what is worth to our employers - be it in washing dishes or washing the dead. What is aggravating in these men's writings is how they go into what people do in foreign lands while they pretend to assess whether the demands of the diaspora against the government are justified - what people do in foreign lands has absolutely no relevance in such an assessment, and it is apparent that it is brought up only on malicious motivations. Its ok to discuss issues of life in the diaspora - but only in the proper context. Trying to put people down on the basis of their social or economic well-being while purporting to evaluate their suggestions to government is to render support to the kiss-up-kick-down mentality that is overwhelmingly the nourishment of impunity in society. That mentality has it that government is there to attend to the expectations of sacred cows - hence the inclination to screen those who air suggestions to government for qualification to the herd. There should be no shame in being identified among those who are sensitive to such backward mentality because it is the expansion of this group that is the real threat to impunity. |
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