Arjen Westra's Africa Blog 2.0 » Kenya

Goosebumps, tears and Machiavelli(2)

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:06:40 +0000

Which moral do you choose?

This is a follow up on my post a fews days ago (Please find it here) about Kenya’s invitation to invite Sudan president al-Bashir on the promulgation of Kenya’s New Constitution. Many things have been said about it, I enjoy the Freedom to add. The things we don’t see are what politicians are reading. I am 100 percent sure that Machiavelli’s The Prince is on the desk of at least some of the Kenyan leaders. One of the things that Machiavelli talks about is moral. There the monopolised moral by the churche/religion in this world and there is the moral with the meaning of doing what is good for the masses. Apparently, Kenyan politicians’ moral seems to be the Machiavellian moral, in this case (or at least that is what they say). They invited al-Bashir for the greater good: peace in Southern Sudan. In Africa quite often, there seems to be a conflict between the religious moral and what I just called he Machiavellian moral. It seems that a lot of news media and word leaders use that against Africa. They choose the moral they want and start condemning who ever they want. But if there is a ‘real’ moral, and countries and organisations garding it, why do we still have Joseph Koni, al-Bashir and that type of leaders. We should talk about this with a glass of nice my friend. Have a moralistic and good day !

Slumhugging in hugslum Kibera

admin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 10:17:56 +0000

yo' ya.. giv' me a slumhug

Whatever happens in Kenya, we are not there yet…. But a lot of people are working on it. Today’s Newspaper (The Daily Nation), thought me that Nairobi’s informal settlements, Kibera has between the 6000 and 15.000 active NGO’s. According to the newspaper, there might an NGO for every 15 residents. I think that Kibera’s non-official hugslum-status, needs to be upgraded to an official one. They could start using it in the tourist-brochures, where Kibera would nicely fit next to the national hugtribe… Ah, sorry… Which tribe was that again?

Click here for Daily Nation article Kibera

Goosebumps and tears

admin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:20:09 +0000

Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir arriving at Uhuru Park, Kenya

Funny feelings about the historic promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution. I did hardly see any prominent ‘good’ leader at the signing ceremony. All of them at least had a disputable reputation. But my impression might be wrong. The number one among those of course is mister Omar al-Bashir, the democratically elected and International sought for leader of Sudan, not really known for his sympathy with the democratic policies and known for of several genocides he’s thought to have been guilty of. Interesting is that Kenya recently confirmed its support for the I.C.C. and said that they would fully cooperate with the I.C.C., in a meeting notably in Kampala. Kenya said that as an I.C.C.-memberstate they oblige themselves to arrest fugitives on their territories. Several sources said that al-Bashir was not on the invitee-list. But that is not an excuse. In Africa with politics and and a lot of other things, what you see is never the truth as it seems. Politics is a stage play. Most of the actors drink their whisky after the play in the lounge back stage and when they are not on stage, they play golf together or rehearsing the play for next week. Interesting is only a few that have a backstage pass for this ongoing theatre.

[View with PicLens]

Netherlands / Time for some Kenya promotion

admin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:11:36 +0000

I think it’s time for some Kenya promotion. I will prepare a gallery for you with nice pictures from this beautiful country with its beautiful people. Keep an eye on this weblog for the coming days please. And… enjoy your evening!

Kenya / Promptly Establish Special Tribunal

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:33:59 +0000

Human Rights Watch: Government, Donors Should Support Commission’s Findings on Election Violence

[inspic=143,left,,thumb](New York, October 15, 2008) – The Kenyan government and international partners should strongly support the call by the Waki commission investigating post-election violence to create a special tribunal to end Kenya’s cycle of impunity, Human Rights Watch said today.
“The Waki commission has done an admirable job describing the causes of the violence and assembling evidence,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Now the politicians need to set up the special tribunal it recommends. Justice is crucial for Kenya’s stability.”

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, headed by Justice Philip Waki, was published on October 15, 2008. The commission concluded that politicians on all sides had organized and funded attacks on supporters of their opponents. The inquiry also found that security forces responded inappropriately, using excessive force against civilians, intervening to have allies released from custody and failing to investigate individuals responsible for the violence. Human Rights Watch said that a complete overhaul of Kenya’s corrupt and abusive police force, as recommended by the Waki commission, is long overdue….

Kenya / Coming up: more audio and pictures

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:44:15 +0000

Been a kind of offline (moving in and out almost every country between Kenya and South Africa)in the past months, collecting stories from Africans telling about their lives, their frustrations and most of all: their dreams. I met fishermen on the Cape who are not allowed to fish and had to flee into crime and drugs, I met beachboys in Mombasa who in order to be more succesfull with a muzungu lady, are planning to visit a witch doctor ‘before the season starts’ to get a black magic battery in their wallet, and i talked to Tanzanians being frustrated about the fact that the country’s mining profits are disappearing abroad, other Tanzanians who believe that they can make a difference by starting a business and treating their employees in a human way by paying them a normal salary and treating them as human beings (soemthing you could not always say about so called decent companies in Africa., On the road i talked to Zambians that use chili to keep away the elephants from their village, to Kenians that keep hope for a better future although the new Grand Coalition Government cannot take away the impression that they are as clean as they pretent to be and to Namibians that are happy that there is no solution in Zimabwe ‘The money used to go to Zimbabwe but now the countries around (Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia) get some investment too… Look: none of the neighbouring countries are doing bad, in fact they are very fine.’ Stories will be available for my appreciated customers in Netherlands and Belgium.

Shortly you will find more grassroot audio and pictures online. Owners of an iPod: since a few months you can subscribe to the Official Africareporter.net Audiopodcast. Please subscribe by clicking this link iTunes users can go to the Itunes StorePodcast directory. Search for “Africareporter” and subscribe. Alernatively, you could visit this website: Podcast Directory But the best option for anybody is this link: Africareporter.net Podcast Enjoy. Comments and request are welcome! See you on the road!
Ok, enjoy your day, full of nice audio and pictures!
[mygal=africatravel]

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Kenya / Robbery of the century!

admin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:18:15 +0000

It is the people against the people.
I don’t see the sons of daughters of politicians fighting.
It’s the poor against the poor…
A poor Luo who lives on a fews shilling a day, has more in common with his poor Kikuyu neighbour who is trying to make ends meet with a few shillings.
They have both nothing in common with their filthy rich leaders, Luo or Kikuyu, owning companies, appartments, shares. Everyhwhere in the wordl: in Europe (Swizerland), America (New York), Australia, South Africa (Johannesburg).
They stole a lot already, although Kenyans did not threaten them in anything. How could they? They were busy: trying to sell some tomatoes, making a few cents profit so they could buy some ugali for their kids or sending half of their monthly salary of 25 euro to the shop where they sell school uniforms, worrying about their security. I am not talking about the leaders’ kids: they study abroad and don’t have to worry.
I am getting convinced more and more: Some weeks ago, Kenyan leaders did the Robbery of the century: they stole hope from people whose only possession was hope. If they call themselves men, African men and not cowards, the least they could do is give back hope. Kenyans will survive anyway, but it would be a great dead of respect towards their own people.

Kenya / Audio: pockets of rioting youth

admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:52:35 +0000

Please listen to the roughly edited audio i recorded this afternoon. For pictures: see below.

[MEDIA not found]

Have a pleasant evening!

Kenya / Coming up: pockets of rioting youth

admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:46:41 +0000

The morning was quiet in Nairobi. This afternoon i visited the informal settlements Mathare and Kibera. Police was around and Mathare seemed realtively quiet. Downtown Nairobi though there were pockets of rioting youth. They were dispersed by special police forces that used teargas. Less than an hour later, I witnessed singing youth who were challenging the police in the informal settlement Kibera. Police went in (that is the moment you hear on the audiofile). Minutes later, it seemed back to ‘normal’, as far as i can use that word in this extraordinary days for Kenya. Observation: more journalists around than common people. The riots will be in the media much bigger than they were.

[mygal=nairobiriots]

Kenya / 17.15 pm / Pictures: Just back from opening of Parliament

admin — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:30:24 +0000

Just back from the opening of Parliament. Quit hectic. Noit enough room for the press, so I had to improvise a bit to get some pictures. A warm thank you to the dilpmats from Greece and Cyprus who were very friendly indeed. One of the agenda points was the election of the speaker. The pictures are a quick impression. One of them shows president Mwai Kibaki bringing out his vote. Meeting is still going on. Nairobi downtown seems to be quiet at the moment (17.15 local time). Pictures are clickable.

[mygal=parliament]

All pictures were taken this afternoon. Audio available shortly. Enjoy the day!