The Basement Room (Another Stolen Phone) Part 2

I was repeatedly questioned about what I was doing up there on that restricted area at the roof of the bar, and whether I’m a thief or something. My possessions were searched, and I was questioned some more. While I just stood there laughing the whole thing off, they debated amongst themselves about what they were going to do with me. Once they were satisfied that I was not up to mischief of any sort, just a naïve idiot, I was finally led outside and onto the street. Eventually, things cooled down, one of my friends managed to talk to the bouncer and bribe him with a beer, and I was let back in. All was forgiven, we all laughed about it, and the bouncer told me not to climb onto that area again. My friends told me that I had been extremely lucky and should not expect such luck in future, and that people get taken to rooms like that and are never seen again. Recently in the news there had been a sad case of a Mombasa business man who, in another Nairobi bar, was taken into a room such as the one I was in, and beaten to death by bouncers and waiters for some minor transgression that was similar to mine. I imagined that could have been my story too: One paragraph on page 12 of the Sunday Nation, next to the editorial cartoon, would have been the last thing anyone heard about me. What comes to mind also is the story of Otto Warmbier, the US citizen who travelled to North Korea on a guided trip that his father suggested to him, and eventually died as a result of torture and detention in a North Korean jail, also someone who was allegedly caught doing something he shouldn’t’ have been doing. They say he was laughing and thought that it was just a small misunderstanding when they took him away from his friends at the airport, never to be seen again except in the video of him crying as he read the typed confession at his kangaroo trial. Oh well, I had just wanted to catch a nice view of the city.

So you can now understand my mental state as I sat on that Karen bus a few hours later, having escaped the jaws of a lion. I didn’t even notice the thief next to me as he took my phone. When I did, I told my friend and we asked the thief to return it. When he feigned ignorance, we tried to raise an alarm and he started to panic and struggle to leave. The matatu conductor let him out, and we followed. Then we tried to fight with him but he hit my friend in the head with what appeared to be a bottle, and then he ran off, managing to catch up with the matatu, which was waiting for him ahead, and it sped off, leaving the two of us on a deserted road in Karen.

After the long walk to the matatu terminus to see if we could find the matatu or its conductor there (My friend said he got a good look at the conductor and could remember his face) we decided to call it a night and head to his house to rest and commiserate. My friend nursed the pain in his injured head, and he asked why I didn’t put up more of a fight: It was a two to one match up and the odds were in our favor. What my friend possibly didn’t understand about me is that I was born and raised pretty much exclusively in the city, and the last fight I was in was in High School, and I lost. The only combat training I have is a bunch of Krav Maga videos I downloaded on my computer and ended up not watching. The thief, on the other hand, was quite tall and looked scruffy and scary. If my memory serves, he was wearing some sort of multicolored coat that it seems he had made himself by patching up random fabrics. Basically, he looked like a dangerous man that would do whatever it takes to win the fight. With my legal training, I think the most I could do to him was debate him very vigorously, or write a compelling dissertation on the demerits of thievery. Then he hit my friend in the neck with the strange object, and I realized that there is also the danger of him carrying other concealed weapon. All these factors led me to realize that forgoing my phone is perhaps preferable to any outcome of trying to engage this man in a fight.

 

All in all, I managed to survive an extremely precarious night out and had to spend next few days trying to recover my lost numbers and stuff. I however didn’t bother reporting the crime to see if there can be any effort to find the thief. It would undoubtedly be as fruitless as the last two times this happened and I reported the matters to the police. While I’m sure somewhere out there is a hardnosed detective poring over the case files of my last two phone thefts, working obsessively late into the night to discover clues and leads, the reality is that’s probably not the case. After all, this is Nairobi: One minute, you can find yourself on top of the city taking in a spectacular view, and the next you can find yourself in a windowless room in a basement where people go and are never seen again, and the one after that can find you on a street in Karen arguing bitterly with a phone thief – all these things can happen to you on any given Friday night in the streets of Nairobi, and the city will move on, never skipping a beat. I think the perfect motto for Nairobi – a phrase I kept hearing during the recent elections – is “Utajua haujui.” (You will know that you don’t know).

The Basement Room (Another Stolen Phone) Part 1

Three nights ago my phone was stolen. It happened while I was on a matatu headed to Karen. I frequently use those matatus and I know to always be aware, particularly on that route, of phone thieves. In the last two years, I had two other phones stolen on that same Karen route, and had managed to stop a third attempt just in time. I’ve also been told that the matatu conductors and drivers there tend to be in cahoots with the thieves and will aid in the thievery or pretend to be unaware of it happening. So, needless to say, I try my best to be attentive and on my guard in a Karen matatu, but this time, I was not. Part of the reason why was, just a few hours earlier, I narrowly escaped from a dangerous situation, possibly a painful death. I’ll explain.

My evening had started well. It was a Sunny Friday and I was headed to my family’s restaurant to meet up with friends I hadn’t seen in quite a long time, and to watch the two World Cup games scheduled for that day. The restaurant is a small place just off Ngong road. I leisurely strolled over and got there in time for the second half of game one. (I fear the Ngong road matatus almost as much as the Karen ones.) Anyway, my friends and I had a good old reunion, and after the games had ended we decided, as we had done several times in the past when we would meet up, to keep the fun going and hop to a seedy dive bar in the middle of town. This bar, which I will not name because of reasons that should become apparent as you continue reading this, is quite old and legendary. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if I found out its existence predates the independence of this country. The inside décor looks quite colonial, though I have never seen it during the day and the lighting there is not so good. Whenever we had gone there, my friends would warn me to always ensure that my wallet and phone are secure, and to not trust anyone or leave my drink unattended. It is not exactly a place where the most upstanding members of Nairobi can be found, but we love its rustic appeal, and reasonably priced alcohol, so we keep going there.

It has a balcony from where one can get a nice and spectacular view of the central business district, and I was there with one friend when we noticed a somewhat restricted but unlocked area where one could climb and get an even wider view. Now I don’t know what you know about me, but my fear of and obsession with heights, combined with my childlike excitement and curiosity, meant that I definitely had to climb up to that area. My friend warned me not to wander off too far, but wander off too far is exactly what I did! I just couldn’t resist, and I was also blissfully unaware of the dangers that lay ahead. I just wanted to get a cool view of the city. After having my fill, and noticing one or two concerned citizens on the street below looking up and wondering what I was doing there, I decided to go back to my friend. I found him where I had left him, and standing next to him was an angry looking bouncer.

The towering man asked me repeatedly what I was doing there. I said I was doing nothing. My friends pleaded with him and tried to explain, but he was unmovable. He took me to a second bouncer, all the while I was laughing and trying to explain that this has all been a great misunderstanding. Apparently, I must have caused some sort of hullabaloo when people when people saw me from the street below and someone must have complained. The area I had wandered to is dangerous and has no guard rails. I guess the bar could have incurred liability if I or any other person had fallen onto the street there. Then why not lock it, I say? Like I said, I am a very curious person. Put a few drinks inside me, and you’d best believe I will climb on any dangerous restricted thing I see! In fact, once 12 years ago, when I was in a bar in Zanzibar (Hehe, a Zanzi-bar), I wandered off alone in the dark and nearly fell off the pier by the beach, all while loudly playing “Tu Mirá”by Lole Y Manuel from the Kill Bill soundtrack on my iPod. Surely, apart from the “Tu Mirá” thing, I can’t seriously be the only one who does this, can I? Well, the bouncer couldn’t understand, and he started to lead me away. I thought I was merely being thrown out of the bar, but I wasn’t. He was taking me downstairs to the basement.

There were several things that should have clued me in to the fact that my life was now in imminent danger. First, I was being taken to the basement. If you are in a dive bar anywhere in the world and someone is taking you to the basement, you certainly shouldn’t expect super happy fun times ahead, and you shouldn’t be laughing and thinking all shall be well either, which was what I was doing. One friend was trying, to no avail, to stop the bouncer from taking me, but the large behemoth of a man was strong enough to have dragged all three of us into that basement if he needed to. One friend later told me that he was seriously thinking, as I was taken away, of what he would tell my loved ones about my impending disappearance.

I was now in a windowless room. Judging from its fluorescent lighting and the white tiles on the floor and walls, I thought perhaps it was intended to be a bathroom or used to be one, although there was no bathroom or anything suggesting one was there or soon will. It never occurred to me that the room was designed that way so that blood, or any other bodily fluids that may leak out of a human body in that room for one reason or another, could easily be cleaned off from the floor and walls. Apart from the three bouncers and myself, the room was completely empty. I didn’t realize it then, in fact I had only seen it in movies and TV shows where gangsters own nightclubs, but I was apparently in that special room that every notorious bar has, where problems get taken to be dealt with, and I was a problem.

Electionphobia 4: “The Law is very clear…”

This past weekend, I sat down with a law school class mate and close friend of mine, Stanley Kimaru, and we had an rather productive discussion over a few drinks about the political and constitutional issues facing us as we approach the elections tomorrow. We figured that if the experts on TV can do it, so can we, right?

 Read on below. Who knows? Maybe we even found a solution to this whole damn thing! (Narrator’s Voice: They didn’t)

Oh, and my friend Stanley has a blog https://smarksthexpot.wordpress.com/ where he gets all deep, philosophical and witty about the important things in life, like Game of Thrones and Anime. Check it out!

 

NASA Presidential Candidate Raila Odinga’s withdrawal from the October 26^th Presidential Elections

 Stan: 

Being a veteran in Kenya’s game of thrones, he knows the terrain. His withdrawal is spawned from the who-blinks-first game between him and the IEBC. The IEBC has agreed to give in to twenty of the thirty four conditions given by the Opposition. This I believe to be commendable, but NASA wants each and every demand met in order to attain a level playing field.

 Hawi:

At this point, there are so many opinions about what his angle actually is. He claims that his withdrawal is because he believes that the elections will not be free and fair if they go ahead, and that he’ll only participate in the elections after IEBC is reformed and NASA’s irreducible minimums are met.

 

One of the first theories I heard was that he’s angling to trigger fresh nominations, perhaps to make strategic candidature changes in the NASA ticket. Another favorite is that he wants to cast doubts as to the legitimacy of the October 26^th Elections, if they take place, perhaps so as to be able to challenge them in the Supreme Court again. A third dominant theory has been that Raila wishes to catalyze some sort of internationally backed civilian coup against the government, maybe even resulting in a power sharing agreement between NASA and Uhuru’s Jubilee government.

 Stan:

The question begs: is there legitimacy in his withdrawal from the 26th October presidential selection? Frankly, it is a complicated affair. Some of the Opposition’s demands are meant to cure the illegalities and irregularities raised in the Supreme Court’s ruling. The ruling was a hail mary for Raila and from the look of things he intends to take it to the end zone no matter what. The IEBC on the other hand has stood its ground by rejecting some of NASA’s demands most importantly the sacking of some of its top staff and the changing of the printing and technology providing firms citing time constraints, existing contracts and lack of evidence of mishandling of the August elections by the respective firms.

Will elections take place on October 26^th? 

 Hawi:

So, we have the Supreme Court decision on the Raila 2013 Election Petition, in which the court gave an opinion to the effect that if a candidate were to withdraw from fresh resultant to annulment of election results, creating a situation as envisioned in Article 138(8) of the Constitution, in which case the election calendar would effectively be reset and all candidates would seek fresh nominations. We had all been that Raila’s withdrawal would therefore seemingly mean that elections cannot take place on the 26^th.

 Then comes along the decision made by Justice Mativo in the High Court Petition of Ekuru Auokot v. IEBC last week, which  has important bearing on the issue. In the decision, the Justice stated that fresh elections can occur without the need for fresh nominations. It also voided the opinion in the Raila 2013 Petition. Although an appeal has been lodged for this case, the IEBC has already stated its position that the elections will go on on the 26^th as previously planned, with all the candidates in the original election added to the ballot, including Raila until he formally withdraws by way of filing the form 24A, in which case the election will take place without him.

 STAN:

Throwing a fresh twist into this conundrum, the high court allowed Ekuru Aukot to vie in the repeat poll. Now this flipped the script 360 degrees further pushing the country from a constitutional and/or any available statutory solution. Politically, Raila’s withdrawal is a scheme to stall the repeat of the election until their demands are met. Now this might not be the ultimate panacea to Jubilee’s numbers game but it is undoubtedly a legitimate call to have the illegalities and irregularities which we as the electorate as did the highest court in the land cannot cast a blind eye to.

 There will be an election on 26th October 2017. Honestly though, the legitimacy and legality of the repeat poll hangs in the balance. I say this because questions without answers abound. What are the implications if the supporters of the opposition who are almost half of the electorate boycott the elections? Is there any confidence in the IEBC to conduct the election when one of its commissioners hit the road unceremoniously while the chair cast doubt on his capability to deliver a credible election? Are we going to be trapped in an election-petition-repeat cycle? These questions sadly lack the concrete answers that can reassure the electorate. We are going in blind in a situation which has no blue print.

NASA’s irreducible minimums and the Jubilee’s Election Laws

 Stan:

After the 1st of November 2017, it was decreed that an election is not an event but a process. The Supreme Court redefined the saying, “men lie, women lie but numbers don’t” to “numbers lie but processes don’t.” NASA’s irreducible minimums and Jubilee’s amendment to the electoral laws are all knee-jerk exigencies to satisfy and/or counter the court’s ruling. The crux of the amendments sought by the Jubilee fraternity is to reaffirm that the numbers reign supreme and that the conduct of elections is largely irrelevant in determining a presidential petition in the Supreme Court. Concomitantly, NASA wishes to play referee and player by dictating the rules of this game by ruthlessly pushing for reforms under the guise of irreducible minimums.

Hawi:

For one thing, I think the new laws passed by Parliament are intended to make it harder for the Supreme Court to nullify future elections despite evidence of vote tampering or interference as well as diminish the powers of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission.

As for the NASA Irreducible minimums, roughly half of them seek to deal with administrative matters such as the technology to be used and the systems to be used to transmit the results, and a good deal of them are substantive and go into matters of right of access of independent observers and the media as well as other means to ensure that there is true electoral reform. So far, the IEBC has responded to them by concurring with roughly a third of them and rejecting others as either being unreasonable or unacceptable, or impossible within the October 26^th deadline for the elections.

STAN:

IEBC is getting the short end of the stick in this brawl and rightly so since it bungled the last poll. Both factions desperately want to convince the electorate that their intentions are geared towards attaining a free, fair, credible and accountable election. Once again, both sides are not right and not wrong in their pursuit of their perceived path of solution out of this rut we have found ourselves in. Given the impasse, the only solution lies in compromise which seems to be the last thing on the minds of the principals together with their rank and file. The same enthusiasm and camaraderie they share in pushing for the revision of their pay perks should be witnessed in breaking this gridlock.

 Anti-Election Protests, and Government Response

Stan:

That’s easy. Article 37 of the constitution provides for the right to assembly, demonstration, picketing and petition. However, such a right comes with a condition that demonstrations should be conducted peaceably and unarmed. Therefore the protests that have been carried out over the past weeks to hound out the IEBC top staff are quite in order but it is unacceptable that during the ensuing demos innocent business people have their shops and stalls vandalized. Simply not right.

Hawi:

The Jubilee government has repeatedly cited security concerns and acts of vandalism committed by protesters. And while the media does report that there have been instances countrywide where the protesters have turned dangerous, and have looted or destroyed property, it has also been noted that there has been trend of excessive force and brutal acts being committed by the police and security forces in response to the protests.

I think that people should be allowed to peacefully demonstrate, picket or protest as guaranteed by the Constitution, and that it is unfortunate and horrifying to see the brutal manner in which the police have responded to the protestors. I think that, once duly notified of when and where a protest is to take place, the police have a duty to ensure that the safety of the protesters is ensured, that they are allowed to protest peacefully, and that the police arrest and detain any protesters who commit any violent, destructive or criminal acts, and the police oversight bodies and human rights groups should also investigate cases where the police used live bullets, committed acts of brutality against protesters.

Stan:

Section 24 of the National Police Service Act, which outlines the functions of the Kenya Police Service, provides that the Police are meant to provide assistance to the public when in need, maintain law and order and most importantly in this situation protect life and property. The Act’s Sixth Schedule elaborately spells out the conditions as to the use of force. A police officer shall always officer shall always attempt to use non-violent means first and force may only be employed when non-violent means are ineffective or without any promise of achieving the intended result. The force used shall be proportional to the objective to be achieved, the seriousness of the offence, and the resistance of the person against whom it is used, and only to the extent necessary while adhering to the provisions of the law and the Standing Orders. If the overwhelming wave of outcry from the human rights groups and the public at large of unwarranted killing and maiming of protesters by the police is to go by, then our police are not upholding their oath to serve and protect. I agree that some protesters do take their rights to demonstrate over the top but killing and maiming is not their portion. Proper arrest and incarceration for their offence should be their fate. Then and only then will we as the people refer to our security forces as Kenya’s Finest. Before then, the Police Service has a long way in handling protests which I admit is a challenge.

Final Thoughts

Hawi:

We are definitely in uncharted territory as a country. I think the drama that is unfolding in our politics will one day make for a very exciting movie or tv-series, if we survive it, that is. Meaningful dialogue is necessary to rescue us from this precipice. I maintain that the threat to our nation’s peace and stability does not come from the protesters and security forces clashing in the streets, but from our ruling elite who want to silence our democracy by dividing us amongst ourselves so that we are too preoccupied to fight against the true injustices in our society.

 Stan:

I’ll let the Supreme Court take this one. Paragraph 399 of the ruling:

 What of the argument that this Court should not subvert the will of the people? This Court is one of those to whom that sovereign power has been delegated under Article 1(3)(c) of the same Constitution. All its powers including that of invalidating a presidential election is not, self-given nor forcefully taken, but is donated by the people of Kenya. To dishonestly exercise that delegated power and to close our eyes to constitutional violations would be a dereliction of duty and we refuse to accept the invitation to do so however popular the invitation may seem. Therefore, however burdensome, let the majesty of the Constitution reverberate across the lengths and breadths of our motherland; let it bubble from our rivers and oceans; let it boomerang from our hills and mountains; let it serenade our households from the trees; let it sprout from our institutions of learning; let it toll from our sanctums of prayer; and to those, who bear the responsibility of leadership, let it be a constant irritant.

 That is the burden of our democracy and we must shoulder it. Right now we are on a democratic teething process which is soul-sucking, unbearable and just a second away from insanity. Painful but inevitably, we are growing and I’m glad to be a witness. What a time to be alive!

 

The Judgment

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on the annulled 2017 Kenya Presidential Election, and Whoa! That judgment was long. If you managed to sit through the entire thing, congrats, you are now a constitutional lawyer. It went on for 11 hours, was mostly boring and quite repetitive, and most Kenyans, me included, tuned out after we had heard the parts we wanted to hear.

The Judgment

Justice Lenaloa started things off with a 15 minute introduction on the surrounding issues and facts of the petition, Justice Mwilu followed, taking 1 hour and 40 minutes. She focused on importance of following process of election and how the flouting of the constitution and the electoral laws subverted the will of the people. Justice Maraga then took 1 hour to conclude the majority decision. He spoke about responsibility of the various institutions to ensure fidelity of the constitution and guarantee free and fair elections. 

Justice Ojwang then gave his dissenting opinion. He spoke for 3 hours and focused on comparative constitutional law and how the present decision is a deviation from precedent, cautioning that the Supreme Court should not take such radical steps. Lastly, Justice Ndung’u, who was also dissenting, spoke for over 4 hours, giving a scathing point-by-point criticism of the majority decision. She also gave a thorough analysis of election laws around the world, submitted findings from her personal perusal of the documents submitted by the electoral commission, and rather intriguingly ended by giving the orders that she believes would have been made had her dissenting opinion been the majority decision.

The lengthiness of these dissenting views point to the fact that this judgment was obviously not arrived at easily and must have been the result of heated debate amongst the judges who made it. The significance of the judgment has also been quite evident in the endless debate and controversy in various forums over its implications. The judgment has animated and excited the national debate on election laws and the constitution. For the next few weeks or so, the news and social media will be filled with conflicting opinions, indecipherable lies and obfuscated truths. No doubt, this is due to the fact the judgment has invalidated a contentious and heated election which has divided the country in a similar manner to the ill-fated 2007 election. Therefore, depending on which side of the divide one belongs to, everyone will have their own preferred version of the truth or a part of the judgment that they like or dislike.

Indeed it is controversial that the annulment was not due to anyone contesting the numbers submitted by the electoral body, but due to the “contumacious” (as Deputy Chief Justice Mwilu put it) manner in which the electoral commission hastily declared the election results without fully verifying them, and the fact that they subsequently failed to avail the forms to the opposition despite being ordered to do so by the Courts. The precedent set by this judgment will therefore have lasting implications on the rule of law in Kenya and our right to due process.

I believe in democracy, justice, and rule of law. And looking at the past election and how it was conducted, I believe that most of us could agree that things did not happen as they should have. We could have had a much better election than the one we just had if the people conducted it had obeyed our constitution and its principles. But hey, if I had wheels, then I’d be a wagon. There is no point in wondering about the what-ifs. We have to move forward as a society and figure out how not make the same mistakes over and over again. It is somewhat disheartening to see people suggest that our constitution being treated like it is a suggestive document and that the rules don’t matter, yet that was not how it was meant to be. 

The Constitution is Society’s demand letter, not a suggestive document. The substantive principles it contains are supposed to be imperative and absolute, and yet we treat them as though they are to be negotiated, to our continued detriment. Our constitution is not perfect. No constitution in the world is. It has its merits and demerits like any other legal document, but if we as a society continue to act like what it says does not matter depending on the circumstances, then we might as well be laughing along with those in our society who intend to ruin us and propagate the violations of our rights as we die, perish and waste away.

The importance of this judgment, and the questions it raises, will be debated by legal scholars around the world for generations to come and will have an enduring legacy that will outlast the questions on the legitimacy of the present electoral process. For starters, it has marked a sharp turning point in the history of our country and a new age of our constitutionalism. Never before has our country had a judiciary bold or independent enough to challenge the will of the executive arm of government. Historically, the judiciary would have been wary of giving such a judgment, and would have opted for a slow and ambiguous approach. It is therefore impressive to see how far we have come as a nation: from days when our judiciary acted as a mere rubberstamp for the executive authority, to the more assertive one we have today. To quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I want young men and young women who are not alive today… to know and see that these new privileges and opportunities did not come without somebody suffering and sacrificing for them.”

Electionphobia 2: Through a Mirror Darkly

On Saturday Morning, I woke up to news that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission had announced the official results of the Presidential elections, and that the Kenya Presidential Elections of 2017 were therefore, for all intents and purposes, concluded. I didn’t bother asking who had won because, like many others, I had sensed earlier on how things would go. I was frankly just relieved that it was over, that I could resume my normal life, and that things had gone relatively smoothly and peacefully. However, spontaneous protests had broken out in low income suburbs in the Nairobi and around the country following allegations by Raila Odinga, Opposition Presidential candidate, that the election had been stolen in favor of incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta. Police helicopters could be seen in the distance circling Kibra, and I pwould hear gunshots – or were they blasting teargas canisters? – every now and then. But my favorite coffee shop was at open that day, although it had to close early; pretty much the only major inconvenience I suffered that day. 

Elections like the one we just had can effectively divide us into two Kenyas: one that carries on with its life as if nothing is happening, and another that lives in fear and terror.

The barista at the coffee shop informed me, as they closed early, that the matatus to his area were to cease running after 5 pm. He advised me not to go anywhere near Kibra in the coming days. I would later on learn, from international media and other sources, of the tension and anxiety affecting various segments in Kenya following post-election chaos, as well as reports that at least 24 people had died and many others injured because of it. One would want to believe, if at all there could be a justification for such senseless deaths, that the dead somehow brought it upon themselves by looting or protesting an election instead of remaining peacefully at home, but there have been disturbing reports that suggest otherwise.

I am fairly confident that the community I live in, for the most part, will probably withstand this and future elections in this country. I will still be friends with the people in my life who voted against the person I voted for. What I don’t know is whether it is sustainable to continue to live in an atmosphere such as the kind we have today in Kenya, where the grievances and concerns of one side of the political divide are totally dismissed as fake news and non-existent by the other side. It is as though we do not see each other as human beings who can empathize with one another’s situations, such that elections like the one we just had can effectively divide us into two Kenyas: one that carries on with its life as if nothing is happening, and another that lives in fear and terror, while the other side never gets to see because it is being broadcasted on a channel that never reaches our screens, laptops or mobile devices.

However, we were all collectively able to breathe a sigh of relief yesterday as Raila Odinga announced that he will go to the Supreme Court to challenge the victory Uhuru Kenyatta. For a while, the mood had been tense as people speculated on which direction things could go. We seldom like to admit it, but both men at the center of the conflict are exactly alike: they are both powerful men: in a sense, literally natural born leaders, and each has a vision for the future of Kenya. And even though those visions may be in direct opposition, they do share some things in common. And six months from now we will all probably have put this all behind us and moved on to other things, as we tend to do, and these two men will still probably be as powerful as they have always been, and we will all have forgotten the grief of the families of Chris Msando, Zach Okoth, Samantha Pendo, and several others who died senselessly in their battle to preserve and maintain their power.

I continue to hold out the hope that one day we all have a frank and constructive discussion about the Kenya we want, and why our costly and dangerous elections never seem to get us any closer to achieving it. Maybe future generations will one day break this cycle of divisive politics, tribalism, and hatred which get in the way of achieving meaningful development and social cohesion. A unified Kenya can only exist once we learn to respect those who walk a different road or speak different languages from ours, and once we all recognize that the power and force that our leaders enjoy is created and maintained as a result of our strength and cooperation as a society. So, as we reflect on the election that has passed, and make plans for the future, I sincerely hope that we will at some point take a long hard look in the mirror and confront the nation which we have all helped create: the scars on bodies of the victims of violence and brutality; the graves of our young dead; the wasted communities struggling to rebuild their lives while we ignore – all of it, directly or inadvertently, caused by us.

For now, I suppose I’ll catch up on the latest episode of Game of Thrones, a show about Kings and Lords living in comfort and luxury while their subjects languish in poverty and die in pointless wars – Hmmm…. I wonder what that feels like.

Electionphobia,…Or you could sleep through the Elections

I remain a firm believer in the principles of democracy, and that our electoral process is one of the key aspects of it. But our Kenyan elections, like one of those expensive movie franchises involving transforming robots, or a team of fast and furious drivers, only keep getting worse with each sequel. The people in charge of making them keep assuring us that they will get better, but they don’t. They keep telling us that this is the one that will change everything, but it just ends up being the same set of events, with a few changes or additional characters to keep us hooked, but ultimately we will keep on forking up the cash and requesting for more sequels in spite of our disappointment. Don’t get me wrong. I believe elections are important. Many in our country fought and lost their lives for my democratic right to exist as it does currently, and I don’t wish to make light of this, but let’s face it, at some point we will need to do some soul searching, and genuinely ask ourselves: why do we keep punishing ourselves like this?

Our Kenyan elections, like expensive movie franchises involving transforming robots, or a team of fast and furious drivers, only keep getting worse with each sequel.

 

And with this election which we face tomorrow, we can see the tell-tale signs that we will again receive more of the same. The recent murder of Chris Musando, the ICT head of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the body in charge of conducting the elections, has sent shockwaves and added dimensions of confusion and mystery to the narrative of what was shaping up to be quite a Hollywood blockbuster of an election.

The death casts a shadow of doubt as to whether the electoral body will be able to conduct a free and fair election, and raising fears that the 2017 elections will again spiral into violence like the disputed 2007 Kenya Elections which had led to violence resulting in over 1300 deaths and the displacement of over 3500 people, an event considered to be one of the most violent and destructive periods in our country’s history.

In the process of reconciliation, it was identified that long term factors such as poverty, social inequality, and exclusion of segments of society were to blame for the crisis, and in the peace agreement that ensued, independent institutions were created to address those issues. Among these institutions is the IEBC, which had already been shrouded in controversy over its credibility and the preparations for the elections long before the mutilated, evidently tortured, body of its ICT head was found in a forest in the outskirts of the capital city.

And so we find ourselves right back here where we started: heading down the treacherous path towards an election of questionable legitimacy, in a highly toxic political atmosphere, and the specter of election violence once again looming overhead.

While it is hard to predict what the outcome will be, I have that terrifying nagging feeling about the Kenya I will wake up to should I fall asleep on Election Day. Hundreds of years from now, what will future generations remember of these days in Kenyan history? What will they say about how we felt today, as we approached this most important event in our lives, and the narratives that will follow? I wonder how they will reflect about the unease and tension that exists today, while I sit at my computer questioning my belief in the principles of democracy in Kenya using analogies of movie franchises involving transforming drivers and furious robots, and going about my life. Will all this have been worth it?

Keep in mind, as well, that geopolitics has radically shifted since the disputed 2007 Kenya elections. Cousin Barry is no longer POTUS, and an angry orange dude is now the leader of the Free world. If Kenya were to descend into chaos, this angry orange man would probably not be the least bothered, either because he won’t care, or because he still harbors bitterness that we didn’t give him Barry’s birth certificate or whatever. The United Nations Security Council, still licking its wounds from the smack down the Kenya government gave it at the ICC, will defer our situation to local remedies. The African Union and the East African Community might try to help us resolve things, but look at how well that is working out in South Sudan . Basically, if things fall apart this time, we will be on our own, I think.

And deferring the matter to the Justice League may not be a helpful option either.

At the end of the day, if we as a society are not going to demand a fair election, or a peaceful election, maybe we just shouldn’t bother with one at all: If we are not going to demand that they make a better sequel to the movie, we should just save our money not go to the cinema altogether, stay home, and binge-watch our favorite TV series instead on that day.

But elections are important, and whether we like it or not, our vote has the power to influence your life and the lives of an untold number of people. So I would like to urge my fellow Kenyans to please go out there, vote, stay safe, and maybe say a prayer or two.

Tribute to Chester Bennington of Linkin Park

I can’t be the only one who had this experience:
The year is 2002. I was an awkward kid in a Kenyan college. “Endless grief” is perhaps is the best description one can give to express what life is like in a Kenyan college, especially taking into consideration the dreaded 8-4-4 system. Humongous amounts of pressure, etc. etc. but I digress.
When I had been in High school, I was heavily into rap music. But in 2002, rap was going through a weird phase. The late 90s were a weird period for rap. The deaths of Tupac and Biggie were still fresh, and there was an obsessive need to fill the void they left behind. DMX and Ja Rule briefly tried, and I remember constantly drawing ‘Ruff Ryder’ emblems on any item I possessed, and my questionable fashion choice of wearing a red bandana to a high school function (Thankfully, social media didn’t exist then as it does now, and there is no photographic evidence). But in 2001, rap was beginning to ebb away from prominence. Eminem did drop one of his greatest albums that year, but audiences were perhaps still stigmatized by the Tupac and Biggie deaths, and the subsequent beefs between Jay Z and Nas as well as Eminem/50 Cent and Ja Rule made people fear a sequel to that sort of thing. So rap became anodyne and weak, with autotune, ringtone rap, and gimmicky dance moves (Remember ‘Shake that Laffy Taffy’) at its forefront. It couldn’t do it anymore for me, so I had to switch to another form of music to help me cope with the angst of college life. A neighbor friend hooked me up with a mixed cd that contained various rock compilations, including an album named ‘Hybrid Theory’ by Linkin Park, and there it was!

I can’t even describe the buildup of emotions when I first heard the ominous piano and rhythmic turntable scratching, a melancholy sounding Chester Bennington breathing, almost whispering, the words “It starts with one”, immediately followed by a Gatling gun volley of Mike Shinoda’s lyrical hot fire, a flood of repressed anger firing back at the oppressive systems of society, evoking emotions of self-doubt and the various crises of human life. It was all there! I mean, I had been familiar with rock music before, but most of it, to me, was just a bunch of people whining about problems I didn’t really identify with. Linkin Park was extra to the max! Their delivery was perfectly worded, angry and screaming of the universal betrayals and fears of human existence.

Many years later, I still recall how therapeutic it was to belt out the lyrics to ‘Numb’, with the volume turned so high that my younger cousin would come into my room and explain to me, in Swahili, that I should stop listening to that kind of music or people will think I’m a devil worshiper. Later, she would join university and discover that the therapy in those lyrics is indeed the best cure to the doldrums of university life. When I broke the news to her yesterday about the death of lead singer, she had at first thought I was going to tell her that Linkin Park were coming on tour to Kenya.

Chester Bennington’s death came as a huge unexpected blow to me. I had never known about his struggles with depression. Sure, his lyrics were indicative that he had issues, but I guess you don’t really think about it when you’re belting out the words in unison with your friends as ‘In the End’ plays at maximum volume from the stereo system your bedroom, or in your car, or in a crowded nightclub. ‘His music united us, how could he feel so alone?’ is a cliché statement that I imagine is what his fans all over the world are thinking, or some other version of the sad clown paradox.

Suicide is a topic that rarely gets talked about in a gentle or understanding way. I have read comments on social media about Chester Bennington’s “cowardice” or “selfishness” in making this choice. I regret the fact that this happened, and wish that there were ways people could intervene whenever something of this sort happens. I always recall this paragraph from ‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace, which helped me understand that no one can really know what is going through the mind of someone when they choose to end their life:

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

Goodbye Chester Bennington. I don’t understand why this happened, but I believe, like your lyrics say, that you pushed as far as you could go. Thank you for the music.

A Day at the Grind

Music from the early aughts: neo-soul from the likes of Musiq-soulchild, Eryka Badu, and Alicia Keys, plays smoothly on a sunny afternoon at On The Grind Coffee Bar and Kitchen, a small hidden bistro on Riara Road. It perfectly soothes the atmosphere and augments the distracting sounds of construction work across the road, smalltalk between the bartender and waitress, and the more serious discussions between the sparse and business-looking customers. Today is a mild day with very little traffic, but there should be more customers later on as the lunch crowd rolls in: I am told this by Peter, the college-age bartender who also serves as the accountant and music deejay. It is his music selection that is playing, and I ask him how he could have acquired a taste in such songs that defined my high school years, to which he responds by teasing me about how young I look.

And soon enough more customers start to trickle in. The deejay has now switched to hiphop. The small restaurant has a seating capacity of roughly 30 people. But so far, only 5 people have come in to have a meal. The flatscreen tv on the wall, as if responding to this prompting, locks on to the signal of Citizen Station, and a Kenyan drama show plays soundlessly. This has no effect on the customers, who would maybe prefer to be left in solitude. A majority of the patrons pull out their laptops and begin to work, and conduct important transactions with words like “I will inbox it to you by this evening latest.”or “I need that file you were to send to me.”

As afternoon approaches, the sunlight refreshingly catches the potted plants that decorate the front of a restaurant. It is a simple structure of metallic frame supporting cement slabs which partition a very tiny kitchen, a small bar and restaurant space, and the male and female toilet. It was built on top of three parking spots in the parking area of Riara Corporate Suites, a relatively new office complex in the growing Kilimani area. A yellow streak runs on the ground in the restaurant area and into the Kitchen area, defiantly demarcating a parking space that no longer exists.

Evening swiftly descends and the waitress asks if I will be needing another glass of white wine, responding lightheartedly when I decline. The small lunch crowd begins to put away their laptops and iPads and disperse. The bartender checks the business line to see if any customers have called in. Eventually, the sepia tone mood of the location takes over and affects even the tone of conversation. The chef and bartender are exchanging jokes in the kitchen and the few straggling lunchers are also lightheartedly joking as they order for more drinks. It is evident that this odd and rare restaurant has carved a niche for itself. It defiantly stands, both hidden and conspicuous, a symbolic representation of the calm and serenity that the city of Nairobi has never had, and never desired.

American Gods’ relevance in today’s world

One of the most peculiar beliefs about life after death, to me at least, is the ancient Egyptian belief that when one dies, they meet the God of Death, Anubis, who will take their heart and place it on a measuring scale, placing a feather on the other side. If the heart is lighter than the feather, they get to float away from Earth and into the afterlife. If it isn’t, they are trapped on Earth forever. The idea of the belief was that good deeds and tributes which one does on Earth would aid one’s spiritual journey to the afterlife, and make their heart lighter than the feather, whereas the evil deeds men do would make their hearts heavier and heavier, trapping them on Earth forever. Why I found this belief interesting is because I thought surely the Egyptians would have known that human hearts generally weigh more than feathers, no matter the circumstances, and by the laws of gravity, it should be impossible to believe otherwise than that we are all trapped on Earth for all eternity after we die. But maybe I’m taking the metaphor too seriously, and also, as the God of Death, Anubis probably owns a special feather.
This thought crossed my mind while watching American Gods, the new fantasy series that lately been excited about. The series is based on a 2001 book of the same name by Neil Gaiman, which I read a couple of years ago. In the novel, Neil Gaiman takes the reader through an imaginative adventure into the lives of ancient Gods of America, having travelled along with their immigrant followers, thereafter languishing in obscurity after their followers have forgotten them and taken on new Gods, no longer able to subsist on tributes, sacrifices and prayers, they somehow survive over the years as a community of Gods. Through its unique and remarkable mixture of American culture and history with the ancient mythologies of the world about gods, religion, and spirits, and its creation of memorable and dynamic characters, it manages to tell a poignant and compelling tale that analyses and dissects human culture through the evolution of our religious practices, beliefs, and fears.

Here’s my review of the first two episodes of the series, also based on the book. By the way, there will be one or two spoilers. Be advised. I’ll refrain from giving away too much.

   “Over 100 years later, when Leif the fortunate son of Eriksonn the red, would rediscover that land, he found his God waiting, alone with his oar.”

These words are spoken in the cold opening of the pilot episode of the series. They are spoken by a dark mysterious man seated in a study of some sort writing into his diary. He has just finished giving an account of an ill-fated attempt by a group of Vikings to discover and explore America in 813 AD. They face terrible hardship and misery, and in their despair, pray to their God, Odin the All-father, offering a “tribute” for their salvation (oh, by the way, the series is very gory and violent, and has lots of sex and nudity and swearing. If you can handle Game of Thrones though, you can handle this.).

After the cold open, we meet our main protagonist. Shadow Moon, your standard tough guy with a troubled past. He’s just been let out of prison early because his wife died in a road accident. On the plane ride home, he lucks himself into a first class seat where he meets a wise old man who conned himself into the seat next to his. The old man introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday (Fun fact: the day Wednesday is named after the God Odin.). We therefore meet our first American God. Mr. Wednesday – A modern day personification of Odin, who immigrated to America when the “tribute” by the Vikings in the cold open was paid. He wants to hire Moon to be his aide-de-campe, and is all mysterious with his confidence trickery and deep perceptivity. Moon resists at first, but ends up being convinced and they later form a contract, thus beginning his and our journey into this bizarre universe.

Mr. Wednesday and Shadow moon meet.

As the series progresses, we are introduced to the main antagonists: These ancient Gods of America will face down the threat of the advancement of America’s New Gods; Technology (represented by an arrogant teenager who sits in a virtual limousine referred to as “the technical kid”), and Entertainment (the lady from the classic “I Love Lucy” sitcom. She has the ability to control and appear on any screen or handheld device), just to name a few. I found them to represent society’s progressive rejection of the natural and spiritual ways for the more hedonist desires of capitalism, as they find the ancient way of subsisting on prayers and tributes as old fashioned and have found ways newer, more digital, ways to extract their tributes and prayers.

Although the series and the book deliver poignant social commentary on American culture and habits. It has so far steered clear of the major religions that dominate the world currently, perhaps to avoid alienating their audiences (although I recall that the book may have briefly touched on the subject of Jesus). It will nevertheless be interesting to progressively see if and how the show will address the issues and controversies facing the major religions that affect the world as we generally know them.

However, the show will seemingly not miss an opportunity to target the social problems emerging in American society and in the world today, if the cold open of episode two is any indication. In it we see our mysterious man in the study writing another an account introducing us to my favorite American God so far, also present in the book. In the bowels of a slave ship bound for America (It is hinted that this is occurring right at the start of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade), a black man in chains despairs about his plight, praying to Anansi, his Spider-Based God, to help him “crawl away” from the misery he is suffering. As a Jazz theme plays, out from nowhere steps Mr. Nancy, a black man in a sleek purple suit. He tells his devoted followers that there is no escape, that it only gets worse, and that slavery, death and subjugation await them and others when they arrive at their destination. With a passionate speech tinged with Malcom-X-esque fury, he mocks and berates his followers into anger, prophesizing their fates, the fates of black people in America over the next 300 years, and the discrimination and injustice they will face even after the abolishment of slavery. He advises the captives that their best hope would be to set fire to the ship, killing themselves and their Dutch captors in the process, and thus “serve as a sacrifice for something worthwhile”; Mr. Nancy’s “tribute” is then paid, and we later see a purple spider sitting on a charred piece of wood as it floats onto the shores of America.

I’m not a very religious person myself, but I have always believed prayer and God are very key aspects of humanity and played a central role in our intelligence and how it developed. When man began to interpret the world around him, he did so through the lens of religious belief. Humans have always looked upwards and told themselves that someone or something else is in charge of our destiny, and we have used religious dogma to explain natural phenomena that we couldn’t understand. Even in our beliefs surrounding life after death, which I find self-serving and bizarre at times, I can see the principles that guided, shaped, and united our earliest societies. And although today I see organized religion as mostly a means of stifling human progress and dividing us along class and political lines, I still respect the fact that every human, in the darkest and most desperate moments of their lives, will humble themselves and pray to a God of some sort for salvation. It seems to me like a very human and social thing to do. So, during this time in the world when anti-immigrant sentiments are sweeping across the West, and America in particular, I can’t think of a more perfect time for a series that imagines the fictional immigration journeys of America’s earliest Gods, and that take us a world of their intermixed cultures with the progression of time, infused with the hopes and dreams of their followers during their varied pilgrimages towards discovery of the elusive “American dream”. During these times that are generally horrible for immigrants all over the world, American Gods, and stories like it, are perfectly suited.

Moonlight versus La La Land

Oscars are coming up, and I decided to watch the two movies everyone can’t seem to stop talking about to find out what makes them so special. I went into both these movies with zero expectations and zero information. If you had asked me what they were both about, I’d have said that Moonlight is probably a drug dealer’s redemption story, and La La Land is about white people dancing. I really hadn’t dug any deeper beforehand.

I started with Moonlight, which I found out was about a young black boy coming of age in a harsh and poverty stricken ghetto of Atlanta. What I found most unique about it was that the usual themes one would find in such a movie: drugs, poverty, violence etc., all themes that have been extensively covered in several other coming-of-age-in-the-ghetto movies, took a back seat in this movie and could almost have been ignored. The primary focus was on the main character’s homosexuality and his search for an identity and individuality. I don’t think I have watched or heard of any other movie that has explored a black man’s sexuality as deeply and as bravely as this movie did.

La La Land, which is about a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress who fall in love and try to help each other follow their dreams in Los Angeles, was certainly more cheerful and triumphant in comparison. It made me reminisce about watching old movies on TCM like Casablanca and Rebel without a Cause, which was even referenced in the movie. Every solitary moment in the movie is made out to seem as important and as significant as possible. And it is certainly the movie you want to watch this year if you are looking for an empowering message on following your dreams and passions.

The environment in Moonlight is rather gloomy and subdued in comparison. The movie does not in any way rely on elaborate scenes. In their place, it instead gives us close up shots, pregnant pauses and silences, and in some moments the picture and sound are disjointed in a way that really helps the audience identify with the solitude or discomfort the main character feels. Even the most mundane parts of the movie contained a spark of intensity. There is, for example an intensely captivating scene towards the end of the movie when a character prepares a meal for another character. Although nothing else happened in the scene, I couldn’t help but be totally invested.

La La Land really did go for the gusto with regards to delivering very elaborate and detailed scenery and action. Although nothing much can be said about the plot or direction of the movie, it was visually spectacular and I believe that it will be viewed as a classic for many years to come.

But aside from the technical stuff, I suppose that one should ask themselves if the movies had an important message or theme, and how effectively did the movies bring it out? La La Land’s central theme: the main protagonist’s love and passion for jazz music and his desire to reinvigorate the dying art, was strongly present in the beginning, and lost in the middle amidst elaborate musical performances, choreography, and special effects. It was rediscovered as the movie built up to its vibrant and formidable finale. Moonlight’s central theme, the main protagonist’s struggle to find an identity of his own, was painfully and inescapably present through out, up until it’s emotionally precarious conclusion.

An illustration of this point can be found in how the two movies marked their transitions. Both movies had a straight forward structure and were broken down into segments that represented passage of time.Moonlight was divided into three parts. Each part was labeled after the new identity the main character has been forced to adopt as he rejects a previous one. These were helpful markers that not only amplified the theme, but guided the audience to follow along, each time desperately hoping that the protagonist finally discovers one which grants him closure and resolution. The transitions in La La Land were labeled after the seasons of the year, resulting in more predictable and less urgent phases in the story, with its central idea and theme meandering in and out wherever it chooses.

So, which movie did I prefer? La La Land, the upbeat and nostalgic film? or Moonlight, the moody and bleak film with an authentic and easily identifiable conflict? Well, while I found La La Land to be technically superior and with more moving parts, Moonlight covered greater distance and depth. I therefore prefer Moonlight. La La Land was nice and fluffy, like your favorite sweater on a rainy day. Moonlight, on the other hand, was defiantly uncomfortable. But it instinctively lingered in its zones of moodiness and discomfort, resulting in a more rewarding viewer experience. La La Land is the movie to watch if you’re looking for something that is visually spectacular. And Moonlight is the movie for you if you want to see your protagonist go through an amazing journey of self discovery and reconciliation with their past, but painted in very ordinary lights.