The Rise of Fan Pages: Are They Not Too Much and Some, Useless?

             The latest fan page I have joined is called The Awakening. As I write this, it has 489 members and the number is sure to grow. Welcome to the rise of Facebook fan pages. If you have not subscribed to any group then count yourself left out of the train. Sorry. We are far now. You can’t reach us. Forget Campus Divas For Rich Men that raised a hell storm with almost 50,000 likes in about a fortnight. It was apparently closed by Facebook Privacy team after 1,001 complaints of its (mis)use of people’s pictures without their consent. On that note, you should as well go live in Syria where the internet was shut down by their absurd president called Bashar al-Assad.

            Are these fan pages sprouting day and night adding any substantial value to what they stand for? Is there an advancement of knowledge and proper propagation of ideas from these groups that profess commitment and dedication to their set goals and objectives? For instance, The Awakening that I recently joined spells out the following about itself:

“Poetry, Dance & Music
We are a team of Poets, Musicians, and Dancers, who believe in the awakening of conscience. We enjoy getting caught up in revolutionary, missionary, and visionary thoughts.”

            In simpler terms, the group deals with people who practice the craft of poetry, dancers and musicians or aspiring musicians. However, the nerve of poetry jerks me to uncomfortable ripples. Breaking News: Everybody is a poet/poetess. And everyone can write poetry. Every mushrooming fan page nowadays has a provision for poetry. Poetry is on its supposed deathbed and every Tom, Dick, and Harry is strapping it to a nearby a trolley for the ICU for prompt resuscitation. Young men and women are scrawling their hearts and even hurt away. Thanks to that ‘accidental billionaire’ who dropped out of Harvard. Run to Kenya Poets Lounge [the pioneer], Love and Life, CAN A POET LIKE I BE THE PRESIDENT?! Even at Sanaa Book Club, Creekside Reading Meadows, enthusiastic tender souls tap away their emotions freely with I suppose, extreme feelings of exhilaration. Writing poetry. The latitude provided by Facebook ensures even emotional junk passes as poetry. A flash of thought is condensed and hurriedly hurled to poetry readers in the aforementioned fan pages. Then friends like with the same vigor and ceremony as its new found self-crowned poet. Comments run in the thread as follows: “Great.” “You can do better.” It’s so deep.” “This is very deep.” And the deception snakes downward much to the false glory of our poet.

            Let’s make things clear. If you regularly post silly musings best kept in a personal diary to germinate as serious works, then keep off. Constant ruination of the purity of poetry is haunting its lovers to detrimental levels. Save me from an early suicide.

            Much fury for the last born child of literature. There are also fan groups that excel best in the breakdown of complex ideas and facts. The most notable group that rushes to mind is Freethinkers Initiative Kenya (FIKA). The objectives are tellingly clear:

“Freethinking is looking at new ideas and new information, being willing to re-evaluate your stance without letting your bias influence your conclusions.

They continue:
“Our perception of "truth" will change as new information is acquired.”

            If your mind is closed and lacks dynamism then don’t bother with this group. Here people openly question God, gays and lesbians proudly admit their ‘unique’ sexualities and Jesus suffers constant rebuke. The bible is subjected to ridicule and its authenticity demanded. In other words, if you have hard questions come and ask them at FIKA but get fully armed with information. Because its members don’t take debates for granted. Arguments are done with passion and at time with emotion. Personalities are bashed here and there are no chances taken for people who cannot ‘reason’ or ‘adapt’ to a line of argument. Expect more complex links during discussions and as the post attracts more FIKAist, more links follow. Subjects of discussion are hard because they require new thinking. Not what conventional dictates expects. Scholars are profoundly mentioned. However, there was a time when religion dominated and I raised my voice so were other members. We got heard but with a fight from its honchos. In a nutshell, if you want to go against the grain, welcome to FIKA. People rebel with relish and without apology.

            There are also the political fan groups that purport to sell this objective, that idea or goal. For example, there is the Bunge La Wananchi. By the way, desist from this group. It’s full of tribal venom. Members stoke ethnic tensions recklessly. People rarely debate with sobriety and decorum and things are taken personal. There is political worship and I bet the tribal gods who visit that shrine grin with intense fulfillment. Even at a membership totaling 45,769, the laxity of the administration to clump down on hate speech spewed chills to the bone marrow.  Please, keep away from fire.

            Another group that averagely generates interests especially on the current political scene is NO Pulling Kenya out of ICC Rome Treaty. Its objective is clear for those who understand English:

“This group is formed to block Kenya on reneging from the ICC Rome treaty that it is part of.”

            For those not in the know, two of Kenya’s presidential contenders are ICC suspects charged with crimes against humanity and having the greatest role in 2007/2008 post violence. According to the WAKI report, about 1,333 Kenyans were killed, 600,000 displaced and property worth millions of shillings destroyed. Kenyans are at crossroads whether Uhuru and Ruto are eligible to contest in March 4^th, 2013 elections.

            And more groups continue to be formed. If you do not join under your own volition, then a friend risks adding you up. Then the same cycle pops again. Bad poetry. Apple polishing from friends. Tribalism. Another fan page steals our attention, we request membership, it is confirmed and the dissolution of our lives skids to comical tomfoolery. Then Messrs Zuckerberg, the young billionaire fond of grey t-shirts laughs all the way to the bank.

Donald Trump Playing Racist Card

            Trump is at it again on Barack Obama with claims that he has the divorce papers of the First Family.  A revered business magnate, Donald Trump joins a list of other silly Americans (mostly white) who have obdurately refused to acknowledge the ascension of a black man in the White House. Trump and cohorts are so uncomfortable that every now and then, they have to use their influence to mudsling the president. Another sworn acolyte of the anti-Obama brigade is Dinesh D’ Souza who penned a book with the title: The Roots of Obama’s Rage where he lambasts an age mate of whom they share similar history to a degree that nauseates. Let me not get ahead of myself. The issue at hand is the ‘You are fired’ guy and his fixation with Obama presidency that turns such a well respected tycoon to a total unthinking figure. 

            First, it was the issue of Obama’s birth certificate. With notoriety for hyping his sensational, near-alarmist concocted fabrications; in early in 2011, Trump insisted that Obama must produce his birth certificate.  Trump had been alleging that Obama was not fit to be the president of America because he was born in Kenya and not the US. His ‘very, very big news’ compelled Obama to produce his birth certificate that indeed he was born in Hawaii. For those not in the know, Donald Trump is a fervent ‘birther’ and would stop at nothing to vilify and raise a kerfuffle over vacuum that Obama is not a legitimate natural born American. ‘Birthers’ is made up of conservative Americans who insist on the mark of ‘natural born citizen of America’ for anyone to hold an American public office. And the entire furore is because a black man is at the helm of the United States. Therefore, even with the money, the influence and prestige of being an author, TV host et al, a person like Donald Trump stills feels discontented with Barack Obama. 

            Truth be told, Obama is a normal human being with his flaws and Trump and ilk should treat him with modesty and decorum that he deserves. At least, if a person of Trump’s caliber engaged the American nation in Obama’s possible waterloo of drone attacks in Pakistan that is exterminating mostly civilians according to numerous reports then it would be sensible. But with a net worth of 2.9 billion USD according to 2011 findings from The Trump Organization, Donald Trump is a terrible disgrace to even those who look up to him in amassing wealth. 

            It is an ignominy when a public figure such as Trump tasked with setting the moral principles of their nations and the world at large to stoop to xenophobic inadequacies. Various definitions describe xenophobia as an ‘irrational dislike’ or ‘fear of strangers’ that is constantly jolting Trump from his quite to make headlines. Recently, George Will, a Republican commentator called him a ‘bloviating ignoramus’ who think others are wrong and he is correct. Thomas Paine in The Crisis notes that ‘to argue with a person who had renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.’ Trump is dead mentally and should be hastily rehabilitated before he jumps with another ‘very, very big’ conspiracy that Malia and Sasha are bastards. And he has the papers to prove that such and such year, Michelle Obama was this and Obama was that to maintain his popularity ratings.

             It not thus not scandalous to find a business mogul whose books all have his name with funny titles befitting his extreme abhorrence for public good and individual integrity. Trump: Survival at the Top, Trump: The Art of Survival, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Trump: How to Get Rich, Trump blah blah. Next time it will be Trump: The Art of Disliking a Black President. Get fired!

Right of Reply: Why the Middle-Class is Afraid of the Truth.

            Your opinion is grossly inaccurate and a true misinterpretation of what Ngugi wa Thiong’o said. First, I commend you for saying Ngugi is not such a superb writer in your view. Meja Mwangi does it for you. That’s okay. However, as you stated at the beginning of your writing that you will ramble, you have exactly done that to the detriment of the sobriety of the piece.

            You make wild claims that Ngugi views things in a static way and that he has no dynamics but how is that? Most of Ngugi’s novels were set in the backdrop of colonialism and they still ring true today. Ngugi’s novels speak of inequality that was entrenched after Kenya attained independence, historical injustices perpetrated by your beloved imperialists that you touch with kid’s gloves, wretched poverty that was planted by the first regime and national plunder that sound true in the Kenyan picture. A Grain of Wheat is a magnum opus by Ngugi and was published way back in 1967. The political betrayals of the period frozen in the book are still reflected in today’s politics. And none can try to dissociate politics and development. Can you? Legislators create laws that affect citizens. Politicians are in charge of coffers with taxpayers’ money and so these are bedfellows. You cannot divorce them. So how does the middle-class squeeze in between? It’s the political patronage, the corruption, the bootlicking tendencies to stay at the bourgeoisie level. Most of the middle-class cares for themselves. Period. Adolf Hitler, the world’s infamous sadist said in his political ideology Mein Kampf in Chapter 2 of the book under the title: Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna:

“The reason for this hostility, as we might almost call it, lies in the fear of a social group (middle-class), which has but recently raised itself above the level of the manual worker, that it will sink back into the old despised class, or at least become identified with it. To this, in many cases, we must add the repugnant memory of the cultural poverty of this lower class, the frequent vulgarity of its social intercourse; the petty bourgeois' own position in society, however insignificant it may be, makes any contact with this outgrown stage of life culture intolerable.”

            I am not in some class issues with the middle-class because none chooses in what family to be born. For example, you say the middle class find they are ‘truly’ themselves when they are ‘sitting at the dinner table eating kuku…’However, let me bring to your attention that daily most Kenyan families sleep hungry. In order to be themselves, they toil under the scorching sun with meager resources, receive little produce for subsistence but again, it is sold. It’s that grim and tormenting. According to the World Bank 2011 report, Kenya’s poverty level stands at 44 to 46 percent.  This means almost half the population is not living a comfortable life of meeting its fundamental needs that include adequate shelter, clothing, and the most paramount, food. Survival itself.

            Again, you declare that they (I am assuming the imperialists) cannot colonize your mind because there are ‘many deep places…education will never touch.’ This is total fallacy. The truth is, the White man came and brainwashed the African to think like he does. Imperialists came and destroyed African cultures and customs. They desecrated upon things Africans cherished. Things we valued in heart and in mind. That’s when the clans started disintegrating and young men started embracing the White man wholly and blindly by mocking their traditions. People society valued and had hopes in turned to the ‘Chuis’ in post modern Kenya (Petals of Blood). In a nutshell, in return for ‘civilization’, the imperialists robbed the African his African mind. Then Adam Smith came with his Wealth of Nations seminal text espousing the economics of Capitalism which I do not want to scorn. But it is also critical to observe that Capitalism has also produced its fair share of penury in third world nations such as Kenya. The bourgeoisie are adamant to ensure the proletariat maximizes his/her labor power at the expense of even his health all for the surplus value. In other words, there is a section that wants the status quo to remain so that they can continue amassing wealth at the expense of others. 

            Talking of languages, do you know some families are forcing their children to speak only English and Kiswahili at all times? What happens when they go to the village because we are Africans and ‘Home’ can never be Nairobi or Eldoret or even Canada as noted by Miguna in his book Peeling Back the Mask at the beginning. So, where is the pride in nurturing children in borrowed language if they cannot identify with their cultures and customs?  Even a true middle-class man understands it is an inadequacy on his part either from a psychological or sociological point of view. But they will hide under the disguise of modernization which I call inferiority complex. That is why Ngugi’s statement of colonizing ‘Wanjiku’ is very true. They want Africans to forget themselves and jump totally to the white man’s arms. 

            However, I do not object to the massive contribution of capitalism especially in the telecommunication sector in terms of cell phones, internet et al. It is a step in the right direction and a clear pointer we are headed for greater things. But, let’s pause a little and turn the other side of the coin. What about the majority of Kenyans who still do not have what to eat leave alone using technology? The average citizen who struggles to exist and not hustle for a modem or some credit card for his/her cellphone. Martin Luther King Jnr once lamented that man has learnt to fly planes and do everything sophisticated but cannot live with his brothers and sisters.  You also mention that your ‘generation know nothing about colonialism.’ Which generation is that? I bet they are not Kenyans or even worse Africans. Colonialism is taught in the Kenyan education curriculum. A subject such as History is mandatory in form one. Unless you schooled under the British education system that I doubt teach kids their histories. Things like the year of independence, the year when Kapenguria six were arrested and the formation of Kenya African Union were taught and still are. And the fact that our generation was not born in a colony does mean we forget the past.

            Then you rightly say that the middle-class is boring. It is the absolute truth. The middle-class has totally refused to participate in the political process of this nation hence things such as graft and tribalism remain rooted in the country’s psyche. When oil prices shoot up, the middle class will complain but still buy. When ordinary citizens grumble the education standards in public institutions is plummeting, the middle will criticize but take their kids to private schools. When there are security concerns, again they will show disgust but move to gated apartments with German shepherd dogs and security guards. No problem with someone living the life he/she desires. Already Chapter 4 of the Constitution on the Bill of Rights permits that. But that is again burying one’s head in the sand. Running away from a problem because after all, it is ‘them’ who know how to find solutions to their tribulations. And it is a norm for the majority of the middle class to blame the lower class for indolence and obsession with the politics of the day at the expense of seeking a meaningful living. But that is not case. The lower class mainly relies on CDF funds, LATF funds and scholarships because they cannot afford private institutions and gated homes. 

            Lastly, the way you interpret Meja Mwangi’s plots in his stories in relation to the world today is similar to those of Ngugi wa Thiong’o. The street thievery in Kill Me Quick is the same as the perfidy and kleptocracy in A Grain of Wheat and Petals of Blood respectively.’ The 60’s and 70’s that Ngugi keeps mentioning led Kenya to where it is today. Where negative ethnicity, cancerous sleaze and poverty is the order of the day. The 60’s and 70’s you want Ngugi not to talk about anymore because now there is Safaricom planted the seeds of unemployment and hopelessness among the majority of Kenyans. That’s why the regular Onyango, Maina or Makau will fall victim to things beyond his/her control because the powers that be are in control somewhere. But again, the middle class will admonish you that the poor keep on blaming fate and phantom external forces for their miseries and laziness. Who knows?

Reclaiming the African Dream: Call to the Committed African

           The redemption of Africa remains with Africans. Africa can no longer continue heaping piles of blame upon colonialism. It is a case closed. Period. Despite the imperialistic injustices suffered at the hands of the Europeans, we must move on. Charting the way forward is what should disturb us. Reducing unemployment rates, alleviating poverty, acquiring technology that will help treat diseases and investment in African man power is what any sane and committed African needs to worry about. It is imperative to find better ways to improve on modes of governance and establishment of firm institutions that outlast leaders. In other words, passing on of a better world to the future generation is the most persistent thing that should tickle any committed African. But how do we do it without sounding abstract? How can it be done practically so that the common citizen who bears the greatest brunt of incompetent governance, wretched indigence and suffering the most treatable of maladies benefit and live a better life?

            Here is my two cent worth. First, there must be a commitment by everyone to make him/herself better with whatever we have at our disposal. Whether it is farming, teaching, rearing livestock, writing, acting or just offering advice; it is fundamental to have something that keeps us busy. It is from a started project that an individual may solicit for help which mostly is always financial and at other times, social or even emotional. Back in the rural areas, it is being done with women forming farming groups to help them improve on their farming methods. Young men and women who have not had the chance to join institutions of higher learning are constantly forming groups and writing numerous letters to both governmental and non-governmental offices asking for funds to support their nascent ventures. That is the way forward. I am speaking from the Kenyan context though it resonates well with most African nations. These ventures will help in the reduction of poverty and dependence that is known to drag back most African families.

            Another thing is to constantly put our leaders to account. Especially political leaders because it is them who influence most of the destinies of their nations. Shooting of people demonstrating for their rights as happened in South Africa of platinum miners should be loudly condemned. Massacring of thirty four people should not be allowed in Africa at this age especially when it is done by law enforcement agencies in a country with a vibrant democracy as South Africa. This also goes to the CCM party in Tanzania where police beat up a journalist and ended up dropping tear-gas canister killing him in the most heartless technique ever witnessed. In other words, the electorate of Tanzania cannot allow CCM to continue with this pointless hegemony and must vote out Jakaya Kikwete and his team that embodies such cruelty. Right here at home, the Tana massacres should have prompted the Police Commissioner who is also serving illegally under the constitution to resign. It is the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens because we pay tax. Condemnation of such atrocities should be loud and made known to the government that the denizens are not pleased.

            Where is the soul of a nation when people are killed up to fifty two and no serious demonstrations take place to express the outrage? Then the killers get more emboldened and set ablaze more houses and another bloodletting follows and we sit back and assume nothing is happening at all. Does it not prick you? Are you not disturbed or is it just normal? After all its just news, so what. Is that how you quip? Down in South Africa when miners were massacred a section of the populace went into demonstrations and their government and the world got the message loud and clear: We Are Fed Up With the Killings! Even in the Arab world it is now possible after the success of the Arab Spring. In a nutshell, everyone must get into the frontlines in ensuring our leaders are accountable for what they do. Telling me you do not love politics does not help the situation but what are you doing with what you love to make the country better?

            Third and the most crucial of all is the use of technology to help ourselves. Generation Y have a chance to reclaim the glory of Africa using technology being the most tech-savvy of all the existing generations. The young men in the Arab nations especially Tunisia and Egypt used it in order to ouster their dictators. Why not other African countries? Coming up with helpful innovations that help make things better is the hallmark of being counted in this information age. Look at what M-Pesa has done in the money transfer. Young innovators are busy developing various mobile applications that target the common citizens in order to improve lives. Young people are running online companies and getting self employed hence demystifying the notion that after school one get’s employed. That is the best way to go. And for those who have learned the ropes, pass the baton to others. Spread the word.

            Lastly, it is the participation of the middle class in the politics of the day. Why are our middle class especially in Kenya taking a distance from the political scene? Or do they want to put the lower class to the fate of Sisyphus who was condemned by the gods to roll a rock to the top only for the rock to roll back. Then Sisyphus would repeat the same process. Is that the fate the middle class want by standing at the periphery then expect the lower class to transform leaders overnight? From solid to liquid. Instantly. No. It cannot happen that way. They should begin dirtying their hands too. Nations like Egypt and Tunisia succeeded in the revolution because the educated masses that mostly constitute the middle class joined in the struggle for a better a nation. And that is what should be replicated in other African nations. Only then negative ethnicity and rampant graft will decline. Only then will that average citizen who survives on less than a dollar have an improved life of feeding him/herself.