Category: Public Square
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Kenya’s Economic Woes A Product Of The UhuRuto Presidency
I think it is quite disingenuous of opposition leader Raila Odinga and his supporters to lay the entire blame on President William Ruto for the high cost of living, considering that Kenyans have been choking under the yoke of rising inflation for at least a decade. While Ruto can take some of the blame for…
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I Knew Julian Assange. It’s Time To End His Persecution
15 years ago, in January 2007, Nairobi hosted the World Social Forum at the Moi International Sports Centre Kasarani. Attending this alter-globalist, anti-capitalist convention was Julian Assange, an Australian ex-hacker then unknown outside a small geeky circle. At this time, only recently sacked by Transparency International Kenya, I was a few months into the establishment…
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My Mother Wants Me To Get Married. It’s Sweet.
I wasn’t always good at it, but now I’m good at being single. I know how to self-soothe (don’t read too much into that 😅 ). I revel in the love that I already have. I enjoy my own company. I value my independence. And I really like living alone. So when mom tells me…
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Sex Tourism In Kenya’s Coast: A Form Of Neocolonialism
The end of the COVID-19 pandemic has, thankfully, seen tourism in Kenya’s coastal resorts pick up. Foreign and domestic tourists are once again flocking to coastal resorts like Mombasa, Diani and Malindi. The bad news is that some of these tourists are returning purely to engage in sex tourism. On any given day, in the…
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Azimio Protests And The Concept Of Stochastic Terrorism
Watching the mother-of-all-protests and Raila Odinga’s cavalcade traverse Nairobi the other day, I learned a new phrase. Stochastic terrorism is observed where a charismatic leader uses mass media as a platform to incite violence, while simultaneously disclaiming responsibility for the violence. Carefully choosing his words he (the leader) – for it is invariably a ‘he’…
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Raila Odinga’s Mass Miscalculation?
Our history shows that mass action works where there is a generalised belief that the target is engaging in manifest political and economic exclusion of the masses per se. This is extensively analysed in Musambayi Katumanga’s paper on the foremost mass action movement of the 1990s the National Convention Executive Council. In summary, we as…
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It Tolls For Thee…
A month ago, after a trial that lasted six years, the High Court of Kenya sentenced four police officers to death and long prison terms for the brutal torture and killing of human rights lawyer Willy Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their taxi driver Joseph Muiruri. In June 2017, during a memorial service held…
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Kenya, Why We Cannot Afford To Stop
In the Bible, Abraham is referred to as the father of faith. He is the pioneer of all three Abrahamic religions namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of the hallmarks of his life is that he walked closely with God from the time God called him to migrate from his home city in Ur of…
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New Electoral Cycle, New Commission
And now the work begins on the preparations for the next elections in 2027. The select panel that will pave way for the new appointments to the IEBC has been set up despite the furious engagements between the two main political coalitions during debates in and out of parliament, the vacancies themselves have already been…
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The Anatomy of an Anxious mind
I am a Time Traveler. I live in the nebulous space between today and tomorrow; somewhere between this second and the next. I see the future laid out before me during every waking moment. All the endless possibilities compete for my attention and I, a mathematician by default, continually calculate my odds. Anxiety disorder is…