Kenyan Thoughts III

RESCUING NATIONALISM FROM VERNACULARISM

You cannot choose the days to be a nationalist and the days you will retreat to the comfort of ethnic cocoons. Being Kenyan is a full-time commitment. This country needs citizens who are Kenyans all the time; not those who are vernacular Kenyans most of the time.

By Chief Justice, DR Willy Mutunga

SPEECH MADE AT THE ‘PEOPLE’S CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL DIVERSITY, ETHNICITY AND RACE’, HOSTED BY THE NATIONAL COHESION AND INTEGRATION COMMISSION (NCIC) AT KICC NAIROBI, 12^TH MARCH 2012.

The Prime Minister, Ministers, Ambassadors, Permanent Secretaries, Commissioners, Mr. Chairman, Citizens, friends, ladies and gentlemen:

I feel singularly privileged to speak at the ‘People’s Conference on National Diversity, Ethnicity and Race’. The timing of this conference is fortuitous as its substance is significant in Kenya’s continuing search for clarity around its identity. Coming just after the fourth anniversary of the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement and in anticipation of a General Election, conversations such as these have a special significance in negotiating citizenship and nationhood.

Although I was asked to speak on the question of who is a Kenyan, I have expanded the focus of my remarks for reasons that will become apparent presently. And in doing so, let me start with an anecdote: 

One of the biggest threats to nationhood has been the over-supply of the vernacular politician and vernacular Kenyan and a shortage of nationalists. Who is the vernacular politician or Kenyan? It is that person who views everything through the prism of the tribe. They equate national interest with ethnic interests. They are obsessed with ethnic hegemonic projects. They hold hollow but dangerous supremacist ideologies and, have invented false notions of ethnic entitlement, most of it anchored on exaggerated grievances, yet mostly fueled by excessive greed. They revel in insults and derogatory remarks about other tribes and groups, as they descend into mindless orgies of mirth and self-amusement. When they lose an argument, they rush to the defense of ethnic stereotype. 

They are incapable of mobilizing across communities, and consider being referred to as the undisputed leader of the tribe as the ultimate political prize. They indeed treat it as a badge of honor. They excel in what divides us, and use their evil genius to create more divisions. They will never invest in the politics of issues, unless they are anthropological. When they are appointed to public office, their official trips to the countryside are regionally selective. They readily hide behind the community, when caught in a corrupt deal. They excel in rallying around the tongue; not the flag. They are sometimes very educated, professional and rich, but find satisfaction in spewing ethnic verbiage. They sometimes flaunt modern gadgetry as a mark of sophistication, but use these platforms to purvey sectarian drivel. Yet, both the vernacular politician and Kenyan thrive because they find fertile ground in the minds of Kenyans, who pretend to be powerless victims when caught imbibing this drivel. You cannot choose the days to be a nationalist and the days you will retreat to the comfort of ethnic cocoons. Being Kenyan is a full-time commitment. This country needs citizens who are Kenyans all the time; not those who are vernacular Kenyans most of the time. Just in case you forgot, Chapter Six is partly intended to eliminate this breed.

In Chapter Three, the Constitution is clear on who is a Kenyan: Anyone who is born in Kenya, or born of a Kenyan, is a citizen. Anyone who marries a Kenyan or applies for citizenship after living in the country for a certain period can become a citizen. That citizenship is universal and indivisible. But citizenship is not just a juridical concept; it is a sociological and political reality. 

For the great majority, Kenya is the land of their birth. It is their home. This is where their lives are, and it is where they will be buried. They are Kenyans because they have no other nationality. Their idea of being Kenyan defines citizenship not just for themselves, but also for all others who seek to voluntarily join this nation.

For almost 50 years, Kenya has struggled to carve itself out as a distinct entity in the community of nations on the basis of its geography, attractions, potential and complex cultural heritage. It is the nation defined by peasants who died by the bullet clutching soil in their clenched fists as it is by those who were bewitched by its splendour and opportunities, and poured their energies into making it their home. It is a place of possibility for the human spirit to thrive in freedom, justice and dignity; a place to nurture hopes and dreams that could be bequeathed to future generations.

Yet, the idea of Kenya is also problematic. At independence, the responsibility of nurturing the nation’s hopes and aspirations passed to the new leadership. After all, history was already replete with examples of nations that had been forged on the basis of brute force and strong personalities alone. The results, in our case, are a mixed bag.

In spite of the many contradictions emanating from our competing hopes and dreams, a national character has emerged over time that is celebrated in the country’s remarkable successes across sport, innovation, academia, diplomacy, industry and creativity. No one has any problems recognizing and embracing this Kenya – the world beater on the athletics track, the home of creative artists, industrious people and probing intellectuals. Kenya has a soul. Perhaps it also has a skeleton. The flesh and other details require work.

Diversity has been a painful resource for most of African countries. It has been the source - or even more accurately - the excuse for political conflict and instability. And, more recently, diversity has formed the basis for an emergent culture war on gender, sexuality, and reproductive health among others. However, I refuse to believe that diversity, or ‘differentness’, in and itself, is the cause of these conflicts. To a very large extent, it is the instrumentalisation of difference by the political class that has plunged our country into chaos, thereby undermining the emergence of a professional state of the Weberian variety. In our diversity, the political class has found and minted a negative currency for politics.

The Kenyan political elite has achieved a remarkable feat in successfully conflating class and ethnicity thus eliminating traditional political ideology from guiding our political contests. In fact, they have succeeded in subordinating class to ethnic considerations in political discourse, which makes two Kenyans living in the slums or in the upmarket neighbourhoods, opt for different political choices. Our ethnic divisions have made us no respecter of our material conditions when making political choices. Instead we seem to derive a lot more useless value and satisfaction in ethnic esteem contests!

But this should not entirely surprise us. Our country, like most of African countries, was founded on divisions. The colonial state did not disguise its biases to serve a tiny elite and exclude the majority of the population. Kenya was founded on division; thanks to Lord Fredrick Lugard’s philosophy of Dual Mandate. Divide and rule has characterized the capture, use and abuse of state power. Ethnic groups, races, and other identity collectives have been brutalized or rewarded simply because of who they are. Ethnic profiling and stereotyping has become both a national full-time and pastime. The discriminatory tendencies of the state inherited from the colonial period and perfected after independence, engineered severe shortages of public goods that severely undermined the nationalism project and negated the very foundation of the Kenyan nation.

This has institutionalized grievance, which exploded in our faces in 2007/2008. As we approach another election, I feel that the space for re-embarking on the nation-building project is reducing, and I find it worrying that we seem not to have learnt from the past, at least going by the utterances I hear, and the conduct I observe.

On August 27, 2010, we decided that we want to be a nation when we promulgated a new constitution. Sometimes, discussions on the Constitution appear abstract, thus obscuring the underlying truth (or is it assumption?) which is that Kenyans have considered the idea and decided that they want to be together.

The Constitution, in its preamble, celebrates the pride of Kenya’s ‘ethnic, cultural and religious diversity’, and proclaims our ‘determination to live in peace and unity as one indivisible sovereign nation’. The founding values and principles articulated in Article 10 highlight inclusiveness, non-discrimination, equity, and protection of the marginalized. The Constitution recognises culture as the foundation of the nation and as the cumulative civilization of the Kenyan people and nation. Equality, diversity, is sprinkled in the entire document, including Chapter Thirteen on the public service. The constitutional commitment to equity and fairness is further reinforced in the devolved system of government that is in Chapter Eleven.

But being together is not the same as being united. There is nothing preordained and natural about Kenyans being together. It is a deliberate decision on the part of the citizenry, a choice we have freely made. We have signed a social contract among ourselves, and with our leadership now and in the future. That is why in the preamble we are exercising our sovereign and inalienable right to determine the form of governance in our country and adopt and enact the constitution to ourselves and to future generations. The boundaries of this nation, and the communities within it, will only remain if we respect the terms of that social contract.

Contracts are supposed to be performed. They contain rights and obligations. We have a duty as Kenyans to obey the law and to uphold the Constitution. In return, the state has a duty to protect life and property as well as to offer services.

Self-determination and breakaway tendencies are part of human history not so much because those who lead them have a reflexive appetite for war and fragmentation, but because there is a failure to honor the social contract, or a political practice characterized by marginalization, or lack of respect for the other, and frustration of the aspirations for some.

This country must not delude itself that it is inured from these afflictions. We must be careful. We must be sensitive. We must daily invest in the nation building project. In our conduct, our conversations, and decisions, we must demonstrate an interest in the survival and development of Kenya as a nation state. In this respect, every individual, every leader, every voter has a duty, a responsibility and an obligation.

Since national identity is inclusive, it has got to be negotiated as broadly as possible. It cannot be the exclusive province of a few. Citizenship is the great political equalizer that gives like voice to those at the center as at the periphery. Because of the temptations to disengage from the center, building a nation requires not just the consent, but also the active participation of those at the periphery. At the core of the nation must be rationale as well as guarantees of protection for those at the periphery to feel a part of the whole than if they were alone.

When we refer to certain regions as economically unviable, it is important to realize that this phraseology is loaded with stigma and discrimination. There is no region that is unviable. The world is replete with examples of deserts that have transformed into economic power houses – Israel, Dubai, Singapore and many more. Any leader who regards and refers to any region in this country as unviable is questioning the very viability of his or her own leadership. It merely demonstrates a remarkable poverty of ideas; a paucity of imagination; and a deficit of ambition. The language of high potential and low potential is a myth -- it is manifestly discriminatory, and has been used historically as a fig leaf behind which to hide to share state resources in an inequitable manner. These are the tendencies that undermine notions of citizenship. Besides, the constitution decrees devolution and equitable distribution of resources.

In numerous instances, the deliberate or unintended sabotage of certain hopes and dreams has alienated significant portions of the population from the idea of Kenya as a common good, a place of freedom, justice, dignity, self-actualization and opportunity.

We cannot build a nation on the foundation of rhetoric alone. We must express our intention, but also follow it with action. We must demonstrate that something has changed. We must crack the constitutional whip to ensure that political parties that intend to obtain registration and participate in elections do not organise around our divisions – ethnic, regional, ability, or gender. We must design our electoral processes so that they embrace minorities. 

Our citizenship must be universal, where every individual enjoys the civic rights granted by the Constitution even as he or she retains his or her other identities, including the ethnic one. We must ensure that those who attempt to trample on the rights of citizens do not find comfort in public office.

We must also fully discharge our obligations to each other as individuals who are part of this polity. These obligations start from the basics of requirements: respect for each other as individuals, as well as respect for communities and other identity groups. It is socially obnoxious, politically reckless, and economically ignorant to cheapen the presence of any community in this country by making derogatory remarks as has been all too evident in our country’s history. It is only the weak minded, people incapable of comprehending the origins of the modern state, its philosophy, its instruments and its edicts that resort to such approaches in managing expressing disagreement. Thus when I hear leaders warning whole communities that Kenya has its owners, I wonder whether such leaders appreciate the unconstitutionality and illegality of such comments.

Just as a fish that grows in a pond may consider itself the king of the sea until it is introduced into the ocean, we too must also awaken to the reality that our ethnic and sectarian interests may only matter if we are disconnected from the rest of the world. Unless we all recognize that Kenya is a confederation of cultures, languages and interests, we shall never be able to cultivate the sensitivity and respect for one another necessary to hold us together. We might never live up to true greatness as a member of the community of nations because we overstayed our welcome in the pond when the ocean beckoned.

The things that are seen to divide us – ethnicity, religion, race, class, clan, region, occupation, sexual identity, generation, disability – are also the raw materials needed to create the mosaic of one nation. 

I also want to caution that pejorative commentaries, sometimes excessive even in comedy, should be purged from our national discourse. Negative ethnic profiling is sometimes aided by excessive parody. What was essentially parody sediments into ‘truth’ and the rest of us begin to make decisions in real life based on the emerging caricatures. I enjoy comedy, and I would be the last person to suggest that anybody should censor it, but let us give a thought to instances when well meaning activity may end up hurting the broader public interest. Comedy should complete the cycle by celebrating our idiosyncrasies, and deliberately banish any notions of ethnic hierarchy that may unwittingly be transmitted.

In our continuing search for identity, we need to settle the question of the philosophy that defines our nationhood not just as Kenyans, but also as Africans. We need to search and find that symbol of nationhood that will inspire us to create a just, peaceful society we all desire to live in.

The creation of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission in the aftermath of the sad events following the 2007 elections is an attempt to begin this conversation. It must seize the moment to align our daily endeavors towards nurturing a truly nationalistic culture. Beyond the commission, all Kenyans have a duty to construct the nation’s identity by embracing diversity, tolerance and respect for one another. Press coverage of the identity problem treats it as a problem only in the public sector. I think that this problem is probably more acute in the private sector. NCIC owes this country an audit on ethnic concentration in terms of employment, contracts, and promotion. We must cultivate a culture of tolerance draw from the spirit of the Constitution; the edicts across religions. NCIC needs to conduct attitudinal surveys so that we can improve on our tolerance levels and eliminate trust deficits.

In the Judiciary, we have acknowledged the challenges we have faced in the past in this regard. We shall partner with the NCIC within the context of the National Council for the Administration of Justice (NCAJ) to help NCIC deliver on its statutory mandate particularly in the context of the coming elections.

The Judiciary itself faces these challenges of diversity. Only recently in a station not too far from here, three of our judges stared the problem in the eye when the paralegal staff from one community boycotted a luncheon the judges had hosted because their colleagues had accused them of speaking in their local dialect while at work!

In conclusion, I know that while identity can be a puerile matter it can still be quite rewarding to some people. I am privileged to come from a profession, the law, that long recognized equality of human beings long before other disciplines. Physiologists now tell us that you cannot identify people’s identities through any other body’s organs such as the heart, brain etc. The Human Genome Project showed that we are 99.9 per cent the same. That, of the nearly 30,000 genes in the human body, the diversity within races and tribes is much higher than between them. It is still amazing that despite this evidence from science, a perversion of difference capture a large segment of our intelligent minds. Further, sameness is no guarantor of stability and harmony. Somalis and Koreans are some of the most homogenous people on every front: looks, culture, language, religion – yet we all know that these countries have been at war for many years. It is not enough to just look alike, or speak the same language. And a corollary to the right that we are all equal is the fact that none of us is better than the other on account of ethnicity or other identities. Nobody should be punished or rewarded on the basis of identity.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that this conference and the deliberations that emanate from it awaken all citizens to the great responsibility each one of us bears in fashioning, perfecting and sustaining the Kenyan nation. As Kenyans we should daily ponder what brand of Kenyans we are. Are you a vernacular Kenya or are you a nationalistic and patriotic Kenyan?

Dr Willy Mutunga
Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court
Republic of Kenya

IS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AN ISSUE IN KENYA OR MERELY AN IMPORTED AGENDA?

As the world today marks the International Women Day,lets ponder on something that affects the woman entity.




Violence against women is a global problem and Kenya is no exception. It’s more lethal than road accidents. Since time immemorial the woman entity has been subordinate to the man. Ironically though is the fact that her number compared to that of males is double. I’m tempted to quote Abraham Lincoln’s words “common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.” replacing -common looking people - with woman. History records almost exclusively the accomplishments of men when in fact much of it is due to the determined, unrelenting and charitable oppressed majority read as woman. Think of all the places afflicted by great poverty, Kenya for instance where the price of 1kg unga is higher than a dollar. Where a vast majorities per capita is less than the dollar. A woman at times with the help of her husband through this uncertainty will try to manage for the family. Engaging in both legal and illegal ways to avail a meal. It’s almost always that women will manage to preserve human dignity, defend the family unit and to protect cultural and religious values.

On the other hand though, violence against women is an imported agenda. Hold your horses, as well as that hot breath and relax the raised eyebrow. Let me expound on a hypotheses. During the times of our forefathers, pre-colonial era to be precise; women were to be seen and not heard. Loudly echoed by Marjorie Oludhe in her book “Coming to Birth” as well as other African writers. Wife beating was a sign of love on the part of the man. Wife inheritance as well as polygamy was all with the “best” interests in mind of the woman. Then came the mzungu with a doctrine, Beijing convention and everything changed. Equality, human rights and other new vocabularies found their way in our society. Like a new sponge we were more than ready to absorb and take in new ideas. As earlier pointed out-women were to be seen and not heard- did not mean that they were deaf. Epiphany. Hearing transformed to actions and viola! The once adherents’ of traditions and beliefs of their great grandmothers “broke” away their shackles. What had tied and restricted their freedoms were now no more. Gender equality, egalitarian society and prenuptial rights were just but a few interests championed by other women outside Kenya and Africa at large. The psychological card was used-if it happened elsewhere why not here? Things began to fall apart, the centre could not hold. Women had “known” of their rights, their line had been crossed and personal space intruded. All this an imported agenda.

Is violence against women an issue in Kenya then? Better yet when and what surmount to violence against women? One, Violence against women begins or is manifested when force or power is used to make a woman do, whether willingly or not something they would not have otherwise done .Failure lead to repercussions. Purposing that the End justifies the means. The violence includes and is not limited to :sexual abuse including rape and incest by family members, forced marriages, dowry related violence, marital rape, sexual harassment, intimidation at work leading to resignations ; thus not surprising that women are increasingly dominating the ranks of the impoverished also feminization of poverty, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization ,forced labor, trafficking and forced prostitution and not forgetting Female Genital Multination is an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons . Violence can be seen as an indicator of the need to have a method at preventing STD and HIV/AIDS infections and re-infections in women. A lot of women who are married or are in stable sexual relationships are being infected and re-infected because when they know their partner had other affairs, women's low status in relationship precipitate the fear and possibility of violence and rejection which makes it impossible for them to negotiate for safer sex. The fact that women and children continue to be traded abused and defiled for the sake of basic commodities such as food and survival in their communities, in the internally displaced people’s camps and basically in their country. All of these forms of violence are associated with power inequalities. Of the mentioned, a majority if not all the mentioned happen in our midst. Yes. Right here in Kenya. Surprised? I highly doubt. I have a few examples of violence against women from various parts of the country.

Case in study one, is Mbithe,who hails in Kitise division of Makueni district. Unkempt hair growing prematurely at the temples. Her bones protrude through her blouse that has seen better days. Pulls absently on the hem of her dirty blue skirt. An orphan at 15, she was “married of” to Muteve a chatty granny with a wig of white hair. She has nine children. The two eldest children class eight drop out. She works by digging terraces or constructing fences for their fairly well off neighbors. Her husband a retired civil servant awaits his pension. The other members of his family who earn a salary are Mbithe’s two daughters-the class eight drop outs-who work as house girls in Nairobi. Recently one of her young daughter was impregnated by the village elder, Makau. Who refused the responsibility? Mbithe cannot file a case against the man because she is not only financially unable but also the society requires the husband of the homestead to take up the matter to the necessary authorities. Muteve is friends with Makau who always bribes him with a jar of traditional brew whenever Muteve brings up the issue. As sad as this is, Mbithe is forced to be accept the foggy fate of her child.

Case in study two, is 69 year old Jane Nyahira who lives in Kirinyaga at her parents home. She is a victim of both fistula and hysterectomy. This shattered her dreams of ever having children of her own. This pushed her husband to marry another woman who gave him children and did not have the problems Nyahira did. The fistula had caused a leak in her bladder that seeped out urine. This caused a pungent smell around her. This sent her packing to her parents who after a while of bearing with the situation got tired of the stench. So they built her a house away from their homestead where she lived in isolation and destitution. The disease is associated with social stigma. This is because of the constant smell of stool or urine, so she tended to avoid society all together. Untreated fistula leads to shrinking of the birth canal; this greatly affects her sexual relations and can easily lead to domestic violence, battering and even broken marriages.

Case in study three, Jasmine Muyobe* (not her real name) recounts the tale of one night after the announcement of the disputed presidential poll results in Kenya in 2007. The single mother of four children spend the day terrified, behind closed doors in her house flinching at the gunshots that filled the air.
"It was two days after the announcement of the presidential results and the violence was raging. I live near a slum and soon the chaos moved from the informal settlement into the suburbs. That evening someone knocked hard at my gate calling out my neighbor’s name. I went to talk to the person and when he said he wanted to see my neighbor who was not around, I decided to open the gate," Muyobe says.
But the stranger pushed the young mother back into her house and proceeded to rape her repeatedly all night long.
"My children were asleep. They had no idea what was going on. Early the next morning, he left without a word as if nothing had happened.
"From that day my life changed… I chose not to talk to anyone about the rape. A month later, in February 2007, I discovered I was pregnant and infected with HIV," Muyobe says. Almost two years after that fateful evening, Muyobe told her story to a group of journalists and representatives of human rights organizations documenting testimonies of women who survived sexual violence during the post-election violence. As a result of the delay in announcing the hot contested elections, tension and anxiety was brewing. Escalating with every minute. The country was itching and scratching in discomfort. A wave of uncertainty enveloped the nation. When ECK declared the winner, hell broke loose. Neighbours went against the grail; hacking, maiming, destruction, anger and suspicion. Houses were not only robbed of their property but of their dignity as well. The once friends became fiend. Kenya was burning. Violence aimed at women was rampant - manifested in rape, physical assault, harassment, as well as verbal abuses. Waki report can attest. Violence against women, right here in Kenya! “Violence against women has been systematic and entrenched in our society, but the post-election period saw an unprecedented number of women subjected to widespread sexual violence," says Rosemary Okello, executive director of another partner in the documentary project, the African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWCFS), which promotes diversity, gender equity, social justice and development in Africa through media, training and research.
"Many women were sexually assaulted, gang raped or sodomised. Many of these acts of sexual violence occurred in the presence of the women's spouses, children or parents causing trauma, humiliation and stress suffered by the survivors and their families. Women survivors become guiltier than the perpetrators of the violence," says Urgent Action Fund (UAF-Africa), executive director Jessica Nkuuhe.

The women fear to share what they have been through because they are afraid of stigma and being deserted by their families, especially their spouses. They thus shut down and unfortunately this ordeal eats at their very existence, giving rise to depression and eventually some lose the will to live and die miserable."
Kenyan Member of Parliament, Millie Odhiambo says unless women speak out, sexual offences committed in times of conflict will go unpunished. The Gender Violence Recovery Centre at the Nairobi Women's Hospital the only center of its kind in East and Central Africa provides the following data. Over 80% (356) of the cases that they treated at the center were sexual violence related. Of these 80%, 93% of them were adult women survivors with the rest accounted for by children and men. 9% were of physical assault, 7% domestic violence related cases and 4 % were of indecent assault. They further reported attending to over 650 cases of sexual violence during the chaos. Anecdotal evidence suggests thousands of other women across the country survived similar violence.

The violence that rocked Kenya in the aftermath of the disputed 2007 presidential elections brought to the fore an already well known phenomena – sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). The violence that was witnessed in the country is not new, what may have been new is the magnitude, intensity and spread. An examination of the 1992 – Molo Clashes, 1997 - Likoni clashes and other land/ethnic clashes (Wagalla massacre et al) that have chequered the history of Kenya, reveal that the site on which these conflicts have been staged has been on women’s bodies and their person. In the aftermath of the 1997 clashes, a woman resident at the Maela camp where women were frequently raped by security personnel when they left camp in search for food or for work as day labourers noted: ‘even though we knew this was likely to happen we continued to work because our children were hungry and we had no choice’ (Amnesty. 2004).

Violence against women is a well acknowledge weapon of war; a tool used to achieve military objectives… many forms of violence that women suffer during armed conflict are gender specific both in result and nature (Amnesty. 2004)’. While this is treated as a fact, energy is often directed towards establishing the perpetrators, financers and sustainers of clashes with little energy or time devoted to the gendered dimensions and repercussions of the conflict and by this we mean the impact of clashes on women. It begs the question – where are our priorities – where is our focus? Where is our focus in Kenya?

For instance:

>Over half a million women continue to die each year from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes.
> Rates of HIV infection among women are rapidly increasing. Among those 15-24 years of age, young women now constitute the majority of those newly infected, in part because of their economic and social vulnerability.
> Gender-based violence kills and disables as many women between the ages of 15 and 44 as cancer. More often than not, perpetrators go unpunished.
> Worldwide, women are twice as likely as men to be illiterate.
> As a consequence of their working conditions and characteristics, a disproportionate number of women are impoverished in both developing and developed countries. Despite some progress in women’s wages in the 1990s, women still earn less than men, even for similar kinds of work.
> In addition, the new challenges for women’s empowerment and gender equality that have emerged over the past decade, such as the feminization of the AIDS epidemic.

In light of all that has been mentioned and witnessed ,that for a fact violence against women is an issue in Kenya. What ought to be done ? What have you done? To begin with this essay is my continued effort to create awareness not only to my fellow women but to the men as well. Gender-based violence is an issue that concerns all men and not just those that behave violently; in this way the roots of male violence, which is the one of the foundations of patriarchy, can be explored. It’s really saddening that some women have accepted this marginalizing yoke of violence against them. We need to speak and write about this violence against women. The pen is mightier than the sword. I hope this documentation will be part of healing for survivors, as well as creating a vivid and accurate record of gender-based crimes committed both for prosecution and for the historical memory of the country.

Further more, other strategies to avert if not curb fervor against women can include:

* Reveal and question the values promoting or glamorizing violence – competition,hardness, insensitivity, idolizing winners in war, sports and business life.

* Analyze and question male roles and ideals, the concept of “male honour” prevailing in male cultures.

* Develop and value fatherhood; develop the skills and qualities of fatherhood among men and boys.

* Integrate a gender perspective into school education to create awareness of the different positions of boys and girls within the family, in culture and reproduction,and to promote their development into balanced personalities and into men and women in a relationship of equality and mutual respect.

* Develop legislation on violence against women to criminalize gender violence in all forms and provide women with protection when facing violence or being threatened by it.

* Increase the number of shelters for women and support the work of shelters and counselling services.

* Help men to abandon their violent behaviour by establishing support and therapy services and providing appropriate therapies.

* Encourage men to establish their own groups and voluntary activities to combat men’s violence against women, and support such movements.

* Increase the proportion of women in politics, foreign policy and international decision-making.

* Promote and further secure equality between women and men both through legislative and administrative means and through changing public opinion and shaping attitudes and values, thus building a culture of equality and peace.

“Indeed, violence against women”, said the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan in 1999, “knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. It’s perhaps the most shameful human right violation”. And he added it is “perhaps the most pervasive". Is violence against women an issue in Kenya? YES IT IS.

YOU VOTE...YOUR VOICE

I personally think its surreal how we Kenyans are so bullied by authority,we turn against each other(post election violence,Mathira massacre)..we've even learnd to measure with exactitude what we can expect from a parliament whose paramount aim is to enrich themselves at our expense.
In Kenya,until we are left completely naked,we will defend the status quo of the 210+ people who've taken ownership of ths country;who will still come to our homes and take the very last cent as taxes to fund themselves in campaigns.But these days they hardly do ths work-a whole population of people-mostly th youths will defend them,make a velvet carpeting for them and ululate their throats dry for a loaf of bread.
In 2002,Kenyans vowed to make the state better,via our massive vote...instead we sold our country to a bunch of people who do not knw th price of milk(abt to hit 50) or care..but can sufficiently plant flowers on roundabouts and build one school with CDF.
The real money,our money,in now legislated ways,into the pockets of Mps..leaving us bone dry.
Altho we see Uhuru,Raila,Kalonzo and Kibaki as different people thyre infact cut from the same original cloth...who feel they have a royal right to rule..they battle thngs out wen we r watchn..but within themselves they have no problem..
So every 5years we troop off in a chilly morning to vote for one of then to inherit our assets.
My aim here is not to alienate but simply provoke conversation..we need to speak up against ths game of being shortchanged by our leaders..we/I feel obligd to work towards th end of ths era..and th way to do ths is to question our own hearts..such that in 2012 when u will b in that long line..ask yourself if its your voice speakin or someones cash that is..

YOUR VOTE=YOUR VOICE...let not th cash turn into a knife an cut off your lips.
Think about it.