We trust them, because in our schoolbooks, in our newspapers, in all media, more space is dedicated to their ideas and lives than to anything else.
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/ 11 September 2008
The reason why Kenyans are bad musicians is because we are out of touch with our own tastes and instincts.
Our professionals groan when posted to Uganda, or Tanzania, or South Africa even — these people don’t work; they take long lunches; they don’t save.
Few people know that the British anti-slavery movement began with a meeting of three diabetics for tea and sugarfree crumpets.
It is time to effect change through constructive enterprise
There is much to lament about with the latest violence in South Africa. We Africans have been hijacked by our worst selves and this has made us paranoid and unable to use our best people to rebuild nations. The insanities of a few criminal Nigerians have come to dominate our perceptions of that country, however unfairly.
Wikipedia: according to a British medical journal of 1972 haemorrhoids ”are common in economically developed communities, rare in developing countries and almost unknown in tribal communities, where the influence of Western countries is slight.”This is not true. Mugabe is a haemorrhoid. He is not Aids, cancer, leukemia or malaria — those things that can kill you.
I was in Senegal for a few weeks, and was assisted by an able and creative young man. For a while, I wondered why he did not react to my text messages. His French was good. He dressed well, if rather flashily in my Anglophone view. We had a fight when I asked him for receipts and I realised he could not read.
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/ 28 January 2008
Last week, eight of us from the Concerned Writers Group went to visit Eldoret, the town at the epicentre of the clashes in Kenya. Having been born and brought up in the Rift Valley, I know this area well. We spoke to groups of displaced people. We talked with Archbishop Korir, who is legendary for saving the lives of many people who would have been killed in the clashes of 1992 — and now, of 2008.
My country is in turmoil. We voted on December 27 and the voting process was the most peaceful in our history. The voter turnout was higher than ever. For the past few years, the most disenfranchised — the poor, those far from the metropoles, the youth — have registered to vote.