His piece starts with a mea culpa in which he details the length and depth of his Faustian moment, and his struggle against his heart. He further confesses to a desire to ‘sink back' into the peasantry, a romantic concept very much in tune with the rest of his article. On he goes, expressing his delirium at his continued association with the poor:

"Giving vent to my communistic tendencies, I am writing at a workshop where I have spent some quality time with painters, open air mechanics and people generally of that ilk. "

What does he mean when he talks of 'people of that ilk'? This reminds one of Muthoni Thangwa's pieces on Karen Blixen and the latter's charitable musings on black people in her books; but still I wonder if the condescendion is merely peculiar to my perception. Fortune delivers and I am saved my bother by the next paragraphs, as Mephisto hands the receipt over to our intrepid scribe.

After engaging himself in a spot of circumlocution, our brave knight finds he has exonerated himself of xenophobia and related charges by positive association; he has after all been a student of Ugandan refugees; for six years even. Thus cleansed, he charges and delivers the clincher, declaring that Nairobi's population mix has so changed that Eastleigh is now, for all intents and purposes a part of Somalia!

Still, he finds himself in total agreement with Foreign Minister Tuju's pronouncements on the plight of Somali refugees; in defiance of international law. He lists as his reasons the allegations of an Al Qaeda presence in Somalia (only to admit that they could be baseless), and the possibility of setting up ‘safe havens' inside Somalia wherein the refugees might be sheltered. He even finds time to ssuggest that it is inconceivable that Kenya throw her borders wide open and subject the refugees to a perfunctory screening. To nail his case, he closes by suggesting that Ethiopia has done the region a favor by taking care of a problem ‘that was threatening to spiral out of control.'

No one has suggested that Kenya put herself at risk by laying herself open to all manner of refugees. We have never done so, but steadily through the years we have had innumerable refugees come across our borders. That we are now expressing alarm at this, just because the Americans have labeled the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) as terrorists, exposes not just our cultural and political enslavement, but also our failure to understand the difference between Kenya's national interests and the interests of select cliques in the Western establishment for whom waging a war against Islam is beneficial.

Somalia has had 16 years of turmoil. During that same time we have hosted these same MPs that now are being arrested, plus hundreds more, including a free-to-air no-holds-barred fight at a peace conference. We have opened our borders and airports to Somali traders and business-people, we have hosted the very warlords in Nairobi that destroyed the country all these years. Not once during all that time did Mutuma Mathiu or Raphael Tuju fear for Kenya, until the Americans put the sticker, and said 'suicide bomber'. Now we must obediently quake with fear, close our borders, close our airports and even harrass students from Somaliland which is an innocent and very peaceful by-stander in all this fitna.Â

I concede it may be necessary to raise two mitigating factors. The first, that Mr Mathiu may be no longer at ease with a job at a mere Weekend Paper, nay that he is after something higher, perhaps even the Group job or the Managing Directorship. Maybe someone whispered to him that it would help his prospects if he disrobed himself of his sympathies for rational, or leftist sentiments and clothed his work instead with the raiment of privilege and power.

Also exculpatory, would be the fact that the judicial pronouncements of the Union of Islamic Courts may have had a severely deleterious effect on the miraa crop of his village, and particularly of that blitheful Georgian small-holding that he wishes to retire to. Indeed the ban on miraa in Somalia pronounced by the UIC may well be seen as a breach of the peace by the average Kenyan farmer in some districts, or among the Wilson Airport industry that has seen traffic dwindle since the Ethiopians and their Anglo- Saxon support decided to place Somalia in a state of exception outside international law.

It must be noted further in Mathiu's defence that we live in a world where language has been transformed in the media so that we are terrorised even by the mention of the word Islam. That this terror should segue into an irrationality where Islamic Clerics in general are found - even by the otherwise discerning eye - to be rabid terrorists, was to be expected.

That said, there has been no sign, not even an accusation by its enemies that the UIC was anything dangerous in itself. Further, it is improbable that they would have posed any danger to Kenya. Those who believe they had a hand in the Kikambala and Nairobi bombings would do well to ask themselves why these attacks have not continued, and what specific goals the Al Qaeda operatives carrying them out had. Why did they relent after two attacks? Did they achieve what was wanted? Does anyone really bear against Kenya a grudge of this nature? Such a schema that conflates everything Islamic with terror is not just silly but plainly irresponsible, especially when wielded in such powerful hands as Mutuma Mathiu's.

Cheerleading this Ethiopian hubris is helping them as they light up our corner of the world. Accepting wholesale the assertions of the same intelligence organizations that fed and guided the Somali warlords, not to mention wilfully beguiled the world into believing Iraq had WMD, is poor journalism, and if this study by Robert Pape is to be taken into account, could lead to a serious deterioration of our national security.

Kenya must stay neutral, supporting neither the Ethiopians, the Somalian Transitional Government, nor the Union of Courts, but taking the part of an honest arbiter and bringing the Somali troubles to a diplomatic solution. The stance taken by Mutuma Mathiu and Minister Tuju in openly attacking the UIC and their backers ignores the fact that religion itself may be all that could re-bind this failed state together.

One hopes that Somalia and Mathiu can redeem themselves.Â

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