Sands of Time
written by Johnny B. Goode , April 11, 2008

Lol. I wonder why she didn't boycott the thing right from the start. Chinas policies in Tibet or Darfur are hardly news. This is more opportunism as usual.

...
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

Johnny: Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong.

Alexander

...
written by ezz , April 11, 2008

Wangari Mathai, by far the most brilliant woman of her generation I have ever met, was everything she claims to be, among them independent minded. Years of accolades and awards by the west have finally borne their fruit. Of late her actions and utterances seem to indicate that she's not the person she once was. In my opinion I think her resolution and all should have been anchored on something more concrete, like faith in Christ, for it to endure the tests of time. Now it's pay up time. Jettison independence... Pity!

...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Wangari is losing credibility by the day. The West knows that they can only push China so far but at the end of the day, it will be business as usual. There is too much money to be made in China, Tibet or no Tibet. Useless hypocrisy. Bure Kabisa, or beauray kabaysir as our own Kaburus like to say.
Maathai has now become a tool for Western propaganda, and by the time they are through with her, she will wish she had stuck more with her own people, for better or worse. Recognition and adulation by the West ultimately comes with its own price.

re:
written by Johnny B. Goode , April 11, 2008

Johnny: Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong.

Alexander

Probably, but must it be done with so much pomp and flair? Looks to me like someone who0 loves the limelight.

olympics in china
written by AUGUSTINE NYONGESA , April 11, 2008

Reference to my fellow author on this commentary-manta ray,Wangari maathai has not any mistake by declining to participate in olympics torch ligting.This does not imply that she is being used by Western nations as a tool for propaganda since her major concern is for the peace to prevail in Tibet.I STRONGLY SURPPORT HER DECISION.

Examine the case
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

Manta Ray, you should be better than that.

It is one thing to acknowledge that the present Western protest against China, and its 60-year long policy of genocide and ethnicide, is a) hypocritical, and b) also self-serving. Both indeed. The same is true to some extent for the anti-Zimbabwean criticism; all of it is justified. and yet some Western utterings leave a suspicious after-taste.

But it is an entirely other thing - and to this minimal degree of maturity you seem not yet to have climbed - to acknowledge that the human rights substance of this criticism is entirely founded, and deserves universal support.

Alexander

Wangari\'s motives...
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

Johnny: Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong.
Alexander

Probably, but must it be done with so much pomp and flair? Looks to me like someone who loves the limelight.

Well, I can't really argue with you on that. You might be right. But any activist who wants to achieve something and to influence the public, must also love the limelight.

Only that Wangari Maathai has been a bit too rarely in the light as of lately; especially after she got the Nobel Peace Prize one would have expected that she use her new position to achieve something for the environment in Kenya; but she didn't. :-(

Alexander

bash evil
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 11, 2008

Well, anyone calling themselves a Human Rights champion should never have agreed to be carrying the Olympic torch for China in the first place. Like I have argued before about Kenyan civil society, Kiai, Wanyeki, Mati - taking sides undermines credibility. Wangari Maathai should be free to bash the Chinese just as hard as she bashes the Americans and the British, she should be able to criticise the ODM just as much she does the government. To be kind to one side, to take the Western side against the Chinese does greatly diminish the efficacy of her gesture. Now she is just one of the mob being turned away by the West's thumb.

Look again to the example of the Iranian dissidents Akbar Ganji and Shirin Ebadi. To be opposed to one kind of malice, even evil, should not send you running into the embrace of another. To oppose the tyrannical theocracy is not to embrace the evil Shah. To oppose the mullahs is not to become an Ahmed Chalabi. Consider this article here of Akbar Ganji's. In it he actually asks the American Congress to ban aid to Iran's democratic groups.

Personally, I have never taken Wangari seriously, just another NGO handbag.

...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Oh come on, Alexander! Switch on the halogens.

Why is there Western pressure on China NOW, so particularly close to the Olympic Games? Isn't it just a mouthwatering opportunity to needle China? Tibet as a human rights issue nor China's environmental degradation DID NOT begin this year but is an argument has been going on for years. Did you know that Tibet WAS actually a part of China before the arrival of the British, and that Tibetans and Chinese were once a united Nation. The British colonial powers then partitioned Tibet for themselves when China turned communist under Mao. The problem is therefore political, not just an issue of human rights violation. If we are indeed to accept the Western attitude that Tibet was "annexed" by China, then the US should also return Texas back to Mexico!

Why have there also been no protests over the Three Gorges dam Hydro electric project? Millions of people were removed from their homes and relocated without proper planning and there was barely a whimper from the West. Was it because Western contractors had hefty stakes in that project?

If human rights violations are really the issue, then we should be focusing on IRAQ, where millions of lives have been destroyed by Bush and the neo-con half-wits in pursuit of the so-called New American Century. We should actually be asking that the US be barred from the Olympics!

My point therefore is that Wangari Maaathai needs to be very, very careful before she jumps on the Western bandwagon of fashionable protest where Tibet is now flavor of the month. Tibet will be relegated to the back burner when another country, very likely African, is perceived to have botched up its human rights record and the International human rights circus then pitches tent anew to bring us the gory details.

Human rights and fads
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

My point therefore is that Wangari Maaathai needs to be very, very careful before she jumps on the Western bandwagon of fashionable protest where Tibet is now flavor of the month.

A short time ago, Darfur was the flavour of month. A fad, indeed. Patrick Gathara's brilliant cartoon right here in KI has captured this (and look at the right hand of that male in the cartoon! :-))
Thirty years ago, Kampuchea and its "Killing Fields" were the flavour of the year.

But only irredeemable slave souls will from this acknowledgement infer that the protest itself is not justified and good.

Alexander

The West Hypocrital
written by Wuod Aketch , April 11, 2008

Give the Chinese a break. The west keep on shifting goal posts for our Asian brothers and sisters. One time it was the pollution in Beijing, then later Darfur and now it is Tibet.

Did you notice that the most virulent against the Chinese can be described as the most hypocrite?


President Hu Jintao greets his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 26, 2007. Link here to image

The time the deal below was being signed , Tibet, Darfur ... were out of mind - yet it was just last year. The violence during the passage of the Olympic torch relay in Paris was beyond description.

$30b deals cement French relations Link here

The Olympic games have been too politicized. I do not care whether a Gordon Brown, Bush or Sarkozy will be present at the opening ceremony.

Solid & Specified Action
written by Isindu Mwangaza , April 11, 2008

Johnny: Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong.

Alexander

Probably, but must it be done with so much pomp and flair? Looks to me like someone who0 loves the limelight.

She is renowned, hence a platform. Kenya has made it a priority to deny the The Dalai Lama a visa due to it's curious connection and aid (corruption volt) from China. Now, who make these decisions on our behalf?

Maathai is pretty much telling the Government to go to the shitter; among other issues she is obviously feels need redress yet the Kibaki administration is simply wallowing away in stupor.

Maathai is not an equatorial 'dispositionist'. She has a tendency to act in a specified way unlike your man at Statehouse.

Manta
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 11, 2008

Elaborate please, British Tibet? Not heard that one before, they did have trade relations and a trade commission there but I have not heard of the Brits controlling Tibet before. They did sign a treaty with the Tibetans, which some use to show a period of Tibetan sovereignty. Chiang Kaishek's Nationalists were there until they were beaten in the civil war, at which time the Tibetan aristocracy and the Lamas politely and with parties asked them to leave knowing full well that Mao would be about. The Dalai Lama himself was in Beijing to meet with Mao, and there was a deal between Beijing and Lhasa, extended in the 1980s, which tacitly admits that the Tibetans constitute a separate people, deserving of a degree of autonomy and even of different laws (on family size for example) than do other Chinese. The annexation thing is obviously a canard.

...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Stephen,the Simla convention of 1914 was dictated by the British establishing areas of Tibetan(and therefore British by way of paying taxes to India) sovereignty and which were rejected by China.

...
written by a guest , April 11, 2008

Manta Ray: you do not even have a shadow of knowledge of Tibetan history. Please educate yourself before posting and before so embarrassing yourself.

Alexander

re:
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Manta Ray: you do not even have a shadow of knowledge of Tibetan history. Please educate yourself before posting and before so embarrassing yourself.

Alexander

So why don't you educate me, and everyone else?

wow
written by Daniel.Waweru , April 11, 2008

Kenya has made it a priority to deny the The Dalai Lama a visa due to it's curious connection and aid (corruption volt) from China. Now, who make these decisions on our behalf?

Wow, I didn't know that. Deplorable if true.

Manta,

yes, you have a point about the fashionability of causes: the selction of campaigns for international attention doesn't seem to follow any logic of need or whatever. Bt it doesn't follow that Wangari's thingy is misguided. She was asked, indirectly, to give support to a regime that has done some truly horrible things in Tibet, and she's declined to do so. She was asked to lend her name to the Olympic effort, so they came to her; she didn't simply butt in. So I can't see that her action is to be understood as busy-body support of the Western line.

...
written by Aliosema , April 11, 2008

My point therefore is that Wangari Maaathai needs to be very, very careful before she jumps on the Western bandwagon of fashionable protest where Tibet is now flavor of the month.

My reading of this is different. Who said Wangari was interested in being on anyones bandwagon. She never has. If anything, I read in her statement that she was more concerned about maintaining her integrity and credibility here in Kenya. How could she stay silent about China's actions in Tibet while protesting the same treatment meted out on her in Kenya. I often do not agree with her, but I have chosen to give her the benefit of the doubt,and believe that her conscience spoke to her. I am sure she can ably deal with the consequences of her actions. Thats what makes her Wangari Maathai.

If we are indeed to accept the Western attitude that Tibet was "annexed" by China, then the US should also return Texas back to Mexico

When did the US ever walk the talk or for that matter talk straight. Dubya sent Condi here to tell Kibaki he must share power because there were some doubts about the numbers. This after having "won" his own seat by scraping through the 2000 election with just under 537 votes in Florida having already lost the popular vote to Gore by over 543,816 votes. An astonishing or, dare I say, awesome stunt. Shouldnt he be sharing power with Al Gore right now? Kudos to Al Gore for having accepted his loss with grace and dignity, and gone on to show us that he did not have to sit on "the seat of power" to make a difference - nobel peace prize says it all.

...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Manta,

yes, you have a point about the fashionability of causes: the selction of campaigns for international attention doesn't seem to follow any logic of need or whatever. Bt it doesn't follow that Wangari's thingy is misguided. She was asked, indirectly, to give support to a regime that has done some truly horrible things in Tibet, and she's declined to do so. She was asked to lend her name to the Olympic effort, so they came to her; she didn't simply butt in. So I can't see that her action is to be understood as busy-body support of the Western line.

Daniel, Wangari as a Nobel prize winner is now an institution, not just a person. In this regard, she is a role model who is supposed to exercise better judgment than being openly partisan. The fact that China violates human rights in Tibet does not mean that many of those criticizing it will not participate in the Olympics. They will not miss it for the world. In this context, Wangari let down the Olympic ideal, which is why she was asked to carry the torch in the first place and is what she should have focused on. What was the point in declining to carry the torch? She was not being asked to approve of China. The Olympic movement is not responsible for what China does either, and all those protesting, i repeat, are going to take part in the Olympics anyway.
If they really wanted to make China listen to them, they should have been MAN or WOMAN enough, and PRINCIPLED enough, to boycott the Beijing Olympics altogether.
This is why i maintain that this whole protest was done and is being done to spite China and to make them feel small, a very sensitive sensation for most Chinese, who feel that this is their time to be finally and truly recognized as one of the worlds big boys.
The West will do all they can to rattle China's confidence in that respect. Just watch CNN in the build up to the opening day.

Parallels...
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

Olympic Games 1936.

Learn from history, Manta Ray.

Alexander

re: Parallels...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Olympic Games 1936.

Learn from history, Manta Ray.

Alexander

What is there to learn in this context? What about 1936? I know Hitler intended for the games to be a showcase of Aryan superiority, until Jesse Owens proved him wrong.
The British and the Americans did not want to believe the stories of Jewish persecution and the existence of the concentration camps.
What does that have to do with China's Olympics today? Everybody is so eager to do business with them, in spite of their re-education and labour camps, the victims being Chinese instead of Jews. Cease the cryptic statements anyway. This is not KGB or CIA school.

Waweru
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 11, 2008

Wow, at you. You totally miss the point in your attempt to be 'fair'. When Wangari was approached and agreed to run with the Torch she knew all about China's record, and no Tibet is not special, China does grim things everywhere, even in Beijing. The Tibet thing is a Western construction and to base one's moral decisions on the ruminations of the Western media seems to me very troubling.

Wangari's reactions do seem very influenced by whoever is funding her movement. She dropped the ball after the Kenyan crisis in exactly the same fashion.

...
written by manta ray , April 11, 2008

Stephen, brilliant! Now why don't others see it so clearly? Oh well, such is life. You win some, you lose some.

Fairness indeed
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

When Wangari was approached and agreed to run with the Torch she knew all about China's record

True. But at that time, the Tibetan people had not risen (again) as it rises now. And as I said before, repeated for you: "Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong."
Of course, your own temperament is the contrary... I know.

and no Tibet is not special

Tibet is indeed "special" in many a respect. But it is not unique. The oppression of the Uigurs is also very brutal.

China does grim things everywhere, even in Beijing.

True. Yet not comparable and you know that.

The Tibet thing is a Western construction

Rubbish. While a specific "image" of Tibet indeed has been created in the West since Heinrich Harrer, if not since James Hilton's Shangri-La - yes, I am aware of that young Indian scholar of whom a very weak article was reprinted here in KI, an article that is hopefully not representative of his "real scholarship" -, the struggle of the Tibetan people and the Chinese ethnicide (at times genocidal in the strict legal sense, too) are bitter realities.
Try to educate yourself first a bit on the things on which you endeavour to comment, I have already said it I believe.

Alexander

oh, shut up Alex
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 11, 2008

Heinrich SS Harrer? Anyhow, the struggle of the Tibetan people is really of two kinds. The monks are monsters, and China is in many ways much more benign but nonetheless nasty. Is there need for a Tibetan resistance? Yes, no doubt, but like happens in so many Islamic states, once the mad god-botherers (cf. Iran) take over the reform agenda, you really know you are up sh!t creek. Tibet before the Chinese was real hell for the ordinary people. This ethnicide charge like the genocide one really needs greater qualification and I have heard no one in the media here claim either, not even those foaming at the mouth against the Chinese. This is another way to lose an argument, when you go hyperbolic (comparisons to 1936?!! - holy cow!) or speaking of genocide!!

P.S. I admit great bias against any authority over a people based on silly myths, the Dalai Lama is god-incarnate, how stupid is that? Religion, especially third-world religion is always oppressive, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the United States, Kenya, Nigeria. The people of Tibet need freedom - from the mad Lamas and relief - from Beijing.

Robespierre + virtuous terror
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

Heinrich SS Harrer?

If you need a cheap SS insinuation, use Ernst Schäfer. Then you have even Himmler right in the picture.

Anyhow, the struggle of the Tibetan people is really of two kinds.

Yes, it is, but I doubt that *you* have understood it.

a) The older peaceful resistance style, embodied in the Dalai Lama and the major abbots, was never the only one. The Khampa resistance of the 1950s was fairly autonomous, and the later CIA-funded guerilla (also relying on Khampas and on nomads from bases from Mustang) did neither take much consideration on the Dalai Lama's wishes.

b) The present resistance is representative of a more secular Tibetan movement that historically dates back into the 1980s. At that time already, internal "youth" fractions appeared, both in the USA (and to a lesser degree in Europe), and in Dharamsala itself. These movements operated with more modern secularized notions of national identity and self-determination.

c) For a long time, the Cabinet was able to keep a lid on the cauldron. There was significant internal strife, but the Dalai Lama - who is not just a grinning and bowing mascot, but also a very shrewd politician who is aware what power means, all the while knowing its relativity - managed to divide it and to rule. Some critics were integrated, others isolated.

d) What we now see is a popular and violent resistance movement not just of Nomads from Tibet's outer regions, but of mostly younger Tibetans, increasingly secular, who still venerate the Dalai Lama, but are increasingly loath to take political directions from him. With them are many younger monks (and nuns), while elder monks and the abbots stay loyal to the Dalai Lama's traditional non-violence (or as the critics call it: "appeasement" politics.

The monks are monsters, and China is in many ways much more benign.

Vest pocket Robespierre. It's always the victims who are at fault in your eyes. The murdered ones, not the murderers. It is always the Comité du Salut Public, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, whom you defend. How despicable you have become. Much worse than ODM.

As to ethnicide and genocide, you have OPENLY approved of the former on KI, and even have demanded it. And the latter you deny whenever it suits you. Have a drink with Maina Kiai, will you? He might offer you a post in Kenya.

Alexander

deranged simpleton
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 11, 2008

You've lost it completely. It's baseless ad hom at best.

The difference between me and you is that I believe in individual rights, in the betterment of the lot of every single individual. You on the other hand, inspired perhaps by your love of the Ogiek and racist romanticisms of 'ethnic cultures', are quite the opposite, you want the people in chains but insist that such chains are 'native'. This itself is the ultimate act of blaming the real victims.

The monks are tyrannical bastards, and the Dalai Lama a silly US stooge. Check out what this man of peace had to say about the wars on Afghanistan or Iraq.

Again I say, the Tibetans need to resist oppression, both that of the Chinese and that of the tyrannical Lamas. Every single Tibetan deserves freedom and the capacity to map his destiny unhindered either by the state or by the temple. Individual choice, you get it? I am persuaded no matter what foolishness you persuade yourself with, the people do not want to return to serfdom or oppression by witchcraft and superstition. If they do, guided by foolishness from those who want to see them in their 'robes' - cf. Ntimama's protection of Maasai culture and the way of our forefathers' or Keguro's silliness; they can be sure that in such a system the weakest in such a society have every last right subverted to the group's tyrants.

You will still have to explain exactly what you mean when you say the Chinese commit ethnicide and genocide in Tibet. Throwing words around whose meaning you do not know anything of is only the greatest hallmark of ignorance.

Speaking of blaming the victims and ethnicide, please tell us your opinions on the Israelis and Palestinians.

re: deranged Jacobin
written by aeichener , April 11, 2008

The difference between me and you is that I believe in individual rights

No, you don't. You actually have zero respect for them, as little as your big example Robespierre and his terreur de la vertu. You trample individual rights with feet as long as they do not culminate in the adoration of the absolutized state.

You have openly demanded ethnicide here, and you now again justify it; yet it goes not only against collective rights, but thereby also against individuals. Like for any good Jacobin, Communist or Nazi, individual rights only count for you when they fit *your plan*. If the depraved individual however chooses religion over reason, ethnic or regional rootedness over bloodless nationalism, s/he is only fit for re-education or execution, as an unenlightened enemy of the State.

Individual choice, you get it?

You do not even know what the word means, Robespierre.

I am persuaded no matter what foolishness you persuade yourself with, the people do not want to return to serfdom or oppression by witchcraft and superstition. If they do, guided by foolishness

Robespierre and Stalin again, most LITERALLY. Word for word. Amazing, such brutal, utterly inhumane ruthlessness.

Alexander.

Alex, Stevo, step away from your keyboards now! Eds

ahem
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 12, 2008

Apologies to the editors. Still do not get it do you. I do not even believe in the state. There is not much choice there either. Individual rights dummy, not control by anyone. Choice, you know? Religion does not represent choice, in post-industrialisation societies perhaps, in the third world religion is perhaps the most oppressive social institution anywhere, like in Tibet so in Kenya, robbing poor people, terrifying them into not using condoms, guilting them for enjoying sex, creating vicious patriarchies, persecuting homosexuals, sitting on womankind, propping up failed leaders (like the Dalai Lama), supporting the most powerful land-owners and so on. There is very little personal choice in the matter, and a lot of social coercion even if not by physical force. I say again, set the individual free, including from the folly of patriotism - allegiance to the state myth. After all, patriotism is religion.

I really wish I was more sympathetic towards the monks, really I do. I wish they were, like Catholic priests in fascist South America (oh, the Dalai Lama though Pinochet was a hero!!) fighting for the improvement of the people. They are not, they represent the even more ancien regime.

Wangari
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 12, 2008

Wonder what Wangari will make of these real war criminals? Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation' Not much of a chance.

re: deranged simpleton
written by James Watt , April 12, 2008

You've lost it completely. It's baseless ad hom at best.

The difference between me and you is that I believe in individual rights, in the betterment of the lot of every single individual. You on the other hand, inspired perhaps by your love of the Ogiek and racist romanticisms of 'ethnic cultures', are quite the opposite, you want the people in chains but insist that such chains are 'native'. This itself is the ultimate act of blaming the real victims.

You claim to be for individual choice yet you seem hell bent to be against those individuals who chose tribal or religious affiliations. What a huge contradiction. Nothing but a huge hypocrite.

Keguros article was about his personal choice, not asking anyone to revert to anything, that's you own loose interpretation of it. Also the reason for organization into groups is based on the need for protection as well as the need for peaceful co existence. If individual rights are restricted they will undoubtedly collide with other individual rights, which is why at some point it becomes necessary to establish the code of conduct and the mechanism to oversee transgressions.

You seek to be the judge, the jury and the executioner. You want to dictate exactly what the individual rights should be.

re: Solid & Specified Action
written by James Watt , April 12, 2008

Johnny: Better doing the right thing late, than persisting in wrong.

Alexander

Probably, but must it be done with so much pomp and flair? Looks to me like someone who0 loves the limelight.

She is renowned, hence a platform. Kenya has made it a priority to deny the The Dalai Lama a visa due to it's curious connection and aid (corruption volt) from China. Now, who make these decisions on our behalf?

Maathai is pretty much telling the Government to go to the shitter; among other issues she is obviously feels need redress yet the Kibaki administration is simply wallowing away in stupor.

Maathai is not an equatorial 'dispositionist'. She has a tendency to act in a specified way unlike your man at Statehouse.

I'm confused. I thought she had earlier accepted the offer to hold the torch, and then she later declined to do so yesterday. When she was accepting to go to TZ before didn't she know of all of Chinas transgressions? Why not then refuse at the time she was first asked? Instead she seems more inspired by marauding mobs in European capitals than anything else, probably even less than the poor Tibetans themselves. A simple press statement would also have sufficed, instead ot was lights, camera, action Wangari Maathai has something to say, pass her the mic.

Wangari Maathai has little if any political clout. If she did she'd have been elected on Tetu. What she says is relatively unimportant within our borders but maybe of more use to our external friends who are no friends at all but wolves in sheep clothing.

Individual Rights
written by James Watt , April 12, 2008

Individual choice means exactly that that a man or a woman is free to believe in heaven and hell including the burning fire if he or she chooses to. It is not for Stephen Wanyama to stipulate what is exactly good to believe in and what not. I mean who are you to dictate what someone can, should or should not believe in?

If they chose to believe in witchcraft, let them. If they choose to live a life where the man is the king of the home and all else subordinate and there is no force and everyone is happy with that arrangement, let them. Of course if they choose to organize in a way that the woman is the head of the household, let them.

Traditional African societies had some households completely run by women, where women married women. Has also been used extensively for gay folks to get their rights. If they choose to believe that homosexuality is a sin, let them, the bible is pretty clear on that, No one should be persecuted for their lifestyle as long as it doesn't contravene with others. If a man wishes to marry 20 women and they all agree to it, let him as long as he can support they can all afford it.

In fairness if a woman wishes to marry multiple husbands and they can all love in peace and happiness, let them by all means. What the church preaches in disallowing contraceptives is faithfulness between the partners but if a man or a woman completely disregards church teachings regarding faithfulness, why should the same person pay attention to what the church is saying about contraceptives? Some traditional societies were however pretty liberal where sex was concerned. Legal adultery, certainly a concept not yet reached by our enlightened westernised folks who have to carry it out in great secrecy.

Mungiki is a perversion of traditional society, no where have I read of sanctioned beheadings as a form of punishment. Instead by all accounts the society relied on curses, which would befall the victim if he broke an oath. Trousers do not fall in the timeline in which most societies existed, although there were dress codes. I however doubt that women of the time agitated for them and when the time came foe trouser wearing women generations, there was little if any issues.

...
written by manta ray , April 12, 2008

Stephen, i don't understand why some don't see that what we despise is the hypocrisy of the elite.

This is from todays Guardian newspaper:

"Gordon Brown yesterday won Conservative backing for a move that would allow the government to block future criminal investigations such as the corruption case against the arms company BAE Systems.

Despite scathing criticism in the high court on Thursday, the Tories have chosen to support Downing Street in facing down critics who are keen for the BAE investigation to be reopened."

Can you imagine that? The same pompous friends who Wangari Maathai worships and listens to have circled the wagons to protect the corrupt. The above is the high and mighty UK Govts US$80 billion BAE systems corruption scandal, many times Goldenberg and Anglo-leasing rolled into one.
The cretins are the same ones who have the gall to lecture and foist the creepy ODM on us in the name of accountable Govt.

Watt
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 12, 2008

Manta,
There is a client-master relationship there. Makes it hard to speak the truth.

James Watt,
I have given you some mojo for I absolutely agree with everything that you have said, except we both know that it hardly ever works like that. Not in societies like ours. You assume a level of sophistication we simply do not have. I want to have two wives but can I?

freedom from superstition
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 12, 2008

Come on, don't be daft. Do you speak English? Read what I am saying. We do not live in some cosy European city. We live in a socially repressive patriarchal society. Ethnicity and religion in the third world are not free associations of the sort available to denizens of the post-industrial societies. Instead they are brutalising organisations, stultifying identities that in every way look to crush the individual will, to set down laws and oppress, to benefit the powerful and deprive the weak.

Call me all the names you want but all those of goodwill know exactly what I am talking about. I have not the power to influence how Keguro thinks or acts, as a free middle class individual in the West he is free to take on such romanticisms and I really do not mind, but as an idea for Kenyans, in Kenya, it is dangerous and deleterious to the good of the man or woman in the village, in the estates and in the slums.

It is not as though I am talking hypotheticals either. Mungiki was founded on exactly such romanticisms, look at what they have become!! Look at the Church or the Mosque in Kenya, bashing homosexuals and denying people access to contraceptives, supporting tyrannies and allying themselves with anyone who will pay them. Worst of all, robbing, nay, blackmailing and extorting money from poor stupid people who are terrified from birth about some hell-fire they will be cast into if they have sex outside marriage, or do not pay tithes, or drink alcohol or grow long hair or put on trousers (women), or go against their oath, etc so that assorted aggressive bible-bashers and conmen can buy the latest S-class or audio-visuals equipment to terrorise the poor people into compliance.

That's why you have oathing and threats of violence in these associations, here and in the hereafter, no choice, toe the line, or else. If these can be taken away, if there is no sharp edge to these associations, if this faith is a personal one and not a social force, then I must say I really do not mind them. The Catholic Church in Kenya for example does very little if any harm to upper middle class people but what it preaches (e.g. sex policy) is hurting poor people at the grass-roots. Buddhism in London is nice and cuddly, but in Thailand, or Sri Lanka it is a cause for violence and oppression, Hinduism in the US is likely benign, Shiv Sena, not so much.

P.S. I certainly am not arguing for China, all that patriotism is truly noxious, and like religionists and Americans, they start brainwashing and threatening the children really young. Not much choice.

(You're entitled to your opinion, as others are entitled to theirs. At this stage all we ask from EVERYONE is a little decorum. Religion is a hot topic, approach with care. Eds.)

choices
written by Maina Gichangi , April 13, 2008

Which would you rather be, a Palestinian or a Tibetan? An Iraqi or a Tibetan? Saudi or Chinese? Did not see any of these protest prior to the Australian Games, or the ones in Atlanta.

The sexy Tibetan robes, like the Maasai ones in Kenya, and the enormous cost to the Tibetan people of sustaining all the clergy must seem charming and quaint to the outsider. But as Wanyama says, it is doubtful that educated locals share in this appreciation.

Now if we can begin to prepare for MOAB at the London Games in 2012, drench the flame with water balloons.

useful reading
written by gichangi , April 13, 2008

Check this link out, some useful information is hidden from us by the glare of the increasingly flat tube. Link here. But we are free, really free to believe what we will.

...
written by Amir Ibrahim , April 13, 2008

Odd all this, still these same forces were cheering the independence of Kosovo just weeks ago. Freedom fries, literally. Now on to the Kenyan Rift Valley for a new republic. Watch your step, Kenya, you may soon be it. Now the Chinese people are truly united, and reform can stay packed away for some time yet as Beijing basks in the halo of the people's protector.

Mere polemics...
written by aeichener , April 13, 2008

Gordon Brown yesterday won Conservative backing (...)
Can you imagine that? The same pompous friends who Wangari Maathai worships and listens to

Aha.
Please post a link to the YouTube video where Wangari Maathai worships Gordon Brown.
Alternatively, an illustrated newspaper report about the worshipping will do.

Or else hold your breath and spare us such silly polemics in lieu of a founded criticism.

Alexander

...
written by mkosakabila , April 13, 2008

I really dont get this hulabaloo around the timing of a rather important decision by a rather important person. I think people should be free to change their minds and reevaluate prior decisions, especially if they see a window of opportunity exists to make a statement they believe in. I applaud Prof. Maathais thoughtful decision, which could not have come easy seeing that there just might be some (environmental) gains to staying close to China.

ps: it was also not fun seeing the good professor teargassed. teargas uhuru instead--cant even handle a simple organizational issue. The incompetent nutjob!

...
written by Kamale , April 13, 2008

I think Wangari is joining an international bandwagon that does not realise that the Tibet issue has been with us and the Tibetans have only decided to use the Olympics to highlight their cause. Wangari knew about this issue having met the Dalai Lama earlier and should have refused to take up the honour when first invited than this late. I surely must reek of opportunism that ranks high up there with the recent declarations by Bush, Brown and recently Ban Kin Moon not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics!

Wangari and Tibet
written by aeichener , April 13, 2008

I think Wangari is joining an international bandwagon

That is quite probably true. There is a "fad" element about this wave of protest.

that the Tibet issue has been with us

Since the 1950s.

and the Tibetans have only decided to use the Olympics to highlight their cause.

True indeed.

So what? She still did the right thing. Better late than never.

Alexander

what\'s human right?
written by Chinse native , May 02, 2008

Have you ever seen the ture scene of Tibentan riots?
Those monks lead by dalailama hurt so many people, a six-year-old kid was even crushed to death by rioters.
Who has the authority to say that we do not repect Tibet's culture and rights?
Who do you believe?