I thought I knew everything about Kenyan politics; at least enough to believe that there existed parameters enclosing the possible and the impossible. Imagine my surprise then when I heard that there are Muslims for Raila. 
I will start by declaring that my Islam is merely cultural, I do not believe in God, that is to say I am an agnostic. Even more, like I have explained in a recent article here at KenyaImagine, I strongly disagree with the dangerous notion that there is an Islamic vote out there to be courted. It is inimical to the harmony of our still very fragile state that our Islamic populations should see themselves as separate from the rest of the Kenyan polity. This is the trap Muslims in the west are weaving, setting themselves up for attacks from their enemies by showing themselves to be outsiders, with interests at variance with those of the wider population.
What surprised me, what seemed to me entirely fatuous, even incredible was the notion that a sizable number of Kenyan Muslims should believe their political fortunes set to enjoy an improvement under a Raila Odinga government. There are many reasons why this position is inconsistent with reason, and I will try to lay them out. They are based on the whole on the American war on terror, a euphemism for a war on Islam- clothed in some quarters as a clash of civilisations, and the ODM leader's closeness with the American establishment.
First off, the ODM candidate has repeatedly boasted about his close links with the American political establishment. Even the idlest observer of our politics will have noticed that Raila Odinga is particularly chummy with the Americans. For lack of evidence, I will not go into the allegations of a deal for the establishment of Africom's headquarters in Kenya at the minute, but even disregarding that there is every reason to fear your enemy's friend.
The global war on terror, and whatever adherents it still retains in the public sympathy are waging a war on the adherents of Islam. Kenyans at the Coast and in North Eastern province know too clearly the practice of rendition, and the barbarism that was visited on the people of Somalia. The Kibaki government wisely sought to restrict its involvement, but even its attempt to stay aloof led to the illegal abduction of Kenyan citizens and the mass murder of tens of our neighbours in Somalia. I will merely quote from the story, ‘The 88's job was simple: Kill anyone still alive and leave no unidentified bodies behind. ' The link is from a report by Thomas Barnett for American magazine, Esquire. It is very perplexing for me that Kenyans should be blaming the Kibaki government for these events and endorsing the government of a man who eats, breathes and sleeps America.
In answering phantom charges about the presence/absence of his prepuce, the ODM candidate went on to name George Bush and Tony Blair as men who rule in spite of not having been subjected to the operation. Whether or not these men have been subjected to this operation is a subject for only the feeblest minds, but it is instructive that when the ODM leader feels a need to affirm his masculinity and suitability for public office he should choose in his defence two of the most reviled men in world politics of the last fifty years.
Lesley Stahl (60 Minutes CBS) on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
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Dems just as bad
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But that is not the end of the ODM leader's obsession with the Americans. Like I said before, he boasts in his celebrated biography about his links with the American establishment, including invitations to attend Democratic party conventions. For those uninitiated in these things, the United States is really a one party state with very little difference between the two parties. The media may obsess with painting George W Bush as evil, but these measures started long before his presidency. President Clinton and Madeline Albright were for example instrumental in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. Perhaps more incriminating than the deaths themselves was the callous fashion in which these deaths were regarded by that administration.
Even more recently, new kid on the block and a close friend of Raila's, Barack Obama has come out clearly to state that he would invade Pakistan if General Musharaf was overthrown. This was so extreme a sentiment that even the normally hawkish Hillary Clinton saw fit to ask Obama to calm down. And Obama is not a nobody; the Illinois Senator sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Yes, these are the friends the ODM keep.
And it shows in their spirit. The ODM's governing council has been very insensitively christened the Pentagon, with little attention being paid to the inherent aggravation potential towards Kenyan Muslims, whose votes it seems are increasingly being taken for granted. So it is that Muslims are being asked to follow and support an organisation that takes its name from the building where the mass murder of Muslims is plotted and promoted. The notion seems to be that a brief dangling of the idea of Majimbo will be enough to win these Muslims over, never mind the knife in the other hand behind the ODM's back, never mind the insults. Give them Majimbo and they will be blind to everything else. And it is exactly on this issue of Majimbo and the ODM that I would like to conclude.
The short-sighted desire for autonomy for Kenyan Muslims is far from a silver bullet for their myriad miseries. Instead it is a most vivid case of the validity of the old adage, be careful what you wish for. Already the US base at Manda Bay has been used to wage war against Somalia. North Eastern Kenya is already awash with rumors of American marines on silent missions. We can of course do little against this at the moment but the presence of a local government controlling a majority Muslim jimbo will open these parts to the kind of strife that has visited Pakistan's North West Frontier region. Detached from the rest of the country and responsible for itself the jimbo will be a new front for the War on Terror, especially if as reported there is oil under those Northern hills; Iraq is not too far in the memory and a new chapter looks to be open with Iran soon.
Kenyan Muslims it is true have been hard done by. But the solution is not to stand apart, but to immerse themselves even more into the Kenyan experiment, to claim their stake in it. The agitation for a more equitable distribution of resources, for a fairer employment regime and for the protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights must be waged in parliament and in the courts. The further we pull from the rest of Kenya, the easier it will be for extenuations to be contrived that will sacrifice us to the whims of foreign powers, the easier it will be for extremist elements in Kenya's Christian majority to portray Kenyan Muslims as a perfidious fifth element, undeserving of justice and equal rights. It is already happening across the world, the slightest excuse is sufficient.
I will not go so far as Labour Minister Kulundu who condemned the US government as one of the foremost abusers of human rights. That is for another day, but there is every reason in the new Kenya to ensure that we are not anymore tangled in childish relationships that we have no say in. For all its errors, the Kibaki government must be lauded for managing to keep us neutral in the war against Islam and for opening Kenya's choices to the entire world. We are a small country; it is true and powerless when faced with a global superpower. There is no way for example that we can protect our citizens against rendition or kidnap or even murder if the USA wills it. Still if the price of our little independence is that the Americans discuss us behind our backs with Uganda and Tanzania, if that is the price for refusing to kowtow to the imperial will of the USA, if that is the price of refusing to be arm-twisted into signing a deal handing the US military impunity for war crimes then so be it, if that be the price for unshackling ourselves from slavery to the Bretton Woods institutions, then give us free. I will vote for Mwai Kibaki.
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That said, your argument is one that flies in the face of reason and reality. It is lopsided and alarming, begged on generalisation and American hatred. Muslims don't hate America as a nation; after all, America has Muslims too. And no Muslim on earth from the four winds will refuse to go or settle in America if he/she were given that opportunity. The problem with America is not its people but an elite stage-managed by Zionism and capitalistic avarice that tears every nation down if they don't give them what they need or support Israel. Muslims stand for peace including Kenyan Muslims and we don't hate America as a nation, neither do we intend to fight anyone because he/she may not be a Muslim. "Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of justice." (Quran 60: 08)
Granted, we have a big problem with America as Muslims today, but does attacking America serve our interests? No, we don