|
When Activism is About the Cause |
|
|
|
|
Written by Okiya Omtatah Okoiti
|
|
Friday, 18 September 2009 |
Published below is a letter in response to an editorial in the Standard that accused human activist Okiya Omtatah Okoiti of a political agenda.
Thanks for your most interesting article that you have ever published about me to date. The article appeared on Page 7 of the Crazy Monday magazine insert in your esteemed publication today (Monday, September 14, 2009). It was published under the heading "Omtatah's activism is all about himself ".
To begin with, isn't it an unforgivable contradiction that you, a person who himself earns a living from writing, should find it a mystery how I earn my daily bread?
Much as I appreciate that no perception is immaculate, I find it extremely helpful when such a mirror or any reflective material, however poor its reflective quality may be, is held before me, by a hand I don't control. Such a mirror gives me a reality check. Knowing how others perceive me and, most importantly, what I am doing, is of paramount importance to me as that is the main way I get to know whether or not I am communicating.
Nevertheless, your article would have done much better had it not relied on information that is more than a year old, or outright inaccurate. You should have done a little bit more research to answer the provincial questions you pose. Also it would have been richer and able to serve a higher cause had it transcended my person to engage my ideological activism.
I favour a developmental state, in opposition to the neo-liberal model contained in Kenya Vision 2030 which both our Legislature and the Executive are keen to implement.
It is a gross failure on your all important part, as both the conscience and the mirror of society, to limit yourselves to discussing personalities and not the burning issues consuming the polity.
We are at that point when the media must surface the burning socio-political and economic issues in the Kenyan polity. If you don’t help the Kenyan Street surface those issues affecting ordinary Kenyans, our politics will inevitably remain personality driven. We will continue discussing self-seeking and visionless individuals, at the expense of the mind-boggling challenges we face as a country, and the good policies we must develop to solve them.
Hence, invoking your Newspaper's edifying motto, For Fairness and Justice, and without asking for too much since it really is not beyond you to grant my prayers, I would appreciate if your esteemed publication would go the extra mile to grant me an interview where I can explain the political ideology that drives me. The wind in my sail is the common good, not self-serving interests as your writer misrepresented me.
The method behind what you perceive to be my madness ("an enraged bull in a china shop", as you write), is that I am totally opposed to Kenya Vision 2030 which is nothing more than a glossy and grand scheme to recolonise us, by forcing us to sell our strategic assets to foreigners.
Our sovereignty will go with the sale of those public assets, including the profitable National Bank of Kenya, the Kenya Ports Authority, the futuristic telecommunications industry, and other strategic assets. To stay free we must reject the emergence of a situation where unregulated and uncontrollable market forces, pursuing abnormal profits, and not political ideology in the service of the common good, drive public policies and programmes to the detriment of Kenyans.
If Kenya Vision 2030 is not stopped NOW!, it will become a nightmare in which we will be no better than the man who sold all his land to another so that the new owner could build a palace in which he (the original owner) will be employed as a cleaner.
Finally, a humble request: is it possible to get an A1 size complimentary copy of that cartoon of me? I wish to put it in a picture frame and proudly hang it on my wall.
|
Okiya Omtatah Okoiti |
| About the author: |
| Okiya is a poet, playwright, human rights activist and all-round gadfly.
|
Trackback(0)
 |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 18 September 2009 )
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
Instead the sit idly by as productive Kenyans are condemned to lives of poverty and vice. Yay!
Only in this country can it be argued that a rural peasant must supply a title deed to claim a piece of land he has been farming.