| Somalia: the case for Intervention |
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Somalia: the case for Intervention
Corrupt, pathetic, hopeless, basket case, failed state,
pirate haven - these are some of the nouns and adjectives used, with different
degrees of accuracy, to describe Somalia. Regarding our war-ravaged,
bandit-infested eastern neighbour, Kenyans appear to agree on one thing: something ought to be done. But as Capt. Collins Wanderi Munyiri's essay, Let
Somalis be illustrates, discord emerges only on the issue of what exactly we
should do to help and how we should go about it.
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| The Revolution in Winter |
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The Revolution in Winter
If the Iranian Revolution was middle-aged when Stephanie last wrote about it on KI, it has since decisively entered decrepit old age. As in Kenya, a disputed election was the cause.
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| Senate resolution on Slavery |
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Senate Resolution on Slavery
The Senate of the United States has unanimously passed a formal resolution apologising to African Americans for historic slavery and racial discrimination.
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| The Dalai Lama. And Unconstitutional Helicopters |
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The Dalai Lama. And Unconstitutional Helicopters
It is interesting how every country positions itself as a champion of
liberty, ratifying this and that Statute, Convention, joining this and
that ideologically progressive bloc. Yet when the time comes to really
show their stand, they all seem morally analgesic, ideologically
amnesic and, therefore, publicly schizophrenic! And Kenya, though
it does its best, is not among the worst of these hypocritical clown
nations, mainly because our interests and policies are
miniscule. Sometimes, havi... |
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| Land Reform in Zimbabwe and Kenya | Land Reform in Zimbabwe
The January 1 2009 issue of the London Review of Books has a second round of letters responding to Mahmood Mamdani's Lessons of Zimbabwe. A central point of dispute is the proper characterisation of the conflict in Zimbabwe: Mamdani's opponents see it primarily as a conflict between the state and its people; his view is that the central conflict concerns land ownership, and that the Mugabe regime is almost incidental.
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| Politics and Race: A Summary of the Howard Years |
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Politics and Race: A Left Wing Summary of the Howard Years
John Howard was in power for 11 years (1996-2007) making him Australia's
second longest serving Prime Minister. Australian democracy has no set terms,
so leaders can keep ruling if they keep winning elections. Another quirk of our
democracy allows incumbents to decide the date of the election within an
approximately 3 month window. Until Kevin
Rudd was elected in November 2007, there were many
Australians who had no political consciousness without John Howard.
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| Caught in the Act |
 | Caught in the Act
The East African republic of Uganda has gained international notoriety, and ridicule for repressive legal proposals against gay people within its borders. Playwright, poet and theatre artist Shailja Patel takes the battle to a Ugandan courtroom.
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| Dear Everyone, Africa is Not a Country |
Dear Everyone, Africa is Not a Country
Is Africa a country? The respected New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman in a column on the Olympics wrote, “Walking through the Olympic Village the other day, here’s what struck me most: the Russian team all looks Russian; the African team all looks African; the Chinese team all looks Chinese; and the American team looks like all of them.” Recently in the Wall Street Journal David Lapp wrote on early marriages: “Instead of trekking to Africa or exploring Rome alone, ...
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| Safe migration for Kenyan Athletes and other Migrants |
 | Safe Migration for Kenyan Athletes and Other Migrants
About 6 months ago, I met a young man at the Kenyan Embassy in Bangkok,
Thailand. This young Kenyan, let's call him Korir, had found himself in a bit
of a tight situation which he hoped the good people at the embassy would help
sort out.
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| A peek into the past and future of Pan Africanism |
 | A peek into the past and future of Pan Africanism
African Union summits rarely escape a Muammar Gaddafi lecture on his pet project: the United States of Africa. The Libyan leader’s harping on the need for common government is derided by some as a plot for hegemony. The idea of continental unity, though, is not new and neither is the cynicism.
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| The recalibration of Obama |
 | The recalibration of Obama
On Tuesday night as the results trickled in from Massachusetts, President Obama and his inner circle watched with slow horror. This was an eventuality they had been steeling themselves against for days – but even with the odds stacked, they had reserved a glimmer of hope. Hope that their last minute scrambling, Obama’s spate of rallies over the final weekend, had been enough to eek out the slimmest of slim victories. Hope that the Lion’s legacy, one that the late senator Ted Ke...
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| Kenya: combatting radical Islam |
 | Kenya: combatting radical Islam
The protest in Nairobi on 15 January by a handful of Muslim youth, in which four people were killed, revealed a profound radicalisation and inter-faith resentment among Nairobi’s Muslims. Kenya must address this if it is going to avoid Nigeria-style violence in the future. It should work closely with the United States, which apart from being an important player in Somalia is involved in interconnected regional initiatives.
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| Restoring Haiti |
 | Restoring Haiti
On Monday,Haiti was struck by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has left thousands dead and thousands more injured. The small island has had a troubled history. Everyone, or almost everyone, knows it was the site of the very first successful slave rebellion in the Americas. But before that, there had been nearly three hundred years of settlement, genocide (of the indigenous population), war, enslavement and conquest, all of which culminated in a violently-maintained caste society, with...
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| Why Ugandans Embrace the U.S. Christian Right Anti-Gay Agenda |
 | Why Ugandans Embrace U.S. Christian Right’s Anti-Gay Agenda
There is a joke among Africans about how colonialism began. A Christian missionary came with a Bible in hand, told our ancestors to bow their heads for a prayer, and when they opened their eyes their land was gone. Today, the same can be said about African constitutions.
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| Uganda's anti-homosexual law |
 | Uganda's anti-homosexual law
The government of Uganda's proposed law to criminalise homosexual behaviour compels us to think of our positions with regard to individual rights, especially those rights that are not popular.
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| Reframing the Nigerian Terrorist Debate |
 | Reframing the Nigerian Terrorist Debate
Just in case your first instinct when you see "Nigerian" is to put some distance between your face and the screen let me assure you, 'this' is not a bomb. A lot has been said about young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in this article I will offer a different argument.
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| Unhappy Anniversaries |
 | Unhappy Anniversaries
MONUC , the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
the largest and most expensive UN mission in the world, has just marked
its 10th anniversary. Established in November 1999, and despite
maintaining, at present, close to 20,000 troops in the Congo at a cost
of $1.4 billion a year, it has achieved little more than a bad name.
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| Indecision 2009 |
 | Indecision 2009
US President Barack Obama is mulling over what direction the campaign in Afghanistan, and increasingly over the border into Pakistan should take.
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| Stonewalled: US House rejects war crimes report |
 | Stonewalled: US House rejects war crimes report
Edward Said once said,' it is is part of morality not to be at home in one's home.' This is the challenge for those who believe in the universality of human rights, especially when the charge of infringing on them, treads uncomfortably close.
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| Gaddafi: Right Message, Wrong Messenger |
 | Gaddafi: Right Message, Wrong Messenger
It is easy to label Muammar Gaddafi's first address to the United Nation's General Assembly simply as a hopeless rant (video clips embedded below). Following Gaddafi's speech, pundits and post-speech analysis on news networks— have called him a crazy man taking advantage of his debut at the UN to rant about every subject and historical event that occurred throughout his forty years in power. However, there are several key points that Gadhafi touched which might be overshadowed by the...
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| There are savages in America too |
 | There are savages in America too
Self Editor’s Note: Yes, there is such a thing as an American savage. Our Man in America compares and contrasts him with the savage of the Global South.
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| The insults of the earth |
 | The insults of the earth
In what is perhaps the most eloquent exposition of the intent of sedition law ever uttered, President Daniel Arap Moi is reported to have said once,
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| Why is there such uncritical acceptance of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction in the US? |
Why is there such uncritical acceptance of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction in the US?
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi walked free yesterday, having been freed on
compassionate grounds by the Scottish executive. The US is outraged,
as, understandably are many families of victims of the Lockerbie
terrorist attack, and everyone, including Scottish First Minister Alex
Salmond, questioned the taste of the hero's welcome afforded Megrahi in
Tripoli.
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