Communicating Arts - Main Web Site"Dozens of riot police kept the groups apart as they threw rocks at each other outside the Lake Naivasha Country Club." [1]
The observation appears midway down the filing by Tim Cocks and David Lewis, but it's in keeping with all I've read and seen (in media) of war over the past year: one may wonder whether oddness helps define war as much as violence.
Things get displaced in wars.
Old neighbors throw rocks at one another.
The country club, which course and clubhouse must have brought in some money, starts to look a pretty good place for a battle.
This is the best, most succinct paragraph I have yet to read on the origins of the conflict:
"The violence since Kenya's Dec. 27 election now has a momentum of its own, with cycles of killing and revenge linked to land and wealth disputes tied to British colonial policy that politicians have revived during most of Kenya's elections."
Most of the world, when it has a choice, wants its politicians to "work things out", bring in trade (economic development), and allay disease and hunger.
By way of comparison, Kenyans seems to have perhaps accepted a long course of social neglect (of urban and rural poverty) by the incumbent Administration and increased ethnic baiting (in the United States, the near similar process would be called racist) by the opposition.
Today's reported violence seems to differ from last week's in its adding to the invention of an excuse for conflict and mob mayhem institutional discipline on the opposition's part and the taking of defensive measures all around.
Last week, no one really knew who was killing whom.
Next week, so I predict, we will.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
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