Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteWar is personal.
"Flames burst from a large crucifix suspended from the roof of a burning church in Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums, and a hotbed of support for opposition leader Raila Odinga." [1]
It should come as no surprise that Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has found support among the poor. Back to Jesus Christ at least, those living in poverty most keenly perceive injustice and seek redress, magically entertaining justice in heaven for recourse or, and perhaps it's the healthier choice after all, promoting violent revolution.
For one to a few loudmouths on the American political scene, this is an old play. For recruitment, play one of these cards: race or religion. Perhaps in Africa, things are different and "tribe" will do for doing the same as the other two, encouraging avarice and mistrust, basing justice not in the distributive powers of governments but rather in local, malicious, and retributive actions.
"Kenya has become a nation of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars,” said Kenyan politician Josiah Mwangi Kariuki early in the nation's history.
The gambler who used his race track winnings to deal himself an education became a democratic and populist voice for the country, and although Kariuki himself died a millionaire, the accrual of which remains a mystery according to Wikipedia [3], his words and spirit have been embraced by opposition leader Raila Odinga, who quotes them on the current political record page of his campaign web site [2].
It so happens that in Kibera, Kenya has real problems. In 2005, the International Medical Corps characterized the slum as the largest in east Africa, "home to more than 700,000 people living in a single square mile." [4]
Whisky Tango Foxtrot, indeed!
What responsible government on earth would allow that to happen--and then allow that misery to fester?
For once, we may have here the birth of a conflict Clausewitz would recognize as the continuation of politics through other means, and without further examination, except of the IMC statement, the Kibera "misery index" would seem to justify it.
Still, how Odinga's promotion of the common weal morphs into tribal division, animosity, and, accusations of genocidal violence in this fast breaking story presents a mystery all its own.
Google up Korir's article in the Wordpress blog Africa International [5]:
"Raila Odinga, when he was the Minister for Roads in Mwai Kibaki’s government, pulled down many expensive houses in Kenya telling Kenyans that he was doing so, “in the name of roads expansion.”
"Many of the houses pulled down belonged to the Kikuyus and non-Luo communities who, on loosing their properties, were denied compensation by the Roads ministry then headed by Raila.
War is personal.
From another source (you can do this too, of course: just Google "Raila Odinga tribal conflict")--
"With Kibaki belonging to Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe and Odinga to the Luo, the second largest, the violence has taken on a distinctly ethnic hue, with tit-for-tat killings and targeted arson attacks.
"Young men armed with machetes rocks and bows and arrows could be seen manning crude checkpoints, allowing only those from the right ethnic group through." [6]
When it comes to helping the upwards of a million souls in the vermin infested Kibera slum, that seems left to charity, piecemeal, and dismal (if ever an epicenter for disease would welcome dismantling and transportation to better distributed districts hosting the labors of Bono and some hundreds of professional urban planners and social architects backed by the likes of George Soros and developers with Jim Rousean ambitions, Kibera sure sounds like it); when it comes to family, don't you know, a poltical high seat and license to destroy properties and lives without "due process"--not any process at all, in fact--may seem just fine.
From Gaza to Islamabad to Mogadishu, one may well ask: is this the world the world wants?
Whatever the answer, and with both the seemingly civilized states of Pakistan and Kenya suffering assaults from within, the world of division without end and retribution without limit would seem the one coming.
2. Raila 2007.
3. Josia Mwangi Kariuki. Wikipedia, as experienced January 3, 2008.
5. "Kenya: Does Raila Odinga “hate the Kikuyu community?”
6. "Thousands flee Kenya fearing 'ethnic cleansing'". Al Arabiya New Channel, January 2, 2008.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
Comments