Kenya's Unholy Invention

Epigram

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16
אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן
Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman
All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.
More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."
Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php
Abraham Isaac Kook
"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.
Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."
Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."
Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.
Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Notes

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January 29, 2008

Kenya's Unholy Invention

"What you fear is a downward spiral of violence, of attacks and counter-attacks, and counter-counter-attacks on a tribal and ethnic basis which then becomes very hard to stop," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters in Brussels." [4]

What fascinates me and should horrify you: having reduced complex economic, political, and social conditions to "my people vs. your people," Kenya has entered warfare's payback stage: counter-attack by Kikuyu youths whose "people" (the skein of so many millions of unknown relations whose lives up to know have been defined by other than ancestral blood) against, symbolically--except the bodies are real enough--those who first set out across the Rift Valley with machetes and matches.

Even from my one favored source, Reuters, the story would seem a hard one to tell with some other spin, say as an abberation in global politics or as "overplayed" and encouraged by media coverage.

Incumbent neglect and opposition ambition have turned a set of economic and social challenges common around the globe into tribal warfare that would be immune to political administrative process were it not for the adult and moderate people of Kenya themselves who are able to perceive what the manner of democratic politics has done to their country and through media, music, and personal action work harder than the street to save their beloved country.

For clicking away from this location, start with Lewis, David. "Kenyan refugees flee from baying crowds." Reuters Africa, January 29, 2008, a fair wrap on the latest agony--and then into the Reuters Africa news soup with you too!

# # #

1. "Save our beloved country." Video. Reuters. January 26, 2008.

2. "Protesters throw stones at riot police in Nairobi. Photograph. Reuters AlertNet, January 29, 2008.

3. "Kenya Violence: Deadly Mix of Politics and Old Grudges. Reuters AlertNet, January 28, 2008.

4. Tattersall, Nick. "Annan launches Kenya mediation, violence spreads." Reuters AlertNet, January 29, 2008.

5. "Special coverage: Kenya in turmoil." Reuters Africa, as experienced January 29, 2008.

6. "Kenya in Turmoil." Slideshow. Reuters, nd.

7. Lewis, David. "Kenyan refugees flee from baying crowds." Reuters Africa, January 29, 2008.

Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim

Posted on January 29, 2008 at 11:59 AM in Conflict Culture | Permalink