POLITICALLY CORRECT

Politeness is a very good trait, or so my nursery school teacher told me. Politeness is what separates those who help you find the directions to the nearest K.F.C. and those who tell you you’re too fat to be eating at K.F.C. when you ask for directions. Politeness is the difference between a diplomat and a politician. However, politeness has been allowed to evolve into political correctness and things have pretty much gone downhill from there. Society has become so obsessed with “politeness” to the point that things do not even make sense anymore.

Take the case of crippled/disabled people. At what point did being crippled become such an evil it cannot even be mentioned in public? The word “crippled” generally refers to the inability to function fully and not just from being unable to use limbs, for example; …and the iceberg totally crippled the Titanic. Being crippled is not something to be ashamed about because it is not anyone’s fault unless you are a grown man like Li’l Wayne trying to skateboard with a bunch of teenagers and you break your spinal column in multiple places. Political correctness however has forced us to think of cripples not as that but as “special needs” people or “persons with disability.” The biggest tragedy is that these people have been bullshitted so much to the point that they have believed this crap. Disability is indeed inability; it is the inability to perform certain tasks. I am yet to see a blind man getting a driver’s license or a deaf man conducting an orchestra. No one is taking away from the fact that being crippled isn’t a death sentence but the truth is, it is a sentence barring you from performing certain tasks.

Political correctness isn’t just limited to this inability hogwash; it also dictates how we speak. Our language has become so soft we have perfected the art of turning bad things into good things, I suspect as a way to avoid dealing with the bad things. At what point did “poor people stop living in slums” and “economically disadvantaged people start occupying informal settlements?” At what point “getting fired by your employer” become “getting laid off to avoid redundancy?” This soft language is killing us. Smug well fed government types have invented a language that is only aimed at lying to us; oh, excuse my language, the government is “engaging in disinformation.” It is the reason they tell you the Maumau were freedom fighters. If fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? This phenomenon is getting so severe we might hear some rights group saying rape victims should now be called “unwilling sperm recipients.”

At what point did old people all die and get replaced with “senior citizens?” Old is old and every second you live you get old. What is so bad about being 90 years old? There is nothing to be ashamed about by living to be old. If you don’t like being old then kill yourself and do the entire world a favor live and enjoy the fact that you have seen a lot more that the youngsters you see on the street. Let us start being honest people, let us tell things as they are and let’s stop this politically correct bullshit. Think, it isn’t illegal yet.

LEARN THE LANGUAGE AND SPEAK IT WELL

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about how “negative ethnicity” is destroying the country. Ok, I get it. Saying that because I am Luo I will only vote for another Luo is not very proper and saying that all Kikuyus are thieves is downright absurd. Still, I do not understand negative ethnicity. Someone in the media invented that statement and it is very wrong but has been allowed to stay in our daily discourse. Why? Because Kenyans are generally idiots, that’s why.

What is (negative) “ethnicity?”

 

eth·nic·i·ty  (th-ns-t)

noun

1. Ethnic character, background, or affiliation.

2. An ethnic group.

 

So, how can an affiliation or background be negative? Can you say Negative Mountain or negative Kamba or negative fish? What these media people are trying to say would be best described by the word ethnocentrism.

eth·no·cen·trism  (thn-sntrzm)

noun

1.       Belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group.

This is the correct description of what Kenyans call negative ethnicity. Politicians, news casters, fools, priests… all of them are just as misguided on this.

This just another example of Kenyans foolishly accepting what the media say as being the truth and irrefutably correct. My opinion on this… read a fuckin’ book!

 

Of Zack and hunger stricken Kenyans

Raising money to help needy folks is a very noble cause. It is something that a lot of people would want to identify with and would even sacrifice their comfort for. Take the Kenyans for Kenya initiative that raised over a billion shillings to feed folks dying of hunger in Turkana (mind you, we don’t know how the cash was spent or if there was actually people dying of hunger in the first place) or the now famous “Bring Zack back home” (why he won’t just take a flight is beyond me), such good initiatives being done for all the wrong reasons. Before you all start frothing at the mouth and screaming about how evil I am, picture this; does the government collect taxes? Yes. Is the government responsible for building hospitals? Yes. Should the government be feeding the hungry in the country? Yes. Is the government doing a good job? No. Should we intervene through such initiatives as the ones previously mentioned? Hell no!

When a person is given a responsibility, they should execute it fully failure to which that person should be punished. When the government fails in its responsibilities, it should be punished too. The punishment can come in many different forms and severity but never should failure to execute responsibility be rewarded. Starting such initiatives is tantamount to rewarding failure. If the government has a health budget and the funds are stolen or misappropriated, should we raise money to build the very same hospital? Of course not. This means that the “bring Zack back to the chopper…” argument is invalid. Similarly, imaginary people dying of hunger in Turkana need government action more than Julie Gichuru and Jeff Koinange dancing to the tune of Gina Din and other puppet masters to collect monies that are never accounted for.

By contributing money towards such projects, we are condoning the bad behavior of government. It is like giving you child money to buy books and then he spends it on cocaine and then you give him more cash to buy another book.  I know this is painful but someone has to say it.

Viva la revoluciόn.

Terrorism: the strange case of Kenya

A few days ago, the American government issued a travel advisory warning its citizens to keep away from Kenya because of the "terrorist" attacks that have plagued the country. I understand America's concern because terrorists are not to be trifled with. What worries me is the failure by everyone concerned to notice how odd these "terrorists" are. 
What kind of terrorist stages an attack and doesn't claim responsibility? Your guess is as good as mine. Terrorists are people who want to arm twist society into bending to their whims through threats of violence. They always have an agenda. The irregular thing about our attacks is that no one has come out to claim responsibility. You could argue that they might be lone rangers but what does that say about our security organs? Worse still, what does it say about the mind state of Kenyans? Do we have that many people that are willing to randomly throw grenades into churches? Do we have that many deranged people living among us? If it is so, I am moving to Canada.
Terrorists are also known to execute attacks against targets that ensure maximum casualties and damage; usually iconic buildings or government installations. No offence to the victims but who the fuck bombs a single floor building with 30 occupants while ignoring a 10 storey university building right next to his/her "target?" Going by the security checks we have in most buildings in this city, accessing any building would be easier than picking your teeth after a meal. I suspect someone or some people are being mischievous.
The reaction of the government has been equally baffling. While act of terror are usually followed by increased interrogations, police and/or military presence, conclusive investigations and more aggressive preventive measures, the Kenyan situation is different. No government official has created any plan to be used in the aftermath of an attack or even told us who is executing the attacks. Is it a case of the usual complacency and incompetence of our government or is someone being a smartass and trying to start a conflict between certain groups? Remember how Kenyans wantonly attacked Jamia Mosque after the al Faisal incident? There a storm coming that the weatherman won't predict, best buy your umbrellas now.

Greed or common sense

The attempt by members of the Kenyan Parliament to have their salaries increased has created a furor among Kenyans. The Prime Minister himself weighed in on the matter castigating MP’s for their perceived greed arguing that the country could ill afford to sustain the obscene amounts the (dis)honorable members wanted. My question however is; should we really be demonizing the MP’s? How many people on the planet get to write their own performance contracts, decide their own terms of service and write their own pay slips without any external input? Our MP’s belong to that group of people. Frankly, I don’t think anyone given chance would act any different, humans are naturally greedy. The real problem here, if you ask me, is Kenyans themselves, you and I included. We are squarely responsible for this mess.
The average Kenyan is very complacent and will take anything thrown at them without complaining. They silently shoulder the burden given to them by the greed and corruption of society and never once complain. Our “leaders” being Kenyan have observed this about us, they are not exactly stupid, you know. These so called leaders have experimented and found out that they can get away with near everything if they are dealing with Kenyans. How many people went out to complain about the Grand Regency deal, how many even cared about the murder of Chrispin Mbai, how many even remember the 9.2 billion shilling “typing error”? Our MP’s have noticed this about us and know that they can award themselves any amount of money and we will pay for it with our taxes without once complaining. Don’t blame them, blame yourself.
Kenya isn’t the only country whose representatives decide how much they earn, it happens in the US too. The difference however is that for new salaries of elected representatives to come into effect, a general election must punctuate it. This means that for you to want to raise your salary, you have to be sure you would be re elected and the only way you can be sure is if you’ve been delivering good service to your electorate. The problem in this country therefore is weak legislation, after all, if there was no law illegalizing murder, I know quite a few people I would have killed. The solution to this is to create laws to ensure an independent body reviews upwards or downwards the salaries of MP’s or to have proper measures to check their greed if we want them to continue deciding their own salaries.
Until the day we as Kenyans will learn to unite for meaningful causes, we will still be taken for rides by the people we elect to office. In the not so distant past, one Amos Kimunya was involved in a questionable deal. When he was put to task over it, he ran to his home and rallied his tribesmen around him claiming he was being hounded out of office for belonging to that tribe. His tribesmen came out to support him, at least the not so smart ones did. What did we do as Kenyans? We watched with amusement and then went on with our businesses. That story died down and Kimunya is now back in the cabinet. We are known to unite over very stupid issues and let the real ones pass; tribal affiliation, neighborhoods and geographical regions. However, when MP’s unilaterally increase their salaries, only a handful come out in protest and this too lasts only a day or so. Why can’t we instigate mass civil disobedience? Let’s refuse to go to work, let’s paralyze the government, let’s organize a million man march on parliament and pee on the lawns of state house… let’s do something to wake these gluttons from their dream. Let us unite for something that will benefit the country.
They say education is a good thing and sadly, we don’t get enough of it in this country to make sensible people and our society is plagued by general stupidity. The church claim to be fighting for you and I but are they really doing that? In the campaigns against the draft constitution, they have teamed up with some unlikely fellows; Moi, Jirongo, Ruto… the very people that plundered the resources of our nation. Similarly, a lot of Kenyans still come out in large numbers to attend rallies addressed by Moi, braving rain and shine to listen to the man the Kroll report says stole at least 131 billion shillings in the time he was president; if this isn’t stupidity, tell me, what is? Our people need education, our people need enlightenment. If this trend continues, then we are a doomed nation.
What we need is a revolution, not of guns, but of ideas. We need new beliefs, new ideas, new laws. We don’t have to take this senseless thievery by our own employees. Let us take back what belongs to us; the powers to make decisions for ourselves, after all, how can 220 men and women hold ransom a country of 40 million? Let us vote in a new constitution and put to check these wolves because if we don’t, look towards Haiti and see our future.