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There's no new middle class you're building with CBC. CBC is for keeping poor kids in TVET so that no new people join the middle class.
And saying that the only productive middle class is Asians needs to be flagged as racist and ignorant of how the colonial economy was organized
And saying that the only productive middle class is Asians needs to be flagged as racist and ignorant of how the colonial economy was organized
Asians were the only people allowed to be industrial by the British. At independence, the African elite maintained the status quo because they could easily control a minority through nativist nonsense about African identity. As they winked at what Idi Amin was doing in Uganda.
And even then, the Asian community still struggles getting IDs, passports. They are targeted with extortion and even violence by the African politicians (as we know from the violence after the 1982 coup). So presenting them as the model for capitalism is really disingenuous.
Oh please. We've been saying at #MaishaKazini that to invent or innovate in Kenya AS AN AFRICAN is to invite a small minded politician or bureaucrat to crush you. I told Ndii before elections that our economic problem isn't financial. It's institutional. He dismissed it because
he was scared of a repeat of Sri Lanka in Kenya.
Ndii is the ultimate middle class whose destiny is tied to GoK and is scared of falling. He joined government to prop it on stilts.
Ndii is the ultimate middle class whose destiny is tied to GoK and is scared of falling. He joined government to prop it on stilts.
I also told Ndii that the role of the schools is to discipline Kenyans so that they don't innovate or invent. You know what he said? That's not a priority.
So now he's isolating the African middle class in Kenya for not being productive. That's racist blaming the victim.
So now he's isolating the African middle class in Kenya for not being productive. That's racist blaming the victim.
Ever since my #MaishaKazini conversation with @jkobuthi,
I've been seeing more and more that any backlash you see against people of color anywhere in the world is never about us. It's an internal conversation between the white 1% and white working class.
newyorker.com/culture/q-and-…
I've been seeing more and more that any backlash you see against people of color anywhere in the world is never about us. It's an internal conversation between the white 1% and white working class.
newyorker.com/culture/q-and-…
Prof Kelley says that the issue against Black studies isn't that it teaches black history. It's that it teaches people the processes of exploitation that make the modern world. Plus the governor of Florida wants to run for president, so he's appealing to white voters.
The West has always made us Africans the scapegoat to evacuate its internal problems. When it can't afford to live well, it enslaves us for labor. When it doesn't have resources, it colonizes us. When it has no meaning, it uses philanthropy for its own spiritual redemption.
People are hyperventilating about the cluelessness or brazenness of Kenya Kwanza. The only rubric for analyzing it seems to be that this is a return to Moi-ism.
But if you follow our discussions on #MaishaKazini, their chaos makes perfect sense. We anticipated and explained it.
But if you follow our discussions on #MaishaKazini, their chaos makes perfect sense. We anticipated and explained it.
We explained it many times. But only Moi-ism seems to be available because anti-Moi struggles of the 90s are the most victorious non-governmental project in Kenya to date. Thanks to donors. All the others, like Mau Mau and class politics have been brutally crushed by the state.
We have to look at Kenya with a wider lens than politicians and NGOs. Kenya is a politically conservative country, thanks to donors and state violence. Conservatism is a moralistic discourse. That's why people can't see Kenya Kwanza's contradictions outside personalities.
Every two minutes of this video, I was saying "what the he....! Let me see if I can restate it.
1. Income is what you earn from your work; wealth is what you earn from your property.
2. Wealthy people don't make money from work but from what they own
#maishakazini
1. Income is what you earn from your work; wealth is what you earn from your property.
2. Wealthy people don't make money from work but from what they own
#maishakazini
3. Poor people can also own property, but they do it through debt (borrowing a loan or a mortgage)
4. That mortgage is provided by a property owner who (earns from wealth, not income) and has cash to give out
4. That mortgage is provided by a property owner who (earns from wealth, not income) and has cash to give out
5. Until you complete paying your loan, the property you are working to pay for is owned by you in part, and by Mr. Tajiri in part.
6. Worse, Mr. Tajiri's wealth includes what you pay him from YOUR income, because you work to pay off the loan that you took from Tajiri's bank.
6. Worse, Mr. Tajiri's wealth includes what you pay him from YOUR income, because you work to pay off the loan that you took from Tajiri's bank.
I started #MaishaKazini because of the lies about education and work that we were being told in defence of CBC. I thought the media and NGO people had flawed ideas and that we were having a debate. Because I was not being heard, I started a channel.
youtube.com/c/MaishaKazini
youtube.com/c/MaishaKazini
I tackled these lies:
1. We don't need theory, only skills
2. Unemployment comes from bad education
3. Exam obsession is caused by the curriculum
4. Our education is too theoretical
All these lies are racist and designed to keep Africans from thinking
#EducationCaptureKE
1. We don't need theory, only skills
2. Unemployment comes from bad education
3. Exam obsession is caused by the curriculum
4. Our education is too theoretical
All these lies are racist and designed to keep Africans from thinking
#EducationCaptureKE
With @m_ogada we showed again and again how Western capital and Kenyan elites are determined to separate our work from the dignity and material benefits that we should get from our work.
#EducationCaptureKE
#EducationCaptureKE
WHITE SUPREMACY AND KENYAN HEALTHCARE - AN ANNOTATED AUDIO-GRAPHY
Now that Mutahi Kagwe is exporting Kenya medical workers abroad, it's good to recap how much madharao GoK has for Kenyan people and sees healthcare as an export industry.
🧵
@MOH_Kenya
Now that Mutahi Kagwe is exporting Kenya medical workers abroad, it's good to recap how much madharao GoK has for Kenyan people and sees healthcare as an export industry.
🧵
@MOH_Kenya
In 2017, @DenisGalava had the foresight to publish this article about how GoK sold out public healthcare to deny doctors jobs and force them to work abroad or pay them peanuts at home.
It trended for a few hours. It was during #lipakamatender
standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-…
It trended for a few hours. It was during #lipakamatender
standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-…
In 2019, I presented a paper at Witz in South Africa about the revolutionary piece by Dr Eunice Sango (RIP) and what the government is doing to health workers.
soundcloud.com/wmnjoya/profes…
soundcloud.com/wmnjoya/profes…
Ten years ago I was saying that lecturers should not accept the commercialization of universities. But they were bribed into silence with payments from parallel programs. So the collapse of universities was inevitable.
You want to understand how? 🧵 nation.africa/kenya/news/edu…
You want to understand how? 🧵 nation.africa/kenya/news/edu…
In the Kibaki years, universities accepted that they could make money instead of relying on the exchequer. That small acceptance is like the story of the camel that asked the tent owner to cover his head, then cover the neck, then eventually the camel took over the tent.
The problem commercializing universities is that 1) lecturers suck at business 2) the university starts spending on administrative fluff. This principle was explained by Graeber: the more you adopt market forces, the more admin and bullshit jobs increase.
Love or not love @DavidNdii, he's the one person who engages publicly on economic questions. So instead of bombarding me with demands for a perfect education system, ask him this: how can Kenyans live a decent life regardless of their papers?
Kenyans are being lazy and childish, thinking that they can demand a perfect education system but not ask about the economy. It's not our job as teachers to fix economic problems. And @EduMinKenya is being dishonest promising financial heaven through a curriculum.
If parents don't want to do the POLITICAL work of getting a better economy, then we'll stay with this hollow CBC that is basically snake oil for economic problems.
But it's not teachers to fix this. It's you as citizens. Demand better.
But it's not teachers to fix this. It's you as citizens. Demand better.
Many Kenyans don't understand these simple principles about education:
1. Education is a human enterprise that is bigger than a school. Education is simply the process by which a society collectively creates and shares knowledge through creativity, work and sharing
1. Education is a human enterprise that is bigger than a school. Education is simply the process by which a society collectively creates and shares knowledge through creativity, work and sharing
2. This means there are multiple sources of education like culture, media, religion, sports, work, discussions...anywhere where people are meeting and doing something together, there is education
3. The problem of education in Kenya is that the hegemon institutions -. GoK, church, media and pirate sector - have crushed alternative spaces for education OUTSIDE the school to maintain control over what Kenyans think and know.
I didn't know Wahura Kanyoro. But upon reading what she wrote, I am angry, not sad. And when I read people talking about beefing up mental health treatment and discussing depression, I'm even angrier.
This is what she wrote in December 2020.
This is what she wrote in December 2020.
There was a very clear catalyst for Wahura's sorrow. It was a country whose government has so much contempt for medical workers who get trained and work hard to help us maintain our health.
How are they treated? Wahura was very clear.
How are they treated? Wahura was very clear.
She said working in public healthcare "was slowly killing me to work as a precursor to the morgue instead of as a doctor." Put yourself in Wahura's shoes. You're trained to protect life, but you are reduced by a cruel @MOH_Kenya to be an escort for the end of life.
The fundamental difference between coloniality/imperialism/patriarchy on one hand, and humanity on the other, boils to one fundamental thing.
POWER.
We are dealing with two types of power that have two different results.
POWER.
We are dealing with two types of power that have two different results.
Coloniality of power is about the ability to extract from others. Extract work, especially, but also emotion, morality, creativity.. and the list goes on. Coloniality of power has no capacity to be human, to be creative or to produce.
Coloniality of power is about using violence to extract from others. So you enslave or employ, so that you don't work but benefit from others' work. Or you lead a life of decadence and then seek reputation laundering from the poor or those who did the work of living a moral life.
It says a lot that @LinusKaikai is unable to engage the economic/social questions raised by the DP. There are holes in what Ruto is saying, but Linus is always taking the conversation back to the bromance with Muigai.
The media need to do their homework.
#RutoOnCitizenTV
The media need to do their homework.
#RutoOnCitizenTV
But Linus's fear of the poor also points to the contempt of the middle class for the poor. The middle class is more afraid of the poor uprising than they are of the economy collapsing. #RutoOnCitizenTV
Ruto is talking of expanding the tax base and statutory contributions but jobs are no longer permanent with benefits. There are no jobs with pension contributions. This is the uber economy.
If @LinusKaikai wasn't so anti-hustler, he would have picked that. #RutoOnCitizenTV
If @LinusKaikai wasn't so anti-hustler, he would have picked that. #RutoOnCitizenTV
Early specialization in the education system is called one word.
ARISTOCRACY.
This idea that it's good to decide to be a cook when you are 6 years old came from the British class system through colonialism. The basic idea is that if you're born a hustler, you die a hustler.
ARISTOCRACY.
This idea that it's good to decide to be a cook when you are 6 years old came from the British class system through colonialism. The basic idea is that if you're born a hustler, you die a hustler.
In the Cruikshank's "British Beehive" of the 19th century, the idea was that people were born into careers, rather than chose them. The purpose of exams was not for intelligence but to determine the 3% who would escape their social status at birth. bl.uk/collection-ite…
That system arrived here in Kenya as colonialism. The best schools with the most resources were for wazungu, the next layer for Asians, and the bottom for Africans. Africans did more exams than the other upper levels so as to limit their progression.
That's been returned by CBC.
That's been returned by CBC.
#Hustlernation is built on trauma which Kenyans don't want to deal with.
And it's really interesting that when Kenyans talk about the hustle, they equate it not to the work they do, but to a rich man.
The kind of trauma that makes you suppress your own story and focus on someone else's is the stuff of fiction. #hustlernation
The kind of trauma that makes you suppress your own story and focus on someone else's is the stuff of fiction. #hustlernation
Kenyans are so exploited. And every time we try to talk about it, we're told the problem is "policy," or that we're not following the rules.
The people who should be helping us are unions. But what is @AtwoliDza doing? Promoting the agenda of exploiters. #hustlernation
The people who should be helping us are unions. But what is @AtwoliDza doing? Promoting the agenda of exploiters. #hustlernation
The story of KQ is the story of almost every sector in Kenya. We Kenyans have to understand this if we are to get closer to the root of corruption.
Let me tell you the common signs. #fallofthepride
Let me tell you the common signs. #fallofthepride
1. Boards full of financiers and no experts in the service that the company offers
2. CEOs who are literal super stars, talking in the media about the great expansion programs they have
3. The assumption that expansion is necessarily improvement and success #FallOfThePride
2. CEOs who are literal super stars, talking in the media about the great expansion programs they have
3. The assumption that expansion is necessarily improvement and success #FallOfThePride
4. Retrenchment of seasoned staff, flight of others, and the replacement of those seasoned staff with highly paid administrators and inexperienced juniors
5. Madharau for Kenyan experts. Typical Kenyan behavior of preferring foreigners #FallOfThePride #maishakazini
5. Madharau for Kenyan experts. Typical Kenyan behavior of preferring foreigners #FallOfThePride #maishakazini
The role of the government, this Anglo-American contraption which gives us grief, is to contain us so that a few royals who don't work survive on our work. Unless we get this basic reality, we'll continue to tell stories like #DegreeOfDoubt
Thread #maishakazini
Thread #maishakazini
Some history. First the missionary came to prepare our hearts for capitalism. For them, conversion to Christianity wasn't abandoning African culture. It was entering the capitalist economy as a worker. #degreeofdoubt #maishakazini
Missionaries attacked mostly cultural practices which interfered with Africans working for wazungu. They talked about human rights and whatever, but their evidence of conversion was if you got employment at a mzungu farm and used the money to buy mzungu trinkets. #degreeofdout
Let me say that after a good number of years, and being familiar with the work of David Graeber (RIP, I still can't believe it), I take this advice with some skepticism.
Interview for jobs is luck. You can never know why or why you didn't get a job. @johnnjenga #maishakazini
Interview for jobs is luck. You can never know why or why you didn't get a job. @johnnjenga #maishakazini
Dressing as best you can and being punctual are definitely a good thing to do. But you should do it because of you, not because that's what will impress interviewers.
As for doing research on the company?
From my experience, it can go either way. #maishakazini
As for doing research on the company?
From my experience, it can go either way. #maishakazini
Interviews are sadistic games. You have to show that you know enough, but not too much. If you are enthusiastic with ideas, in this Kenya, it's likely that you will not get the job.
Because the interviewers might feel that their own jobs will be threatened by you. #maishakazini
Because the interviewers might feel that their own jobs will be threatened by you. #maishakazini
What is key to Tekayo's wealth? Free disclipned labor: KDF, NYS and now he wants prisons for the poor to use their labor.
Kenyans, this is why I have #maishakazini channel on YouTube. Because the key to these cannibals' wealth is more our labor than our cash.
Kenyans, this is why I have #maishakazini channel on YouTube. Because the key to these cannibals' wealth is more our labor than our cash.
By free, I mean that the labor that produces Tekayo's wealth is labor Tekayo doesn't pay for. He doesn't pay salaries of KDF, NYS, police and prisons. It's the taxes that come from our work that pay the salaries. Prisoners are paid only 20 cents a day.
nation.africa/kenya/business…
nation.africa/kenya/business…
The other arm of free workers comes from the county administrators (former provincial administration, former colonial home guards and paramount chiefs). These are the spies and propagandists who keep the people from revolting against the Massah of the Kenya plantation.
The reason why I talk about work at #maishakazini is because we have to learn how to read money. 700 million from a prisons is not just cash. It's forced labor of ordinary people whose products were sold for cash by people.other than themselves. They don't decide the price.
So the work of those prisoners could be 5 times or more than that 700m. And remember that these are people jailed for 7 years for stealing chicken while those who still trillions don't work. When the workers leave, the 7 years won't be counted as "work experience." #maishakazini
And there is another major contradiction in this economic thinking.
It's not innovative. At all. It's sticking to the plantation formula of making many versions of products we don't need, so that they can be sold cheap. Capitalists are stupid. #maishakazini
It's not innovative. At all. It's sticking to the plantation formula of making many versions of products we don't need, so that they can be sold cheap. Capitalists are stupid. #maishakazini
We Kenyans who are employed need to be honest with the public. Most of us are employed by luck. Employment is so constricted, that getting education and "experience" is simply betting and winning. It has little to do with competence. #maishakazini #mynetwork #toxicworkspaces
Many corporate communication execs worked in media houses first. That means that to get those jobs, you need to get your foot into one of the main media houses first. How many are they?
You can literally count them on your fingers. #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces #mynetwork
You can literally count them on your fingers. #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces #mynetwork
So if limited media houses already limit who can get corporate communication jobs, people who get them mistake that job for their competence. But actually, they were lucky to get the first media job that made them competent. #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces #mynetwork
Neoliberalism has weaponized "exposure," "passion" and "experience" to force people who don't have bargaining power to offer free labor, and to give class advantage to the rich.
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
It's only the rich who afford to pay rent, food and other necessities while their kids work for these non-monetary payments.
And anyway, rich kids don't work for free. Their parents are scratching each others' backs.
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
And anyway, rich kids don't work for free. Their parents are scratching each others' backs.
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
While they're playing golf, a CEO will ask a fellow CEO of a business his company does business with to give a kid or other relative an internship. That's how it works.
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
#artcaffe #maishakazini #toxicworkspaces
Many people say that the cornerstone of capitalist imperialism is profit. I would argue that it is not profit but alienation. By alienation, I mean the separation of who people are from their reality and their work.
Power and profit depend on that separation.
THREAD
Power and profit depend on that separation.
THREAD
Capitalism has then reduced education to training bureaucrats to facilitate that separation. That is why, if you notice, being in school is an experience of constant violence to prevent you from being in touch with your relatives, your humanity and reality.
The simplest example: remember what happened when you got sick in boarding school? The brutality that followed? The point is to teach you to ignore your personhood and your needs, to always worship and follow instructions even if it kills you doing it.
