The fundamental thing to understand is that the rules given to us by the state and its colonial mother are not meant to be achieved by Africans. So in employment, innovation, faith or ideas, everywhere we go, two dynamics are going on.
Openly, we are given the rules to follow, but behind the scenes, the same people do all that they can to undermine us so that we will never attain them.
This realization has been my grief, but it has also my liberation.
This realization has been my grief, but it has also my liberation.
It is my grief because I mourn the years I spent trying to abide by the rules. It was a waste of my time. Our laws, our economic system, the church and liberal ideas like of human rights are dishonest. The dishonesty of education is my latest realization.
A few weeks ago, I was asking my parents what to do with my life, because I had realized immediately you get your PhD, you cease to exist, because the school only allows growth through certification. Afterwards you're supposed to rot, not ripen.
That's why even professors run after government appointments and donors' smiles. The system tells them that they are nothing.
And it makes sense. Certification is the hold which the system has on us. As long as we need the certificate, they have something to blackmail us with.
And it makes sense. Certification is the hold which the system has on us. As long as we need the certificate, they have something to blackmail us with.
A graduate student can teach classes for free, do her supervisor's research, she can even warm his bed or be forced to bribe to graduate. But immediately after graduation, the system has nothing to blackmail us with. And so it undermines us.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have learned differently. I wouldn't have cared about "relevance."
But this realization also makes me free, because I've stopped feeling guilty for not succeeding on the academy's terms.
But this realization also makes me free, because I've stopped feeling guilty for not succeeding on the academy's terms.
I've sopped trying to do the "research" on the academy's terms. I've stopped trying to get those grants which make you twist your soul to caress the ego of a donor. I've realized that the real knowledge driving the world is mostly outside the aristocratic education system.
Real freedom, Kenyans, is to be able to eff the certification. We have to create a system of knowledge sharing and growth that is independent of the theives and robbers. We need to create a system of celebrating knowledge and celebrating the people who SHARE (not acquire) it.
We have to build an alternative to the government system that makes knowlege acquisition painful and humiliating. We should not be receiving abuse for doing the human thing of wanting to learn more. And for me, this is the promise of the pandemic.
Covid shows us that we we can learn without the schools. Digital learning is school desperation, not innovation. It's the scramble of the schooling system to remain relevant.
So let's keep making the government approved school system irrelevant.
So let's keep making the government approved school system irrelevant.
So let's learn, share, talk with people. Read our history. Ask our elders questions about life. Let's build our own libraries and cultural centers since the government won't build them. We are more knowledgeable than what any government system can certify or stamp us with.
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