Kenya is so toxic because we tell Eurocentric stories about ourselves. In tourism, in education, everyone from civil servants to parents to lovers repeats degrading stories about ourselves. And we even fact check and provide data to support our abuse.
For example, we repeat the story of job market yet it was a colonial settler one. We assume that teaching home science in schools is about skill and yet it's about teaching the European home lifestyle. We talk about "quality" when it was a neoliberal destruction of our education.
We accept manufacturing and industrial revolution as the gospel truth, not realizing that AFRICAN raw materials, produced through our oppression, were used in British industry. So if you want an Industrial revolution, exactly whom do you want to be exploited, if it's not you?
The stories we tell about gender and ethnicity are the worst. We portray Roman cannibalism as "African patriarchy," we call the stories missionaries told about rescuing African women "feminism," and we talk about our ethnic groups the way the Romans talked about barbarians.
That's why few of us noticed that Caroline Mutoko's bashing of men was supported by Robert Alai. Toxic feminism and #boychild belong to the same whatsapp group, but we Kenyans go skinny dipping in that toxic conversation.
Elitist women say "you men are trash," and the #boychild guys basically agree, except that they explain "it's your fault; you neglected the boy child." Then the women reply, "yes, but your privilege..." Then #boychild activists reply, yet again, "well, it's your fault because..."
What kind of elitist, cross gender poison is this?
Both stories are rooted in Western ones. #Boychild is an uthamakistan story yet iuthamakistan doesn't give a hoot about its biggest advocates.
So those of you Kenyans who want to take sides on this poison, do it at your own risk. As for me and my house, we will affirm both men and women, and explain the roots of the oppression that humiliates both and turns us against each other, the same way tribe is used.
And yes, you can quote this thread in an academic journal article about how I am an unapologetic patriarchal princess, or in a blog post about Kenyan toxic feminists. Take your best shot. I survived Cambridge Analytica.
Those of us who are for love and freedom, let's go for it.
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Like I said yesterday, I have outgrown caring what government does and what bills it writes. GoK is a parasite. Nothing it does is meant to help Kenyans. Everything is for containing Kenyans. The Creative Economy support bill is no different.
First thing to understand: GoK operates on "doctrine of discovery." You know the way wazungu told us they were the first to see Lake Victoria? That's how GoK operates, even with the arts. It fights the arts, then Kenyans struggle with the arts anyway, then GoK declares
it's establishing an infrastructure for the industry. But the industry was already there, despite being fought by GoK.
It's the same thing they did with Jua Kali. They told people "rudi mashambani," then ILO came and told them "look at fundis doing something new. How cute."
It's important to talk about corruption and the extent of looting in Kenya. But for me, my interest is also this: what does the looting reveal about the mind, character and soul of Kenyans? What does it say about the moral, intellectual and spiritual infrastructure of Kenya? 🧵
Sadly, the answer is limited to morality. It's that we have leaders who don't care and are greedy. We take it as a natural flaw of human beings, if not Africans. And that's where I disagree with Kenyans.
Yes, individual human beings can be greedy. And we know from our folk tales that greed was something that was loathed by our cultures. What we have now isn't individual greed. It's a system of institutions and values that instil, promote, and protect greed.
To understand my argument you have to understand this premise which I argued from 2017, even before CBC was implemented.
EXAM OBSESSION IS AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM, NOT A CURRICULUM ONE.
If you don't (want to) get that, don't follow the thread.
I made this argument so many times, in so many stations, and on #MaishaKazini. The refusal to accept this point made me despair that Kenyans would demand change. 7 years later, the Gen Zprotest has finally proved me right. The problem is our political economy, not the curriculum.
For more on this, check my interviews with Spice FM and the Lynn Ngugi show.
Now, one of the stupidities
CBC brought was an extra layer of schools called JSS. Instead of primary, high and uni, now we had primary, JSS, high school and uni.
We Africans have to replace is our metaphor for oppression. We see empire and the African elites as predators because they monopolize violence. But they are not predators. They're parasites. Parasites are almost worse than predators, even though the end result is the same.
Predators are more noble because they have their own system and simply use the prey for food. When they're not hungry, they leave the potential prey alone. Parasites are different. Parasites create nothing, and have no system independent of the host.
Worse, parasites need to make themselves invisible, and if they can't, they appear friendly.
The Kenyan state monopolizes the mainstream media. Kenyans created for themselves an alternative media to speak. Now the state is invading those alternatives.
There are two ideologies struggling for supremacy in the Kenyan space. Both are saying #RutoMustGo. But they differ on what is needed.
The first thinks that the Kenya colonial state can be managed better if we hire the right people on merit, and if we follow "the rule of law."
This ideology is largely supported by people in institutions: politicians, journalists and the church, although they differ on the moral angle about whether to engage with the establishment or not.
This ideology never discussed inequality, education or ideas. Just governance.
The 2nd group, to which I hope I belong, sees the colonial state as incapable of reform, and putting in nice people and following the constitution will take us back to the circumstances we are now in. We need an overhaul not just in morality, but also in our mindset. #RutoMustGo
When Samora Machel was assassinated, Thomas Sankara said: who killed Machel? To know who killed Machel, you have to look at those whose interests are served by his death.
That's how I see the raid on Bunge. Whose interests were served most by that raid? #rejectfinancebill2024
I get my answer from 3 things: 1. Zakayo's tasteless speech that said nothing about #rejectfinancebill2024, and justified the use of the military 2. The subsequent massacres in Githurai 3. The similarity with what happened in Sri Lanka in 2022, and a reference to it
by a member of a top member of Zakayo's government, who told me in July 2022 that nothing else matters except preventing a Sri Lanka
What are the chances that that would happen 2 years later? And then we'd be told about security and defence of Katiba?
#rejectfinancebill2022