This story of Coast people not getting employment because of language is a distraction. It follows the typical habit of GoK blaming the youth for their own unemployment. Mara it's wrong degrees, mara it's being millenial, mara it's not being entrpreneurial, now its Kiswahili.
One story that is not told enough is that the docks at Mombasa were a site of freedom struggles by workers at the same time as the Mau Mau revolt. The boycotts and strikes there, even without official unions, scared the hell out of the British.
The strikes there threatened the main economic vein of exporting Kenyan resources out of Britain. It also angered the British that the workers were multi-ethnic and were putting economic struggle at the center. In the times of USSR, Western capitalism couldnt afford that.
The British government detained Mombasa strike leaders, started to organize official unions British style (with people like Mboya) and prevented the radical workers who linked political freedom to economic struggle from running for union leadership.
So it is really ironical that a government official repeated stereotypes at the very same hsistorical site of political struggle. This shows how little civil servants know and care about our history.

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More from @wmnjoya

28 Oct
Haiya, Kenyans, the only reason for unemployment is the structure of the economy so that a few get rich. Everything else is flowers. Language, skills, TVET, entrepreneurship nyef nyef...doesnt it occur to you that GoK always blames the victims of unemployment?
GoK does three things
1. it depresses innovation so that all jobs remain menial and the country dependent on foreign ideas
2. it dumbs down education and denies it to the majority of Kenyans, so that no 1. happens
3. It maintains unemployment to depress wages of the few employed
And if language was so important, why is the same GoK constantly attacking the arts education as irrelevant for employment needs?

Ai Kenyans, you need to learn to stop accepting everything GoK says. And to decide what you want. These contradictions are madness. Eish.
Read 5 tweets
25 Oct
Kenyans, it's time to talk about the role of the #upperdeckpeopleKE in Kenya's stagnation: the academics, professionals and civil servants.

They are cynically misusing public participation to call a flawed process of #BBIreport the people's agenda.

They've done this before.
The politicians know that politically, #BBIReport has no case. None at all. Everybody can see through what the dynasties are doing.

So they are getting lawyers, professors and journalists to argue about technical details and refuse to allow questions of context and legitimacy.
The other day the #newsgang on @citizentvkenya even hosted a top GoK bureaucrat to discuss the proposals in BBI and completely evade the socio-political elephants in the room.

What is education for if we're going to train people to talk in the clouds rather than vitu kwa ground?
Read 5 tweets
6 Oct
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
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
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
Read 8 tweets
6 Oct
.@johnallannamu I revive my offer to give a cultural interpretation of these mega scandals. #fallofthepride is a typical story of theft sold to the public with the big dream, neoliberal narrative. We get conned not only because of the theft. The thieves also cook up a good story.
.@johnallannamu The "buying spree" belongs to the neoliberal narrative as motivational speaking and prosperity gospel. All of them are about being positive, seeing the best in people... they dump the seasoned professionals because they see through the bs #fallofthepride
.@johnallannamu 2010 was a year of all that be positive junk. It was even in universities. Check the Mugenda miracle of KU as well. It was the time CEO's could do no wrong, helped by your peers in the mainstream media houses. #fallofthepride
Read 5 tweets
4 Oct
Hustling is a term that was popularized by hip hop. It originally referred to those working in the illegal economy. But with neoliberalism, the meaning changed, as Lester K Spence explains.
Neoliberalism meant the withdrawal of public support for social services like health and education. To cope with the harder times, the idea of hustling changed to make hustling sound like a requirement and a noble thing to do. So it was designed to discourage political questions.
Prof Spence's analysis applies to Kenya. The hustle represents those who are screwed by the economy, but who are not asking how the economy got there. A few years ago, the deepee said that he hustled his way to wealth, and that is equated to the hustle of the mkokoteni pusher.
Read 6 tweets
25 Sep
I watch this documentary by @AfUncensored and I'm so frustrated. Because I know this: there is no language in Kenya for us to see this as a violation of human dignity.
I have occupied the fields of education and Christianity for all my life. I know that people who pass through those institutions are taught to be inhuman. Despite all the language of religion and knowledge, to be educated and to be a Christian is to be anti-human.
Which academic, which clergy, will speak up for the downtrodden in Kenya? None. The students will never talk about them in class, the congregation will never hear about them on Sundays. When Magoha says nonsense about the poor, students write theses to justify his ideas.
Read 11 tweets

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