@TweetingBandit's Threads
Nairobi needs no BRT. 2.4M of this city's 4 million folks live in the 200+ slums with Nai having lowest homeownership nationally. A few years of devolved devt is enough to send these mobile humans 'with no stakes' away and Nairobi gets deserted like on Dec 25th, all year round..
But the oligarch's concrete jungle needs tenants and rent so they keep propping Nairobi up even when Isiolo/Kitale/Kilgoris/Taveta/Eldoret etc offer better social dynamics for future expansion & habitation That's why they hate devolution, it'll leave them stuck with ghost cities.
Most Nairobi folks neither have the financial clout nor the social mobility needed to put most of the services i.e malls/social clubs etc within their financial reach. We confuse proximity to a wide list of amenities with (ability to) access/afford.
'Inside Al-Shabaab; The Secret History of Al-Qaeda's Most Powerful Ally' by @HarunMaruf is on my reading this year but the price tag is not January-friendly. 
I've also noticed there's an entire line of new literature for corporate women, though they tend to be mostly Clinton-ite, Sandberg-y 'Lean-In' types.
Moyst often when we talk about the big ideas from the arts, in social sciences or humanities, and STEM like the convulsion of capitalism or unworkability of neoliberal economics, the usual refrain that follows after the initial panic is, what do I do with this info?
That's coz we've often been made to believe that the 'practicality' of ideas is only eternally hinged on application. So if it isn't marketable or a 3-keys/4-steps to that, then it isn't useful. Abstract thought/ideas is impliedly deemed as not needful. That's problematic.
See, at any point in time there's a battle going on in the marketplace of ideas. Contestations, argumentations, theorization, debates are always going on every single minute especially as regards the big ideas.
According to J.R. Macnamara, in the book, Media and the Male Identity: The Making and Remaking of Men, less than 20% of media profiles reflect positive themes for men. Violent crimes, including murder, assault, and armed robberies account for over 55% of all media reporting of
male activities. Macnamara says that over 30% of all discussion in the media of male sexuality was in relation to pedophilia, and male's heterosexuality associated with masculinity is seen as violent, aggressive and domineering.
As part of the study, he undertook an extensive content analysis of mass media portrayals of men & male identity focusing on news, features, current affairs, talk shows & lifestyle media, over 6 months, the study involved detailed analysis of over 2,000 media articles & programs.
Traveling upcountry you've prolly seen un(der)used markets/schools on the roadside while the traders sell their wares further down the road. That's what happens when you ignore the social-technical dimension of infrastructure; the silly idea that if you build they'll come.
We've been made to believe that the European infrastructure devt is the ideal model while ignoring the 'ideology of machines' infrastructure augments/alters human behavior in +/- ways e.g. Thika rd sent most Kile/Lavi renters to Membley/Kahawa side & ngong rd has never recovered.
We talk a lot about BRT transport yet high motorbikes numbers reflect a better solution to African transport needs in the light of informality; a reality that most local systems demand decorporatization rather than corporatization of local transport/water/healthcare systems.
The psychology of a president. #Thread.
Presidential Character is the field of study that tries to get under the skin of the (wo)man at the helm. It provides the metrics for assessing the psychology of a president based on his temperament, and personality coupled with his formative life experiences and how the three,
shape his/her approach to presidential leadership. In his 1972 seminal work The Presidential Character, Duke University's Prof. James Barber designed the POSITIVE-NEGATIVE paradigm as well as the ACTIVE-PASSIVE paradigm for assessing the psychology of the office holder.
Family businesses are centred on an aristocracy that runs this plantation through state capture, political dealmaking, ethnic kinship and the strong filial bonds. It's basically a mafia state.
In a largely poor, politically dysfunctional society like ours, social capital becomes the cushion that makes up for poor public welfare structures such as low quality schools, security/healthcare/water/roads that get wrecked by austerity and corruption.
Family business relies on filial trust to build up kinship, which is the strongest form of social capital, the others being civic participation, religious attendance, political activeness, building public social trust and enhancing community initiatives and community life.
True, BUT THERE'S A TWIST. Back in '73 sociologist Mark Granovetter advanced the theory of 'The Strength of Weak Ties' where he posited that most ability to get ahead isn't always from your friends.
Our closest circle has a huge influence on behavior but career, financial, social advancment comes from acquiatqincws given that though friends may be more eager to help, we most likely live in the same systems, streets and get same information.
Dunbar places the number of folks that one can comfortably know at 150 though through social media that number isbestimated to have hit 669. That's the number by virtue of swinging in/out of your social circle carry greater propensity to introduce you to newer ideas & plans...
If we ranked the top 10 killers in Kenya, traffic accidents wouldn't feature anywhere in that list. We lose about 3000 Kenyans on the road annually with about 1/3 of those being pedestrians and 1/5 being the nduthi gang.
Now the 3000 annually figures are disputed with kina W.H.O. putting the figured at 13k+ though they are yet to justify that figure beyond the claims of underreportage of traffic fatalities in the country.
The discrepancy between police figures and Ministry of Health figures usually stands at +-800 which is understandable given that some will take their loved ones to a health facilityies but won't inform the cops.
Listen! When we talked about a revolution in May, many figured it can't happen, the system is too elite, too connected, too powerful, too entrenched but then there's something that's rarely seen; revolutions are complex and messy.
Everyday the use of the term revolution, and revolutionary language continues to grow. Walk around town and berets-the symbol of revolutions and defiance-are everywhere. Slowly a generation that doesn't entertain mediocrity is taking shape.
The best part is that unlike Gen X, Gen Y is schooled. The number of at least high-school educated 16-64yr olds is about 47%, that figure hits 66% when narrowed to 18-35yr olds. You have a generation that understands issues and that's super hopeful.
Navigating the current tanking economy will mean identifying the industries of the next decade and give them tax breaks, and possibly a sectoral stimulus that offsets the impact of the current austerity in the economy.
The industries that powered kibakinomics; real estate/Higher-ed/banking/telecoms/retail/mobile money have all plateaued or are shrinking.
Kibaki expanded higher education without a commensurate expansion in opportunities, that makes it tricky coz the more the education the higher the aspiration, and jobless frustration.
When you mix Capital, masculinity, entitlement, and gatekeeping, that cocktail is so violent, brutal, and heartless, especially on young females. It's sick, very sick. And young men it doesn't spare. That ish makes everything transactional.
The modern day patriarchy that came about when capital coopted masculinity and together became gatekeepers of opportunity demands that we young men have to sell our souls through sycophancy to get access, and then it demands of women their bodies and dignity.
This isn't a thread, it's a rant. I can't stand that cocktail. A friend today mentioned how young men are useless to the Kenyan patriarchy, given its insecurity and desire for control. It's bizarre that capital distorts everything it touches including identities.
As the economy convulses and revenue agency harasses SMEs, for once its time to be honest that the economic growth model isn't working for the masses. Our infrastructure-led growth is leaving too many behind. The benefits are skewed to the top and ends up in the hands of a few.
If there's something we have to accept it's that we'll have a lower economic prospects than our folks, who by the way enjoyed economic mobility with relatively lower educational mobility. We'll also have lower life expectancy and fewer kids; economic crisis does that.
Those guyz at the World Poverty Clock placed Kenya at 6th in Africa and 8th(globally) as having one of the highest number of folks living in extreme poverty at 14.9 million of the 48M Kenyans as of 2016.
Even before the IMF SAPs and austerity the government had already destroyed the Kenyan business environment. See over the last five years we've lost about 2.2 million SMEs in an environment with about 7.6M MSMEs. That's an average of 400k p.a or 1k businesses per day.
Now consider the fact that Kenya now rank top ten globally with the highest number of extremely poor people at sixth in Africa and eight in the world. Basically 14.6 of the 48M+ Kenyans are rated as extremely poor and it gets even worse....
59% Kenya households earn Sh10k or less
2% percent have zero income .
1% percent earn Sh55-75k
1% percent earn Sh75-100k
24% percent earn Sh10-25k,
10% percent earns Sh25-40k
3% percent earns 40-55k
Ave. 9,500
2% percent have zero income .
1% percent earn Sh55-75k
1% percent earn Sh75-100k
24% percent earn Sh10-25k,
10% percent earns Sh25-40k
3% percent earns 40-55k
Ave. 9,500
The notion of social & cultural visibility came to the fore this week after seeing a few friends publicly grapple with its implications in the context of dating, politics, ageism, and workplace and how opportunities get rewarded based on visibility generated by social consensus.
Let's face it colorism, lookism, ageism and other social desirability logics overtly and covertly shape our interactions & how we assign value/worth to humans out here. Visibility being the concept by which we deem some more worthy & better based on attractiveness spectrums.
Visibility tends to be layered, hierarchical and largely white, above average height, thin-pointed noses, and toned. Given that visibility is a measure of social acceptability, the cost of not fitting the socially accepted norms of attractions can be such a hard pill to swallow.
Heuristics are the mental shortcuts we employ-without even thinking-in order to quickly make sense of people, moments or situations. Employing such biases is 2nd nature to humans given it's capacity to reduce the mental energy needed to process everything around us by the minute.
Its clear that on the #SchoolFires and the #ConversationKe issue, and how the govt is dealing with them, thinking has flown out of the window. The emotive nature of these issues, our highly opinionated society, & obsession with authority skews the conversation towards repression.
We're confusing our heuristics with reality. Sense demands that we employ bias-while being aware of that bias & questioning it when need be. Getting lost in the unthinking and conflating bias (+ve or - ve) with objectivity & reality is how you end up with a Murathe or a Kiraithe.
Rem when republicans threw a fit after Obama wore a tan suit 3yrs back? Funny no other lawmaker ever faced such backlash. The backlash to Obama & by extension black bodies interwove racism, fashion, identity, culture, perceptions, classism and ever-changing gendered realities.
For school kids there are strong debates for and against school uniform. Our colonizers Britain have 98% of their kids wearing uniforms while the US has about 20%? I think. Curiously after Obama tan suit scandal it was said 160K American kids miss school due to fear of bullying.
...that may be partly linked to dress & class issues given that, unlike Britain where uniform is the norm, in the US uniforms are largely a preserve of the poverty-ridden schools. Pro-uniforms say it brings sameness/similarity, culture, & clarity in the school grounds.
Late last year towards election the Nairobi population drastically & visibly dropped, something that's over time been partially confirmed by PSV owners. I'm yet to make sense of it. Lets do a spot check..
Have you/someone you know voluntarily relocated from Nairobi btwn Aug '17-June' 18?
Are you planning on relocating from the country? What's your destination?
While everyone seems convinced that ENTREPRENEURSHIP will save this country I believe the solution lies elsewhere; in behavioral science. Behavioral science is simply a wide field encompassing both social sciences, cognitive fields, as well as relational sciences.
As a field it offers a better way of understanding our society, making sense of public habits e.g littering, mental health taboos, eating & drinking habits; and making informed decisions based on known motives that inform these human habits & how we interact with our environment.
It helps explain such issues as why we like copycat biz like MPESA & motorbikes, popularity of proboxes, why Jimmy Gait outsells shows despite online hate, the siege mentality of 🐜🐜🐜, our crass matatu culture, why Luo/Luhyas stick to maize/cane farming despite annual losses..
One thing the current economic free fall will do is to entrench social classes. The SAPs will rip up economic ladders such that if you are born poor, working class, lower/upper middle-class you'll most likely live and die in that class that's if you don't slide downwards.
Ideally social mobility is never automatic. Societies are built on entrenched socioeconomic stratas where parents pass their (dis)advantages to their kids. A few lucky, talented or crazy folks break that class barrier but they are the exception not the rule.
What SAPs does is that it'll mess govt spending on critical public social services that at least improve social mobility; quality health-care, schools, roads, security, sanitation, and food systems. Privatizations and market distortions will clear out economic ladders.
Given that we live in a largely poor/mismanaged society, it's intriguing how we avoid talking about failure; especially given that only a few folks have the capacity to truly achieve their dreams; the 'success literature' is one of the most destructive ideas out here.
We generate success literature making simplistic assumptions about succeeding & downplay life's complexities; we teach folks about what (not) to do to succeed in every area of their lives; the values they should have, the habits holding em back, & the lists they should generate.
There's nothing inherently wrong with motivating people; problem is historically societies have been made of a few successful, loved, famous people while the rest toil in obscurity & die in relative anonymity, till mass media came. Now they can go balling in your face 24/7.
Nothing reflects the damage I see at #ItTakesUsAllKe in this country as much as that afflicted on the young. Take the case that 378,397 underage girls in Kenya aged between 10-19yrs became pregnant last year with a total of 28,932 girls aged btwn 10-14yrs, while 349,465 15-19yrs.
What becomes of a country where 1% or 400k of all population sire kids while underage? What are we dealing with here when it comes to, generational poverty? Reproductive health? Nutrition? Intergenerational literacy?
Besides the psychic pain inflicted on the adults, we extend the violence to kids, essentially ensuring the perpetration of intergenerational struggle and trauma. #StateOfThePlantation #ItTakesUsAllKe
This is a criminalized regime not state capture; state capture doesn't reflect what's happening as it connotes a captive regime. This is no captive regime; it's a govt run on crime syndicate principles; from the get-go it was built on for sleaze; 🍻 is a criminal-in-chief.
To quote Mose Naim in 'Organized Crime Takes Office'....in the weak economy, cash-rich criminal organizations acquire financially distressed but potentially valuable companies at bargain prices. Fiscal austerity is forcing govts everywhere to cut the budgets of law enforcement,
Millions of people have been laid off and are thus more easily tempted to break the law. Large numbers of unemployed experts in finance, accounting, information technology, law, and logistics have boosted the supply of world-class talent available to criminal cartels.
