......Forever Hold Your Peace

Some of you are saying, “The Layman has missed the first part of this sentence”. Sorry to disappoint you. This statement is complete for two reasons. First, this is not a wedding. Second, and more importantly, this is Kenya in the 21^st Century. In Kenya today, if you did not speak up about something yesterday, you may not do so today or at any other time in the future. Now you understand that you have only one choice; to shut up!

Koffi Olomide has come and gone. This time however, he has provided us with a different kind of entertainment. He has shown off his remarkable martial arts skills. He has also shown us an ingenious way of dealing with those who want to harm our women. He has taught us that if someone wants to beat any of our women, we should beat the woman ourselves so that the stalker, or whoever else it is, will have no option but to turn away and leave since his (or her) work has been done for them.

If you have not noticed, I have avoided saying anything negative about Mr. Olomide. This is because I don’t want to get into trouble with our self-appointed morality police. They are on the prowl for people of my kind who think they can just wake up one day and decide that all of a sudden they have eyes to see injustices today that they have failed to see at any other time in the past.

Some months back, France was attacked by terrorists. In sympathy with the grief they were going through, none other than Mark Zuckerberg himself, installed a function on Facebook. For a predetermined period, users could place a veil of the French flag on their profile pictures. One half of Facebookers took up the call to stand with France. The other half was on the case of first half. They had some very unkind words (many of the unprintable) claiming that those sympathising with France were hypocrites of the highest order. This being in the backdrop of the Garissa terrorist attack, the self-righteous among us accused us of not sympathising to the same measure with our fellow Kenyans.

There has been rising accusations by women against men. The women have been claiming that men have not been defending them when they are humiliated and abused. A case in point is when a woman was stripped naked on the street and men who were there appeared not just to do nothing, but also seemed to enjoy the ‘show’. A lot of men, me included, cannot watch this happening in our presence and do nothing. However, according to the new dispensation, we are better off not doing or saying anything because we are already guilty together with our perverted brothers.

The country is primed for an election next year. Voters are asking the usual questions that precede any election. “Who should I give my vote for the Presidency, Senate, Gubernatorial, National Assembly, and County Assembly?” These are good questions because in an ideal situation, they lead to leaders who have been chosen objectively based on their credentials and track record. The situation in the country is however not ideal. There is a weird reasoning by voters that it is better to go for the ‘devil you know that the angel you don’t’. I have heard a strange question being asked that, “If we don’t elect the current position holders, how will we get other befitting people for these posts?” My counter question is this, “Out of 40 Million Kenyans, are there no other people who are either equally or more suitable than the ones we have now to lead us?”

It is true that if elections were held today, a lot of the current holders of various positions would still win. In Africa, it is called the “Power of the Incumbent”. Incumbent office holders are like small gods to be worshipped. Word on the ground is that these leaders will be leading us well into the foreseeable future. After that future, they will probably pass us on to their protégés to lead us into the unforeseeable future. That is the truth of the matter. Deal with it and make sure you forever hold your peace!

The Death of Negotiation

Smoke Signals

A long time ago; long before there were post offices or even telephones; long before email, twitter, and Facebook; people used to communicate through smoke signals. They would find material that produced visible smoke (preferably white) that could be seen from many miles away. They would put this material (which I suspect was either sawdust or leaves) on a fire and use a fan of a sack (or other suchlike thing) to write the message into the smoke. I think this ancient and primitive method of communication is what gave rise to the expression, “Where there is smoke, there is fire”.  This is because, the only need of communicating with distant communities was to inform them of impending danger (Read: “We are going to attack you”).

 

Perhaps the only serious smoke signal that is still in use today is the one at the Vatican. We saw it being used to communicate whether a new pope had been found – or not. It made for some light moments as we waited to see the white smoke although I still think it would be easier to just call a press conference and tell us what they have decided.

Burning Schools

It is no longer news in this country when students burn their schools. The question people are now asking is, “Which school is next on the burn agenda?” Parents, teachers, and even the children themselves are wondering what the genesis of this current state of lawlessness is all about. However, methinks that the children are trying to tell us something.  They are telling us that they have been watching how we resolve our issues as adults and like the good students they are, they are following our example.

Anti-IEBC Demonstrations/Negotiations

We have had a reprieve from the recent demonstrations against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissioners by the leading opposition leaders. They have called for negotiations that have already been granted by the government which is why the demos have been put on hold (so they tell us!). They have threatened to continue with the demos if the negotiations don’t go in a particular direction. What is wrong with this sentence, you might ask? It is probably only in Kenya where you can have the words ‘demonstration’ and ‘negotiation’ in the same sentence.

Post Election Violence

The violence we experienced in 2007/2008 forever tainted an otherwise clean record of our country. The amazing thing was that the violence was finished by just two men who went to sit somewhere on the meandering banks of the Sagana river, and negotiated a deal. That ended the massacre almost as if a switch had been flicked off. If the negotiation had taken place earlier, we would be calling that dark episode in the history of our country by the docile term of the ‘Post Election Negotiations’.

Murderous Spouses

Historically, dating has always been a game of negotiation. It is the guy with the most convincing tongue and patient disposition who always got the girl. Most music, besides gospel, is about love negotiations. It is what we fondly refer to as love songs. They range in message from initial convincing, to saying sorry for mistakes committed, and everything in between. Older people have interesting stories of how they netted their spouses many decades back. They tell of how they overcame challenges through negotiation.

Of late, the news has been awash with stories of how spouses pay hit men to do away with their better halves. Reasons for wanting them dead range from interest in eventual unilateral possession of co-owned property, to teaching the billy goat of a man a lesson for sleeping around. Ugly divorces with out-of-this-world settlements are also rife. I often find myself wondering, what happened to the effective domestic negotiations of old?

Litigation Instead of Mitigation

Our justice system is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of pending and arising cases. The spouses who are not killing each other are going to court. Politicians belonging to the same party are also using the courts to settle their internal disputes. The window of opportunity allowed by our justice system to allow people settle their cases out of court is not being utilised. People are actually spending the time given to achieve this to plan how they are going to clobber each other in court. The willingness and ability for people to negotiate for anything is dead and they are also saying that they would rather die than compromise their stand. I just can’t tell what is going to happen. I am only but a humble Layman.

P.S. If Donald Trump can’t hire a proper speech writer, will he be willing to hire negotiation experts to get him out of the trouble that his mouth is bound to get him into?

Female Anatomical Uses

All women are created the same way. Granted, there are certain differences in how people look or function but they are all generally the same. People in general, and women in particular, seem to adopt themselves to whichever environment that they find themselves in. This difference can be mainly observed between rural and urban women. The way these two groups of women utilize parts of their anatomies could as well be by creatures of different species.

Face

There are different parts of a face but let me just focus on eye brows and lips. A woman in the village uses her eye brows to trap the dust that is attempting to enter her eyes in her environment. An urban woman on the other hand needs eye brows to be long and curved so as to accentuate her blinks and winks.

A rural woman’s lips help to form the words as she shouts at her children, neighbours, and animals. Town women use their lips to pout when they want to make a statement. This function is best enhanced by applying a visible shade of lipstick. The urban women also need their lips to peck their girlfriends and kiss their lovers.

Cleavage

The cleavage in a rural woman forms a safe place to hide money and other valuables. The safety is twofold in that the place is not easily accessible and also because of the volatility of the owner (enhanced by the close proximity of her sharp teeth). In a city woman, the use of a cleavage is unclear especially to me as a man. I assume it is for subtle attempts in enabling the continued existence of the human race.

Arms

A village woman needs strong arms to swing children on to the back for transportation. She also needs able arms to lift baskets of produce on to her head and heavy pots of food onto and off the open fire. Just like with the eye brows, it is unclear what the arms of an urban woman are mainly used for. My assumption is that they are used for a yet to be defined aesthetic value. This assumption is based on the evidence of litres of lotion that is applied to the smooth skin of those arms.

Hands

The hands of a woman in the village are handy (pun fully intended) in weaving baskets, weeding farms, shelling beans, and pinching errant children, among other critical activities. A woman in the big city uses her hands to swipe things like the touch screen on her phone, or her credit card at the boutique. She also needs the crook of her arm to hang her handbag as she goes about her business in town.

Legs

There is a group of muscles on the calf of the leg locally referred to as skuebee (the spelling varies depending on origin of the speller). These muscles are relatively well developed in both the rural and urban woman. The source of this development is however quite different in the two groups of women. Those in the village woman are the way they are because of hauling heavy stacks of firewood and Jerri cans full of water up steep inclines. The ones in the urbanite woman on the other hand, are stringy and taut due to the 6 inch heels she wears to the office and to other functions.

The Bum

Bum is a polite term for a woman’s behind. It is what Ken wa Maria sang about in his song “Fundamendos” (fundamentals). If I was ‘French’, I would call it ‘Ass’. Anyhow, this part of a woman’s anatomy has acquired a celebrity status in recent years among urban women. It is a fashion statement and status statement all rolled into one. It has made some women very rich and yet others very famous. Some have become both rich and famous, thanks to their curvy behinds. The bum in a rural woman however, serves a very useful purpose just like that achieved by a car’s roof rack. It is a convenient and effective mode of transportation for all sorts of things ranging from children to baskets full of market produce. It is so important that a woman without a big one would face a challenge surviving in the village.

Stereotypes’ Paradise

Being middle-aged, I am relatively level headed. I am not an easy person to excite or anger. I am at that age when I have experienced a lot of good and bad things to know that anything is possible. I also still feel quite young and energetic and know that I have a few opportunities left to fix what I broke in my youth; and also achieve quite a few dreams that I had almost given up on.

Many descriptions and memes have been released on what it means to be middle-aged. However, my favourite one is; “Middle age is the time when your narrow waist and broad mind begin to change places”. I believed this when the pounds started piling onto my mid-section. I also realised that I could not easily agree with those younger than me on most issues. This is the time I decided to make a conscious effort to reverse the negative effects of middle age on me.

Stereotypes

The dictionary defines a stereotype as a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. I have to admit that I held many stereotypes until middle age happened on me. I stopped stereotyping people on the strict condition that they also don’t stereotype me. Because of my strong beliefs against it, stereotyping has remained one of the few things that get me really worked up. I have observed several common stereotypes which make all of us live our lives at half mast because of drawing our attention to things for which have little control over.

Men

I am a man but that in itself is not an achievement. Many men may do detestable things like mistreating and disrespecting women but that does not mean that they do it on behalf of all men. It also does not mean that I, or any other man for that matter, approve of what they do. I got worked up a few days ago when a lady I respect immensely attempted to pass the blame to all men folk for the mistreatment of women in Nairobi. She seemed to imply that unless all men reform, then the few who respect their women might as well stop and wait for their errant brothers to change.

Women

Thanks to the effort of feminists, the stereotyping of women is minimal. It is rare to hear of anyone accuse all women of being prostitutes because he knows of one or two who are. This however does not mean that women are not stereotyped. If anything, it is even more so especially when it comes to high achieving women. It is not uncommon to hear it being said of a woman who has gone up the ladder career-wise, or has attained any level of financial independence being accused of having a ‘sponsor’ (ostensibly a middle or old aged man of means).

The Rich

In line with well-off women being suspected of having sponsors, a lot of people believe that the only way to be rich in this country is by being corrupt. Granted, many people have grown filthy rich overnight by becoming ‘tenderpreneurs’. This however does not mean that one cannot grow rich through legitimate means. It is therefore unfortunate that if you are rich in this country, you will be considered to be just another clever thief.

The Poor

There is a popular belief that poor people are in their current status because they are lazy. It is common to hear some people talking of say, a beggar in town. They would say that if it was them, they would go find a job instead of begging. Many of us took opportunity for granted until the viral video of the street boy who talked about the lack of opportunities for many. As tempting as it is to assume so, I don’t think anybody is poor by choice.

Tribe

It might appear as if the Layman is addicted to talking about tribalism. I know I write about it every other week as if there is nothing else to talk about. In my view, one of the worst cancers afflicting our country is tribal stereotyping. It is what would cause a person to either be denied due credit for an achievement, or be undeservedly praised purely based on the tribe he comes from. None of us chooses what tribe to be born in. Tribe in itself is not a merit for anything and should be used for nothing more than as a naming platform.

Race

We grew up being told about the intellectual superiority of white people. It was (and still is among many) a privilege to interact with a mzungu (white person). On the flipside, this belief has given rise to another one of concluding that black people are an underdeveloped species.

I could go on and on about many other stereotypes but am sure you can so far catch my drift. Why don’t we do the intelligent thing and just say no to all forms of stereotypes and instead, judge people as individuals. If we do that, we will have gone a long way in dealing with those issues that drag us back. Just think about it.