paddy

Kenya is one of the 54 countries in Africa and there are things inherent to her that makes her the best.

You might want to disagree with me but you are entitled to your opinion. Kenya is the only country in the world that has the equator divide it almost equally into two. Mention another to educate me. That’s a fact.

Kenya has the highest NUMBER OF TRIBES in the world (42) and is relatively peaceful. Somalia has one tribe only. Kenyans co exist peacefully. The tensions recently are actually due to stupid politics.

THE DENOMINATIONS in Kenya are so many yet we live in harmony. Even Christians have so many denominations that it’s actually confusing being a Christian. Muslims, Hindus, Traditionalists, Rastafarian movements all exist. We co-exist. Not even the ‘democratic’ USA has religious tolerance.

WE DON’T MOVE LIKE ANIMALS. The Europeans do. There is no winter or summer. Our climate is envied by many in the world. Go to Mombasa, Malindi, Naivasha, and Masai Mara among many other places to see what I’m talking about. Even Koreans have started coming to Kenya. And if you still use a better term as tourists, ask the Britons why they only settled in two or three countries in Africa during colonization. Among the few countries-Kenyas was amongst them. Ask yourself why?

REFUGEES from other countries come to Kenya. We treat them like our own. We have lived with the Sudanese and Somalis like brothers. Sudan has succeeded in forming her own nation-thanks to the Comprehensive peace agreement that was signed in Kenya. To our Somali brothers: We had avoided Invading Somalia for almost 15 years even when you reined terror on us, your hosts. Blame the west for our actions, we had no choice, our hands were tied. And if you wanted us to resist the west, go into memory lane and recall what happened to Omar Torrijos of Panama or Jaime Roldós Aguilera Ecuador and even more recently The colonel himself( Gaddafi). Here it was a win-win situation. Order will be restored, believe the Kenyans.

The crème de la crème in most fields in Africa are from Kenya. Pioneer researchers like Prof. Obel are homegrown Kenyans. He laid the groundwork for ARV’s ( of course the Americans will take credit) but he is Kenyan.

And when it comes to athletics? Don’t even mention. Soccer is not our thing completely and that also makes us special.

Have you ever heard that they have arrested illegal Kenyan immigrants in Africa? There may be but I can assure you the number is negligible. How many foreigners do we nub every week in Kenya. Kwanza those Ethiopians who come to Kenya. Why is it that we Kenyans don’t move to other African states illegally? Simple: Kenya is the best.

We don’t have minerals or natural resources but for sure in Africa, through my own research which you are free to question; Kenya has a HUMAN RESOURCE that is envied by all. Most of our Doctors and Nurses are out there (of course only for the love of money), Athletes, Engineers among many others. In fact in Silicon Valley (Technology city In USA) there are more than 200 executives who are Kenyans!
Who discovered M-PESA and mobile money transfer in Africa? Wacheni mchezo kudharau nchi yenu. Even the whites were astonished at the idea.

The first country in the world to have a coalition government. Britain became our student.

Now this bit needs a little Biblical knowledge and Archeological knowledge. It is believed that the GARDEN OF EDEN was below Abyssinia. Recall that Abyssinia is Ethiopia. Which country is directly below Ethiopia? Wewe wacha mchezo, Kenya was indeed the Garden of Eden.

I will support this with an archeological assertation that Kenya was the cradle of human kind. White scholars like Christopher stringer also support this theory that life begun in E. Africa. During a millennium distinguished lecture in San Francisco he said: ’………..In my view this misuse of science(the idea that present-day "races" can be arranged in a hierarchy of evolutionary advancement with "Blacks" as the most primitive, "Whites" in between, and "Orientals" as the most evolved) should not make us shy away from investigating the differences between modern human populations, and how they evolved – indeed, if mainstream workers do not take up the challenge of this research, the field could be left to those with extreme political agendas. From my perspective, Africa was our genetic, physical and behavioral homeland, and Africa today may well contain as much genetic diversity as the rest of the World put together. I hope that the coming century will see research in modern human origins build on the tremendous advances of the last twenty years to further confirm that all of us are indeed "Africans under the skin’

Did you know that when forming the state of Israel Kenya was considered? The whole of former Uasin Ngishu was supposed to be Israel! Now you know.

That is why I’m forever Kenyan. And just before I sign off, is there any other nation in Africa that Houses any UN head quarters apart from Kenya?

Rousseau has been considered the father of parliamentary democracy. In ascertaining this view, we closely look at Rousseau’s philosophy in relation to one of the most prominent western democracies-The parliamentary system of United Kingdom to see if there are traces of his thought even in the present day. The bulk of this thought was from his book The social Contract.

Rousseau believed that free action has two causes that come together to produce it. One is moral, namely the will that determines the act; the other physical, namely the power that executes it. He gives an analogy of a paralyzed man who wants to walk or an agile man who does not want to walk will remain where they are in trying to explain the above. The same distinction can be made between force and will; one under the name legislative power and the other under the name executive power. Nothing is done and ought to be done without their concurrence.

This is the basis of western parliamentary democracy where the legislature and the executive must work in tandem in the execution of duties. I f this does not happen, then legislations and government policies will be stalled hence the Prime minister becomes inefficient in this case hence confirming the assertation by Rousseau that there ought to be the will and the power.
Legislative power belongs to the people and can belong to it alone. On, the contrary, it’s easy to see that that executive power cannot belong to the people since this power consists solely of particular acts.

This assertation by Rousseau is easily seen in the United Kingdom where the prime minister and his cabinet have powers to make certain decisions without having to consult the people or without having to ‘beg’ members of the House of Commons because he has special powers by virtue of his position.
The public must have an agent of its own that unifies it and gets it working in accordance with directions of the general will , that serves as the means of communication between the state and the sovereign, and that accomplishes in the public person just about what the union of soul and body accomplishes in man.
United Kingdom has a representative democracy where constituents choose members of the House of Commons to represent their interest in policy making. These members act as representatives of the people. They therefore act as the link between the people and the policy formulators or decision makers in Britain.

Those who claim that the act by which a people submit itself to the leaders is not a contract are quite correct. It’s absolutely nothing but a commission, an employment in which the leaders, as simple officials, exercise the power with which the people have entrusted to them. The people can limit, modify or appropriate this power as it pleases since the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the social body and contrary to the purpose of association.
The belief of sending representatives to the House of Commons is always central to Britain’s democracy. The people employ the executive (It’s so believed) and they can withdraw or terminate the employment after a specific period of time. In fact the Queen can dissolve the House of Commons on advice from the prime minister or the cabinet who may be under pressure from the people. This therefore does not constitute a contract where term limits are upheld.

For the body of government to have existence, a real life that distinguishes it from the body of state and for its members to be able to act in concert and to fulfill the purpose for which it is instituted, there must be sensibility common to all its members, a force or will of its own that tends towards preservation.
Parties and leaders of Britain are based on ideologies that guide them in the day to day politics of the state. No party member is allowed to deviate from the ideology since at the polls the people choose a party and not an individual. The members work towards preserving and advocating for such values. We have the Conservatives and the Labour party and recently the liberal democrats. All these parties existed earlier as movements and only became parties in the 1920S. We had the Tories who later turned out to be conservatives and the Whigs who later turned out to be labour. The ideology is therefore common to all party members just as Rousseau had suggested.

Although the artificial body of the government is the work of another artificial body and has in a sense, only borrowed and subordinate life, this does not prevent it from being capable of acting with more or less vigor or speed. Without departing directly from its purpose, it can deviate more or less from it according to the manner, in which it’s constituted.
This scenario has played out in Britain. The government varies in the manner in which it’s constituted when need arises. Right now, its conservative party and liberal democrats party in a power sharing deal, a thing that had never happened in Britain but as stated above anticipated by Rousseau . This therefore simply means the parties have different ideologies and in order to run the government, they have to depart from their ideals in some issues concerning Britons at the moment.
He who makes the laws knows better than anyone else how it should be executed and interpreted. It seems therefore to be impossible to have a better constitution than one which executive power is united to legislative power.

This laid the frame work for the democracies since the ruling members participate in legislations and also enact such policies after ascent for its believed they know better as Rousseau posits (But this is precisely what renders such a government in adequate in certain respects, since things that should be distinguished are not)

Rousseau asserted that when functions of the government are shared among several tribunals, those with the fewest members sooner or later acquire greatest authority, if only because of the facility in carrying out public business which brings this naturally.
This is clearly brought out by the concept of a cabinet which has great authority yet its constituted with a few members or the House of Lords which has authority yet it has a few technocrats or more still the Privy Council that advises her majesty the queen yet it’s made up of the fewest members.

He further asserted that there should be little or no luxury, for luxury either is the effect of wealth or it makes wealth necessary. It simultaneously corrupts the rich and the poor, the one by possession and the other covetousness. It sells the homeland to softness and vanity. It takes all its citizens from the state in order to make them slaves to one another, and all of them to opinion.
The above factors were at play in Britain. It should be noted that the process to parliamentary democracy in Britain had various challenges. It was a monarch, degenerated to a democracy before they went back again to a constitutional monarch. Issues of luxury therefore ranged depending on the time frame in the history of Britain. Currently, members of the cabinet do not enjoy luxuries par se but there is a limited luxury accorded to them compared with the royals. This is what Rousseau was talking about and as a result most members of the cabinet in Britain are not corrupted by luxury.
The sovereign, having no other force than legislative power, acts only through the laws. And since the laws are only authentic Acts of the general will, the sovereign can act only when the populace is assembled.

The greater United Kingdom is run under the English common law that was an act/ tradition of the populace. Other documents such as the Magna Carta that contains the human rights and liberties was also the general will of the people, hence this common law is the best laws to be used as suggested by Rousseau.
It should be noted that although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government. The government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly. Under a monarchy, however, the real sovereign is still the law. Rousseau was opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly (Book III, Chapter XV). The kind of republican government of which Rousseau approved was that of the city state, of which Geneva, was a model, or would have been, if renewed on Rousseau's principles. France could not meet Rousseau's criterion of an ideal state because it was too big. Much subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free. It therefore follows that in laying down the frame work for a democracy, his works greatly influenced such democracies but was not embraced in totality-only traces of his ideas could be seen.

CRITIQUE THE EURO-CENTRIC VIEW THAT HISTORY IN AFRICA CAME WITH EUROPEAN ARRIVAL
‘A nation without a past has no soul’
Sereste khama, first president of Botswana.
The euro –centric view is one held by white history scholars that history in Africa was non-existent until the Europeans arrived. This view is unacceptable, misplaced and skewed! Let’s take a look of development of Mombasa as an African town for instance.
Here in Kenya, the history of towns like Mombasa dates back to (c1100-1166) according to Kitab Rujar of the geographer al-idrisi. Ibn Batuta visited Mombasa either in 1329 or 1331 and remarks that the inhabitants were pious Sunni Muslims of the shafi’ite school who, though enduring an apparently impoverished style of life, possessed well constructed mosques of wood. Isn’t this History in itself-for the Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century? Swahili traditions relating to Mombasa suggest that Mombasa’s change of fortune was due to arrival of a new dynasty: Shehe Mvita. These traditions give no date or event, but distinguish between a previous dynasty represented by a queen, mwana mkisi and the shirazi dynasty of shehe mvita.This shows there was a clear administrative system in Africa even before the Europeans arrived. I won’t even start analyzing the early civilizations because it’s clear it was In Egypt and spread through the diffusion to the rest of the world. That’s a discussion of another day. Note existence of mosques in Africa means they had their religion which up to this date is dominant in most coastal towns. This analysis is long and might take several months of engagements, so let me get back to my critique.
Great scholars have disowned this view. One such scholar is Prof. Bethwell Allan Ogot. He argued during the presidential address to the annual conference of the historical association of Kenya in 1967 that Prof Endre Sik in his two volume THE HISTORY OF BLACK AFRICA (HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 1966) has described three wrong approaches to African History.
First, there are those historians who treat African history as if it were identical with the history of the conquest and colonization of Africa by alien races. This view is already skewed for the scramble of Africa began in the middle of 19th century and was finalized at the Berlin conference of 1885.This view was protruded by Prof. Coupland-a former professor of colonial history at the University of Oxford and author of standard works on East African history. Before that, there was nothing but savagery. The ‘main body of Africans,’ he wrote,”……had stayed for untold centuries, sunk in barbarism…..stagnant, neither going forward nor going back. These are words that as an African I disagree with for there was life and history in Africa.
This view was stated in a more vicious manner by another oxford don in 1963, Prof. Trevor Roper, the regius professor of modern history. He said, ‘Nowadays undergraduates demand that they should be taught African history. Perhaps, in the future there will be some African history to teach, but at present, there is none: there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness……………and darkness is not a subject of History!
Ogot goes ahead and to state “Don’t misunderstand me. I do not deny that life existed even in dark countries and dark centuries , nor that they had political life and culture, interesting both to sociologists and anthropologists; but history , I believe, is essentially a form of movement and purposive movement too. It is not mere phantasmagoria of changing shapes and costumes, of battles and conquests, dynasties and usurpations, social forms and social disintegration”
In conclusion the learned professor (Roper) asserted that serious scholars at oxford and other ancient seats of learning cannot afford to amuse themselves “With the amusing gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque and irrelevant corners of the globe” According to the LISTENER of 28th Nov, 1963(pg 871). The consensus among historians today is that African history is an integral part of the study of mankind and that no world history which omits it can be complete.
The second wrong approach mentioned by Prof. Sik is that which ‘treats African history according to contemporary colonial entities or books.’ Books are written on the History of Nigeria or the History of French West Africa or the British protectorate in East Africa .Like the first approach, this kind of treatment ignores the pre-colonial history of Africa, and like the first, is euro centric and unacceptable.
The third wrong approach discussed by Sik is that which attempts to deal with African history by taking each African people and state separately .Sik’s argument is that , if one were to attempt to write a history of every tribe in each country in Africa ,the data collected would be frightening, unyielding and confusing. It would therefore be difficult to have a continental view of the African past and it would therefore be difficult to have a continental view of the African past and it would also be difficult to pinpoint the inter-relations between African history and universal history.
Sik then proceeds to expound what he calls “The proper approach”. This is, in effect an attempt to apply Marxism to the study of African history. Marxism sees history as the inevitable play of blind forces-scientific, technological, economic, social, instutional and ideological-which determine human destiny. The history of mankind becomes the history of these ‘laws ‘ of society whose application is universal. All societies, including African societies, must therefore pass through the same stages of development. ‘The proper approach’, according to sik, is that which studies and discusses the history of Africa ‘period by period’, according to those regions which were actual scenes of that history”
As a true Marxist, he emphasizes that the scheme of periodisation he proposes for Africa roughly coincides with what applied to world history. The periods he proposes are as follows:
A). Africa from ancient times to the end of 15th century
During this time, Africa was isolated and savage-a terra incognita. ‘The state, taken in the real sense of the world, was a notion unknown to most African people, as classes did not exist there either or rather-both existed already, but only in embryo. Therefore it’s unrealistic to speak of their History-in the scientific sense of the world, before the appearance of the European invaders. More exactly, the study of this early history of the African people belongs in the province of ethnography rather than of historical science. Here, sik’s view, although crouched in Marxist jargon, are no different from those of capitalist historians like Trevor Roper, whom he castigates in his book.
But sik also admits that some African people had already evolved their own states by 15th century. They had reached what the Marxist call the slaveholding or feudal stage of development. So even from sik’s own evidence, some African people were already, through their own efforts developing complex systems and concepts. A genuine history was evolving.
b). Slave trade period, from 16th to 18th century
This period marked the beginning of what sik calls ‘the stage of authentic history’ it also witnessed the beginning of the penetration of Africa by foreign capital. The European countries were passing through the age of primitive accumulation, and for that purpose they turned Africa, in the words of Marx, into ‘A warren for the commercial hunting for black skins’. In Africa therefore this too became the period of primitive accumulation. Several European traders established themselves along the coasts of Africa, primary objective being for trading purposes.
c).The period of conquest and partition of Africa (19th century)
This coincides with the period of industrial capitalism in Europe, as well as the period of transition from industrial capitalism to monopoly capitalism (Imperialism)
d).The age of imperialism which covered the first fifty years of the 20th century.
e).The collapse of colonial system in Africa.
The first question to ask is whether African history passed through these Marxist stages of statelessness/ classlessness-feudalism or primitive accumulation –industrial capitalism – socialism. We should not be carried away by the excessive obsession with the ‘laws of necessity’ to impose a foreign and artificial rhythm of life upon African history. Moreover, an approach which treats all events in Africa as pale reflections of European activities, as sik’s attempt to do, is misguided and unenlightening. Furthermore, the pre-15th century history of Africa which sik equates with mythology is to be the African authentic history. We are enjoined by sik to be more interested in ‘the burning problems of our age ‘, such as the machinations of the imperialists, instead of wasting time on meaningless question such as ‘who built the ruins of Zimbabwe ?’ or ‘who lived in Engaruka?’.T o the African history, names such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Timbuktu, kilwa etc have acquired a significance which cannot be measured in materialistic terms. Their resurrection is a sharp reminder to the Trevor-Ropers and Couplands that Africa has a history which predates the intrusion of the European.
The royal approach is also wrong. It stems from the premise, that only reliable histories of pre-colonial Africa are those of centralized states. The contention is that the segmentary societies, although they constitute about half the continent’s population, cannot have authentic history, for the tribal memories do not extend beyond about two generations at the most.
A cursory look at the composition of African societies would reveal that practically all these societies have developed from smaller units like sub-clans and clans. The clans later joined together in bigger units to form tribal polities and the tribal polities responding to ecological, internal and external forces ultimately emerged as either centralized or segmentary societies.
In order to study the histories of the last two named, it is essential that the work should start with the smaller units; and the essence of it should reside in analyzing how the smaller units evolved into those larger entities of tribes or kingdoms. Such an approach would show the futility of drawing a sharp distinction between centralized and segmentary societies. It would also reveal the limitation of any history based largely on court chronicles, king lists and average lengths of reigns. A history of Buganda for instance, based entirely on court chronicles would be misleading and incorrect as medieval history of Europe also based on court chronicles.
The proper approach to African history lies in first studying how the different historical entities in the continent have evolved and secondly, what have been the definable phases of growth in this evolutionary process, which has lasted 35,000 years. In such a study, particular attention should be paid to the influence of ecological factors on African history. How did the different communities tame the hostile environments in which they had to live? And what kind of socio-economic institutions were established in order to maintain the stability of these communities? Much of the variety in African social structures can be traced to environmental differences.
Secondly, what major stages of development did these societies pass through? For instance, we know that the Iron Age started in Africa about 2000 years ago. What did this revolution mean for the history of Africa? How did the introduction of Islam affect African history? What about the early contacts with Europe? If we approached our subject this way, we would soon discover that African history is not ‘the unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes.’ Like other histories,’ it’s essentially a form of movement and purposive movement too, and like other histories, its characterized by two things:
 Change and continuity. The Iron Age revolution in central Africa led to long distance trade in minerals and thereby laid the foundations of the industry which is still a marked feature of central African economy.
 The underlying unities and similarities in the great diversity of social and political systems. This should comfort historians like professor sik, who are afraid of losing their way in the tangled skein that is African history.
The title of Sik’s book, THE HISTORY OF BLACK AFRICA has racial inclinations hence we assume everything in this volume castigates Africa. Why couldn’t it be the HISTORY OF AFRICA? Why black? Other scholars like Professor Oliver Rowland and John Vansina adopted a better title for their volume ‘THE HISTORIAN IN TROPICAL AFRICA’ Published in 1964. It should also be noted that the book was published at the height of black struggle for their independence and their rights in western countries and I’ll be right to say that was a way of Endre sik and his cronies of advancing the notion that there was and still there is nothing in Africa. Other scholars like Allan Jacobs have said good things about Africa or have presented a balanced view as it is and they have not lost any glory in the world of academics. The modern Endre sik’s are reminded that Africa is vibrant and alive and no notion will bring the continent down and that we have a past hence have a soul!
In my view, the argument that History in Africa came with arrival of the Europeans is farfetched, misplaced and skewed. Africa has a rich history and let’s give her the rightful position in the world of history.