of a changing kenya

dear mr Boreto, allow me to dedicate this post to you. i rarely do, but i will. i will attempt to respond to bits of your claims.

1) you claim "Kenyan public perception is so screwed up." i understand what motivates you to claim so and i intend to respond to that motivation in the very last sentence of this post. but it is my deepest belief that you are wrong to underestimate the the judgement of the kenyan people today. i say so partly based on personal interaction with a good segment of citizens a few months ago. i also consider the extent with which growing rights groups and other pertinent civil societies have engaged with the public and thus resulted in healthier public reasoning. look at the likes of mars, knchr, AI, fida, TI etc. these are groups that a decade ago had been rendered defunct. to keep it simpler...i trust you have been reading the "sunday echo" part of the sunday nation. havent you noticed literal evolution of public discourse on issues that matter?

2) you claim "kenya hasn't reached the threshold (economically, politically, socially) for people to vote on merits." fine, but say who? i want you to suggest a study/research we can conduct unbiased. i am also curious to see how we will establish this so called 'threshold'. but in the meantime i will still go ahead to discredit your claim. mine is 'below-top' approach. did i tell you that my village, most rural of rural places in kenya, now has electricity and now we are talking of lying pipes of running water? now instead of my female cousins spending all the time in the evening and weekends fetching water and firewood they watch obama admonish sultanistic mugabes of africa. do you know of how many primary school teachers upgraded their certificates to diplomas just last year alone? and how many B- kcse students are currently pursuing parallel degrees thanks to extended and generous loans from the loans board? to me that is more than enough requisite shift in socio-political state.

4) you rightly cite prof bates, a man i hold with high regard for scholarship, especially on african affairs. but im will not apologize for not subscribing to all of his views. his approach on modernization and ethnicity in Kenya (im being very specific here) deserves to be relegated to shelves of "no longer relevant." reasons for that are many but to me one is more salient. have you checked to see when bates wrote most of his literature? ('when things fall apart' is an exception here.) those were years when kenyan people knew nothing but despotic rule of kenyatta and moi. things have changed ever since, to say the least. ... See More

finally 4) you pose a good question when "Ruto was on Raila's side he was the saviour.. now that he is against him.. everyone labels him a tribalist." this motivates you to claim that 'kenya public perception is screw up.' i do not think it is matter of being Christ or Judas here...it is more of an informed populace starting to single out ethnic entrepreneurs. the first one just happens to be ruto, we do not know who the next one will be but i am optimistic than ever that the true leader of the people will supplant them all.