About a month ago, our students were privileged to have Jeff Koinange accept their invitation to talk about his life’s journey and his latest book Through my African eyes. 

From the discussions with students before the event, and from the questions they asked Jeff, I could tell that the students were most impressed by fact that Jeff had scored a perfect GPA in Kingsborough Community College in New York, and had gone on to join NYU. Besides marveling at Jeff’s scores and his Ivy League experience, the students’ engagement was also dominated by the persistent question, albeit rephrased differently, on how they can get jobs in the media once they were done with school.

As a teacher who constantly invites guests to come speak to students so as to expand the students’ world view beyond examinations, I must admit that I was a little disappointed. I would have preferred that the students not focus on scores and instead discuss with Jeff what his book reveals about journalism, international politics (especially in Africa) and on education, and reflect on what they could learn from Jeff’s experience as world-class journalist. I wanted them to see that a broad-based education, exposure to international history and culture, and good writing skills (of course) open up a person to dialogue with the world.

It was heartbreaking to hear people celebrating the withdrawal of charges against Kenya’s president for crimes against humanity at the ICC.  The irony of their joy is simply mind-boggling. The people who are rejoicing are the same ones who are victims of extra-judicial killings. So even the luxury of having a government stall on providing evidence, or of affording Queen’s Counsel to defend them in court, or having parliamentarians escort them to court, doesn’t count, because many of them are tried and executed before they even get to court. For those who are lucky to be alive, they get hit with ridiculous sentences, like the three men in Thika who were convicted of robbery with violence and sentenced to hang for stealing pineapples worth Ksh 2,400 (about USD 27), pineapples which Del Monte recovered anyway.

But the irony gets worse. These are the same people who suffered many losses in 2007 when politicians became tribal warlords and negotiated sharing power using the lives of their citizens. It doesn’t seem to bother them that over 1,300 people died, 500,000 others were displaced, thousands of women raped, and no one has been called to account.

How do we reconcile that irony in our minds?