On this great occasion where we come to reaffirm the people as the center of Kenya in this People's Charter, m​y fear is that it is not specific enough. We live in a neoliberal age where the language of progressives, language about rights and pain with injustice, is hijacked by the oppressors from the oppressed.

For instance, the president won the elections in 2013 by saying he was a victim of imperialism, until even those whose relatives were killed in the crimes for which he was charged pitied him.

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(Presented at the AIC Jericho Men's fellowship on March 24, 2013)

Once again, it is a great honor for me to speak to my fathers and brothers about this journey called manhood. By inviting a woman to speak, you are proving the African proverb says “if you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk with others.” Great manhood is the one walked with others – with God, with our wives and families, and with society.

But we all know that since we were last together, we Kenyans have voted to walk alone as tribes. We decided that what mattered are our personal interests, or the interests of our ethnic group; not the interests of our children, our neighbors, our workmates, or of future generations. We did not vote for the dream that Muoki Mbunga so beautifully expressed not only for his children, but also for his neighbor's children. We did not vote as fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers of everyone - as our African culture tells us to - we voted as family of a few.

But I would like to believe that Kenyans did not vote out of malice. We voted with great love for our country. We queued in the hot sun for hours, and we have all decided that peace in Kenya is more important than anything else. So how can there be such a contradiction? How come that love did not translate into our choice of leaders?

(Presented at the Men’s Fellowship at AIC Jericho, 24th February 2013)

I am so honored to be a Kenyan woman who is invited to speak to Kenyan men. I am a daughter to Kenyan men and a sister to Kenyan men. Men and women have always shared common ties, and that’s why we greet each other as “dadangu,” or “ndugu yangu,” or in my community, all men my father’s or my son’s age greet me “wakia maitu” (my mother) and I reply “wakia awa” (my son).

If we refer to one another as sisters, brothers and parents, even if we are not blood relatives, how do we explain the violence, hatred and selfishness that have divided Kenyan women and men? We hear news reports about men killing their wives and children before committing suicide. In the current campaigns, few women are running for seats other than for those of women representatives. Women are still own less than 2% of the property in Kenya, even though they produce more than half the country’s wealth. Even though we see many unfortunate women struggle to raise children alone, we also hear women like Margaret Wanjiru publicly insulting the fathers of their own children, and hear women despair on men and deliberately choose to have children without getting married, and improve themselves economically, rather than be heartbroken and exploited.

When Kenyans discuss these problems, the most common response is that the men have become useless because women are now getting educated and earning money, unlike long ago when African women stayed at home while men brought home the food. But did that era really exist?

Address at Kwibuka20 commemoration
Mount Kenya University, Thika
14th March 2014

Your Excellency, Yamina Karitanyi, the Rwandan High Commissioner to Kenya,

Hon. Ezekiel Mutua, Ministry of Information
Your Excellencies, High Commissioners, Ambassadors and Representatives of Countries represented here,


Students and teachers, and our generous host, Prof Stanley Waudo, Vice-Chancellor of Mount Kenya University,

Fellow East Africans,

I am always humbled to talk about the horror that visited our Rwandan brothers and sisters in April 1994, when families were tortured and wiped out because of the ethnic tag “Tutsi.” No matter how much I read and listen to the testimony of victims of the genocide against the Tutsi, I can never imagine even half the horror they must have felt to see their fellow Rwandans, emptied of their humanity, turn against their neighbors, friends and relatives and deny the humanity of others.

We must honor the memory of the victims. We must pray for the survivors who lived through the horror, and pledge to support them and Rwandans in their recovery, in whatever small way we can. And what is our support?
We in the universities may have no millions stashed away to open a school for people who need education. We may have no medical training to heal those still traumatized. All we have is our intellectual training. Frantz Fanon, the writer of the classic The Wretched of the Earth, when speaking of the anti-colonial wars in Africa in the 1950s, said that while the contribution of politicians is on the military battlefield, the contribution of intellectuals to the war for freedom is on the battleground of history. So my remarks here today are my small contribution to the journey of Rwandans as they “Remember, unite and renew.”

But while this commemoration is about Rwandans, I must address the reality that right here and now, I am speaking mostly to Kenyans. And standing here, I am requesting Kenyans, boundaries away from Rwanda, though in the same East African community, to remember what happened in Rwanda, to unite with Rwandans, and to walk with Rwandans as they renew their commitment to humanity, to living together in peace and dignity, and to prosperity.

But why must Kenyans remember the genocide against the Tutsi?

The Value of Conviction: Reflections on motivating students and marketing courses 

Presented at
Daystar University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) 
March 19 and 21, 2014

Wow. I’m honored to have been invited to the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning because at the beginning of this year, I wasn’t sure I could handle any more disappointment regarding our department. I asked God to please give us at least some recognition for all we’ve done over the past six years, and I take this invitation as one of the many answers to my prayers. Looking back over the last few years, I now see that despite the difficult journey, God has done exceedingly more than we asked for. And although we remain uncertain, we the faculty are convinced that what we are doing is right, and that because it is right, God shall fight for us, and has been fighting for us. The battle belongs to the Lord.

The details about our session today indicated that I was supposed to address what to do when students think our courses are “ho-hum, boring and lackluster.” Actually, the attitude towards the courses offered by our department has been worse than that. Students have been thinking that our courses have no relevance to the working world. But they do not think that on their own initiative. Rather, they are echoing the message they have been hearing from others both within and outside the university. Besides hearing faulty advice on what is “marketable,” students also live in an environment where politicians, both in Kenya and worldwide, have attacked the arts as a waste of resources of higher education.