​A child who went to school beginning in the 1970s, like I did, was fed on a steady dose of “the white man stole our African cultures” as a slogan that explained all Kenya’s socio-economic problems. And if one pursued literature as a subject, that slogan was repeated to the point of becoming shrill.

At least that’s how I see it today. Back then, as I child, I treated it as the gospel truth that I carried with me through all my student life, up to my doctoral studies. After all, many of the gurus of decolonial thought are Kenyan, with the classic text on decolonizing the mind being written by a Kenyan. There is no way one could get away – especially not in literature – with not quoting them, without it being thought that we were ungrateful to our elders.

The Kenyans who are really blinded by religion are not the ordinary ones who are actively religious, but the educated ones who are against religion. It’s an intellectual entanglement so spectacular that would put the emotional entanglement of the Smiths to shame.

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When William Ruto won the 2022 general elections to become Kenya’s fifth president, local and international media were awash with discussions of Ruto as an evangelical president. The excitement, however, was informed less by Kenyan religion or politics and more by right-wing Evangelical America and its war on homosexuality and abortion. Le Monde, a major newspaper from a country that boasts of being the home of the Enlightenment, was understandably preoccupied with Kenya’s adherence to secularism. The BBC was curious about the president’s stand on homosexuality, but not about secularism, which would have been strange for the public broadcaster of a country whose head of state is also the head of the Anglican church.

• The Kenyan education system is also notoriously insulated from interaction with other sectors of society, which has made our school system rigid and violent (unfortunately), and has fueled an obsession with credentialism at the expense of humanity, knowledge and creativity.
• However, to tackle these issues, Kenya needs to finally come up with a national philosophy of education that sees people as more than employees or economic machines, and that enables us to harness the resources of the village in raising our children and in nurturing humanity.

For those interested, you can download the entire document at the link below.

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​Many with a decent knowledge of neo-colonialism and global racism may have been shocked at the amount of Western decadence, from Anglo-American political stars and billionaires, that has flowed into Kenya in the first few months of President Ruto’s tenure.

​Without a public discussion, the ban on GMOs was lifted by decree, with a fairly racist caveat that since we Kenyans are dying of famine anyway, we need GMO foods to fill the gap. Weeks later, this dystopian logic would be openly articulated by the Trade CS who, in a poor attempt at sarcasm, said in the midst of the morbid laughs of his elite audience: “By just being in this country, you are a candidate for death. And because there are so many things competing to kill you, there is nothing wrong with adding GMOs to that list."

​The period immediately following the 9th August general elections in Kenya was a rude awakening for many. In any contest where there’s only one winner, and so there the contrasting feelings of jubilation and disappointment are no surprise. What would shock a keen observer is the visceral negative reaction shock amongst a section of the supporters of the Azimio la Umoja side. The reaction went beyond disappointment; it was grief that quickly deteriorated into recriminations against any individual or group perceived not to have ‘given their all’ in support of Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga’s candidature. 

This is Mr. Odinga’s fifth stab at the presidency, so the spectre of disappointing results is not totally new to his supporters, particularly those over 40 years old. Disappointment and even certain levels of anger have been de rigueur in past elections, but the inexplicable grief and recriminations have been unique to 2022. One unique feature of this year’s elections is that the narrative has portrayed those perceived not to have supported Raila not as competitors or rivals, but as evil saboteurs. 

​The last few months, and even the last five years, have been a journey of abuse from the political class. Uhuru Kenyatta, especially, kicked tantrums when he did not get his way, undermined the constitution using the armed forces, unleashed toxicity into the public conversation through public relations and the media, and sealed this manipulation with an intellectually stunting new education system. It has been a five-year war on the Kenyan soul.
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But Kenyans have courageously fought back. The vibrant public sphere and citizen mobilization have stopped insidious policies like Huduma Namba and BBI. Landmarks in jurisprudence have been achieved. Amidst these victories, both Uhuru and the civil service bureaucrats have struggled to hide their irritation that Kenyans have used the constitution to demand proper governance. 

Today, Kenyans go to the polls to choose the next cohort of regional and national leaders. Naturally, the focus has been on the presidency, where the mockery of what we are calling a choice is most evident. Kenyans have been cornered into choosing between an outgoing deputy president who was rejected by his presidential boss, and an opposition leader whose family was vilified since the 1960s by the president’s family, up until the previous election.  The relationship between the two front runners is one man – Uhuru Kenyatta, for whom the presidency has been his only achievement and who seems unable to let go of the presidency. The other two options are a barely known evangelical preacher and a weed-smoking professor with roots in the torture machine of the Moi regime. 

The options which Kenyans are going to pick from are so absurd, that the mainstream media’s attempt to professionalize politics through American-style debates degenerated into a spectacular farce. The most telling moment was when the leading policy thinkers of the Azimio and Kenya Kwanza, Oduor Ong’wen and David Ndii, were debating on Citizen TV. The two men occasionally took jabs at one another for their respective candidates' association with the Uhuru presidency, yet ironically, both candidates were equally associated with Uhuru. One candidate is Uhuru's past, the other is Uhuru's future. What the media called a debate was more like a spat between a jilted lover and his replacement.

​How did a country so proud of her history of struggle get to be choosing between these non-options dominated by what is arguably Kenya’s most mediocre president? Are there no leaders in Kenya that these are the options we have to choose from?