one grand ban we feared in our childhood days was the 'usikuje kwetu' ban. well you see only a few households had the all important TV set. as little kids, we loved to watch Ojwang and his vitimbi antics. the show would come on Saturday and the following week, every other kid in school would be talking about the last episode. it would be thoroughly humiliating if you had missed it since it meant you would not talk where 'people' were in the subsequent week. it meant therefore that the kids whose fathers or mothers had the great box lived princely lives, they were not to be touched. even if they insulted you, stepped on your foot or took your marbles or polythene paper ball, you just looked the other side since you never wanted to be told "usikuje kwetu!"
But with time, that ban threat, lost its scare. I dont know whether it was Ojwang losing his joke or the east bringing in cheaper TV sets. a change is always good and in 2003, one hated sweaty man called murungaru showed us that you did not need a land rover to govern a country. we for the first time learnt that police in Nissan xtrail, or toyota land cruiser or even Mercedes Benz can still shoot to kill. well for that he got the "usikuje kwetu" ban.
And this week, the Americans also seem to have forgotten the existence of the Chinese block and are telling kenyan leaders that the ban is in the corner. but give it to Martha Karua, she told them to the face "adak ma kata ionge" (my life is fine even without you!) well sometimes i love Martha for forthrightness. she told the UK to define who was whose donor since trade relations were very skewed. the poor old clay did not have any answer. and this time she retorted that the US is no heaven!
and Martha can afford to talk like that coz she knows, that china just loves it when the west behaves that way. they welcome African leaders with wide open arms. their problem is one, they have billions of products but no market. so to Africa they only say slaughter each other if you must but please buy our goods! well that was the policy of the western nations in the years of mobutu sese seko, kenyata, idi amin, bokasa, mengistu , kamuzu banda name it.
OD,
ReplyDeleteMartha Karua is forthright without a doubt. It adds to her hardline identity.
However, I think the visa bans, touched a nerve for her, despite her saying that heaven was in Kenya.
An obvious reaction from karua. What did you expect?
ReplyDeleteChina comes bearing gifts... but Kenyans should not forget that there is no free lunch...
If the Chinese gov't oppresses its own citizens (you can emigrate to a city from shaags without a permit) then they don't give a shit about Africans.
Don't con yourself, the Chinese are as racist as they come.
@tamtam, i think you are right coz after saying that she kinda mellowed. but its sad that we cannot solve our internal problems unless threatened by the west.
ReplyDelete@coldtusker, I always feel the Chinese are a worse partner coz they are too many. i think they can be more ruthless than the west. but for now they are offering our leaders temporary rest. since these leaders do not have a forward thinking mentality we will find ourselves in the same old circle.
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