This opinion originally run in the East Africa on January 28, 2008 under the title,
‘The problem with Kenya’s politics is the old guard‘
The next revolution in Kenya will not be a violent one, contrary to the bloodletting presently underway. Rather it will be the rejection of the generation of men from whom the leaders of [...]
Generation Disaster
A Letter to My Father, and Others
Dear Baba,
This is an odd and public and rhetorical letter, on a subject that recent tradition has asked us to sweep under the carpet. I find myself, at 35, at odds with the tone and nature and political space that is Gikuyu. For the first time in my life, in the Kibaki government, my identity [...]
THE PAIN MACHINE: The Collapse of the Gikuyu Social Contract
This is the beginning of an essay that I am writing for publication and that I felt driven to post before its completion in the hope that it would elicit stories that confirm or contradict it. I will post the complete version in the coming months - probably in late September - for now [...]
Kenya Held Captive By Elders
Is it just me or is Kenya held captive by people who were born in the 16th Century? Whenever I see pictures such as this one, with an elderly politician or public servant standing in front of microphones, I always suspect that they are saying something vaguely ridiculous. I know it is a [...]
Confessions of a Middle Class Kenyan
I have spent the last few hours listening to audio tapes of James Baldwin and Malcolm X, reading of the anti-slavery exploits of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry and reading the last letters that his fellow raiders wrote just before they were led to the gallows. I have done this as a result of [...]