“Each night Pecola prayed for
blue eyes.
In her eleven years, no one had
ever noticed Pecola. But with blue
eyes, she thought, everything
would be different. She would be
so pretty that her parents would
stop fighting. Her father
would stop drinking. Her brother
would stop running away. If
only she could be beautiful.
If only people would look at her.”

In the Bluest Eye Toni Morrison attempts to demonstrate the isolation a black child faces growing up in a white society. In the novel, eleven year old Pecola, wants to be beautiful and dreams of eventually acquiring blue eyes. She drinks out of a cup with Shirley Temple’s picture in the hope that her eyes will turn blue. She eventually goes insane because she cannot be white, she cannot have blue eyes so she cannot be beautiful.

Unlike Pecola today’s woman is faced with “possibilities”. This article here suggests that over the last couple of years, statistics show that more women of color are taking to the knife so that they can look more like their “fairer” sisters.

Women are not just bleaching anymore, but they are taking more drastic measures: eyelid surgery, leg lengthening, calf narrowing and nose narrowing.

We really cannot change who we are physically, and if we do, it is only an attempt, a brief change. As the world gets smaller the positive self image for young girls and women around the world will continue to be challenged as beauty is standardized.

Growing up, my mother never once told me that I was beautiful, or not. Because it did not matter. What mattered were virtues, whether I was good or bad. And this is how we should bring up our daughters. And here a last quote from Toni Morrison on beauty:

Of the virtues, it [beauty] is not one. The virtues are not the accidents of birth. The virtues are things you work for. To be forthright. To be educated. To be in control. To be diplomatic. To be healthy. To be graceful. These are the things you can work for. You can get them. They are available to you.”

Shoe boots are all the rage right now. Not only are they cute, and in some cases even a little artsy, they are easy to accessorize with a pair of tights, skinny jeans and even mini dresses like Mary-Kate here and Joy Bryant.

The trend for fall seems to be mostly dark colours all around so most of the shoe boots are in blacks and browns, with blues, monochrome and metallic which is still in.

Good luck on people’s ankles!

I consider myself a responsible and fully-paid up member of my society. I participate in the PTA at my daughter’s school, and I am involved in the neighborhood council.

We do not do anything too exciting in our council; it’s only putting together the funds for the refuse collection, and that for the neighborhood guards. We also put money together for the resurfacing of the road that passes through our little enclave.

It is an enclave alright, and we are its little government. We have blocked the two entrances to our road by putting up a ten-foot wall on the one-end, with electric fencing at the top; and we have a massive gate (again with electric fencing on top) at the other end. At the gate we have two guards, ex-policemen who are under instruction not to let anyone come uninvited into our little piece of calm and tranquility. We have long given up on the ability of the local government and the central government to deliver the services we should properly expect from our taxes.

A place to call our own

There are twenty smaller gates here in Baring Drive -we have made it a Close now, but who is telling the Council,? Not us. At the extreme end, by the wall is a little estate. There are six houses in that last compound. Six houses and the day care centre. That is another one of our community duties. We send the children there when we are not at work, or when we are having our meetings. They have a teacher there, and they make a nice little bunch, learning to play their musical instruments, reading or just playing their electronic games. It’s safe here, and for those of us who don’t want to send their children off to boarding school, a welcome option.

So you see we are a government, we have our little laws, and we collect our little taxes levied for the payments for the security, the teacher, the rent on the day-care, our infrastructure (the wall, the road and the gate).

Over the wall and to the south of the city I can hear the whistles and the hooting, and the shouts. They are punctuated every so often by a loud voice over the speakers, and the cheering and songs, even a few war-cries. Marcus Onyango- the guard at our gate is talking politics all the time now, and it’s all over the news and on the internet. I found him standing at the kitchen door imploring Nelima on the need to vote ODM and free the poor from oppression. Our precocious Iman has also taken to reading the newspaper, and asking a million and one questions. I try my best to answer, but like him there’s so much I do not know. I am very angry, and feeling a little desperate. I will not be voting this time.

I did not vote in 2002 either. I was away at university, but I would have arrived at the same decision. I know, this is supposed to be my fundamental duty as a citizen, you keep hearing about it. All over the place there’s talk of the importance of our votes, how much they count and how we can make a difference by voting, and how by not voting we deserve the poor government that comes into office. I even saw that Reddykyulass are now on a get-the-vote-out drive, spending millions in donor funds on concerts and comedy shows.

I have been called a coward; and most bizarrely every single time I criticize the main candidates; I am asked very aggressively,’ Who then do you want to vote for?’

I want to vote for someone, I really want to participate in this ritual we hold so dear,but I cannot. It would be irresponsible to lend my approval to a leader who I rightly despise, or one who has shown he has neither the interest nor the intellect for government.

So as we get carried away, and are taken hurtling towards the vicious rapids and the waterfalls by the euphoria, here is why I will not vote.

In a democracy, both voting and not voting are rights. A right is a freedom, a choice. It cannot be imposed. There is an interest on both sides, and especially on the part of the opposition to present themselves in a Messianic light, as redeemers of the nation. So it is promulgated that all people of justice and morality should side with the ODM. The PNU and its horde on their part, also ask that we do not abdicate our right to vote, because in doing so we may let in a greater evil.

I refuse to be blackmailed; my not voting is a positive action. I am not sitting back doing nothing, I am not disinterested in politics, mine is not a position of apathy, it is a rejection of both the candidates. It is a sign that I am not pleased with either party’s platform and that I do not believe that either one of them can deliver anything nearly worth the effort of my getting out of my house on Election Day.

To understand my stubborn attitude, we need perhaps to return to first principles. Why do democratic institutions have provisions for voting at all? It is simply because they they are the best way of gauging what is best for the whole, for their membership to decide which of the different candidates and ideas they prefer. So individual choices are added up and a solution is found that represents an aggregate of what each member desires. What does one do then, when the parties have no ideas? And when the candidates show no talent for leadership of a government or the capacity to bring people together in the pursuit of something more meaningful than an endless game of musical chairs? What then when each one is a bigger crook or non-achiever than the last? Choose the best among the worst they say. What nonsense! To exercise a choice among candidates and parties, there must first exist a choice. But when each one is as bad as the other, the choice is transformed into compulsion and the only real choice then is between “not voting” and voting. It is much like needing to get a ride home on a cold and rainy night. Two taxis come up to you and ask for a fare that is ten times what it ought to be, the drivers are looking dangerous and they leer at you as you haggle with them. Will you still choose? Is it not better to choose to abstain?

Let’s look through the wares on offer.

ODM

ODM: A congregation of carpetbaggers whose main campaign theme is reform. The savvy voter- if such existed- would ask,’ reform from what, and to what?’ Has at its head a body called the Pentagon- (p.s. there’s a Hilton hotel in Sotik that measures 6′ X 12′) membership of which is restricted to those who vied for the party’s presidential candidacy. Generally speaking, its a motley crew of crooks and tribalists, with a healthy helping of opportunists hanging on to their coat-tails. When they are not plotting to kick the Old Guard and the Agikuyu out of State House, its leaders have a feel of fish out of water. They employ a fantastically weak grasp on reality, including selling the fatuous suggestion that the Olympics will be brought to Kenya (Olympics to a country?) and that they will expand the economy by 20%!! The party tolerates a bizarre presidential candidate who thinks he is the Messiah. Brilliant at politicking and raising large crowds, this is the party of the masses. In the mind of the Kenyan public, its membership comprising former Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and Parastatal crooks is deemed reformist.

PNU

PNU: A brand new contraption, employing as its only raison d’etre the re-election of the President. Nothing else seems to hold this group together. Like the ODM it really is a hotchpotch, employing in its ranks the untalent of the new KANU party, and the sympathies of every old man in Kenya except former attorney-general Charles Njonjo-who is in love with the ODM candidate. The party has even managed to capture the support of former President Daniel Moi. It rivals the ODM in its who’s who of Kenya’s most corrupt; edging the ODM out in these stakes perhaps on account of the length of time the public cookie jar has been available to them. In our obsession with the office of the president, this is the party carrying the curse of the failures of the past five years. That president on his part, is alleged to spend three quarters of the day asleep, and has shown few signs of managing his shaky coalition.

ODM-K

ODM-K: Splinter group from the ODM congregation, or is the ODM a splinter group of this one? On the surface this is the cleanest of the parties, but it has kept itself to the Akamba regions and in our tribal politics has no chance of winning. Of the traditional big-wigs, only Kalonzo Musyoka and Julia Ojiambo have national prominence of any sort.

As ridiculous as the parties seem on first glance, they do have promises. A million and one of them, the majority self-contradictory or otherwise potentially ruinous to the economy and our fragile political structure. The unfortunate problem is that dishonesty for politicians begins with the election campaign process itself. Let’s leave out the silly promises which they know they cannot keep, but which they must proclaim cynically taking advantage of voter gullibility. Let’s talk about the money. The politicians need to raise money for all the spending in campaign season. This money itself creates a problem, because it will have come from a combination of personal funds, well-wishers and donations. Donations from individuals, groups and companies imply a quid pro quo sometime in the future. Somewhere, sometime, the politicians will have to scratch a back. So the voter is in effect permitting the theft and abuse of public resources when he endorses a sub-standard candidate, knowing full well before the election just what the politician is likely to do when in office.

In the particular case of this election, we have first hand experiences of what both a Mwai Kibaki and a Raila Odinga government would mean. We know the allegations of corruption that dangle over both men’s heads and simultaenously tie their hands in the war on graft. We know that both men have gained fabulous wealth by milking public office for all they could get from it. We know that they have dealings with a murky world behind the shadows that we are not familiar with. We have also seen Odinga’s running mate in court, as have we his candidate for the premiership. On Kibaki’s part we are aware of the company that he keeps, and their history of grievious harm on this country. We know full well the oppressive tendencies of both parties, and their intolerance towards dissenters. We know that both men are captured by their ethnic groups and that the rest is a blurr to them.

Let us for a moment assume, that as politicians the world over are similar, this level of dishonesty and corruption is acceptable. Let us imagine that those sullied CVs are so common as to be acceptable in politics. Popular wisdom after all is, politics is a dirty game, and “so what if he is corrupt (which everyone is anyway), at least he is efficient and the work gets done”. But, even that does not happen. There is a marked lack of accountability and transparency in the functioning of our politicians. They rarely if ever show any positive performance.

Like Kibaki before him, we have had more than enough opportunity to measure up Raila Odinga, both in his capacity as a Minister, as a political party official and as the de facto head of a party that wholly controlled local government councils across large parts of a province. Mwai Kibaki’s failure to launch when in government in the 1980s betrayed a similar lack of potential when president. Similarly, for all the talk of reform, the MP for Langata can hardly be expected to turn on a switch that has refused to light up all these years.

Don’t we exercise our right to “not choose” among available options on other less important things when they don’t measure up to our standards? Clothes, spouses, cars, houses and careers, and so on, do we simply take it because that is all that is available at the shop? In the same vein, do we really have to vote when there is no choice?

I know I am not ashamed that I will not have an ink-stained thumb on the day after the election; and even more a guilty conscience for endorsing a government that I know is set-up by its very nature to fail.

This article was first published on Kenyaimagine

Five male suspects have been brought forward in connection to the murder of South African reggae star, Lucky Dube.

The singer was shot dead in what seems like a ‘botched up carjacking’ in Rosettenville, a suburb in Johanesburg, last week Thursday. The singer is said to have dropped off his children at a relative’s home when he was attacked.

The death has been called ’senseless and reckless’ only serving to highlight just how dangerous the country is with figures from the South African Police Service showing that from April 2006 to March 2007, more than 19,000 South Africans were murdered. As Senegalese superstar Youssou N’dour put it: “It is not the first time that there are killings (of this kind) over there, well-known personalities or artists,” Dube’s murder poses “a big question which South African authorities must provide answers to,” he said.

South African president Thabo Mbeki described the reggae pioneer as “an outstanding South African”, adding that his country must “make a commitment that we shall continue to act together as a people to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people and does so every day.’ Radio stations in South Africa were bombarded with callers leaving tearful messages.

The 43 year old musician became well known for his criticism of Apartheid through his music. He will be missed, as his 25 year long career had endeared him to fans all over Africa as well as globally. How sadly ironic that he should die at the hands of violence when that is exactly what he stood against.

He is survived by his wife Zanele and seven children.

Apparently Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada Smith who starred along side his father in Pursuit of Happiness, is going to star as Danial Larusso,, originally played by Ralph Macchio, in the remake of 80’s hit film The Karate Kid. It is also rumoured that the role of Mr.Miyagi (‘wax on, wax’ off anyone?), played by the late Pat Morita, is to be played by Jackie Chan. While there does not seem tobe the need for another remake, especially not the Karate Kid, it can’t hurt.

Believing as I do that human beings need each other, I am always interested to know why there is such a constant battle for control. We are social animals and yet we are capable of, and even driven by, extreme acts of violence in order to obtain or retain power.

Though it may be obvious to many, I wonder what exactly power is, what its source is and why it is so coveted. It is not at all physical and yet those who possess it know they do, and those who lack it seek it. It plays out in the most normal of relationships between individuals, to the more complex ones between nations. As we can see this current seems to underpin all aspects of human relations. Perhaps one way to look at it is to look at the ways in which the struggle for control arises.

On a basic level we have ownership. For thousands of years people have felt that they are entitled to certain things mainly through repeated and sustained usage, like property. In a way the object then becomes an extension of the person using it, it is theirs, it is personal. This feeling is extended to our own selves, that is; I am my own master, I know my own mind. A clash arises when one feels that another is infringing on that ownership, that right. We can see this in land or property disputes, and even human beings. Good examples of these are conquests, colonialism and slavery, where the notions that human beings could also be property, arose.

In all these examples, we note a violence almost as ancient as ownership itself. Perhaps the ‘problem’ of ownership arises from the motivation of ownership. For example, many indigenous peoples knew that land belonged to them through usage over many years, handed from generation to generation (even some of them who could be classified as nomadic). They used what was enough for them to live on, the motivation here being that the land is necessary for their existence.

However, outsiders coming to claim land which belongs to another come with an almost necessary aggression. Perhaps they come because in order to survive more land is needed; perhaps it is for power and glory, maybe both. But if they conquer, the result is the forced removal of the owners from their source of existence, their source of power. They are left lacking. This is turn fuels a need to be replenished. How does one replace the original source of their existence? They have now been drawn irrevocably into the fight for power in an effort to regain what was lost.

In this light, it seems that the need to conquer is also a need to consume. It is a cycle and it is produced on many levels. Further more there are different ways to do it. We have already seen the violent approach but there is also a more insidious approach which is equally, if not more, dangerous. Another method of subduing another human being is to make them dependent. Remove their understanding or reason for existence and the victim is left feeling helpless and powerless.

In extreme cases where every aspect of live has been engineered to reinforce that lack of power, the victim’s sense of self is removed because even that belongs to another, there is no sense of ownership of the self.

Copyright©Lesani, 2007

Unbeknown to me, when I bought African Love Stories, an anthology I had purchased Monica Arac de Nyeko’s Jambula Tree. What a pleasant surprise!

The story is told in first person narrative by one of the main protagonists Anyango. This creates a strong sense of intimacy and familiarity between the reader and the speaker. As the story unfolds the reader becomes aware that the speaker, Anyango is addressing her childhood friend Sanyu. Sanyu, it is rumoured is about to return.

Anyango it seems is reliving their past. What she recounts is humourous but always tinged with a little sadness at the life around them. The tale is more than a forbidden love beneath the Jambula Tree; it is also about broken hearts, forgotten dreams and the reality of poverty.

Mama Atim is one such tragedy. She, who is the neighbourhood gossip and the whistleblower of their love, is described to have a mouth that ‘worked at words like ants on a cob of maize.’ She spends her days waiting for her husband to bring home the bacon while she sits by idly, bleached skinned and gossiping with the many other Mama Atims on the Nakawa Housing Estate. One gets the feeling however, that she would not have anything else to do except face the fact that her life has remained unchanged as other people’s stories unfolded around her.

Other characters with broken dreams are Anyango’s lonely mother, who longs for the love of her husband as she toils for her children. Or Sanyu’s mother who is wealthier and appears to be happy. They both wear veils of hope in order to cope with their lives and the truths they do not want to face.

In a way, the two girls’ friendship is a kind of hope, a dream of something better than the path that leads to Mama Atim. It is a rich tale and not a little powerful and engaging.

‘Pamela pull this down biko, put a slip underneath, see your big bottom, your skirt is raising at the back’Pamela’s mother spoke quickly and then paused. Pamela felt naked, her mothers gaze narrowing, trailing across her ’s’ shaped spine. ‘It is good oh, we are grateful to God, my daughter looks well well’ Pamela’s mother chuckled heartliy, her body seemed to reverberate. Pamela imagined that several invisable drum sticks were being beaten against her, to make her shake like that. Pamela smiled a little, comforted by the warmth of her mother’s Igbo dialect and her own boundless imagination.

It had happened suddenly. Pamela was unprepared, for the two firm swellings on her chest, and her impala like gracfulness which accompanied her new ‘mystical woman body.’ Her heart shaped mahogany face glistened with youth, pulled taut by tiny braids, her eyes slanted a little upwards resembling an African mask. ‘Ah this child is exquisite’ Dr Eke always refered to her as a child even though she was nearly sixteen years.’ When did billy goats begin to wear doctors’ coats’, foolish man she thought.

The day Dr Eke, held her hand for a few seconds too long when he greeted her, was the day she knew her life would be changed for ever. She could no longer climb trees, obtaining scratches and laughing well into the night with her brothers, and small naked village children who raised their arms up to be carried, while looking curiously at their protuding navals.

‘When will you come back sister Pamela?’ Nkechi lingered by the door, solemn faced. ‘What would you like me to bring back for you from the city?’ Pamela said, avoiding Nkechi’s question. ‘A dress’ Nkechi’s tiny face lit up with awe, at the prospect of her future present, she intonatated every letter ‘a d – r – e – s – s’. Her four year old frame felt heavy with health, as Pamela pulled her up to her lap. ‘Be good for mommy, the way I will be good for my madam in the city, do you understand?’ Pamela said, the infant placed her head on her sister’s lap, both of their faces now moistened with tears.

Pamela’s mother had packed for her many provisons, she felt like a laden donkey. ‘Make sure you give Aunty Ifeoma some fried fish, and take some for yourself, if you forget she will consume the whole thing, that woman is growing as big as a house.

That afternoon, the driver picked her up at the gate. She looked out of the window, trailing her long fingers on the glass, and watched as her village grew smaller, and further away. ‘Follow God as he follows you’, her mother’s last word resounding spirit – like in her ears….

I recently discovered something startling about myself.

You see, I finally understood why I would almost recoil from a complement paid to me on a day when I did not feel beautiful. Let us not confuse this with outer beauty, because all this requires is a change of clothing or a little pampering and the confidence goes up a notch. No, I am referring to beauty of a different kind; one that is born of a purity of intention and spirit.

Let me explain. Everytime I have ever been acting against the current of my spirit, I have felt ugly. That is not speaking up for myself, disregarding my intuition or letting myself get caught up in, and carry away by, the gust of someone else’s wind. When this has happened, I have usually shut down and inadvertently closed off the life, the creativity within me. So the question then became how could anyone tell me I looked beautiful when I am not behaving beautifully? I was reacting negatively because I could see how I was feeling on the inside.

Yet, on the days where I had crafted works that brought my thoughts to life, I felt more than beautiful. You see it dawned on me that I do not feel beautiful unless I am creating, wielding the weapons I was born with, otherwise I ask you, what is the point?

Beauty is what we make of it, and if it were up to me I would make sure people could see the beauty in their actions, in their words so that it would become a state of being. Then we would share this word and we would mold it for ourselves, and make it anyway we like so that we could coax its true meaning out of its shape and into our hands.

Check out these Michael Jackson inspired auditions for Idols West Africa. Out here he is known as ‘Wacko Jacko’ but clearly to many he is still the ‘King of Pop!’ Look at the judges’ expressions!

I often wonder if people are paid to be this bad, just for entertainment’s sake but then again these are the people who make anything Pop Idols-related what it is. People have always responded to those who make fools of themselves. Worse still are those who completely lack self-awareness for their efforts are often the most earnest. It is a soft form of bullying, after all it is the exploitation of those who are ‘weaker’ albeit in the singing department.