RSA does some really cool animations including my all time favorite video of Slavoj Zizek explaining whats wrong with buying more crap to save the world.

This piece by acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking.

In relating her arguments to what is going on with conversations about Aid to Africa I see ways in which ‘saving’ Africans is often driven by delusional positive thinking. And as non-profiteers we have feed into the delusion.  So often we raise money by telling donors that their $5 will save the world and bring an end to what are, in reality, very complex social problems.

In our race to raise funds we’ve made it ok for anyone to parachute in and begin whatever delusional idea about how to fix what ails Africans.

Ehrenreich has a wonderful critique about the powerlessness of positive thinking which, as she says, “always just envisions you as a lone individual redesigning the world to fit your ideas.”  This individualization and leads us to forget that “we do have power, collective power, which we could use to make changes and end unnecessary suffering in the world.”  Again the point is not to stop acting in the world but to act in solidarity and in collaboration.

To take it a step further, for me part of that collective power means involving the beneficiaries of our ‘help’ and not just the collaboration amongst the donors which is as far as many philanthropic collaborations get today.

Here is the full length video:

Towards the end of her talk at a conference on feminism she asks the audience of presumably White feminists”

How do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your
children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part,
poor women and women of Color?

Whaaat!! Boom! just like that the elephant is there, right in the middle of the room and nobody could ignore it now that it had been named.

I wonder if she was nervous or scared to ask that powerful and personal question. I wonder if she had planned to name the elephant or if the truth just fell out of her mouth before she could stop it.  Just as her daughter had reminded her that,

you’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside

I wonder if that questioning of self identified feminist, who really could and should have been allies in the feminist movement, was pre-planned and strategically thought out or merely the truth punching her in the mouth from the inside and tumbling out.

And she didn’t stop there.  She’s concerned about being elevated and isolated as the gatekeeper for Black feminist thought so she, from the podium, demands of conference organizers and participants:

Why weren’t other women of Color found to participate in this conference? Why were two phone calls to me considered a consultation? Am I the only possible source of names of Black feminists?

How many other people, once elevated to the position of ‘thought leader’ or whatever we choose to label the pedestal, ever have the courage to question the very basis of their elevation?

For me, that is the moment of courage. To question and challenge the very system that has you on top and to demand, from your position at the top, that others be allowed into the room.  And I don’t think its that simple because then there is the question of selling out.  If you retain your space of privilege, that spot at the top, and chose to speak from it aren’t you selling out into the system that created the hierarchy in the first place?  When you choose to occupy a space, doesn’t your very decision to be there mark the space as having your stamp of approval?

Back to Lorde, was showing up at that conference and accepting the speaking position while other women of color were cleaning her fellow conference attendees’ homes an act of selling out?  It all goes back to my ongoing concern about what we do with our power and privilege.

At this point I’m thinking she is not selling out.  Because she was able to use that platform to speak into an audience that would never have stopped to listen to the same critique from their house cleaners and nannies.  Lorde had an opportunity to speak and she used it to give voice to an uncomfortable truth to an audience that would listen to her voice of authority in a way that they wouldn’t listen to the other Black women in their daily lives.

But was there a cost to her?  What price did she pay for being the kind of woman who could speak these painful truths to audiences?  We get a glimpse when she writes of the isolation of standing alone as different:

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled

What courage it must take to be so isolated!

I recently read an article explaining women’s absence in leadership with the argument that when women become leaders they get isolated and that is exactly what girls have been socialized to fear.  So, when standing alone is scary how does one gain the courage to speak the lonely truth?  Where and how can we both learn and teach the courage to speak truth while standing alone?

I’d love to sit with sister Audre and ask her how she did it. I wonder, if she could have forged a different path, would she have? If she could go back, would she choose an easier path?  I wonder about the personal toll it took on her to need to be so brave.

I wonder the same about our sister Wangari Maathai who braved bullets and clubs and hair ripped from her scalp to stand toe to toe with the Moi dictatorship.  What made her do it?  What was she thinking at those many moments when she stood defiant?  Were her hands shaking?  Or did she go into a different place in her mind and shut it all out, focusing only on the truth that needed to be said.  Or did that truth just come knocking her out from inside and tumble out despite her best efforts to conform and be liked?

There are so many women who we let live in isolation and emerge to celebrate after they’ve left us and the sting of their truth has numbed a bit.  I’d love for our Akili Dada scholars to learn the courage to be those truth tellers.  But I also worry for them if they become that brave.  Because there will be a price to be paid.

Statement on British ‘aid cut’ threats to African countries that violate LBGTI rights

We, the undersigned African social justice activists, working to advance societies that affirm peoples’ differences, choice and agency throughout Africa, express the following concerns about the use of aid conditionality as an incentive for increasing the protection of the rights of LGBTI people on the continent.

It was widely reported, earlier this month, that the British Government has threatened to cut aid to governments of “countries that persecute homosexuals” unless they stop punishing people in same-sex relationships. These threats follow similar decisions that have been taken by a number of other donor countries against countries such as Uganda and Malawi. While the intention may well be to protect the rights of LGBTI people on the continent, the decision to cut aid disregards the role of the LGBTI and broader social justice movement on the continent and creates the real risk of a serious backlash against LGBTI people.

A vibrant social justice movement within African civil society is working to ensure the visibility of – and enjoyment of rights by – LGBTI people. This movement is made up of people from all walks of life, both identifying and non-identifying as part of the LGBTI community. It has been working through a number of strategies to entrench LGBTI issues into broader civil society issues, to shift the same-sex sexuality discourse from the morality debate to a human rights debate, and to build relationships with governments for greater protection of LGBTI people. These objectives cannot be met when donor countries threaten to withhold aid.

The imposition of donor sanctions may be one way of seeking to improve the human rights situation in a country but does not, in and of itself, result in the improved protection of the rights of LGBTI people. Donor sanctions are by their nature coercive and reinforce the disproportionate power dynamics between donor countries and recipients. They are often based on assumptions about African sexualities and the needs of African LGBTI people. They disregard the agency of African civil society movements and political leadership. They also tend, as has been evidenced in Malawi, to exacerbate the environment of intolerance in which political leadership scapegoat LGBTI people for donor sanctions in an attempt to retain and reinforce national state sovereignty.

Further, the sanctions sustain the divide between the LGBTI and the broader civil society movement. In a context of general human rights violations, where women are almost are vulnerable, or where health and food security are not guaranteed for anyone, singling out LGBTI issues emphasizes the idea that LGBTI rights are special rights and hierarchically more important than other rights. It also supports the commonly held notion that homosexuality is ‘unAfrican’ and a western-sponsored ‘idea’ and that countries like the UK will only act when ‘their interests’ have been threatened.

An effective response to the violations of the rights of LBGTI people has to be more nuanced than the mere imposition of donor sanctions. The history of colonialism and sexuality cannot be overlooked when seeking solutions to this issue. The colonial legacy of the British Empire in the form of laws that criminalize same-sex sex continues to serve as the legal foundation for the persecution of LGBTI people throughout the Commonwealth. In seeking solutions to the multi-faceted violations facing LGBTI people across Africa, old approaches and ways of engaging our continent have to be stopped. New ways of engaging that have the protection of human rights at their core have to recognize the importance of consulting the affected.

Furthermore, aid cuts also affect LGBTI people. Aid received from donor countries is often used to fund education, health and broader development. LGBTI people are part of the social fabric, and thus part of the population that benefit from the funding. A cut in aid will have an impact on everyone, and more so on the populations that are already vulnerable and whose access to health and other services are already limited, such as LGBTI people.

To adequately address the human rights of LGBTI people in Africa, the undersigned social justice activists call on the British government to:

- Review its decision to cut aid to countries that do not protect LGBTI rights
- Expand its aid to community based and lead LGBTI programmes aimed at fostering dialogue and tolerance.
- Support national and regional human rights mechanisms to ensure the inclusiveness of LGBTI issues in their protective and promotional mandates
- Support the entrenchment of LGBTI issues into broader social justice issues through the financing of community lead and nationally owned projects.

Contact Persons

Joel Gustave Nana, (French and English)
Executive Director
African Men for Sexual Health and Rights
Tel: +27735045420,
joel@amsher.net

Hakima Abbas
Executive Director
Fahamu
Email: Hakima@fahamu.org

Wanja Muguongo
UHAI- the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative
Tel: +254(020)2330050/ 8127535
wanja@uhai-eashri.org

Phumi Mtetwa
phumi10@hotmail.com

Sibongile Ndashe
sibongilendashe@gmail.com

• Academia taught me to think about power and privilege
• There is an ecology of privilege that is systemic.  Slavoj Zizek talks about it being harder to have sympathy with thought than with suffering.  With philanthropy its easier to have a knee-jerk reaction than to sit at the uncomfortable place of contemplating suffering and the possibilities of human agency to alleviate suffering.
• The space between activism (Akili Dada) and Academia has forced me to seriously consider the intersection of power, privilege and philanthropy.

About Power and Privilege:

• Society has a very one dimentional conversation about privilege.
• Looking at me from an American perspective, it would be easy to assume that I hold no privilege.
• I’m Black, a woman, from the third world.  All these things are true and indeed if you were to base your evaluation of me on popular media images of Africans and particularly African women, I’m a miserable creature indeed.
• However, if you take seriously Chimamanda Achidie’s call for a balance of stories you might take a different perspective of me.
• As an educated, professor of Politics at an American university, I do wield considerable class, educational and other privileges relative to the rest of the world’s population.
• You see, the problem is that society as a whole tends to have very narrow views of privilege.
• This narrow view of privilege pervades philanthropy as well.
• On one hand we look at poor people in poor communities and fail to see the ways in which they do wield particular assets.  Even the poor man in the slums of Kibera wields a form of gender privilege.
• Our inability to see privilege as a systemic ecology has lead us to a type of philanthropy that produces disturbing imagery of African as miserable creatures in various stages of death and dying. The recipients of our philanthropy are cast as one dimensional passive victims.
• We fail to allow for the human agency of the recipients of philanthropic aid.
• The other impact of the unsophisticated view of privilege in philanthropy is that philanthropists often wield their own privilege without being aware of its implications.
• Our narrow views grant authority to philanthropists without requiring accountability for the ways they wield their power and privilege.
• The philanthropic ‘industry’ reflects the expansion of racial, gender, and imperial privilege that has largely remained unquestioned.
• For example, women remain surprisingly underrepresented in the ongoing discourse on how to save the world’s women that is en vogue today.
• These are the challenges that unquestioned power and privilege bring to philanthropy.

Philanthropy

• A more sophisticated view of philanthropy needs to recognize not only the shortcomings of how privilege functions within philanthropy, but its opportunities as well.
• The philanthropic relationship is itself an example of using one’s privilege for good.  Funders leverage their financial privilege, and people like me leverage the privilege we wield based on our life experiences and location
• I started Akili Dada as a way to use my own privilege for good.  I had benefited from scholarships for my high school, Undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. education.  These scholarships and the education they made possible opened doors and allowed me access to power and privilege I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
• I frequently found myself the only African or even Black woman in a room sometimes.  Akili Dada was my way to leverage the access that I now had to change the situation.  I wanted to ensure that even where I was the first in the room and at the decision making table, I didn’t stay the only one.  Akili Dada is about holding the doors of access open for other women so that they have a chance as well.
• My question to you is: how are you using your privilege?  That is the hardest question of all.  It is easier to point fingers at how others are using their privilege badly, I certainly fall into that temptation more often than I should.
• But I must always turn the question on myself.  The intersection of academia and activism forces me to ask myself that question
• My answer is that Akili Dada makes possible for there to be a thousand other young African women coming down the pike
• Our mentors leverage their privilege and access by nurturing the scholars
• The scholars leverage their own privilege and access through their community service project
• Our donors and volunteers, especially in the US leverage their gifts and privilege to shift the conversation about Africa and African women.
• How are YOU leveraging YOUR privilege?

I just got back from a shopping trip to the local mall looking for a new hat for my little boy whose life seems one long growth spurt.

I hadn’t been mall shopping in a really long time and what was different this time is that I didn’t feel like looking. The usual stores didn’t hold their appeal and I walked by uninterested.

Now this could be because shopping is difficult with a toddler whose main interest is riding the escalators and elevators over and over again

The main reason,  however, I think is because a few months ago we disconnected our cable service and inherited a Roku Box from my friends.  Because we now watch online tv we have been able to avoid commercials almost entirely.  And it feels like a commercial free life is also one with limited consumption.

Commercials create and feed a desire to buy stuff and by avoiding them, I simply don’t have this hunger to own the biggest and best.  I find myself interested in functionality and willing to pay a bit more to buy one high quality thing that will last me a long time.

Hmmm. Except for shoes.  I can’t get myself to spend more than $20 on shoes so the Payless clearance is still on my list of stops.  But even there its been more than a 6 months since I’ve made a stop.  The cobblers in Kenya who re-sole my worn shoes for $4 a pair keep me happily marching in imitation leather.

Ah the joys of the cheapskate life.

The Sticky Situation Surrounding Plumpy’nut

Afro-Leo is pleased to bring you a guest post by Isaac Rutenberg, PhD, Patent Agent at Bozicevic, Field & Francis LLP in San Francisco, CA, USA.  If you would like to contact Isaac directly, he can be reached at rutenberg@bozpat.com.

Is intellectual property always harmful to poor people? Plumpy’nut has been cited as an example that supports the case against allowing patent rights in matters of humanitarian aid. On the contrary, Plumpy’nut is a shining example of how proper use of intellectual property protections could have significantly enhanced international aid and development work.

A recent article in the NYTimes describes the row that has developed over Plumpy’nut. In short, Plumpy’nut is a revolutionary peanut-based product with the potential to end or significantly reduce severe acute child malnutrition. Developed by Dr. Andre Briend, a “crusading pediatrician” who became tired of traditional (frequently unsuccessful) solutions to acute malnutrition, Plumpy’nut is a simple product that is remarkably effective and practical.

So why the row? Turns out that the Plumpy’nut formulation has been patented in 38 countries, including the US, France, and much of Africa. The owner of the patent, the French company Nutriset, appears to be bent on commercializing not just the miracle product but the entire process of combating acute malnutrition. Nutriset and Nutriset’s collaborators (including a US for-profit company manufacturing Plumpy’nut in New Jersey for distribution to USAID) have defended their approach and their product, taking steps to prevent others from producing similar products. Criticism of Nutriset has been unsurprisingly harsh: non-profits worldwide say that Nutriset is trying to profit on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable children. Inevitably, there is the claim that intellectual property is to blame for this disaster.

I say, not so fast. The NYTimes article says that Nutriset obtained the patent rights because Dr. Briend “signed a consulting agreement” with Nutriset after developing Plumpy’nut, since he “never knew anything about manufacturing food.” This is somewhat vague, but according to a United States Patent and Trademark Office database, Dr. Briend and a co-inventor assigned (i.e., sold) the patent to Nutriset. This left Nutriset entirely in charge of the patent – Dr. Briend has no say in how it is used.

Had Dr. Briend kept control of the patent, things might look very different today. If his intentions were truly humanitarian, he could have used the patent to benefit the public in much the same way that open source software uses copyright protection. Contrary to popular belief, open source software is protected by copyright. The copyright owners (e.g., the software authors) have simply said that they are willing to grant an open license to anyone who would like to use the software, subject to some conditions. One important condition is that any advances made on the software must also become open source, so the software continues to improve but always remains freely available for use. If there was no copyright protection of the original open source software code, the open source system would not work.

Similarly, Dr. Briend should have kept his patent, and used it to ensure that anyone can produce Plumpy’nut. In particular, local producers in the countries that need it most would not then be reliant on USAID or the UN food relief programs as their sole source of the miracle product.

Although the entire story may be more complicated, one should not blame either Nutriset or patents in general for these events. The problem is that intellectual property and the implications of certain acts are often not fully understood by scientists and especially by the general public.

Had Plumpy’nut been developed by a multinational corporation that never made any pretenses of putting humanitarian interests above profit, then there would be a stronger case for mandating government intervention to make the formulation accessible to all. But this appears to be a case where one individual could have taken steps early on to secure patent rights and ensure universal availability of a life-saving miracle product.

I’ve been enjoying Tamaku’s blog, Diary of a Gay Kenyan for a while now so I was thrilled when he posted something (from his experiences currently on vacation in the UK) I thought fit really well with my interests in international aid and development.  ENJOY:

Last week I went out on the town in Newcastle on my own because my hosts were away at a prearranged engagement. It was really windy and cold so I stepped out in a thick jacket, scarf, gloves and faux fur ushanka all wrapped up like a mummy. First stop was Chinatown to line my stomach as you do before any drinking. I got lured by the promise of eat as much as you can for £8 which was good value and most of it was rather yummy. It’s no secret that Chinese domination of the world has been accelerated by buffets of egg fried rice, chow mein and shredded roast duck. And soy sauce.

After the feast I walked towards the Life Centre around that triangle which is home to the city’s gay bars and settled for a pub favourite with bears. Forty minutes later I was minding my own business pretending to cruise when three hunks in kilts joined my table by the window overlooking the sidewalk. I was glad for the company of the three hairdressers from Scotland and we started chatting about nothing in particular, they even bought me a couple of drinks. Oh, by the way did I mention that one of them was black? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it a little odd hearing a Glaswegian accent from a black person.

Shortly the two other guys excused themselves to go outside to smoke. That’s when the black Scot asked me where I lived. I said I’m only here visiting friends, I live in Kenya. He says how cool is that, you speak verrie gurdt Inglish. (Lol. Sorry I can’t do the accent). I answered yes I do but just for the record I speak even better Swahili and two other languages. By this time his compatriots were back, that’s when he asked me whether I had a %^*~@&. I replied sorry I didn’t understand what you just said, what was that again? Obviously I need to work on my Scottish. I think he got my point because he started speaking very slowly: DO. YOU. HAVE. A. BOYFRIEND? I said yes I do have a very beautiful boyfriend, and told them a little about Gee. Curiously ebony Scot wanted to know what colorr George was so I said as black as you and me. That’s when he said don’t take this the wrong way fella but ‘gay Africans are way too needay when it comes to marney. They can‘t seem to stand on their own two feet’….

I pretended to take his offensive comments the right way even though I was seething inside, even his friends looked embarrassed. I know that in recent years ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’ (read foreigner) have become dirty words to many Europeans largely thanks to a slew of articles about benefits scroungers in hugely popular rags aimed at swathes of the population whose reading age hovers around 9. So I asked ‘Field-slave-now-eating-at-the-big-house’, is that your experience? Have you ever dated an African? He said no but a friend of a friend has. Then he added all I know is the people there are starving and dying from aids. I couldn’t hold it any longer so I said to him Oh don’t be ridiculous, you don’t see me saying all Glaswegians are drunk illiterate morons who like to stick dirty needles into their arms. But I said it sweetly because I’m from the land of hakuna matata where ‘jaruos’, ‘kales’, ‘wasepere’ etc still have more than a few issues to sort out. I now accept that some form of bigotry exists inside everyone. Call it preference, type whatever. Also I blame charities who think the only way to fill their coffers are media campaigns showing emaciated and unwashed orphans with runny noses. It doesn’t matter that the kids’ dignity is violated by whoring their images, they are just poor god-forsaken souls from distant lands.

I didn’t even begin to say what I was really thinking. There’s a time and place for debates and I wasn’t in the mood to start a fight which I‘d have lost anyway. So we dropped the subject and some jägerbombs instead (my round) until the stripper came on. Then we just drifted apart to darker parts of the bar where one could get off anonymously. Needless to say I was only a spectator to any monkey business. Before I left the pub I went to the toilet where I bumped into black Mr Kilt. By now he looked a bit worse for wear but he still recognised me as I stood next to him at the urinal. Then without the faintest of warnings he lifted his kilt. I wasn’t too shocked because some gay men can get up to sleazier things in toilets, eh you don‘t want to know. Come to think about it, I’m sure some of you want to know hahaha you’ll have to go and ask George Michael. Anyway I clocked him and appreciated that like a true Scotsman he wasn’t wearing anything under the tartan. Luckily for him there was no one else in the toilets because let me just say that it’s not all true what they say about black men. Even in the dimmed lighting I could see that he was packing mini, or how shall I put it, well below expectations in both length and girth and I’m no size queen. Worse still said appendage was as dead as a doornail.

After I finished peeing I gave mine the customary two tugs and three shakes (always a pleasure) and washed my hands quietly staring at kilted flasher’s reflection in the mirror. Before leaving him alone in the toilets, I said bitchily whilst looking at his needledick, so sorry dear – even Africans aren’t that needy.

Anyway, I was going through books that I read in college (mad props to Bruce and Shampa!) that had a huge impact on me and I came across Ngugi wa Thiong’o's Decolonizing the Mind.  Wow!

I remember reading his words as a young Diasporic African coming into my own sense of political self.  I added excerpts from his book to the signature line of my email and soaked in his words with a purposeful intensity.

I stopped going by Carolyne (yep, thats my former name!) and went back to Wanjiru.  I wore a necklace that spelled out my name to help out those around me.  I was THAT kid in college.

Reading his words these many years later (9 precisely) still gave me goosebumps.  They made me wonder about that young radical I was and where she went.

I fear that graduate school and the Ph.D. in Political Science disciplined the radical clarity out of her.   For those seven years it stopped being about a belief in black and white, clear-cut social justice and had to become about surviving and living though the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  For me, grad school was about trying to be a round peg in a square hole and the scars linger.

After that, the pragmatic needs of running a non-profit took over.  To raise real money in the ‘real world’ has forced me to blunt my razor sharpness as it was perceived as brashness.  Nobody gives money to abrasive  so I had to tone it down if  I had a whisper of a chance to nurture and grow an organization whose cause I deeply deeply believe in.

Listen, I’m not complaining. Mine is darned good life and I’m getting to do the things I love.

And it could well be that being pragmatic and doing what needs to be done is to be radical.

But is that just a rationalizing?

Part of the joy of working with college students is getting to still be part of that zeal, that passionate awareness of absolute right and wrong.  Where the cost of being on the right side isn’t so high.

Either way, sometimes I miss that freedom: to read Ngugi, soak and marinade in the truth of his words, and try to live them out:

The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb.

The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland.

It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle.
Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish. Amidst this wasteland which it has created, imperialism presents itself as the cure and demands that the dependant sing hymns of praise with the constant refrain: ‘Theft is holy’. Indeed, this refrain sums up the new creed of the neo-colonial bourgeoisie in many ‘independent’ African states.

The classes fighting against imperialism even in its neo-colonial stage and form, have to confront this threat with the higher and more creative culture of resolute struggle. These classes have to wield even more firmly the weapons of the struggle contained in their cultures. They have to speak the united language of struggle contained in each of their languages. They must discover their various tongues to sing the song: ‘A people united can never be defeated’.

Future blog posts: On playing ‘native informant’ and wearing my ‘African costume’ for public presentations.  What to wear is complicated when you are so keenly aware that your body is the site of so much identity construction.  Wearing a suit vs. a bold African print seems such a political statement!

It was a tremendous honor to share the stage with the Consul-General Amb. Dr. Wenwa Akinyi Odinga Oranga, her Deputy Mrs. Jane Miano Mugweh and the Hon. Minister for Health Services Dr. Anyang’ Nyong’o.

My speech focused on Kenya’s need to transition from a state to a nation:

I made the contention that while A Nation is people who are believed to or deemed to share common customs, origins, and history, the term state refers to the set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory and population.

In 1963 Kenya took on the instruments of statehood but the journey to nationhood is ongoing.

The colonial project deployed ‘divide and rule’ to construct Kenya’s ethnic groups as separate nations.  That colonial hangover lingers today and the challenge of the second republic is to build not just institutions but a public culture that can help us overcome our ethnic enclaves.

While the stipulations of the new constitution lay a legal framework upon which we can work on building the Kenyan nation, it is up to individual Kenyans to act and breath real life into the nation.

I offered concrete actions that Kenyans, particularly Kenyans in the diaspora, can take:

1. Stop talking crap.  How many times do we out in the diaspora participate in the besmirching of our country’s image by choosing to share only the negative?  From lies that help us get the coveted legal papers so we can stay abroad, to allowing ourselves to be deployed by dubious charities as examples of Africans who have escaped the hell hole that is the continent.

My point is not that we shouldn’t tell the truth about the challenges Kenya faces, but rather we should tell the whole truth.  We need to break beyond telling and reconfirming only the single story of Africa. We should also be talking about Ushahidi, Kencall, Akirachix, and all the other incredible innovations and businesses and growth happening in Kenya!

2. Expand your idea of ‘watu wetu’ (our people) to include Kenyans from beyond your ethnic community.  Part of building a nation is expanding our reach and hugging those who the colonial and post-colonial madness has taught us to hate.  There is precedent for expanding our circle, in most Kenyan communities the family unit is not the nuclear one but rather is constructed to include all manner of ‘strangers’ and ‘others’.  I argue that building the Kenyan nation calls for us to push our limits even further s as to include members of other ethnic communities as part of the circle of ‘watu wetu’.

3. The most efficient and effective way to expand the meaning of ‘watu wetu’ is to invest in young people.  Acknowledging the tremendous wealth transfer from the Diaspora to Kenya, and that much of the money goes to pay for loved ones’ school fees, I challenged the audience to move beyond paying school fees for a child within their family and extend that same generosity to a child from a different part of the country.  Take the time to travel out of your home community, go to a local high school and ask for a list of children who are on the verge of dropping out of school for lack of school fees.  Make a dent in that debt then walk away.  Its not about getting thanked. Its about having the privilege to give.

Building a nation is not about the grand actions, it is about the small selfless acts by individuals that accumulate and eventually change the way we relate to each other.

We need to invest in each other and in our collective future.  That is how to breath life into the nation and build on the promises of the new constitution.

Harambee Foundation Jamhuri Day Celebration

Saturday December 11, 2010

PROGRAM

Welcome Guests onies

• Edwin Okong’o, Master of Ceremonies
• Kenyan National Anthem
• Mr. Johnson Mbugua, Harambee Chairman.

Immigrant Rights Panel

• Mr. Samuel Maina Ouya, Immigration attorney.
• Adoubou Traore, African Advocacy Network.

The Second Republic: Explaining Kenya’s New Constitution

• Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, University of San Francisco.

• Amb. Dr. Wenwa Akinyi Odinga Oranga, Consul General, Kenyan Consulate, Los Angeles.
• Hon. Dr. Anyang’ Nyong’o, Minister for Medical Services, Govt. of Kenya.

Closing Remarks Vote of Thanks

• Professor Teresia Hinga, Santa Clara University.

Dance! Dance! Dance!