well, here i am in kenya.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7215303.stm – An interesting collection of quotes from Kenyan politicians and world leaders.

Another MP has been shot dead. Eldoret and Kisumu are erupting...the neighborhood around my office is fairly quiet today, so let's hope that's the case throughout Nairobi.

Seems like the MP was with a woman and her husband/boyfriend (who happened to be a POLICEMAN) shot them both. The bad thing is that, even if this is just a love triangle, it's still a policeman killing an MP, which is just not good. Especially now, and especially here.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful sunny day, I didn't have to pay a late fee on my library books because they lost all records that the books were late, and I'm listening to a really excellent Modest Mouse album from Cory and Nathaniel. Yep - trying to be aware of the melting down of the social fabric around me and the terrible plight of thousands of Kenyans, and yet not respond by giving up all hope on life.

http://www.pambazuka.org/actionalerts/comments/862/

This editorial from Business Daily (a weekly Nairobi newspaper owned by Daily Nation) makes some relevant points:
1) The violence in the Rift Valley (and spreading further into Western Kenya and throughout the country) is getting close to no longer being related to the elections at all, but rather hitting on long-standing issues of inequity and perceptions of power imbalance.
2) Kenya needs a new constitution.
3) Ethnic tensions have really blossomed under Kibaki's democratically elected government, in great part because of the electoral process.

Ethnic Violence, the news says, and I know that when I was back in the States I was so confused and horrified by that label, because it implies a people fighting another people for no reason but the blood that runs in them.

But of course, it’s not like that. It’s not like that at all. There is hatred, but it is not pure; it is never pure. There are the power imbalances. There are the injustices, built into the post-colonial system, and there is the simple fact that power breeds power, that money breeds money, that people worked hard and bought land from others. And ultimately, there is the deep knowledge that you have suffered, you have starved; that you need a leg up, and that you are more likely to get there by accepting a hand from above and climbing over the bodies around you, that you have more of a chance by cutting down your neighbor than you ever will by trying to cut down the ones at the top. And that all forms of cutting down are more at your grasp than any kind of building up, because you aren’t the ones who get to build in this country, in most countries.

There is no pure (baseless) hatred, and there is no pure (righteous) justice here. There is just fire, a destructive fire, not a refining fire. It does not matter who won the election any more. It does not matter that there was an election – most people say that they will never vote again, not if this is what happens when they vote. What matters is that both sides have ancient (not so ancient, 60 years is not so ancient) grievances, that both sides have now shed blood, and that fire is so temptingly close.

It is easier to be a pacifist in America. Here, I just feel passive. Of course I am arguing against hate talk, arguing with my co-workers, with my neighbors, with all sides, trying to make them see the injustices on both sides. But I am mostly just…passive. I don’t belong here. I am privileged to be here, I am grateful to be here, but I don’t belong here. I am not part of the solution. I am the elite, part of the untouchables, and what would happen if we were touched anyways? If the people in power – the Kibakis and the Railas and the ex-pats with all their pat solutions and advice – if we were targeted, like an ethnic group? It would not bring down the country’s structures to start again and build something better this time. It would fuel the flames, but it would not be a clean fire.

I believe it is not too late, that the fires can be doused and something whole still salvaged, something more whole built with the pieces that are left. But I am starting to believe this the way that I believe in God.

Lord, I believe; help me in my disbelief.

Ray Downing agreed to let me post an email of his on this blog. Ray and Janet have lived in Upper Rift Valley in Kenya for years now, and have practiced ‘community medicine’ in throughout East Africa and in the States, including New York City. I appreciate Ray's reflections on the situation in Kenya (and I recommend his books, too).

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Yesterday was Epiphany. Epiphany means appearance or manifestation; in the Church, the appearance of Jesus, his manifestation as Messiah, and the revealing that He is not for Israel only, but for all nations. The last week in Kenya seems to demonstrate the reverse, a sort of Devil's Epiphany, the appearance of killing and burning and chaos, the manifestation of evil. It's been bad.
I think there has been an epiphany here, but of a different sort. The question near the surface of so many commentators is, "We expect this sort of thing in Somalia or Liberia or Congo - but how could this happen in Kenya, a country with a stable democracy and such a strong economy?" In fact, the election itself was remarkably close, and orderly - until the tallying. What happened?
One Kenyan commentator said these events exposed Kenya's "thin veneer of civilization", and I think the comment points us in an interesting direction, depending on what we mean by "civilization". If by civilization we mean a strong (Western-style) democracy, then Kenya had that: political parties, free press, campaigns, pre-election polls, elections, the works. All the things we in the rich West have said make up a strong democracy. Were all these just a "thin veneer" in Kenya? What happened?
There is a clue in Kenya's other piece of civilization, the "strong economy". I have been struck by news reports that speak of Kenya as "an east African economic powerhouse with an average growth rate of 5 percent" - and in the same sentence tell us the country still struggles with poverty, without noting the contradiction. Another news report explains: "Although the Kenyan economy grew at a rapid pace, so did economic inequality, resulting in a concentration of wealth in a small oligarchical elite, while most Kenyans earn less than $1 a day." A strong economy that has not confronted and addressed poverty is in fact not a strong economy; it is a "thin veneer" of economic strength. The epiphany is that this has now been revealed.
So what about democracy? The real question is "what about Western-style democracy", the sort we keep insisting on. And again, we sense a "thin veneer" - but we must be careful about concluding that democracy is only a thin veneer here, and that underneath people are fundamentally undemocratic. Quite the contrary. "Kenya," a friend wrote, "has borrowed bits and pieces over the past century or so from the West, and has pasted these fragments together with a glue that does not withstand high political temperatures. It conforms, generally, to all modern sector fragility." What is being revealed in this epiphany is the fragility of Western political and economic "solutions" for Africa.
So where does that leave us? Not with a grand "solution", but only the logical working out of the above epiphany that Western-style political and economic civilization is a veneer here. The obvious question is: a veneer over what? I don't think it's a veneer over the violence we are seeing this week; that violence is simply a sign of the veneer cracking and breaking. Our question remains: what is under the veneer, under the violence? Has it ever occurred to us to look?
By "us" here I mean those Westerners who have worked here, and others who will undoubtedly flock into Kenya now to help: peace teams, negotiators, humanitarian feeding efforts, disease fighting specialists, and the like. There is a clear script for how to help: make sure the displaced people have food and shelter, help them return home when it's safe, document the atrocities, bring those responsible to justice. Yes, that is all important. But I think we have a unique opportunity now to look under the veneer, now that is has cracked. And there are these startling starting-places:
- In a community near here torn by ethnic violence, why would a Luhya woman shelter in her home a Kikuyu woman who had just delivered a baby - knowing that if some in the community found out, her house would likely be burnt?
- When we sang Kenya's National Anthem in church on New Year's Day, my first response was that national politics don't belong in church - until I realized that the Kenya's National Anthem is a prayer set to a traditional African melody.
- And this: why has there been no killing yet in Webuye, where we live? Why, in this Luhya town deep in the heart of western Kenya, are Kikuyu shops remaining open? Why, when some youths from another ethnic group came trying to incite violence, did the youth here refuse?

The answers to Kenya's problems are in Kenya. In fact, God is in Kenya, though sometimes in disguise. One of the best things we can offer Kenya is to look for God here, to document not the atrocities but the epiphanies of God here. The heart of Africa is too rich and too beautiful to be covered by veneers. It's time for us to admit that we have too often only tried to develop and repair these veneers of civilization. It's time to look at what is working well underneath the veneer, and to ask why.

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When I first came to Kenya, I was really struck by how narrow the margins are – cars tear past each other with less than a hand’s breadth space; pedestrians walk across roads by timing traffic perfectly to cross between vehicles. The gap between the rich and the poor may be immense, but the space between us is minimal compared to the States – slums are right next to posh areas. The difference between a good harvest and a disastrous one is one rainfall away. The gap between a live chicken and your dinner is generally always smaller than in the States. Even the thin veneer between life and death seems even thinner here.

I guess I adapted to narrower margins. I walked the streets without getting hit; I rode the matatus without constantly tensing for a crash; I got used to passing desperately poor people as I walked towards the Hilton for yet another government negotiating meeting.

But in the past few weeks I have been struck again by how thin the margins really are. In the formal sector, scores of people have already been laid off – a few weeks of slow business because of protests and political turmoil has left most small and medium businesses crippled and unable to keep on full staff. In the informal sector (newspaper sellers, shoe shiners, folks who sell vegetables and fix cars, make crafts and mend clothes), families are simply going hungry.

At the hiss of a tear gas canister, protesters turn into mobs. A car becomes an inferno. A small business is transformed into ashes. Frustration becomes fury, and the desire to destroy something, anything.

How thin is the line between tolerance and hatred? I’m still not sure. Most of the killing, especially the mass killings at the beginning, was definitely organized, and committed by gangs of young men who were possibly paid by politicians. But still, the anger and vehemence that comes out when I talk politics with folks is breathtaking. At times, it seems like the conflict is only peripherally about whether the election was rigged – rather, it goes all the way down and back to land and resource disbursement during colonialism and during the initial post-colonialism years. And more than the actual initial disbursements would be the perceptions of different communities – of why and how people have acquired land and power.

We're all hoping that something comes out of the "talks" currently happening between the two sides (there is debate whether they are 'mediation' or 'negotiations' or what. Also, the two sides have not yet sat down together - the mediators shuttle back and forth). Uganda's Museveni is here, talking supposedly as a mediator, but compeletely separately from the Kofi Annan- led talks. Well, one way or the other, there needs to be resolution and a strong call for peace and reconciliation.

The situation continues to change each day in Kenya, without any very large shifts. I have been reluctant to write about the current crisis because I still don't have any useful theories about why this is happening, I don't have any ideas of how to go forward towards peace and a just governance system, and I don't know always know what is happening.

I am fine and safe, as are pretty much all ex-pats and the middle and upper classes in Nairobi. In Nairobi, it is the people trapped in Kibera, Mathare, and the other poor settlements who are really suffering.

I liked this article on Pambazuka - http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/45291 "Let us not find revolutionaries where there are none" – this is not about a people's movement being suppressed by an illegitimate ruling government. It is about people with power fighting over power, using a long history of unequal power relations to inflame their supporters (and, yes, paying gangs of young men to kill and burn or to kill and burn in retaliation).

In the meantime, Kenya is suffering a serious economic hit, many farmers' crops have been destroyed and their livestock burnt or stolen, homes are burnt to the ground, businesses are closed throughout much of Kenya. Tensions are beyond stretching point between tribes and yet not between economic classes - Kenya's degree of inequity (gap between poor and rich) is 10th in the world, and is largely accepted within Kenya as how life is and must be.


Ways to Help

MCC is supporting the immediate emergency responses of providing food, clothing, water, etc to the many internally displaced people and will continue to support the initiatives for peace in Kenya. If you can, please support MCC by donating to MCC, earmarked as Response to post-election violence in Kenya ( http://www.mcc.org/donate/)

Before going to ACORD, I worked closely with farmer groups in the Uashin Gishu district, in North Rift Valley, where much of the violence is occurring. Some of the farmers in the Uasin Gishu Small Scale Farmers group have been displaced and their homes destroyed. If you would like to chip in to the pot to help them start over, let me know. This is an informal giving of friends of the farmers, so this would not be tax-deductible.