The ICC is Interrogating a Syndrome
Last week, my comment titled High Noon for Hypocrisy at the ICC provoked interesting responses on social media, including a long email response from one of the readers. Usually, I skim through such emails and quickly press the delete key. But something got my attention in this reader’s argument. He suggested that I should view […]
It is High Noon for Hypocrisy at the ICC
For all the good things the ICC trials are touted to achieve – justice for victims, a blow against impunity, a lesson for aspiring despots – it cannot be denied that it shines an uncomfortably bright light on hypocrisy. It also allows us to view risk and courage and the concept of justice from an […]
Uhuru’s EAC Leadership Opportunity
These are interesting times for the East African Community. There is promise in the air but there is also trepidation. The question being asked is this: will the recent initiative by Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda accelerate EAC’s integration, or will it lead to the community’s disintegration? It is an interesting question given that, on the […]
The labour pains of change
Kap Kirwok 31st August 2013 The torments that have visited Gladys Boss Shollei, the suspended Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, highlight bigger labour pains that the Jubilee Government, as the chief midwife of a new order, will increasingly witness. The two big issues struggling to be born are change and courage. The two must be […]
Stop excuses and start building Africa
African intelligentsia seem to have a strange addiction to Western bashing – public self-flogging. At a recent international event, I heard almost verbatim what I heard at another such event 26 years ago. Back then as at the recent event, the topic was African development. Speaker after speaker talked about how Africa’s resources are being […]
The Great Illusion
The superstitious amongst us are reading patterns – even where none exist – and are asking: what is it with the month of August? They recall such tragedies as the 1998 deadly terrorist bomb attack, the 1982 military coup, the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978; the deaths of politicians Masinde Muliro (1992), Kijana […]
Corruption stories are a cure for irrational exuberance
Do you sometimes, like me, suffer from bouts of irrational exuberance as regards Kenya’s future prospects in the war against corruption? Watching Mumo Matemu take the oath of office as the new Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) boss, I felt a fever of irrational exuberance. Mr. Matemu said, “We shall not tolerate any acts of […]
William Ruto Vs Quantum Physics
Life can be – in fact often is – unpredictable. No amount of mathematical precision or psychic power can perfectly foretell the future. A French mathematician and astronomer called Pierre-Simon Laplace once thought he could predict the behaviour of all particles in the universe …if he knew their positions and speeds. Then came along Werner […]
Dangerous Inequality and Marginalization
That Kenya is an unequal society is not in question. The gap between the few very rich and the many very poor is wide. The 2010 Global Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme ranked Kenya 103 out of the total 169 countries surveyed – making it the 66th most unequal country in […]
Africa should look beyond Obama’s visit
Obama’s visit to Africa elicited varied reactions – as expected. There are those who reacted with indifference, expecting little or nothing to come from the visit. Others received his visit with muted optimism, believing that an America that has its sights trained on Africa through the correct lenses might provide much needed investment and trade […]
