WAR JOURNALISM: KENYA’S NEWEST TOURIST ATTRACTION
Written by Kwani · January 23, 2008
By SIMIYU BARASA
The chaos in the peaceful country Kenya has sent everyone blaming fingers on everyone else. The media in particular has been at the forefront of throwing accusations at the Electoral Commision Chairman Samuel Kivuitu for ‘irregulaties’ during elections, the President, Mwai Kibaki for ‘stealing votes’, and some accusing Raila Odinga of being nothing short of a terrorist. But the Media has not asked itself what role it is playing in fermenting this chaos, and better still, how it contributed to all this chaos in its coverage prior to the elections, during the elections, and in this undefinable times since what it calls ‘Post Election Violence’ started.
The local media, in cahoots with international media, has created the latest tourist attraction package for Kenya: War Journalism. As tourists take the first flight out of their African Safari, foreign journalists have trooped in, each with eye and camera lens eager to beam to the world the latest pictures of Africa’s violence in a tone that reads: ‘if Kenya of all the places can go to such violence, then the Rwanda Genocide trait must be genetic to Africans.’
What is going on in parts of Kenya now is not civil disobedience or acts of protests due to the election debacle. It might have started like that, but what we are seeing now is well trained militia hunting members of opposite tribal backgrounds for elimination-not even forced migration. We are seeing pregnant women being thrown off multi-storey buildings for belonging to particular ethnic backgrounds. Children who sought refuge in a church with their mothers being burnt alive. Residential estates being cleared off tenants of certain ethnic backgrounds. In short, Ethnic cleansing. The foreign journalists know that this is what is happening, and are here in droves to send back the story. Their excitement waned for a moment, but is now back. The media, for all its great work, can’t escape the same kind of scrutiny that it is turning onto every institution and individual in trying to make sense of all this.
For the local media, it was obvious they had taken sides during the period leading to the elections. Which is not a bad thing, since media independence and impartiality is a theoretical frame work good for passing your Journalism school exams but not good in real life practice. Fox News is the mouthpiece for the Republican America in as much as the national Broadcaster in Kenya is a government mouthpiece.
The Kenyan media houses-audio visual and Print-went out of their way to give coverage to political statements of whomever they fancied during the campaign periods. Even when such sentiments were thinly veiled sentiments firing up tribal hatred. The result of this was tribal prejudices, which were not exactly dead but dormant like a virus, came to be regurgitated. Political ‘analysts’ went as far as looking at which tribe would support who, and for local MPs, which clan they came from and which long running vendetta since the migration of that tribe to that area would bar this and that clan from supporting a member from the other clan. Armchair political analysis was excused by ‘but this is how it is, this is the reality on the ground.’ By reporting on a story, the press fanned embers into a fire.
So obvious was it that certain National broadcasters and media houses would not be allowed to cover certain politicians and events. Media houses fired staff belonging to the opposing tribe, and filled their positions with their own, just to ensure that ‘the editorial policy was followed’ in a Nazi like Aryan supremacy kind of mentality and cleanliness. Politicians knew who to buy, who to bribe, who to grease. Politicians are on record barring ‘enemy’ media houses from covering their events, and inciting citizens against them. In retaliations, the houses each went overboard in demonizing the other’s political affiliations which meant tribe. Even before ethnic violence broke out in Kenya, Ethnic cleansing was underway in Kenyan media houses: of staff, and more so, of coverage.
So bad was it that even when violence broke out, certain media houses couldn’t cover it adequately. It isn’t suprising that Salim Amin, a respectable Kenyan journalist, on being interviewed on Al Jazeera (Thursday Jan 17th 2008, Witness), said, “journalists were too steeped in their political inclinations meaning that citizens were against certain stations thought to favour particular political leanings,” and “for the first time in Kenya, it was easier to have foreign journalists doing what is a local story”
Once foreign journalists came to the scene, things changed. Kenya, by virtue of its geographical location, physical landscape and capitalistic policies that have been pro-West during the cold war, is a country whose people and policies are afflicted by the ‘Tourism Mentality,’ a grave mental disease. Tourism is our livelihood, so even if elephants kill human beings in Meru, touch them not since ‘tourists won’t come and we won’t have foreign exchange earnings’. Our athletes run in Europe Circuits (and more recently Quatar) and become celebs before they tire out and come back home burnt out and that is when we mere locals get to know them. Coffee and tea is grown for ‘export’ so don’t drink grade 1 coffee, we need to export it to Europe. Allow US troops to train your armed forces so as to ‘provide a base for anti terrorism in Somali and Middle East.’ Hotels at the coast can only serve the native you with a smile during the ‘off peak season’ since they are geared to tourists only. Infact, we even have a tourist police unit, and one tourist killed in a highway gunfight with thugs makes it to prime time news complete with the Police Boss swearing to ‘not leave any stone unturned’ while dozens of Kenyans are killed daily with no hue or cry.
Our visibility, together with our developed communication network means anything happening in Kenya gets the West’s attention faster and in bigger quantities than other African areas. So when violence breaks out, the whole world sits up and listens.
On December 29th 2007, marauding Kenyan youths hunted down people of particular ethnic backgrounds and killed them, despite having stayed with them as neighbours for long. A day later Mwai Kibaki was declared president and faster than Marion Jones winning the Olympic hundred metres propelled by steroids, he sworn in as the president. Woe unto you if you belonged to his ethnic tribe.
The local media gulped it like hot news but hours later realized that this was no longer a joke in media offices. This was Rwanda unraveling. All talk of ‘we the media just report reality and don’t create reality’ was forgotten.
The media realized that the scenes of ethnic animosity they were reporting were actually fuelling more violence and deaths. Even after the government banned ‘live coverage of events,’ journalists went further and ‘self censored’ themselves, actively making decisions to give the grissly images a blackout, and creating a cry for peace under the banner ‘Save Kenya.’ A historical thing happened: All Media houses had front line pages and hastily prepared clips calling for peace, and even shared an editorial across them. For a day or two, the press practiced what the Norwegian Scholar John Galtun, called ‘Peace Journalism,’ a concept that is peace oriented, truth-oriented and more importantly, solution oriented. The Nigerian journalist, Oma Jebah, maybe having seen what violence has done to his country, has aptly covered the concept in action in the paper he presented in South Africa in 2006 titled “ The Role of Peace Journalism in Africa: The Nigerian Experience.” In the paper he quotes Galtung saying the media, through its coverage of conflicts, can deliberately or inadvertently promote conflicts as well as encourage peace in order to “reduce human suffering, increase human happiness.” ( John Galtung: Peace Journalism-A Challenge” in Wilhelm Kempf and Heikki Luostarinen(eds.)
For a day or two the killings went down. Kenyans realized that we were bleeding to death and were in dangerous grounds. However the international media rushed in like dogs on smelling blood. They beamed picture of dead bodies and people hacking each other to death, and the tourism bug hit again. Youths clearly posed for international journalists wielding machetes and chanting war cries in choreographed sequences. When mass demonstrations were called for, I witnessed a procession on Mbagathi way. The youths were docile, while anti-riot police whiled their way a hundred or so metres away from them.
The moment international journalists arrived in their combat jackets written press, the youths rose up, posed and yelled as the journalists clicked away and zoomed in closer. The youths became bolder, stoning the police knowing international outcry would follow if they were beaten up. A perfect case of camera CREATING STORY.
The moment these were beamed on Al Jazeera, the following day street violence escalated. In daytime people ran the streets and in the evenings ran to entertainment dens to see if ‘they appeared on television.’ People bought newspapers the following day to make cuttings of pictures in which they had appeared.
The Kenyan media forgot its peace mission. It went back to out-doing each other in sensationalizing a crucial issue. A media house filmed armed police guarding a round-about of a main road so as to repulse youths using it to gain entry to the city centre for demonstrations. Just because the City Mortuary was in the vicinity, the reporter went to file the story as ‘police guarding the Mortuary to prevent people gaining entry into it’ and clipping it with another article to insinuate the morgue was full of people shot by police. Of course, Major General Ali, the Police Commissioner, himself a former Army Brigadier, went ballistic against the media. “The US itself never showed grizzly images in the post 9-11 period!” he begged.
The main political antagonists realized they were in the eyes of the world, since Kenya was making headlines beating Benazhir Bhutto’s assassination and Iraq war in all international channels. Suddenly, the politicos were no longer talking to Kenyans slaughtering each other. The world was their arena. BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ became a favourite, and Al Jazeera and of course CNN. Positions that had softened hardened overnight once video conferencing cables were set up. Instead of talking peace in Kenya, they breathed fire on each other much to the delight of the world. Look how Africans go for each other’s jugular. To cement such interviews, dead bodies and burning villages were needed in plenty. And the locals succumbed, playing to the international gallery as the country sunk.
Once people know that they have the media’s attention, they go into posturing mode, whether with a rose flower, a machete, or a human skull. When Congo rebels realized that killing human beings wasn’t garnering them world attention, they threatened to kill the Silverback Mountain Gorillas. All the western media ran to them, to see if they were bluffing. With such attention, they indeed killed coz they realized only by killing would the journalists flown in continue to stay and give them coverage. Plane hijackers operate on the same posturing urge.
Politicians rejected Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu as a peacemaker. He wasn’t big enough. Jet him out, we want the United Nations. No, we will take you to the Hague. Its Ok, but let African Union Chair, Ghana’s president John Kuffuor, fly in. No, we want Condoleeza Rice! Kuffuor flew out exasperated. Ok, Condoleeza sends a rep. Is she big enough? Ish Ish!! Ok, we will settle for Koffi Annan, at least the initials UN Secretary General always follow his name, even if qualified by the adjective ‘Former’. Come on guys, solve your problems locally-the guy has a cold he cant travel and maybe get an even worse strain of flu from your country. No. We are the latest Tourist Attraction. Only international figures guaranteed to have CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera star presenters as part of their entourage will satisfy us.
Facts and figures are changing depending on which station. One media house would report that Nairobi streets were peaceful, while another would give updates using repeated clips to show how the City and other parts of the country had turned into battle zones. When Kipkelion chaos broke, NTV on 20th Jan stated in its 7pm bulletin, (in the National and more listened to Swahili bulletin) that the area had come back to peace after recent inter-ethnic clashes left twenty people dead. KTN, another media house, reported that the area had ‘exploded into violence after police arrested people alleged to be looters, sending residents on revenge attacks where ten people are dead.’ So which is the truth? Was the area peaceful or not? Were the dead ten or twenty? Were the deaths as a result of police action or people targeting certain ethnic communities?
The international media drew parallels with Rwanda. More journalists jetted in. Beaming more violence. What had begun as acts of civil disobedience had actually turned out to be well planned ethnic cleansing, rapes and urban thuggery. But the media were and are not concerned with the effects. Just the figures and images.
Terminologies have changed: Vandalisers have been called ‘peaceful demonstrators’ even in Television footage which shows them breaking into supermarkets and looting fridges television sets and food. Youths armed with huge machetes and throwing clubs, stoning police and throwing petrol bombs at police and even taunting them with chants of ‘shoot us, shoot us’ have been called ‘peaceful demonstrators whom police used excessive violence while dispersing’. Police shooting live bullets at point blank range ‘are using minimum force to restore order.’ People running from organized, marauding warriors torching everywhere certain ethnic groups are seeking refuge including churches have been called ‘internally displaced citizens running from chaos that has rocked their areas as pro-opposition youths expressed their discontent at the results of the presidential elections’!
In the international Court of Justice at The Hague, people who similarly burnt others in churches in Rwanda are being charged with specific titles like “Crimes Against humanity, Genocide, Inciting Genocide.”
Peace is needed in this country and the media has to encourage it or be accused in the Hague too for knowingly fanning violence. It is in times like these where theoretical frameworks of media independence need to be judged on the human reality. In the Iraq war, there are no bloody body bags or wounded soldiers seen on American TV. Everything is sanitized and clean-including the boxes bearing dead soldiers. So flowery it makes every American youth dream that their country has gone to Iraq to deliver flowers to those unfortunate Iraq children. Anything shown on the contrary on Al Jazeera is quickly explained by US media as ‘Collateral Damage’ or ‘regrettably due to Bad vision in the dark desert nights.’ As if it is an Arabian Nights romantic movie.
Conflicts create deaths including those of five year old girls burnt en-masse in a church. But others gain from them. The warlords gain supremacy through fear. And journalists get employed. In huge numbers. Iraq war alone has created room for about 7,000 journalists stationed in Iraq and the surrounding states of Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey and Israel. But it can also create a sense of hope. The US has practiced this due to experience.
Just like in the US where the Military forced journalists covering the Iraq war to report ‘US friendly’ stories in exchange for rides on fighter planes as the US went bombing and thus granting them ‘breaking news’, (and the threat of losing this accredition if you report what would be seen as demeaning the US,) journalists during periods of conflict create another war back home: The war of public opinion that can further escalate the armed conflict or erase it. If a people don’t support a cause, it fails. It’s the way journalists cover this cause that makes people perceive it and chose to allow it to continue happening. This is where journalism therefore creates situations rather than ‘reports situation just the way it we found it.’
All the American stories , from Afghani war, to 9-11, to the Katrina, to the Iraq war, are about Hope. About soldiers like Private Jessica Lynch who allegedly (but actually never really) fought bravely until captured by Iraq forces, but was saved in an American commando raid. About people who lost their relatives in Twin towers but now are stronger and know ‘he is smiling at me from above as a star’. About heroes like the firemen who went into the building to rescue even when they knew they would die. The outcome has spiraled to films and TV series like ‘Heroes’, ‘24,’ ‘Twin Towers’ and Jerry Bruckheimer’s ‘Profiles from the Frontlines’. The Kenyan situation will spiral later into documentaries of burnt villages, charred corpses, and ‘how a City in the Sun, the only island of peace in an African full of war, finally succumbed to ethnic violence just like its neighbours Rwanda and Somalia’ all this said with a cheer-leaders pitched voice of a white journalist standing in the beauty of the receding African sunset at the edge of the RiftValley, where the orange hue covering the silhouetted ranges of the Longonot are defined as ‘symbolic of the fiery beauty that Kenya contrasts itself in: beauty that can erupt into fire and blood anytime…’
Kenya is at war with itself. Any journalist covering it has to be clear: You are either for war or for peace.
All media houses have become cheerleaders in this war, cheering as their generals declare war on other generals whom they can’t really hit and so tell their foot soldiers to kill innocent Kenyan citizens by virtue of the terrible curse of which language your father seduced your mother with en route to you being born. The less pleasant job of questioning official policy, opposition strategy, and what vision our leaders have as concerns this violence has been thrown out of the window.
Politicians are being given lee way and extreme coverage to hold this country at ransom. No one is doing enough human interest stories about the ordinary people who are bearing the pains of this senseless chaos. As Philip Seib , in his book, ‘The Global Journalist’, argues; it is morally wrong for journalists to stand by and watch innocent children being slaughtered, women raped, children being maimed and refuse to “to prod policy makers for action to stop the genocide through incensive, investigative and consistent reports which draw public pity and attention.”
What we have is an international and local media intent on seeing more violence since they love ‘War journalism.’ Again, a huge quote from Omah Jebah in his peace journalism paper. “The low road, by far dominant in the media, sees a conflict as a battle and the battle as sports arena and gladiator circus. The parties, usually reduced to the number 2, are combatants in the struggle to impose their goals. The underlying reporting model, often very visible, is that of a military command: who advances, who capitulates short of their goals; counting the losses in terms of nos. killed, wounded, and material damage. The zero-sum perspective draws upon sports reporting where “winning is not everything, it is the only thing”. The same perspective is applied to negotiations as verbal battles: who outsmarts the other, who gets the other to say yes; who comes out closest to his original position. War journalism has sports journalism, and court journalism!, as models.”(Galtung, In Wilhen Kempf and Heikki Luostarinen,(eds), 2002).
Unless we are saying that War Journalism is the latest tourism attraction package Kenya has to offer to the world.
(Simiyu Barasa is a film-maker and prose writer. He was once a TV journalist until he realized he could actually do the same job description by being a fiction writer and making fictional films. He is a member of the Coalition of Concerned Kenyan Writers hoping to use their writing to help ease the Kenyan situation.)
Wonderfully written piece,could not have said it better.
Though your article captures alot of what is happening in Kenya i would like to dispute the fact that by “sexing up” news, the facts get forgotten.Despite the american media trying to potray a positive image about the war in Iraq, the reality on the ground is that the people know.They know how bad it is, and for this reason the citizens are against George bush and his republican party.The last time i checked his rating was at its lowest ever of 32% and many people opposed the war.
My point is that the media should be the people’s eye on the ground.Am not in riftvalley but i want to hear and see what my fellow countrymen are feeling seeing and doing.If 20 houses were burned then 20 houses were burnt!!!that fact cant be changed even if it was “flowered”.The problem as you aptly put it, is that media houses have chosen sides.
That is the problem.Who do you choose?thats the question.That is why i avoid watching evening news as a rule nowadays because as you flip through channels the same stories have varied story lines that make you wonder.
In some houses, you find people watching a certain channel for news because it just beams images of “their” people affected by riftvalley.This breeds anger and cynism yet they dont want to hear “their” people in retaliatory attacks in our city…..just a food for thought.
Now i understand why you left journalism for fiction writing.
again, good piece of writing.
very well said, you are a real reporter.
i wish this can go to the press. is there a way?
i personally wrote to the cnn, bbc24, aljazeera, human rights office, nation and standard. it was very stresseful to see how the media people were biased.
on the ODM STRATEGY BUYING THE MEDIA WAS ONE STRATEGY, link - ODM STRATEGY -http://pichavision.org/files/Strategy_ODM.pdf
IS this not true now.
Somethimes when journelist get killed i dont mind because they will be responsible for many deaths. Here in london a few have died in iraq
they do not promote peace but incite violence.
Thank God our gorvernment had banned the mediah.
Raila seeks attention by calling europeans and americans as if they can force kibaki to step down.
To hell with them.
The other day we called the house of commons and asked meg munn to explain what she meant by saying they dont recognise kibaki as president.
Evil woman, we told her we will complain because she is inciting more violent in kenya.We’ve already complained to the human.
Do they care whether black people die or live? never.
what is their interest?business only.
theirs is divide and Rule and Raila is their puppet.
What i dont understand is why they take so so long to sue Riala and Ruto for genocide acts.
Raila is also link to al qaeda brother Ali Bakari - link RAILAS SOURCE OF WEALTH
http://www.nysun.com/comments/54865#sendcomment
please can we have these issues addressed.
What an Interesting submission Mr Barasa. It’s funny that you’ve written it, just came off the phone with a pal in Belgium and we joked about the same thing…but it is sadly true!
This article rambles on and on about respectful journalism and ends by taking sides and blaming the opposition for the troubles that were initially started by Kibaki not conceding defeat and handing over power respectfully. These people (the electorate) whom he refers to as “thugs, propagating ethnic cleansing…” in his words, are actually protesting to the fact that they queued for hours in the hot sun, with no water or toilet facilities in prder to vote for change and made massive statements (voting out 20 of Kibaki’s ministers, all 3 of Moi’s sons….) only to be shown that their constitutional rights are no longer valid!
What one misses here is…..did Raila, Ruto et al send police and GSU to shoot people in Kisumu and western parts of the country? Who is the commander-in-chief of the Kenyan forces in general? Did Raila “buy” these troops as well? How come there is no mention of Ugandan troops’ presence in the country….have they been invited by Raila and co to create havoc and mayhem in the opposition strongholds? Can someone more intelligent than I please tell us…
People fail to notice that most of the deaths have been caused by police action in western Kenya. That we will not forget. I think a lot of water has passed under the bridge, and, a divorce is imminent.
When some constituencies had turnovers of over 100%. How could results from Turkana, Marsabit, Budalangi and Kuria arrive before results from Juja and Kiambaa (3 days!).
I know being from western Kenya, I am seen as an animal. That is why I want to live with my fellow animals. May be the great people in Central Kenya live alone, then there will be peace.
We do not have to kill each other, if, we are not happy everybody can go their way. Look at the management of the major media house in Kenya to know where the trouble lies.
I think that the problem with society today is that we have decided to hand over responsibility of our own common sense to others, that way we always have someone to blame for what goes wrong in our world and our lives.
In the perfect world politicians are representative of the people, the true measure of a country’s wealth is its people, and not the GDP and journalistic integrity is intact with the realization that words may shape reality.
Well guess what, it is not a perfect world.
Journalism has become a ratings game and don’t flatter yourselves by thinking that the international media has you in mind- The international media houses are no better than our own, with single person ownership of several news sources, and more responsibility towards corporations than to the truth, why should they care what happens in Africa- for so many people in the international scene, Africa is reported as one large unfortunate country, where many black folk live in poverty and are thankful for the occasional celebrity to jet in and adopt one of our many kids.
At home, the good journalists are those that are close to the politicians and are pro-elite- these are the journalists that get the good stories. A journalist cannot be in bed with the politicians and then turn back around and bite the hand that feeds him or her - journalism and media houses that are close to politicians have been, and will forever be tools for elite propaganda The fact is for every story that is in the news has a slant- there is always an agenda, but one has to think for themselves to see what is being sold to them in the form of news.
Yes, Kibaki is in the wrong, Yes Raila is also in the wrong, Yes the media has a responsibility to be unbiased in its reporting, Yes, the country is burning up with unleashed frustration and anger- and then i have to ask, what it the point in throwing more parrafin on a situation that is already burning out of control. Please, show me one single politician in this melee that has a perfect record and that has done absolutely everything in their power to prevent the unnecessary blood shed in Kenya,- if not and they are all as guilty as the next guy so lets not go casting stones lest we get hit by a ricochet.
Nice article but there is a very important point that is being missed…what is really the cause of the problem? It might sound cliche but where there is no justice there will never be peace and therefore even if the media decide to preach peace, nothing much changes as long as aggrieved parties perceive that there is no justice. Yes, an artificial peace may prevail, even for another 5 years but it just becomes a time-bomb waiting to explode. The ‘media’ as an institution may profess to be neutral but the media is made up of people like you and me, with their interests or serving certain interests so in reality it is never neutral, and some would argue it ought not be neutral. it ought to be on the side of ‘what is right’, whatever that means. I think the country should take this challenge as an opportunity to right perceived wrongs…which in the end are bigger than Raila and Kibaki if we want to survive as a nation…and the media (meaning writers like Barasa) should be at the forefront of pushing this agenda, despite the artificial peace that might emerge now…or else we shall explode again, and I can assure you it will be worse!
Hi a MERU can!
Thanks, glad that you liked the piece. Barasa
PETER,thanks for your sentiments. Points taken, thoufh I am suprised that your interpretation of the article is that i am laying blame on certain personalities, my blame is squarerly on the Local and international media sensationalising issues and excarbeting the crisis when they can create peace.
RONALD, MARGARET, FAVE OF BG, JOANNE, CHARLES,
thanks, the point is to stimulate exchange of ideas and that is exactly what you have done, lovely. I guess the onus is on us to figure out how best to adress justice without inflaming emotions by creating a peaceful atmosphere while doing so. Thats not to mean that i subscribe to creation of ‘artificial peace’, just that even as we spew forth truths, statistics and opinions in the search for justice, we be careful in the angles we adopt as no need for people to lose lives this senselessly.
As anyone who has looked at war knows, (even the International Human Rights has such clauses in its adressing of combatants,) one should direct agression at enemy installations, not civilians. No need to kill civilians just coz they belong to certain tribes. And civil disobedience is an art, a philosophy, that has strategy and takes into considerations how best to go about it. Not just an emotional burst of anger and violence. Martin Luther King, Mahatma, Mandela, all have proved this to us. Why cant we use PROPER CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, even in the media circles?
BArasa
Well, Barasa, Civil disobedience is a luxury we can not afford. Again, I abhor the killing of anybody. But,The local media have collaborated with the government to disenfranchise Kenyans. The elections were rigged, but very few media houses if any have come out to say that. You included. That, inflames some of us. When our votes do not count. Then we do not want to be led by a government that we did not elect.
You are looking at the issue from a privileged pedestal and I might be, too. You describe an ideal situation of civil disobedience etc. But the reality is, after listening especially to ethnic FMs, reading blogs, looking at my own heart. I am sorry to say peace at all costs and mostly peace through separation of some people. Separation happens, It happens, sometimes with violence (Indo-Pak, Pak-Bangladesh, the Balkans etc) sometimes peacefully (Czech-Slovak). The various comments on this blog are indicative of the fact that we are poles apart as Kenyans.
The election was just the final pull that yanked the plug of nationhood now we a going down the drain. CTD (circling the drain), but the nation is over.
But pray, tell me, what is proper civil disobedience?
It is so sad that we as humans get so caught up in differences that we limit each others potential because that is all we see. An eye for an eye- when will it all end. I have read the blogs too, and I think that for every negative and hopeless comment ( in my mind anyway) there are several others that are calling for something greater to come out of this - more than artificial peace.
And who then is responsible for ensuring that we learn from this and create something stronger from the destruction that has been wrought. I think that the responsibility lies squarely in the hands of all of us who have lived through this either as survivors - or perhaps even as privileged, middle class spectators.
Proper civil disobedience first asks us to step outside the box of our predictable anger and hate and strive with equal determination and vehemence for true freedom. Mahtama, Martin Luther King - all these leaders transcended their basal need and saw their freedom tied to the freedom of every individual in their society, they also remembered that the people who were persecuting them were misguided, oppressed, but more than that they were still human.
There has to be hope BG, there is always hope.
Excellent piece Barasa nice job. You have told it like it is.
MARGARET
Poinitng fingers won’t help anyone it will always be back and forth. I long for the day Kibaki and his mafia will be scrumbling in jail for all the under table deals they have made. In short, think beyond yourself and tribe, true politics is a dirty game and no one is an angel- all the 200 plus M.P’S can attest to that. It is high time that those watching from the sidelines like us told our leaders they are not doing anything good. If anything, Moses Wetangula’s official vehicle was caught with 100 pangas sometimes last year and he is in government wow!
True BG, the elections is what pulled the trigger of a loaded gun before the elections took place. People were tired of open nepotism and grand corruption- what made Githongo come to London! unless this issues are resolved “partial peace” is what will exist you’ll be sure it will take years before this is resolved.
Here is a good idea in the spirit of civil disobedience, we vote out each and every m.p and their cronies then let someone like PLO LUMUMBA with his gift of a gab unite Kenya once more and do away with Kibaki, Michuki, Raila, Kalonzo, Kivuitu………….. mmmh just a thought!
FAVE, JOANNE, MO,
Great points you have raised there. I am one person who at the moment really feels that peace supercedes everything, despite my political beliefs. That is why i shocked myself to harbouring the sentiments in the article, instead of crying wolf and laying fingers of blame on everything or nothing. Civil disobedience? Ha! That would require lots of words, so let me just say you guys have inspired me to write another article on what exactly is peaceful civil disobedience. It might end up with some guys thinking that i am calling for it, (which i assure you at this Kenya at Naivasha Crisis point, i think we have more pressing problems to call for) but well, these three weeks have really shocked us all and made us review our philosophies and beliefs in a stunning way, hasnt it? So will mail a view soon. Thanks guys!
THERE HAS TO ALWAYS BE HOPE. AND KENYA HAS GREAT AMOUNTS OF IT, IF ONLY WE CAN FEED ON IT AND NOT INFLAMATORY POLITICAL RHETORIC.
Barasa
Hi Mr. Barasa,
thanks for this piece, explains very well how the media works.
It has something to do with education, with access to other medias then governement-friendly newspapers, TV and so on. As long as people don’t have access to any other than the medias you have described above, they won’t find out the truth. They will be manipulated and used.
I am very thankfull that we find papers like Kwani?, which helped me a lot getting more information from Kenya, from a kenyan perspective, than only german TV and radio. Which of course followed immediately the genocide propaganda and compared this without any critical question to the situation in Rwanda in the 90s (which is bullshit).
But this is a very privileged situation, and experience in Germany also shows that people do have access to find more specific informations about anything in the internet, in some excellent papers, BUT what they do is watching stupid news on TV from private channels, which follow the system you described in your article.
People here, they DO HAVE THAT CHOICE to get deeper informations than just that sort of “Violent Raids in Kenya!”
BUT they choose the cheap sensation of violence, of seeing blacks killing other blacks, Their world is devided into “us” and “them” and they are not really interested in what is really going on. You might have met them here and there because they very often come as tourists to your country, sitting in a fort-like-hotel-resorts, watching disney-land-like-african-evening-entertainment, throwing arround cheap money, driving with a safari jeep through your cities, they don’t dare to walk on their own feet along the streets.
So don’t blame the media, blame also the users, the costumers, who pay for this desinformation.
Regards from Berlin
Dear Simiyu,
I agree with Ronald that this is a very well-written piece. It is unfortunate that the masses out there do not have the opportunity to access the Internet to be able to appreciate such pieces.
On numerous occassions, my friends and I have discussed the role of the Kenyan media in our country. However much journalists are entitled to their choice, the job is too special for them to take sides. What would happen if say the US soldiers in Iraq were divided along two different lines of thought as regards the relevance of the war? Would this not bring about a breakdown in authority and potentially escalate the violence there to unimaginable levels. This view also holds true for the media. In Kenya the media has a role in nurturing this young nation and guiding our agenda for the well-being of the nation. And I think that the way to start is by identifying good leaders from all facets of our society; from the Tergats and Nderebas to the Musa Otienos; from the Bethwell Kiplagats to the Wangari Maathais. These people potentially hold more sway on their communities than many of the politicians.
Show me one Kenyan boy who wants to be like Ruto when he grows up and I will show you ten thousand who worship Tergat like a god (tribe notwithstanding). By focussing on the political leaders, the media loses a big opportunity to rid this country of this tribal baggage. It is time that the media woke up and realised their role is closely intertwined with the destiny of my Kenya and became patriots; And yes, they are allowed to take sides too; the good (or the bad) story that will push our country to greater heights.
On the other hand Simiyu, with such inspiring writers like you (and many others) playing an outside role, I guess we are back where we are.
Is anybody out there listening?
Candid comments from a patriot.
Look, yes the media does indeed showcase the worst, but i think we should not let accusations of bias overshadow the fact that we are happily destroying our own country, in full public glare. Our problem as Kenyans is that we are subject to a delusion of a special destiny that distinguishes us from other basket/banana republics. We are just another poor African country, with bad leaders and worse people. Every single person committing violence in deed, or in word as evinced by some of the posts on this blog and other i’ve seen is responsible for this mess. The Western media does play a role, but we are the divas, we are doing the killing, raping etc. Sometimes its good for us to see ourselves as others do. Bloodthirty savages and every single racist trope you can recall applies in this case. Where is the rage and anger as poor people are killed and tortured, where is the shame? I’ve never been so ashamed of Kenya as i am now, and if it takes bad reporting to force us to focus so be it.
Very very well written and said. Journalists played a big role in laying the ground for the mass killings, inciting the violence and in its execution. Yet the hyporicy evident in the compassion journalism they exhibited when the situation got out of hand, and the mitigation they offer that they are ‘ simply messengers’ is not convincing. It is time we legislated media regulation like they have in the US and the UK in other words, if the media be the ‘watch dog’ of society, who is watching over the watchdog? If the watchdog is not watched, it will turn to wilddog as am sure has been evident in the events of the last month. I welcome the propoed Media Task Force in the role of the media in the violence. There, am sure, issues will unfold, the planning of the genocide and execution of “jobicide” or the sidelining of those percieved not to be supporting certain points of view. As a journalist, I keep asking and pleading to someone, someone please help me reclaim my profession.
I would like to contact SIMIYU BARASA directly. Is there an e-mail address for doing so?
We are a peace based organization, so we have an interest in anything you might see that could ease ethnic or tribal tensions, short term or long term. (We think mixed marriages and education are the only way to go in the long term, but we’d like to hear from you on that too. In addition to that we think making it easier for people to choose a neutral name might help.)
We’d also like to create a proposal on the newly formed http://www.cprize.org to create a social challenge as one of their future challenges to help the problem. (It might look like a lot of smaller prizes to people who with a little encouragement choose a mixed marriage.)
In any event we’d like to hear from you.
DEAR SIR/MADAM,
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Hi Simuyu,
Great writing Simuyu. We here in the US have been battling with how to adequately discuss the current political quagmire but I have some reservations about your general argument.
in discussing the media’s irresponsibility You have carefully steered away from the crux of the matter of how we ended up where we are in Kenya today. All the steps that led to this situation. Those youth might have been striking those poses for the lens with their sharpened machetes but the fundamental problem that we are dealing with is what is the anger about.What is that deep sense of dissillusionment about such that peopl’s lives are rendered worthless to the point that they interface with a Kenyan policeman with an armed firearm without weighing the risks?
This winner take all politics, grave in equalities , a country littered with institutions that do not work, enmeshed into a system with a small super rich elite with social network dating back to colonial days has to be part of the conversation. The media did not metamorphosis overnight to what they are. They are indeed a creation of a society that are lacking in recognition of merit and leadership and largely subscribes to proportionating jobs on ethnicity , social networks etc and that is what I am finding missing in your very interesting piece on the behavior of the media is
simiyu barasa can be contacted on simmsims@yahoo.com
Barasa
Its intresting to see all the above articles by just reading the name you realise that critical thinking has been long eroded in our society.Its easy to predict what one is about to put down just by the mention of his or her name.Its in the head its dangerous and lethal to a country so small as Kenya.Finger pointing is the name of the game,tribalism is the scapegoat,they say ‘OUR’ tribe is targeted by who?Does one man make a tribe?With all due respect Barasa I think you are first and foremost wrong and myopic just as many of us are,In media they say ‘when it bleeds it leads’,our main objective is to tell as it is or do you want us to play theAlfred Mutuas tune the Kiraithes music?I think not if it warent for the media many KENYANS would have died unnoticed and they would call such ‘Rambo movies’The media has a role to protect human rights to inform its viewership of nothing but the truth.
Do not sweeop this under the carpet and say if the media wouldnt have shown it we might as well asume it never happened,Why dont you put the blame on you for failing to do anything about it?Police commissioner for failing to protect its citizens?Kivuitu for being so egocentric and sellfish (for lack of better words)And Kalonzo for being such a hypocryrte and Kibaki for being so quite while Kenyans die and Raila for pushing it too the last resort!
I know people like pointing fingers but either way democracy must pravail and untill the try by blaming yourself for once we are all responsible in a way and thats where we begin.Afterall Karua calls this death den a heaven lets try make it true!
HI Kennedy,
Please do a thorough re-reading of my article and tell me if there is anywhere (1) I have tried to blame a person and (2)how that relates to my name, since you say “Its intresting to see all the above articles by just reading the name you realise that critical thinking has been long eroded in our society.Its easy to predict what one is about to put down just by the mention of his or her name”. I believe that in as much as there are writers who you can tell their position from their names, there are READERS who can actually perceive your article wrongly by first reading your name in the by-line and pigeon-holing you into the docket in which they associate the people from that region. That, unfortunately, is what is called tribalism. If you really knew that my name has nothing to do with any position since it doesnt reflect my ethnic background which many have unfortunately fallen into the trap of thinking so, I guess many people would be suprised at how fogged their reading glasses are with prejudice.
Otherwise great comments.
barasa