23:27
It was with great disgust that I learned that the GEMA community 'leaders' recently got together to discuss 'our' political future. We aren't even done mourning those who died, nay, were brutally murdered during the tribally charged post-election violence, or tried the perpetrators, and these people are already at it, including (former) Church leaders?
Much as I respect people's freedom to associate with whomever they choose, I think in this context it does our country more harm than good. I long for that day when we shall be united and divided by our ideologies and opinions as Kenyans, not loyalty to our tribes. I understand it's gonna be a while before we totally divorce ourselves from our history, but my humble opinion is that tribal alliances for political mileage should be disbanded kabisa. As in illegalized. Down to making tribal chiefdoms illegal political tools. Yaani if you are a tribal chief, be one huko kijijini but do not represent your tribe politically huko mbele. The business of tribes voting as blocs stinks and should be done away with. This does not apply to GEMA pekee, as we all know. Remember the way we were mostly in agreement that there should be no special Muslim interests in a political party, or in the constitution? How about making these leaders ashamed of the tribal interests they represent? Where are the Christians that took to the streets then?
Full Disclosure: I'm still proudly Kikuyu, probably will always be. There is precious little I can do about that- just don't ask me to vote as GEMA, or Kikuyu. We are a country of 42 or so micro-nations with diverse backgrounds but we can peacefully, happily and proudly co-exist as one. It can be done people. But most certainly, not by killing all Kikuyus :-)
Disclaimer: This piece shall not be taken as proof of defection or an endorsement of 'other' politicians. My political perspective, if ever I had one, still holds.
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16:26
Umoja in Paris
» Black Looks “Du 4 au 8 juin 2008 pour une série limitée de représentations, nous vous présentons ce spectacle événement ! Fabuleux, éclatant, irrésistible, ce spectacle musical sud-africain venu tout droit de Johannesburg est un pur bonheur. UMOJA, en zoulou, signifie « ensemble ». Ensemble, chaque soir, sur les scènes du monde entier, 35 artistes retracent l’histoire artistique, [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Umoja in Paris", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/05/umoja_in_paris.html" });
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12:15
Crowdsourcing and the future of crisis reporting
» dkFactor First, I want to thank everyone for their support leading to the success of Ushahidi at the Netsquared Challenge (More details here).
Next, I'm delighted to witness the rise of the Peer-To-Peer economy, and the death of the One-To-Many business model. Since time immemorial, information has flowed from one entity to everyone else, hence the one-to-many descriptor. The media industry one of the first victims i.e. newspaper publishers, tv, music and movie companies. As our ability to consume and create different kinds of media surges, old media struggles to stay significant and pay the bills. The same thunderbolt that impacted old media is poised to strike other industries even more disruptively.
Crisis reporting is one of those industries. Often an ultra-sensitive affair, it has had to deal with issues of politics, bureaucracy and authenticity mostly because policy making and crisis situations are joined by the hip. It has always been a one-to-many situation with government/corporate dominated (and manipulated) crisis reporting. Basically we have always had to believe what 'they' tell us about how it happened, how it is being handled and how it will be prevented in future. Things are beginning to change however with the proliferation of social media and specifically the rise of the bloggers.
Crowdsourcing means that crisis situations can be explored at comparatively little cost, by making information freely available from an untold numbers of sources. We would basically be freeing up information from the vaults of Non Governmental (and governmental) Organizations that have safeguarded information release for self-preservation. Behold the rise of Many-To-One and Many-To-Many paradigm shift in crisis reporting.
The posthaste delivery of crisis information as it happens is something we'll begin to see in coming years. As all this data converges we'll have the ability to visualize patterns that were previously indescernible. With this new power policy making will finally return to the people.
While all this seems a bit idealistic, I should point out that this model is not perfect. It should be understood that crowdsourcing is still vulnerable to data poisoning (as my friend Hash pointed out). This is when malevolence is injected into the system. P2P (Peer-To-Peer) systems have often overcome this using their vastness. Try and imagine misleading data engulfed by a sea of reliable information - ultimately the authenticity can be determined by the bigger picture.
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12:13 The Cornerstone of Succesful, Long Lasting Marriages?!
» The Displaced African 
It will take me some time to get to my point so bear with me. For quite a few years now I have been fascinated with understanding relationships. Even though I am still in the stage of life where I am pretty much a wholesale seed distributor, I have always loved to reflect on, study and understand relationships that work and work for a really long time.
Long Distances and Mashada
So, anyway, one day I ended up on the popular message board Mashada quite distraught. There had been two long distance relationships I had looked at and thought to myself:
They will go the distance those ones. They’ll make it.
Typically when people in their 20s show up in the diaspora and say they are in a long distance relationship, I think of it at the very least as a joke and at the very most as an exchange of physical pleasure and flattery every so often, though when apart from one another, everyone and everything is fair game.
But not these two. Allow me to explain.
Relationship Number 1
They were both in their late 20s. They had both long since put the fun and nonsense that is high school and University behind them (point one for them). She was abroad pursuing her Masters and he was back in Africa holding down the fort.
When she spoke of him one could see that they clearly had a deep friendship and their relationship wasn’t just based on some superficial attraction (point two for them). She is a woman and she is abroad, and so of course African men jumped on her like chaff on Velcro. For a good year or so, the two men who had put forth the most consistent effort were consistently being shut down in spite of their clear charm (point three for them).
A Small Crack in the Ceiling
But alas one of them one evening managed to get her in a room for a game of tonsil hockey which was unfortunately interrupted midway. As soon as the interruption took place, the woman sped out of that room and we all thought that was all she wrote.
Six Months Later
Fast forward six months later and both of these men got what they wanted from her in spite of the fact that she had a chance to go back to Africa and visit her guy.
Relationship Number 2
She was quite young, still of college age, but she was the quintessential woman of faith (point number one for them). She admitted that once someone had her, he had her for life (point two for them) and that was pretty much her intention with her significant other.
No one has come between them, but the fellow who is also pretty young (point one against) has ended the relationship by trying to let her down easy. I won’t go into too much detail, all I will say is it took me by quite some surprise just how quickly it ended.
Right Back to Mashada
So anyway I end up on Mashada and I decide to ask folk:
Now of course a lot of you already know the answer that 9 times out of 10, especially when we are talking about people in their 20s they don’t work BUT out of that discussion something came up that I thought was definitely worth discussing.
Are Family and Community the Cornerstones of Succesful and Long Lasting Relationships?
You’ve all watched the TV shows where someone takes their partner to their parent’s home and the parents totally disapprove of him or her. In a moment of defiance, the person will normally grab their partner tight, leer at his or her parents and say something to the extent of:
Well she’s not marrying you. She’s marrying me and I love her. So regardless of whether you approve of this marriage or support it, we’ll get married anyway.
And then they walk of hand in hand to face the world together: Just the two of them and their love.
Is that a Huge Mistake?
In Australia we have this tabloid type program that’s very popular called a Current Affair. Sometime ago they had a special on Indian arranged marriages where they were trying to explore why Indian marriages last so much longer than typical Western marriages that are basically like Russian roulette with a 50/50 chance.
One of the things that came out of that is someone said:
In an arranged marriage, one isn’t simply marrying a person, they are marrying their family (or clan or community).
That got me to thinking….weren’t traditional marriages exactly the same and didn’t they also have the ridiculously low divorce and run away rates?
Accountability and Committment
I am just speculating based on the limited information I have but I think what it ultimately boils down too is when you marry or form a relationship with someone’s family or community instead of just them you have made a committment and are accountable to a lot more people.
Compare this with the typical love relationship where one is usually not even answerable to their spouse but instead to their feelings. How can we possibly expect to build a long lasting relationship or commit to anything long term simply on the basis of how we feel when we are so damn capricious as human beings? (I have waited so long to use one of my favourite words, capricious)
When you marry a family you are answerable to a lot of people and this helps get you by when your feelings tell you that you don’t feel like going.
They Force You Back Together
When you decide you need distance from each other lest you kill each other, you retreat to a family/and or community which considers itself a part of your relationship and so will try to force the two of you together……….
Back to You
My mental exercise ends there. What do y’all think? Does marrying someone’s family and community make a difference? Is this a load of bollocks? Leave a comment and let me know.
Just trying to figure this whole thing out,
Mwangi
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links for 2008-05-31
» Black Looks Democracy Now! | Interview with medical activist Dr. Paul Farmer Challenges Profit-Driven Medical System While Bringing Healthcare to Poor Communities Worldwide (tags: interviews socialjustice medicaljustice haiti) Egypt: Court Upholds HIV Sentences, Reinforces Intolerance Egypt: Court Upholds HIV Sentences, Reinforces Intolerance Five Convictions in Fear-Driven Crackdown a Blow to Health and Justice (tags: HIV Egypt prison) Nigeria churches continue to attack LGBT community (tags: [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "links for 2008-05-31", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/05/links_for_2008-05-31.html" });
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7:53
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