Posts tagged ‘kenyan politics’

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May 27, 2009

Mugumo

We must prune the old and unproductive branches but  the tree should not be uprooted.

In the fiery dawn of time, when the earth trembled in the throes of creation, a dense cloud of mist stood over the land as Ngai (GOD), the divider of the Universe, descended to earth, to his seat of mystery.There upon the dazzling snow capped peaks of the black crystal mountain called Kirinyaga, he made a dwelling place. From that day the mountain became his symbolic  abode and was revered as sacred ground.

One day, Ngai led Gikuyu, father of the Gikuyu nation, to the misty peaks of the sacred mountain. Pointing out the beauty of the land lying below he said:”You shall carve your inheritance from this land, it shall belong to you and your children’s children to be passed from generation to generation until the twilight of existence.”And so it became. The Agikuyu were given the land of rivers and ravines, of hills and valleys, of forests with all the creatures therein, and all the gifts of nature that Mugai, divider of the Universe had bestowed on his people.

As the morning sun broke through the misty skies, Gikuyu did as his creator had commanded. He descended to Mukurwe wa Gathanga where a grove of sacred fig trees grew in rich red earth.Resting in the shade of the sacred grove, he found the most beautiful of women. Taking her to be his wife, he named her Mumbi, the creator or moulder of the tribe.From the sacred Mukuyu  grove, Gikuyu took his name. Together, Gikuyu and Mumbi built a home and gave birth to nine daughters.

Away from Myth

The (Mugumo/Mukuyu) fig tree is one of the more frequently mentioned trees in the Scriptures. It was from its leaves that Adam and Eve made their first covering (Gen. 3:7). The fig tree was valued first of all for its delicious, sweet fruit (Judges 9:11). It was also a symbol of prosperity and security: “and Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25). It was an enjoyable thing to rest, meditate on God’s word, and pray in the shade of the fig tree. (John 1:48)

Figs are considered characteristic fruit for the land of Palestine. The best loved and most nutritious were the spring fruits, which ripened in May and referred to as figs in the fig tree of the first time (Hosea 9:10). The main harvesting of figs occurred in the later months of the summer and in the fall. Those figs were called late figs. They were inferior in their quality. The poorest ones were even fed to cattle.

The Fig Tree as a Symbol

Some places in the Bible indicate that the fig tree also has a symbolic meaning. One of the Lord’s miracles is most intriguing when his curse of the fig tree caused it to wither. This seems to have been the only miracle in which Jesus used his power to destroy, to annihilate something. It also is the only miracle which was of no benefit to anyone. All others were done for men. The Lord multiplied bread, healed diseases, raised the dead. This miracle was as if in conflict with our Master’s disposition, who to the suggestion of destroying the wicked, answered back to his disciples: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of”. (Luke 9:55). All these facts imply an exceptional character of that miracle and its symbolic meaning. But to understand this symbolism, the miracle must be considered in the light of our Lord’s parable of the barren fig tree.

“A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him: let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it shall bear fruit, well and if not then after that thou shalt cut it down.” (Luke 13:6-9)

The parable was preceded by his words: “Except ye repent ye shall likewise perish”. The explanation of this parable was obvious to the listeners. The owner of the vineyard is the God of Israel (Isa 5:7). The dresser is the Messiah, who, three years into his mission, would, through his digging and fertilizing, make the nation bring fruit unto God. At the time of the utterance of this parable, the fate of this nation was still not decided. Our Lord still had half a year of his dressing work before him. It seems that the cursing of the fig tree is as if it is the finishing of the unfinished parable.

After his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the end of our Lord’s mission was fast approaching. Returning from Bethany, the Master approached the fig tree and looked for fruit in it. Having found none, he passed this sentence on the tree: “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever” (Matt. 21:19). Some interpret this event literally, as a curse on a tree which had no fruit. But such an interpretation is in conflict with a note made by the author of the Gospel of Mark, who emphasizes that “the time for figs was not yet” (Mark 11:13). Both our Lord and his disciples realized that in that season, in the early spring, no figs could ever be found on a fig tree. The lesson was manifest: his seeking the fruit had a symbolic meaning, it was a living parable, so often used by the prophets. Jesus wanted to finish the story of the barren fig tree which he had told earlier. After three and a half years of the dressing work was complete, he wanted to show that the antitypical fig tree brought no fruit. The fate of the tree was decided. On the next day it withered.

Israel

The fig tree was used as a picture of Israel not without a cause. As early as in the Old Testament, figs were identified with the nation of Israel by the prophets. Hosea wrote: ‘I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree in her first time” (Hosea 9:10). Jeremiah received the vision of two baskets of figs, which represented Israel: “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah” (Jer. 24:5).

How soon was Christ’s prophecy fulfilled about the withering of the symbolic fig tree to be fulfilled?. In the year 70 A.D. the temple was destroyed. No longer was there a place to offer sacrifices, the opportunity to serve the Lord according to the precepts of the Law thus ended. Jerusalem fell into ruin, and the whole nation was expelled from their own land and dispersed throughout the world. Speaking about the time of his Kingdom approaching, Christ again turns his disciples’ attention to the fig tree. “Now learn a parable of the fig tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth his leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door”. (Matt. 24:32, 33)

It should be observed that this parable was uttered on the same day when the barren fig tree was cursed. Therefore it would be difficult to assume that when Christ told them to watch for signs taking place on that very kind of a tree, it was merely accidental. These two events constitute one whole. As a result of the rejection of the Messiah on the part of the Jews, during his first advent, God’s favor was turned away from them, as shown in the withered tree. Whereas, the softening of the branches and the bringing forth of leaves represents the return of favor to this nation during the time of the establishment of the Kingdom in Christ’s second advent. Let us, then, carefully observe this symbolic fig tree.


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May 17, 2009

Provocateur Exposed:2007 Kenyan Election

When Paul Collier, professor of economics at Oxford, publishes something, it invariably contains some very important ideas. I realised this when I first encountered his paper about civil war and insurgency, “Greed and Grievance”. Collier co-wrote it when head of research at the World Bank, where he developed a rare ability to merge his deep understanding of economics with sober analyses of a rapidly changing political landscape. Put simply, in “Greed and Grievance” he argued that armed rebellion had more to do with access to financial resources than with any deep commitment to ideology.

mong political scientists that particular paper was greeted by murmurs of approval and harrumphing in equal measure. Here was an economist treading on the keenly defended turf of political wonks, and many took umbrage. A few wonks, however, recognised the valuable contribution Collier’s research had to make to the struggle against poverty and political violence.I think some of the harrumphing that followed the publication of that paper might also be ascribed to Collier’s liberal use of baffling mathematical formulae to prove his point. I confess I had to skip a raft of calculus in his earlier work. But I am pleased to report that since he started writing bestselling books, he has dumped the equations in favour of clear prose.

This strategy paid real dividends just under two years ago when he published The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It, a fresh and inventive look at chronic underdevelopment, its victims and its winners (the latter being few in number but abnormally powerful). The book was showered with praise as it offered many cogent explanations for the persistence of grinding poverty in a world which was until last September indecently rich. Wars, Guns & Votes carries on from where The Bottom Billion left off.

Apart from the fact that its author is not American, Collier’s work is distinguished from the books of Tom Friedman, Bob Kagan, Fareed Zakaria and several other gurus of globalisation in that it is based on extremely thorough empirical research. This puts him in the same camp as real heavyweights such as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. When Collier asserts that the bottom billion are much more prone to insurgency and civil war than the rest of the world, you can be confident this is not observational anecdote. The chances are that he and his indefatigable team of student minions will have exhaustively examined the data from every civil war since the dawn of time to back his thesis.

This aspect of Collier’s books is powerful, making it hard to refute many of his conclusions, some of which are disturbing, iconoclastic or both. He is destined to upset a lot of people when he asserts at the outset that democracy is bad news for the countries of the bottom billion – it usually ends in tears, not to mention grand larceny, murder and even genocide. On closer examination, he argues that elections alone do not amount to a strong democracy. Without institutions that promote accountability, they are too easily exploited by cynical, greedy elites.

Unfortunately, the “kumbaya” politics of the 1990s held that voting was an end in itself. Western institutions became involved in an electoral circus which often absorbed huge sums. Self-selecting election “monitors” from America and Europe would travel to Armenia one week and the Ivory Coast the next to pass judgment on the validity of the process. By contrast, there was little or no investment in dealing with the consequences of the elections or building the institutions essential to ensuring that the resulting government did not abuse its power. In the former Yugoslavia, unscrupulous populists exploited the plebiscitary democracy in 1990 and 1991 to rip the place apart. And Collier saw this repeated in many countries in Africa, the continent where the great majority of the bottom billion states are found.

It is a brave scholar who asserts that democracy equals bloodshed, but Collier is not afraid of going against the grain. He gives very short shrift to the fashionable cause of self-determination or special status for minorities espoused by the Kosovo Albanians, the Luo in Kenya or the rebels in Darfur. He casts Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, and not President Kibaki as the provocateur in the country’s last elections (in contrast to most foreign media covering the story).But he mounts a very heartening defence of peace-keeping operations which, using hard facts, he is able to prove unambiguously are extremely good value for money. He then comes close to creating what on the surface looks like a surefire formula for stabilising the countries of the bottom billion, enabling them to begin economic development in earnest.

And this is where the problems arise with his thesis. He proposes a reduction of sales in weapons to governments and rebels in these areas – so far so good, although he skips over the issue of how to police such a regime a little too lightly. It is in his central assertion, however – that fragile democracies in Africa must be allowed to flower under the military guarantee of the United States, France and Britain – that the optimism of his economic modelling clouds the reality of global geopolitics. The “command centre” that the Americans are trying to establish in West Africa is motivated by a need to secure oil supplies, not by an altruistic project to nurture democracy. And his faith in the military strategies of the French in West Africa overlooks much of Paris’s cynical manoeuvring in the region (including the promotion of arms sales and mineral exploitation).

One might argue that British, French and American motives may change; however, after Iraq, Rwanda and Afghanistan (to name but three), the political and moral space for intervention is extremely limited. But it is to Collier’s great credit that he has really opened up a debate that we need to conduct with some urgency. Even as we dither about military strategies and aid for West Africa, for example, the entire region is being captured by Colombian and Venezuelan cartels who are turning Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia and even Senegal and Ghana into the new Mexico. In economic terms, even after the crash, the world still has more than enough money to raise the bottom billion out of the swamp they are forced to inhabit. As in so many challenges we face, it is political vision and political will that is lacking.

By Misha Glenny

 

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February 9, 2009

Ethnic Federalism

Since 1991, Ethiopia has gone further than any other country in using ethnicity as the fundamental organizing principle of a federal system of government. And yet this pioneering experiment in “ethnic federalism” has been largely ignored.

After the end of the cold war era one of the greatest challenge to world security and order emanate from multi-ethnic states. The problem of multiethnicity is not confined to the so called third world states in Africa. Some western democratic states who has been known for their long-term stability are seen to be precarious lately due to problems of multi-ethnicity.Quite a Varity of solutions have been forwarded by scholars as part of the search for solutions to this problem. The suggestions range from strong unitary dictatorial regime-as a means to suppress emerging ethnic nationalisms to ethnic based federalism-as a means of accommodating ethnic interests.

Ethiopian Regions

Ethiopian Regions

Federalism which may be identified as territorial based or ethnic based has come to be seen as the best alternative to promote the management of conflict prone multi-ethnic societies. Even those who extend sharp criticisms against this form of government admit that federalism, when properly implemented, has more often than not proved to offer tools for the better governess of supra-national institutions and has facilitated effective decision making in complex systems and promoted democracy.

In principle, relating federalism to multi-ethnicity and evaluating its success as a balance between unity and diversity involves a number of factors. In particular, how the boundaries of member states are drawn up and how powers are distributed horizontally as well as vertically. Moreover, the institutional set up should be examined if it represents a structure of diversity or at least minority accommodation providing institutional and political power

which democratically command loyalty to the common state.How far federalism, in particular ethnic federalism practically solves problem of multi-ethnicity is yet to be seen. However, daring decision has already been made in 1995 in Ethiopia adopting this approach as a solution to the longstanding ethnic problems of the country. Albeit with difficulty, the choice was made, and ethnicity was favored as the underling factor in the process of state formation.

The new model of government ,nevertheless, appeared to be peculiar from the outset not only because it follows an ethno-linguistic line for state formation but also in a sense that it allows the right to self-determination including secession. The inclusion of particularly the latter has made the

Ethiopian model of federalism prone to critiques.The success of the Ethiopian model of federalism in light of the inherent problems it poses along with some of the existing opportunities. Particular emphasis was given to power sharing arrangement-with a view to see how wholehearted is the federal arrangement, inclusion of secession clause-how far is it a threat to unity of the country, and uniform human rights implementation-how far will it serve as a binding force of the federation.

Ethnic Recognition

Ethnic Recognition

A close examination of the power sharing arrangement and the explicit recognition of the right to self determination including secession to nations,nationalities and peoples depicts that there is an apparent paradox in the federal arrangement. On the one hand, the nations, nationalities and peoples have been granted the right to exit from the federation with out any conditions albeit for procedural red tape. This gives the impression that the constituent unites are more independent compared to other federal arrangements. On the other hand, the powers of member states are relatively meager and regional government remain dependent on the federal level to be able to carry out their duties. As expressed by the the Constitution proposes few self determination remedies, since nothing is specified as lying in the gaps between secession. While the trend in multi-ethnic federations is to extend secession remedies through various areas of self-government, the Ethiopian federation has chosen quite the opposite: asserting the most extreme right to secession it failed to grant to the member states as the same time the power given to member states in the administration of daily affairs are quite scanty.

As federal theories underline that the functioning of federal system is not to be measured by only looking at the theoretical justifications or constitutional frame work attempt was made in this study to examine the de facto federal system of Ethiopia from socio-economic point of view revealing the asymmetric nature of the federal structure.

As argued by scientist in a study of Ethiopian federalism it can be  concluded that the major problems that make the federalism falter are half-hearted decentralization, deficient democracy, and insufficient protection extended to human rights. Accontrario reading of her conclusions would point to important solutions to the predicaments of the Ethiopian federalism, namely wholehearted federalism, a more vibrant democracy, and sufficient protectionof human rights values.

Federalism has already been institutionalized and member states of the federation are exercising some degree of political and cultural autonomy.Nonetheless, financial dependency of the member states on the centralgovernment, among other things limits the scope of the federal decentralization. Democracy, as expressed through the principle of popular sovereignty, is not far out of reach legally, nonetheless, lack of strong alternative parties due to many reasons, lack of civil societies and civic culture, undue interference in the independence of the judiciary, and other reasons could not help democracy be utilized concretely. Human rights arewell articulated in the federal as well as state constitutions to the extent of becoming an overriding principle. The absence of strong law enforcement agencies and lack of political will, however, could not enable intensive utilization of the principle. The pathetic situation of all legal institutions in the states and the no less pathetic situation of the Federal Courts and Federal prisons, coupled with the inoperation of the institution of the Ombudsman and of the Human Rights Commission so far, could be invoked as reasons.

Apart from the above, one might suggest the following as solutions to problems of multi-ethnic Ethiopia.

1. Exploit the structures inherent in federalism. This can be done by instituting true bi-cameralism through making the upper house a legislative upper house with a veto power over legislations this canhappen only if its composition is restructured, either through equal representation of each state as it is the case in mature democracies or through equal numerical representation of each people group as it is intended to be done (on the face of it in Ethiopia). A clearer separation of power must complement this bicameralism. Relegation of the task of constitutional interpretation to the courts or special constitutional court might also be considered.

2. Intensify the task of Federal Government to build a country of united destiny.The House Of Federation is entrusted with this duty. The federal intervention of the sake of maintain a uniform human rights standards while at the same time empowering state governments to take self-administration seriously( thereby molding the process of developing peculiar area of concern vis-à-vis human rights is immediately important.

3. Intensification of democracy requires the increase in civil societies substantive pluralism of parties and a secure legal ground protection freedom of association. Furthermore, it is imperative that parties be organized in a manner that can access cross-ethnic constituencies.

4. Concerned legislative and law enforcement agencies should try to strike a balance between the uniform implementation of human rights standards and religious and customary laws of the different ethnic groups borrowing interdisciplinary approach, brining to the ground the debates on universality of human rights norms and multi-culturalism; and with due consideration of the overriding nature of human rights norms in the constitutional framework.It is noticeable from the forgoing that readymade solutions are hard to come by.

On the other hand some of the criticisms advanced by commentators on the Ethiopian model appear to be excessive as they stem from what seems exaggerated expectation from the process. Knowing the situation the country has underwent for 17 years, knowing the change undertaken with a totally new institutional set up, new political personnel etc. it will be utopian-lookingoptimism to expect bloom and blossom out of the new model of federalism. One should also note that federalism is hardly a perfect institution. As any imperfect institution, it evolves, and dealing with the problems that unfold is worth the experiment as the solutions given promote the politics of love, tolerance and association than hatred, intolerance and dissociation

*Read more on Ethiopian Ethnic  Federalism  Here

-Ethnic Federalism: The Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective (Eastern African Studies)

-Abate Nikodimos Alemayehu Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia

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