Gukira

• Endnotes: Africans With(out) Crutches

  Posted: December 31, 2010, 8:51 pm by keguro

  An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa. When I say simply a black man, I do not mean that being a black man is simple, anywhere. . . . [W]hen he faces an African, he [...]

• Endnote: Intimate A-Modernities

  Posted: December 31, 2010, 4:55 pm by keguro

  I have yet to return to Leo Africanus in any sustained way. What I knew about him in 2002, the moment of our first “encounter,” is probably outdated, if not misremembered. What sticks, a social hierarchy of Africa, based on religion, politics, architecture, skin color, and sexuality. An opening into African Queer Histories? Ovr ancient [...]

• Endnotes: Parrots and Development

  Posted: December 30, 2010, 6:17 pm by keguro

  On September 13, 1984, Daniel arap Moi, then president of Kenya, argued that citizen-subjects should “sing like parrots,” as it was Kenya’s political tradition. He claimed, I call on all Ministers, Assistant Ministers and every other person to sing like parrots. During Mzee Kenyatta’s period I persistently sang the Kenyatta tune until the people said: [...]

• Endnotes

  Posted: December 30, 2010, 5:55 pm by keguro

  Lingering posts that should be posted before 2010 “ends.” Extensions and promises both. Ragged and incomplete.

• Other Times

  Posted: December 28, 2010, 9:47 am by keguro

  Time sticks. * In another temporality, what we call the fin de siècle, young Gikuyu men and women understood themselves as the Kienjeku (sores) and Gatego (syphilis) generations. Kienjeku preceded Gatego by a year or so. During the Gatego year, only women were initiated. * Athomi (readers) were never an “official” generation. Time had split—expanding [...]

• PEV: From Event to Era III

  Posted: December 23, 2010, 2:39 pm by keguro

  We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. –Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider At the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, I wondered if the PEV signaled the “loss of cosmopolitanism.” I also thought about its [...]

• W(h)ither Kenyan Internationalism?

  Posted: December 22, 2010, 10:34 pm by keguro

  In November, the Kenyan government opposed a UN motion that sought to classify the execution of homosexuals as a human rights violation; in a subsequent vote, Kenya chose to “abstain”; and “breaking news” announces that parliament has approved a motion “to repeal [the] International Crimes Act and ask the government to withdraw Kenya from the [...]

• Ocampo’s Omissions

  Posted: December 16, 2010, 4:49 am by keguro

  Omissions are not accidents. –Marianne Moore It is difficult to overlook the certainty with which many politicians and their supporters claim that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo omitted names from his list of six. Anyone who read the now “disappeared” Waki Report knows the challenges Waki and his team faced in getting witnesses to testify, a [...]

• Global Studies

  Posted: December 14, 2010, 4:16 pm by keguro

  News arrives that the University of Maryland has instituted a new Global Studies Minor. It is good news. Despite our proximity to DC—ten miles from the White House, we proclaim—UMD can feel remarkably not-yet-global. A Global Studies minor is necessary. I celebrate efforts to promote a global outlook. As I look through the description of [...]

• Verbs

  Posted: December 13, 2010, 3:25 pm by keguro

  Verbs I Like Suture Stitch Weave Embed Lubricate Imagine Verbs I Rarely Use Subvert Undo Deconstruct Challenge Verbs I Prefer Not To Use Fight Deploy Arm Attack War Battle Verbs I Should Use More Love Believe Imagine

• for colored girls: two endings

  Posted: December 11, 2010, 3:55 pm by keguro

  Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem ends with a song: all of the ladies repeat to them- selves softly the lines ‘i found god in myself & i loved her.’ It soon becomes a song of joy, started by the lady in blue. The ladies sing first to each other, then gradually to the audience. After the song [...]

• “The Same”?

  Posted: December 9, 2010, 11:44 am by keguro

  Many Kenyans–I say this based on a sample size of three–use “the same” instead of the pronoun “it.” As in, “John sent me a book, and I will put the same in the mail to you.” Dear Kenyans, when did this become a convention?

• Looking Forward To . . .

  Posted: December 8, 2010, 3:39 pm by keguro

  As the semester ends, time and quiet to read new work by poet and fiction writer friends. Inhabit other imaginations. Write about and around new poetry by Shailja Patel, Phyllis Muthoni, Njeri Wangari, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo–I’m going to be indulging in Kenyan women’s poetry. Quiet to let the year’s readings soak in–to begin completing patient projects, [...]

• Forgetting Internally Displaced Kenyans

  Posted: December 8, 2010, 1:12 pm by keguro

  Since 2008, when Raila and Kibaki signed the power-sharing accord, Kenyans have tried very hard to forget the internally displaced. We did so, in part, by adopting the legally correct name, internally displaced, and then stripping them of any belonging by terming them people. Not Kenyans, but people. Internally Displaced People. This (un)naming helped us [...]

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes