Gukira

• Friends Forever

  Posted: November 26, 2011, 3:06 pm by keguro

  I am well aware that I could not do justice to the subject without offending those “professional friends of the African” who are prepared to maintain their friendship for eternity as a sacred duty, provided only that the African will continue to play the part of an ignorant savage so that they can monopolise the [...]

• The African Sonnet: Notes on Kenyan Aesthetics

  Posted: November 24, 2011, 10:17 am by keguro

  On learning that I have been “hiding” in my apartment as I work on the book, Njeri Wangari took pity on me and invited me to see the sunshine and good people at POWO November, held at the IHub. The topic was, broadly, African languages, pasts, presents, futures, including, and perhaps especially, digital futures. Amidst [...]

• Unprotected Territories

  Posted: November 20, 2011, 3:59 pm by keguro

  As yet more articles flood the newspapers about Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, and Raila Odinga, I wonder about the names and lives of former residents from Kiang’ombe and Mitumba whose houses have been torn down by the government. Strikingly, while press coverage of Syokimau, a middle-class enclave, has offered story after story of bank loans [...]

• Locating War

  Posted: November 18, 2011, 5:53 am by keguro

  On October 21, 1952, a day after the official start of the emergency in Kenya, colonial forces bulldozed my maternal grandfather’s stone house. My grandfather had, by this time, already been arrested and placed in detention, along with many other Kenyan men. His crime? He taught in an independent school in Githunguri. This scene is [...]

• More G. Brooks

  Posted: November 17, 2011, 4:13 pm by keguro

  the progress And still we wear our uniforms, follow The cracked cry of the bugles, comb and brush Our pride and prejudice, doctor the sallow Initial ardor, wish to keep it fresh. Still we applaud the President’s voice and face. Still we remark on patriotism, sing, Salute the flag, thrill heavily, rejoice For death of [...]

• From Gwendolyn Brooks

  Posted: November 16, 2011, 9:14 am by keguro

  They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers. . . . Nobody is furious. Nobody hates these people. At least, nobody driving by in this car. It is only natural, however, that it should occur to us How much more fortunate they are than we are. It is only natural that we should look and [...]

• “Suspicious People”

  Posted: November 14, 2011, 10:15 pm by keguro

  Today we know very well that it is not necessary to be wounded by a bullet in order to suffer from the fact of war in body as well as in mind. –Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth Meanwhile, CID director Ndegwa Muhoro is asking you to remain vigilant and report any suspicious people [...]

• Reading Binyavanga III

  Posted: November 13, 2011, 8:17 pm by keguro

  First always comes the ability to believe, and then the need to. —Carl Phillips, “All it Takes” atmospheres are sonically saturated —Gayle Wald, “Soul Vibrations” Despite the uncertainty that runs through One Day I Will Write about This Place, the final sentence suggests something of the accomplishment of the bildung: “We fail to trust that [...]

• “Stop Beating Students,” Or, the University’s Mission

  Posted: November 12, 2011, 8:43 am by keguro

  The front entrance of Nairobi Primary faces “Box,” a women’s residential hall at the University of Nairobi. When I was at Nairobi Primary, the easiest way to get to the city center was to walk through the compound of university housing. In those days, teachers nurtured our dreams that one day we would “walk across [...]

• Quick Notes

  Posted: November 10, 2011, 12:13 am by keguro

  Given OWS, I am intrigued by what appears to be the Kenyan non-reaction to recent articles on the banking system. Banks Making Killing on Loans Commercial banks have reported Sh65.3 billion in pre-tax profit for the first nine months of the year. Overall, the industry generated Sh175.8 billion in revenue, of which 86 per cent [...]

• Race(ing) Queer Studies

  Posted: November 8, 2011, 10:47 pm by keguro

  Elizabeth Freeman and Christina Sharpe have recently, separately, written about Isaac Julien’s The Attendant. I want to think a little about how their approaches to the film index the place of race in queer studies. This question interests me as I continue to wrestle through my own writing, especially as I think about the frames [...]

• Reasonable Violence

  Posted: November 8, 2011, 9:17 am by keguro

  Meanwhile, in Africa Review, “powered by the Nation Media Group,” Janet Otieno offers what some might consider reasonable positions. In a 2010 article arguing for the presence of “homosexuality” in pre-colonial Africa she argues, Although there is no data to substantiate a genetic or biologic basis for same-sex attraction, homosexuals prefer the biological explanations of [...]

• Monday Quotation

  Posted: November 7, 2011, 10:47 am by keguro

  Of course, if manual sex often starts with the first two fingers, the others frequently follow, and very often the fingers eventually double back upon themselves. –Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds

• On the Blazon

  Posted: November 5, 2011, 2:56 pm by keguro

  Again, as always, it is necessary to pay attention to how gender functions. On the one hand, the intensification of a militarized masculinity that beats the war drums incessantly, revels in the idea of “killing” the enemy and “protecting” the tourists, that struts around, chest out, convinced of its rightness, deaf to any and all [...]

• Queer Wanjiku?

  Posted: November 5, 2011, 11:35 am by keguro

  Over the past few years, Dorothy Kweyu has been a leading conservative voice against queer rights and activism in Kenya. Actually, she has been a leading conservative voice against queer existence. In articles such as “Homosexuality an Abomination in the Eyes of God and Man,” “The Dilemma of Lesbian Schoolgirls,” and, most recently, “UK’s Aid [...]

• Sessions 6 (Draft)

  Posted: November 3, 2011, 8:38 pm by keguro

  Simply. He sweeps. Simply. There is dust and settling, as on a surface. His shirt lifts and sighs, bares and bears. He might be called Sam or Kimanzi, Turuk or Salim. Or boy from then entering now. He smells like yesterday’s boy, now legal, still barred. In yesterday’s time he is never more than and [...]

• Essential Reading

  Posted: November 1, 2011, 1:43 am by keguro

  As Kenyan public space continues to be transformed by increasing militarization–soldiers with guns roam our malls in increasing numbers, a small but telling sign; and those traveling on public transport are now subject to new screening procedures–I am keeping a close eye on “Occupy Everywhere.” Two very compelling must-reads: Lili Loofbourow, “The Livestream Ended: How [...]

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

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

The end of the fish cakes