On June 1st 2007, Kenyans everywhere will be celebrating Madaraka Day. Madaraka Day commemorates the day that Kenya attained internal self-rule following an important milestone on the road to independence. To mark this event, we would like to invite members of the Kenyan Bloggers Webring to blog in unison under the banner ‘Kenyan Bloggers’ Day’.

Why?

This day is opportunity for members of the Kenyan Bloggers Webring to share their thoughts on the topics below. Last year’s Kenyan Bloggers’ Day featured a wide range of inspired posts. The level of support and interaction shown by our members in response was outstanding. Please follow this link to see how members celebrated last year - http://www.kenyaunlimited.com/blogs/admin/2006/05/23/kenyan-bloggers-day/

How to Get Involved

On or on the weekend of June 1st 2007, we are proposing that we all create a post on any or all of the following suggested topics:

* Kenya
* Being Kenyan
* Being a Kenyan blogger
* Being a member of KBW

The post can be a piece of prose – 2 lines, an essay, a poem, a podcast, a photograph, your favourite quote. It is entirely up to you how you chose to celebrate this day. You don’t have to be Kenyan, just a member of KBW.

On this day we wish to use collective blogging as means of celebrating the nation that unites us as bloggers of KBW.

To keep track of who is taking part please leave a comment below or email us at admin [@] kenyaunlimited.com with a link to your blog as we shall maintain a list of participating blogs. We shall also be producing buttons to display on members’ blogs.

I’m willing to grant that the question may be irrelevant. After all, does one need to feel free to be truly free? Isn’t it more important to be free than to feel free?

Yet.

Having grown up in the Moi era, I know all too well that political repression is as much psychic as it is material. And an emphasis on material growth and prosperity—look at the burgeoning middle-class, the increasingly wealthy Kenyans, the amazing growth in productivity—too easily effaces the significance of psychic life. As I have claimed over the past 3 years, psychic life is not entirely private. It is social.

I want to lose the nagging sense that democracy in Kenya is fragile and threatened. I especially want to lose the sense that leaders, trained and reared under a repressive regime, will go to any lengths to secure their authority.

Over the past few years, we have seen incidents of political repression: threats from the-then minister of Internal Security, the destruction of media outlets, indifference to citizens when their ideas do not align with politicians.

And now, the police commissioner has told us the president is above political critique. Make no mistake, though Hussein Ali speaks of “demeaning” statements about the president, he targets critique, no matter how it may be articulated. In an election year, the president has become sacred, protected, to be revered, not engaged.

Now, certainly the Smiling Texan’s reign may have made us more than a little skeptical about freedom of speech—which seems to have been reinterpreted as the freedom to ignore freedom of speech. I can’t get rid of the sense that, in America, freedom of speech amounts less to political critique and more to opportunities to appear on TV. And Kibaki’s seeming indifference—witness the referendum debacle—suggests he really does not listen.

So, arguably, freedom of speech might amount to little more than freedom to make noise. Even so, I want it. It’s a right. I am absolutely frustrated by the many columnists and bloggers who, over the past two years especially, have insisted we must “respect” the office of the president, that we should not critique or satirize, and that if we do so, it must be done with all respect. Indeed, I take these calls for “respect” as authorizing, in part, this latest edict.

In “On Patriotism,” I tried to unsettle the notion that an unquestioning relationship to citizenship was desirable. I was especially concerned that the repeated calls to “love” Kenya, without critique, might allow various forms of political abuse—it’s much easier to love Kenya when safely ensconced in the middle class or abroad.

Here, I want to register my support for dissent. Indeed, to insist, as the Left has been in America since the Texan took over, that dissent is democratic. As several politicians have pointed out, we cannot let ourselves slide back into the swamp of repression.

We might begin with the observation that injustices are readily observable—they are “see[n].” Sight, however, this “see[ing]” needs to be read in its literal and symbolic renderings. “To see,” in Ofwona’s text serves, simultaneously, as “to recognize.” One recognizes through familiarity. We learn to recognize. Seeing, by this measure, seems almost involuntary. But I like the word “see” here, if only because it suggests the banality of “injustices.” We don’t simply “recognize” injustice; we “see” it.

To see, of course, presupposes or at least strongly suggests that we are not complicit in “injustices.” We see, as from a distance, an elsewhere that also marks our “integrity.” “Integrity” names an outside from which we recognize the terms of violation, the “injustices,” and differentiate ourselves from those who violate. We, “us” in Ofwona’s rendering, live apart from injustice. In part, we live apart because we can name injustice, that which is recognizable precisely because of “our” distance from it.

Questions disturb me. The first: what might personal integrity have to do with the problem of injustice? Is it possible that personal integrity might so depend on one’s distance from injustice that the only reasonable option might be to seek even more distance? Might the act of speaking out, which somehow shores up personal integrity, not make one complicit, in some way, with injustice, muddying one’s image of oneself? In part, I wonder why personal integrity should be the index by which we measure our responses to injustice. Might there be a version of rendering justice—or participating in justice—that has little-to-nothing to do with self-aggrandizement? Might we think about justice as indifferent to the demands of the ego?

Two, how might a reliance on the visual metaphor of sight, and its reliance on recognition and familiarity, foreclose naming moments of injustice? From my own context, does queer bashing count as a form of injustice? Might discrimination and violence against queers be seen—or recognized—as a form of injustice? How might we think, in other words, about forms of injustice we sanction in the name of “integrity” or “dignity?”

What might we gain in re-thinking injustice not as that which we see and recognize, the familiar, but that which we might always lean toward, always be complicit in? In such a scenario, we might be less concerned with “our integrity” and more aware about the forms of injustice we perpetrate (Here, of course, lurks the perpetual question of class difference as a form of social injustice.)

In questioning the ostensible distance between “us” and “injustices” we might come to a certain vigilance, shall we say, that might be more appropriate to the task not of “see[ing]” injustices and speaking out against them, but acting so as not to create or perpetuate injustice.

Perhaps, then, I should claim I feel loyal to Kenya. But the only two examples that come to mind suggest dogs and boyfriends. Since I have banned the concept boyfriend from my life-world and have no desire to emulate a dog (especially after watching multiple episodes of Dog Whisperer), then loyalty is probably not the right word.

I might feel loyal if I remembered the words to the loyalty pledge, but I associate their mindless recitation with lies told to a tyrant—We Love You, Baba Moi!

It might be that I have “lost” my loyalty or love or patriotism due to many years spent abroad. It might be that I have become that terrible cliché, the been-to who loses identity in the swirling mists of modernity (dare I confess I barely remember my mother-tongue?).

I have become a qualified citizen, marked by might, may, perhaps, suppose, forever caught in the subjunctive. I am, at best, ambivalent about national belonging, national attachments, and national interests. There is, however, nothing singular or extraordinary to this declaration. As Parselelo Kantai has eloquently described, the national narrative of independence is exclusive and exclusionary.

“Feeling National” is an abstraction few can indulge. Indeed, my most vivid moments of “being national” involve mandatory exams and trips to government offices to confirm my national identity—the ID card, the passport. To claim that one “feels national” at moments of trial and possible punishment is to say something quite terrifying about national attachment, about patriotism.

There is, of course, no one single way to feel national. And I certainly do not claim that my own attachments are filled with the banality of violence and deprivation that others experience. I recognize that psychic ambivalence is a refuge afforded by a certain material and economic distance. But I do not, for that reason, dismiss the psychic as less substantive than the material. I may as well confess that I suffer very little liberal guilt, the self-abnegating shame that would read certain portions of my biography as reasons to don sackcloth and ashes. This, too, is a tedious aspect of feeling national.

And, so, 2007. Yet another occasion to feel national. Or another occasion to defend one’s indifference to patriotism. Or another occasion to reflect on what it means not to feel national.

If nothing else, the ongoing sitcom we call “acting national” offers amusement.

The International Museum of Women invites you to be a part of Imagining Ourselves, an online exhibit featuring art, photographs, essays and film by young women in their 20s and 30s answering the question,

“What defines your generation?”

From a member of the Editorial Team:

We want to reach out to young African women (and those in the Diaspora) to amplify their voices, talk about issues they face and focus on the issue from their perspective– but really looking at personal stories.Their stories and experiences would bring an invaluable perspective to the exhibit.

If you have a story to tell, images to share, a voice that wants to be heard, your submission is welcome. Please click here for further information.

The Kenyan literary scene is abuzz with excitement as the country prepares to host nearly one hundred writers, poets, publishers and literary agents from across the world. The literary festival, dubbed Kwani? Litfest 2006, is billed to be the world’s biggest literary event in recent years, and follows closely in the footsteps of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s visit to the country.

According to Binyavanga Wainaina of Kwani?, the festival will include literary seminars, creative writing workshops, lectures, book signings and readings conducted by award-winning authors, editors, publishers and literary agents from Africa and around the world. Part of the event will be held in the coastal town of Lamu. Over the Christmas season - actually between December 11 and 28 - both established and upcoming writers  will be treated to a variety of interactive events and forums, including workshops and training seminars.

The festival will be part of the Summer Literary Seminars, an annual event that brings some of the finest American, Canadian, European, Russian and African writers and scholars from around the globe to share their experiences and knowledge with upcoming writers, scholars and editors in East Africa. Among the luminaries will be Kenya writers M.G Vassanji and Shailja Patel. The Canadian based Vassanji  is probably best known locally for his novel, The Gunny Sack (1989). He was born in Kenya in 1950 and brought up in Tanzania. Interestingly, he holds a Phd in nuclear physics from the University of Pennsylvania.  He edits The Toronto South Asian Review and has also published  No New Land (1991), Uhuru Street (1991, short stories), and The Book of Secrets (1994).  Vassanji won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1990 and the Giller Prize (in 1994).

Shailja Patel performs to standing international ovations and has won accolades for her literary works on women’s rights. Her works have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and  have been translated into Gujurati and Italian. The Summer Literary Seminars are the work of  a charitable, non-profit literary organization based in the United States and affiliated with Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia. The first SLS was held in St. Petersburg in 1999. In the past eight years, exceptional writers from around the globe, including Pulitzer Prize winners, U.S. Poet Laureates, National Book Award winners, Commonwealth Prize Winners, and Caine Prize winners, have participated in and taught at the seminars. In 2001, SLS launched a sister programme, SLS-Kenya, in conjunction with Kwani Trust, a Nairobi-based literary outfit that publishes a regional creative writing journal.During the festival, SLS-Kenya will host more than a dozen international faculty members, including Mikhail Iossel, the founder and director or SLS, novelists Teresa Svoboda and Padgett Powell, plus editors and publishers of literary journals and magazines, such as Ntone Edjabe, founding editor of South Africa’s Chimurenga magazine and Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House, an American literary magazine.  

A series of side events are expected to draw hundreds of members of the public in both Nairobi and Lamu. Kwani? Litfest 2006 is also sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Kwani?was founded in 2003 by a young Kenyan writer and winner of the 2002 Caine Prize, Binyavanga Wainaina. Binyavanga says the organization supports systems for new writers and their works through establishing regional and global literary linkages with publishers, editors, agents and policy-makers. “We want to stimulate imaginative and creative exchanges that contribute to the global literary conversation,” he says.More than 20 new writers have been published in the last three issues of Kwani?, including Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who won the Caine Prize for African Writing 2003, Parselelo Kantai, who was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing 2004 and Andia Kisia, who has been awarded a fellowship at the prestigious Royal Court Theatre in London.Over the years, Kwani? has positioned itself in the East African literary scene as a serious publication receiving accolades from major literary figures and review columns across the region.  

Cross Posted At Creative Ventures

The first Carnival of African Women will be held on the African Women’s Blog on Monday October 9th. The Carnival is open to everyone registered on the African Women’s Blogs Aggregator and is a selection of posts on articles of interest to African women.

To participate in the premier Carnival, we are asking contributors to write a piece on Blogging and Identity and publish it on their blogs. Please feel free to interpret the topic as broadly as you wish - long, short, a poem, a piece of prose or photos. Once you have done that, please register the post at the Carnival Site or alternatively send an email to: info at blacklooks (dot) org with the URL of your post before the 6th of October. On 9th October we will publish a roundup of all submitted posts.

We hope that as many African women bloggers as possible will join in the Carnival. Even if you cannot write a piece please link to the site and join the webring. Thanks to everyone.

The fifth Erase Racism Carnvial will be hosted at Black Looks on the 20th September. The aim of the carnival which is held every month is to

“bring together a collection of blog posts dedicated to creating a world free of racism”.

This is the first time the Erase Racism Carnival has been held on an African blog and Black Looks is hoping that at least some of the submissions will come from other African bloggers. You can either submit your own post or one written by someone else. Either way it doesn’t have to be a new post.

Post should be submitted here or send an email to info at blacklooks dot org - please include your email and the post url. All submissions must be sent by 17th September.

If your blog is not already on the aggregator and you would like to be included on the list, please post your details here.

Black Looks has been given permission to publish the remarkable story of Stephanie Adaralegbe, a transgendered Nigerian, that highlights her trials and tribulations as she prepares to attend the XVI International AIDS Conference. As Black Looks says, ”the story speaks for itself. It is special because it expresses a strength and defiance against a society that not only excludes difference but in many cases is determined to destroy it”. Here is an exerpt:

“Man is chemical, man is testosterone, but more significantly Man is nothing but a chemical substance. In the words of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first sex changed Transsexual, the difference between a Man and a Woman is a slight difference in chemical composition. As a result, estrogens basically make a Woman while androgens basically make up a Man. With this knowledge, I have been propelled to write a book titled ‘The beautiful hearts are the beautiful ones ‘, which is indeed a literary explosive, very revealing and simply unputdownable.”

”Defining Myself” is the latest post by Rosemary Ekosso, an anglophone Cameroonian and a translator and court interpreter with the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. She writes that “when I think of how people see me as an African woman, the following words come to mind”: ”victim, mother, whore”. Rosemary deconstructs these definitions and says:

“If I am a whore, then I hope to be the kind of whore that no one can afford. I remember a respectably married woman saying to some fifteen years ago: “we are all prostitutes; that is what we do”. I do not give myself to a man. I share part of myself with him for as long as he behaves himself, mainly by sharing part of himself with me. That is all the exchange I ask, and as it is generally a lot less than what he is asking of me, I am not a whore. If I take money from him, it is because the particular social structure in which we live has given the men almost exclusive custody of the fruit of our joint labour, and it is only by negotiating with him that I can get some of my own back. So I am not a whore. I am a negotiator. But one day, I shall stop negotiating. I shall put my foot down”.

Uaridi, whose name and blog means ‘rose’ in Kiswahili, writes about her habit of stopping to admire people’s gardens and beautiful flowers and asks her blog readers to ”take time to smell the roses and give thanks to God for the beauty that surrounds us and the hearts and eyes to appreciate it”.

Afromusing, the Kenyan Blogs Webring’s resident solar power guru has written a fascinating and information-filled post on how she tested a Solar Ipod Charger I. Although she says her “schedule did not afford me more than 2 hours of direct sunlight”, she has more or less been successful.

”The Five Senses of My People” is the title of a beautifully poetic post by Chereka. The senses are sound, sight, taste, smell and touch. Regarding the sense of touch, she writes:

“It’s the touch and feel of my people, that warm embrace with an old friend or a relative, the gentle re-assuring touch and caress of a friend, a loved one, or a lover. It’s the warm feel of rubbing elbows and shoulders as you chart your way through a sea of gorgeous faces and huggable bodies, relaxed and not too guarded but not clumsily rude either. It’s a touch and feel of brotherhood, sisterhood, fatherhood, motherhood and lasting friendships.”

adefunke tells a funny story regarding a pick up line which apparently is most successful one in current use.

Soul has created a scrumptious-sounding smoothie called Soul’s Citrus Adventure which looks fairly easy to make. Yummy!

More from African women on the African Women’s Aggregator……..