KENYA SOCIALIST
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)
Tuesday 8th July 2003
Assembling in Whippany: Reflections on the 2003 KCA Conference
An Unedited Draft from Onyango Oloo in Montreal
The 2003 edition of the KCA Conference and Annual General Meeting was
a great gathering. It was also a successful one. I am sure the conference
organizers and executive committee of the organizers will soon post
the detailed reports from the various sessions over the three day duration
of the event, so I will refer my readers to those forthcoming reports from
the KCA leadership. Instead, I will limit myself to relaying the general
impressions embedded in my mind by the KCA Conference.
First and foremost, it is to express my appreciation at being included in
the program among so many more articulate, better
qualified, more gifted and very influential Kenyans from inside Kenya and
around the world. All the KCA officials on
hand-Mwaniki, Mkawasi, Angaluki, Lucy, Maina and others went out of
their way to respond to wide and wild array of needs, issues and concerns
raised by many of the conference guests and participants. It would be remiss
if we forgot the simply
stupendous sense of dedication and organization that people like Emily and
her team- the indefatigable KCA members who
volunteered to sit for hours upon hours at the entrance doing the mundane
chores of registering participants, giving them name
tags, programs and answering the same questions a million and one times.
Anybody who has ever put on a half day workshop knows how many logistical
details have to be attended to. Imagine grappling with a three day conference
with participants drawn from the United States, Canada, Austria, Kenya and
elsewhere! The fact
that the conference took place at all is a testimony to the kind of hard
work that was put in. The reality of the success of this three day gathering
is something we should acknowledge and commend. I say this because as Kenyans
we have a penchant
for rushing to judgment with condemnations and denunciations.
Apart from the hardworking KCA team, I would like to personally thank several
people who took it upon themselves to make sure that I felt welcomed. Chifu
wa Malindi-an ubiquitous name in Kenyan cyberspace circles- is a wonderful,
down to earth
individual who is very generous with his time and resources. Chifu met me
in New York and became the very embodiment of
human decency and hospitality over the three days that we interacted in New
York and New Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Ngunyi of
Massachusetts also exemplified that same humane and urbane spirit of decency
and hospitality that I saw in Chifu and many
other Kenyans I met in Whippany this last weekend. I really enjoyed our wide-ranging
conversation over dinner and was
struck by the depth of Mr. Ngunyi's hands on knowledge of the IT sector and
his keen business acumen that he endeavors to put to patriotic use. Even
before I met him, I knew that John Maina and I are kindred spirits in a lot
of ways, especially the way we look at Kenyan history and our common origins
in the contemporary Kenyan democratic struggles. He knows why I am
singling him out at this point so I will not say anything further.
I will come back to the conference proper in a second, but let me say one
or two things about people I met in the corridors, in the KCA market place,
during lunch and on the dance floor during the cultural moments and occasionally
jumping in and out of
elevators.Over the years, I have found that these informal encounters are
just as valuable (if not more so) than the formal proceedings that
go on during the plenary sessions.In terms of the people I met, it is a veritable
embarrassment of riches.
Let's see:
Jane Waithera, the well-spoken and pragmatic author of "Guide to Traveling
Abroad"; Daniel Kamau the youthful,zestful novelist of "Gambling with Destiny"-
a 339 potboiler that I began reading on the trip back to Canada; Papa Fulbert
Namwamba, a great Kenyan that I have been interacting with for almost
a decade in cyberspace; Luvisia Bakuli and Wandabwa, two contemporaries from
my brief stint at the University of Nairobi; Dr. Wanjiru Kamau; Fred Walumbwa;
Jacqueline Klopp(who wrote that seminal expose on land-grabbing in Kenya);
Mukhisa Kituyi, Charity Ngilu, Karisa Maitha; the younger Makatiani, demonstrating
his interesting invention- a beer opener which sings "Unbwogable" when you
use it;Sali Oyugi, Mshai Mwangola, Bantu Mwaura, Francis Maina(co-founder
of Release Political Prisoners); Anyango Nyidondo, Ken Agwa, Iqbal Mulani
(who I was reconnecting with in person after almost a year and a half); I
better stop now because the list of the people I have not mentioned by name
would take another four pages….. Conversations with these and so many
other people proved to be very valuable because I personally learned something
new from every new person I encountered and they all renewed my optimism
in our collective potential as a nation to rise above our current malaise
to chart a better future from our country.
And I did have a chance to meet many online names like Stupak of Mashada
( promoting an independent Kenyan movie), Chifu of everywhere, several KOL
veterans, many mainstays from KCA-Main of course; a couple of handle owners
from RC Bowen, some lurkers who follow my writing in Kikuyu.Com, a trio of
Abagusii ladies from New Jersey who gave me useful feedback to some of the
emails from me that are forwarded to them by others. Meeting someone you
thought you knew online for the first time in the flesh can be quite an experience.
As a father, I was quite pleased to see the number of children running around
at the conference, making the gathering a real
family event. Quite coincidentally, I met one of my uncles at Whippany for
the first time in over 28 years. And in talking to three other people, I
discovered that our rural homes are not that far from each other and with
one other person (that I had been
interacting online with for some time) found out that we had some shared
relatives on his mother's side.
The cultural program revealed a range of hidden talents: Mshai
Mwangola is one of Kenya's best exponents of what Micere
Mugo and others call Orature- her interactive dramatic story-telling
techniques brought to the fore the singing, dancing
and acting abilities of Odera Aghan and Bantu Mwaura; showcased the
beautiful voice and lithe dance moves of a
young song-bird from New Jersey; exposed Papa as a brilliant mimic
and political satirist and reminded us once again of
Mkawasi Mcharo's creative genius. The featured performers- Sali Oyugi and
Red Son (hope I am not getting confused
between the offspring and the solar phenomenon)-lived up to their top billing
with wonderful performances. At one point, again,
thanks to the talents of Mshai and Odera, many of us in attendance found
ourselves jumping to stage in spite of our
bashful selves.
The KCA market place featured wares by Kenyan entrepreneurs from publications,
to bracelets, earings, t-shirts, African music, Kenyan independent movies,
Kenyan inventions, presentations on financial planning and whole lot
of things.
Like I said, the KCA conference organizers will be posting reports on the
conference proceedings so I do not want to usurp
that task. Also, a very hardworking and unassuming Kenyan film maker based
in Kentucky (the inimitable Mr. Thuita) took the time and went through the
trouble of recording for posterity the speeches and presentations in a digital
format that will soon be
available online and in DVDs. Besides, I arrived on Saturday around noon
and therefore missed out the entire Friday
schedule and at least one chunk of the Saturday morning program.
Suffice to say that I liked what I saw and heard very much. I am consciously
going to refrain from singling out any single
presentation because I think we all learned something valuable from each
and every one of those presentations which ran the
gamut from politics, to culture, to technology, to business and back. There
were several contributions from women, no mean
achievement given the usual and it seems ever present testosterone charged
slant in many other Kenyan mainstream
processes. Collectively, these contributions underscored what many of us
have known for years: Kenya does NOT NEED a ll
those EXPATRIATES we pay an arm and a leg for. If we can entice Kenyan professionals
abroad with concrete, material
incentives( that our governments have never hesitate to extend to foreigners)
to come back home, many of the brains active at
Whippany would bring back with them the added value of patriotism
and intimate knowledge of the country into the mix of
their technical and professional expertise.
Kenyans who have interacted in the past with the arrogant cabinet ministers
of the KANU era must have felt a whiff of fresh
air at Whippany drinking in the contributions of Mukhisa Kituyi, Charity
Ngilu and Karisa Maitha. All three came across as very intelligent, very
open, very down to earth and endowed with a sense of humour.
One of the highlights of the event was the presentation of the KCA Award
for Excellence to the Hon. Charity Ngilu. In her
acceptance speech, she gave a very articulate overview of what she and the
NARC government have been doing since
assuming the reins of power at the beginning of the year. I particular liked
her exhortation to the Kenyan people to hold
NARC's feet to the fire, by constantly engaging and challenging the government
to live up to its promises, responsibilities and
obligations.
What I took away from her speech was a reaffirmation of my long held view
that as Kenyans, we must maintain democratic
vigilance, that we must not confuse electoral breakthroughs with cataclysmic
revolutions and that we must work harder, all of us, to instill a tradition
of critical engagement as one of the corner stones of an enduring democratic
culture in Kenya.If I have a very minor critique of the KCA Conference, it
has more to do with technical glitches and logistical oversights that can
be easily corrected the next time around.
The most glaring one was the ever shifting schedule which kept potential
presenters guessing not just when, but whether they
would be ever on. In my view, it is simply not acceptable to bring a minister
to speak for the SECOND TIME when a very dedicated and veteran KCA member
like Dr. Fulbert Namwamba had prepared for months, polishing his presentation,
sacrificing time and money and foregoing personal, family and professional
commitments to fly all the way from Baton Rouge, Louisiana (at his own expense)
only to end up leaving the conference without making his presentation at
all! What is most remarkable is that Dr Namwamba (better known as Papa F)
in his public remarks following Whippany, chose not to criticize the organizers-
a true mark of his maturity and complete lack of rancor at the officials.
And it is in this context that I want to appeal to the KCA officials to take
well-meant criticism as simply that- sincere suggestions for future improvement,
rather than premeditated personal attacks.
Related to this, I would appeal to all of us in KCA (and I am including myself
here because I opened my presentation with a
video clip from the NARC Nyayo Stadium rally celebrating the nomination of
Mwai Kibaki as NARC's presidential candidate) I would appeal to all of us
to cool down a little bit in our love fest with NARC. We know that these
ministers from NARC are a world apart from their KANU predecessors.
But we should not bend over backwards in kissing their feet, wananchi wenzangu.
I think there was more than a slight danger at several points during the
conference proceedings of the KCA conference
degenerating into a NARC-KCA mutual admiration society bash.
As a KCA member I recommend the following for the 2004 conference wherever
it is held:
1. Involve more Kenyans at the local level- those who live in the vicinity
of the conference venue. If these Kenyans take ownership of the process,
the work of the organizers becomes easier.
2. Encourage community billeting as an alternative/complement to staying
at hotels which may be out of many KCA member's reach, financially speaking.
I am suggesting that the KCA conference organizers can issue an appeal
to Kenyans living in the vicinity of the conference venue (like in this case
in Jersey City and other parts of New Jersey) to see how many Kenyan
families are willing to open up their homes to host a visiting Kenyan conference
delegate from out of town or just volunteer in driving them around from the
airport to the conference venue etc; this may reduce overall costs and
foster a greater sense of community among Kenyans who may otherwise
not get a chance to meet;
3. Cut down on the number of presentations and strive to maintain a focus
on the chosen theme of the conference;
4. Encourage clusters of Kenyans( in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, the Twin
Cities, Washington DC Area, New York-New Jersey, Ontario and Quebec, London,
Scandinavia, Central Europe, the Middle East, southern Africa
and of course Kenya) have regional meetings to come up with specific resolutions
and interventions in the months leading up to the conference and have these
regions represented by specific delegates;
5. Stick to the program once it has been finalized;
6. Do not allow politicians- whether in government or the opposition
to hijack the agenda of the conference;
7. Have evaluation forms for every session and do a collective oral and written
evaluation at the end of the conference.
There is more, but I will stop here…..
Onyango Oloo
Montreal, July 8, 2003
10:45 am EST
KSDA is a revolutionary Socialist Alliance which
fights for Socialism in Kenya and the World. The Alliance believes that the
fundamental social, economic and political crisis facing Kenya today requires
a democratic Socialist revolution with Kenyan working class taking a leading
role in the struggle. The Alliance advocates for the formation of a Workers'
Party in Kenya and the abolition of capitalism in the country. Contacts:
KSDA Box 74, 123 22 Farsta, Sweden. website: http://www.kenyasocialist.org.
Tel: 00 46 736533068.