Un si doux regard...

Paysage du Masai Mara

Why does Kenya always miss the UN boat?

Story by RASNA WARAH
Publication Date: 1/15/2007


The appointment of Asha-Rose Migiro as United Nations Deputy Secretary-General is not only a coup for Tanzania, but also for Africa as a whole – as well as for the many women who are still under-represented in top UN managerial posts.

But the appointment should leave a bittersweet taste in the mouth of Kenyan diplomats who have yet to be appointed to any significant post within this global body.

As far as I know, no Kenyan heads a UN agency or forms part of the new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s “cabinet”. Yet Tanzania has two women at high level posts within this global body – my former boss, Mrs Anna Tibaijuka, who heads the United Nations Office in Nairobi, and now Ms. Migiro, who effectively becomes the highest ranking female within the entire United Nations system.

It is not due to lack of expertise or skill that Kenya loses out on securing top UN appointments. Kenya has a large pool of highly-qualified diplomats who have made a mark in inter-governmental negotiations.

Within the UN itself, there are many Kenyans in middle-level managerial or technical posts, though few have managed to rise to the top managerial ranks (with the exception of Salim Lone, now retired, who rose to become director of the UN’s News and Media Division, with no support from the Kenya Government).

It is not lack of clout either. Kenya is host to the headquarters of two global UN agencies and dozens of UN regional and country offices. As the host country, it carries certain privileges and responsibilities which could translate into decision-making authority, which it currently doesn’t seem to exercise.

Why? One reason could be that the Kenya Government simply does not lobby effectively on behalf of its own candidates. Even though Kenya claims to be an active and vocal member of UN decision-making bodies, such as the General Assembly, it has proved to an ineffective advocate for the appointment and promotion of Kenyans to this international organisation.

Another possible reason could be that Kenya has attained a “pariah” status within the international community due to its reputation of being among the most corrupt countries in Africa, which adversely affects its chances of gaining a top UN post.

Although all UN staff members have to sign a code of conduct that prohibits them from seeking or accepting instructions from any government (even their own) and to discharge their functions and regulate their conduct with only the interests of the organisation in mind, realpolitik dictates that this rule be flouted or ignored when it comes to what are known as “political appointments”, that serve the interests of either a lobby group (such as a regional bloc) within the UN or the interests of a major contributor to the UN budget.

This explains why, for instance, a nod from the United States or members of the European Union (among the largest contributors to the UN budget) can make or break a career in the UN.

The bids and the lobbying get more intense the higher the level of the post. It is therefore hard to imagine that Ms. Migiro’s appointment happened without the active endorsement of President Kikwete and his entire Cabinet, and without the support of key donor countries.

I am sure that the Kenya Government is fully aware that this is how the UN system of appointments and promotions operates, yet there are few, if any, attempts by Kenya’s ambassadors to the UN to take an interest in the career development of their own nationals or to push for the endorsement of Kenyan candidates for top positions within this world body.

In fact, not only do these ambassadors not endorse their own nationals, they tend to ignore them altogether.

In the 10 years that I worked for the UN, for instance, no Kenyan ambassador to the UN sent me an invitation to an official function; yet I received several invitations from other embassies, which routinely kept track of their nationals within the UN system, and at times, also lobbied on their behalf.

This lack of interest in seeing its nationals rise within the UN system is perhaps a reflection of the partisan politics in this country. When Kenya does put forward a candidate, the candidacy is probably based on tribe first, citizenship and qualifications second. This tendency, which will be the ruin of this country, has also cost Kenya a prominent standing in the international community.

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Ms Warah is a Nairobi-based writer and journalist.

La CAE devrait avoir sa monnaie unique en 2009
Xinhuanet, 14-01-2007
Rubrique: Afrique

Les membres de la Communauté de l'Afrique de l'Est (CAE) auront une monnaie unique dans trois ans, a rapporté jeudi le journal kenyan citant un haut responsable..

Le ministre kenyan de la Communauté de l'Afrique de l'Est, John Koech, a indiqué que le comité de la communauté pour les affaires fiscales et monétaires travaillait sur un plan de route pour mettre en place une monnaie unique en décembre 2009.

M. Koech a indiqué que les Etats avaient convenu des méthodes pour intégrer les trois économies en vue d'une union monétaire durable. Une étude globale sur le marché commun de la CAE a été demandée par le secrétariat de la CAE.

Il a indiqué que les discussions et les consultations sur le marché commun de la CAE avaient été lancées et qu'une équipe avait été formée pour commencer les négociations. Une fois en place, le marché commun permettra la libre circulation des personnes, de la main-d'oeuvre et des services.

Selon le traité d'établissement de la CAE, le plan de route vers l'intégration complète commence par une union douanière, un marché commun, une union monétaire et finalement une fédération politique.

Le protocole d'union douanière de la CAE a été signé le 2 mars 2004 et lancé le 1er janvier de l'année suivante. "Le protocole d' application se poursuit actuellement", a indiqué M. Koech.

Fondée en janvier 2001, la CAE regroupe le Kenya, l'Ouganda et la Tanzanie. Récemment le Rwanda et le Burundi l'ont rejointe, évolution saluée par les milieux politiques et d'affaires.

A deux metres de la voiture...mieux vaut se mefier!!! L'elephant africain reste dangereux et chaque annee morts d'hommes sont signalees

Un matin, sur la route Maralal-Rumuruti

Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya
Bilinda Straight
296 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus.

A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series
View table of contents and excerpt

The Samburu of northern Kenya struggle to maintain their pastoral way of life as drought and the side effects of globalization threaten both their livestock and their livelihood. Mirroring this divide between survival and ruin are the lines between the self and the other, the living and the dead, "this side" and inia bata, "that side." Cultural anthropologist Bilinda Straight, who has lived with the Samburu for extended periods since the 1990s, bears witness to Samburu life and death in Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya.

Mostly written in the field, Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya is the first book-length ethnography completely devoted to Samburu divinity and belief. Here, child prophets recount their travels to Heaven and back. Others report transformations between persons and inanimate objects. Spirit turns into action and back again. The miraculous is interwoven with the mundane as the Samburu continue their day-to-day twenty-first-century existence. Straight describes these fantastic movements inside the cultural logic that makes them possible; thus she calls into question how we experience, how we feel, and how anthropologists and their readers can best engage with the improbable.

In her detailed and precise accounts, Straight writes beyond traditional ethnography, exploring the limits of science and her own as a human being, to convey the significance of her time with the Samburu as they recount their fantastic yet authentic experiences in the physical and metaphysical spaces of their culture.

Bilinda Straight teaches anthropology at Western Michigan University and is the editor of Women on the Verge of Home. She has worked with the Samburu in northern Kenya off and on since 1992.

Visiting Nairobi? Try to understand the people

Story by FATHER KIZITO
Publication Date: 1/13/2007

Friends in Italy recently asked me to write “a few words” to help them to understand Nairobi when they come here for the World Social Forum. I obliged.

Nairobi deceives. Its centre, seen from a small hill overlooking Uhuru Park — the talks’ official opening and closing venue — is that of an ultra-modern metropolis.

A few kilometres away, less than an hour’s walk, is Kibera.

With a population of about 800,000, it is considered the largest slum in Africa south of the equator, and an icon of misery and injustice.

The two sights are so shocking in contrast that they could capture all attention, distracting one from encountering the true Nairobi.

Yet even when one looks beyond this tortured landscape and meets the people, difficulties in understanding the city do not diminish.

Italians and Kenyans come from two different traditions, and our common humanity is expressed differently. The imposition of Western habits — the way to dress, to shop and to relax so well promoted by the mass media — could initially give one the impression that Kenyans are just people of black skin, but live and behave like dwellers of any Italian town.

But this is not the case. The appearance hides a world view quite different from one’s own. Not better or worse, but simply different.

Very often one will have the delusion of being in tune with one’s hosts, because, for instance, one will talk the same language and shout the same slogans.

And when one speaks of matters that are basic human experiences, such as life and death, family, politics and social transformation, human rights and participation, one will think the people understand one another.

But this is not the case. Very often one will miss vital dimensions of what one’s hosts say. What are the most basic differences in this world view?

Maybe the fact that in the Kenyan culture interpersonal relationships are much more important than anything else — even the truth.

I cannot even start to try to describe the differences. I would need more reflection and space.

However, in this difference there is great richness, and to understand and savour the richness one must make a personal effort, approaching it with attention and respect.

But is this not obvious? But believe me, from what I observe it is a very difficult approach for people who belong to a culture such as Italian, or European, with a great and unjustified assumption of superiority.

Too often I see in Kenya Italian tourists who display arrogance and disrespect.

There may be a pill for malaria, but unfortunately there is none to prevent the superiority complex.

At the end the carriers of this complex are the real losers because they fail to understand a place and its people.

They have simply shifted their bodies from Italy to Kenya, but their minds and hearts have remained in Italy.

Any time we approach other people with a sincere desire to understand them we should be able to see a new horizon and perspectives, and not just with the eyes.

It is the attitude, the initial disposition of your spirit towards sharing life that will later light the beauty of the landscape and of the people you meet during the journey, however long or short. If one’s attitude is negative, the trip will be dull and fruitless.

Beyond the sessions one will attend during the talks, this attitude of openness and sharing is extremely important for people who want to fully live and grow in today’s world.

It is a basic truth that domination and the imposition of economic, cultural and religious injustices are at the roots of the ills of the world.

We all need to learn how to meet the others, to understand that peaceful and positive acceptance of different societies, cultures and religions can begin only from the ability to respect the others and to meet them with real empathy as fellow human beings.

We must recognise that not only social justice, but also identity, culture and religion are vital aspects in the building up of the possible new world we dream of. Most probably these few words will not help one to understand Nairobi.

But if one could at least come with the awareness that one will meet a different culture, a different world, and that one can understand these things more with an open hart and mind rather than with one’s brain, it is already a good starting point.

Un scientifique combat la tentative de religieux visant à occulter l’exposition de fossiles pré-humains
Dans « Skeptical Inquirer », novembre-décembre 2006

par Kendrick Frazier - Traduit en français par Dominique Kazmierowski

Le célèbre paléoanthropologue Richard Leakey est engagé dans une polémique avec les dirigeants des églises évangéliques du Kenya, qui exigent que la collection d’hominidés fossiles montrant l’évolution des plus anciens ancêtres de l’Homme soit reléguée dans une arrière-salle.

Leakey considère les propos des religieux comme « les plus scandaleux qu’il ait jamais entendus ».
Il a déclaré au quotidien londonien The Daily Telegraph : « Le musée national du Kenya doit avoir une action forte en ce qui concerne l’exposition de la théorie évolutionniste des origines de l’humanité. Ses collections constituent l’une des très rares raisons de la renommée internationale du Kenya et doivent clairement défendre leur rôle d’avant-garde dans le domaine de la science paléoanthropologique. »

Leakey a longtemps été directeur du musée national kenyan ainsi que responsable national de l’ensemble des musées du pays.

Les collections du musée présentent en particulier le squelette d’Homo erectus le plus complet jamais découvert jusqu’à présent : le Garçon de Turkana, vieux de 1, 7 millions d’années et mis au jour en 1984 par l’équipe de Leakey près du lac Turkana, au nord du Kenya.
Le musée possède également des os de différentes spécimens d’Australopithèque anamensis, considérés comme les premiers hominidés ayant marché debout, il y a 4 millions d’années. Enfin, il détient la plus riche collection d’objets fabriqués par l’espèce Homo sapiens à ses origines.

Les dirigeants de la congrégation pentecôtiste du Kenya, qui revendique 6 millions d’adhérents, désirent que l’on n’insiste plus autant sur ces fossiles humains. Ainsi, l’évêque Boniface Adoyo, à la tête de la plus importante des églises kenyanes, Christ is the answer Ministries, déclare : « La communauté chrétienne est très mal à l’aise que Leakey et son équipe veuillent présenter leurs théories comme un fait. Notre doctrine récuse que nous ayons évolué à partir de singes, et nous sommes choqués que le musée veuille promouvoir la diffusion de quelque chose présenté comme un fait, alors que ce n’est qu’une théorie. »

L’évêque Adoyo rappelle que toutes les églises du pays doivent s’unir pour forcer le musée à modifier son point de vue sur la question lorsqu’il rouvrira en juin 2007, après 18 mois de rénovations. « Nous allons leur écrire, nous allons leur téléphoner, nous ferons en sorte que la population soit mise au courant de ce problème, et nous verrons ce que nous pouvons faire pour que notre voix soit entendue » a-t-il déclaré.

Ce sont ces propos que Leakey a qualifiés de scandaleux. Traitant les membres de l’église pentecôtiste de fondamentalistes, Leakey ajoute : « Leurs théories sont loin, très loin de ce que pense la majorité sur la question. On ne peut leur permettre de se mêler de ce qui est la première collection mondiale pour ce type de fossiles. »

Pour leur part, les actuels responsables du musée semblent sur la corde raide. Ils ont déclaré qu’ils étaient dans une situation délicate en essayant de réorganiser les espaces d’exposition de façon à contenter tous les types de visiteurs. « Nous avons le devoir de présenter chaque objet de nos collections de la meilleure façon qui soit, en sorte que chaque visiteur en comprenne la pleine signification » a déclaré Ali Chege, responsable des relations publiques des musées nationaux du Kenya. « Mais, a-t-il ajouté, les choses peuvent devenir délicates lorsque d’un côté, il y a les opinions religieuses qui déclarent une chose, et de l’autre, les intellectuels, les scientifiques et les chercheurs qui déclarent le contraire. »

Kenya : une femme condamnée à 20 000 shillings d’amende pour bigamie

Une femme jugée pour bigamie a été condamnée, vendredi, par une cour de l’Eldoret, à une amende de 20 000 shilling kenyans (environ 220 euros), annonce The East Standard. Mary Jerono Sang avait épousé un autre homme pensant que son précédent mariage n’était plus valide.