Netters
This was a very interesting posting, but I do not want to spend a good
day on it although it has some very great points that must push Africans
to think harder on their continent. But there are two points I want to
briefly mention.
1) We as Africans come into these countries from a huge causes, it is
very Satanic for any of us to think that because you have become a mouth
piece of White people {Which some of us have very clearly become} then
you can castigate your fellow Africans as people who are abroad and
enjoying life. We must understand that our numbers are growing
preponetially with the atrocities we continue to have in our continent,
and they are very many. I have got a chance to see Ugandans for example
who come abroad to work for Uganda government, and they become very rude
and loose all the common sense, we as people who have no financial
interests in killer governments become judged as people who are only
abroad for we enjoying lives. My story is a very long one, for I am a
Muganda, a population which has been kept in the dark of Museveni, for
it failed to be analytical. Baganda thought that Museveni was killing
Northerners for they were bad people. Langi Acholi Tetsos and so on
women and kids were being raped and Baganda were stating that 'Kasita
ffe twebaka" {As long as we are sleeping} A war was declared on me on
both Ugandanet and Ugandacom for I complained on the killing of the
people out side Buganda, in the end I was declared a non Muganda, a
Northerner. My email box was filled by private email s like Why do you
bother about those Badokolo?
But I sencierly knew that I was fighting a true cause a cause which has
not ended and a cause I do not know when it will end. But this I know,
Uganda will be a free country from a mad man Yoweri Museveni and all
Ugandans will have a right to breath oxygen. A day when a woman will not
be raped in front of her husband for she is a Non-Muganda so it does not
matter.
Today after Museveni has massacred millions of Northerners and
Easterners, he has killed Rwandeese, and Congolese, he is now killing
Baganda them selves. Uganda forums are now being abandoned for the Tutsi
game is now in Buganda and day light.
It has been stated over and over that we as immigrants can not attack
our main enemies, the White people, the Cathy Buckles types for we are
enjoying lives in their countries. To those we have no reason to defend
our selves for we know why we are out of our nation/s but to those
Africans, grow up, for this equation is much larger than you will ever
know, you do not know when you will be a citizen of Buganda or a
Northerner. So may be insead of yapping on things you know very little
of, may be you should join Africans who just want to build a safe
society for every body?
2) I want us to turn our eyes on Kenya for a minute, elections have just
passed, but what are the facts? People I hereby inform you that Kenya is
a huge nation, with a lot of tribes, but we must as well agree that it
is a very tribal society, and apparently Kenyans are more tribal that
many African countries I know of. But the oppressed keep quite as what
has been happening in North America where we have been listening to only
the connected ones. You know the ones who know it all, but thousands of
Kenyans in North America have been literally living under the shadow and
no one had a right to defend them, for they were born wrong.
It is interesting that Kenya had an election on December 27th but
Yesterday I had a phone call informing me of Diplomatic officers
claiming refugee status, for they know for sure that Kibaki's government
must recall them, and they can not be in Kenya and alive.
Netters I employ you again to put Kenya on your watch list, if all goes
as the crystal ball is telling me, and if Kaguta Kagame and Kibaaki are
all in power, Mwoto Ta Waka in Kenya. There are tribes which are going
to be in shit. But that is my personal assessment. The people you have
oppressed when Moi is in power, pray and pray hard that they end up
being Kenyans with more understanding than what you have been when Kanu
is in power. But if they decide to be assholes as you have been. My
God!! There are Africans who you never advised to run out of their
continent, please by all means do not insult their brains, just use your
time praising Whitting people, we will fight for Africa and Africans.
People when we are addressing Africa issues, let us base our facts on
Africa and improving it. All continents that have developed, have done
so because the citizens of those continents or countries fight for them.
Africa will develop for Africans have fought to change it. The people
who destroyed our continent are Whites, and the moment we try to use
them for they are now putting on a Shee p's skin like Cathy Buckle, we
are
finished. Lastly be glad for you have an African friend abroad, for you
do not know why is abroad but he loves and works hard to change Africa,
otherwise you will end up as kenyans who are in dood.
Kindly put Kenya on your watching list, forget Zimbabwe for now. This is
true African politics.
Em
From: "Onyango Oloo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, January 1, 2003 7:45 am
Some Things Many of You Did Not Know About Kenyans in Canada
An Appreciation of the Community Heroes
By Onyango Oloo
It is to be hoped that sooner, rather than later, I will be back in
Kenya making my small contribution to the fight for a new Kenya from a
different vantage point.
Following my five year stint at Kamiti I became a political exile, first
in Tanzania between 1987 and 1988, and subsequently in Canada for the
intervening 14 years.
Over the years, exiles like me have been called "cowards" who
do not want to engage in the struggle. They are routinely dismissed as
"armchair revolutionaries" shouting from afar.
As if we have been doing nothing but sitting on our Kenyan behinds,
twiddling our thumbs in Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and elsewhere.
For a while, one of the favorite expressions of Hilary Ng'weno and other
scribes of the pro-KANU press establishment was the term self-
exiled", to refer to patriots like Ngugi wa Thiongo, Shadrack Gutto
and Micere Mugo as if some of us just decided on a flimsy, selfish
whim to become stateless wanderers, meandering from country to
country just for the heck of it.
The reality of course, is a lot more complex than that.
In the first place none of the exiles ceased to be Kenyan the minute
they crossed the border.
In the case of people like the above mentioned three plus other
notables like Wanjiru Kihoro, Yusuf Hassan, Abdilatif Abdalla, Shiraz
Durrani and many others, the tasks of the Kenyan democratic movement
became even more acute in these foreign sojourns.
One day, when the true history of the modern Kenyan democratic
movement is written, people will perhaps appreciate even more, the
self-effacing sacrifices of hundreds of progressive Kenyans operating
overseas in the 1980s and 1990s.
In Canada, I know that hundreds of predominantly Muslim Kenyans from the
Coast helped to create the conditions in the late eighties and early
nineties that effectively prevented former President Moi from ever
stepping foot in Canada for OVER TEN YEARS even though he
visited neighbouring United States several times during that period.
Kenyans in Canada, especially in Toronto, organized demonstrations,
rallies, benefits and other events.
I remember being part of a tiny contingent that picketed the Kenya High
Commission on November 10, 1989. This event was covered in the Canadian
press and picked up by the Kenyan media. In a classic case of over
reaction, the Kenya government went on a rampage as they
tried to hit back. Countrywide rallies were organized by the likes of
the defeated KANU politician Shariff Nassir at which effigies of the
Canadian Ambassador in Nairobi were torched; Peter Nyamweya, then Moi's
senior diplomat in Ottawa was summoned home and it all became
ridiculous from there.
Of course, this was a big morale booster for Kenyan exiles and asylum
seekers, many of whom were participating in their very first act of
political protest. Later the Kenyan community in Canada welcomed
people like Ngugi, both Mazruis, Gutto, Micere, Abdilatif Abdalla, Maina
Kinyatti, Willy Mutunga, Anyang Nyongo, Imanyara, Raila,
Orengo, Nyachae, Njoya, Davinder Lamba, the late George Kapten, Rose
Waruhui, Mutama Musyimi, Kivutha Kibwana, and many more.
We welcomed many of these Kenyan patriots and democrats into our
homes and community centres and helped in our small ways, to connect
them with certain Canadian allies who proved very beneficial to the
Kenyan struggle.
Kenyans in Canada also became the first Welcoming Committee for
hundreds of other Kenyans who, especially from the mid 1990s, started
flooding Canada as asylum seekers, economic migrants and visitors on a
one way trip.
To sustain this work over a period spanning more than ten years
required dedication, tremendous financial commitments( even where, like
most of the time these Kenyans eked out a very difficult
existence in this benign society riddled with systemic racism). To
create and sustain this sense of community was no mean achievement and
required the collective contributions of many, many individuals who are
too numerous to mention by name without doing the inevitable and
excluding somebody in these never ending lists.
What I say about Canada applies of course, in varying degrees, to other
Kenyan communities abroad elsewhere- in New York, Boston,
Dallas, Washington DC, the Twin Cities, London, England, Melbourne and
Sydney Australia, Cologne, Berlin, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm,
Uppsala, Amsterdam, you name it.
Some of us in Canada gave up; some of us lost our minds; some of us
died; most of us remained dedicated and alive to the Kenyan
democratic project in a myriad ways.
That is why today, as we contemplate the tremendous victory that NARC
scored over KANU a few days ago, I can think of people like Abdalla
Bafagih and smile; I can think of Mohammed Yusuf and Mourad Mourad and
smile; I can think of Shekha and Asiya Mohammed and smile; I can think
of the brothers Mohammed and Omar and smile; I can think of Mahmoud
Adam, the former councilor from Voi and smile; I can think of Adongo
Ogony, Muhoro Githirwa, Kamotho Kimani, Ruel Kariuki,
Mapinduzi Mwangi, Omondi Obanda, Ogada Obanda, Perez Oyugi, James
Karanja, Matunda Nyanchama, Miguna Miguna, John Munoru and his cousin
Anampiu, Leonard Wandili, Kathure Kebaara, Atieno Odenyo, Wangari
Muriuki, Fraciah Muriuki, Munene Muriuki the two Njoki scholars from the
University of Toronto and dozens more who used to congregate at places
like the Latvian House on 591 College St, just west of
Bathurst or St. Christopher House on Ossington and Dundas or the
Public Library on Dufferin and Eglinton.
And these are just the folks in the Toronto/Hamilton/London area of
south western Ontario .
I have not said a word about folks like David Onyalo and Kamoji
Waciira in Ottawa, Peter Gatama in Montreal and many other Kenyans in
other parts of Canada who kept the dream of a new Kenya alive,
including, incidentally, Dr. Karanja Njoroge who did so much
progressive work at Trent University in Peterborough before losing his
mind and trading his soul and his conscience to Moi and KANU just
before the 1997 elections.
That is why today, when I log in to the Mashada website and hear a
Kenyan based at home calling himself "Madiang" denouncing
Kenyans abroad as "cowards" I just shrug my shoulders(not
that anyone can see you in cyberspace, unless you are daft enough to
install a web cam when you communicate).
I shrug my shoulders because I know that patriotic and democratic
minded Kenyans outside the country have every right to claim the big
victory at home as theirs too.
In some respects, during the dark days of reaction especially in the mid
to late eighties, it was these Kenyans who really held high the mwenge
of our democratic movement as hundreds of activists languished in jails
and special branch operatives scared thousands more into
silence.
Kenyans in Canada, by and large, do not have the kind of high profile
political heavyweights who are instantly recognized back home- with the
possible exception of people like Matunda Nyanchama, Kamoji
Waciira and Adongo Ogony.
Yet, what they have contributed needs to be recognized as having
played an important role in helping to reach where we are today.
I salute these sisters and brothers.
Rise up and take a bow!
