Viewers of today’s feature presentation, The Massacre at Anfield 3, may feel they are watching a repeat of last years feature, which we reviewed on Mentalacrobatics here.

We would like to assure all our viewers that we at Anfield are professionals and thus will never tire of spanking Chelski in the Champions’ League semi-finals.

We would also like to point out to our viewers that it is not our fault Chelski suck. Like many of our viewers we are disgusted that sub standard teams such as Chelski are allowed to participate in such a prestigious competition.

We would like to remind our viewers that winning the Champions’ League requires pedigree, power, passion, panache, pride and a Liverbird on your chest.

YNWA

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This afternoon, I am talking part in and helping host a Rising Voices chat on the HIV/AIDS and Citizen Media, to which you are all invited. The main chat host is Serina (Kipepeo Nyeusi). Rising Voices is the outreach arm of Global Voices. Rising Voices aims to extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting online media activists around the world and supporting their best ideas.

Recently Kenya has made big strides in the fight against HIV/AIDS for example in 2006 the estimated adult HIV prevalence rate was 5.!% down from a peak of 9% in 1997/1998. The number of annual deaths from HIV/AIDS in Kenya has dropped from a peak of 120,000 in 2003 to 85,000 in 2006. ART programmes have averted about 57,000 deaths since 2001.
However the still much to do and 85,000 people is a lot of people.

(Figures from National HIV Prevalence in Kenya written by The National Aids Control Council and STD Control Programme. Nairobi, Kenya June 2007.)

What can we as bloggers/readers of blogs/generators and users of citizen media do to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS? As they saying goes, we may not all be infected but we are all affected. Please note the examples I give are from Kenya as that is the country I know best, but this chat is open to everybody and I see from the Rising Voices email list that some of our brothers and sisters in Latin America will be joining us which is brilliant. This chat is open to all!
Please join us today at: 14.00 GMT for our online chat.

Date: Today, Friday April 18th 2008
Time: 1400 GMT, 1700 Nairobi, 1600 Sweden, San Francisco 0700, New York 1000, New Delhi 1930
Venue: http://irc2.globalvoicesonline.org/chat/irc.cgi

HIV/AIDS & Citizen Media: Proposed Agenda:

• Organization Involvement – What we hear, what we see, how we perceive it
• Importance of Citizen Media
• How can we ensure we focus on stories that main stream media avoids?
• How do we ensure that we focus on the human element of the story?
• Should our main role be telling the story or empowering those affected to use the tools we are using to tell their stories direct?
• What can we learn from others experiences on different parts of the planet?
• Technicalities / Technical challenges
• How do we select whom to approach to case studies for the project?
• How do we approach those we select?
• How do we deal with possible initial suspicion?
• How do we deal with language barriers?
• What computing tools are available?
• How can we best utilise these tools?
• Do these tools have any cost implications?
• Legal Issues
• What steps will we take to ensure we have consent from third parties documented?
• Will material be covered by copyright?
• If so who will own the copyright?

See you there!

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I have just driven down Ngong Road, in the heart of Nairobi, at noon on a Thursday and the road is practically empty. You may remember that this is not the first time this year that roads in Nairobi are clear of traffic, and perhaps more significantly, clear of any public transport, in the middle of the day. We have been here before. But this time it is different and this difference is what highlights the hypocrisy in Kenya today, which will make many people wish that Kenyans would forget their irresponsible words and actions.

This week Kenya is suffering (again) under the actions of the barbaric Mungiki militia. An illegal group whose preferred modus operandi includes, but is not restricted, to beheadings, forced female circumcision, public transport and rent extortion.

Mungiki has been around for a while (for some background information please read Kenyan Pundit’s post which links articles on Mungiki) and the group has been influential for a while. For example you could ask anybody who was student at JKUAT during the time of the 2002 Kenyan general election about the role played by Mungiki in Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential campaign and you will hear some interesting stories. (JKUAT lies on the road between Nairobi and Uhuru’s constituency).

I remember driving up to JKUAT in August 2002 when election fever was rising to pick a friend who was studying there and driving into the heart of one of Uhuru’s roadside campaign rallies where Mungiki provided the “security”. They had completely taken over the whole road from Githurai to Thika and to say they were intimidating is to say the least.

What I like about Mungiki (and this is perhaps their only positive characteristic) is that in the reaction to their latest activities Mungiki helps expose the hypocrisy in Kenyan society today.

Take as a first example the reaction of the Kenyan police. In the past three months we have seen first hand and up close the brutality of the Kenya Police towards Kenya citizens who were trying to march peacefully and legally towards Uhuru Park in protest against having their votes stolen. Even non partisan groups were unable to march. A women’s peace group which had organised authorization from the Minister of Internal Security, from the Provincial Administration and had informed the police, were greeted with a ring of police officers telling them their peace match had been cancelled at the last minute when they were just about to set off.

Time and time again Kibera would be ringed by heavily armed police and you would be lucky to make it on to Ngong Road leave alone get anywhere near town. I recorded a show down between the police and ODM supporters in Hurlingham where an army of police officers was deployed to ensure that ODM supporters get nowhere near the city centre. Similar shows of force by the police were deployed on Thika Road and Jogoo Road as the police moved swiftly to ensure that all major roads into the city were in their control. The same occurred in cities and towns across Kenya.

How time changes things. Two months ago Ngong Road was empty because of a heavy police presence and their indiscriminate use of force (including live bullets). Today Ngong Road is empty as Public Service Vehicle owners withdraw their vehicles from the streets because the police cannot stop the Mungiki thugs who demand over 90% of each vehicles earning and burn your matatu/bus if you refuse to comply. You could say that in both cases the police are responsible for empty streets.

In a sentence: two months ago Ngong Road was empty due to a large police presence, this week Ngong Road is empty because the police is conspicuously absent.

Why is it then that the same police force that cracked down on the peaceful protests in the past couple of months are reluctant to take on a group that has openly challenged them to armed warfare?

I do not buy the popular opinion of the day that Mungiki caught the police napping, that the police had no idea what was about to happen. Come on now. Security analysts reveal on TV that the police received calls as early as 5am from members of the public who had seen Mungiki members begin their activities of destruction, 10am the police were yet to respond. This is the same police force that sent lorries packed with police in riot gear into Kibera on Saturday when a rumor went around that perhaps some people were considering starting a demonstration to protest at the lack of a power sharing agreement.

Internal Security Permanent Secretary, Mr Cyrus Gituai, told The Standard that the police had expected Mungiki to strike on Monday at 6am, but instead went on the rampage at 3am, three hours earlier.

So the police decided to stay in bed until 5am or what? Come on now.

These double standards are by no means restricted to the police.

For instance, why is it that some bloggers/commentators who were complaining about the post election violence in general and the inconvenience of disrupted public transport in particular, were largely silent on the violence Mungiki perpetrated BEFORE the elections and are silent on the violence and disruption perpetrated by the same thugs this week? Why is it that those same people who were cursing Raila for not controlling the thugs in Rift Valley are now silent? Have you noticed how the responsibility for the violence two months ago was laid squarely in Raila’s lap individually, “Kenya is burning”, we were told, “because Raila is power hungry”. I wait to hear where they will appropriate blame this time round but I suspect they will remain silent or those who do speak out will blame, “the entire political class” which of course includes Raila. That is the duplicity that Mungiki exposes.

That is not to say that the political class is not implicated as well.

Why are politicians who have been screaming (rightly) that the police should get to the bottom of the post election violence are now screaming that the police should “negotiate” with Mungiki? Why not extend this call for negotiations to include other militia groups such as the Saboti Land Defence Force for example?

Why is that politicians who were quick to call for the annihilation of any protestors in Rift Valley and Nyanza are now going to great lengths to explain that Mungiki rises out of a disadvantage upbringing. Aren’t many of the youth who rampaged against the government in Rift Valley disadvantaged as well? If Mungiki revolts because it is up against the wall with nothing to lose doesn’t this extend to youth from other communities? Why call for the arrest of youth in Rift Valley with no mention of their grievances yet call for negotiations with Mungiki and demand that the police investigate their grievances?

Lastly, why are those who cheered when the army moved against the Saboti Land Defence Force not calling for the army to deployed against Mungiki? If indiscriminate killing is seen as viable method to bring about peace in the Mt. Elgon region why is not also being practised in Kibaki’s hometown which has been under attack by Mungiki?

I will let you draw your own conclusions to these questions. The duplicity and hypocrisy displayed on this would be laughable if it was not so serious. What we do know is that when Mungiki falls there will be tremors all the way to the top of Kibaki’s administration according to the BBC. (To be fair I should mention that Kibaki’s Court Jester issued a statement in response to the BBC report.

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Throughout the year as I continued to interact with Tanzanian bloggers I came to learn that a significant number of them (Tanzanian bloggers) do not have much confidence in Kikwete and many of them view his presidency, to put it politely, as a disaster, especially when they reflected on his economic policies.

This raised a number of questions in my mind.

Firstly, if these Tanzanian bloggers are not at all impressed with Kikwete’s presidency why did they take such strong exception to an insult lobbed his way by an insignificant and inarticulate Kenyan blogger?

Secondly, why did the Kenyan blogosphere find it so hard to understand why the Tanzanian bloggers were outraged by an insult to their president?

Is it because Kenyans have thicker skin, are mentally stronger and are used to verbal sparing and thus can roll with the punches?

Perhaps.

Is it because Tanzanians are more eloquent, more mature and civilised and thus will not stand for insults?

Perhaps.

My understanding of why these two siblings, Kenyans and Tanzanians, could disagree so fundamentally on this issue can be summed up in one word.

Statesmanship.

In a sentence: the history and tradition of statesmanship within the Tanzanian ruling elite, and the complete lack of statesmanship within the Kenyan ruling elite.

At the risk of launching a Platonic argument of gigantic dimensions let me define it thus (quoting Wikipedia);

To rule or have political power called for a specialized knowledge. The statesman was one who possesses this special knowledge of how to rule justly and well and to have the best interests of the citizens at heart.

As Kenyans I believe we find it hard to understand the notion of statesmanship, as it implies that those in the political elite in Kenya should be driven to implement policies that have the best interests of the citizens of Kenya at heart.

How can we understand this when the Kibaki government claimed it did not have enough money to build the 500,000 homes it promised in its election manifesto of 2002 yet somehow managed to find USD 12m to spend on new cars (enough to send 25,000 children to school for eight years)?

How can we understand this when the Moi regime fleeced the country of at least US $600 million in less than three years in what we now call the Goldenberg Scandal?

How can we understand this when the extended Kenyatta family alone owns an estimated 500,000 acres — approximately the size of Nyanza Province — according to estimates by independent surveyors and Ministry of Lands officials, making them the senior members of what Michael Mundia Kamau, inspirationally, calls the KenMoiKib Farm?

Our three presidents to date have failed the statesmanship test and failed it badly. Even Jomo Kenyatta, whom increasingly seems to be loved more by non-Kenyans than Kenyans in much the same way that love for THE Emperor seems to grow the further you get away from Ethiopia, is no longer spared. I can even go as far as stating that if you stand on any street corner in central Nairobi and shouted in a loud voice, “Kibaki/Moi/Kenyatta is a dumb-ass bitch” you would be ignored at the worst but probably be applauded by one or two people. Now imagine standing at the corner of a street in Dar-es-salaam and shouting “Nyerere is a dumb-ass bitch”. If you managed to get out alive and made it to Nairobi I would probably finish you off myself and I am Kenyan. Why?

Nyerere was a Statesman.

True his economic policies may not have been the best but here was a man who was big enough to know that the presidency in itself did not make him who he was. Here was a man big enough to walk away into retirement to sit under his tree in his shamba and enjoy his family. Here was a man who understood that the most powerful thing he could do was to give up power.

The greatest disservice Kenyatta did to Kenya was dying in office, during the election of 1975 when it was clear he was no longer the force he used to be he could have choose to step aside and step into greatness. He did not, 3 years later he was dead, and this in turn gave birth to the president-for-life syndrome which manifests itself today in Moi still aching for power after 25 years in StateHouse and which made Kibaki think he would be failure if he had lost his presidency in the general election 3 months ago despite a career in politics of over 40 years.

How can you be a megalomaniac in Tanzania when Nyerere was not? How can you claim the presidency as your birth right in Tanzania when the father of the nation walked away for it to give room to others?

This is what the Kenyan blogosphere failed to understand at the time. That while Tanzanians may not be too impressed with their current president, they are VERY proud of their institution of Presidency.

Of course statesmanship is not restricted to men. One of the most enduring images of the Kenyan post-election crisis was of Grace Machel during a tour of Internal Displaced People camps hugging a woman closely, whispering words of comfort as the woman wept and wept. Here was Grace Machel, the freedom fighter, former minister, and campaigner for children and for human rights, reaching out and bringing some humanity to IDP camps. Where was Kenya’s grossly overpaid First Lady at the time? Busy slapping Members of Parliament who had the audacity to suggest that her husband should get serious about sharing power. There are many things you can call Lucy Kibaki but not even the most rabid Kibaki supporter would call her a statesman. On the other side of the coin, you just try calling Graca Machel a dumb-ass bitch and see where that leaves you.

While the eyes of the nation were focused to Kofi Annan who lead the team of Eminent Person conducting the mediation in Kenya following the post election violence, the rest of team of eminent persons was often over looked, Graca Machel and Benjamin Mkapa. Mkapa is a Tanzanian diplomat and like Nyerere a former Tanzanian president. You see people; there IS life after Statehouse. Here is man who was President for 10 years, handed over at the end of his term and is now a Statesman who helped us resolve our election disputes, happy to sit in the background and immerse himself in the nitty gritty while the world’s media focused on Annan. That is an example that our political elite should be following. How many countries do you think would welcome Kibaki or Moi to help mediate their election disputes? Not many, unless they were planning on, “doing a Kibaki”.

On Sunday before Kibaki read out the list of his new bloated and grossly immoral cabinet he had the audacity, the AUDACITY, to stand there and brag to Kenyans about the “statesmanship and sacrifice” the political elite had displayed. Kibaki seriously needs to be reconnected with reality. Shuttling between Statehouse and State Lodges, hiding behind his security detail, and pushing Kenya to the edge is NOT statesmanship leave alone sacrifice. He also said the new cabinet, “underscores our nation’s leadership to put the collective needs of the country above everything else.” Is there anyone who thinks a bloated government and expensive cabinet is what our country needs? Mwalimu Mati writes on exactly why this is a disaster.

As Kenyans we have to address this issues quickly. Statesmanship is not an option. Statesmanship is vital for a healthy African society. Statesmanship is African to its very core. Without Statesmen we will not progress.

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Report Acts Of Violence In Kenya

At the end of January I attended a media forum organised by Internews Network. The forum was for the media to examine the way local and international media covered the post election violence. A self-assessment session. It was a fascinating way to spend a morning. The room was filled with hacks. Newspaper journalists, TV reporters, radio presenters, from the broad spectrum of media houses in Kenya. The big national broadcasters, the vernacular radio stations, the religious radio stations, and yes even the bloggers. I was invited to attend and to speak as a blogger and I gave a presentation on the way the blogosphere had covered the election and the post election violence.

In a session towards the end of the forum the discussion moved on to what we all could have done better in terms of our coverage. One statement that stood out for me was a comment that a lot of the reporting of the violence by Kenyan reporters/bloggers read like it was done by strangers. Kenyan reporters/bloggers were writing about things in their own country like strangers. For example, we all talked about Rift Valley militias like they are some kind of abstract phenomenon. Who are these militias? Who is funding them? Where do they live? What were the doing the day before the election? What do they call themselves? What are the names of the members? As Kenyans journalists they felt that these are the things they should have covered from the beginning.

The same applies to the victims. We always complain about how Africans are reduced to statistics. Remember when Al Qaeda bombed the US Embassy in Nairobi and western media reports named the foreigners who died and left out the Kenyans, or when flight KQ507 went down and we heard international media reports which named a list of nationalities and ended with “the rest were Africans”? Well here we are in the middle of the greatest crisis our country has ever faced and we couldn’t even name our own victims.

A few reporters spoke out against this criticism. One reporter said that as a Kikuyu woman she would have to be mad to approach the family of a victim of “stray” police bullet to ask his name as the public felt the police were working to protect the Kikuyu, and would have to be completely bananas to try and interview members of any Rift Valley militia who were busy running around rounding up Kikuyus. Valid points perhaps but they were quickly knocked down. After all, the moderator remarked, as professional reporters you must have more than one way to find information. Just because you can not approach the family directly is no excuse not to be able to identify the victim of violence or to do a story on the identities behind the militias.

A couple of people raised another concern, that it was completely unrealistic for us to think that it is possible to name all or even most of those victims of violence. They felt that it was nice in theory but in reality it was unworkable. An Indian journalist who has been based in Kenya for the last few years as a foreigner correspondent told us about the example of Calcutta.

After riots in Calcutta left over 3000 people dead one of the newspapers, I think it was the Calcutta Daily Telegraph, launched a project to name each of those victims and it succeeded. 3000 people and they wrote all their stories. If they can, we can too.

It is unacceptable that people, our people, remain numbers. It is unacceptable that as Kenyans we can feel comfortable in the continuing anonymity of the ultimate victims of the post election violence. And let us be honest, we are cowards if we continue in this way.

It takes guts to look death in the face, to find out whom this person was, where they worked, where they went to school, to hold their children, to speak to their partners. To find out what their dreams were. It takes guts but it is necessary.

Take the example of James Odhiambo:

1. James is 24 years old.
2. James is the sole breadwinner for his family.
3. James works at a petrol station as an attendant.
4. One of his colleagues at the petrol station is called Brian Oluoch.
5. James was killed in Lurambi at the junction on the way to Shikoti, Kakamega in Western province, Kenya.
6. According to eyewitnesses he was shot by the GSU.
7. The police were unable to pick James’ body, as they did not have enough fuel for their vehicle.
8. James Odhiambo was buried on Sunday 13th January 2008.
9. James was buried in Homa Bay, Nyanza province.
10. Brian and other friends from the area travelled to Homa Bay to comfort the family.
11. If you would like to help the family directly you can contact Brian on +254.724.912.015

The national media declined to run James’ story so how do I know about it? I know because Mr.Michael Arunga, who works for World Vision in Darfur, was on holiday in the area at the time and took pictures, which he allowed Afromusing to post on her flickr account. Afromusing then wrote a blog post with all the information above she put on her personal blog and on Ushahidi.

Report Acts Of Violence In Kenya

In one blog post of 399 words James went from being just another number. James went from being just another dead body in the “over 1000 causalities” of the post election violence in Kenya to being James. Afromusing’s post is disturbing and saddening. It is also powerful and necessary. Afromusing’s blogpost and Michael’s pictures humanised the death of a young man, personalised it, and made it real and relevant.

This is why the Ushahidi project is so relevant and so necessary. We as Kenyans are guilty of having short-term memories. Yesterday’s villains are today’s heroes. We sweep bad news and difficult decisions under the carpet; we do not confront the issues in our society and get shocked when the country erupts as it did two months ago. Ushahidi gives everybody, anybody, the opportunity to get his or her experience recorded. Through SMS, through email, through the internet, through meeting an NGO worker who will write down what happened and share it with us. Ushahidi is a project that has to be owned by those who use it; they have to believe in it. They have to trust it; they have to feel a part of it. Ushahidi is not the end but the beginning. We have the information, we share it, and people will run with it. Hopefully we will get the stories behind the numbers. Just as with James we can inject a little humanity back into the lives of these people who were killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The project is recording not just incidents of deaths, but of all the violence. The project is not recording just the negative stories but highlighting the doves who are working for peace in our communities as well. And the project needs all your help to survive. Ushahidi needs your help, needs your votes. Please vote for this project on the Netsquared challenge. You can find full details on how to do this here. After you vote, please get involved by submitting your experiences and those of the people around you to the database. Instructions on how to register to vote are here and here.

Thank you.

Report Acts Of Violence In Kenya

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Yes … and his name is DMX.

Q: Are you following the presidential race?
DMX: Not at all.

Q: You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
DMX: His name is Barack?!

Q:Barack Obama, yeah.
DMX: Barack?!

Q:Barack.
DMX: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Q:Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
DMX: Barack Obama?

Q:Yeah.
DMX: What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

Q: You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
DMX: I ain’t really paying much attention.

Q:I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black …
DMX: Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

Q: So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
DMX: Nope.

Halfway through this interview it becomes pretty clear that this cartoon lives in his own world. Thank goodness I grew out of gangsta rap a while ago!

Via Kottke

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Destroy Arsenal in the quarter-final
Demolish Chelsea in the semi-final (again) HAHAH ROTFLMBBAO
HUMILIATE ManUtd in the final

You couldn’t ask for a better end to a season

We’ve won it 5 Times
We’ve won it 5 Times
In Istanbul
We Won it 5 Times

We’ll Win It 6 Times
We’ll Win It 6 Times
In magic Moscow
We’ll Win it 6 Times

It’s only on Loan
It’s only on Loan
In magic Moscow
We’ll Bring It Back Home

Meanwhile …

From: Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenya (NBO)
To: Moscow, Domodedovo Airport, Russia (DME)
To: Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenya (NBO)
Passengers: 1 Adult
Cabin: Economy
Departing: Tuesday, 20 May, 2008
Returning: Thursday, 22 May, 2008
Price: USD 1936.00

WHOA - perhaps I’ll watch it on TV instead.

(Yo Nyiloh, this time it’s on!)

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However, the blessing of being so involved in the response to the post election crisis that engulfed Kenya is that for all the nonsensical, narrow minded views that I encountered, for every person I came across who was hell bent on stirring up hate, I would find ten people who would do anything to pull the country back from the brink.

Patriots would put careers on the line, friendships on the line, family relationships on the live and others even put their lives on the line to stand up and be counted as an agent for peace not for division. While some bloggers would announce that they could never take someone from another tribe home to their parents, other Kenyans were busy organising a media event where couples with each partner from a different tribe would publicly declare that they will not be part of any nonsense which insisted they leave their partners to show their loyalty to tribe.

Apart from the personal relationships another trend which warmed my heart was that professionals would rise up and find ways through which they could utilise their professional services to help save the country. A group of writers gathered and formed the Concerned Kenyan Writers coalition which aims to use writing skills to humanise the crisis, the techie community such as Skunkworks offered technical IT and ICT support to the relief efforts, the legal fraternity came up with similar initiatives, the top musicians and producers in the country got into the studios, journalists as well. Bloggers usually wear more than one hat and in each of the other groups mentioned above you will find bloggers.

Some initiatives are blog driven, they were born in blogs and grew in the blogs, were lead by bloggers and publicised by blogs. They are blogger lead and blogger dominated. One such project which I am honoured to work on is the Ushahidi project which was born out of Kenyan Pundit thinking out loud on her blog and Hash hearing those voices and running with them. The site was born on the blogs and brought in to existence by David Kobia, a guy who has been a huge supporter of Kenyan blogs and bloggers, in JUST TWO DAYS. I am yet to hear of another project that launched so successfully, that proved to be so ground breaking that was launched in such a short period of time. Kenyans across the globe showing what can happen with cooperation and commitment.

Ushahidi is the Kiswahili word for witness.

From Hash
Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see.

From Kenyan Pundit

So what’s Ushahidi.com about… (for those who don’t know Kiswahili, ushahidi is the Swahili word for witness). The website was mainly set up to document incidents of violence, lotting etc. during the crisis (and soon to follow - information about ways to help on a micro-level). The website is still very much a work in progress and will be updated as we go along.

We believe that the number of deaths being reported by the government, police, and media is grossly underreported. We also don’t think we have a true picture of what is really going on - reports that all have us have heard from family and friends in affected areas suggests that things are much worse than what we have heard in the media.

From Afromusing

We want to continue mapping not only the violence, but also the ‘doves’ or peace efforts happening in Kenya. The last two months have been traumatic to our collective psyche, and we would like to be well equipped to continue this important project. While we will not hide from the trauma of the events; we want make Ushahidi even more relevant to other countries in Africa.

Please show your support for Ushahidi by voting for the project on Netsquared you have to register to vote, registration takes less time than it took you to read this sentence and voting takes even shorter. Help us to drive this project forward. Please read and link Hash’s post on the Ushahidi NetSquared challenge and remember to VOTE!

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I was lucky to have the pleasure, for the first time, of watching the final of a major football tournament in one of the countries that was contesting that final. It was not planned, it was a complete fluke as I just happened to be in transit in Cairo between Istanbul and Nairobi. My six hours in transit coincided with the match. I walked around Cairo International Airport looking for a TV screen that was not showing the usual airport advertising pap and for a while I was scared that I would miss the game. How ridiculous that would that have been. Luckily sanity prevailed and most of the screens switched over to Accra as soon business began at the Ohene Djan stadium. Before kick off the airport staff were all polite and diplomatic when I asked, cheekily, if they would support Cameroon. Once the match began it was another story. Shouts, screams, hands in the air, fists shaken at TV screens. Yes indeed, football at its most passionate.

While I was watching the game I was struck again by the immense power of sport. Especially at international level. To put it plainly I sincerely believe that if Kenya had qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations and had done well in the tournament the violence that rocked Kenya would not have been intense as it was. Imagine a commanding Luhya player (the captain naturally) a towering midfield destroyer, passing the ball to Luo player, the creative and flamboyant midfield maestro, passing the ball to a lanky but lethal Kalenjin striker, who blasts in the winning goal cheered by his Kikuyu goalkeeper. The unity the players would have to show on the pitch to be successful would serve as a constant and real reminder of the unity Kenyans would have to show off the pitch to be successful.

This is not just sentimental hogwash. in the run up to the 2006 World Cup with Ivory Coast bleeding from civil war Drogba fell on his knees live on TV and sent out an emotional appeal for the warring factions to lay down their arms. It would be naive to claim that Drogba’s gesture ended the civil war. It would be equally naive to pretend that Drogba’s gesture did not have any effect at all. “All the players hated what was happening to our country and reaching the World Cup was the perfect emotional wave on which to ride.” Togo and Angola qualifying for the same World Cup in German helped heal both nations after decades of civil war. Beyond Africa as well there are numerous examples of the power of sport to unite a nation. Remember how the then new country of Croatia, which gained independence only 7 years earlier, played excellent football to reach the semi finals of the World Cup in France 1998 uniting their country in a sense of pride? Or how much the symbolism North and South Korea marching together at the opening ceremony of the Asian Games (although they did not compete in joint teams) meant to their people?

Sport and especially team sport is a democratic and universal symbol of nationhood which becomes even more important in a country like Kenya where most of the other symbols of nationhood are inaccessible to ordinary citizens.

Two weeks ago a special friend invited me to watch a preseason rugby friendly between the University of Nairobi’s Mean Machine RFC and Mwamba RFC, one of Kenya’s oldest rugby clubs. As with most preseason games the match was a relaxed affair played in a lively spirit. After the game the players from both sides gathered in the centre of the pitch and knelt together in prayer.

This is a regular ritual conducted at the end of many rugby games. This time, however, it was wonderful to see the symbolism of a united Kenya across ethnic, religious, economic, political lines.

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Every once in while I get reminded that some people have way too much time on their hands! In the past 12-18 months I have been slowly switching webhosting companies as I search for more reliable, personal and courteous service. The webhosting company I left was called BlueHost

and the webhosting company I now use is called A Small Orange.

(Some of you sharp ones will have figured out by now where this post is going!)

Bluehost’s primary colour is, naturally, blue. A Small Orange’s primary colour is, naturally, orange. Kibaki’s Party of National Unity primary colour is blue and Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement primary colour is orange. If this was not proof enough that I am Odinga’s number one fanboy, the mere fact that I choose a Webhosting company with the word orange in its name and now display a button with an orange is proof enough for some that mentalacrobatics.com is embedded within Odinga’s camp. Hehe.

People, sometimes a webhost is a webhost and not a declaration of political affiliation! Honest!

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