I am impressed by the amount of space your online magazine has given to the Zimbabwean case. It is true that the economy of Zimbabwe is in shambles. It is true that Mugabe has overstayed his welcome as head of state of Zimbabwe. It is not true that all the economic problems in Zimbabwe are Mugabe's making. It is not true that to create land for blacks from whose ancestors land was taken by force, is a bad policy. It is not true that the SADC countries just sit and watch and they don't understand the politics of Zimbabwe.

Who is Mugabe?

One of the African heroes of the independence movement. One of the only black African head of states who cannot be manipulated by the West including the 'only' super power on the scene The man who stood against the 'West's' evil plan in the DRC by taking 10,000 armed men to the battle field. The only African head of state who courageously faced a white privileged class and dispossessed them of their ill gotten wealth Mugabe takes lesson from doyens of liberators of the world's poor such as Fidel Castro, Frantz Fanon and lately Hugo Chavez. Mugabe says there is no freedom in South Africa as long as 'economic apartheid' prevails. Is this the man your publication and the West think the 'foolish' African citizens will turn against? Sekou Toure once said 'we prefer poverty in freedom rather than riches in slavery'. Dedan Kimathi, Kenya's freedom fighter said: 'It is better to die in the struggle than to live on our knees'.

For a long time Africa has been the West's 'cake on the table' since the days of the Berlin's conference. There are a few African thinkers and leaders who want to stop this trend. Mugabe is their apostle. Next time you write on Zimbabwe, please include divergent opinions like mine. I am not a Zimbabwean, I am a Kenyan who has interacted with Zimbabweans. Aluta continua against imperialism of both government and the media.
Long live Zimbabwe
Long live Mugabe
Long live African freedom

'Seek ye the political Kingdom first and all else shall follow...' so runs the quotation attributed to the father of Pan Africanism, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. I whole heartedly agree with Dr. Tajudeen's analysis of the Foreign Aid Saga in Africa. I will not dwell on the past but on the future.

Where to Africa? So cried Aime Caesaire...You who neither invented the gun powder nor the steam engine!

That poetic rendition of the African psycho-cultural disposition at the dawn of independence, unfortunately applies even today on the eve of social political and economic 'Armaggeddon'.

In making my contribution to the total liberation of the Africans, I have a few ideas to share with my Ugandan brother and scion of the new Pan African renaissance. I will speak figuratively because as the Kikuyu say 'Nyumba nyinyi iciraga utuku', a small house makes its deliberations at night.

I WILL SING A NEW SONG

Have you asked dear Pan Africanist
Why Nkrumah and Nyerere failed?
Have you forgotten why Lumumba died?
Have you forgotten Okot P’Bitek’s song of Lawino?
Do you know why the father of Blacks’ liberation W. E. B Du Bois
Lie buried in Accra…unsung and unmourned!
Tell me my brother if you know why the former ‘African socialist
intellectual’, is dead?
Tell me why Ngugi wa Thiong’o who refused to be James anymore
Now enjoys the fruits of his nemesis capitalist bourgeosie in America?
Tell me why Soyinka and Achebe are sharpening the minds of the
rich as their fellow Africans wallow in intellectual poverty?
Tell me who is left to champion the African course
Tell me why I cannot be bought by the rich if my elder brother and
mentor has been bought?
Tell me now…tell me today…because I have no time to waste
Tell me before I die of AIDS or poverty
Tell me now my brother I can’t wait…my brother cannot wait
I have my degrees but I cannot work
Yes I cannot work because my president has been told to retrench
Me
Told by a World bank/IMF that I did not elect
Tell me who stole my vote

Tell me whether I should succumb to God’s fate as my father did
Or I should rise up like my father’s brother who died during Mau
Mau
Tell me whether I should follow that example of a man who is never remembered
A man who never got what he fought for…a man whose children
never went to school
Tell me…you the new Christ or is it Shaka
Tell me which message you bear…which strategy boils in your
blessed mind?
Tell me this strategy that your brother could not master
Tell me this strategy that your enemies cannot fathom
Tell me today or I call you a dreamer
A big dreamer just like Dedan Kimathi, Kinjeketile, Frantz Fanon
Cheikh Anta Diop, George Padmore…Malcolm X

I know my sister only believes she is beautiful when she looks like
the girl across the wall
But I cannot blame her
It is foolhardy to enslave men on chains…it is in vogue
Men chained in the mind do the master’s bidding
They diligently work for the master’s interest even when he is asleep

I refused to stay in America and my relatives called me mad
‘What have you come back to do here…in poverty…why don’t you
be like the rest?
‘Oh God of heaven, my mother cried…how can my son be bewitched now when I need him most’?

Is this the club of mad men that you invite me to belong to Tajudeen?
A club of men who cannot put food on the table for their families
Because those who control jobs…put them on the black list
A club of men who cannot be quoted in any media at home because they sing a dead song!
A song that the World Bank has banned in an ‘independent’ African nation!

Come closer my brother…look at the young prince of the North
He talks war when African warriors carry the spear no more
When the spear can neither kill a rat nor the python!
He says no more money for AIDS…for condoms…for the cure!
Let those African brothers behave…let them abstain and reduce their numbers
Let them be few even when young women roam without husbands…called by proxy wars and AIDS

I want to sing a new song
I want to sing my song
In my own way
But they want me to sing their song
In their own way
The Clays of Kenya and the Thatchers of Equitorial Guinea
Wants Churchill back in the pearl of Africa
Churchill is back in Sierra Leone
As De Gaulle man’s the gates of Abidjan
Yes…because the African brothers chopped each others’ hands
Yes…because Governor Baring knew ‘the Africans could not rule
themselves’

Tell me Tajudeen why I should join you in the Pan African dream!

Certainly no one can ignore the relationship between income inequality and long term political stability in nations (Kenya: New report shows huge inequalities in income, welfare [http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43877]). Crimes in the inner cities of the US and in Brazil and increasing crimes in both urban and rural Kenya are symptoms of income inequality.

The first study on income inequality in Kenya was carried out by ILO in 1972 and a report was published. Like other important documents this one gathers dust in the archives. This issue of economic disparity has a relationship with race and ethnicity. In the US the Republicans stand for 'merit' and the Democrats stand for 'welfare state' - maybe through their words not in action. The Scandinavian welfare state model is despised in the US.

What kind of model do we want for Kenya? Is it not time to reduce government's role in economic development so that we can embrace a private lead economic growth that does not fall prey to the politics of ethnicity, religion and regionalism? The state should provide basic infrastructure and create a suitable environment for entrepreneurs to thrive. It should not be the role of the state to channel resources to some favoured regions. This is a political decision that often incubates political upheaval.

I have not read the whole document but I hope the researchers investigated not merely regional disparities which are misleading, but the petty bourgeoisie in Kenyatta's and Moi's administration, the capture of Kenyan strategic economic sectors such as banking and finance by British investors, capital flight, fall of the coffee, tea, tobacco and cotton industries and the role of ethnic conflict in development.

Blind statistics taken by a 'non partisan' party may be a 'convenient weapon' of a 'learned' politician who wants to unfairly direct national resources to his region. No wonder the report fits well with views of some Kenyan politicians. Moi had the same conclusions and his solution was to strangle Kikuyu entrepreneurs so that the rest of Kenya could catch up with them. He introduced a quota system to limit the number of qualified Kikuyus going for higher education. This was very punitive to people who had no understanding of why their hard work has anything to do with other peoples failures. This is very political research and I hope the researchers understand the 'implied' message in their 'authentic' conclusions. One must consider history, culture, politics and accessibility to resources before deriving some convenient blueprint conclusions about development in the 'only stable' country in strife torn Africa.

Upbeat mood in Washington News of Prof. Wangari Maathai's award of the Nobel Peace Prize has instantly raised the face of Kenya in the international community. Everyone here is happy with the decision of the Noble Committee in Oslo. It is important for Kenyans to reflect on this award and what it means for Kenya. Wangari has become the first African woman to win the coveted peace prize. Kenya now ranks second to South Africa in the journey of peace. The first peace prize in Africa was bagged by Chief Albert Luthuli in 1964. Wangari not only stood up fiercely against the irrational leadership of president Moi but also raised the profile of the Kenyan woman. In 1992 she tried unsuccessfully to unite the opposition even as backed Jaramogi Oginga Odinga against the will of her tribe mates. The culturally cursing women public nudity that involved Koigi's mother was reminiscent of Mary Nyanjiru's removal of her skirt to give cowardly men who refused to storm the Nairobi police station to release Harry Thuku in 1922. It is in line with Kikuyu protest tradition that saw Waiyaki wa Hinga burried alive near Kibwezi rather than succumb to humiliation by a colonial officer in Dagoretti,a Mr. Purkiss.

Wangari is an ambitious woman. She vied for presidency in 1997 not so much because she had any chances but because she never wanted Charity Ngilu to take another first from her by being the first woman presidential candidate in Kenya. This nobel prize has raised Kenya's visibility abroad. It can have an impact in tourism and giving a general clean bill of health to the new leadership in Kenya. It should be given the right interpretation and place in the Kenyan psyche so that it can inspire the right attitudes and behavior in society. I admire the way South Africans would have used such an occassion to make a national celebration. This is because it has a healing potential for the nation. I would be optimistic to believe that this award will inspire women and men to strive for hard earned recognition rather than mediocre short cut (corruption) based elevation that have propelled some leaders in Kenya.

There are many more women in Africa who would give Wangari a run for her money. In Kenya alone there is the renowned women educationist Dr. Eddah Gachukia, in Tanzania we have Mrs. Getrude Mongella, now Chairman of AU parliament and UN boss Anna Tibaijuka, in Uganda we have legislators Winnie Byanyima and S. Kazibwe. We can't forget the late Rwandese Prime Minister, Agatha Uwilingiyimana and first woman president Ruth Sando Pere of Sierra Leone and Sirleaf Johnson, a 1997 presidential contender in Liberia. We can't also forget Winnie Madikizela Mandela and Graca Machel Mandela. Wangari has opened the way for honoring more African women honors. Hongera!

The British ambassador has no right to abuse an elected Kenyan government whatsoever (Pambazuka News 167). Britain as a former colonial master continues to exploit Kenyans unprecedently. The purported UK foreign aid to Kenya is less than ten per cent of UK profits repatriated from Kenya every year. No sane journalist will dare to expose these statistics. Instead a lie is perpetuated about a caring and benevolent master at the expense of African dignity.

If UK is such a caring development partner why have the atrocities committed against the people in the war of independence not been acknowledged and reparations made? Are Jews special human beings to have been compensated for the Nazi genocide as Africans wallow in self-hating indignities? Does Kay thinks Kenyans have forgotten about the Hola massacre? Where was Kay when Moi looted the nation's coffers clean? Where was Kay when Moi closed Kikuyu ran banks so that UK banks could flourish?

When Kibaki tries to return the economy to the people, the exploiters jump with 'clean shovels' to the amusement of the 'fickle minded African journalists'. It takes only the courage of a few to change the world. Without the sacrifice of Mau Mau, many of Kay supporters would still be licking the boots of their masters. Thank God Kenyans no longer need to read what their journalists write to be informed. Lets learn to access and analyse information on our own initiative. Politics of ethnic divide and rule will continue to be used to divide 'less informed' Africans. Remember the British propped up KADU at independence so that they could have their way in Kenya.