Faith versus Reason: My two little sense of worth.

We cannot accept the two to leave us because they will leave the church of God very weak, so we have decided that we will not take them to the grave but sit and wait for the Lords intervention, Apostle William Kimani, February 21, 2010.

The story of thousands of faithful who thronged the Kingdom Seekers Fellowship church in Nakuru town awaiting an ultimate resurrection miracle of their departed sisters got me thinking the following:

In matters of reason and faith, where do we place the boundaries? When should believers stop believing and start reasoning? Or where does reasoning start and which should reveal? Where is the balance?

Now I know this is a pertinent philosophical issue which has been debated hundreds of years before me but the immediacy and proximity of the circumstances naturally demand my humble reflections.

And no, it should not be just about me! Anybody who cares about the recent happenings in our country should care to give a thought to such a question. First it was a celebrated TV anchor who appears to have lost her marbles to blind faith bend on the occult.

And now an entire congregation- thousands we are told, gathered in Nakuru over the weekend to witness the resurrection of Pastors Patrick Wanjohi Wanja and Francis Kamau Ndekei who had died earlier on of a road accident.

According to Apostle’s and Pastors who set all this up, Christians have become weak and they no longer question when men of God die but just proceed to bury them.

“We are here to change that tradition and today, we have chosen to question why these two have died when their work was obviously not done, Pastor Stephen Mulungi from Uganda is reported to have said.

Obviously- and this is only obvious to me, the resurrection never took place because it could not have happened in the first place. It is not something the rational would even contemplate in the first place.

But I understand where the problem came from and this is the crux of the matter. Men and in this case the Christians have decided to double up as rationales and faithful at the same time. They want to be believer but also retain their reason.

In doing so, they have not set the demarcations as to where what stops. It is not clear to an ordinary mind which comes first. On one hand, faith appears to be more powerful but on the other, reason serves them daily.

Pupils and students go to school five days a week to practice reasoning but one day to practice faith, so they are set on a reasoning path through out their lives.

But beyond school, other fundamentals of life and most strikingly death trifle them beyond reason and faith steps in for solace. The power of reason starts to wane from here as they start to subject their reasoning to faith.

They rarely try to subject their faith to reasoning and the Nakuru incident goes on to vindicate this observation. If the worshippers placed the issue at hand (resurrection) at the pyre of reason, it would not have stood.

And this incident is just the tip of the ice berg. Many other such instances where faith tend to operate alone and leave reason out characterize our lives.

The failure to merge these two into one has created a situation where we have deficits and extremes in terms of how people practice religion hence the talk of fundamentalist Christians/Moslems, the talk of cults and the like.

These are the results of failure to balance these two. My own reflection is that the two- in a religious context, must necessarily go together. Faith cannot leave reason and achieve its ends at the same time.

I am not however very sure that the vice versa would apply in say, a scientific context. Faith might as well be dispensable in science.

I think Christians would be better Christians when they merge these two concepts of faith and reason in their practice of Christianity. If they don’t, they will be afflicted with confusion, imbalance and torment as the Nakuru incident crowds and as our ex-TV queen appears to be in.

Ends………./.

There's redempion for Esther

Pardon, madam… when she has obtained your eye, will have your tongue too. This is a creature, would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal of all professors else make proselytes of who she but bid follow- William Shakespeare, Winters Tale.

Beauty might be a virtue but like the poet himself avers, virtue itself escapes not calumnious strokes.

The canker, he says in Hamlet, galls the infants of the spring too often before their buttons are disclosed; “and in the morn and liquid dew of youth, contagious blastments are most imminent.”

Esther’s “blastment” has taken everybody by surprise and sent shockwaves all over. The shock is most registered because going by her unmistakable beauty and constant appearance on TV, most people had formed opinions of her.

The judgment is as expected: mean and harsh as the multitude best delivers them!

No one expected her to pull such a move because her beauty and innocence did not seem to imply anything of the sort. If anything, these two combined with her demeanor and grace sold her out as brainy and non-gullible.

The assumption is that her life was meticulously planned and scattered with prudent moves like the scripts she reads on television. Viewers had therefore set her some standards which as it now appears, were too high.

They ignored that Esther was/is still forming up and is still subject to the “imminent blastments” which affect her lot- youth. She can make mistakes like all of us do and for this, the society should not be very harsh in judging her.

From her behavior during the press conference, it is very clear that she has some growing to do- indeed like most of us have. A fully formed mature person would not reasonably argue that since she’s 30 or thereabout, she can make her own decision about anything and live where she want.

Even people double that age or say octogenarians do not live any way they want because society moderates their lives as it does for everyone.

A fully formed public figure would also not claim that the public has no stake in whoever she dates and expect to remain reasonable at the same time. She would not by accepting to lead a public life, she has exposed her life to public scrutiny. Lawyers and journalists know this better.

And so, the scales upon which Esther is being weighed need be tilted to factor the fact that she is still learning and mistakes are part of this learning. She does not deserve condemnation from the public but acceptance.

This is not to mean the media should go slow on her, hell no. Let is kip spawning every detail it can avail to itself on her because we need to know. That is their role as a media and our role as members of public is to evaluate these.

The society should not behave as though there is no redemption for Esther. She has one hell of bright life staring at her. She only needs to dust herself up and get running again to reclaim her rightful place in the drama of life.

Time is a master redeemer. We only need to throw her into pyre of time and she will be cleansed of these naiveties, inexperience and gullibility. That way she will be a great pillar in future and guard many others from falling her way.

So from here, I say go, go, go Esther, get up, dust yourself up and move on with my good-wishes , God’s blessings and special remembrances.

Musau

Our political apathy is our greatest undoing as a nation

“In Kenya, leadership is an opportunity and not a service. It is an opportunity to grab, get rich- stinking rich, and lord it over the masses.”

By NZAU MUSAU

DESPITE numerous petitions on the two professors- Karega Mutahi and Sam Ongeri to quit office over corruption scandal in their docket, the two have maintained they will stay put.

They will not budge because this is political witch-hunt engineered by their enemies to finish them and their people!

But was not this expected? Do Kenyans really hope these men will be graceful enough to voluntarily resign? Is resignation part of the Kenyan culture? Is political leadership in Kenya a form of service?

Kenyan political leaders do not resign, they are forced to resign. In other words, resignations are pushed through by ordinary Kenyans through civil action which inflames the bosses who in turn give word that its time to go.

Remember the cases of the stoic David Mwiraria or the unlikable Kiraitu Murungi who dramatically resigned with a Bible quotation? Remember the case of the mocking Amos Kimunya, he of the “I’d rather die than resign” statement?

Or even more recent, remember the case of Shakespeare-quoting Aaron Ringera? It cost the country weeks of intense public debate, parliamentary censure and disownment by the board for him to quit.

And mark you, that was a judge, a most honorable judge who once chaired the integrity committee of judiciary! That should tell you that we should expect no less from the two professors although writing in the SN today, Philip Ochieng’ says they should behave differently.

In Kenya, leadership is an opportunity and not a service. It is an opportunity to grab, get rich- stinking rich, and lord it over the masses. In Kenya, leadership knows no values and integrity is an alien virtue.

There can be no values in Kenyan leadership when what the people present for leadership are the most despicable lot in the society; the moneyed, the corrupt, the known thieves, the immoral, the wheeler-dealers, the most wicked lot.

And since this lot cannot profess values as accountability, the responsibility falls back on the people to beat them into line when the opportunity presents itself. In the last few years, Kenyans have shown that they can exercise this important role.

Accordingly, they should not let the gains slip back. The standards must be kept as the country struggles to cleanse itself of generational ineptitude, theft and immorality. It is significant to note that the 10th parliament is composed of a more focused lot than previous one.

Incrementally and over time, Kenya will cleanse the practice of politics and instill proper values in leadership. This is why we should not worry so much at such antics as displayed by Ongeri and Mutahi because they belong to the past.

The future of Kenya is not this bleak as exemplified by these two professors. It is a bright one and where the citizens will claim their space in determining the direction of politics and leadership.

But as I said, that future will be attained by securing the incremental gains garnered over time and through struggles of ordinary men of this country. And that includes sustained pressure on leaders to perform and account for their ways.

The future I am talking about will require a lot of civic education to impress on politically apathetic society that this country has become, to take charge of the political bus. It will require the knowledge of the ordinary Kenyan that politics and its practice is the most important activity around their lives.

In the meantime, our half-hearted approach and concern for politics will continue to cost us and benefit the select few who know how lucrative this venture is in the midst of a sleepy citizenry.

Ends………./.

How Mau Mau oaths influenced the music of Bob Marley: Untold tales of the legend.

By Nzau wa Musau

“And then there was the matter of Bob, another human conundrum who seemed to be holding out answers to questions which they could only guess at; for one not yet out of teens, he was a most mysterious character,” Timothy White, Catch a fire.

GLANCING through Timothy White’s Catch a Fire book on life and times of Bob Marley, one comes across a very interesting claim; the influence of Kenya’s independence movement on the reggae superstar’s politically rich lyrics.

Mau Mau, Kenya’s liberation movement gets a mention on page 332 as among the inspiration behind the Bob’s heavy musical lyrics and political thought which continues to inspire many years after his death in 1981.

Much more specifically, the supernatural ndemwau ithatu (oath of unity) which was administered to Mau Mau initiates gets special mention as among the material read by Bob and his Rasta brethren and on whose basis lyrics were crafted.

Other materials mentioned in the book included Sepher Yetsirah (book of creation), the Fama Fraternatis, Book T, Book M, The Pimander, The Asclepius, The Holy Piby and The Kachina creed of the Hopi Indians.

“Much such material was brought to Bob Marley and his Hope Road companions by various Rasta holy men or ambitious partisans for scrutiny and discussion, the book says and adds:

“Condensed aspects of these mystic and political tracts found their way- sometimes quite naively- into the astrological and quasi-biblical columns published in each issue of Survival, the Tuff Gong (Bob’s nickname & music label/studio) newsletter.

Because of such heavy thoughts and increasing popularity and acclaim among the underprivileged forces of Jamaica, Bob had become the target of CIA trail and got mired in the rivalry pitting two Jamaican political parties PNP and JLP leading to his 1976 near liquidation.

In this book, White gives very interesting accounts of both political situations and social ones conspiring in the December 76 assassination attempt. On one hand was a political party (PNP) setting him up together with CIA while on the other hand, ghetto violence is trailing him.

The latter is particularly more intriguing: Some bad money hanging out at Bob’s palatial residence of Island House had schemed to fix a jockey race at Caymanas Park which fetched them a kill but in sharing the loot, some skipped to Miami with the loot.

Those left behind went after Bob with guns demanding he pays up for his “breddahs”. They ended up blackmailing him with an arrangement of 2000 pounds daily pick-ups until the money, plus interest was paid.

The pick ups continued until a week into the “smile Jamaica” concert, a PNP sponsored event at which Bob was billed to perform and during which armed-to-teeth PNP vigilantes mounted a24 hour security round Bob’s Island house.

When the men would not get through for their daily picks, they laid an ambush during which they caught up the entire Wailers band rehearsing in the night, and shot indiscriminately seeking out after Bob to finish him off.

Hurt and shaken, Bob would later perform at the event during which White says he broke into a ritualistic dance acting out aspects of the ambush that had almost taken away his life.

“The last thing they saw before the reigning king of reggae disappeared back into the hills was the image of the man mimicking the two-pistoled fast draw of a frontier gunslinger, his locks thrown back in triumphant laughter,” White writes.

Bob went into exile but the shadows of vengeance remained behind. All those involved in the ambush were tracked after by Bob’s ‘disciples’ and killed; one was viciously murdered, another tracked down in New York and shot while another was shot in the head in Jamaica.

Some who fled to the hills had their throats, as White puts it, neatly slit; others were tried and killed by ghetto mobs. The last two assailants confessed and begged to be taken to Bob to ask for forgiveness but the rastas wouldn’t allow them.

“When these men were last seen alive, they were wandering aimlessly through Trench Town and Rae Town, respectively, behaving like demented zombies. They stammered about a strange saliva-like substance that would splash against their faces at night, and duppies clocked in blue flame that came to them just before sunrise and slapped and punched them.”

The theme of Bob’s curse-tongue is explored well in this book, from casting spells to murmuring prophesies which later turned true.

Growing up in a highly superstitious countryside where it was believed souls of the dead were set loose for use in either good or bad, Marley’s childhood misfortunes had been interpreted in the light of dark forces which his grandfather, a herbalist and “myalman” (obeah-deflector) of renowned repute dealt with proper.

Omeriah Malcolm, as he went, had schooled in ancient “myalist” arts by his father, Robert Malcolm, who had descended from Cromanty slaves shipped to Jamaica from the Gold Coast, White says.

A quiet child, Robert is depicted in this early years as one prone to mysterious silences and cryptic moods than to mischief, one who would go off to little walks on himself and lock himself in own little meditations.

He has a reputation for accurate palm reading at young age and shocked his mom when he told her that he would die at the age of 36. He had also “cursed” producer Leslie Kong that he would make millions out of him but would die without enjoying it, prophesies which according to White came to pass.

Like Joseph of the Bible, after whose tribe he took when he converted into a brethren of twelve tribe’s movement, Bob was also a dreaming lad.

White illustrates this severally in the book among them one dream in late 60’s in America where Bob sees a short man who hands him a ring with a black jewel embossed on it with some insignia.

Both he and mom Ciddy tried to crack it up with the mom thinking it was the ghost of his dead father seeking recognition. She hands Bob his father’s ring but the lad aint convinced for he pulls it out as soon as it slips in his finger.

Ten years during his forced exile in London, he would meet deposed Emperor Haile Sellassie son Crown Prince Asfa Wossen who after briefing him on Ethiopian politics and fate of the man-god, handed him the precious Lion of Judah Ring:

“This belonged to His Majesty,” he said as he slipped it into Bob’s finger “You are the one who should wear it.” The ring would later cause a lot of ruckus after Bob’s death with Rasta zealots launching a campaign to bequeath it.

White also offers very interesting insights into Bob’s final days painting the picture of an isolated dying man separated from his loved ones. Even after collapsing in the middle of an American tour, the inner sanctum of Bob’s dreads would not inform his family, wife Rita or let her near him.

Rita seeks him out in vain after a weird dream during which she saw him wasted, dreads fallen and talking to her from a hospital fence.

White says that when she woke and finally tracked him down, he looked so ancient and hardly recognizable. As Bob narrated his fate to her, Rita wept uncontrollably, even more as Bob weakly stated that they wouldn’t let him stop the tour.

“It makes nuh sense to stop the tour… Bob is gwan die anyway,” one of Bob’s mindless entourage told Rita. During that last tour, Bob’s entourage partied mindless as the man stayed behind in his bedroom alone complaining he needed to rest.

When things appeared tough and they began to shuffle after one cancer hospital to another without remedy and with newspapers announcing his impeding death, Rita had Bob baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox church taking the name Berhane Selassie.

He was later flown to the German unorthodox clinic of Dr. Josef Issels where he managed to hold onto life for six months until it was doggone clear that there was no redemption to his illness. He was flown back to Miami to die.

As he clutched on his beloved mom in his deathbed, he whispered: “Don’t worry for me muddah, am gwan ta prepare a place!” His soul slipped away soon thereafter and the fulfilled his own prophesy of dying at 36.

“A man who looked like a skinny lion, moved like a spider and lived like a ghost, Bob Marley died trying to control the duppies within himself. This is a disturbing story about the thin ice that is mere information, the terrible onrush of truth and the ebb and flow of magic,” White says.

He goes on to recount the countless court cases filed against the multimillion estate of Bob, revelations of Bob’s own conduct during the trials, the aftermath tensions between Rita and Ciddy and the blossoming of the Bob’s family tree.

Ends………/.

ICC ruling today on Bashir, what it means for Kenya

A ruling which might have a precedent effect on the Kenyan post election case awaiting determination at the Hague has just been delivered.

The ruling which was delivered today by the appeals chamber of the ICC reversed a decision by the pre-trial chamber of the court last year which disqualified the charge of genocide on Sudan’s president Omar Bashir.

It is the same pre-trial chamber which is currently looking into the merits and demerits of the Kenyan case as presented by prosecutor Moreno Ocampo and reinforced by victims petitons.

The unanimous decision by the appeals chamber today directed the pre-trial chamber to decide afresh whether the arrest warrant issued against Bashir last year should be extended to cover the crime of genocide.

Sitting on March 4th last year, the chamber found that material provided by Ocampo supporting his application for a warrant of arrest against Bashir was defective to the extent of covering genocide crime.

The judges said the Ocampo failed to provide “reasonable grounds” to believe that Bashir had the specific intent to destroy the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups of people in Darfur region.

As a result of this finding, the crime of genocide which Ocampo hoped to nail Bashir on, was not included in the warrant of arrest that was issued a little later on by the court.

Undeterred however, Ocampo moved to the appeals chamber in July 6th to appeal the decision.
He argued that the pre trial chamber erred in requiring that the existence of reasonable grounds to believe that the crime was committed “must be the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence presented by the prosecutor.”

Ocampo has supplied similar material on Kenyan case to the pre trial chamber where he hopes to pursue crimes of murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, deportation or forcible transfer of populations and other inhumane acts which occurred in Kenya.

He bases his case on a vast number of national and international reports documenting the Kenyan post election violence and analyzed by his office.

Among them is the Waki Report, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Others are UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNFPA, FIDA-K, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness and Christian Children’s Fund and UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings.

The ruling on Bashir is important to the Kenyan case currently on the table. What it means therefore is that the decision on whether to admit the case or not- and which is likely to be delivered any time now, can actually be challenged.

It means the word of the pre-trial chamber is not final and is open to further litigation. This particular appeal has lasted almost a year now if you consider the time Ocampo placed it.

This is because ICC processes are water-tight and quite meticulous. This is an essential aspect of judicial processes.

With the high stakes involved in the Kenyan case, you can be sure whatever decision the pre trial chamber arrives at will definitely be challenged. Already, various groups- including American scholars have petitioned the chamber not to admit the case.

The long and short of it is that justice for post election violence will be delayed a lot more and all the while, 2012 approaches. We were warned; ICC process is long and torturous, we didn’t listen.

So who will now bail out the victims? Where is justice to be found under the sun for the post election victims? Can there be justice for these people through any process, local or international? What is justice?

Ends…………/.

Welcome

Hi good people!

Multimillion greetings filled with lots of love, special remembrances and goodwishes. Welcome to my blog. The journey has been long in coming and approach. Technology is finally catching up with me after all the fight I put up. I finally decided to embrace it and I do so with full steam!

And so As a man thinketh is the product of a subdued man, one who has been boxed down by shadows of time and experience. He accepts the defeat gracefully though and embraces the new spirit for the sake of his own life and progress.

This blog is the platform where I hope to share life lessons in an interactive way which critiques and improves on them. It is an opportunity for all of us to share our thoughts on issues of life- social, political, economic and environmental- anything!

Here and now henceforth, I will shoot straight from the hip. And I will not be surprised if you do a similar thing to me and twice at that. Let us share our reflections in a sober, informative and respectful way that cherishes the essence of a human being as a free thinking being and builds on it.

Once again and with alot of humility, I welcome you to my blog and wish you all the best in the discussions that will ensue.

Nzau wa Musau