Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: MOON Ki on June 02, 2015, 12:35:32 AM
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It is so easy to tick-off a check-list of so many kilometres of road and railways completed, schools and hospitals built, jobs created, and generally dazzle with economic data.
True, we have achieved a great deal since independence on the basic development indicators, but we all too often forget that the fruits of freedom are not just measured in raw data. More intrinsic values are difficult to capture in numbers put together by fellows more interested in data than in people. Are we all better off? Do we feel more Kenyan?
Does everybody enjoy fair access to quality education, medical care, and other social needs? Does every Kenyan get a fair and equal chance to develop to the best of his/her ability? Do we all have reason to take pride and joy in being Kenyan?
These are the questions we should be asking, the questions that are uncomfortable to those enjoying almost exclusive access to the fruits of freedom simply because they have the right lineage or connections and the foolish ones supporting the regime because they imagine that ethnic or familial ties place them closer to the feeding trough.
The truth is that despite all the “development”, Kenya remains one of the most unequal and unjust societies in the world; a violent, backward, atavistic, corrupt society where a thieving mafia rules and primitive accumulation by those in power is the order of the day.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Real-value-of-madaraka/-/440808/2736666/-/m5ygrqz/-/index.html
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I have always seen Gaitho as an apologist for Uhuru. He usually seeks to blunt real criticism by acting as a gatekeeper.
Here is a Madaraka day event from another corner of the country.
Gunmen from Somalia, suspected to be members of Al-Shabaab, have literally taken over a village in Lafey, Mandera County.
The presence of the over 30 foreigners has caused fear among villagers, hundreds of whom have left their homes. Four schools, including Gari Boys Secondary School, have also closed down.
On Thursday, students of Gari Secondary School scampered for safety after receiving reports that the gunmen had been spotted on a nearby road.
“A small girl ran into school claiming that she was being chased by armed men who had taken the milk she was taking to the market only for the boys to run into the bush fearing that the militants would attack the school,” said Mr Mahat Adan, the Gari Boys School principal, who has sought refuge in Mandera Town.
SPARKED EXODUS
Wankara Ward Representative Abdirashid Maalim on Monday said the students had abandoned the school because it is not fenced.
Mr Maalim said the reports sparked an exodus, with villagers seeking refuge in Elwak and Mandera towns.
“The armed men have been roaming between Gari shopping centre and Warankara Town, harassing innocent people and warning them never to pass near their camp or inform the authorities of their presence in the area,” said Mr Maalim.
Mandera Deputy County Commissioner Fredrick Ayieko on Monday said they had received reports on the presence of the foreigners.
ROAMING MILITANTS
"We have received reports that Shabaabs have crossed into Mandera... We shall give them a chase because we want a secure county," he said.
Mr Maalim said the roaming militants have been engaging residents in talk.
The militants, he said, also carry "a lot of money", adding that they forcibly buy goats from the locals.
"We are worried that this money could be used to lure these runaway students into terror cells. As we mobilise students to come together in a safe place, we want the government to wake up and do something," he said.
BLOCKED ROAD
Darkale Ward Representative Mohamed Mohammed said teachers from other parts of Kenya had vacated Banisa Sub-County, fearing for their lives.
The foreigners, he said, had also blocked the Elwak-Takaba road.
Mr Adan, the Gari Boys School principal, appealed to the national government to beef up security in the area to avoid disruption of the school calendar.
“Let (the) government secure the area first before we go back, as the Administration Police camp, with only five officers, cannot protect the area,” said Mr Adan.
http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Fear-as-gunmen-invade-Mandera-village/-/1056/2736086/-/iid286z/-/index.html
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Which country has achieve the utopia of fair and just society for everyone. This looks to me like game of shifting goal posts. The indicators that matters [on development] cannot be ignored or derided for some fuzzy unattainable ones like equal society.
Gaitho sometimes tries to hard to criticize for it sake. There are issues that are worth criticism today....one of which is runaway graft and of course insecurity. Not nonsense like fair and equal chance...how about his shares his 1m salary with a chokora to achieve that dream.
It is so easy to tick-off a check-list of so many kilometres of road and railways completed, schools and hospitals built, jobs created, and generally dazzle with economic data.
True, we have achieved a great deal since independence on the basic development indicators, but we all too often forget that the fruits of freedom are not just measured in raw data. More intrinsic values are difficult to capture in numbers put together by fellows more interested in data than in people. Are we all better off? Do we feel more Kenyan?
Does everybody enjoy fair access to quality education, medical care, and other social needs? Does every Kenyan get a fair and equal chance to develop to the best of his/her ability? Do we all have reason to take pride and joy in being Kenyan?
These are the questions we should be asking, the questions that are uncomfortable to those enjoying almost exclusive access to the fruits of freedom simply because they have the right lineage or connections and the foolish ones supporting the regime because they imagine that ethnic or familial ties place them closer to the feeding trough.
The truth is that despite all the “development”, Kenya remains one of the most unequal and unjust societies in the world; a violent, backward, atavistic, corrupt society where a thieving mafia rules and primitive accumulation by those in power is the order of the day.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Real-value-of-madaraka/-/440808/2736666/-/m5ygrqz/-/index.html
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Which country has achieve the utopia of fair and just society for everyone. This looks to me like game of shifting goal posts.
Having less inequality does not necessarily mean having "utopia". Anyways .... his overall assessment is on the mark and hard to argue with:
"the foolish ones supporting the regime because they imagine that ethnic or familial ties place them closer to the feeding trough."
and
"The truth is that despite all the `development', Kenya remains one of the most unequal and unjust societies in the world; a violent, backward, atavistic, corrupt society where a thieving mafia rules and primitive accumulation by those in power is the order of the day."
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Which country has achieve the utopia of fair and just society for everyone. This looks to me like game of shifting goal posts. The indicators that matters [on development] cannot be ignored or derided for some fuzzy unattainable ones like equal society.
Gaitho sometimes tries to hard to criticize for it sake. There are issues that are worth criticism today....one of which is runaway graft and of course insecurity. Not nonsense like fair and equal chance...how about his shares his 1m salary with a chokora to achieve that dream.
It is so easy to tick-off a check-list of so many kilometres of road and railways completed, schools and hospitals built, jobs created, and generally dazzle with economic data.
True, we have achieved a great deal since independence on the basic development indicators, but we all too often forget that the fruits of freedom are not just measured in raw data. More intrinsic values are difficult to capture in numbers put together by fellows more interested in data than in people. Are we all better off? Do we feel more Kenyan?
Does everybody enjoy fair access to quality education, medical care, and other social needs? Does every Kenyan get a fair and equal chance to develop to the best of his/her ability? Do we all have reason to take pride and joy in being Kenyan?
These are the questions we should be asking, the questions that are uncomfortable to those enjoying almost exclusive access to the fruits of freedom simply because they have the right lineage or connections and the foolish ones supporting the regime because they imagine that ethnic or familial ties place them closer to the feeding trough.
The truth is that despite all the “development”, Kenya remains one of the most unequal and unjust societies in the world; a violent, backward, atavistic, corrupt society where a thieving mafia rules and primitive accumulation by those in power is the order of the day.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Real-value-of-madaraka/-/440808/2736666/-/m5ygrqz/-/index.html
Problem is, no leader seems to tackle problems head on. Kenyatta talks but no action. He has lately tried but he has not followed up by action. Suspending is good but taking ill gotten wealth is the solution. Quality of education has decreased to the point it is almost worthless to send kids to public schools. Cant say so of 1970s and 80s. I went to publc school and was proud. Am sure most of us will think twice before venturing into it.
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Fair and Just society is the least of our problem.it probably a problem in Equitorial guinea or Qatar where gdp per capita on paper is 40Kusd but most folks are poor..otherwise simple maths will tell you if we share our wealth equally and justifiably...we will still have per capita of 1500 or less per annum.
Which country has achieve the utopia of fair and just society for everyone. This looks to me like game of shifting goal posts.
Having less inequality does not necessarily mean having "utopia". Anyways .... his overall assessment is on the mark and hard to argue with:
"the foolish ones supporting the regime because they imagine that ethnic or familial ties place them closer to the feeding trough."
and
"The truth is that despite all the `development', Kenya remains one of the most unequal and unjust societies in the world; a violent, backward, atavistic, corrupt society where a thieving mafia rules and primitive accumulation by those in power is the order of the day."
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Fair and Just society is the least of our problem.it probably a problem in Equitorial guinea or Qatar where gdp per capita on paper is 40Kusd but most folks are poor..otherwise simple maths will tell you if we share our wealth equally and justifiably...we will still have per capita of 1500 or less per annum.
The first part above seems to confuse two different things:
(a) having a lot and not sharing it in a reasonable way; and
(b) sharing reasonably whatever there is.
Eq. Guinea belongs to the first category; on other hand, there are countries next door that have less than Kenya but fewer inequalities.
Red: One of Gaitho's points is that focusing on figures like GDP per capita is not good enough, and it is not good enough for an obvious reason: not everyone in a country has the said slice. The case you give of Eq. Guinea is a good example. In any case, the argument for trying to achieve better equality is not that it will increase a country's total wealth; so it is odd to have an argument that better sharing will not change GDP per capita.
Another point is that disparities in "wealth" is not just an issue of how much the average person has. In fact, huge disparities are likely to cause more problems in a rich country than in a poor one, and a place like Eq Guinea is actually an extreme peculiarity. The top 1% of the USA owns about 35% of its wealth. Considering the circumstances of the average American, that is not as bad as a similar percentage in a poor country.
The most immediate effect of inequalities in a place like Kenya is the rise of social problems, e.g. crime, which it turn affect the quality of life. What drives "social crime" (car-jackings, violent home break-ins, etc.) in a place like Nairobi is not the mere fact that it has many poor people.
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Nobody has said inequality is not a problem; It just least of our problem; There are way more indicators that we need to track; and those same indicators are the same that Gaitho has dismissed. I know most journalist are maths challenged and would prefer to deal with fuzzy ideas...however these indicators..."kilometres of road and railways completed, schools and hospitals built, jobs created, and generally dazzle with economic data"..are the MOST IMPORTANT indicators. So are crime levels...could be inequality..could be lack of policing..could failed judicial systems...all those are indicators of Insecurity..with least possibly being someone feeling unequal decides then to steal. The world is and has always been unequal.
And that is why these indicators are tracked seriously. We spend 10B kshs on KNBS to track those indicators. Private research institution and universities do the same. WB,IMF, OECD and name any other else does the same.
TRACKING THE MOST important indicators...not going around with funny stats like happiness index (like you could determine) or inequality or so called human development index (like there are non-human development around)...is what we need to do.
Debate around the most important indicators (not happiness index) is where politics and journalism should be centered.
Gaitho should be punctuating his article with hard data...of whether we are making progress or not..around Key Indicators...not writing copious amount of nonsensical string of words..not backed by any facts...more like the religious bs one listen to in a church.
This is what every serious household, private company, public institution and gov does...TRACK important KPIs...not get distracted by hard to define nonsense...we can measure the kilometres of paved roads in a scientific way..we cannot really determined how many kilometers of happiness or equality or justice we got this year..without sounding like those third rate studies by social scientist.
The first part above seems to confuse two different things:
(a) having a lot and not sharing it in a reasonable way; and
(b) sharing reasonably whatever there is.
Eq. Guinea belongs to the first category; on other hand, there are countries next door that have less than Kenya but fewer inequalities.
Red: One of Gaitho's points is that focusing on figures like GDP per capita is not good enough, and it is not good enough for an obvious reason: not everyone in a country has the said slice. The case you give of Eq. Guinea is a good example. In any case, the argument for trying to achieve better equality is not that it will increase a country's total wealth; so it is odd to have an argument that better sharing will not change GDP per capita.
Another point is that disparities in "wealth" is not just an issue of how much the average person has. In fact, huge disparities are likely to cause more problems in a rich country than in a poor one, and a place like Eq Guinea is actually an extreme peculiarity. The top 1% of the USA owns about 35% of its wealth. Considering the circumstances of the average American, that is not as bad as a similar percentage in a poor country.
The most immediate effect of inequalities in a place like Kenya is the rise of social problems, e.g. crime, which it turn affect the quality of life. What drives "social crime" (car-jackings, violent home break-ins, etc.) in a place like Nairobi is not the mere fact that it has many poor people.
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I know most journalist are maths challenged and would prefer to deal with fuzzy ideas...however these indicators..."
Not everything can be reduced to maths, but is that is what works for you, then there is a well-known mathematical measure of inequality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
The World Bank, which you mention, also has this in its resource pages:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPA/Resources/429966-1259774805724/Poverty_Inequality_Handbook_Ch06.pdf
so called human development index (like there are non-human development around)...
As it turns out, there are all sorts of development of things, as opposed to humans. One can see it all around.
Lastly, it should be noted that inequality is limited to just inequality it income or wealth. I encourage you to read the most recent UN report on such matters:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/reports/InequalityMatters.pdf