
We wish you a Merry Christmas from Coastal Mississippi. Here, all is calm and bright, but our Ethiopian creche keeps us mindful of and in prayer for our neighbors.
We wish you a Merry Christmas from Coastal Mississippi. Here, all is calm and bright, but our Ethiopian creche keeps us mindful of and in prayer for our neighbors.
This is my tenth “Festive Season” greeting from the blog.
Kenya has a superficial political consensus on “no party” elite politics–while there are a lot of disadvantages for most Kenyans versus a more “recommended” approach to government and governance, at least it leaves a little space to celebrate the non-political holidays in the meantime.
So from my family to yours, Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2019.
My last post corresponded to the sixth anniversary of this blog, so this in the seventh time I’ve had the opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful Festive Season.
I’ve been immersed in “real life” at home and catching up on my reading rather than writing; in the upcoming weeks I’ll be trying to follow the crises in Burundi and South Sudan and the election in Uganda in addition to the ongoing dramas in Kenya but will probably not offer much comment.
Let me reiterate what I said in this Christmas post last year:
This is going to be a challenging time for many Kenyans who will be legitimately concerned about being vulnerable to terrorists, and those who will be legitimately fearful of the forces of their own government. I trust that the spirit of the season will touch most Kenyans to continue to look out for each other regardless of the animus and contrary ambitions of a relative few.
My last post corresponded to the fifth anniversary of this blog, so this in the sixth time I’ve had the opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful Festive Season.
This is going to be a challenging time for many Kenyans who will be legitimately concerned about being vulnerable to terrorists, and those who will be legitimately fearful of the forces of their own government. I trust that the spirit of the season will touch most Kenyans to continue to look out for each other regardless of the animus and contrary ambitions of a relative few.
Happy Jamhuri Day to my friends and readers in Kenya (and Kenyans in the diaspora–even if you don’t get to vote this time!).
It has been a week since my last post, even though so much is happening on a day to day basis with the Kenyan election and lots of other news in the region–this reflects a few different things. For one, perhaps what we could call a “Christmas armistice”. I live in a peaceful place, and I am enjoying the “festive season” here with my family and am committed to a less digital Christmas. We’ve survived another election here in the States (in spite of ourselves) and there are a several weeks left in the campaign in Kenya and this is a good time to step back a bit. In particular, for my family, this is the last Christmas before my daughter goes off to college. I took my son, our youngest, to get his driver’s license yesterday. These are the things that can’t wait (and that are uniquely my responsibility).
For another, I have been at this blog steadily for three years. It’s been through various evolutions and trends and this is an appropriate time for reflective recalibration about what I want it to be going forward. And in the meantime, there are 601 posts out there for those interested. And too many of those are just “news” and not real writing, and I do know that I want to get back to “better” rather than “more”.
A third is that I have both new freedom, and new constraints that I need to adjust to. When I started this blog, and for the first two-and-a-half years, I was a lawyer in the defense industry. For this reason, I always needed to keep a strong separation between my blog and my professional life. When I attended the African Studies Association or participated in a “bloggers’ roundtable” at the Millennium Challenge Corporation I was on vacation from my job and generally didn’t talk about it much (both awkward and expensive). When I was living in Kenya and working for the International Republican Institute I kept entirely away from the job from which I was on leave back home. Now that I am an independent lawyer, I can synthesize what I know from my prior legal experience and otherwise what I do for a living with the blog to whatever extent I chose, so this is easier. At the same time, I am also now available professionally as a consultant in matters involving East Africa and have accepted some work, so I need to avoid any conflicts arising out the transition from being purely an avocational commentator.
One thing I have reflected on this past week is the issue of how much is similar and how much is dissimilar between the 2007 campaign in Kenya and the 20012/13 campaign. All of the major players are the same, although Kibaki will be transitioning from President to “retired President” as Moi is called, and is thus not a candidate himself. I did get somewhat acquainted at that time and in that environment with Raila and Kalonzo and Mudavadi, and did meet Ruto although never sat down with him. Uhuru and Dr. Willy Mutunga, who was then at the Ford Foundation and is now Chief Justice, were the only people that ever turned down a meeting request on my behalf when I was IRI Director (a nice symmetry in terms of KANU/Establishment versus Civil Society/Activist roles) so I do have some real sense of many of those involved. On the other hand, a lot has changed in Kenya, for better and worse, since 2007/08. So although I know much, much more about Kenya from what I have done from here since I moved back, I don’t want to fall into the trap of relying too much on past experience.
One thing this adds up to is that I do want to write more about “democracy promotion” or “assistance” as a subspecies of “foreign aid” in Africa beyond just the current and most recent past campaign in Kenya. I also want to do more with East Africa as a region in interacting with the United States–I drafted a “year in review” summary regarding IGAD for a bar committee I am participating in which reminded me of interesting things to explore about how domestic politics in Kenya and in the U.S. will influence cooperation and integration among the East African and HOA states. And then there is Somaliland, which is near and dear to my heart, but I am very cautious in writing about.
For now, I’ll leave you with a few links:
“Uhuru Kenyatta did NOT donate 85 million to Mitt Romney’s campaign” says The Kenyan Daily Post.
Alex Thurston in the Sahel Blog: “Amb. Susan Rice as a Window into U.S. Africa Policy, 1993-Present”
Merry Christmas for the third time from the AfriCommons Blog. Sorry for the light posting–I’ve slowed down for the holidays. I didn’t take note earlier this month of the second anniversary of the blog and have also been taking some extra time to read and take stock of where the blog should go next year with the Kenyan election campaign and so much else going on in the region at the same time.
The latest “birther” lawsuit was thrown out by a federal court today–hope that will die and that people involved in the U.S. campaigns can leave Kenya out of our races here.
I have received a couple of Christmas presents from the State Department this week: first, I finally got the first installment of cables from my outstanding FOIA request from October 2009 about the Embassy’s 2007 election observation (albeit with pretty extensive redaction on several of them).
Second, the Secretary rose to the occasion and made a strong statement criticizing the cursory approval by Kabila’s Supreme Court of his asserted re-election:
Secretary Clinton’s statement:
The United States is deeply disappointed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the electoral commission’s provisional results without fully evaluating widespread reports of irregularities. We believe that the management and technical execution of these elections were seriously flawed, lacked transparency and did not measure up to the democratic gains we have seen in recent African elections. However, it is still not clear whether the irregularities were sufficient to change the outcome of the election.
We believe that a review of the electoral process by the Congolese authorities and outside experts may shed additional light on the cause of the irregularities, identify ways to provide more credible results, and offer guidance for the ongoing election results and for future elections. We strongly urge all Congolese political leaders and their supporters to act responsibly, renounce violence, and resolve any disagreements through peaceful, constructive dialogue.
We have called on Congolese authorities to investigate and prevent election related human rights violations and we urge security forces to show restraint in maintaining order. The United States continues to offer our assistance and we stand with the Congolese people in their quest for greater peace and democracy at home and throughout the region.