Category: Kenya

Let that be your last battlefield

3 March, 2008 (10:27) | Kenya, Policy, World news | No comments

For nearly two months I’ve been hoping to be able to write this post as I, like much of the world, watched in anxious passivity as Kenya brought itself to the brink of a tribally based civil war … and then, apparently, brought itself back from the cliff.  As reported in the Boston Globe:

Kenya […]

Kenya: Always the poor suffer first

4 January, 2008 (10:30) | Kenya, Kibera, Slums, World news | No comments

When tragedy strikes, the poor suffer first.  When violence breaks out, the poor suffer most. 

Riots are so depressing, I think, because they are the poor expressing rage and the immediate effect of their rage is to make themselves poorer — by destroying what the poor have. 
 
Such a spectacle appears to be gripping Kenya […]

Kibera’s moment, Kenya’s moment

31 December, 2007 (10:05) | Global news, Kenya, Slums | No comments

Something potentially remarkable is happening in Kenya right now, and it’s happening because of slums, or more precisely Kibera, Africa’s largest slum.  Kibera’s residents, long ignored in economic and policy terms, may just decide Kenya’s next president.  As reported last week in the Boston Globe:
 
In Kenya, presidential race could hinge on voters in slum
 
NAIROBI - […]