The School Violence in Kenyan - A mirror of the soceity

There has been a recent rise in violence in Kenyan schools - with a number of schools closed down because of students gone on the rampage. The politicians spearheaded by the Minister of Education Prof Ongeri is calling for expelling the ring leaders and re-introducing corporal punishment. But I would personally attest that both these measures will be deficient in the long run.

The students are clearly taking their cues from a society that deals with its vengences the same way - Violence. This was clearly manifested in the post election debacle. This mirrors what the Kenyan society has degenerated to. It is what I would like to call a 'mta-do' soceity ( The Kenyan Lingo of what can you do about it ? - albeit sarcastically said).Just to give a handful of examples :

Kenya is a country where we have a president who is a practicing catholic and has a publicly known mistress
A country where we have a Prime minister who has changed political parties a thousand times
A country where the Attorney General has claimed innocence or lack of knowledge in countless cases of graft
A country where the exams results were canceled and messed up with and there were no consequences for those in charge at the exam council
A country where the Ministry of Justice cannot deal with the post - election violence in a manner that is seen to be impartial
A country where the Chief Justice swore in a disputed president on national television
A country where the Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya walks free after overseeing a flawed election

I could go on forever - I think my point is made. Whether the Government wants to claim that they are on drugs.There is a serious lack of honesty in the leadership of the country and therefore this is what the students are simply reflecting.

The violence that they are meting out is as a result of Kenyan society's failure to find ways of conflict resolution that are perceived as just for all the parties involved .I bet no one has sat down with those students and investigated what they really want or what TRULY their problem is. We have simply become a society where the rules are for a certain class of people and not for everyone in an Orwellian fashion.

Violence comes from the verb to violate which means to break, infringe, or transgress (a law, rule, agreement, promise, instructions, etc. and this is exactly the trend that the leaders as well as parents, teachers and the rest of Kenyan society have set for our youth. Why would we expect them to behave differently ?I recommend that a starting point would be to change the top down approach that is used in our schools and revert ot one of constructive engagement. The teachers should sit down with the students in a round table format and discuss what their grievances are and seek solutions together. since generated by both parties these solutions will be co-owned and burning issues averted.But as long as we deal with the students in the way we have we will keep getting the results that we are getting.

Hard line stands such as the reintroduction of caning / expulsion / arraigning them in court will only lead to more and more strikes and nothing resolved in the long run

Kibaki sinking Kenya

I have just been doing my usual round up of Kenyan news and it is depressing to say the least.
The latest Grand Regency saga is just pathetic. We all know that Kibaki and Kimunya and a pack of friends who belong to the same tribe went in and did a deal. They negotiated and sold a public asset to Libyans at a throw away price.

Now what baffles me is the inability for certain Kenyans to call a spade a spade and invoke morality when it is needed.
We do not need an expert , a committee or god - forbid another one of those expensive circuses that they call commissions of inquiry to find out what happened. But knowing Kenya that is wxactky going to happen. Despite the great disappointments that the Kibaki government has upheld since its inception in 2002 there are people who fail to see this and in many of the blogs that I read and participate in . There were many people who lauded Kibaki for brining about economic development, free primary education and a host of things that he was indeed supposed to do as his given his mandate.

To put this straight- a group of us Kenyans have sunk so low - in our integrity and deep in our tribalism such that we would never condemn one of our own - whatever it is they do.
The Government has made several mishaps and misspoken a gazillion times on issues ranging from the IDP's to 'justice' for post election violence perpretators
But what the this section of Kenyans that I am attacking fail to see that this is what the rest of Kenya - who opposed Kibaki was fighting for all along
A new different team that excludes cronies like Kimunya, Ndung'u , Ringera and the rest of that inner circle who more often than not are members of the same tribe.

This kind of thinking is not unique to Kenyans - it is embraced by some in the other countries such as the US.Scores of people who keep on blaming immigrants for their jobs while their jobs are been shipped abroad by the same corporations who are run by people who are ethnically homogenous to themselves

I don't know what it will take for certain people to see wrong as wrong and right as right .There trully is a deficiency of morality going round the world