LAND, INJUSTICE, AND THE LEGEND OF SISYPHUS

By Immanuel Lokwei, On the issues of land and injustices, nobody would have forecast that some of Saina’s progenies would one day be bewildered by the crises that had befallen them. The late Saina - much can be said about him and still much be left untouched.  A man had never before been so endowed …

The Specters Of Kabongo and Starting Over A New History Of Man

By Immanuel Lokwei, While the spirits of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, as Jacques Derrida argues, haunt the global social reality, on a micro level, certain specters quite contrary in nature to that philosophy of responsibility and radical critique espoused in Marx’s and Engel’s ideologies have taken center stage in Kabongo village. These are the …

TURKANA’S CONCEPT OF ICHAKUN AND THE STEREOTYPES BEHIND IT

By Immanuel Lokwei, The Jews in diaspora, who lived in the Iberian Peninsula, were generally referred to as Sephardi Jews. Turkana of the north rift region in Kenya call their expatriate tribesmen and tribeswomen, of course imbued with derogatory inflammations, the Ichakuns. I could easily qualify as an Ichakun if one is a victim of …

RODCA YOUTHS LED OTHERS IN CLEANING UP ELDORET POLICE STATION

By Immanuel Lokwei, The Eldoret police have been too busy dealing with security matters to the extent that their environment had been left in a perilously garbage-infested state. But last Thursday, Rodca youths in Eldoret led a vibrant team of The Kenya Red Cross community and Winners Chapel volunteers, among other volunteers, to offset this …

A MANUAL (FOR THE ECONOMICALLY DESPERATE): NETWORKING WITH THE AFFLUENT

By Immanuel Lokwei, What happens when an immovable affluent rock meets an impoverished force? The solution to this pseudo-philosophical question will be apparent through this candid narrative which could have easily been titled “My ‘Sonko’ in Eldoret, Be My Godfather.” The origin of this account is an arbitrary encounter. If you have watched Godfather I …

THE ESSENTIAL AWAKENING: AN ENCOUNTER WITH A PRECISE ATOPOS

By Immanuel Lokwei, Thus was Ibrahim R. Rotich’s resolution. You’ll recall that during yesterday’s drinking-bout, which as a matter of rule takes place at a popular drinking den in Eldoret every Saturday night, an interesting development occurred. Usually he would tag along with the party from the early hours of the night till about midnight …

To Be or Not To Be [A Kenyan Terrorist], That’s My Conundrum!

By Immanuel Lokwei, Good tidings such as additional oil discoveries are welcome but the shadow of the ugly cloud, whose epicenter hovered over Westgate Mall several days ago, still lingers on. The event cannot be forgotten; the dent it has created on Kenya’s history should be kept visible for generations to come and even for …

(AFRICAN?) GOD IS DEAD, OR IS IT NIETZSCHE WHO’S DEAD?

By Immanuel Lokwei, About God we know or so we claim, but about Friedrich Nietzsche - a 19th century philosopher whose unfortunate death was preceded by chronic insanity –his thoughts only gained acclaim they deserve posthumously. Widely known for his quote “God is Dead”, now that he died the joke runs that God on his …

Waiting for A Visionary “Sankara”

By Immanuel Lokwei, It is quite obvious that economic inequality stems not necessarily from lack of resources but from a weakness and supposedly a bias that permeates the leadership organ that governs distribution of these resources. In the wake of oil discoveries in Turkana County, another even more essential resource has been discovered: the aquifer …

Alcohol, Can Thou Be Our Good?

By Immanuel Lokwei, Such would have been the lived philosophy of my old comrades and schoolmates within Kapseret and the surrounding Kabongo area had alcohol not taken a heavy toll on their physiques and debilitated their capacities to do work to the fullest extent of their potentials. There is this famous inn, much like a …

Tribal Centaurs and The Myth About Human Nature

By Immanuel Lokwei, Scholars have tried to make sense of the phenomena that is man. Some typical of their reductionist tendencies have tried to induce a single explanation of what man is. Man or human nature they argue is bad, or good if they are of the Confucian variety. We Kenyans too have not been …

Beggars In Nairobi

By Immanuel Lokwei, Very few people, myself excluded, do set aside a portion of their monthly budget for beggars. I believe I don’t need any statistical backing to emphasize that given the high numbers of “masufferers” out everywhere, to whom the travails of budget planning only exist in their realm of imaginations, the percentage of …