It is confirmed that US President Barack Obama will visit Kenya in July. There is jubilation all around. PHOTO | SAUL LOEB |
AFP.
Readers corner: There are plenty of lessons to learn from Obama, US
By James Miser Oigo
It is confirmed that US President Barack Obama will visit Kenya in July. There is jubilation all around.
A
visit by an American President anywhere in the globe is good news.
American is no ordinary country. It is the most powerful state in the
world politically, economically and militarily.
Therefore, Obama’s planned visit has huge implications to the country’s economy.
There
will certainly be investment inflows, because Obama is essentially on a
business trip; he will be here for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Such visits invariably confer huge global goodwill on the host country.
Aside
from the political and economic gains that Kenya is bound to reap from
this high profile visit, there are other myriad ways we can benefit. As a
nation aspiring to prosper, we need to look critically at the variety
of lessons from America.
A cocktail of factors is at the core of America’s success.
First,
American citizens have played a central role in shaping their destiny
by jealously guarding the principles of democracy and liberty on which
their country are founded.
However,
the most outstanding reason America leads the world in numerous aspects
is the fact that it has never been short of heroes and heroines who have
stood to be counted during perilous times.
The
American civil war between the North and the South in 1800s was so
vicious it was feared the United States, referred then as the Union,
would split permanently into two states.
There
were also discriminative laws that entrenched obnoxious racial
segregation in which people of colour were considered second-class
citizens.
Out of these harsh conditions rose brilliant and charismatic American statesmen.
President Abraham Lincoln was one of them.
He
is credited with preserving the Union during the Civil War and signing
the Emancipation Proclamation that led to the end of slavery in the US.
He rose from humble origins and through sheer stamina, great character
and resilience, he became one of the most celebrated leaders in the
history of America.
President
Franklin D Roosevelt played a central role in blunting the adverse
effects of the 1930s Great Depression through his New Deal, which
comprised a number of ingenious initiatives.
He also led the US during most of the World War II. FDR, as Roosevelt
was fondly known, clearly understood the pivotal role that citizens play
in nurturing democracy.
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely,” he said.
America
also has a towering civil rights activist in Martin Luther King Jr,
whose moving speeches captured the attention of the world and immensely
contributed to the end one of the vilest, officially-sanctioned systems
of discrimination in the world. His dream was for a society in which “my
four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not
be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their
character”.
King also urged the
citizens to be at the vanguard of transformation of their country,
warning that the ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by
the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
There
are plenty of lessons, too, from the indefatigable Rosa Parks who
literally refused to budge in the bus of segregation. No wonder she was
known in the United States Congress as “the first lady of civil rights”.
She chose to rise up because she was “tired of being treated like a second-class citizen” in her motherland.
jimmymider@rocketmail.com
***
Allow the gem of Gem to rest in peace, please
by Oduor Ahenda
Kiarie
Ranji’s piece ‘Gem from Gem was also Kanu sycophant’ (Saturday Nation
March 28, 2015) was, sadly, insensitive, erroneous and un-African.
By
deciding to judge the late Grace Ogot on the grounds of her association
with Kanu, Kiarie sadly and woefully missed the point. Saying niceties
about a departed person is not hypocrisy as Kiarie implicitly puts it;
rather, it is tradition.
No human is perfect or infallible hence it’s wise not to be overly judgmental of others.
Again,
we should always put in mind the fact that the departed do leave behind
a devastated family and the worst one can do to the bereaved is to tell
them how “bad” their departed might have been.
About
Grace Ogot, it is seriously unthinkable to talk about her bad deeds now
since the good and wonderful things she did far outweigh these bad
deeds.
Even if the Saturday Nation
was to dedicate the same number of pages it did to allow those scholars
and literati pen on her misdeeds, believe me, not even a page of the
newspaper would be filled up, hence celebrating and praising Grace Ogot
shouldn’t be a contentious issue.
On Grace Ogot’s alleged sycophancy, I ask Kiarie to read her last gift to the scholars — her autobiography Days of My Life — so as to know her true, sincere views and thoughts about Kanu and why she chose to stick with Kanu during those days.
Again,
the roles Grace Ogot played in the constitution making processes of our
country are invaluable thus, to say mama Grace wasn’t a heroine of
democracy is a flagrant insult.
Lastly,
what caused mama Grace cross paths with many, more so in the political
circles, was her fidelity to her principles. Never did she believe in
party hopping or hero worshipping, the vices that define our politics.
The writer teaches literature a Ng’iya Girls High School in Siaya County
***
The merits of a regional approach to doctoral training in Africa
By Peter Ngure
African
nations continue to grapple with the acute shortage of PhDs. For
example, South Africa produces 1,300 PhDs every year and yet the nation
needs a minimum of 6,000.
On the
other hand, Kenya produces less than 300 PhDs and yet the demonstrated
need is 1,000. The quality of the doctoral programmes in most countries
in Africa is also low with students struggling to fund their research
with meagre resources.
The quality of
supervision and mentorship has dwindled over time with the few
supervisors being stretched to the limits. Timely completion of a PhD is
more of a luxury than a necessity with most of the students taking
between five to eight years to earn their doctorate. Some give up and
move on to other issues of life.
According
to a report published by England’s funding council, 80.5 per cent of
students complete their PhD between seven and 25 years. After 25 years,
we give up on your probability of ever getting a PhD.
How
can we improve the quality of PhDs that we produce in Africa? One of
the tested solutions to this is a regional approach to PhD training.
The
Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) has
developed a model that can be adopted for training PhDs in Africa and
beyond. Nine leading universities came together to form a consortium
that focuses on population and health research.
How
does this work? University faculty are selected through a competitive
process that includes taking examinations in critical thinking,
quantitative techniques and writing.
They
then undergo four residential trainings in developing a research
protocol, data collection and analysis leadership, translating research
outputs to policy and career growth after PhD.
The
regional approach comes with several benefits including: creating a
critical mass of PhD holders that are networked and carry out
inter-country studies, economies of scale since facilitators drawn from
member universities train the students in one location.
Studying
as a cohort also creates a forum where there is pressure for the
student to make steady progress in their doctoral journey.
The
regional programme provides opportunities for the students to undertake
research in partner universities and research institutes.
Infusion
of training in leadership, work-life balance, leading teams,
translating research outputs to policy briefs, curriculum development
and pedagogy prepares the students for a career in teaching research and
community service.
There is need to
explore the establishment of more regional consortia that can address
the challenges that universities face in training PhDs in Africa.
Prof Ngure is an Associate Professor and the Program Manager, Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA).
***
Why oral literature is important to society
By George Maangi
Every
ethnic group prides itself in its traditions which spell out the norms,
values and practices, and these are passed from one generation to the
next by word of mouth.
In the
traditional African setting, society’s way of life was taught to the
younger generation through interaction with the older generation.
Unfortunately,
nowadays, this is no longer the case as most people have little or no
knowledge on the very fabric that makes their respective societies.
This
can be partly blamed on colonization. Consequently, Africans were made
to believe that the African way of life was primitive and savage and
that Africans needed to adopt new ways of life in order to be
‘civilised.’
Moreover, it took a
little too long for meaningful scholarly work on this discipline to
start. It was not until the 1970s that focus was accorded to this study.
Even though quite considerable works have been developed on the
subject, most people are still ‘lacking’ in this area.
Globalisation
has had an adverse effect on our oral traditions. Most of us have
adopted foreign ways of life which we know little about and openly
denounced what is supposed to be ours.
A
close and objective analysis of the ideals and principles that make our
traditional framework will reveal morality as being the core
ingredient.
Social relationships and
societal order were core aspects that were emphasised in the traditional
setting, and this is still the case for those communities that still
hold dear their culture.
We should
come up with ways to effectively teach our people the importance of our
traditions as we do away with those that are outdated.
This way we could help salvage our generation from the declining morality that is on the rise today.
The writer is an IGCSE literature teacher in Nairobi
***
Questions on choice of language
By Michael Hatego
In
the ‘Literary Discourse’ of the March 28, 2015, Zukiswa Wanner invited
“thoughts” on subject of language choice by writers, and I can only ask a
few basic questions:
1. Who are the
intended readers of books written in African languages? Is it those who
cannot read English? If it is they, are they literate enough to ‘read’
vernacular?
Could it be those who
know English and African languages, but who should be restricted to
reading the latter to “decolonise their minds”? Or is it those who do
not know the African languages, and should wait for the English
translation?
2. When that African
language book is translated into English, will it carry within it the
“original” cultural and other native nuances and sounds? What and how
much will the non-natives make of them?
Let
the ‘old man’ Ngugi wa Thiong’o live out his cultural independence in
his African language mind, even if he does so in the wider cosmos of the
USA, the child of his coloniser.
***
Varsities are training bad leaders
By Peter Muthuuri
Universities are meant to prepare future professionals and leaders in the country.
However,
what is being witnessed in Kenyan universities is not leadership based
on integrity and truthfulness but leadership based on money, tribalism,
ethnicity and injustice. Leadership in universities is characterised by
huge campaign budgets running into millions, and political patronage.
Which
begs the question, can real politicians emerge from these enormous
amounts spent in student campaigns? If yes, then what is the fate of
students from humble backgrounds with leadership skills and ability but
without money?
Even as Kenya strategises to curb the rigging of national elections, no action is taken to curb the same in our universities.
To
restore the value of student leadership in our universities, the
ministry of Education should take an interest in student leadership.
Some of the leaders implicated in current mega scandals could have
started their thievery as student leaders.
To contribute to this page, please send your comments to satnation@ke.nationmedia.com or write to The Editor, Saturday Nation, POB 49010, Nairobi 00100.
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