LeoK
Elder Lister
C&P.
I'm reading a fascinating book by Gideon Mutiso "Kenya Politics, Policy and Society" published in 1975.
Prof Mutiso develops a social theory of analysis which articulates what I had begun to notice. This is it:
1. Mutiso says that missionaries were the pioneers of colonial society. The colonial government followed where the missionaries went. Eventually, education became the ticket for an African to enter the colonial economy.
But education came with the so-called "moral values" which the church keeps terrorizing the education system with today. The missionaries were not playing. To go to school, one "had to be Christian, which meant that he would not question the political order." Missionaries even wrote recommendations for school based on how "good" a Christian one was, meaning they would not challenge authority. To be educated, therefore, meant compliance and acceptance of authority, which in turn was taught as Christianity. (I would add that this is why the involvement of the church in education is something that must be systematically questioned. What exactly are churches teaching in terms of political values and ideology? And it would explain why BBI is so much, again, about values that make us more submissive, rather than about governance structures).
2. The missionary school created two types of "Asomi" - the associative and the disassociative asomi. The associative were the ones who accepted the colonial system (the wanyapara). They kept their heads low, advanced in education, rose through the colonial/independence government bureaucracy. So these become the asomi bureaucrats.
The disassociative asomi entered the missionary school system, but did not accept the ceiling imposed by the colonialists. They wanted to rise to the top like the wazungu. So they were chased out of the system, but already with some education. These became the nationalists who fought for uhuru (not the Danish brewer). These became the asomi politicians.
Basically, the interest of all asomi was to maintain the European capitalist system. The asomi bureaucrats accepted wazungu as the heads, the asomi politicians wanted to be the heads. But all asomi were the same. Let me quote Mutiso here:
"Both were trained/socialised in rulership which was both authoritarian and commandist which did not allow the lowest strata of society (non-asomi) to actualise their values. As a consequence, there is very little participation...There is CONVICTION THAT THE CENTRE KNOWS BEST WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY."
3. Eventually, the asomi politicians mobilized the non-asomi and exploited their struggles to get a seat at the table with the asomi bureaucrats. That's what we call independence. But the system never changed, because neither side wanted things to change. The non-asomi were just for getting a ticket to power. Again, I quote Mutiso:
"It is in this situation that some of us define nationalism as the discovery of the non-Asomi for the first time by their fellow [Asomi] Africans.. the non-Asomi are tools of power and not sources of values to be operationalised after juridical independence. The tragedy of this competition [between asomi bureaucrat and the asomi politician] is that it did not allow SYSTEMATIC THINKING OF WHAT INSTITUTIONS TO CREATE AFTER INDEPENDENCE."
3. So at independence, there arise different problems.
a) The asomi bureaucrats were more educated and more loyal to colonialists than the asomi politicians. So the asomi bureaucrats had first and above all madharao for politicians for not being as educated. The two groups have an uneasy alliance, with often politicians finding they are powerless because civil servants do whatever they want anyway.
The "winner take all" that we have been deceived is about seats in parliament is actually about control of the civil service, because government administrators ignore everybody else but the president. The president rules using the civil service, not the legislature or the judiciary or the people. That's why elections are rigged mainly at the presidential level, because the president doesn't have to listen to politicians unless the politicians whip up the people to push the president's hand. BBI says nothing about correcting the civil service. It wants to correct the people to conform to what civil servants want.
b) In Kenya, as Mutiso says, "there is too much emphasis of administering rather than on innovating. There is still the fantastic bias that the centre knows better than the periphery, and the preriphery, be it field offers or local political processes, is to be ignored. There is little technical....little awarness that detailed local analysis is important, not just decision-making by crisis."
c) Civil servants accumulate wealth very quickly.
In summary, "the non-asomi are left out of politics and administration and the asomi bureaucrats even hold the asomi politicians at the center hostage."
So what we need are today's asomis to
1. be more respectful of the people
2. study our local issues like we respect people and are not simply collecting local data on which to apply Western theories and get a certificate to get a better job
3. democratize knowledge, both informally and in the education system.
4. keep insisting on the constitutional mandates of public participation and freedom of information.
Instead, we accepted a colonial education system designed to give our people a junk education while we save our own children through homeschooling, international curricula (which are junk, by the way), tuition and trips to the cyber cafe to print the latest whatever the teacher asked for.
I'm reading a fascinating book by Gideon Mutiso "Kenya Politics, Policy and Society" published in 1975.
Prof Mutiso develops a social theory of analysis which articulates what I had begun to notice. This is it:
1. Mutiso says that missionaries were the pioneers of colonial society. The colonial government followed where the missionaries went. Eventually, education became the ticket for an African to enter the colonial economy.
But education came with the so-called "moral values" which the church keeps terrorizing the education system with today. The missionaries were not playing. To go to school, one "had to be Christian, which meant that he would not question the political order." Missionaries even wrote recommendations for school based on how "good" a Christian one was, meaning they would not challenge authority. To be educated, therefore, meant compliance and acceptance of authority, which in turn was taught as Christianity. (I would add that this is why the involvement of the church in education is something that must be systematically questioned. What exactly are churches teaching in terms of political values and ideology? And it would explain why BBI is so much, again, about values that make us more submissive, rather than about governance structures).
2. The missionary school created two types of "Asomi" - the associative and the disassociative asomi. The associative were the ones who accepted the colonial system (the wanyapara). They kept their heads low, advanced in education, rose through the colonial/independence government bureaucracy. So these become the asomi bureaucrats.
The disassociative asomi entered the missionary school system, but did not accept the ceiling imposed by the colonialists. They wanted to rise to the top like the wazungu. So they were chased out of the system, but already with some education. These became the nationalists who fought for uhuru (not the Danish brewer). These became the asomi politicians.
Basically, the interest of all asomi was to maintain the European capitalist system. The asomi bureaucrats accepted wazungu as the heads, the asomi politicians wanted to be the heads. But all asomi were the same. Let me quote Mutiso here:
"Both were trained/socialised in rulership which was both authoritarian and commandist which did not allow the lowest strata of society (non-asomi) to actualise their values. As a consequence, there is very little participation...There is CONVICTION THAT THE CENTRE KNOWS BEST WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY."
3. Eventually, the asomi politicians mobilized the non-asomi and exploited their struggles to get a seat at the table with the asomi bureaucrats. That's what we call independence. But the system never changed, because neither side wanted things to change. The non-asomi were just for getting a ticket to power. Again, I quote Mutiso:
"It is in this situation that some of us define nationalism as the discovery of the non-Asomi for the first time by their fellow [Asomi] Africans.. the non-Asomi are tools of power and not sources of values to be operationalised after juridical independence. The tragedy of this competition [between asomi bureaucrat and the asomi politician] is that it did not allow SYSTEMATIC THINKING OF WHAT INSTITUTIONS TO CREATE AFTER INDEPENDENCE."
3. So at independence, there arise different problems.
a) The asomi bureaucrats were more educated and more loyal to colonialists than the asomi politicians. So the asomi bureaucrats had first and above all madharao for politicians for not being as educated. The two groups have an uneasy alliance, with often politicians finding they are powerless because civil servants do whatever they want anyway.
The "winner take all" that we have been deceived is about seats in parliament is actually about control of the civil service, because government administrators ignore everybody else but the president. The president rules using the civil service, not the legislature or the judiciary or the people. That's why elections are rigged mainly at the presidential level, because the president doesn't have to listen to politicians unless the politicians whip up the people to push the president's hand. BBI says nothing about correcting the civil service. It wants to correct the people to conform to what civil servants want.
b) In Kenya, as Mutiso says, "there is too much emphasis of administering rather than on innovating. There is still the fantastic bias that the centre knows better than the periphery, and the preriphery, be it field offers or local political processes, is to be ignored. There is little technical....little awarness that detailed local analysis is important, not just decision-making by crisis."
c) Civil servants accumulate wealth very quickly.
In summary, "the non-asomi are left out of politics and administration and the asomi bureaucrats even hold the asomi politicians at the center hostage."
So what we need are today's asomis to
1. be more respectful of the people
2. study our local issues like we respect people and are not simply collecting local data on which to apply Western theories and get a certificate to get a better job
3. democratize knowledge, both informally and in the education system.
4. keep insisting on the constitutional mandates of public participation and freedom of information.
Instead, we accepted a colonial education system designed to give our people a junk education while we save our own children through homeschooling, international curricula (which are junk, by the way), tuition and trips to the cyber cafe to print the latest whatever the teacher asked for.
