mzeiya
Elder Lister
I've just come across this twitter thread courtesy of Wandia Njoya - someone I consider a perennial whiner but it has made me pause and ponder on the argument that she makes.
The rest of the tweets in article format courtesy of CHatGPT:
"I've tried to figure out what was unique about Kenya, and the only thing I can come up with is that we were colonized by British elites. Bruce Berman says that Kenya had the highest number of public school British people in the colonial administration and missions."
"Carey Francis, the guru of the whole lot, was educated at Cambridge. He set the tone for academic snobbery and suffocating moralism that stifles the Kenyan mind. The missionaries set the tone for a major hypocrisy that has infected the Kenyan elite and middle class."
"The hypocrisy isn't Christian vs indigenous. It's liberal hypocrisy. The idea that white people can ignore the colonial framework and represent African interests. No matter how many times you explain this hypocrisy, middle class will not hear you and pontificate about secularism."
"That's why in Western institutions, you will find Kenyans towing the line while ironically singing tirades against wazungu. It's a perfect colonialism. I almost admire wazungu for pulling it off. Binyavanga was onto something when he tried to name this insidious delusion of ours."
"He said 'There is one skill we have: we understand how to put our heads down and make small profits from being cynical sycophants and brokers in small deals for big men. We have learned that ideas are dangerous. To innovate is to threaten power.'"
"If you want to know how bad things are, come see how students struggle to write about themselves. They've been assaulted with motivational speaking and neoliberal branding that they can no longer name what they actually think or feel. That's crazy!"
"And please, spare me the white man stole our culture line. I'm sick of it. Kenyans recite this line but when they're given a racist education system, they say ok. This is a country where decolonizing conferences are sponsored by the British council. I'm not listening."
"Kenya is so good at this delusion, that Western academics love coming to do research and experiment on us. A good chunk of African studies are on Kenya, and not much of that material is enlightening."
"Wazungu scholars are fascinated at how we Kenyans play policy by the text book. For every fantasy cooked up at the UN, Kenyan bureaucrats are the most enthusiastic in forcing us into it, and writing reports about how well its going when nothing like that is happening in reality."
"This dishonesty is our modus operandi, as @m_ogada said. If you try to name reality, you'll be told to be positive and see the bright side of life. That's why my students are struggling to name what they think and witness."
"We're so clueless, that we sponsor bots to shamelessly reply with the exact stupidity and hubris that I'm talking about."
The rest of the tweets in article format courtesy of CHatGPT:
"I've tried to figure out what was unique about Kenya, and the only thing I can come up with is that we were colonized by British elites. Bruce Berman says that Kenya had the highest number of public school British people in the colonial administration and missions."
"Carey Francis, the guru of the whole lot, was educated at Cambridge. He set the tone for academic snobbery and suffocating moralism that stifles the Kenyan mind. The missionaries set the tone for a major hypocrisy that has infected the Kenyan elite and middle class."
"The hypocrisy isn't Christian vs indigenous. It's liberal hypocrisy. The idea that white people can ignore the colonial framework and represent African interests. No matter how many times you explain this hypocrisy, middle class will not hear you and pontificate about secularism."
"That's why in Western institutions, you will find Kenyans towing the line while ironically singing tirades against wazungu. It's a perfect colonialism. I almost admire wazungu for pulling it off. Binyavanga was onto something when he tried to name this insidious delusion of ours."
"He said 'There is one skill we have: we understand how to put our heads down and make small profits from being cynical sycophants and brokers in small deals for big men. We have learned that ideas are dangerous. To innovate is to threaten power.'"
"If you want to know how bad things are, come see how students struggle to write about themselves. They've been assaulted with motivational speaking and neoliberal branding that they can no longer name what they actually think or feel. That's crazy!"
"And please, spare me the white man stole our culture line. I'm sick of it. Kenyans recite this line but when they're given a racist education system, they say ok. This is a country where decolonizing conferences are sponsored by the British council. I'm not listening."
"Kenya is so good at this delusion, that Western academics love coming to do research and experiment on us. A good chunk of African studies are on Kenya, and not much of that material is enlightening."
"Wazungu scholars are fascinated at how we Kenyans play policy by the text book. For every fantasy cooked up at the UN, Kenyan bureaucrats are the most enthusiastic in forcing us into it, and writing reports about how well its going when nothing like that is happening in reality."
"This dishonesty is our modus operandi, as @m_ogada said. If you try to name reality, you'll be told to be positive and see the bright side of life. That's why my students are struggling to name what they think and witness."
"We're so clueless, that we sponsor bots to shamelessly reply with the exact stupidity and hubris that I'm talking about."
