27th April 2023 - The Elephant's Weekly Digest
Dear Reader,
Welcome to this week’s letter from the Editor’s Desk. It has been an eventful week with a lot of focus on the military clash in Khartoum, the?sad news from Kilifi, a promise of ease in the price of Unga, as well as the alcohol chatter especially in Central Kenya. Some of these three themes grace the pages of this recent week’s publication.
Take a leisurely walk along Kenyatta Avenue, Kimathi Street, Muindi Mbingu and Koinange Streets on a Sunday afternoon. Almost everywhere, you’ll find young Kenyans with their cameras creating content of one form or the other. For many youthful content creators that The Elephant interacted with, creating content is a source of income. Photojournalist Jimmy Kitiro walks us through the lenses that paint the city?here.
In recent weeks, lawmakers and politicians in Kenya, including Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua have decried the alleged spectre of widespread alcoholism and sparked a nationwide hysteria. There is only one problem; all available data from state agencies, civil society, and global health firms do not back up their alarming claims about an alcoholism problem in Kenya. So what is the so-called war on alcoholism really masking? In this episode, The Elephant is in conversation with Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan journalist, cartoonist, blogger, author and social commentator?here.
Kenya’s prison writings began during the British colonial rule that saw many of those calling for self-determination thrown into jail and detention camps. Graduates of these jails and detention camps captured their experiences on paper, tracing a path that has been followed by subsequent writers. The late JM Kariuki was among the first Kenyans to capture his experiences in detention in his non-fiction account Mau Mau in Detention. Msanii Kimani Wa Wanjiru explores the journey of prison writing over the last 50 years?here.
In diagnosing Kenya, Prof. Wandia Njoya maps our inability to deal with the intermediary category of the local elites as Kenya’s greatest intellectual weakness, and how that affects decolonization as well. We are seemingly unable to see each other as human beings in all our complexity, and to see colonialism as just an aspect of the great historical trajectory of Africa. Instead, we make suffocating demands for proof of authentic African expression which we equate to decolonizing, yet colonialism was a political project, not an individual one as explained?here
We also look forward to more conversations around regional issues in Sudan; a track of the progress towards the bipartisan dialogues in Kenya; and a revisit of these and other pertinent issues facing Kenyans and countries of the Horn for the rest of the month of April.
Vol. 01, Issue No. 3, 27 April 2023
When we limit politics to personal morality and ethnicity, we have no space for context, or conversation. But that instinct of educated Kenyans to narrow the space for conversation makes sense when we look at the life of Carey Francis.
By?Wandia Njoya
For many youthful content creators that the Elephant interacted with, creating content is a source of income.?
By?Jimmy Kitiro
Examining the recent and brutal attempts to suppress the Sudanese revolution, Magdi el Gizouli looks at the efforts by the regime and its various factions to seize the initiative from the streets. In recent months the ruthless figure of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (aka Himeidti), the leader of the infamous Rapid Support Forces, has moved into the centre of Sudanese politics. However, will the ‘neighbourhood committees’ be able to translate their revolutionary zeal into mass political action that can unite rural and urban discontent and challenge the regimes hold on power?
By?Magdi el Gizouli
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The results of the 2022 general election fractured the feudal order; the feudal pact has been broken, leaving the middle class adrift.
By?Mordecai Ogada
Kenya’s cost of living demonstrations have as much to do with popular discontent as they do with the opposition capitalizing on frustrations.
By?Abdirashid Diriye Kalmoy
Prison writings are a complex body of work, writings that vividly capture the gruesome experiences lived in the state’s corridors of silence and provide commentary about the state of a society’s politics.
By?Msanii Kimani wa Wanjiru
As the country struggles with a cash crisis, did the national debt quadruple under Uhuru Kenyatta, and did his government borrow more than KSh4 trillion in its last term?
By?Africa Check
In recent weeks, lawmakers and politicians in Kenya, including Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua have decried the alleged spectre of widespread alcoholism and sparked a nationwide hysteria. There is only one problem; all available data from state agencies, civil society, and global health firms do not back up their alarming claims about an alcoholism problem in Kenya. So, what is the so-called war on alcoholism really masking? The Elephant is in conversation with Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan journalist, cartoonist, blogger, author and social commentator.