Fiat Lux
Pardon me if I’ve already told you this one, but it’s a favourite of mine from a film I watched as a young man. It was based on Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”, and starred Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Two young English adventurers arrive at the gate of some Western Asian town, probably occupied by the Pashtun. This is an area forever in thrall to the…...
January 21 2016 At last this newspaper is once again circulating in Tanzania a government-imposed ban that kept it out of the country’s market for a good twelvemonth. The official reason given for the ban in January last year was that the paper had been circulating in Tanzania without proper registration. Which, of course, was an exercise in extreme officious silliness, seeing as the East African had been on sale…...
Dember 24 2015 – I doubt there is a place on earth where people’s names praise God as much as they do in Rwanda and Burundi. All the Kinyarwanda and Kirundi names ending with “Imana” are talking about God. These are names such as “It-is-God-who-creates”, or “ I- trust-in-God”, or “It-is-God-who-saves,” Or, even, “What-I-have-more-than-you is-God”. Then you have names which do not mention “Imana” directly but allude to him, such…...
December 21 2015 Our bright little lady century is coming out at the sweet age of sixteen, and this is perhaps something we may or may not celebrate, given what has been and what we have seen. Still, wishing each other the best does denote good manners and proper conduct, and on this I certainly am keen. To my readers and friends, comrades all, I take this space to send…...
October 22 2015 There are so many ways of appreciating issues related to corruption in our countries, and some of them can be quite edifying. I have heard of corruption as the very essence of power, as in power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. This would tend to mean that as long as you get involved with power you cannot choose but be corrupt. There are those who say there…...
Under the heading, “More a marathon than a sprint”, last week’s “The Economist” wrote about the deindustrialization of the African continent. Comparing our continent with Asia, the newspaper painted a picture of a continent that has been dismantling even the few factories that it had built three decades ago and shows no signs of embarking on any programme of putting itself out of the hole it has dug itself into.…...
July 30 2015 – There is so much ado about the killing of a Cecil in Zimbabwe that it makes you wonder. No, it’s not about Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist marauder who came, saw and raped a subcontinent in the nineteenth century. It’s about a lion – Cecil the Lion – that was killed by an American dentist with a hobby of trophy hunting. According to reports, Dr Walter Harper,…...
May 21 2015 – From time to time we get to hear African rulers and their henchmen take swipes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for what they call “targeting Africans.” This usually happens every time an African ruler has been indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. Our rulers get excited, froth at the corners of their mouths, and bang tables, all…...
July 14 2014 Nimekuwa nikijadili, na kukemea, unafiki unaotutawala katika maisha yetu kam taifa. Tumefnaya unafiki umekuwa ni sehemu muhimu ya utu wetu , au labda niseme nakisi yetu katika utu. Unafiki umetuenea kiasi kwamba wengi wetu tunapona ni bora kusema uongo hata pale ambapo ingekuwa faida kwetu kusema ukweli. Hali hii haikuanza leo, ingawa sasa imekomaa. Nimewahi kusema mara nyingi kwamba tangu Awamu ya Kwanza ya utawala wa nchi…...
1995 TAYARI zile siasa ninazoziongelea kila siku zimekwisha kujitokeza katika kampeni zinazofanywa kuhusu uchaguzi wa Oktoba mwaka 1995. Tayari baadhi ya washindani na mashabiki wao wamekwisha kufika mahali wakaona kwamba kampeni safi zisizo za kashfa hazitawawezesha kushinda katika uchaguzi. Tayari wameanza kutumia vigezo ambavyo havina uhusiano na uwezo wa mtu katika uongozi. Tayari dini imeingizwa katika mashindano ambayo tumesema yaamuliwe kwa misingi ya nani anaweza kuongoza Watanzania vyema zaidi kuliko…...
