[kictanet] Vitriol in cyberspace
Brian Munyao Longwe
blongwe at gmail.com
Wed Dec 10 09:40:42 EAT 2008
OK. This is interesting, please point any single item or point in my
Hydrrabad presentation that was either wrong, empty or abusive.
I and others have already pointed out what was wrong, empty and
abusive in both your and Maina's submissions last week.
And please stick to the point, and focus your response?
B
Sent from my iPhone
On 10 Dec 2008, at 9:08 AM, "Robert Alai" <alai.robert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brian
>
> I also beg to differ with you. Neither you nor Githongo has the
> capacity to determine inanity of anybody. We should have a committee
> which has that capacity but it can not rest on an individual.
> Otherwise I will say that your submission in india was inane? Would
> you agree. Its an abuse as long as you use the word wrongly.
>
> Abuse
> tr.v. a·bused, a·bus·ing, a·bus·es
> 1. To use wrongly or improperly; misuse: abuse alcohol; abuse a
> privilege.
> 2. To hurt or injure by maltreatment; ill-use.
> 3. To force sexual activity on; rape or molest.
> 4. To assail with contemptuous, coarse, or insulting words; revile.
> 5. Obsolete To deceive or trick.
>
> Alai
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Brian Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Hi Walu,
>
> I'm sorry but I beg to differ. Githongo's comment was perfectly in
> order. The tirade witnessed last week was definitely "inane" i.e.
> having little sense or importance - refer below. Kwani what
> dictionary do you use?
>
> in·ane adj
> 1. having little sense or importance
> 2. empty, insubstantial, or void
>
> n
> great emptiness, especially the perceived emptiness of outer space
> (archaic)
>
> Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All
> rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:26 PM, John Walubengo <jwalu at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> JM,
>
> I agree. I just checked the dictionary and the word 'inane' is
> indeed quite abusive. Githongo therefore becomes the 1st victim to
> go onto "moderated-mode" as we speak.
>
> As for the so called 'corrupt' (whoever they maybe), the position
> remains that the list is really neither equipped nor designed to
> burst corrupt agents. But that said, it all depends on the angle
> one decides to take concerning (ICT) corruption. Specifically,
> general guidelines regarding libel or character assassination must
> prevail otherwise things get reduced very fast to shouting marches -
> at the expense of progressive ICT development.
>
> walu.
> --- On Mon, 12/8/08, John Maina <j.maina at ymail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: John Maina <j.maina at ymail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Vitriol in cyberspace
> > To: "P Gitau Githongo" <pgitau at githongo.com>, "John Walubengo" <jwalu at yahoo.com
> >, odhiambo at gmail.com
> > Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions"
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> > Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 4:27 PM
> > Walu
> >
> > Is inane chatter not an abuse? Or are there some who are
> > allowed to abuse the people on this mailing list?
> >
> > What do people gain in defending the corrupt? Why do we
> > fear to hear the people who are incorrigibly corrupt being
> > rebuked?
> >
> > JM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: P Gitau Githongo <pgitau at githongo.com>
> > To: j.maina at ymail.com
> > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> > <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> > Sent: Monday, December 8, 2008 3:14:06 PM
> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Vitriol in cyberspace
> >
> >
> > Alice,
> >
> > Might I suggest that you add a guiding principle to the
> > mailing list rules,
> > along the lines of..
> >
> > 'Contributors should seek to improve or benefit the
> > understanding and
> > knowledge of others as well as their own.'
> >
> > You could then urge contributors to gauge their own
> > statements according to
> > such a principle before forwarding to the group.
> >
> > Hopefully that way, the rest of us seeking to practice the
> > above principle
> > are not subject to the kind of deluge of inane chatter seen
> > last week.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > kictanet-bounces+pgitau=githongo.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> > [mailto:kictanet-bounces+pgitau=githongo.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
> > On Behalf
> > Of alice at apc.org
> > Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 8:45 AM
> > To: pgitau at githongo.com
> > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> > Subject: [kictanet] Vitriol in cyberspace
> >
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Could we comment on the presentation that Brian (a Kenyan)
> > made at the IGF
> > currently taking place in Hyderabad. It was an excellent
> > presentation on
> > access befitting the theme of the forum: "Internet for
> > all" and he has
> > done us proud.
> >
> > It is also great to have quite a large Kenyan delegation at
> > this India IGF
> > contributing Kenyan specific IG issues. The IGF is a
> > process/event/forum
> > that had not received enough attention both at the
> > national and regional
> > level.
> > ---------
> >
> > I will also take this opportunity to remind listers of some
> > of the
> > KICTAnet mailing list rules:
> >
> > * Please mind your manners:
> > * Be polite - virtual members are real not a
> > cyberspace borg with no
> > feelings.
> > * Watch your words. Kick the bad language - People are
> > listening.
> > * Laws are laws - What's real in the real world
> > are the same in
> > cyberspace.
> > * Don't send rude or offensive e-mails or
> > postings.
> > * Be ethical in your posting. Don't lie,
> > plagiarize, defame, or
> > deliberately do harm to another KICTANet forum user.
> >
> >
> > If you are not able to respect these simple rules...the
> > KICTANet
> > administrator will have no choice but to suspend you!
> >
> > best
> > alice
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Binaifer Nowrojee wrote:
> > >
> > > For those who have not read this opinion piece, I
> > would urge you to do
> > so and reflect on it. Why do we need to bring down Brian
> > Longwe on the
> > basis of his nationality? Why not celebrate his success?
> > Why assume
> > that a non-Kenyan will not positively contribute to Kenya?
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > Binaifer Nowrojee
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Barack Obama and the graveyard of hope
> > >
> > > Wambui Mwangi (2008-08-11)
> > >
> > > http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50078
> > >
> > > Printer friendly version
> > >
> > > There are 2 comments on this article.
> > >
> > > I am finding it very difficult to join in the
> > jubilation about Senator
> > Barack Obama. Not that I want to deny the man his victory,
> > but my
> > impulse to celebrate keeps deflating on the idea that the
> > best thing
> > that happened to little Barack was not growing up in Kenya.
> > >
> > > I have been imagining alternative trajectories for him
> > if he had come to
> > know the world through the eyes of a Kenyan citizen, if his
> > mother and
> > grandparents had not rescued him from our chaos and
> > contradictions and
> > brought him up somewhere his intellect and talent could
> > grow.
> > >
> > > If he had grown up here, and had he somehow managed to
> > retain most
> > elements of his current self, he would have been another
> > outstanding,
> > intelligent and competent Luo man in our midst: and he
> > would have been
> > killed.
> > >
> > > Yes, we would have assassinated a Barack Obama if he
> > had remained ours,
> > with us, one of us here in this schizophrenic cauldron we
> > call home.
> > This is not going to stretch the imagination of any Kenyan
> > - after all,
> > when we had that incredibly good-looking and charismatic
> > home-grown
> > hero, Tom Mboya, we shot him to death.
> > >
> > > And when that austerely intellectual and elegant
> > leader, Robert Ouko,
> > threatened to look overly intelligent to the world, we
> > killed him too.
> > We killed Pio Gama Pinto and we killed JM Kariuki. There is
> > no reason to
> > suppose that Barack Obama, whose integrity of purpose and
> > stringent
> > sense of ethics even his enemies concede, would have
> > survived his Kenyan
> > roots.
> > >
> > > He is much too intelligent, too charged with the
> > promise of history, too
> > bold in his claim to a shining destiny, too full of the
> > audacity of
> > hope, for us to have let him survive. Kenya would have
> > killed Barack
> > Obama, or at least his dream, as we inevitably destroy, in
> > one way or
> > another, the best and the boldest of us. Goldenberg whistle
> > blower David
> > Munyakei's challenge to his country to be bigger than
> > our greed was met
> > with a whimper, and then with rapid abandonment. We did not
> > deserve him,
> > either.
> > >
> > > As for John Githongo, he should have known better than
> > to take the idea
> > of public ethics seriously - this is Kenya, after all. Let
> > him enlighten
> > people at Oxford instead; such considerations are too
> > virtuous for us,
> > too sensible, too conducive to a promising future. We do
> > not even remark
> > on the haunting wastage of all this shining accomplishment
> > - Micere Mugo
> > sings her lyrical poetry for Americans, and we do not even
> > know enough
> > to mourn the loss.
> > >
> > > And yet we are all enchanted with the power of the
> > idea of Barack Obama,
> > the hope of him, the beauty of his life's trajectory,
> > the universe of
> > possibilities and probabilities that it conjures for the
> > least of the
> > rest of us. If someone's cousin's friend's
> > neighbour makes it to the
> > United States... then we all have a chance. We have a
> > strange
> > predilection for schizophrenic loves and loyalties; we let
> > geography
> > dictate our alliances and imaginary lines decide our
> > friends. It is as
> > if our social contract states that here, at home, we are
> > obliged to
> > behave like fighting rats to each other but when abroad,
> > when released
> > from the shackles of kin and clan and conclave, we can fly
> > and soar and
> > master the sky.
> > >
> > > When Wangari Maathai is abroad, we feel that her Nobel
> > Prize is partly
> > represented in each of our Kenyan living rooms; when she
> > comes home, she
> > is just another Kikuyu politico. We preen about our
> > athletes winning yet
> > another international competition to anybody who will give
> > us half a
> > chance, but when they are at home we turn them into more
> > fodder for
> > militias.
> > >
> > > Caine Prize winners are Kenyan by automatic assent,
> > but Binyavanga
> > Wainaina is a Kikuyu writer when at home and Yvonne Owuor
> > is indelibly a
> > Luo - we shrink them to fit the midget-sized visions we
> > have of
> > ourselves.
> > >
> > > It is clear to all of us, and the evidence continues
> > to accrue, that we
> > have, collectively, a certain global competence, as
> > Kenyans, that we
> > produce individuals of substance and historical purpose.
> > >
> > > Being Kenyan, however, we prefer to drown in the
> > pettiness of our
> > parochial quarrels when at home, and if one of us threatens
> > to be too
> > hopeful, too ambitious, too intelligent, too creative or
> > too
> > inspirational to fit into our trivial little categories of
> > hatred and
> > suspicion, we kill them, or exile them from our societies,
> > or we just
> > cause them to run away inside, hiding from us and from
> > themselves the
> > grandeur of their souls, the splendid landscapes of their
> > imagined
> > tomorrows.
> > >
> > > Nothing but the worst for us, at home. We recognise
> > each other by our
> > most rancid rhetoric. We insist upon it, we cultivate it,
> > we elevate it
> > to an art form: Kenyan, and quarrelsome.
> > >
> > > Kenyan, and clannish. Kenyan, and counter-productive.
> > Kenyan, and
> > self-destructive. Kenyan, and consistently heart-breaking.
> > Genius
> > everywhere, and not a thought to be had. Promise and
> > potential
> > everywhere, and not an opportunity to be had. Money
> > everywhere, and not
> > an honest penny to be earned. Helicopters aplenty, but no
> > help for the
> > needy. A land awash in Cabinet ministers and poverty.
> > >
> > > I have been watching Kenyans getting high on
> > Obamamania, and I am
> > wondering what we are so happy about? It is perhaps that we
> > are
> > beginning to acknowledge what we should always have known -
> > given a half
> > a chance, an ever so slightly conducive context, Kenyans
> > are more likely
> > to over-achieve than not. At the faintest provocation,
> > Kenyans will leap
> > past expectations without breaking their stride or breaking
> > a sweat,
> > especially if they happen to have escaped the imprisoning
> > edifice we
> > call home and found foreign contexts to flourish in, no
> > matter how
> > alien.
> > >
> > > I went to a town in the Canadian Arctic once, in the
> > far north, where in
> > summer the sun shines even at midnight and in the winter
> > the world is an
> > endless landscape of ice and snow. Here, far, far away from
> > home, where
> > nothing was familiar except the gentleness of elderly Inuit
> > women and
> > the comforting weirdness of the white residents, I was told
> > that the
> > local dentist had, for many years, been a Kenyan. Everybody
> > said he had
> > been an excellent dentist, out there in the desert of the
> > cold. I was
> > unsurprised.
> > >
> > > We are an adventurous people, we Kenyans, and we take
> > to the world
> > outside our home as if born to a conquistador culture - we
> > are brave and
> > brash and bold, out there. We buy and sell things, and make
> > money at it,
> > out there. We go to school and excel and cover ourselves
> > with
> > accreditations, out there. We win things, out there. We get
> > prizes, out
> > there. We are at our best, out there.
> > >
> > > However, at home, for some reason we refuse to either
> > acknowledge or
> > examine - we have chosen simply to set aside this capacity.
> > Here, at
> > home, nothing but the very lowest common denominator will
> > do; nothing
> > but the basest and most brutal aspects of our selves are to
> > be presented
> > to each other; nothing but the most cynical manipulation is
> > the basis of
> > our political space. We prefer to be ruled by individuals
> > whose
> > mediocrity is matched only by their mendacity, here at
> > home.
> > >
> > > We prefer to abdicate our adult responsibilities and
> > capacity for reason
> > to "leaders" whose lack of virtue is as legendary
> > as our attractively
> > exotic pastoralists. We do not only waste talent, here at
> > home - we go
> > out of our way to suppress and repress it. We do not only
> > deny dreams,
> > here in Kenya - we devour them, and ask each other,
> > "Who do you think
> > you are?" As if the success of another is an affront.
> > >
> > > In Kenya, grand vision and soaring imagination is
> > illegitimate; here,
> > they just call you naive. Out there, you stand a chance of
> > becoming a
> > hero; at home, you will have nothing but the taste of ashes
> > in your
> > mouth. Mothers, take your children abroad.
> > >
> > > Barack Obama has written two books, in which he
> > discusses ideas. Ideas.
> > This is a man with vision and conviction, and enough good
> > ideas that
> > even those who do not like the pigmentally-advantaged are
> > listening, and
> > changing their minds.
> > >
> > > Even those who think that his name sounds suspiciously
> > like a
> > terrorist's are reading his books and listening to his
> > speeches, and
> > changing their minds. This is a man with interesting and
> > inspiring
> > things to say - which disqualifies him from any Kenyan-ness
> > we would
> > have liked to claim.
> > >
> > > Americans like the image of them that Barack Obama has
> > painted in words;
> > which Kenyan leader would dare to build dreams bigger than
> > his roots?
> > Which Kenyan leader would ever be so foolish as to attempt
> > inspiration
> > instead of instigation?
> > >
> > > Barack Obama has seduced the world by the power of his
> > persuasiveness,
> > and while Kenyans raise another glass to the
> > accomplishments of "one of
> > our own," it seems clear to me that we gave up our
> > rights to him when we
> > gave up our hopes for ourselves. When we settled for
> > incompetence, and
> > corruption, and callousness, we defined ourselves out of
> > his universe,
> > and out of his dreams.
> > >
> > > We rejected Barack Obama-ness when we allowed those
> > pangas to slash our
> > dreams, when we watched our hopes spiral away in smoke. We
> > allowed the
> > ones who had done this to become the only mirrors of
> > ourselves, and then
> > squelched our disgraced selves back to the mire of our
> > despondency.
> > >
> > > Barack Obama cannot be a Kenyan, and Kenyans cannot
> > grasp Barack Obama's
> > dream. We have already despaired of it, and of ourselves.
> > His dream
> > would have died with ours, here at home, here in the
> > graveyard of hope.
> > >
> > > But oh, how we yearn to see ourselves reflected in his
> > eyes...
> > >
> > >
> > > *Wambui Mwangi is an assitant professor of Political
> > Science at the
> > University of Toronto, Canada. This article first appeared
> > inThe East
> > African, June 15 2008.
> > >
> > > *Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or
> > comment online at
> > http://www.pambazuka.org/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
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> >
> >
> >
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>
> --
> Brian Munyao Longwe
> e-mail: blongwe at gmail.com
> cell: + 254 722 518 744
> blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com
> meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com
>
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