The girl who sits next to me in class is from Kenya, and I asked her about the tumult I'd been hearing about out there. To break it down fairly quickly, a guy named Mwai Kibaki was elected president, in an election that foreign election observers believe may have been rigged. Opposition leader Raila Odinga refuses to admit defeat, and there've been demonstrations and all sorts of violence as a result. Much of this violence could be attributed to the crackdown that Kibaki instituted to ensure that his election wasn't questioned. Did I mention that Kibaki and Odinga belong to different tribes, who up until recently were able to coexist peacefully, but are now pitted against each other?
The girl in my class belongs to Kibaki's tribe, and even though we're learning in this political science class about questioning information and filtering through the spin, she was unwavering in her support for Kibaki. She told me that she was shocked to see the news reports here about Kenya, because her family back home was telling her things totally differently. I asked her about the television and media blackout instituted by Kibaki, thought by some to be a way of squelching any opposition or questioning of the election's validity (it sure seems shady to me!), and she said that he only did that to stop Odinga from rabblerousing and inciting violence via the airwaves. She said that it's working, so it's a good thing. Who to believe?
If the articles I've been reading are to be believed, both sides have partaken in their fair share of senseless violence, but you wouldn't have heard that from this girl. Maybe I shouldn't believe everything I read, but maybe she shouldn't believe everything she hears. It's hard to say. Politics is so depressing!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080117/ap_on_re_af/kenya_election
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7194744.stm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080117/ts_afp/kenyavoteunrest_080117085602
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1 comment:
Class? What class?
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