Elections, Olympics & Food

Simply looking at the three words, one is unlikely to immediately see the common factor that underlie the three concepts represented by the words. Yet, I my own underhanded way, I can come up with fewer other words that so concisely represent the power show an international level, national level for the first two words. When you get food, it touches the individual, the national and the international level.

The presidential elections in the U.S will have very serious consequences for the majority of the world. It is for this reason that the elections are followed by people from around the world. There are very logical reasons for that fact as America has military bases all across the world. It is also a nuclear power and that has serious implications for the whole globe. The olympics, however take place every four years and have a different type of power dynamics but those dynamics are felt by the individual countries and not the whole world.  I am quite ambivalent about the whole concept of Olympics and other games. I wonder why it is so easy to reward the fastest athlete but yet we are always stuck with the best of two evils in the real world politics. It's like an accountant who does a great job with monopoly money but a terrible job with real money

Jamaica’s win of the gold in 100m dash, affects few globally. But it does affect the island which spends borrowed money to send it’s athletes to the international games. Many social services have to be suspended for the team to travel abroad for the games. Finally, food is both personal, national and international. Whatever choices that a country makes will affect the individual persons of those countries, weather poor or rich, then affect the international community depending of the severity of the food issues. If you take the potato famine in Ireland, few would have suspected that it would cause such a massive migration of Irish people to the United..

Wealthy and economically challenged countries will meet on uneven ground and the winners will be established an open and transparent way. What a wonderful affair? All the nations of the world come together once every four years and without much corruption, save for some doping issues, the strongest person who lifts the most weight will take home the medal for weight lifting. The person who will throw the javelin the furthest will take the gold medal home, and so on. Each country that wins a medal will fly its national flag and it’s national anthem will be played out loud and the players from each country will cheer faithfully for their respective players representing their countries. Yet when it comes to power the true players and brokers are always shrouded in mystery. The powerless get 1 medals plated with gold every 4 or 5 years. So many of those who travel overseas on money borrowed from the owners of gold go back home empty handed and are welcomed with thunderous applause.

The medal wins the champion a little money and fame but the majority of the people get nothing. The owners of power, who also own the real gold, have no use for gold-plated medals. The owners of gold will make money either way from financing all the players from poor countries which borrow money to cover their budgets. The powerful don't gamble in such cases, they get paid weather they win any medals or lose. Either way you look at it, impoverished countries loose with medals or without. The winners from those weaker countries who win certain categories later earn contract deals that pay them to help sell apparels and shoes for countries they were competing against. In other words, they advance the economic development of the same countries whose players lost in the olympics.

Since these holders of the gold plated medals are heroes in their own countries, the brands they advertise gain popularity even in their own countries. That means that for anyone of the local people trying to get in to the apparel industry, it will be significantly more difficult to navigate a market where even the locals are oriented towards outside products. It makes all the difference if used apparel are allowed in those markets from the powerful countries. The economic losses from such an arrangement can never equal to the few dollars that one champion is awarded by the international companies. That is partly how impoverished countries stay poor. I am not sure that the impoverished countries are actually getting any value for our money and time. Give me power any day and keep your cheap fake medals.

Oh, I might take the medal if it comes with a long enough rope to pull the blinds from those of us in the quagmire of thinking that politics is what happens every two and four years. We vote every day with our time, attention and especially food. Elections are like diplomas, it’s a show of what we have been doing for a particular period.

The powerless show up for graduation just to find out that their names are not list of graduates. In the end, all their hard work mostly benefits the spectators from the powerful countries, whether they won the medals or not.

If we want justice let us vote for real gold and not the lesser of two evils as we are told during every elections. If it is an injustice to issue diplomas to the spectators and not the graduating students, then voting for anything that is less than one's interest is a crime.

None, except American citizens can vote in the presidential elections, even fewer will ever make it to the olympics to compete or even to watch. But all of us eat, that is where we all have some control. The good news is that how we eat on an individual level has a lot of impact of the whole world in terms of health, justice. and the environment. Eating is the only game where all those who eat sustainably get real gold medals for themselves and for us all. The final word from the jury is that when a literate eater wins, national healthcare wins and humanity’s wellbeing wins globally.

vampires, Empires & Culture

If you are interested in protecting your health, you have to start with the environment, seeds, compost or manure and then keep toxic chemical away from your body. Most people know that, at least you would think. The reality couldn’t be more different. Amongst the Gìkùyù, whom I grew up around, everything revolved around food. In fact, there is a proverb that says that "Utonga nì matigari ma nda." That simply means that wealth is the excesses of the stomach. That is how I was raised and it is how I live to day. Another instructive proverb along the same line of thinking cautions one not to discuss important matters with a hungry person. "Ng'aragu ndìhoyagwo ùhoro", the proverb says. I extrapolate that to mean that it is not wise to teach a hungry person. Let's start by taking care of the central business before venturing out to other things. Fela Kuti used to sing that Africa is the center of the world. Your stomach is your center and right in front of your eyes. We can't pretend not to see it, at least without serious consequences. If you think choices have consequences, choose to ignore food at your own risk. My friend Andrew Nganga, recently explained the drastic changes amongst the above group that perfectly exemplies imperialism in our thinking and by extention in our plates. Nganga's observation is that nowadays food is what remains after one becomes wealthy. What else would anyone need as evidence of our food illiteracy.?

One can phrase the story differently for the interest of brevity. If Karl Marx that under capitalism wages tend towards subsistance, the food illiteracy is the culture of subsistance. Empires are truly vampires of culture.

The Food Divorce

That food and marriage are connected is not a matter of debate for most people. What is less obvious is how the same institution that is supposed to bring people together might be actually bent on separating us from our food. Here I am mostly speaking specifically about my observations of marriage amongst the Kenyan diaspora but one can certainly extrapolate the same case to the general institution of marriage under capitalism or amongst any dominated group of people.

It occured to me that our defination marriage is extrinsically defined. Which is itself not necessarily a bad thing.  Culture is one of three of the most oppressive institutions, the other partners in crime being religion and government. It behoves man to be weary of their oppressive tendencies at evey turn.

 The number one charge I would bring against them is unnecessary control against freedom of thought and the unjust enrichment which ensue. It is the unjust enrichment that causes a power imbalance. 

That is probably one of the main reasons I follow Mwende's writings. Her thinking out of the three above boxes has earned her a front seat at my imaginary gathering of a freedom lovers.

So the first thought was what marriage are you talking about?

When people are oppressed and living under the gaze of empires, there are no marriages. It's like planting off season. Nothing will grow. It's all vanity! It's like betting at the casino.  The only beneficiary is the casino. Marriage under the churches and governments benefits them, primarily. 

 Marriage is the most expensive emmotional and material investment community can expect to have. No other barometer can measure how how healthy a community is. It's also one of the best predictors of how the future will look like.

In marriage you have two major things happening in the shortest time possible with the longest impact that reaches far into the future generations. Two people assemble in front of a gullible crowd and make a promises that few will hold them accountable to, besides the issuer of the marriage certificates and the lawyers who will help both parties disolve such unions. All others are spectators and collateral damage. 

You don't have to take my word for it. History is full of people whose lives touches our lives in a big way, both positive and negative. Many of those people ideally came about as a result of a marriage. 

If I was to borrow two of the defining concepts of Western arnarchist thinker, James Prudon, marriage is theft and propaganda by the deed.

Marriage is propaganda as it's an agent that propagates certain ideologies. If you are a morman or catholic,  there are no better ways to spread your ideas than giving birth or by extension having other with your ideas give birth also. Oppressive ideas and people grow in numbers mostly through marriages. In less measure, just like progressive and enlightening ideas and people.

I am not suggesting that ideas would not thrive in the abscence of marriages but that certain ideas can be easily spread through marriages.  It's a very subtle but highly effective tool of control. By those who plan to dominate or enslave others, gaining control of what and how people marry can be a source of great power.

On a different level, marriage is a theft. There are so many levels in which it is theft. 

First, it is very difficult to discuss fairness in marriage in a capitalistic sense. There is no equality in marriage except fairness, support in the common goals and satisfaction in the fulfillment of community and biological obligation.

The community investment where those who contribute have little say in the investment. Marriages in our modern days are social. Yet, the community has little influence in what they invest in. 

In my Gìkùyù culture, for example, the extended family would invest in securing a wife for one of their sons. In return, they expected the girl to bear children for the family. I personally don't think it is the best option possible but it was clear why the community was involved and what they expected in return. 

The resources we currently  exchanged between families could be best used to surporting the struggle for a social issues that plague our society and partly the newly weds. 

Times have changed and a totally different culture has replaced our tradional way of life. Yet our marriages are still wedded, no pun intended,  to our old ways. This has caused some to take advantage of others in the most blatant ways.

 Amongst the Kenyans in the diaspora,  there have been cases where couples have been alleged to have married just for the sake of fleecing money from their fellow gullible country men. The couple would plan a wedding and raise funds in the U.S to conduct weddings in Kenya. That is illogical in many ways. How does that make sense? There again lays outright theft. How does a  people from a country living on debt, suffering from all manner of social, economic, political and environmental ills invest sums as high as 10 million in an investment that is so poorly insured?

How is it poorly insured? Because there are so many huddles for marriages amongst an oppressed group. Unemployment, poor diet, poor governments,  corruption, food insecurity, high numbers of unmarried men and women all impact existing marriages. That means a marriage that takes place during times of instability will most likely fail. 

My fears are not unfounded. The institution of marriage is in crisis. It's a confirmation that crisis in our society means crisis in marriage.  Unfortunately, many act as though marriage is an institution made in heaven or the stars and therefore immune to all the crisis we face here on earth. To think that is to be openly  perpetuating both theft and negative propaganda.

This does not however mean that marriage is inherently bad. It has the ability to provide a lot of good to both the culture and the people involved. My focus for this post was about how it is used and abused keep many powerless and working for the benefit of others. I am especially reminded of the relationship between a male Praying Mantis, where by the male offers its head in exchange to mating. Its head is then eaten and then the female allow the headless male to inject the late late males sperms into the female. Before you say that playing mantis are insects and of little consequence, let us look at the smartest animal that is also man's best friend. In the world, the world dogs have one alpha female who is the only one who can bear children. In case any other lesser female bears puppies, those puppies are killed. I know the Praying Mantis and dogs are not married but their relationship slightly mirrors human relationships in its most exploitative state. It is on those grounds that I are making a case for a justice marriage.

In the end, we cause a divorce in Sustainability and Justice. Where we see the evidence of that divorce is in food. We are ever growing apart from our food.

If you haven't eaten and loved freely, I truly say unto you, you haven't truly lived.

. 

Food and the politics of identity

Back in the early 2000, I had the honor of spending some time with Kenyan traditionalist group that espoused Gìkùyù religion. It worked perfect as I was a graduate student in Anthropology and was also in a deep journey of self discovery. My ethnicity also happens to be Gìkùyù.

After a long decade in the Diaspora, my longing for home and a clarity of who and whose I was could not be suppressed much longer. I just happened to be reading James Baldwin masterpiece The Fire Next Time. It definitely contributed to my desire to define myself to myself.

Unlike James Baldwin, my fire was unwilling to wait for next time. But in his spirit of self-defination, I was eager to strech mine a bit deeper. In his famouss words. “I am not your Niggar “, I was was attempting to answer the next natural question of to “whose” I was.

Baldwin’s book was a great backdrop to the work I was embarking on. It was my form of coming of age intellectually for a person of African descent living under a culture whole meteoric rise was predicated upon the demise of Africanity.

Baldwin did the heavey lifting for this son of the soil. He had been a preacher and experienced first hand the hypocrisy behind that industry. There was so much I appreciated about Baldwin's journey.

That did not mean that I too had my own lifting to do and there was no escaping that.

I therefore took up an internship at U.N headquarters in Nairobi for three months, with an additional 6 weeks for research. The bulk of my research was spent with adherents of a traditional group was popularly known as Thaai, which is a derivative from the Gìkùyù word thayu, which means peace.

The group would be later pressured into taking a formalized name of Tabernacle of the Living God. The spiritual system the group followed closely mirrored the traditional worship of the Gìkùyù people before the coming of the White man.

The story of the group is very instructive about how modern African governments often suppress traditional spiritual systems as they are fertile ground for fomenting resistance. The group has faced a lot of persecution in the hands of the government. The leader of the group,  Ngonya wa Gakonya was a thorn on the side of the government of the former autocratic president and the regime that followed to the last day. 

During the time period in question, I happened to be reading the Black Jacobins and a few other books about Cointelpro that was conducted by the FBI against the revolutionary groups in the U.S.

What I was not ready for is to realize that the government of Kenya had a similar program against this Gikùyù traditionalists. The group was later dividend and undermined until the leader passed away in 2006 when the group was just a shadow of its hay days. The songs below are songs captured during the funeral of leader. 

The music I heard during the groups meetings at a public roundabout at the edge of Nairobi was the closest thing to the songs and dance of the Gìkùyù before colonialism. There was a lot nuances that one can pick up from the way these people were relating to each other. It is one of the most precious and memorable example I know that demonstrates a functional people who are proud to exercise their culture as a form of  struggle.

The another observation that become quite clear was that there are very blurred lines between politics and spirituality. I have since come to realize that African spirituality is not something that you believe in but more of what you do on a daily basis. Secondly, It is extremely difficult to exercise spirituality in the face of oppression. It is no wonder that our people have fallen for foreign religions that reflect those who had usurped their power to govern themselves.

It should be the priority of Africans to be totally free first and foremost. It is difficult to conceptualize African spirituality in the global injustice we face as a people. Not too far behind in significance, you can't eat slave food and practice African spirituality. Food is the the greatest mark of our vibration and dead vibration produces slaves and so does slave food.

You can never fully colonize or enslave any group of people until you colonize and enslave their food.  Thus, the road to African Spirituality is a wonderful one to travel but it is strewn with struggles for justice, food and freedom.  We have to overcome those struggles before we can fully achieve or arrive at African Spirituality. At the heart of the above struggles is the ability to define one's identity and the food that feed that identity. On the front, the fire to win that battle is now, otherwise there might never be any fire next time. It is easier to proclaim whose were are not, but if the person we donounce continues to feed you ultimately will own you.

An African Anarchist

I have to say that I have had deep suspicion about wishing my friends a happy new year. I wished very few, if any, happy holidays or happy new year this year. Not that I wish anyone any harm, disappointment or sadness. But as I grow old, I am experiencing an overwhelming desire to live an honest life. 

Having done my fair share of living lies, travelling and reading, I have come to the conclusion that as an African man, I have about four major options I can take.

One of the most common and attractive is to be a dreamer. This option is closely related to the religious path. You believe not in the things as you wish them to be. You take the angle that even though bad things are happening all around you, those conditions are ephemeral.  You see yourself as transcending that reality and on your way to greater things. You get so sucked into the unreal that it affects everything you do. You even demand that others recognize and respect your imagined reality.  It is even possible to feel pity on others who fail to join you in your imagined reality. As more and more people join that imagined reality that benefits just a few, the force that trumps reality over imagined reality tends to be the norm.

The second option is join the dysfunctional, dehumanizing and exploitative system at a small cost of selling your soul. That means that you follow the simple goal of maximizing your profits regardless of what damage you cause to the community,  environment or political system. You attend the recommended school and engage your time in the preferred studies that an exploitative system needs to survive. You are handsomely rewarded, even as your work continues to destabilise mankind. You are now in a position to buy a lot of useless toys that soothes  your conscience for the harm you causes. 

The third option is to be addicted to the substances that the sick system produces to keep the matrix going. From fashion to alcohol , music, to drugs and sports.  All the above are distractions 

The fourth is to fight for what is our true nature: freedom. You learn that there are no  shortcuts in life. Each of the ways above comes at cost. Running away from the truth means running for life. The only sure way is fighting for what is real, whatever the cost.

Please save the praise and worship stories here. I am not looking for a blessing,  you can't write me a check if you have no money in the bank.

 It's for that reason I ask my friends not to wish blessing on me, that comes only from your parents. Any other blessing has to be something tangible. Bless me with a book, money, food or truth. But not by promising me that some higher force will act upon your command and do your bidding to solve my problems.  That higher force must be very mediocre to have allowed me to suffer just because your important self had not showed up  to put the final signature so that my blessings can be released. 

The  above scam has been played on human beings long than I care to remember. A being that loves a cheerful giver, yet that deity owns everything in this world and beyond. I am reminded here of the lord's storehouse with is overflowing with goodies. This not particularly an attractive preposition in light of all the suffering around me. But again, maybe I live in the wrong side of town where the good master just hasn't had time to attend to. 

That deal or arrangement is too one sided. Whichever jury or council that agreed to that arrangement must have been high of some holy shit. Who can sign on to warped deal like that?

I give at least ten percent for what? An SGR rail built by the Chinese is the most expensive project and even that did not cost that much. What I received during my days of tithing was, well, what I already had. I continue to receive it in abundance even after I directed that portion of my income to earthly endeavours. The tithes therefore was just like a goodwill or bribe for a nonexistent business. 

What is worth remembering is that I have to be out of my mind to think that a group of people can be dehumanised for over a thousand years from Arab slavery, to  European slavery, colonialism, neo colonialism and neoliberalism and still be normal. No apologies, no reparations and debriefing. 

If in doubt, read about the Dutch winter Hunger. It explains what starving pregnant Dutch in their third trimester by Nazi soldiers affected the rates of obesity of their children 50 years later. If three months starvation by mothers was enough to change the brains of the children fifty years later, what about Africans?

You can pay 10% of your income to run away from your  demons or you can pay yourself to learn and slay the demons.

This is my reality and yours, it know no new day or blessed day. I matter not if it's your birthday or that of anyone else. 

Accept your reality. I have accepted mine and work according to change what I can. In the meantime,  eat well, free your time and do your best to know what is in your best interest. Those interests  are the causes of war in the world. Jump off the donkey of ignorance, even if you have to fall and bruise your body. I can tell you that it's  far better to walk to Freedom than to ride a stupid donkey to mental slavery. 

And that is what I wish each and everyone not only on this day but every single day.

Awekening to the pain of Caffeine

It was on a Sunday and you might as well call it the day of false prophecy.

  I had spent the previous night at my late aunt Emily's house. For those who knew my aunt, they most likely know her for her exemplary work as a coffee farmer. She was a recipient of all types of awards. That made her extremely proud and she patiently give any guest a tour of her small farm. My aunt is no more and the same can be said of the glory of an industry she was so proud of. I was sure to take three photos of some the coffee tree she planted in the mid seventies.  This year the same coffee trees earned one of her son $130 a year from the back breaking work. The only reprieve is that the cost of chemicals fertilizers and herbicides have already been deducted.  

Let us just look at the chemicals aspect of my cousi's "business". Since labour is quite expensive, he opts to go the cheaper way and use  Round Up at the cost of $3 every time he sprays. The person spraying churches $5 a day. The recommended number times to control weeds is 8 timee. That comes to $64 dollars a year.  

The next stage is the application of fertiliser to the coffee trees. My cousin uses $70 on this leg of the long journey .

Coffee has to be pruned twice a year at  a cost of $60 each time. That gives a cost of $120 dollars a year. 

At this stage all that is left is to picking the " beans of Burden". My cousin reports that he spends about $100 on the labour of picking the beans. 

Doing the math for you is almost an abuse of your intelligence.  Instead, allow me to interject with the story of a  phone charger to put things into context.

After leaving my cousin's small coffee farm we realised that there was no power in the house.  Our infinite wisdom guided us to the nearby shopping centre to buy a car charger. You can see a photo of it too. You will be forgiven for wondering what a phone charger has to do with coffee farming.

The honest truth is the this post is about the phone and not coffee farming.  The story of coffee only gives context to story of the charger. 

The charger on the photo costs me $2.00. The charger is made in China, transported here and retails for the above price.

If the Chinese can produce chargers for Kenyans at that cost while we farm at a hefty loss and no government subsidies.  You are kidding yourself if you think that with such a gap you can avoid one of three things: Revolution, Death or Dictatorship. 

There is something you can afford for good measure. Please skip praying for the coffee the next time you drink a cup of coffee that contains Kenyan or African beans. If you do, please send my cousin or any coffee farmer $ 1 for every cup you drink. That would make the false prophecy real and may even delay Death,Revolution or  Dictatorship!

Ours is a false prophecy!

Superstitions and Health

I have write about food, superstitions and negative ethnicity/racial bias without any favor or prejudice.  So I will not be saying I told you so or saying what I have already said before. What I wish I was more loud about is friendship. One of the subtle casualties of injustice and inequality is genuine friendship.  

Colonialism, slavery primed many for believe in nonexistent forces. On the face of it it appears a harmless practice. What I have realized is that in accordance to the Second Law of Thermodynamics,  entropy increases. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find genuine people in any field. 

From community, to business and even in the most hallowed institutions such as court system, international organizations and religious organizations,  there is a severe lack of honesty.

That dishonesty is now affecting families. It might be one of the reasons why marriages are less stable, while depression and a general feeling of apathy being quite prevalent.  

These are obvious outcomes of a capitalistic system that has ran amok. Our lives and institutions now mirror that exploitative system that considers sustainability as a nuisance.

There are obviously many other factors that we can add to the list. I am however fascinated by the fact that many politicians and religious leaders have offered false, nice-sounding, promises that many have fallen for and in the meantime neglected nurturing  time-tested and proven benefits of viable and genuine friendship.  

Save for one drunk and deluded Nigerian preacher I heard promising that he would go to China and deal with the virus, the fire-breathing power brokers are making very economical utterances which simply adds up to nothing but caution.

Here is a wonderful opportunity to be humans to be free again. Community and friendship time is here! Go forth and try it. There is none that is immune to this problem.  The rich and the poor are equal in this matters. You need no more proof than the coronavirus and the over 100,000 deaths of relatively well of whites that is commonly known as the death of despair. Make friends and live, that is if you survive the death of the stupid economy.  It's the economy, stupid.

A Tribute to A Mississippi Queen

If I was to take a few minutes to do a gastrointestinal reflection on what 30 years in the U.S has meant to my food culture, a most appropriate place to start would be in on the Thanksgiving Sunday in 1989 in as border town of South Haven Mississippi, close Memphis, Tennessee.

This year 30 years ago, I attended New Hope Baptist Church in Southaven Mississippi with my newly wedded wife who was two months pregnant with my daughter. After church, we attended a huge family dinner at the in-laws house. Ms. Warren was the matriarch of the house who would make any feminist blush. 

She understood exactly what African Americans had to do to hold the families together. The Sunday dinners was a family tradition that few missed without a genuine excuse good enough for the queen. The time I spent with Mrs. Warren and her family has had a tremendous impact on my thoughts about food and justice. 

The she would tell me stories about share cropping; how they financed their house from a cleaning wage and a garbage driver's wage coz the bank would not loan them any money. To get around the racist laws, the Warrens would buy building material during the week and then the men in the community would come help build the house. Over the weekend That is exactly what I had seen growing up in the village in Kenya.

The lessons from Mrs. Warren were not always verbal. I learned a ton just from observing how she handled business with style. She was a sharp dresser, bling and all , and also very religious.  It was a great honor to introduce her to my father during a visit for my graduation.  I tried to explain to him the role Mrs. Warren and her family had played during the toughest time of my life. Weather he understood or not is besides the point. What is important is my food culture was connected to that of African Americans through not only through blood but through Mrs. Warren. On this day, I made a wonderful meal only fit for Mrs. Warren. Though I no longer keep the church tradition, I do keep the deep lover she showered me with and a crass attitude for good measure.

What I thought was a challenge at the time turned to be refining training from some of the best. Though uneducated, the wisdom and the warm she illuminated with be with me forever.

Kudos for my dinners around Mrs. Warren kitchen table with family.

For the sake of memories, I made a goat dish with stinging nettles,  malabar spinach,  pumpkin leaves, green bananas,  black pepper,  garlic and cumin.