JR Alila Novels' Blog

JR Alila's 2012 Contest Entry: Maya (a novel)

2012-02-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

Maya (Synopsis)MAYA, a novel, is a narrative about ordinary people, with human flaws, caught up in the constant glare of life. They discover they only can cheat about, run or hide from, or ignore the flaws at their own peril.Maya Boone faces a legal quandary over a death she has witnessed from her hideout on Eagle Street, Harmony, New York. First, she watches Raul, the troublesome husband from whom she is hiding, kill a bulldog. She then crosses Eagle Street to enquire whether the dog’s owner (Mike) is suing Raul, but she instead falls in love with the heartbroken man, lures him to her bed, and even contemplates witnessing against Raul. The brief affair ends quickly as Mike falls victim to an enraged boyfriend’s arrow of passion. Wounded and helpless, Mike is at the mercy of a stalker named Booker, a moonlighting evangelist he, Mike, previously unmasked while the preacher waited tables at Bar Delirium. No mercy for Maya, only a slow death.Maya soon confronts her past. Also witnessing the murder is Officer Jimmy Depuy--a child from Maya’s selfish past. Neither Raul nor Maya nor Officer Depuy knows this. Then Detective John unearths the blood knot, and soon District Attorney Hess is advancing criminal motives against the Rauls and Officer Depuy. Harmony streets already sing a disharmonious tune from economically depressed youths and the elderly, and Captain Depuy and his officers are edgy. Now, Captain Depuy has a personal battle to fight, for the line between suspect and witness to a murder has become blurry.Maya fits the murder-mystery-thriller genre, but like recent novels penned by this author, it has a strong literary fiction aspect to it. MAYA should appeal to those readers who seek to understand, in human character, matters beyond the mundane of life.

Birthright (A Luo Tragedy)

2012-01-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

Literary Breakthrough:Joseph R. Alila's newest novel BIRTHRIGHT (a Luo Tragedy),ISBN 13: 978-1456382254(see here http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM) has been adopted by an IVY League School to be part of its African Cultural Anthropology curriculum.

Bannished Words of 2011

2011-12-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

Here are the 12 overused, misused, and annoying words and phrases of 2011.http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45825409/ns/today-books/?

The Choirmaster (A spiritual Tragedy) : The Disagreeable Characters.

2011-12-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

If you are a young man looking for a woman to marry, don’t be like rubbery Michael the choirmaster; if you are a married young woman don’t be like Eva, the woman who decided to sit out all of her husband’s evangelistic activities; if you are a single woman and another woman beat you to a man’s heart, forget it and move on, don’t be like that girl who wrecked a fellow church member’s marriage; if you are a man, don’t be like Saul the soul-killer, and definitely don’t be like his wife–the woman whose cellphone never stopping buzzing the events in her neighbors’ lives; if you are a minister, stop kidding, there are certain weddings you can refuse to bless! If you are a church elder, you are the “deacon” of the faithful: your word is gold, don’t waste it!The novel THE CHOIRMASTER is not about music, it is about life, read it and live well.http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

Birthright (A Luo Tragedy)

2011-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

When you read JR Alila's novel, BIRTHRIGHT (A Luo Tragedy), you feel the pain and hear the groans of a hurting Aura, smell the refuse of a rural people, feel the shame of a father who continues to walk with a moral baggage, feel the solitude of a rogue woman who has set her son on a path to hell, empathize with a son who has been shortchanged by his father, feel the suspense felt by a young woman who is gradually sinking into a quagmire as she awaits the return of rescurer who has gone for a fishing pole, and hear the cry of angst of a young woman who realizes that the bird in her hands is untouchable, after all. That is a tragedy!READ it here: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

2011-12-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

To all group members, I wish to say a HAPPY NEW YEAR. I hope you have had good tidings in 2011. For me it started with the publication of the novel BIRTHRIGHT (A Luo Tragedy). If you have not read this book, please do. All of you have been a blessing to me even as most of you have not read any of my novels. I know you are cheeering me on all the time. Those in the DIASPORA should have no excuse for not having my books in your hands from Amazon/Author Joseph R Alila: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM; those in Kenya, I promise to reach you locally before the end of 2012. Those of you who have written back to me pointing out areas of possible improvement in my writings, I say"thank you." You have made me a more purposeful novelist and poet. If you reread THE LUO DREAMERS ODYSSEY (From the Sudan to American Power) and thought I am a kind of prophet after various events unfolded in 2011, get over it, I am but a mere thoughtful novelist!Regards,Author Joseph R. Alila

Sins of Our Hearts (a novel)

2011-12-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

A young Pastor, Rew Smith, leads the affluent Oakpound New Hope Church. Things appear well in Pastor Smith’s Church, but underneath the glitter of its architecture and human faces, it has a deep spiritual problem. Simply put, the church suffers from a shortage of love. New converts are called names and go unattended to as the young Pastor spends most of his evenings at Oakpound Big Boys Health and Fitness Club. Elders in his Lay Leadership bask in self-praise, and exude a form of spirituality that has no force of love behind it. Led by Mrs. Smith, some members of the Women Wing have introduced a controversial Foot-Washing method for its convenience, but in which the virtues of humility and selfless love are virtually dead. Oakpound New Hope Church, is crying for Divine intervention, and it is about to get it.

SINS OF OUR HEARTS (a novel)
JR Alila (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-R.-Alila/e/B002QD5TDM

Socrates: Brazilian Soccer Meastro Dies

2011-12-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

The tall Brazilian Soccer Magician of the 9180s, Dr. Oliviera (Socrates) dies at age 57. He too was a medical doctor and a writer.
Read Here:
http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/latinamerica/story/socrates-dead-age-57-brazil-legend-hospital-infection-food-poisoning-120411

JR Alila Novels' Blog: THE CHOIRMASTER (A Spiritual Tragedy)

2011-06-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

JR Alila Novels' Blog: THE CHOIRMASTER (A Spiritual Tragedy)

Joseph R Alila (Author of the novels THE LUO DREAMERS' OYDSSEY; THE MILAY CURSE; NOT ON MY SKIN;....) http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

2010-05-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

KENYANS: VOTE YES

2010-04-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

When a church directs the faithful on how to vote, and MPS on how to legislate in a multi religious nation, then we are in interesting times! What if the faithful ended up voting otherwise? Politics, national or regional or ethnic, does not belong with the pulpit.

Kenyans, pray, go and vote, then pray again. God, your Creator, will hear you. This is a God-given chance; people are in IDP camps for it; people died to make it a reality. IT is a miracle our often weak-hearted MPS passed the DRAFT CONSTITUTION intact. GO AND VOTE “YES.” Revise and Polish the Draft Constitution on the other side of the Nile once it is the LAW OF THE LAND.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000007259&cid=4&ttl=AIC, NCCK join Catholic opposition

NEVER AGAIN, EVER

2010-04-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

Fellow Kenyan,
Didn’t we all sing
Change is in the air
As the wise ones
Stirred the magic pot:
Divining, praying and prophesying in search
of the way forward?

Fellow Kenyan,
We all sang
And yearned for change,
The third liberation
Appeared to have been on course:
We hoped it would be
The liberation from tribalism;
We hoped it would be
The liberation from corruption;
We hoped it would be
The liberation from sycophancy;
We hoped it would be
The liberation from the politics
Of kickbacks and rewards.

Fellow Kenyan,
All that would not be,
Even as the people had willed
Change at the ballot-box
Because an evil cabal of oligoks
Would subvert the people’s will,
Yet again;
And turn you against me,
And I against you,
And wife against husband,
And doctor against patient,
And turn our ballots
Into weapons of mutual death.

Fellow Kenyan,
Wake up, my brother
Wake up, my sister
Do not be cheated into bearing
Arms ONE AGAINST ANOTHER.

Fellow Kenyan,
Wake up, my brother;
Wake up, my sister
Never again ever
Shall we allow ourselves
To be played ONE AGAINST ANOTHER
By a manipulative, powerful
Cabal of evil elites.

Fellow Kenyan,
Wake up, my brother;
Wake up, my sister,
Lest we again become
Mere expendable pawns
In this war of a manipulative cabal
of voracious, evil-and-powerful elites.

Fellow Kenyan,
Wake up, my brother;
Wake up, my sister,
Never, never again should we
Allow our ballots to be turned
Into child-killing
weapons of death.

Fellow Kenyan,
Wake up my brother;
Wake up my sister,
There is only one mother
between us, and that mother
is our Dear Kenya;
And we must not allow her
To go to these manipulative
Crows of Nairobi.

Source: RATENG' AND BRIDE (a poem)
by Joseph R. Alila, June

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

THE CHOIRMASTER (A Spiritual Tragedy)

2010-03-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

By Joseph R Alila

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

2

A Raging Heart

Eva drove home in a dreamy state of mind. The man she had left in the hostel had remained with part of her heart. She felt in love. She had been in love before, but this one was special. She had felt secure in the presence of the stranger. If Michael had asked, “Can I marry you?” she could have responded, “Yes,” without a thought.
“Mama! Mama! I think I met my future husband!” she cried as she made her way to the kitchen where her mother was laying out the table for dinner.
“Eva?”
“Yes, Mama! I met my future husband.”
“You are not a teenager. You know the ways of all men!” Deborah warned.
“Mama, this one is special.”
“Eva, my dear, how many reliable men have you met in Mud Valley?”
“Mama, his name is Michael. He is from Tanners Valley.”
“You must have mistaken rural subservience for love, my dear. I never met a man from Tanners Valley who could hold a knife and a fork the right way. Be careful about what you are running into. Tanners Valley is a leather-tanning town. Do you know what it means to live near a tannery? It snuffs all sense of civilized behavior from a person’s head.”
“Ma!” Eva cried in anguished alarm. She realized that her mother had become what she, Eva, never imagined; her mother was a proud bigot. Her Michael did not fit the image of the dumb rural breed from a stinking leather-tanning town Deborah was trying to paint.
“Eva?”
“I am talking about the new choirmaster at Mud Valley High School. He is a Christian, I love him, and he happens to be from Tanners Valley.”
“He sounds to be a material for the choirmaster of the Youth Choir.”
“Mama, you are not being helpful. I’ll be taking him to church tomorrow. Second, I’ll bring him home to dinner tomorrow evening.”
“Eva, take that man to church tomorrow and you will have lost him. If I were you, I could have dug in my heels and hooked the fish first, before exposing him to Jane Caleb and the Jacob Twins,” Deborah said. She was talking in reference to three prominent spinsters in Mud Valley Church, who, like her Eva, were on the hunt for suitors.
“Ma, he is hooked as of now. The best you can do is to pray for us.”
“Your Michael is hooked in one day, Eva?”
“I read somewhere that if you don’t hook a fish on the first try, you won’t catch it.”
“In which pond is this fish resting tonight?”
“At the church’s Youth Hostel.”
“Eva, believe me, you lost the fish already.”
“How, Ma?”
“If Ezekiel, your supervisor at the hostel, mentions to Monica that there is a new music master headed for Mud Valley Church, Mrs. Risper Caleb would be printing dinner invitation cards for tomorrow evening.”
“Ma, I have a head start on Michael. We will be in church tomorrow. The two of us will do a duet, and I won’t move an inch from him the whole time. I’ll bring him home tomorrow evening. Never mind, I’ll do the cooking.”
“What bit you, Eva?”
“The world, Mama. Since losing Doug to that loser whose name I can’t pronounce, I learnt my lessons. This one is a heart I must protect.”

The following morning, Eva took Michael to church. Nobody appeared to have noticed him until Elder Ezekiel, who was leading the services, asked, “Do we have any first-time guests?”
Michael was among the three guests in church on that Sabbath. There was a husband-wife pair from a distant province too. Elder Ezekiel introduced the couple first. The woman explained that they were retirees born in Mud Valley and were thinking of returning to their roots.
Elder Ezekiel introduced Michael as the new music teacher at Mud Valley High School, and that he came from family of lay evangelists. “Michael, stand up so that your sisters in Christ can see you.”
Michael stood up, then Eva stood next to him saying, “Michael and I will do a duet from the Hymnal.”
They walked up to the front and sang Just As I Am. Michael’s baritone was adorable. They sang so well that by the last stanza, the whole congregation stood up to sing with them. Then they were greeted with Amens.
At the end of the Sabbath, the Choir Director was enlisting Michael for a role in training the church choir.
“Caleb, you must invite Michael for dinner soonest possible,” Mrs. Risper Caleb said, entering the Treasury, where Caleb was tallying the day’s collections.
“Why the hurry, Honey?” Elder Caleb asked, yet he understood why Risper was in a hurry to invite the new school choirmaster home. He understood that Eva’s manipulation of the situation to her advantage had raised the ire of Risper, his wife, who had been working too hard to get Jane, their only daughter, a suitable husband.
“You ask ‘Why the hurry,’ Dear? Are you blind? Didn’t you see what the Joseph daughter just did?”
“I see. Can we discuss this later at home?”
“Mama, Dad, I am on my way home,” Jane announced, opening the door.
“Have you greeted Michael already?”
“Ma, please, I’m not cheap!”
“Jenny!” Caleb whispered in suppressed anger, remembering that he was sitting next to the Sanctuary.
“I am sorry, Dad. If Michael has brains, he must be reading the tea leaves already.”
“If Michael has brains? What a choice of words, Jane. Of course he has brains. No one gets a Master’s degree in Music unless they have a lot of brains,” Risper offered an informed assessment of Michael.

Thanks to the impression Michael made on Elder Ezekiel, the latter talked about him during dinner with Saul, his son. Monica, Ezekiel’s daughter-in-law, had listened as he heaped praise on Michael’s professional, personal and ancestral pedigrees. Even though it was late in the evening, Monica’s rumor mill began to churn in earnest.
“Mrs. Caleb, Happy Sabbath,” Monica said. She had called Risper to raise an alert about Michael.
“Monica, Happy Sabbath. You sound excited.”
“There is a special young man in town, in whom Jane should be interested.”
“What kind of man is he that he should make you that excited?”
“He is single, a Christian, and well cultured in our faith. He has a degree in music.”
“What makes a man with a degree in music special, Monica?”
“How do you expect a woman to answer such a question? But he is the new music teacher at Mud Valley High School.”
“Goodnight, Monica.”
Risper had not admitted it, but her heart too was racing. She was anxious to host the new high school choirmaster even before meeting him.
“Who is that Risper?” Elder Caleb asked.
“She is Monica, dear.”
“Anything amiss?”
“No. She is reporting that there is the new choirmaster at the high school who is a member of our faith.”
“The music teacher must be a man.”
“He is a single man, dear,” Risper clarified.
“So what is the excitement about?”
“Caleb, have you stopped praying for luck to come Jane’s way?”
“I do, dear.”
“Thank you. We have to have him over for dinner, soonest possible. I don’t want to risk him associating with wrong characters before Jane interviews him.”
“I get the idea, dear,” Caleb concurred, afraid to contradict Risper on any matter about Jane.

Monica called Mrs. Rhoda Jacob next. Monica spoke for a minute, before Rhoda said “Thank you,” and hang up the phone.
“What is that Rodi?” Mr. Jacob asked from his side of the king-size bed. He was reading a passage from a Men’s Daily Devotional. The topic was “Parental Responsibility.” The example was Abram’s effort to get his son Isaac a good wife, while he, Abram, was old and far removed from his nativity (Genesis 24).
“It is Monica, dear.”
“Why do you still listen to that woman whose tongue could one day destroy our church?”
“Dear, what is the judgment for on Sabbath Eve?”
“I am sorry, but that is not the woman I want to talk to on any Sabbath eve.”
“You are still judging, dear.”
“Okay, what is she talking about?”
“There is an impressionable young man, in whom the twins could be interested.”
“Impressionable young man? He sounds cheap. Why should Mara look at him?” asked Mr. Jacob.
“Dear, wealth cannot buy a good heart,” Rhoda chastised her husband.
“I am sorry, Rodi.”
“Can we suspend this discussion about a hypothetical man we have not seen?”
“Let’s pray, Rodi,” Jacob said.

So on day one, hardly six hours since Michael’s arrival in Mud Valley, the struggle for his heart had started in earnest. He had not seen the classroom where he would teach fifth-graders music, yet his name was on the tongue of every significant family in Mud Valley. The mention of his name was causing nightmares to mothers of daughters he had not met.
At the end of day two, Michael’s melodious voice constantly rang in every spinster’s ears, and one woman named Eva was provoking the ire of other spinsters, who were grumbling, cursing, and calling for fair play.
As the head of the Youth Movement, or rather, exploiting her position as the Director of Youth, Eva took charge of Michael, who was twenty-four years old and wasn’t exactly a youth, though he found more comfort among the youth. At the end of the Sabbath, she introduced Michael to Pastor David, who had broken the spiritual bread, and Mrs. Kay David. Eva referred to Michael as “a dear friend” and “a future director of the Youth Choir,” even though the position was not open then.
Following a path of least resistance, Eva shepherded Michael out of the church. By the time Mrs. Caleb came out of her husband’s office, Michael had gone.
Eva drove Michael to her mother’s house, where she cooked dinner for him before taking him back to the hostel, late in the night.
So far Eva was a step ahead of the other spinsters. But time would tell as to how long she would maintain her advantage. So far she was happy to be the hand that made sure that the single man ate properly. Eva promised in her heart to keep him engaged, help him settle down, and make sure he was supplied adequately with essentials.
In addition, Eva made sure that Michael was in church from where she could monitor the activities of rival forces around him. She would continue to be close enough to him, not only to keep the gossip going, but also to make others really uncomfortable. But she promised that she would not be the one to propose to him.
That had been Eva’s resolve, eleven years back, before other characters joined her to create the story ahead; that was Eva before Michael was a music superstar; that was Eva before Michael became her husband; that was Eva before the world played its dirty hand against her; that was Eva before she met and knew a snake known as Saul; that was Eva before Elder Ezekiel overplayed his hand and revealed his sordid past.

JR Alila Books

2009-12-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

JR Alila Novels' Blog: The American Polygamist

2009-12-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

JR Alila Novels' Blog: The American Polygamist

http://josephalilawp.wordpress.com/

The American Polygamist

2009-12-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

When Chief Chuki gets entangled in a business deal with rival Goldian Army Generals, he finds himself held hostage in a land in which he is revered. Yet even with his proximity to the wheels of power on both sides of the pond, he cannot shout for help because of the desire to keep his good name. Second, his Goldian wife has delivered a son and uses the unique circumstances of his captivity to demand part of his wealth in exchange for his freedom and her silence over his marital status.

Now, a desire for secrecy demands that Chuki engages the expertise of a fellow Iraqi War I Veteran and his high-tech buddies, who have created a lucrative business niche negotiating the release of Western hostages from the high-risk world of African warlords, terrorists, and sea pirates.

In THE AMERICAN POLYGAMIST (ISBN-13: 144992798-1) , J.R. Alila weaves a story with many twists and turns as family betrays family, honor is traded for wealth and an honorable man becomes a prisoner of his own secrets.

Enter Chuki’s American wife, Patty, who suspects that he has at least one African wife and child in Africa. Mrs. Patty Chuki is ready to revisit old Brooklyn-High-School romance with a Major Frank to get to the truth while in a Harvard reunion with her billionaire husband in the Masai Mara. But will Admiral Ndeki of Goldian Navy let Patty taste the forbidden fruit in peace in Nairobi?

COMING SOON at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

www.createspace.com/3413870

THE CHOIRMASTER (A Spiritual Tragedy)

2009-10-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

“The Choirmaster” by Joseph R. Alila (ISBN 144954199-2; 13 ISBN 978-144954199-6, https:/www.createspace.com/3403394) the evangelizing wonder of the Church Choir has become both a blessing and a minor headache at Mud Valley Church. The growth in card-carrying membership and church attendance explodes overnight. That is the blessing. The headache is the charismatic-but-unassuming Choirmaster, whose spiritual gifts are key to the phenomenal church growth. As the womenfolk with available daughters fight to outdo each other in monthly dinners for Michael, the Choirmaster, things become a little earthly and scary. Finally, Michael is betrothed with the urgency akin to that of Samuel the Priest, his outreach ministry becomes a bother to the Church Board, whose membership is left asking, “What if the Choirmaster leaves?”But these When the Choirmaster is caught in a tryst, chilling secrets in his house are revealed. Pastor warning “Throw ye not the first stone!”

J.R. Alila’s “The Choirmaster” is a lesson in summoning spiritual resources to manage church resources, nurture youth and manage crisis. It is also a reminder of what can go wrong in a church when the Church Board delays decisions so as to accommodate the interests of larger-than-life congregants.

Author JR Alila

2009-09-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

Author, Poet and Novelist Joseph R. Alila is a native of Kenya. JR Alila is a Chemist by training. JR Alila considers creative writing to be a natural consequence of the aging process. JR Alila has written extensively on his Luo people's marriage and other cultural practices, criticizing them where criticism is due, and shedding a sage's light so as to put meaning to old traditions. JR Alila's mournful caution against the practice of polygamy in the era of the AIDS virus comes in SUNSET ON POLYGAMY. JR has written extensively on pride, bigotry and prejudice in the spiritual/cultural novels, THE MILAYI CURSE, NOT ON MY SKIN, and SINS OF OUR HEARTS.
In his writings, JR treats each of his characters as "the total person"---a writing style that has made such works as WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, NOT ON MY SKIN, and THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, to be informative anthropological treatises on people and their physical, spiritual, political, cultural, and social circumstances.
When JR set out to write he had no voice or agenda. His objective was to tell stories about his Luo people and his experiences as a Christian, a Luo, an African, and a World Scholar uprooted from his home base to chase scientific dreams. But Eight Novels and two Epic Poems (RATENG' AND BRIDE and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA) later, he finds himself speaking increasingly for the burdened and voiceless African women and widows (in THE THIRTEENTH WIDOW, SUNSET ON POLYGAMY, and WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART) whose yokes are the marital culture and practices whose original intentions were protective, but now turned spiritual death traps from which there is no escape.
JR has found his political voice in RATENG' AND BRIDE (Kenya's 2007 Presidential contest), THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER (A historical-cum-spiritual fictional march of the Luo into the world's only citadel of power---inspired by Obama Presidency), and THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA (An Epic Poem; theme: Africa is deluded with perilous crises, a lot of which are due to amnesia, poor leadership choices, greed, greedy friends and brother-on-brother conflicts, with Ebony the African Woman and her children bearing the brunt of their deadly consequences).
Eight novels and two epic poems later, in THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND and THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER, JR Alila comes out as a sage's torch illuminating various aspects of the Luo journey, Luo cultural practices, Luo spirituality, and Luo thought.
Finally in the novel, NOT ON MY SKIN, JR Alila describes the American experience, consciousness and attitudes at street level, inside houses of worship and at the work place. This author has come of age.

These books are now available at Amazon AUTHOR CENTRAL, where this Author/Poet/Novelist from Nhiwa (Kenya) is proudly featured. This author has come of age, friends and fans.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002QD5TDM

KENYA TO THE HAGUE via TJRC?

2009-07-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

In the KIBAKI-ODINGA CABINET taking the TJRC Path we Kenyans hope that Kenyans mentioned by Judge WAKI and others will have an opportunity to confess their sins, pay goats to the offended for ordinary crimes and move on reconciled, OR be forwarded to a higher court in Kenya to be tried if they commited capaital offences under the Kenyan Constitutiton and Penal Code, OR be forwarded to the HAGUE if they sponsored "high crimes against humanity."
That is my village understanding from Ramogi wisdom, folks. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm not a lawyer.

Say, "NOT ON MY SKIN" with a Dpiritual Drink

2009-07-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

Get a copy of JR Alila’s NOT ON MY SKIN (https://www.createspace.com/3346969) and arm yourself for the dialogue on RACE. You are part of the dialogue on race, whether you open your mouth or not; it affects you on the road;it meets you as check out your items in a food store; it affects you at a table in an eatery with that exotic girl or boy; it confronts you in a bar, it impedes your efficiency as a teacher, doctor or priest; it confronts you right inside your church, synagogue or mosque—all in very subtle ways. Don’t be a Victim or Agent of Race Rage. Join President Obama’s efforts toward putting off this simmering fire. A drink of weak beer is not be enough to quench the simmering racial fire; beyond today’s drink in the White House, we all need to clothe ourselves with the spirit of love. It has to start in an individual’s heart before it becomes a community fashion, onward to being a national style.

JR Alila

KENYA AT THE HAGUE

2009-07-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Kenya's politics will never be the same, again. What is important is how we mange it so that tribal "kingpins" do not sink with us. The power to nurse Kenya through the current mess is with you and me, and every Kenyan on the street. Never again should a Kenyan throw a stone at another because a politician's political interests are threatened.

Now, the wise out there:
Why should anybody named in the WAKI LIST still hold an office and title?
I want anybody holding a ministerial potfolio gone by the morning following Ociampo's disclosure of their names; otherwise the IDPs in refugee camps will have no hope.
It is true that we are innocent until proven guilty, but being in the WAKI LIST is troubling enough to cause any politician with a coscience to reconsider whether he or she is an asset or a liability to his or her Nation, Kenya. Stepping aside is the honorable thing to do.
PM Odinga and President Kibaki should have the will to let go their tarnished 'friends' and pick up new ones.
If it is political marriages that are being protected, then let Parliament prepare Kenya for fresh elections under a New constitution. A Politically realigned Nation will be a stronger entity.

VIEW OF KNYANS ON THE HAGUE

2009-07-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

ICC Counsel HE Ocianpo opens today the envelope containing the names of those who were adversely implicated in the deaths during Kenya's post-election violence in 2007/2008. Jurist Muite sets the Legal issues straight and lays political responsibility where it belongs.

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144019178&cid=4&ttl=What next after handing of Waki ‘envelope’ to ICC?

Meanwhile Kibaki's cabinet meets to discuss various issues, including
1. The thorny issue of a Local Tribunal---which experts such as Muite believe would be a sham unless there is a new constitutional dispensation and a new government in Kenya
2. What responsibility the previous Electoral Commission should bear over the deaths? (Should there be a Kriegler Envelop?)
3. Presidential Clemency

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144019172&cid=4&ttl=Kibaki and Raila summon Cabinet

Kenyans, tighten your belts for the journey ahead.

Take my advice in RATENG' AND BRIDE By JR Alila www.amazon.com)
Let no politician tell you to carry any weapon against another Kenyan of a different tribe or political persuasion.

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER

2009-07-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

Author Joseph R Alila had a successful book-signing event July 4th, 2009 in Binghamton during the First Annual Graduate-African Student Association Organization’s Alumni meeting. This hopefully will be an annual event in different parts of the United States of America.

Interest was high for Alila’s THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power. https://www.createspace.com/3373494

Alila’s poetry collection,Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa (http://www.lulu.com) written with the literary fearlessness of the late Africa Literary Okot p’Bitek had a very soft spot for some of JR Alila’s fans.

JR Alila signed other copies of his other novels and poetry collections.

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER

2009-07-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

I'll be signing copies of my new novel THE LUO DREAMERS ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power in Binghamton NY July 4th.

https://www.createspace/3373494

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER

2009-06-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

In THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: FROM THE SUDAN TO AMERICAN POWER–Joseph R. Alila presents a narrative about a spiritual journey of the Luo of eastern Africa to President Obama’s White House. In this historical fiction, Novelist and Poet Joseph R. Alila (THE MILAYI CURSE) vividly captures the perils of the Luo spiritual journey from Egypt to the White House—a journey that lasts 600 years. In the carefully crafted narrative that starts with one Ajwang’ Opodho in the old Sudan to one Hassan Opodho in Kenya to one President Hassan Ajwang’ in America, Alila visits the infamous LUO BEAD OF PASSION that caused the schism that scattered the Luo tribes throughout East and Central Africa.Reading Joseph R Alila’s THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY (https://www.createspace.com/3373494) one realizes that the timeless narrative is as much about a physical journey through time as it is a Spiritual passage of the Luo people. This novel, like most of JR Alila’s novels, offers the reader an opportunity to glean into the Luo mind and complex anthropological space that include such controversial practices as Polygamy and Widow Inheritance (Alila’s SUNSET ON POLYGAMY; WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART).

Obama Presidency: A Luo Prophecy

2009-06-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

The emergence of President Barack Obama of the United States as a force in world politics, and as a voice in calling for unity in a world struggling with the role of religion in public life and international co-existence, has been discussed in as many a voice as there are religions in the world. His call for reason and understanding among world peoples (today, 6/4/2009, in Cairo, Egypt) comes at a time when in Palestine, Indonesia, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan religious purists are fighting to dominate their people’s political agenda.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=30052

President Obama is fighting what experts now agree to be a war for the people’s minds and souls, and he perhaps is the best man in the world for the role—having been brought up under a milieu of religious doctrines, lives with kin of different religions, and has been a victim (politically) of religious stigma and bigotry because of the words of his fellow faithful, and the religions of his kin.Is this man of peace, the same man about whom a rebel Catholic Priest, Johana Owalo of the Luo Nomiya Church phrophsied in 1912? Is President Obama the man who would destroy America in 2012 ? Were some meanings of Luo words and thought lost in the translation of Owalo’s Luo words?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=4h&oq=&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS324US324&q=luo+prophecies+and+obama+presidency

It can be argued that Owalo’s thought and choice of words were influenced by his rebel religious philosophy and the Luo independent streak that led him to break away from European Christianity to start his “Luonized Christian Church” known as Luo Nomiya Church (Luo I Was Given Church, which borrowed heavily from a monotheistic Luo religious tradition). Though under the yoke of British imperialism, which already had built a railway line connecting Kisumu and Mombasa, thus opening Kenya’s hinterland to a fast-spreading Christian Religion, it is curious that he prophesied of America as the land that would be destroyed by a Luo (which some people have claimed to be President Obama). Though Owalo's prophecy has been part realized close to 100 years later (a son of a Luo sits in the White House at this time as America’s 44th President)—the possibility that Obama would “destroy” the United States in 2012 may be far fetched, unless Owalo used the word ”to destroy” to mean to "fundamentally change" how America governs herself.

President Barack Hussein Obama is a transformational figure with an ambitious people-centered (read socialist by some) agenda. His governing agenda is ambitious, and he has a tongue that can sell water to the ocean. But the idea that he would destroy his American homeland is far fetched. His governance style will remain at the center because a Luo is known for the art of compromise, respect for peers, and worship of precedence. A Luo sticks to tradition (excuse my Luo Pride).

So when Father Owalo said that a Luo would “destroy America” in 2012, he perhaps had used the word “ketho” which can mean “to pollute” politically or socially, like a boy polluting the mind of a “virgin girl;” “disorganize,” as in “disorganizing an opponent’s military plan.”Rest easy folks, a Luo is in charge (Excuse Me!).

JR Alila

Author of THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY

(https://www.createspace.com/3373494). This novel is historical Fiction about the Luo, how they view the New President’s journey, and The Luo Prophecy on the emergence President Obama

BOOK RELEASE

2009-05-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (From the Sudan to American Power) By Joseph R. Alila.

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (A Novel) is now available for purchase from https://www.createspace.com/3373494 . Availability on www.amazon.com comes shortly.

Students of Luo Oral History, Luo Anthropology, Luo Religiosity, Luo Leadership and Hidden Prophecies, Luo wisdom, Current American politics with a little salt added for taste, and those attracted to Luo ways because of our current notoriety on the world stage (Haven't we father the guardian of the citadel of world power?), or if you just want to discover what makes the Luo tick, this is your Historical Novel (where facts, fantasies, fiction are mixed, cooked then served as tragedy, satire, comedy or paranormal events). I say welcome to all of you.

You are looking for romance? You won't be bored. You love tension? Tighten your seat-belt. You love heroes? They are here. You are a tough girl? Meet your friends here. You think you know about the "Luo Bead of Passion?" You ain't met it yet. Have you heard about "The Ajwang' Prophecy?" Definitely not. Have you read about "Sunrise from the West?" Most likely not. Have you heard of "The Ajwang' Mark of Leadership?" or Do you have it under a specific foot (be sure to be a Luo, must have a fifth of Luo blood)? I doubt that you have. Can you write a short essay about "The Great Schism" among the Luo clans that dispersed this great nation throughout East and Central Africa, from Sudan to Tanzania? Maybe not.

Grab your copy.

JR Alila

BOOK RELEASE: THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY

2009-05-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY (From the Sudan to American Power) is now available for purchase from https://www.createspace.com/3373494 . Availability on www.amazon.com comes shortly. Students of Luo Oral History, Luo Anthropology, Luo Religiosity, Luo Leadership and Hidden Prophecies, Luo wisdom, Current American politics with a little salt added for taste, and those attracted to Luo ways because of our current notoriety on the world stage (Haven't we father the guardian of the citadel of world power?), or if you just want to discover what makes the Luo tick, this is your Historical Novel (where facts, fantasies, fiction are mixed, cooked then served as tragedy, satire, comedy or paranormal events). I say welcome to all of you.You are looking for romance? You won't be bored. You love tension? Tighten your seat-belt. You love heroes? They are here. You are a tough girl? Meet your friends here. You think you know about the "Luo Bead of Passion?" You ain't met it yet. Have you heard about "The Ajwang' Prophecy?" Definitely not. Have you read about "Sunrise from the West?" Most likely not. Have you heard of "The Ajwang' Mark of Leadership?" or Do you have it under a specific foot (be sure to be a Luo, must have a fifth of Luo blood)? I doubt that you have. Can you write a short essay about "The Great Schism" among the Luo clans that dispersed this great nation throughout East and Central Africa, from Sudan to Tanzania? Maybe not.Grab your copy

WHAT AILS KENYA?

2009-05-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

If you asked me where Kenya would be, politically, next month, my answer to you would be "I can't tell." Here is why. We have no properly constituted Electoral body, the contestants have become the referees in parliament. We have no Leader of Government Business because we have no properly elected government; what we have is "a coalition of the unwilling," that is sitting in wait for 2012, guzzling our shilling at a drunken pace, readying for battle.
Aren't we Unthankful?
We are a people linked to the current "Emperor and Guardian of the Citadel" by an umbilical chord. The President of the United States, who is a Kenyan through his father, could have chosen to be Kenyan at eighteen years, but decided to be an American. That is how close Kenyans are to the kill, yet we are starving.This man, President Barack Obama, must be grieving in shame. He has killed a Hippo, a very fat one, and has nowhere in Kenya to land with his kill because our so-called Kenyan leaders are feasting over a skeletal carcass of a poorly fed cow from somewhere in Nyanza.
How funny.
Amid the laughable spectre of public moral rot, our people are waiting for cereal imports, some of which are rotting in Mombasa---unfit to be consumed because of an explosion in the high-seas that generated lots of a toxic compound known as Aluminium phosphate. Now if you have some knowledge of chemistry like me, you may sleep easy on your empty stomach, knowing that, though you are hungry, some chemist at the Government Chemist in Nairobi has saved you from consuming bad corn! But you are not me, and you must be smelling corruption in the convoluted explanation of why you have no corn to buy. That the turmoil of early 2008 that displaced farmers to refugee camps from where they have been unable to escape back to their farms, gives you no reason hope at all! What do you smell?
Meanwhile your leaders are printing the "skeletal cow" known as the Kenyan Shilling in such huge numbers that the Minister for Finance cannot count it with modern computers, let alone budget and account for it, and his royalty is blaming computers made by man and typewriters attended to by man for the endemic typos in the budget!
Yes, a Kenyan has killed a hippo, and is willing to bring the fat carcass home, but has nowhere to land with his kill in Kenya because we are busy looting the Shilling which is 80 times skinnier than our adventurous son's American Dollar. Kenyan's, Ramogi must be turning in his grave, Ajuma must be turning in his grave, Kenyatta must be cursing everyone from the grave yonder. Watoto wa simba si simba, in our case!
The last I heard was the brave Kenyan hunter from the Citadel of wealth and Power has decided to land in Ghana, unload then proceed to the land of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He could alternately have landed in Juba, Sudan, were it not for the turmoil there, and this mourning Kenyan's voice could have cheered, not because he is unpatriotic, but because listening to history is preferable to rewarding rot.
What shame on us Kenyans!
JR Alila

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY

2009-05-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Six hundred years ago in the Sudan, Ajwang’s black ancestors were nomadic people needling the Nile, inching incrementally southward ahead of the encroachment of the Sahara against their livestock. Their flight south would be hastened by a new threat in a new religion, and complicated by internal family conflicts.Leading and guiding the flight south were men, who rose to the occasion and acted when the challenges of their times demanded courage, and challenged personal honor, common wisdom and established tradition. The mention of their names sent shivers down the spines of fellow men. Each would etch an indelible mark on their time, and leave permanent footprints for fellow men to follow.Leading in the odyssey out of the old Sudan was a dreamer, a nomad, a man of the wild, a man of rare wisdom named Ajwang’ or Ramogi. Ramogi (the wrestler) was a man guided by his dreams, a man of courage, who never blinked at danger, and the father of all Luo nations, from Sudan to Tanzania.Hassan Ajwang’ would live the dreams of his famous Luo ancestor. Though Hassan Ajwang’ was born to meager resources, he would be schooled in the Athenian Tradition, would volunteer in the service of the poor, but now mingles and dines with the rich of his time; a man for the times, who wields Spartan Power in his hands and debates doubters at the Citadel. His Luo people call him The Ajwang’. In their minds, he is the promise in their long and storied journey that dates back six centuries. They see in him their rendezvous with destiny, and a prophecy fulfilled, and not just a historical accident.There was a dream, and many dreamers.

JR Alila in “THE LUO DREAMERS ODYSSEY (A Novel), Coming June 2009

MySpace.com Blogs - joseph MySpace Blog

2009-05-22T03:57:00.000-07:00

ODM'S ORANGE COUP

2009-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

On the struggle over who would be the leader of Government Business in the cureent Kenyan Parliament, and thus control the Parliamentary Agenda, it would appear that ODM has staged a civil coup over President Kibaki's PNU.
The Speaker of the House, Hon. Marende, after a brilliant obfuscation and legal wizardry, all but declared that anybody, even a stranger in parliament can be the Leader of Government Business under Commonwealth Parliamentary Practices, which tend to set precedence for all member states, declared himself the Acting Leader of Government Business until President Kibaki and PM Odinga give him the new leader.
Now, Hon. Marende, before he got his job as Speaker of the House, was an ODM MP. Even if we assume that the speaker is independent minded, ODM must be feeling good out of this manoeuvre, which everyone including Annan and fellow African Eminences have declared wise and brilliant.
PNU must be planning other moves, but with all Kenyan women test-driving a seven-day sex holiday until Parliament passes reform measures in line with Annan's Agenda 4, it may be too late for political foot-dragging.
JR Alila

Kenyan Men: WOMEN ON BOYCOTT!

2009-04-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Kenyan women lobbyists have ordered sex boycott, until parliament legislates constitutional reforms.

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144012904&cid=4&ttl=Women declare sex boycott

IS KENYA A LOST CAUSE?

2009-03-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

Kenya is a lost cause. 2012 will be worse than what we saw in 2007. There are reasons to make this assertion.
The tigers of freedom of yesterday have all been compromised. Raila and his ODM have been roped in then neutered. They are part of the system, not only in name, but also in action. Unchecked Corruption is not just a PNU thing. If an ODM minister is tainted and has not been sacked, it is because the PM who is from ODM finds him a political holy cow who cannot be touched.
Kenya is a lost cause: The ghosts of post election violence have not been appeased. Those implicated in various offences have skilfully employed Parliamentary Procedures to block the setting up of Local Tribunals to try suspects. Kenyans face the prospects of approaching the next General Election (in 2012) before the victims of the last elections are appeased.
It appears that there may be no New Constitution before the 2012 Elections. The opponents of Agenda 4 are forming ethnic alliances to fit an already evolving Transition Agenda, which can only work if the current President retains his absolute powers by election day. There may be a new referendum on the Constitution, and there may be another BOMAS, but their outcomes will be different because of new Constituencies and Districts!
Even getting a credible Kenyan to chair a transitory Electoral body has become a problem because of ethnicity and transition politics.
When will Kenyan be a Nation and not a union of tribes?

BOOK RELEASE: THE LUO DREAMERS" ODDYSSEY

2009-02-16T04:25:00.000-08:00

THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power
(ISBN: 144148311x ISBN 13: 9781441483119)
Novel by Joseph R. Alila
www.creatspace.com/3373494
In the historical novel, THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY: From the Sudan to American Power, a journey that started more than five centuries ago in the Sudan, has ended in the White House. Along the way, a child and a troubled dreamer, Ajwang’ the Dreamer (a.k.a. Ramogi, the father of the Luo) survives the knife of ire of a man who has been robbed of a bead of wisdom. Years later, the sons of Ajwang’ must part ways with a child dead between them because of vengeance over a bead and a spear. Centuries later, an orphan must "develop wings," fly out of Colonial Kenya to Alaska, and plant his seed, a boy. This boy, Hassan Ajwang’, is a dreamer who lives to be the President of the United States of America. In THE LUO DREAMERS’ ODYSSEY, author Joseph R. Alila (Author: "The Milayi Curse") pens yet another drama of life, of survival against great odds, and of victories as improbable as the sun rising from the west.
This book is inspired by the perils afflicting Luo Nations in East Africa, and the improbable Presidency of President Barack Hussein Obama of the United States of America.

BOOK RELEASE

2009-02-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

COMING SOON

THE LUO DREAMERS' ODYSSEY:

from the Sudan to American Power

(A Novel)

By Joseph R. Alila

www.createspace.com

POLYGAMY: ETHICS, SPIRITUALITY AND MARRIAGE, A TRAGEDY

2009-01-23T09:49:00.000-08:00

I am Joseph R. Alila, the author of Sunset on Polygamy (ISBN 1424166845).Sunset on Polygamy is the first of six novels and two collections of poems that I have written. This novel speaks to the sociological, spiritual as well anthropological underpinnings of governance, courtship, marriage, polygamy, remarriage, conflicts, death and disease among the Luo of East Africa. I have also addressed how these aspects of life affect the understanding and management of the New Disease epidemic (read AIDS epidemic) among my people (the Luo).

As a social critic, I believe that my role is to blow the horn, to warn, to praise, to mourn, and to ask questions whenever there is an emergent cultural problem. In this role, I have tried to be an innocent presenter (and sometimes an active presenter) of facts as I see them, and calling human folly what it is.It may come as a surprise to some of my readers that my female heroines (Felicia the Nyadendi, Nyapora, Megan and Gina) tend to influence the destiny of their homes and husbands and a whole people. But this is a natural consequence of the fact that, among the Luo, marriage is a spiritual institution, and the woman is at the center of worship within the home. When polygamy is factored into the marriage equation, marriage becomes one complex religious institution with its own dos and don’ts. Now, when the ethical references and goalposts are frayed and weakened by social decay, marriage in general (and polygamy in particular) becomes a complex deathtrap in the face of emergent disease epidemics such as AIDS. When the symptoms of AIDS are confused for that of chira (deadly curse), the tragedy of our human folly becomes immeasurable.

SUNSET ON POLYGAMY

By Joseph R. Alila

www.publishamerica.com

RAILA ODINGA'S WORD

2009-01-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

Listen to our "Ker," (this Luo word has no accurate English translation! so bare with me) Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the man who says that he has been teargassed so many times that he has permanent eye damage. That is part of the tragic price the modern warrior has paid for valor. (It this kind of downpayment for freedom and democracy made in a warrior's blood and health that makes the poet's pen and voice quiver as he implores Rateng' to let the Bride Go in "RATENG' AND BRIDE"). PM Odinga mourns the lives needlessly sacrificed during the struggle to have people's votes and voices respected after the 2007 Kenya Presidential Election. He says that existing relics of a (colonial) civic structure and occupying (PNU) functionaries have frustrated the implementation of agreed points in his coalition government with President Kibaki.

Read the Standard:
http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144003675&cid=4&
http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144003676&cid=4&

OF TWO WOMEN OF HOPE AMID REJECTION

2009-01-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

I am Joseph R Alila, author of such novels as SUNSET ON POLYGAMY and THE MILAYI CURSE.
In my newest novel, WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART, I have employed a story about the trying times of two widows to lead my readers along an anthropological journey into some cultural aspects of marriage, kinship and inheritance among the Luo of Eastern Africa. WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART is an ansty cry of a strong-willed, unfortunate widow (Apiny) with the "spiritually-untouchable" tag hanging on her neck, who, together with her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) insist that they belong with the clan into which they married, even as their immediate in-laws consider the younger widow to be a living "a curse," who must go. In this choice, the women have taken the higher cultural moral road than their heartless in-laws. Moreover, the women are on the right side of Luo Customary Law, which states that women and their children belong with the clan, and not just the immediate family of their husbands.
In Awino accepting a distant brother-in-law’s hand in marriage so that her burdened daughter-in-law ( Apiny) can find a kitchen in which to sleep as the latter awaits the birth of her next husband, I tell my readers a story about undying faith, courage, patience and humility, on the part of the women, and charity, on the part of the widower (Misuru). That Awino agrees to give her daughter-in-law a tender son to marry is a steep moral hill she, Awino, has to overcome amid daily echoes of laughter and ridicule of both women by their contemporaries.
But my readers should remeber that this is eighteenth-century Luoland, in which due process in matters of birth, marriage, death has to be observed religiously, lest unsettled spirits run amock. Moreover, the Seer says that the future of a whole people is tied to the strength of arms of the yet-to-be-born children and grandchildren of the two widows.

"OUR LUO SUNRISE IN THE WEST (Old Prophecies and Our Improbable Journey)"

2009-01-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

Fans of "SUNSET ON POLYGAMY," I'm digging in to polish my next novel, "OUR LUO SUNRISE IN THE WEST" or some title to that effect. If you wanna scoop me, you ghost writers out there, go right ahead, at the risk of fighting with my ancestors. Anyway, if you are not in the know, the Nilotic Tribe, The LUO, fathered the new man of the world, The Man of the Moment.
It is a tough project. I am grabbing every catchy phrase and idea that visit my dreams. Writing one line is taking me two days, on some cloggy days. You must be wondering why? when the history of the Luo is out there.
This is why: Novelists are not historians; they are not prophets, even as their works may foretell some events , as Novelist JR Alila in the closing chapter in THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND. They are not bound by any truths. They have to try to relive the lives of some of the subjects of their imaginations and creations. Novelists try to dig into the hows and whys, even if these are unusual or untrue. For example, they have to imagine what their subjects could have done if faced with a hyena eating a Buffalo; or when forced to live in a cave of serpents like a Special Forces Soldier; or what a woman, ejected by her in-laws, would have done in the middle of nowhere in a vast wilderness in seventeenth-century Sudan. Novelists embellish their facts because they may have to (for example) describe the musical bowel movements of a glutton in the middle of a scarce meal, even if such the noises were absent! So don't take catchy "commercial" phrases from a scribe like me as sources of wisdom!
Anyway, I'm trying to put this historical event of our times, precipitated by the very grandson of Ramogi the Great, into prophetic and escatological context (you may use your GoogleSearch or Dictionary here), even though I am no prophet.
Don't misunderstand me: novelists purposes are never vain, even as their truths are embellished. The reader walks away with some new knowledge and some truth from amidst some half-truths. The Novelist has some agenda though, even as he may just be some innocent storyteller. You may read a story and come out with a plethora of literary devices used--- virgin metaphors, oxymorons---all products of the language, slang and culture he or she lives. But most novelists don't wake up and say, "I'll use so many metaphors in this action packed, boiler of a paragraph." The novelist, often, is just talking to you, on a street, at a diner, in bed without thinking about the literary classification of his or her work.
But this project is taking me long to complete because the characters such as Ramogi the Great were not mere men; their wives were not ordinary women; their decisions could have impeached a modern President; they walked under a special cloud; they fasted and prayed more often than you and I, because their burdens were weightier and their circumstances more dire than any modern president would ever face, even if these ancestors could have had responsibilities over less than 200 men!
But even if the final novel may end up being a mere product of my imagination, I want my readers to realise that we as MAN have travelled a difficult road, and are here today because of sacrifices made by those before us. Tread the land with reverence; fast and pray more often, think before you burn 50 gallons of gas chasing an illusive girlfriend or boyfriend; eat what you need and not what you want; donate when you can!

Happy New Year
Joseph R Alila
(Author: WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART)

OF CURSES, SAINTS AND BIGOTS

2009-01-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

I am author Joseph R. Alila. In THE MILAYI CURSE, which is my second novel, I bring to my readers and fans a spiritual story of people caught up in a conflict between isles of love within a sea of hate; a conflict between a conservative and prejudicial, old perspective of life against the hope and innocence of youth; a struggle between a new Christian religious perspective and an entrenched traditional, religious order. The battlefield is for the people's souls, with Father James on one side and Mrs. Milayi on the other, and the rest in between. A family divide with a historical origin has survived for centuries, and continues to haunt great-grandchildren of the original principals, two cousins—the Jamokos and the Milayis. The cold war and social schism within the clan is such that neither side could inherit a widow from the opposing side of the clan divide and successfully sire a male child. That the Jamokos are generally rich and the Milayis generally poor, and that this class schism was the result of the original conflict, has not helped the situation. But there are a few Saints on ether side of clan-divide: two boys (and now men) whose fates are tied to academic achievements; a rich Jamoko man who sponsors a Milayi boy’s education—when a Church Mission establishes a school; a Priest, Father James, who ministers to the troubled souls of his polarized congregation, and is the secret conduit of the scholarship from Jamoko to the Milayi boy’s education trust. This battle is being fought the more intensely in the hearts of two women in the lives of two boyhood friends—a friendship that outlives their ages and changes in fortune. Mrs Jamoko (the Mayor's daughter) is not amused that her husband—Councillor Jamoko—is playing 'servant' to a Milayi politician (Charles). An educated Milayi (Charles, an MP) is the new voice of the clan—a role that only Divine Providence could have established. But his mother, Mrs. Consolata Milayi, believes that the Jamokos are out to destroy her son, Charles Milayi. Caught up in the war within the souls, is Father James, the keeper of Confessional Secrets, and a constant listener and counselor to Mrs. Milayi. Father James has to reveal to Mrs. Milayi the little Secret between her son’s success and David Jamoko’s generosity, during what could have been her last rites. She wakes up from her self-inflicted spiritual wounds, and prison of hate against the Jamokos, and becomes a champion of reconciliation within the clan.

The Milayi Curse

By Joseph R. Alila

www.lulu.com/810018

http://www.amazon.com/

READING IS LIFE

2008-12-25T11:41:00.000-08:00

Hi ,
I am Novelist and Poet Joseph R. Alila. My wife asked me this morning to remember you, my readers, this X-mas. Happy Holidays, to you my visitors too! I wish your a literary 2008!
Reading reminds me that I am still alive! Being able to talk or sing reminds me that I am blessed with a tongue, and can verbally communicate. Being able to write is a sign that I am still functional.
I hope you add WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART (www.createspace.com/3341373 or www.amazon.com ) by Joseph R. Alila to your Must Read List. The book has a new cover, and a new formatting. Like its sister novels, SINS OF OUR HEARTS (www.createspace.com/3339874, www.amazon.com ), and THE MILAYI CURSE (Lulu (www.lulu.com/810018 ), this book talks to our humanity. They are relational novels, and are about us and our daily neighbors, and how we relate to them, and why we need to oil our relationships for our mutual benfit. The writings remind us that mutual silence and prejudice are a curse and a cancer to good neighborliness. Read. Talk one to another.
Have a good 2009.

Welcome.

JR Alila

I am Kenyan: A word of Caution in Poetry

2008-12-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

Here are some lines of poetry dedicated to the upcoming anniversary of the bungled Kenyan Presidential Election of 2007, specifically mourning those who lost their lives in the tragic events that would follow. The country is moving ahead with reforms, thanks to a few brave men and women who heeded Dr. Kofi Annan's call for peace and reconciliation at the negotiation table, and the efforts of two men, Kriegler and Waki whose commissions gave us report recommendations on the way forward. Prime Minister Odinga and President Kibaki must be commended for their courage to stand against partisan interests, and stake out their personal honor for peace and Kenya.

But Kenya is for Kenyans not a few individuals. A new constitutional arrangement that serves all Kenyans, big and small, rich and poor, man or woman, able-bodied or physically challenged, will only be a reality if all Kenyans insist on it--not as tribes but as Kenyans. Parliament has set the process in motion, and what document comes out of it must be seen to be Kenyan and by Kenyans.

Fellow Kenyan

I am Kenyan,
My mother is a Kikuyu
And my father is a Luo
My great-grandfathers
Were Kamba and Maasai;
Now you are telling me
To leave Narok, Kisumu,
Nyandarua, Kakamega and Nakuru
And go back
To my ancestral land:
To which ancestral land
Should I return?

Fellow Kenyan,
We always shared
in our poverty and misery;
Why then have we turned
One against another?

Fellow Kenyan,
Will this destructive war
Help us extricate ourselves
Out of the quagmire
Of filth and poverty in which
We have found ourselves?

Fellow Kenyan,
This wasteful war
Won’t quench your child’s hunger
Neither will it provide
Any decent shelter
To my child;

Fellow Kenyan,
This wasteful war
Won’t put food on your table
And neither will it
pay my house rent;

Fellow Kenyan,
This wasteful war
Won’t pay your bus-fare,
Neither will it buy
My child’s malaria medication.

Fellow Kenyan,
Yes, the tribe
Is part of our DNA,
But Dear Kenya—
As imperfect a vessel as it is–
Is part of our existence;

And So, Fellow Kenyan,
We must refuse
To be tagged with such divisive,
And self-serving labels as
A Luyia lawyer,
or a JaLuo Judge;

A Kikuyu cook,
An Ishimus in-keeper,
A Maasai mathematician,
A Mjikenda magician
or a Gusii gunsmith;

A Kuria cleric,
An Oriek orator,
A Borana banker,
A Somali swordsmith,
or a Teso tax-collector;

Because when hunger
Struck during the last drought
Kikuyu, Luyia, and JaLuo
in Nairobi; We all starved;
And pangs of hunger
And incidents of malnutrition
Did not discriminate
On the basis of tribe;

And if the tables
were full in Woodley,
Runda and Muthaiga;
And empty in Mathare,
Korogocho and Kibera;
It wasn’t because
Of anybody’s DNA.

So, Fellow Kenyan
Why tag me with a label
Which cannot put food
On the table
For my starving daughter?

Why tag me with a label
Which can not buy
Badly needed medication
For my sick child?

Why tag me with a label
Which only has value
To a geneticist?

Fellow Kenyan,
What happened to the Kenya
We used to know
That now you laugh
Through my tribulations,
And can’t suffer my pain
Because I am a Turgen
And you are a JaLuo?

From RATENG' AND BRIDE (A POEM)By Joseph R. Alila https://www.createspace.com/3346481

ISBN/EAN13:
1438251092 / 9781438251097

WORLD FOOD CRISIS: The African Woman and Her Children

2008-12-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

Over one year ago, I published the Poetry Collection "THIRTEEN CURSES ON MOTHER AFRICA, BY Joseph R. Alila (http://www.lulu.com/). " One of the thirteen curses was poverty including lack of food; another curse was wars, and the greatest victims under both curses were African women and their children. I dedicated several pages in the poetry collection to the precariousness of the Sahel where desert threatens marginally wet areas; where the Dar fur war is being fought.

Now with the world food crisis looming---thanks to modern man's desire for Bio diesel at the expense of using arable land to grow grains to specifically feed humans and animals---the African woman---that almost-fixed feature of the rural African landscape---and her children, are now caught in the crossroads of the war between food sufficiency and "going green" on our roads. It should not be an either or situation!Poetry can be green!

JR Alila

KIDS ARE KIDS, RICH OR POOR

2008-12-18T10:18:00.000-08:00

As the friendship between the little boys matured, Charles Milayi would start to exchange visits with Thomas Jamoko.
At first, Milayi’s mother protested when she learnt that the young Thomas Jamoko was coming to visit her home. She was a widow—a poor widow. She had one cooking pot and less than five earthen platters and bowls. Like their grandparents, the Milayis still used crocodile scales as spoons. Mrs. Milayi had exactly one bag of grain she hoped to last until the next harvest, which was three months away.
By contrast, the Jamokos could serve lunch to two hundred people and still be on their feet. They had hundreds of metal spoons and fancy chinaware. The Jamokos had so many cattle that, often, some cows were not milked. That is how rich the Jamokos were.
Food aside, for clothing, Consolata Milayi had one dress, and Charles Milayi only had the school uniform for his clothing. That is how poor the Milayis were.
"Milayi, you like bringing trouble on us. We have no oil with which to cook for your spoilt friend"
"Be fair Ma. Tom is just like me. He eats everything I eat," the little boy complained.
"Milayi, since when was this Tom Jamoko like you? He is a Jamoko. He only eats meat. And look at you. You don’t have a shirt on your back, and have no trousers on your buttocks. How can a Jamoko be eating what you eat?"
"But he is my friend, Mama," responded the boy in tears. For him, Tom was the dearest friend outside home.
The boy was right. They were real friends. The young Jamoko occasionally gave him an old set of school uniforms, pencils, and some new book to read. Milayi had sported the donated uniforms even though they were a size or two too small for him. Meanwhile, whenever Jamoko’s old uniforms suddenly would disappear, his mother would assume that her careless son had lost them in the playground.
"No, I do not want you to cry, Milayi. It is just that you have to know that a poor man does not walk in the same party as a rich man," Mrs. Milayi implored her son. "Charles, a poor man goes fishing for food, while a rich man goes fishing for fun. Haven’t you watched the Jamokos as they fish along the Kuja? They return part of their catch back to the water. And a rich man hunts the buffalo for its horns and skin, as poor folks struggle over its meat. The Jamokos behave like Father James, the White Priest, who fishes for fun."
"Mama, we are not poor," the boy responded in a very sure and measured tone, all to the total surprise of his mother.
"What, Charles? We are not poor? Yet we eat beans and arrowroots most of the year? Yet, you have no shirt with which to cover your back?" his mother had responded after a brief pause. She surely was surprised by the boy’s remark.
"Didn’t Father James say that poverty is only in a person’s mind, while wealth resides in one’s heart? You think we are poor. In my heart, I feel rich," the child had waxed amazingly wise, taking his mother aback in the process. She would for some long minute stir her bubbling pot of red-millet porridge in silence.
"Milayi, now, you want to cause trouble with your strange ideas. Father James never said a thing like that," she had declared hoping to silence the boy.
"But that is what the story of the Rich Young Ruler is all about. Mama, you were there when Father James read the story?" the Grade Four schoolboy had said, again sending his mother’s head spinning. The young boy had a rather strange perspective on life. Mrs. Milayi was convinced that modern schooling was turning her little boy into some kind of wise adult. "How can poverty—her obvious poverty—be wealth?" she wondered in silence.
"Now, go to the river and bathe. It is getting late. And don’t imagine that you are rich. Charles, you are poor. You are very poor. One of these days you will bring shame to this house by inviting the Minister’s Daughter for lunch," his mother had dismissed him, using bathing in the river as an excuse.
The boy of strange wisdom left for the river, with his dog named Tom, in pursuit.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Milayi wondered what she would cook for the rich man’s son. Inwardly, she was intrigued and touched by the wisdom coming out of her son’s mouth: poverty is only in a person’s mind, while wealth resides in one’s heart. These words of her young son appeared to have given her the courage to face the day. She instantly resolved to entertain the Jamoko boy.
Thomas Jamoko did come.
Mrs. Milayi treated the two boys the way little boys should be treated: "Boys eat potatoes and vegetables and cassava. That is what they dream about in their sleep. In their sleep, most boys never dream about some meaty dish. A boy wakes up with cooked cassava or potato in his hands," she had persuaded herself to believe. And she could have been more right than wrong. Most boys of those days loved sweet potatoes. Encouraged by these thoughts, she cooked potatoes as well as she could.
The two boys ate the sweet potatoes on the grass under a shady tree in front of her house. Then they enjoyed some ripe guava that nature provided in abundance. Potatoes and Guava, kind of an odd mixture, isn’t it? But if they became constipated on that day, Mrs. Milayi would have taken that as a sign of good feeding.
Mrs. Milayi was too ashamed to have allowed the "rich boy" into her meager abode that even lacked a three-legged stool.
Between rounds of sweet potatoes, the boys played some marksmanship game—shooting at domestic lizards and hedgerow birds with homemade bows and arrows.
Later that day, Thomas Jamoko returned to his home, truly believing that the outing had been a special adventure. Kids are kids, rich or poor.

SOURCE: THE MILAYI CURSE Lulu Books http://www.lulu.com/810018

Novel by Joseph R. Alila)

THE AFRICAN WOMAN

2008-12-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

The African woman is lionised in several poetic verses in Alila's "Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa," (Lulu Books www.lulu.com ), perhaps justifiably so: The African woman is largely localized, often passed by rural-urban migration, yet she must feed, protect and mould the character of her son only to lose him to the corrupting influence of urban life. The African woman must continue to walk 5 miles to the spring for water; must till the same piece of barren land of thirty years before; she must feed her orphaned grandchildren the way she fed her children, only with even fewer resources. The African woman must face the vagaries of wars, weather, disease, hunger, dictators and poverty---often alone, as her husband is either inebriated, lost to some urban center, or simply overwhelmed by his situation.

JR Alila

WAYS OF A WIDOW

2008-12-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

Otin looked past Apiny to his stepbrother, who continued to eat unconcerned, with his eyes set on Apiny as if daring him (Otin) to touch her. Otin wondered why nobody had addressed him. The silence was noisy and uneasy. His stepbrother was eating as if nothing was going on. But even without the childish noises he occasionally made, and the workings of his teeth against tender goat ribs, Magundho’s location and silence should have been a loud-enough announcement of his presence.
And there was Apiny who continued to give Otin that sympathetic, motherly look only a mother could have given.
Then a voice told him, "Otin, my son, it is time to move on. You are a young man with a lot of life ahead of you."
Magundho coughed again, forcing Apiny to turn around and face him. This time, she wore a mother’s stern look on her face— the kind of look reserved for a child, who was about to dip his fingers into a bowl of special soup reserved for his father. Magundho stopped eating, wondering whether the woman was about to give him his marching orders for being rude to Otin. Wasn’t he, Magundho, the impostor between two lovers whose relationship had lasted for more than three decades?
Otin looked at the two gray heads engaged in nonverbal confrontation, then smiled as a voice told him, "My son, this is the way of a widow; she neither has scruples to pick, nor bounds to obey; no man, however long he stays in her arms, can claim to own her. Wake up, my son; leave her alone; move on; go to your wife and children."
Otin left without a word.
"Magundho, I don’t appreciate your being abusive toward Otin," Apiny broke the silence. It was some five minutes after Otin had left.
"He deserved it. He should have read the signs outside instead of entering here like a bull on heat," saying so, Magundho went back to his meal.
"Men! O Men!" Apiny Nyodero whispered—wondering whether the eating elder behind her was a better bet for the future than the retreating, youthful father of her children.

Source:
WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART

A novel by Joseph R. Alila.

https://www.createspace.com/4341373

ISBN 978-1438207513

OUR LUO JOURNEY

2008-12-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

Here are some cool pictures and sites of LUO anthropological interest. They offer a peek into our past as Luo peoples worldwide. Looking at the ELDERS, I see a Free People being forced into a European style of life and adornments. Most of the people in these pictures have that searching, distant gaze and stand stubbornly erect with their defiant chins up! That is a Luo. Free. Sure. Curious. Proud. Defiant.
A cool site though; dedicated to a EVANS-Richard.
JR Alila
http://photos.prm.ox.ac.uk/luo/page/exhibition-changing-adornment/
Tags: luo, anthropology, sunset, polygamy, milayi, curse

KIVUITU TEAM OUT?

2008-12-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

The disgraced Kenya Electoral Commission headed by Mr. S. KIVUITU is being encouraged (with cash) to quietly leave town.
http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144000773&cid=4&

JR ALILA ON WRITING

2008-11-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

All writing is Inspired. That is the simple belief that has kept me going as a writer of Fiction, Plays and Poetry. Whether it is a spiritual, political, philosophical, or an anthropological piece, I have always found inspirition in the uniqueness of peoples, their ideas, the places of their abode and the changing times they continually try to keep up with. And when I am stuck in my writing, there always is that "unseen force" nudging my thought while in a traffic jam, in the bathroom, or in my sleep.
Welcome!
Joseph R Alila

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

2008-11-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

The Election of President Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America means many things to different peoples: To African-Americans, he is a fulfillment of the Dream of Dr. King; to the LUO, he is their first President; to the world, he perhaps is the right medicine to a world divided and bedeviled by interracial and ideological strife.
Mr. Obama is a man walking under a sober mind tempered by his rare upbringing: born to a black man and a white woman, he has lived, or was brought up among Asians, Africans, and Whites, and exposed to all world religions. From humble beginnings he would rise and be educated in the Athenian Tradition, serve the poor, and dine with kings. With the patience, distant gaze and killer instinct of the savanna cat, and the polished oratory skills of a poet, this great, great, ... grandson of Ramogi brings to the world the love of wisdom of his Luo people (may the Caucasian side of this great man please live with my Ramogi pride for a moment). Barry Ja Kogelo, okew Jo Kansas, the world awaits your government.
Congratulations Mr. President.
JR Alila

BOOK RELEASE: NOT ON MY SKIN

2008-09-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

NOT ON MY SKIN

A Novel By Joseph R. Alila, ISBN 143-825527-6; EAN 13: 978-1438255279. Published by http://www.createspace.com/, An Amazon.com Company, IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR SALE from http://www.amazon.com/.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET

In JR Alila's "NOT ON MY SKIN," the all-American City of Harmony is not exactly harmonious. That is the conclusion of Ochome, a poet and suburbanite, who has staked out his evenings compositing verses in the city's Oak Street Café from where the American life plays itself out before his analytical eyes. Ochome discovers that Harmony City's peace is only skin deep; wherever he turns, he sees, hears, and constantly feels souls cursing in various nuances of "not on my skin"-- a protest mantra against nuances of prejudice he sees, hears and feels in the city café and beyond. The Café crowd has a few regulars, notably the verbally-disengaged Quartet of Sam, Pierre the snoop, Ochome , and Frank. But the hero is the diabolical Alex, a man considered a mad nuisance by all, but who, in reality, is the only mirror and gong off which Harmony City perhaps can see and hear itself--the same way a child's innocent words are the real measure of the moral quality of life in a home.

Posted by Joseph R Alila (AUTHOR)

OBAMA’S SPEECH

2008-08-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it ....here is the much-talked-about Senator Obama's Nomination Acceptance Speech.

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/content/acceptancespeechnd?source=20080829_OFA_ND

TO CIRCUMCISE OR NOT: THE PARADOXICAL ISSUE OF THE DAY

2008-08-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

When PM Raila Odinga declare that the LUO, TESO and TURKANA should circumcise as a matter of medical emmergency in the fight against AIDS, I cringed on several counts:
1. Circumcision is not just a physical process, it is a passage and a spiritual transformation for the youth among those communities in which it is practised.
2. The Luo the Teso and Turkan never practised it. In fact their Bantu neighbors consider them incomplete men for not having gone through it. During the last crisis in Kenya, a number of Luo men were victims of hooligans who cut them with crude weapons publicly in the name of initiation.
3. There are other cultural practices and beliefs among the Luo that have acted as efficient vehicles for the AIDS VIRUS to spread, and which vehicles have not been loudly condemed. These are
a. Widow inheritance
b. Polygamy
c. the tragic confusion of AIDS for Chira (a spiritual curse)
4. It is politically a minefield: even the venerable LUO COUNCIL has been unwilling to endose the circumcision message (see Kenyan reporting on this---through Google search). To the council, a circumcised Luo is not a Luo.

Last year I published the novel THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, [Lulu (http://www.lulu.com/)], and one of its chapters delt at length with the issue of Luo circumcision. The intension was to bring to the fore the various conceivable points of view in this debate. Because of the life-and-death nature of this issue, I append the chapter below for evryone's benefit. Read it and join the Elder, and Prime Minister, Raila Odinga in the debate of the moment.
Joseph R Alila
(Author: THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND; http://www.lulu.com/)

The New Ratang’a Declaration: To Circumcise or Not *

Some cultural issues can never be resolved. One such outstandingissue is "Whether a Luo Male Should be Circumcised or Not."
The Ramogi of old had fought over whether to take their sons to school or not; whether to take their daughters to school or not; whether to initiate their young men and women or not (an activity that involved the extraction of the lower incisors plus one canine on either side); and whether to be Christians or not. These fights were won by the change-minded individuals, who, for example, foresaw long-term benefits to taking both girls and boys to school. And that fight over extracting lower, front-center six teeth would end because it didn’t look right to lose that many teeth, and still be beautiful (excuse me). Moreover, the argument that the extraction created a gap through which to pass liquids to a bedridden man, had lost to modern, medical-intervention techniques. The argument that it was a tribal mark of significance in a battlefield, lost ground to a century of relative intertribal peace, thanks to colonization, and then the birth of the Nation in that order. The dental work must have died in the 1980s.
But these cultural fights do not compare with the next generation of cultural fights precipitated by new venereal diseases. These deeply ingrained cultural practices at the center of the current fights have a religious dimension to them. These are the fights over whether or not to abolish polygamy among the Ramogi people; whether or not to abolish mandatory widow inheritance by kinsmen of a late husband. But both practices have proved to be efficient vehicles for the transmission of the new STDs, thanks to the increasingly lax-and-liberal, national morality.
Now, among the Ramogi people, Christianity had faced polygamy and widow inheritance headlong, but never won the battles because both practices had strong spiritual underpinnings to them. Among the Ramogi people, polygamy was a literal projection of power by the man because a larger family meant more men to fight wars, men to protect land, and women to own land. Polygamy also ensured genetic variety (a rainbow of bloodlines) for long-term survival of the clan: the Ramogi peoples married from outside the wider clan (exogamous). Moreover, people related through intermarriages would not fight one another.
The protagonists further argued that an orphaned child had a better survival chance under a polygamous home. The same protagonists would argue that inheriting a widow within a clan ensured the protection of the widow against abusive husbands.
It also gave the widow automatic, and enforceable, power over her own wealth and children. To ensure this control, tradition dictated that future children born between the woman and the widower must still be born in the commonwealth of the late husband—the new husband only playing a procreative, caretaker role.
Furthermore, among the Ramogi people, in any marriage, sex serves four, often, overlapping roles: There is ceremonial or ritual sex, like the conjugal activity on seeding the new earth, or on bringing the harvest home. There is procreative sex in an effort to get a child. There is sex for pleasure, as when a man must visit this or that woman in the name of fairness to all in a polygamous family unit. Finally, sex is often used as a vehicle for intimate communication between the spouses: an aggrieved woman must expect her husband by her side; a woman with a material problem would want to whisper about it with her husband in her arms; a man burdened by the complexities of the world, and aiming to use a woman’s black goat for a religious ceremony, had better chances with the woman in his arms.
In polygamous homes, achieving and maintaining order and discipline naturally meant having well-defined laws on property ownership, power structure, communal justice, and inviolable spiritual laws of life in marriage.
Observing these laws openly elevated marriage to a divine institution (as intended in the Bible), and polygamy to a complex religious institution. Polygamy is not just about sex, just as any marriage is not just about sex. Any marriage is about life. The killer STDs of the day threatened the very existence of polygamy and marriage in general, because STDs threatened life. The Wise One witnessed the beginning of a time when the Ramogi people would struggle with questions arising from this religion turned curse—marriage: Whether polygamy is a threat to life, and whether mandatory widow inheritance is a threat to life.
But the most vexing and most complex question posed to Ramogi’s Sages of the day was "Whether or not a Luo should Circumcise." The Ramogi people do not circumcise their children. But should the Ramogi people circumcise their males as a matter of medical expediency? Perhaps, yes. But that would lead to an identity crisis. Now, other than a language that is being eroded by urbanization, the foreskin is the only thing left that differentiates a Ramogi Warrior from his Bantu neighbors.
Ramogi communities had privately mulled over this challenge until it came to the public domain, thanks to a declaration by a group of inebriated Councillors in what became known as "The New Ratan’ga Declaration."
This matter caught the attention of The Wise One because the declaration had been made in her backyard.
One Councillor Agutu of Jokamlai Ward had invited friends (mostly fellow Councillors) from across the land to his Victory Party. Having eaten very well, the party would make its way to Ratang’a Market for some beer. It transpired that there was a spirited discussion among them as to whether the Ramogi should be circumcised or not. They would (perhaps while under the influence of alcohol), craft a declaration (subsequently distilled by a naughty Journalist) to the following effect:
"Due to The Overwhelming Medical Evidence for the fact that the rate of AIDS Transmission is Higher Among Uncircumcised Heterosexual Males than Circumcised Ones, We the Grandchildren of Ramogi Ajwan’g Declare that All of Us and Our Offspring Should be Circumcised as a Matter of Medical Necessity."
The New Ratan’ga Declaration was published by both the Local and National media of the day. The reaction to it would spill over international boundaries and generate a very lively debate in the virtual world (cyberspace).
There were a few issues in the declaration that had raised a few eyebrows, and led to a general war cry among the children of Ramogi.
The authors of the declaration that had touched on a whole people, were some "minor" Councillors who had no authority to speak for all of the Ramogi People in the world. For one, few people had the knowledge about the veracity of the "overwhelming medical evidence:" Who had carried out the research? Who were the participants? Then there was the question of how to achieve mass circumcision of adults without proper hospitalization, and the danger of mass bacterial infection?
More important to the Ramogi people, was how to separate the person from himself. A Ramogi is not a Ramogi without his foreskin. It perhaps is OK to be circumcised before knowing a woman. How would a man circumcised in old age react to his wife? Nobody had answers to such questions.
A flurry of regional meetings would be held across Kavirondoland, in cities in the Nation, and among the Ramogi people in the Diaspora. Chat Rooms and Blogs were not spared the passionate debate. "Onagi. Be men at last. Get circumcised," taunted one Jamwa (Alien) . . . "We will divorce you if you dare," screamed a Ramogi woman in www.onagidotkom.
Eventually, Ramogi Elders and Leaders from across the land would converge on Ratang’a from where the ill-received declaration had originated. Because of the acrimony against the councillors, The Wise One would give her well-considered opinion, but only in private.
Here is a sample some of the Council Proceedings on the matter of Whether Luo Men Should Circumcise or Not.
Elder Chien’g: Clr Agutu you and your friends started all this. Do you want to apologize to this caucus before we address the issues on their own merits?
Clr. Agutu: MPs (Members of Parliament), Leaders and Fellow Councillors, I am anxious to apologize to all of you, and to the Ramogi people for what transpired in my home when a number of you were my guests. This apology is deserved because what we thought was a civilized discussion of what was already in the public domain, eventually made its way to the print media and airwaves. What pains me is the fact that my private opinion turned out to be a public position of all the politicians across Ramogiland. However, . . ."
Elder Chien’g: You mean all that appeared in the papers was your own opinion?
Clr. Agutu: Yes. I told my friends that I am a Rayuom (naturally circumcised), and don’t regret it. (There were a few giggles from reporters and some young women).
Elder Chien’g: I have no comment about that. You may continue.
Huma MP: It is your testimony that you indeed made a verbal declaration?
Clr. Agutu: Yes.
Huma MP: What do you mean by being naturally circumcised?
Clr. Agutu: I am naturally circumcised.
Elder Chien’g: That is possible, Bwana MP. And he is not going to prove it to your satisfaction. Not here (There was laughter).
Clr. Agutu: I want to ask the gathering to proceed.
There was a hushed silence.
Clr. Mary Oguta: (A Nurse by training) Councillor Agutu, is it true that there is some medical evidence to support the declaration?
Clr. Agutu: I am not a doctor. But those in the know have made the claim. Call in some of our doctors. Let them give evidence.
Elder Chien’g: We have many issues here. But can’t we start by declaring that The Ratan’ga Declaration was a farce that should never have been?
Clr. Agutu: I disagree. Let it be recorded that I have apologized for the embarrassment the whole community has suffered as a result of the words of the declaration. We are not the only race with foreskins. But let us debate the matter on its own merit because the disease is real and has no known cure. Any weapon that can be used against the disease must be considered. Let us take the evidence.
Elder Chien’g: And make another declaration?
So the debate raged on among politicians, all of whom claimed to be speaking in the people’s interest. Very few would directly support the declaration, yet all recognized its merit. It was an election year. As most politicians do when they don’t want to take a position, they called in experts in Medicine, Culture, Oral History, Trauma Psychology, Cultural Sociology, Sage Philosophers . . . the whole host of them.
The first to present a professional position was a doctor.
Dr. Oyum: Whereas circumcision does not prevent AIDS, the transmission of HIV virus is reduced in relative terms among circumcised heterosexual males than in the control group. That has been the common finding among various research bodies and universities worldwide. The warmth in an enclosed foreskin offers an ambient environment for the multiplication of the virus as it tries to locate punctured or bruised skin tissue. Exposed to the air, the virus dies in no time at all.
He proceeded to quote a number of publications that made no sense to most of the leaders. But his argument was very compelling. He also submitted that circumcision of male infants is now the standard in developed countries.
For a few minutes, nobody asked a question. Then, Councillor Mary Oguta, a politician and a retired Nurse, picked up the interrogation of Dr. Oyum:
Clr. Mary Oguta: Your sources recommend female circumcision?
Dr. Oyum: No. It won’t make a difference, given the nature of the female anatomy.
Clr. Mary Oguta: Who was part of the Control Group?
Dr. Oyum: The Uncircumcised Males.
Clr. Mary Oguta: Do you recommend the circumcision of all males?
Dr. Oyum: If they want to. It can be done. I don’t want to use the word "recommend" for all depends on corrective human behavior. I mean a moderation of our lifestyle.
Huma MP: Have you thought of the consequences of circumcising a forty-year-old man?
Dr. Oyum: What do you mean?
Huma MP: Doctor Oyum, think of all that could go wrong.
Dr. Oyum: They would get used to it.
Clr. Agutu: Are you circumcised?
Dr. Oyum: No.
Clr. Agutu: Why?
Dr. Oyum: Because I decided to watch my lifestyle (laughter).
Clr. Agutu: Don’t you think circumcising an adult would rob him of his image?
Dr. Oyum: I am not a psychologist, Councillor.
Clr. Agutu: Thank you, Dr. Oyum.
Dr. Oyum was excused. A psychologist from a local university was sworn in.
Clr. Agutu: Dr. Rapemo, what is your position on the circumcision of adult men?
Doctor Rapemo: It would rob them of their image, and confuse their self-worth.
Clr. Agutu: What do you mean, Doctor?
Dr. Rapemo: The foreskin is like a cloth. The victim would suddenly feel naked. I believe his spouse may even fail to recognize him.
Clr. Agutu: What do you mean?
Dr. Rapemo: He may even fail to perform. Become aggressive. Be unsure of himself. Become withdrawn. He won’t be a Ramogi anymore.
Clr. Mary Oguta: Thank you. But has anybody done any research into this?
Dr. Rapemo: No. I am just projecting laboratory findings with some animals.
Huma MP: Some animals?
Dr. Rapemo: Yes, some rare monkeys with a foreskin like male humans.
Clr. Mary Oguta: What were your findings?
Dr. Rapemo: They became aggressive, moody and withdrawn from female partners (laughter from observers).
Clr. Mary Oguta: I see that you have no lower teeth (laughter from observers).
Dr. Rapemo: Sure. They were extracted in my teen.
Clr. Mary Oguta: You liked the experience?
Dr. Rapemo: No. But I took it as a right of passage. I struggle with goat ribs, though (Laughter).
Clr. Mary Oguta: Are your children circumcised?
Dr. Rapemo: No comment, Councillor (he said looking in the direction of Clr. Agutu)
Elder Chien’g: Thank you for your contribution.
Having listened to twenty professional witnesses, on the final day of the three-day conference, the caucus would listen to cultural experts. As expected, the cultural experts opposed anything that would, as they put it, "make a Luo male less of a Luo."
One old woman declared, "Having married a Jamwa (circumcised alien) by mistake, before meeting my Luo Warrior, I cannot recommend a Jamwa as a son-in-law."
An old man declared, "I would rather die than become a Jamwa."
To these elders, circumcising the Luo man would change him for ever. It was the last thing a Luo needed. The Luo must find an alternative to circumcision. The politicians were particularly against anything that would have angered the electorate in an election year. If there were any pro-circumcision forces in the gathering, they had shrunk back to their shells.
Finally, the chairman declared that the elders had appointed a committee that would visit with some "wise elder" in the community, and several other "wise men" in the land. He promised a statement on the "way forward" at a later date.
Now, The Wise One, always weary of publicity, had invited eight Ramogi Elders from across the Land, to her home. They had been part of the caucus. Three of them had visited her before.
"You have only one option if you don’t want to look like a fool," The Wise One judged, after listening to the six ‘White Hairs,’ all men and women on top of their game. The group included an Engineer, a Lawyer, a Doctor, a Cultural Philosopher, a Psychologist, and a Historian. Clrs. Agutu and Chien’g were also in attendance.
"What is that?" the Lawyer asked.
"Stop meddling in the people’s affairs. Let the people decide what they want to do with themselves and their sons," she said to the surprise of a number of the White Hairs. Most of them had assumed that as a traditional spiritual counselor, she would take a conservative anti-circumcision position.
"We stand aside as our people perish?" asked the Cultural Philosopher in disbelief.
"No. Look for cures. Tell people to change their lifestyles. If they want to circumcise their sons and themselves, let them do so. But we cannot tell an adult to get circumcised," argued The Wise One.
"I am indeed surprised that with all the medical evidence for circumcision, you still can take such a stand." That was from the Lady Doctor.
"I hate to say. But I don’t know how to read a doctor’s language. But my radio tells me that circumcision would save only twenty people out of a hundred. That is not good enough. I wouldn’t circumcise a whole pulation for that. Not while men still house ten women, men still cheat on their wives, women still cheat on their husbands, men are still drunk eighteen hours a day, and men still dance to every unclean, rich widow," The Wise One parroted in unmistakable disgust.
"But if changing lifestyles can do eighty percent why not let circumcision do the other twenty percent?" asked the ever analytical Engineer.
"You got me wrong, Mr. Engineer. Let people circumcise if they want to. What I don’t want is a mass transformation of the Ramogi male into what he was not supposed to be. Circumcision of adults will have consequences we have yet to know: At least, we know that they won’t go to work for some two weeks or longer," The Wise One offered.
"Our Doctor knows that some wounds may not heal because of preexisting conditions or unintended cross infection: those are his words; not mine," said the Psychologist.
"And our Lawyer friend here would perhaps be overwhelmed with women seeking divorce from their changed men," The Wise One said to a prolonged period of laughter.
"And we don’t know how a man circumcised in his old age would behave toward everyone else," said the Psychologist. "All we know is that, like Abraham of old, he would be a changed man." To this came another round of applause.
"A circumcised Luo man will not be a Luo anymore," said the Oral Historian. "But as the Wise Lady says, we cannot stand on the way of change. It would also be wrong to force change upon a people. Let it come, if it must, gradually."
"Thank you, my friend," joined the Cultural Philosopher. "Let change be gradual. There is already a lot of change in Luo Culture: Not long ago, the Luo buried their dead in their houses so as to protect their bodies from beasts of the wild."
"What is that?" asked the Doctor, who was the youngest among them.
"Just what I said," responded the Cultural Philosopher.
"Not long ago we removed our lower teeth. We don’t anymore. As you can see, out of the nine in this room, the younger five have all their lower front teeth intact. That is what we mean by gradual change: Nobody passed a Ratang’a Declaration banning the dental practice. But it died because it hindered the modern Ramogi from achieving fluency in the spoken English." There was a little truth in the last sentence. Luos have had trouble pronouncing a word like "shilling:" it came out as si-li-ng. As to whether the dental work was responsible for the minor linguistic malfunction is highly debatable.
"Clarify the burial remark you made earlier?" demanded the Lawyer.
"My friends. Many cultures in Northern Africa buried their dead in tombs," responded the Cultural Philosopher. The Luos were no exception. If you imagine that it was unhygienic, please back off. The grave was L-shaped with the leg where the body rested outside the house."
"As you can see, Clr. Agutu, it is wise not to issue a declaration for or against circumcision," said The Wise One.
"I get your point, Wise One," said Clr. Agutu.
"Inconvenient practices will die naturally. Some virulent killer-disease ended burials in houses without anybody passing a declaration," added the Cultural Philosopher.
"What message do we take back to the caucus?" asked the Lawyer.
"That the matter has been passed on to local experts for a careful study. But meanwhile, people should change their lifestyles," offered The Wise One.
So, the matter was left to rest: with the experts. Since then, some of the Ramogi people have been quietly circumcising their newborn sons as they await the word of the experts—they continue to wait long after The Wise One had passed on to the land of the spirits.

* Source:

(THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND; by Joseph R. Alila, Lulu Books; http://www.lulu.com/)

KIVUITU Vs KIVUITU

2008-08-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

At the Kruger Commission sitting in Nairobi early today, Election Commission of Kenya Chairman, Mr. Kivuitu, admits to having been rushed, under armed escort, to President Kibaki's swearing in ceremony hardly a minute after he, KIVUITU, announced the flawed resuts in favor of Mr. Kibaki of PNU--- a move that denied Mr Raila Odinga of ODM the coveted bride --- the Presidency. Kivuitu further admited that his internal audit had detected several cases of doctured results to the last Presidential Election.

JR Alila (Author: RATENG' AND BRIDE)

http://www.createspace.com/
http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1143992911&cid=4&

AIDS SCOURGE

2008-08-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

DEADLY MIXTURES:

1. FISH TRADE--POVERTY--AIDS--APATHY--MALICE

2. CULTURE--AIDS--IGNORANCE--MISINFORMATION

Here are some old UN-sponsored Videos on AIDS. Pass it along as a service to your community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBpCKuRvUQg&eurl=http://www.mashada.com/forums/kenya-2008/84390-nyanza-province-tops-hiv-aids-prevalence-kenya.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWw1O9Fqf04

JR Alila (Author: SUNET ON POLYGAMY)

RATENG’ AND BRIDE (A POEM)

2008-08-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

AMEPEDIA ARTICLE:

I am author Joseph R Alila, author of the Poetry soft cover RATENG AND BRIDE (A POEM). My past works include such novels as WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART and SUNSET ON POLYGAMY.
In RATENG AND BRIDE I have revisited political humor and satire, and used imagery in challenging the reader, through the hero (Rateng') to abandon a lifelong ambition of reigning in a killer, illusive Bride, because attempts to redeem our pride and personal honor often blind us of our more important contributions to society. In the long poem RATENG' AND BRIDE, in which certain tragic political events in Kenya's short post-independence political history are recalled and mourned over, I remind my audience through the hero RATENG' of the corrupting, material allure and deadly charms of unregulated power (here, Rateng's illusive Bride—call her Power or The Presidency). The message here is that power is dirty, is often over-glorified, and like a genie, its gains to the holder are brief and blissful. The reader is reminded that Power otherwise brings personal anguish and sacrifice, and has the universal tendency to corrupt those with it and their cronies. Through Rateng' the reader is warned that like a gem, unregulated Power (the Presidency) corrupts everybody it touches, and its corrupting effects linger like the nauseating smell of a scared skunk. Employing the rich Luo Oral tradition, and generous with its literary vehicles such as song, self-praise, satire, imagery and proverbs, and never shy to go Luo vernacular with proverbs specifically, I have tried to uplift the role of poetry and song in Kenya's post-independence political discourse. I have tried to walk delicately with the reader into, and out of, a more recent, and more deadly, political match between two powerful suitors (Rateng' and Milo) over one Bride, with one biased Referee in the ring, and their adversarial supporters fighting ringside.

NOT ON MY SKIN (A Novel)

2008-08-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

NOT ON MY SKIN (A Novel By Joseph R. Alila) ISBN 143-825527-6; EAN 13: 978-1438255279.
Published by http://www.createspace.com/, An Amazon.com Company www.amazon.com/books.

Fans,
My next literary voyage has landed me on the shores of the Americas. It is from here that I bring to you a work of fiction I have struggled with for a couple of years--long before I received any inspiration to write, THE MILAYI CURSE, SINS OF OUR HEARTS, RATENG' AND BRIDE, or WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART--all of which have seen the light of day.
Here comes NOT ON MY SKIN, a novel in honor our many Safaris and awakenings in the wider diaspora.

SYNOPSIS

In Alila's "NOT ON MY SKIN," the all-American City of Harmony is not exactly harmonious. That is the conclusion of Ochome, a poet and suburbanite, who has staked out his evenings compositing verses in the city's Oak Street Café from where the American life plays itself out before his analytical eyes. Ochome discovers that Harmony City's peace is only skin deep; wherever he turns, he sees, hears, and constantly feels souls cursing in various nuances of "not on my skin"-- a protest mantra against nuances of prejudice he sees, hears and feels in the city café and beyond. The Café crowd has a few regulars, notably the verbally-disengaged Quartet of Sam, Pierre the snoop, Ochome , and Frank. But the hero is the diabolical Alex, a man considered a mad nuisance by all, but who, in reality, is the only mirror and gong off which Harmony City perhaps can see and hear itself--the same way a child's innocent words are the real measure of the moral quality of life in a home.

Managing and Living with Tension

2008-07-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

I am author Joseph R. Alila. In a number of my novels, there are moments and periods of tension: between husbands and their wives; between widows and their in-laws; between religious beliefs; between children and their parents; between changing cultures. Those heroes and heroins in these novels, who live to see a better tomorrow, are those who manage to live above tension by realising that tension is caused by, and is between, two or more parties; that the very act of one party refusing to negatively promote the tension, by reaching across and promoting positive dialogue instead, is enough to diffuse the tension. These individuals, also realized that tension denies them the energy and emotional health to function as normal human beings.
Why don't we resolve to turn our backs on situations that can promote tension. For those in polygamous relationships, this will be adaily effort. But those of us in monogomous marriages are not safe from the constant wind of negative emotions: we still have to contend with that mother-in-law whose dinners are compulsory weekly affairs; there is that woman in Church whom you imagine to be dressing for you or your husband, and whose every word must be analyzed with the help of a thesaurus; there is your neighbor, who in innocence, packs his Next-Year Lexus infront of your old GM Blazer during these trying economic times, and whom you believe to be doing that so as to fuel the tension between you and your wife.
I could cite more situations in our lives that do promote tension, and which we have a choice as human beings to recoil from.
Can we make "tension diffusion" our daily goals in life, can't we? Don't we have our Holy Scriptures, Consellors, and Devotional Authors.
JR Alila

2008-07-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

You Mr/Ms Prejudized Out There:

Are you struggling with the soul-snapping-and-draining Sin of Prejudice? Are hate and prejudice lowering your productivity at work?

Is your mental, spiritual and physical health going down the drain because of private guilt against spouse, child, friend, anybody, or self?

If your answer is yes, know that You are Not Alone. You need help. Reading "essential literature" (Like the Bible for me as a Christian) and face-to-face counsel can help.

Writing letters, stories, . . . too can help.

I have found myself healthier, emotionally, spiritually and socially by writing books that examine the inner lives and private journeys of individuals within societies, both modern and historical.
Since embarking on my current literary journey, I have found it easier to empathize with other people's situations without appearing to demean them.

JR Alila
Author:

-"SUNSET ON POLYGAMY,"

-"WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART,"

-"SINS OF OUR HEARTS"

-"THE MILAYI CURSE"

Thomas Joseph (TJ) Mboya: Anniversary

2008-07-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

July 5th is the late TJ Mboya's 39th anniversary. That is the day he died (in 1969) at the hands of a gunman known as Nashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge. Students of history, and the recent upsurge in new revelations about his death are attached below for any of you, who occossionaly stray into my e-hut.
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143989571&cid=4
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143989575&cid=4

You may also sample these verses from "RATENG' AND BRIDE.* TJ was popularly called, Rateng', by his contemporaries, but he is not the RATENG' in my epic poem. For the young among us, you want to know that this native son of Rusinga Island---a seed of Ramogi Ajwang' (Ramogi ka Podho son of the great Ramogi)---was a GO-GETTER.
In this regard, TJ is remembered for the great Mboya Airlifts (educational) that saw the arrival of many sons of Kenya at the shores of the Americas, as the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was doing the same in the Soviet Block. Two sons of Ramogi, polarized by an ideaologically polarized world of the 1950s and 1960s, yet able to bring the kill home for their nation, Kenya! The Shield, the Spear, the Cock and the Axe (all four are requisite in starting a Luo home) in "Kenya's Court of Arms" are a testimony to Ramogi's footprints and Wisdom in Kenya's political journey.
Rateng TJ is my inspiration---only I can't do even a millionth of what he did!

Rateng',
This genie-of-a-woman
Has wooed and killed
Each and every one
of our brothers
She ever danced with:

AK Joremo—
the best legal mind
Of his generation—
Fell on her chest after a brief
but romantic affair—
AK fell to an irate, rival’s barb.

TJ JaRusinga,
Was then the best dancer
On the floor—a dancer
with a golden tongue,
A fast pair of feet
And a sharp mind;
TJ was a dancer with
An unmatchable speed
On his feet
On any dance floor—
TJ Fell to a jealous rival’s
Arrow of passion.

Rateng’,
TJ fell to a jealous rival’s
arrow of passion,
As he flirted, chatted
and danced to a slow Rumba
with the woman.

Rateng’,
TJ fell in broad daylight—
Like a common-street thief—
He fell, the bride’s
freshly-minted ring
Still in his pocket.

* Source: RATENG' AND BRIDE (a poem) pp 19&20)----NEW
Author: Joseph R. Alila
Published by CreateSpace
www.createspace.com/3346481

NEW BOOK RELEASE

2008-07-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

BOOK RELEASE
RATENG" AND BRIDE (A Poem)
ISBN: 143-825109-2 ; EAN-13: 978-143-825109-7
Author: Joseph R. Alila
Published by CreateSpace An Amozon.com Company
(http://www.createspace.com/)

Within the next month, and in remeberance of the events that have redefined Kenya in recent times, and remeberance our heroes (dead or alive) who have shaped Kenya's democratic space, I intend to bring to my readership the epic poem "RATENG' AND BRIDE published by CreateSpace an amazon.com company (http://www.createspace.com/ ). Here is the synopsis.

SYNOPSIS:
In the epic poem, "RATENG’ AND BRIDE," (ISBN: 143-825109-2 ; EAN-13: 978-143-825109-7,) poet Joseph R Alila (Author of such novels as "Whisper to My Aching Heart" and Sunset on Polygamy") pleads with his hero (Rateng’) to abandon a lifelong ambition of reigning in a killer, illusive Bride, and redeeming his honor and his people’s collective pride.
Of Rateng’s illusive Bride—call her Power, Leadership or The Presidency—Alila reminds his hero of her corrupting, material allure and deadly charms. Like a gem, a Powerful Presidency corrupts everybody it touches, and its corrupting effects linger like the nauseating smell of a scared skunk.
Employing rich imagery and proverbs, and never shy to go Luo vernacular with proverbs, in "RATENG’ AND BRIDE," Alila has played his satirical hand, again, and demonstrated his knowledge of the political landscape of Kenya—only here, he walks with the reader into, and out of, a more recent, and more deadly, political match between two powerful suitors (Rateng’ and Milo) over one Bride, with one biased Referee in the ring, and their adversarial supporters fighting ringside.
In the second poem, "Fellow Kenyan," Alila talks to Kenya’s most-recent electoral crisis and warns every Kenyan of the dangers of losing their country to ethnic rivalries and hatred; and being exploited by a powerful cabal of elites to fight the latter’s wars over power. In a final mournful appeal, Alila sings of the need for Kenyans to reconcile their differences because there is only one Mother Kenya, and she must not be allowed to go to the manipulative crows of Nairobi.

Grand Regency Saga

2008-06-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

The Grand Regency (GR) Hotel saga is evolving by the day:

The Libyans have used locals to buy the GR Hotel for them.

The same law-firm (Watengula, Makhoka, ---) facilitated the sale on behalf of both the Government and the Libyans! Interesting?

It is being reported that Hon. Orengo's Office now reveals that the Hotel its Land were sold at Ks 1.8B and not KSh. 2.8 B!

It looks like the President has given the Prime Minister the mandate to clear the mess; Mr. Odinga is chairing a Cabinate Sub-committee on the issue; the Ag Mr. Wako, the embatled Finance Minister, Mr. Kimunya; the Justice Minister Mrs. Martha Karua and Mr. Orengo (the Whistle Blower) are part of the committee.

By doing this Mr. Kibaki is trying to sacrifice the young Hon. Kimunya froma distance---No wonder, all the usual dogs of politics in Central Kenya have told Kiminya to carry his own Cross! When PM Odinga, Justice-Minister Karua and Ag. Wako are through with Kimunya, I believe there will be a unanimous recommendation by the PM's committee to the President Kibaki to fire Kimunya ! And the President will use his pen then--- that is if Kimunya will not have resigned after Hon. Imanyara's expected Parliamentary censor. This happens all the time to every small fish in politics; they are used then dumped.

Do you see how a PM can do the job of an embatled President?

But the bigger question is why Libya needs a prime location in Africa's Key international gateway? Is it the Libya-Uganda Axis and their PanAfrican Dreams? the same axis Moi feared? Why is a Ugandan the Chief Engineer under the new management at GR Hotel?

JR Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143989420&cid=4

The Grand Regency Saga

2008-06-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

That part of the Kibaki government was party to the Grand Regency Hotel's illegal tranfer to Libya, reminds all Kenyan's of age of the Goldenberg Scandal. This transfer will sound like a fairy tale to Mzee Moi who never trusted the Libyans.That President Kibaki transferred a prime piece of property to Gadafi behind the Minister of Land's (Mr. James Orengo of ODM) back must be a shocker to Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his ODM Party (The Kenyan Gov't is a coalition one between Kibaki's PNU and ODM). As the details of this scandal unfold, one must wonder whether the Coalition Goverment will survive another year. Competitive politics is about image; and sleeping in the same bed with a corrupt political partner does not go well imagewise with ODM or any other party or individual.

But can ODM bolt out from the coalition? Under ordinary circumstances, the answer should have been yes. But Kenya's current circumstances are not ordinary, they are extraordinary. The 2007/2008 post- election crisis left Kenya wounded in by every measure of governance: belief of Kenyans in their goverment as a protector-of-all is shattered; the economy is ruined; Kenya's international image as a beacon of regional stability dented; Kenya's thin ethnic fabric was exposed and shattered by a crisis that pitted tribe-against-tribe, leading to persons who are permanent refugees in their own country--these are the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Prime Minister Odinga and his ODM Party should stay in the Union with PNU but only for the following reasons: to act as a watchdog from within the government,even if a partially toothless one ; to babysit (alongside sensible individuals from PNU) the constitutional-review process and to negotiate the enactment of the same into law; and lastly to shephered Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) back to their homes through a genuine reconciliation process.

Of the above concerns, I feel most for the IDPs who are still in Refugee Camps, and whose plight must continue to be the concern for every Kenyan of goodwill--a lame President with 4 years to go is not what every Kenyan, and more so, the IDPs needed for their country which is still reeling from the fumbled Presidential Election of late last year. The IDPs are going to be the victims during Grand-Regency Saga. Increasingly, the IDPs must singularly look to ODM to solve their plight because PNU is going to be a party in disarray due to the expected fallout from the Grand-Regency Saga. The government must show goodwill and make it easier for ODM leaders (particularly from the Rift Valley) to be able to do local reconciliation work , by it releasing any youth it is holding for a petty offence from the post-electoral crisis.

JR Alila

Hon Odinga: A Man of Grit

2008-06-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

When Hon Prime Minister Odinga thought he had negotiated a coalition deal that had pulled Kenyans out of the Jaws of the hyena in the name of a blood-sucking mayhem precipitated by the bungled 2007 electoral process---a stollen election that had pitted Kenyans against Kenyans, leading to spiralling intertribal killings and wanton destruction of public and private property, and a crisis that threatened to make Kenya another failed state---than sections of his ODM party started complaining that their tribes were not rewarded fairly in coalition cabinet appoitnments, even as these elements knew that ODM's glass was only half full, or as PM Odinga is wont to put it in the language of a "hunter-gatherer" who always hope for a brighter hunting day, "even the tail is meat."

While still mourning two of his winning team members (Were and Kirui?) he lost to guns of envy in Embakasi and Ainabkoi, a section of his parliamentary majority is forming an Oppostion group to the PNU-ODM Coalition Government, ostensibly because they never got cabinet appointments in the Grand Coalition Govt. What self-centredness!

On a June by-election night, PM Odinga and his ODM lose two MPs to an aircraft accident as the pair of Hon. Lady Laboso and Hon. K. Kones (both Kipsigis) were on their way to a campaign for a fellow Kipsigis for the then vacant Kilgoris seat.

On election night, the Masai bolt against ODM and vote for one of their own, Hon. Konchella of PNU. Managing tribalism can be hell, and no party understands this it better than PNU. ODM emerges from from the by-elections with two MPS dead, and three wins (in Wajir, Ainaboi, and Emuhaya), and loses Kilgoris and Embakasi (because of poor fielding ... Mrs. Passaris couldn't have done better than some Wekesa or Omolo. Nairobi politics, like all Kenyan politics, is tribal even as ODM thinks otherwise. ODMs the party got burnt in Kilgoris and Embakasi.

Hon PM Odinga is fighting land kingpins and absentee landowners, some within his leadership ranks, and his President is not making it any easier for him. PM Odnga is calling corrupt African Dictators like Mugabe what they are---something most African leaders don't (Read: Read JR Alila's Thirteen Curses of Mother Africa). PM Odinga has taken the issue of Amnesty to people arrested for various crimes during Kenya's 2007 electoral crisis (he calls them political prisioners) head on---again his President is not with him in this.

This Kenyan Leader and face of ODM Party is a Man of Grit. The question is whether the ODM coalition will hold as PNU cut and dice the poltical landscape. Hey I heard Gema has had anew birth!

Watch this space.

NEW NOVEL

2008-06-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART[ISBN 1438207514. EAN-13: 978-14 38207513]A novel by Joseph R. AlilaPublished by CreateSpace An Amazon.com Company(http://www.createspace.com/3341373)]JR Alila’s WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART is a story about two widows overcoming great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving-yet-romantic, love story, a young widow (Apiny) finds herself to be the bearer of the damning, spiritually-untouchable label in the male-dominated Eighteenth-Century Africa. Ejected alongside her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) and ridiculed by friends, Apiny waits for fifteen years before she receives another man in her bed. But this comes only after Awino remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin) who is called upon to walk into Apiny’s house while still in his teens. But, even after getting all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters she wished for from her youthful lover, Apiny is not at peace in her heart. She mourns and struggles in her heart as her youthful husband is compelled by cultural traditions to receive his own wife.

Copies also available at http://www.amazon.com/

Is ODM a Party in Peril?

2008-05-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Are these pangs of 2012? A Hon. Namwamba insists on a core opposition in the Kenyan Parliament with ODM as its center. Hon. Odinga (the PM) says no because ODM is in Government. But is ODM really in government?
We know that Hon. Odinga is the PM in a coalition government in which Hon. Kibaki of PNU is the President. It is accurate to say that Hon. Kibaki is the government, and PNU is the government. It is also accurate to say that Hon Odinga is part of the government, and so is ODM. But who calls the shots? It is Hon. Kibaki, the one who sleeps in State House.
Is Hon. Namwamba right in agitating for an official opposition in parliament? I believe he is right because Kenya is a multiparty state. Moreover, ODM admits that it is only partly in government and has assumed a holding posture in readiness for 2012. Moreover, the key pillars in ODM are approaching the "Namwamba problem" differently as the dance for positions for 2012 begin.
Hon. Odinga reads Hon Namwamba's intentions correctly: this group is out to pull the rug from beneath the coalition government, but he is also weary of 2012---what with Hon Mudavadi and Hon Ruto maintaining a neutral stance, if not soft, on Namwamba and company.
Is this the begenning of fall-outs and reallignments for 2012?
Watch what Maasai and their South Rift friends are doing. In the upcoming June 2008 by-elections; this core ODM group is going for anybody Maasai in any party. Will the ODM center hold? Will Mudavadi and Ruto allow PM Odinga to make another shot at the Presidency in 2012?

Spirituality and Luo Marriage

2008-05-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

Sunset on Polygamy
(A Novel by JOSEPH R ALILA):

(PublishAmerica, 2007)

http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=18178

In this African, cultural-anthropological drama, the author (Joseph R Alila) explores such universal issues as competitive love and romance, spirituality and moral conduct and order, farming, fairness, power structure, conflicts and conflict resolution, all within the context of a polygamous Luo home, as seen through a grown-up child's eyes. Beyond the polygamous home, the author takes us through an anthropological, communal tour of the spiritual underpinnings of such issues as farming, death, mourning, marriage, remarriage, courtship, morality and order, and power within a Luo communal unit. Alila delicately addresses the conflict between (arcane) cultural practices and spiritual understanding of a disease and its possible cures, on one side, versus proven modern medical evidence and understanding of a disease epidemic and its management, on the other.
In Sunset on Polygamy, the author teaches that, even in a polygamous home, the man and every woman must communicate, must play, must occasionally visit, verbally, physically and mentally, one-on-one, so as to survive `the grind' that is life in polygamy. This one-on-one communication among all parties must continue even as families move through crises.

LUO ORAL TRADITION: (Kenya Elections 2007 Fiasco)

2008-04-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this piece of Music; a demonstration of the great Luo Oral Tradition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8-TBtiacAI&feature=related

NEW CABINET NAMED IN KENYA

2008-04-13T08:21:00.001-07:00

President Kibaki of Kenya and Prime Minister Raila Odinga name a New Cabinet, which is generally fair to both ODM and PNU today. Politicians' small egos have been assuaged by splitting Resources-related areas into many ministries. Let us move on and wait and see how Ass. Ministers and Ministers from different parties function. Kenyans are in for some theatrics never seen before. Resettling IDPs should be a priority to the coalition.

Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga, Congratulations! Show Kenyans how to be a just-and-fair Prime Minister; the ball is in your court.
Hon. Kajwang' and Hon. Ojode, congratulations; we have come of age.
Hon. Ruto, thank you for showing leadership in allowing that man from Mululu to position ODM party for 2012.
Hon. Ngilu, Hon. Magara, Hon. Balala, and Hon. Nyaga, and Hon. Ntimama, thank you for your courage--continue to be strong.

My novel, THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND, (http://www.lulu.com/) finally has a prophetic place.

Joseph R. Alila
(Author: THE WISE ONE OF RAMOGILAND)

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgindex.asp

KENYAN Political FARCE

2008-04-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

Cats are not edible among my people; but the same people also have a proverb that "a cat is better fried in its own oil-- adding oil to it is not a good culliniary practice" (in technical DhoLuo "ogwang' rach ka o ole mo, ochielore gi more"). How true.
That is the realization Premier-designate Raila Odinga and his ODM Party are coming to in their coalition farce with PNU. No sooner had ODM agreed to a bloated cabinet to accommodate the scattered PNU interests than the latter decided to keep all the plum ministerial potfollios. Even if the ministries were increased to 100 PNU would demand 100 real ministries and offer 100 virtual ministries to ODM.
Sure, "Ogwang' rach ka oole mo, ochielore gi more!"
How many times should Premier-designate Raila Odinga be duped by President Kibaki for the former to realize that the latter is not a gentleman--at least in a political sense? It looks like Hon. Odinga should tape all his future dealings with the president.
JR Alila
(Author, The Wise One of Ramogiland)

BOOK RELEASE

2008-04-08T05:46:00.000-07:00

The long-awaited novel, "SINS OF OUR HEART," by Joseph R. Alila [ISBN 978-1438200132, Published by CreateSpace (http://www.createspace.com/3339874)] is now available for purchase through http://www.amazon.com/ and through other major bookstores such as http://borders.com ; http://waldenbooks.com; http://www.target.com

In "Sins of Our Hearts," novelist Joseph R Alila visits what lies beneath our ready smiles; he narrates the fate of a congregation in which the sins of prejudice and hate, nurtured by affluence, race, poor elder leadership and a hands-off-pastoral style, threaten the very purpose of a church--which is to foster love and empathy among its membership. The lessons learnt should have a universal application.

Review

Pastor Rew Smith heads the affluent New Hope Oakpound Church in which things appear to be well, but there is a deep spiritual problem: His church suffers from a shortage of Love. New converts are called names , and go unattended to, as the young Pastor spends most of his evenings at Oakpound Big Boys Health and Fitness Club. His Lay Leadership basks in self-righteousness, and a form of spirituality without of any force of love behind it. Led by Mrs. Smith, some members of the Women Wing have introduced a controversial Foot-Washing method for its convenience, but in which the virtues of humility and selfless love are virtually dead.

BOOK RELEASE

2008-04-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART
[ISBN 1438207514. EAN-13: 978-14 38207513]

A novel by Joseph R. Alila

Published by CreateSpace An Amazon.com Company
(http://www.createspace.com/3341373)]

JR Alila’s WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART is a story about two widows overcoming great odds to become mothers of a future people. In this moving-yet-romantic, love story, a young widow (Apiny) finds herself to be the bearer of the damning, spiritually-untouchable label in the male-dominated Eighteenth-Century Africa. Ejected alongside her widowed mother-in-law (Awino) and ridiculed by friends, Apiny waits for fifteen years before she receives another man in her bed. But this comes only after Awino remarries and raises a miracle son (Otin) who is called upon to walk into Apiny’s house while still in his teens. But, even after getting all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters she wished for from her youthful lover, Apiny is not at peace in her heart. She mourns and struggles in her heart as her youthful husband is compelled by cultural traditions to receive his own wife.

Expect copies to be available at http://www.amazon.com/ within the month

COMING SOON!

2008-02-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART (By Joseph R Alila)

Literature & Fiction

In Joseph Alila's "WHISPER TO MY ACHING HEART," a young widow (Apiny) finds herself to be the bearer of the damning "maritally untouchable" tag in the male-dominated Eighteenth-Century Africa. Ejected along side her widowed mother-in-law (Awino), and ridiculed by friends, Apiny must wait for fifteen years before she receives a man in her bed, but only after Awino(she is almost sixty) remarries and gives birth to a boy (Olan’go Otin) who marries her in his mid-teen. Even with all the handsome sons and beautiful daughters she wished for from her youthful lover, Apiny is not at peace in her heart. She mourns silently and struggles in her heart as her youthful husband is compelled by Luo customs to get his own wife. Finally, Apiny must let go the love of her life (Otin)and share his heart with a younger woman (Nyogola). In her senior years, she is motivated by the reality of her age and the powers of a widow to eject Otin and invite an older and more age-appropriate man into her company.

JOSEPH R. ALILA

Coming Soon

2008-02-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

Sins of Our Hearts (by Joseph R Alila)

Pastor Rew Smith heads the affluent New Hope Oakpound Church in which things appear to be well, but there is a deep spiritual problem: His church suffers from a shortage of Love. New converts are called names by his Board, and go unattended to as the young Pastor spends most of his evenings at Oakpound Big Boys Health and Fitness Club. His Church’s Lay Leadership basks in self-righteousness, and a form of spirituality without of any force of love behind it. Led by Mrs. Smith, some members of the Women Wing have introduced a controversial Foot-Washing method for its convenience, but in which the virtues of humility and selfless love are virtually dead.

The Milayi Curse (By Joseph R. Alila)

2008-02-26T03:26:00.000-08:00

In Joseph R. Alila's "Milayi Curse" (Lulu(http://www.lulu.com))%20centuries-old/centuries-old bigotry, prejudice, unresolved issues, spiritualility, myths of curses, and intraclan rivalry, meet the reality and power of frienship between two innocent boys, and the power of charity from one rich man to a boy from the other side of the clan divide, with Fr. James O'Kilghor as a witness and Keeper of Secrets. Mrs. Milayi's prejudice must be cleansed by her Priest in her self-made spiritual deathbed. She would live as a witness and agent of peace, understanding and intraclan healing in this spiritual drama.

Joseph R. Alila (Author)

The African Woman in Joseph Alila's Poetry

2008-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

African woman is lionised in several poetic verses in Joseph R. Alila's "Thirteen Curses on Mother Africa," (ISBN 978-14303-1592-6), lulu( http://www.lulu.com)/ , and justifiably so:

The African woman is largely localized in her rural domain--often passed by time and rural-urban migration--yet she must feed, protect and mould the character of her son only to lose him to the corrupting influence of urban life. The African woman must continue to walk five miles to the spring for water; she must till the same piece of barren land of thirty years before; she must feed her orphaned grandchildren the way she fed her children, only with even fewer resources. The African woman must face the vagaries of endless wars, unpredictable weather, a cesspool of diseases, constant pangs of hunger and abject poverty--often alone--as her lazy husband is either dead, inebriated, lost to some urban center, or simply overwhelmed by his situation.

Joseph R. Alila

Kenya: A Long, Perilous Year Ahead

2008-02-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

I. Kibaki is a Prisioner to PNU Affiliates

There may be no quick agreement between ODM’s Odinga and PNU’s Kibaki because, while the former has shown a willingness to move away from his earlier positions such as “Kibaki must resign,” Kibaki has become a prisioner of the constituent parties which have propped-up his government and for which power is the end and the means. This view is reinforced by what Kalonzo said when he landed from abroad (any deal must be constitutional), and Mr. Poghosio’s announcement that any deal brokered by HE Annan will not affect ODM-K’s power-sharing agreement with the minority PNU government.

II. ODM must go for Executive Prime Minister

The emerging deal is so far in favor of Kibaki– he is the President. ODM should not sacrifice further than it has done. Recognizing Kibaki’s Presidency has been a bitter enough pill for ODM to have swallowed. With this in mind, nothing less than an Executive Prime Minister for ODM (based on BOMAS and executed quickly by Parliamentary legislation) is agreeable. This would ensure that ODM, as the majority party, will be Head of the Government; it would also preserve ODM’s identity as a party for 2012, and multi-party democracy will have won. Mr. Kibaki can remain a ceremonial President in charge of the Defense and State affairs.

III. Ideally, an interim Gov’t must be reasonably short

While the a prolonged Interim Government (six-month one called by ODM has been shot down by negotiators at City Hall) would allow the country to heal and allow the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to resettle, it would prove to be a slow-killing pill that would in the long run neuter ODM, in particular, and multiparty democracy, in general, as the boundary between Opposition and Government becomes blurred in the eyes of the people.

IV. ODM must think long-term

As the Annan negotiations move towards its critical stage, ODM must think long-term because its image of a Movement ended with the 12/27/2007 elections. That is why it should prefer a constitutionally mandated (through parliamentary legislation) and quick Executive Prime Minister Deal to any other form of power-sharing arrangement. Otherwise, it is better to remain in the opposition than be in a long-term, coalition arrangement –a multiparty democracy killer.

V. ODM should not bank on any elections being called before 2012

Fact: As long as the internal refugees are still in the camps in Kibera, Kondele and the Rift Valley, and their plight shamelessly played to every tourist visiting Kenya, Kibaki will not call any election whatever the Annan Deal. The helpless IDPs have become mere pawns in what is emerging as a political sport among the protagonists in Nairobi. I am very pessimistic about Kenya’s future; I am looking at 2012 for the next electoral face-off.

JR Alila

Kenyan Crisis: Deal?

2008-02-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

There may be no quick agreement between ODM’s Odinga and PNU’s Kibaki because, while the former has shown a willingness to move away from his earlier stance such as "Kibaki must resign," Kibaki has become a prisioner of the constituent parties that have propped-up his government for which power is the end and the means. This view is reinforced by what Kalonzo said when he landed from abroad (any deal must be constitutional), and Mr. Poghosio’s announcement that any deal brokered by HE Annan will not affect ODM-K's power-sharing agreement with the minority PNU government.
The emerging deal is so far in favor of Kibaki– he is the President. ODM should not sacrifice further than it has done. Recognizing Kibaki’s Presidency has been a bitter enough pill for ODM to have swallowed.
ODM must go for Executive Prime Minister.
With this in mind, nothing less than an Executive Prime-Minister for ODM (based on BOMAS and executed quickly by Parliamentary legislation) is agreeable. This would ensure that ODM, as the majority party, will be Head of the Government; it would also preserves ODM’s Identity as a party for 2012, and multi-party democracy will have won. Mr. Kibaki can remain a ceremonial President in charge of the defense.
While the much routed a prolonged Interim Government (six-month one called by ODM has been shot down by negotiators at City Hall) would allow the country to heal and allow the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to resettle, it would prove to be a slow-killing pill that would in the long run, neuter ODM in particular, and multiparty democracy in general, as the boundary between Opposition and Government become blurred in the eyes of the people. Ideally, an interim Gov't must be reasonably short.
As the Annan negotiations move towards its critical stage, ODM must think long-term because its image of a Movement ended with the 12/27/2007 elections. That is why it should prefer a constitutionally mandated (through parliamentary legislation) and quick Executive Prime Minister Deal to any other form of power-sharing arrangement. Otherwise, it is better to remain in the opposition than be in a long-term, coalition arrangement –a multiparty democracy killer.
ODM should not bank on any elections being called before 2012.
As long as the internal refugees are still in the camps in Kibera, Kondele and the Rift Valley, and their plight played to every tourist visiting Kenya, Kibaki will not call any election whatever the Annan Deal. I am very pessimistic; I am looking at 2012 for the next face-off.
JR Alila

ODM in Power Sharing Arrangement with Kibaki?

2008-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Here it comes:
The news out of Nairobi (Kenya) indicates that ODM has agreed to "a power-sharing arrangement" with Kibaki's government. Will it be a coalition? Will it be a GNU? For how long will it be in place? Who will be the President, V-President? What will be Odinga's role? What will it mean to multi-party democracy in Kenya?
Check this space .....

JR Alila

http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?cat=TOP&sid=1447

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&news...

Which Way ODM?

2008-02-07T12:59:00.000-08:00

Let us face facts here. You should find this assertion rather simplistic and naive, but in my view, the talks in Nairobi are aimed at "baby-sitting" ODM as Kibaki settles into his seat. I may be wrong, but listen to the latest word from Annan: under the present circumstances in Kenya, a re-run of the Presidential vote is not feasible for at least one year. Now, this statement comes after he has received ODM's evidence as to how the Presidential tally was rigged. Prior to this, Kalonzo, that pretty face from Masaku, is stomping world capitals promising that peace has returned in Kenya, and Kibaki is in control, and chairing IGAD.
Meanwhile, ODM is being told by PNU that, indeed, ECK membership messed up, and will be reconstituted. Secondly, ODM is being advised by "alien friends" to swallow the bitter pill and take ministerial positions (Agriculture and Fisheries!) in a Kibaki Government (Coalision Arrangement!) as a new constitutional order for 2012 is being worked under WAKO, Karua and Parliament. To show that they are serious, these Western Friends have given a number of ODM MPs (and PNU too) DO-NOT-ADMIT cards so that they accept a coallition arrangement.
ODM has been trapped; if it walks off City Hall in a huff, the label "Rebel" will follow it quickly. It will be miraculous for ODM to leave these talk as a solid entity: It accepts a coalition, and it dies as a Party of any relevence in 2012, and multi-party democracy with it. It walks off in protest, and the country burns with it, which ODM will not do.
I have known African dictators who gleefully inspected guards of honor mounted by skulls and bones. The PNU band appears to be the dangerous sweet-talking type that can declare that there are floods in Garissa in the middle of a drought. This PNU band will not compromise its position, and will be willing to sit it out long and play the plight of IDPs in Kibera and Rift Valley to the international media. That land has become the contentious matter makes this scenerio the more likely (Look at Zimbabwe).
In the unfolding tragedy, the noblest thing ODM will do is to decide that too much suffering has visited the people; and that it does not want "a bride with blood on her hands," and becomes a formidable opposition in parliament. For this to happen, the leadership and MPs must be in it together, and the people must be willing to join them on this long journey to 2012. Bitter? Yes. But it is for the same reason that our men do not mourn the deaths of infants.

JR Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143981602&cid=4

http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?pcat=NEWS&cat=TOP&sid=1443

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=2&newsid=116296

Kenyan Electoral Crisis

2008-02-02T03:49:00.001-08:00

Odinga and ODM should go to court if they feel they won the Presidential Election in Kenya, says Kibaki in Addis.
UN Secretary General Moon orders the warring parties to bring the violence to an end.
Annan's team promises political solution with 7-15 days! One must wonder how this will be possible when Kibaki believes there is no serious problem in Kenya, and that the current crisis is the creation of the opposition?
JR Alila
Read Link
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143981270&cid=4
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143981269&cid=4

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-31T03:37:00.000-08:00

Two thoughts on the future of Kenya. The first (read link below) has a philosophical appeal and goes right to the heart of the Kenyan Dilema. The author decries the Power Vacuum that exists, failed or biased national institutions, and a polarized Church. He leaves us wondering as to whom we should turn for dear peace?
Meanwhile the Kibaki Administration claims that the crisis can be solved internally; AU or UN should not intervene even as the Annan committee has laid down the ground rules, to which ODM has responded, while the overly-lawyered three-man team from PNU is still mulling over them (time wasting?).
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143981157&cid=15
AU insists Kenya will be discussed in Addis this week, of course against protestations from Kenya. Kibaki is attending (will he be recognized? If you have read my poetry collection "Thirteen Curse on Mother Africa," lulu (www.lulu.com) your guess should be that he will be recognized by his fellow Chiefs: AU Eating Chiefs never never disowned one of their member, however tainted he or she is.
Thanks to the South African delegation, Kenyan Crisis is number one item on this week's agenda at AU Headquarters in Addis.

Now, a very radical view (I say treasonable if entertained by a Kenyan) is that of the Rwandese Leader, Kagame: He opines that the Kenyan Army should take over before a downward civil spiral into the like of Rwanda of the recent past. Interestingly The Daily Nation (Kenya) had the guts to have printed it (Read Link Below to Daily Nation Kenya). This a bold and unusual statement from an African Leader against a sitting other. But remember that Rwanda is landlocked and has a Kenyan Export-Import Lifeline. We hope Uganda which also relies on Kenyan roads and rail to export and import good, does not think along the same lines.
We must pray for Kenya because even the ARMY is Ethincized.

JR Alila

http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?cat=TOP&sid=1385

Kenya in Turmoil

2008-01-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

Lawyers (ICJ) suggest a way out of the current crisis that has set Kenyans against one another:
An interim Govt by politically inactive civil servants and professionals;
Community based nagotiations;
Constitutional Reform along the lines of the Bomas Draft.
They also reveal that the widely discredited ECK has the powers to annul the Presidential Results.

They make sense to me.

JR Alila

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&news...

Kenya in Turmoil

2008-01-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

Kenya in Turmoil

Multiethnic Nakuru is under curfew with Scores dead; Annan concludes that the situation in the Refugee camps in Rift Valley is dire. He demands that the Govt must protect the people, resettle and compensate the displaced; he observes that the elctoral crisis has evolved into fights to settle scores over historical injustices, land issues and economic marginalizationt. He warns that Odinga and Kibaki must face hard choices. ODM and Anna not happy about Kibaki's duly-elcted, recent remark.
JRA
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980992&cid=4
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980994&cid=4
Meanwhile Retired Cleric, Bishop Gitari decries the fact that the Church is partisan, and has "lost its Prophetic Voice."
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980996&cid=4
My take is that Kenya has no Native Angel of Peace. Let us pray that HE Annan's efforts bear fruit.

Joseph R. Alila
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

The public stop a Lorry full of Uganda Army Uniforms at Kenya's Malaba crossing point. The purpose of the Military Uniforms remain mysterious. Kenyans have accused Uganda's Museveni for having sent soldiers into Kenya to help Kibaki quel riots during the recent post-election crisis.

Read Link...

J.R. Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980835&cid=4

No Retreat, Says Raila's ODM.

2008-01-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

No retreat says Raila's ODM.
High emotions in Kisumu and Kakamega Mourning Services.

Read link

JR Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980761

Kibaki Govt Blames US for Kenyan Post-election Violence

2008-01-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

Read link below for US response.

JR Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980740
http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980760

Must Britain Recognize the Disputed Kibaki Presidecy?

2008-01-21T05:51:00.000-08:00

THE Kenyan Govt demands to be recognized by the British Gov't, declared Kenyans Foreign Minister Mr. Moses Watengula. He demands were as a result of matters arising out of a House-of-Commons debate on the Kenyan election gridlock. Pundits wonder how the British Govt can be forced to declare the recognition of Mr. Kibaki's Presidency, that even the beleaugured ECK Chairman, Mr. Kivuiti, doubts.
If you have fogotten, this is the same Kivuitu who was frogmatched out of KICC poll-tallying center at gunpoint, with TV camers rolling, only to reemerge on State-controlled KBC-TV declaring Mr. Kibaki the winner and within the hour he would appear at Mr. Kibaki's rushed swearing ceremony.
Hon. Raila Odinga and his ODM and supporters continue to protest the decision which those in the know have declared to have been won by Hon Raila Odinga by at least 130000 votes.
Parliament in Britain is sacrosanct and the British Foreign Ministry cannot control what it deliberates up, Kenya and all. Hon Watengula needs to know that the same British Parliament can dictate British policy posture against Kenya, the same way the European Parliament did the other day. Joseph Alila. (Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=115060

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

Odinga could have won by over 1%.... (US Ambassador). Read link below:

J. Alila

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bloodied-kenyan-opposition-calls-for/n20080119100209990007

The Last Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

2008-01-19T05:16:00.000-08:00

"We only have stones!"
This cry, from young man amidst a battle with GSU paramilitary police in Kisumu, captures the current tragedy in Nyanza in the current electoral crisis. In the Rift Valley we have read of the dreaded GSU personnel being detained by locals at roadblocks; in Kisumu, unarmed kids are practice targets of some police officers, as a recent TV footage doing the rounds on the Web taught us. What makes Rift Valley different than Nyanza? The answer is that unlike Rift Valley, Luo Nyanza is irrelevant to the nation of Kenya: it is farflung and landlocked; Anyuongi has killed navigation and fishing on Lake Victoria; Kisumu is in ruins, sugar can be imported; no other ethnicities live there; only her electoral vote matters to any politician after every five years. The Gov't forces will continue to operate in Luo Nyanza with impunity to teach the locals to "vote otherwise" next time.
Which way Luo Nyanza?
Would this election be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in Luo Politics?
I believe so.
If Hon. Raila Odinga fails to sit on the covetted seat (the Presidency), or fails to agitate for and get the Premiership before 2012, most Luo Nyanza voters will sit out the 2012 elections, and it will not matter who runs in ODM, which will have died anyway.
I'd rather watch Gor Mahia FC matches, commiserate with fellow elders than vote again in a fatally-cursed process that only generates anguish and gnashing of teeth among the people. We were there before in the '60s and '70s, and may survive it, again. But if not managed well, this elctoral mess may be the last straw that broke the camel's back in Luo Nyanza because pride to the point of apathy is a virtue, at least in a Luo psyche.
Ask yourself this: why are there no Luo names in Kibaki's National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee? The answer is that Luo Nyanza is irrelevant to his political schemes; he never campaigned there anyway.

Joseph R. Alila

(Author: "The Wise One of Ramogiland," ISBN 978-14303-2554-3)

Read this for AE Standard, Kenya ....

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980596&cid=16

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

Kiai Report on Kenyan Elections A bungled Tally (Kiai, East A frican Standard).

J. Alila

http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143980628&cid=4

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Guests

Look at this peaceful protester's pose next to a Kenya Police flagpole (Daily Nation, Kenya).

J. R. Alila

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=114823

Kenya Elctoral Crisis

2008-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

Confessions of Kirui The Whistleblower. Read this tallying officer account of the events at KICC ECK vote tallying center on 12/28-12/29 2007 from Kumekucha

http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/

Ethnicity and Politics in Kenya

2008-01-14T08:59:00.000-08:00

Ethnicity and Politics in Kenya

It would appear that there are no voices of reason left to heal the ethnic schisms in Kenya today. Bishops have taken sides; scribes have left no doubt as to which way they lean, some even advising the agrieved (Hon. Odinga) to be magnanimous (in defeat I presume); the embatled ECK Chairman, Mr. Kivuitu, is crying for any help as electoral data continue to be manipulated in his office. Nobody, apart from ODM and its supporters, is willing to address what led to the revelation of Kenya's ethnic nakedness, which was a fumbled tallying of the Presidential vote. Even a revered name among the Kenyan literary community, Prof. James Ngugi Wa Thion'go got caught up in the quagmire of the Kenyan electoral mess. Before the election, he had warned his Limuru residents (mostly Kikuyu), "Do not to allow the spotted Leopard to herd your goats." Was the spotted Leopard, Hon Odinga (a Luo) who was running for the Presidency?

Read on ...J. R. Alila
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland).

http://kenyalondonnews.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1052&Itemid=1

Wisdom From Kenya Elections

2008-01-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

Word of Wisdom to you my friends:

In our collective experience a bride does not just walk into the bridegroom's bedroom, however rich the bride price purse; men have to wrestle their way home with her on their backs. That is what separated PNU form ODM. The former PNU grabbed the bride as her fierce brothers slept; the latter kept sweet-talking and showering the bride and her grandmother with goodies. Words, unless divine, will never move a mountain, leave alone an earthly bride (The Wise One declares). Didn't PNU's greatest Scribe offer the following Epistle to all the Churches in Central Province: "Never allow the spotted Leopard to guard your goats"?In Ramogi Alila's Novel, "The Wise One of Ramogiland," The Seer asks the Preeminent Warrior, " Can you be happy to be the Premier in two months, but from a wheel chair?" ODM never bruised itself before the elections. Electoral Lists were being doctored in broad daylight, but ODM's mournful words were ignored. At that stage of ECK's complicity, ODM should have gone to court to stop the elections or order a public review of all electoral lists. Instead of The Warrior coordinating forces on the morning of 27/12/2007, he found himself fighting to be a registered voter! One must Want the Bride so badly that he killed the spotted Leopard to secure her. That was the respected Scribe's point in his Ethnic Epistle, and it worked in PNU's favour. Don't we say in Luo, YUORO LAW KWACH (The Bride is as valuble as the Leopard's cloth)? The Presidency is a Bride: The world over, people go the extra distance in the use of rare wisdom and technology to win her over: Ask President Bush or Nobel Laureat Gore; they will tell you exactly the same thing.
My friends, I am not crying over spilled milk. No. We must be smarter, more tactical in 2012-- be it for Ruto or Mudavadi; we have to be more tactical in 20017-- be it for Orengo, Nyon'go or yourself .
Unfortunately, some of us in the blogs saw what was comming, but who read the blogs, and who would act on them? Just before the election (O my troubled Visions!) I blogged in the Daily Nation warning that IF ON ELECTION NIGHT, PRESIDENTIAL RETURNS FROM PNU BEDROCKS OF CENTRAL AND UPPER EASTERN ARE NOT IN, WHILE ODM'S NYANZA, WESTERN AND RIFT VALLEY ARE TALLIED, THEN KNOW THAT THE ELECTION IS BEING RIGGED. This blog was a response to an Omari Kenya Election2007 blog, to my knowledge, it was not published.In the same troubling prophetic book, The Wise One of Ramogiland, The Seer tells the Preeminent Warrior "The Seer also sees a traumatic path; a path so traumatic at the beginning, only to be very bright at the end."

In the last paragraph of the same book, "The Wise One of Ramogiland," the Seer gives the Warrior a shepherds stick and commands him to head north to the land of the Long River where Ramogi's cousins remain in grave peril.
My troubled writings, inspired by forces beyond my grasp, force me to declare that The Preeminewnt Warrior is going to be great, but not in the manner, and not through the path you and I had envisioned.Keep the candle of hope burning.

Dr. Joseph R. Alila
(Author of the Political Satire: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

Kenyan in Crisis

2008-01-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

1. Uganda Role in Kenya in Crisis

THe Kenyan Blogs are awash with sitings of Museveni's Soldier's in Western Kenya; the leading Kenyan publication The East African Standard reports such sitings too. Why on earth would landlocked Uganda be agitating for chaos in a region of Kenya through which its Oil, industrial supplies and domestic consumer goods pass by rail and pipelines?

Lessons from History for the young among us
That great philosopher son of Africa, the late HE Presisdent Julius Nyerere once declared when Idi Amin invaded Tanzania, "If a Snake invades your house, you must chop its head." Nyerere WENT ON TO HAND AMIN A DECISIVE VICTORY over a much overated Ugandan Army that constantly threatened Kenya with invasion. Obote, Okelo, and Museveni would ride on Nyerer's back to oust Amin. Museveni appears not to have appreciated historical lessons in which he was an actor as a young man out the University of Daresalaam. Our wise also say that "You don't chop the hand that feeds you." Museveni does not need an unstable Kenya. Kenya has an Army and her women still give birth to sons; it does not need Ugandan forces for any purpose.

J. R. Alila, PhD
(Author: The Wise One of Ramogiland)

US adds voice on Kenyan Electoral Crisis

2008-01-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

Kenya in Crisis

With ODM agitating for mass action, The United States joins other nations in the condemnation of the Kenyan Political Stalemate; taking no sides (Daily Nation, Kenya). "It will not be business as usual" (J. Frazier, Ass. Sec. State African Affairs) Read on:

J. R. Alila

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=114518

Kenya in Crisis

2008-01-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

Small Man suffers for Big Man;
Read this:

http://kenyalondonnews.co.uk/index2.php?option=com_content&task=emailform&id=1035&itemid=1

KENYA IN CRISIS

2008-01-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

President Kibaki has invited Hon. Odinga of the majority party, ODM to a meeting. The aim of the meeting, to be madiated by President Kuffuor of Ghana and current Chairman of AU, is to find away forward out of the choas and mistrust among Kenyan ethnicities that have been been precipitated by a botched and rigged vote-tallying by the Election Commission of Kenya (aka ECK). Kibaki was declared the winner in the recent election the world believes to have been won by Hon. Odinga.
President Kibaki hopes that Raila and ODM blink and accept to be part of a ruling coalition, or that ODM goes to court where its complaints will not be settled in the lefetime of the new parliament.
ODM will be demanding a re-run of the Presidential Vote; they may also demand an immediate creation of an excutive Prime Minister's post (for Hon. Odinga or any ODM-nominated man or woman). But this would require a constitutional amendment. Neither of these demands will be acceptable to President Kibaki, who knows how sweet the throne is, leave alone the business community who have this phobia about Hon. Odinga's predictable anti-corruption, clean-government stance.
The stalemate has a assumed a 2012 dimension. ODM must watch its steps and keep its eyes on the ball. The public who gave ODM both parliamentary majority and the Presidency (of which it has been robbed) is not dreaming of anything less than an Odinga triumph. This time is Odinga's; 2012 will be Mudavadi's or Ruto's. Luo support for either Ruto or Mudavadi in 2012 demands that the members of the ODM Pentagon must remain united in purpose. To remain politically relevant, ODM must shepherd their elected members in the House to ward off any poaching by Kibaki's PNU.

Kenyans are in for a rough ride because the protagonists have an unhealthy level of mistrust. President Moi is unusually quiet; Hon. Kalonzo of ODM-K is compromised by Presisdent Kibaki; old names in Kenyan poilitics were floored by ODM's pro-change train. The Church had thrown its support behind one candidate before the elections. Who will save Kenya? Maybe members the international community who have refused to recognize Kibaki's win. But for a man who can burry his head in the sand and who beleives that the end justifies the means, global isolation will mean little; and nothiong will stop him.

J. R. Alila