Stereotyping can really cost you sometimes if not all the time

This evening as I was walking back home from work I made a very interesting observation.

There was this young boy with a profoma in his hands. He strategically stood beside the road at a place where he could see people as they trooped into the estate back from work. It seemed to me he was using the profoma to raise funds for a course that I didn’t get to learn because fortunately or unfortunately he never approached me.

Because I noticed him from a distance I got to make some very interesting observations. Actually, about fifteen people or so - some of whom he approached - went ahead of me. One key observation I made was that the boy only approached men dressed in suits, men who tied a tie and women who seemed young and well dressed.

Unfortunately, of about six people he approached before I passed him, none gave him anything. All they gave him was a brief glance and hearing that lasted not more than a few seconds before I could see them - one after the other - shake their heads and moving on with their journey.

Meanwhile, the averagely dressed – as i wish to put it – individuals kept on passing by without striking his attention. I wonder whether they were also keen to observe what I observed but one thing is sure, simply by stereotyping the boy may have missed out on many people who would have been ready to offer assistance/money.

I may not know whether the boy learnt some lessons from this after I had passed and changed his approach but I hope he did because if he didn’t am afraid he may have gone home with an empty profoma.

Hope you learn some lesson from this.

Avoid stereotyping at all cost. You may never know where your salvation comes from.

Condom with teeth: The worst case scenario

When news of the invention in South Africa of a condom with teeth hit the airwaves, I received it with mixed feelings of great caution and approval.

Having been informed that the condom was is intended to curb incidences of rape that is apparently becoming very common among African states, I approved of the invention knowing that it would go along way in scaring away rapists from committing the vice that continues to tear apart the very fabric of the human society.

Rape by any other name is rape and it is demonic. It is very unfortunate that we are observing an increasing trend of this great vice across our continent. Whereas I may not be in a position to explain why a man or woman takes to raping of a person of the opposite gender, I do believe it is sort of a psychological problem that an individual can be successfully weaned out of through guidance and counseling.

I do not wish to be construed as being lenient with rapists but I want to assert that whereas corporal punishment (castration included) may suffice when it comes to disciplining rapists, it does very little to eradicate the vice. Just like homicide or murder as we would ordinarily call it, death penalty has not stop murders from committing murder.

I think we need to employ a multifaceted approach towards dealing with the perpetrators of this heinous act of sin which should incorporate identification, apprehension, punishment, guidance and counseling, reconciliation, integration back into society, monitoring and character rehabilitation through mentorship programs.

I do believe that such an integrated approach in dealing with the vice may bear more fruits than would be born of a single dose approach of corporal punishment or condemnation.

You may stop and ask yourself, who cares what happens to the convicted rapist after he/she finishes serving his/her jail term? Definitely, he/she will be released back into the human society. But what guarantee do we have that he/she has changed his/her evil ways? What guarantee do we have that he/she will be accepted back into his/her community? How do we deal with the impact of their release from jail on the life of the innocent victim(s)?
All these questions and others that may have not crossed my mind now may only be addressed effectively by an integrated approach as I have suggested here above.

Coming back to my initial reaction, thinking of our society (evil/crazy members of it included) I equally received the news of the invention with great caution. Human beings have been known to derive pleasure or psychological gratification from doing some of the weirdest of things in the planet Earth. A case in point is the recent story about the serial killer who confessed to having killed 17 people (mostly women) largely for psychological gratification. This invention may not be an exception either once it is approved and it hits the market stores.

Now let us look at some of the worst case scenarios that this invention is likely to set forth.

It is not unusual for couples to disagree in their day to life but some people are crazy may take the disagreement too far depending on how grave their judgment rates it.

An irate wife may intentionally lure her husband into the "teethed condom" trap after a disagreement as away of teaching him a lesson. Come to think of it...sounds really out of this planet but it is a possibility.

An enraged girlfriend may wear the dreaded condom without the knowledge of her boyfriend and seduce him into making love - which apparently am told is the best way couples release the stress caused by disagreements among them. The unsuspecting boyfriend will surely go ahead and succumb to her allure and there in lies the trap. Her intention just like in the case of the irate wife would be that of punishing an annoying partner, in this case boyfriend.

Aah! What a pity?

There are numerous of such worst case scenarios that one may think of but due to societal norms I would restrict my argument to the two scenarios here above.

Scary, is it?

The condom with teeth is a good invention but I would advice sobriety and sanity among us and mostly the female folk as we move closer to embracing the new invention. Let it be strictly for rapists.

A Yes or No win in the forthcoming referendum will be of a very small margin

Being a passive political animal, I have the rare advantage of a fence sitter which means I can watch both sides take on each other and discern the strengths and weakness of each side. This is the situation I find myself in with regards to the NO and YES camps in the ongoing constitutional debate and/or campaigns.

From my point of view neither side has a clear cut advantage over the other considering that they both agree that the document is good but may need some amendments to make it better. The only point they differ is that of when the amendments should be made. The NO camp wants the amendments before the referendum whereas the YES camp wants the amendments after the referendum.

The NO camp argues that once the proposed document is passed and adopted as the constitution of the land, amending it would be such a daunting task almost close to impossible. Whereas the YES camp argues that Kenyans have spent a lot of time and money in search of a new constitution and besides it may not be possible to get a 100% acceptable constitution in one go.

Both sides have very valid arguments but one thing is clear, amending the document after or before the referendum is surely going to cost us.

After the referendum, passing such amendments may be very difficult that they actually may never get to pass. For instance, amending clauses in chapter four of the proposed new constitution containing the bill of rights will require a referendum to be conducted. This may prove very tricky considering political campaigns will most likely be involved and such amendments may never get to see the light of day.

Before the referendum, opening the document to amendments will be like opening a Pandora's box. It will give room to the proponents of all the 100 plus amendments that failed to go through in parliament during the debate and vote on the proposed draft constitution which saw it being passed as it is, to agitate for their inclusion. This scenario has the potentiality of dragging the constitutional making process for the longest time.

You can agree with me that Kenyans are caught up in a catch twenty two situation. I know certain politicians and some religious leaders (earthly possessed/obsessed) may dismiss this as a fallacy but when they retire back to the comfort of their warm beds and allow reasoning to prevail, then your guess is surely as good as mine.

This leads me into confirming that the referendum will bring forth a win. A win either for the YES camp or NO camp. Only that the win will be of a very narrow margin.

What informs my conclusion on the results of the referendum?

It is no secret that Kenyans have looked for a new constitution for a very long time and that the proposed new constitution is so far the closest they've come to getting the new constitution they've been looking for all this while.

It is also a public secret that politically a majority of Kenyans are psychologically programmed to oppose. Opposing things has been somewhat turned into a fad and politicians have more than once used the "opposing design" to know and gauge themselves. This psychological programming may be attributed to the long duration most Kenyans have spent opposing their governments hoping to one day bring real change which has been elusive all this time.

In light of these two scenarios, you can deduce that whereas most Kenyans have yearned for a new constitution for along time most Kenyans too are prone to opposing "government projects." The catch twenty two situation not withstanding, this leaves the result of the forthcoming constitutional referendum at the behest of how convincing either camp delivers its package to the public. And surprisingly neither side has so far come out more convincing than the other. I would give them 54-56, in either case.

One may argue that Kenyans have read and are reading the proposed new constitution thus will make informed decision come referendum time. I say wait minute. I mean lets face it, a majority of Kenyans live in the rural areas where literacy level is wanting. Besides, the poor reading culture among Kenyans is now an open secret not with recent media reports indicating a sorry state of affair concerning our reading culture. Trust me that by referendum time very few Kenyans will have read the entire document and understood it.

Now back to my fence sitting business. The most important life skill that Asaka snr. (my dad) ever taught me was that, for life to go on decisions have to be made. Whether they will be reevaluated along the way or not is immaterial. A decision has to be made so that people can move on.

And though I started by saying that am like a fence sitter, I would wish to assure readers of this article and all peace loving Kenyans that I have made a decision and that, God willing, come 4th August 2010 I will vote in the referendum.

Communication Commision of Kenya's directive is a welcome move

The rate at which conning through the use of mobile phones is taking root in Kenya is alarming.

Mobile phone conmen use different strategies to go about their criminal acts. Some of them hoodwink their victims into making down payments by falsely assuring the unsuspecting victims of huge financial gains. Others use threats, as dire as death, to milk money out of their unsuspecting victims. Sad enough, innocent lives have been lost in the recent past as a result of this conning fiasco.

Against the foregoing backdrop, Communication Commission of Kenya’s (CCK) directive that all mobile phone subscribers formally register their SIM-cards/lines is such a welcome move. Whereas the process may be slightly cumbersome considering one has to stand in sometimes very long queues to get their lines registered, all peace loving Kenyans will agree with me that it is worth the trouble.

Registration of lines will see one surrendering such information as national identification number, address (both postal and physical) and biographical information; mainly their full names and date of birth. This will make it very easy to identify subscribers and most importantly enable police to track down criminals and/or stalkers.

Sure thing, this strategy will work miracles. But I have got one concern that I feel should be addressed to enhance the efficacy of the strategy with specific regards to the mobile phone associated crimes in this country.

My concern is to do with phone theft and its implications. Just like in a case where criminals hijack a car and use it in robbery then abandon it, phone thieves are likely to get into the business of stealing phones then using them to terrorize unsuspecting victims. But unlike the hijacked car which may be recovered without implicating the owner, the phone thieves will most definitely throw the SIM-card away after committing a crime with it making it very difficult to trace them thereby putting the real owner (who is not a criminal) of the SIM-card at risk of being arrested for a crime they didn’t commit.

However, in my opinion this can be effectively addressed by passing a special mobile phone subscriber protection law(s) that allow mobile phone subscribers to report cases of lost SIM-cards to the police immediately they occur. This will ensure the genuine owner of the lost SIM-card is exonerated from any charges should their SIM-cards be used in criminal transactions.

Community policing program will come in handy here. And the program’s capacity will need to be enhanced to incorporate updated ways of combating this emerging form of crime so that its members can be better placed to combat such cases, which - unfortunately - are likely to be rampant once the CCK directive takes full effect.

Ghana; Africa's numero une!

On 6th March 1957, Ghana became the first sub Saharan African country to gain independence from British colonial rulers. This in effect made it the first African commonwealth nation to attain self rule/governance.

Africa is at the moment hosting her first football World cup event in South Africa. In this tournament Ghana has proved that the first-bug is sort of endemic to her.

She is the first African nation in the tournament - being held for the first time on African soil - to register a win when they beat Serbia, 1:0 in their group D matches.

The first-bug did not leave Ghana just yet, when she became the first African nation in the tournament to momentarily lead a group (group D) till when Germany displaced them to second place.

The first-bug still clinging on Ghana's skin, Ghana yesterday became the first African team to qualify to the knock out stage (round of 16) of the tournament.

You think that's it? No.

According to preliminary findings of a report card on the UN Millennium Development Goals by the Overseas Development Institute - A UK based think tank - Ghana tops the list of 10 countries that have managed to slash their number of hungry citizens by a huge margin. Ghana has cut the number of malnourished people by 75% between 1990 and 2004.

Ghana is truly a democracy worth emulating.

Is sobriety too high a standard for our leaders to achieve?

When leaders make speeches or utterances that do nothing but breed bad blood between Kenyans, and then when they are called to account some leaders still have the audacity to defend them, then you surely know we have a big problem as a country.

Is it not possible for our leaders - both political and religious - to go about their referendum campaigns without making utterances that do little to inform but misinform and pit Kenyan communities against each other?

I believe when you got an idea/opinion to pass across, you don't have to make your case look so grave to win attention. Whereas such a move may win you some attention, the ultimate effect - more so when making your case grave entails maligning other entities - will surely be as disastrous as you can imagine.

Leaders who employ this kind of strategy are a total disgrace to us as Kenyans and at the least we need them to sober up.