The allegory of the hornbill

When I was young in primary I read a story about a noisy hornbill and the trouble he brought about to the whole forest. The noisy hornbill kept quacking through the forest. The forest was indifferent to its tirade. One lady bird however was cautious and skeptic of the wanton indifference in the forest. It warned that the noisy hornbill will eventually bring trouble to the whole forest and that the forest ought to check his excess of noise. The whole forest at the height of indifference opted to stay indifferent to the noise of the hornbill and the counsel of the lady bird. Every one simply minded his own skin. Then one day a hunter heard a loud hornbill in the forest and followed his incessant noise. He came to the clearing where the hornbill was and shot it off the tree. It fell where there were mushrooms and the hunter thought he should take the mushroom as well for eating with the hornbill. To his enthusiasm he found a snail next to the mushroom and took it as well to make good soup. He cut the banana next to them and lianas to tie and package his hunt. Thus much to the warning of the ladybird all the neighbors of the noisy hornbill did meet their end because of the noisy hornbill and their indifference to its excess.

The allegory finds relevance when put in retrospect to African colonization and more specifically the story of the Nile.  Colonization then and now is a process it starts off like cancerous cells and if unchecked spreads to the whole and kills the body and soul ad infinitum. Not so long ago euro imperialists colonized India and wanted to go there more often. They had to strenuously go round a forest continent impenetrable and ancient. The distance was painstaking and making it was a matter of probability. When the managed to put Egypt under their influence and construct a canal to ease access of Indian subcontinent. It proved a convenient and shorter way to access their investment abroad. However they later realized the invaluable River Nile and saw it fit to control Egypt and harness the Nile. The nile was subject to control and the had to expand territories down south to its source to ensure monopoly. They descended south gobbling territories I their wake. At the source they got to the more illustrious lake that they named after their queen maybe due to it benevolence and sustenance of territories all round it. So they occupied all land around this great lake. Then there came the fact that actually besides the water and the life, flora and fauna there was resources minerals and labor that was abundant and unpaid. And what started as a shortcut to India ended up as colonization of East Africa just like the proverbial hornbill hunter. The indifference of the neighbors to the takeover of one of them eventually brought the demise of all of them as a whole.

And that’s exactly what is happening in Africa toady! The Euro American alliance has brought out it military birds for display in Libya for self centered reasons. They let other despots like the Syrian and Bahrain administration slaughter protesters and are too quick to support, intervene and arm dissidents of Benghazi. The sheer might resources and media invested in the Odyssey campaign tells of the benefits they intend to assume once their puppet NTC gains undemocratic power over Tripoli. My point in alluding to the allegory of the hornbill is in call for action from AU. The domicile AU and other African states on the matter is appalling. We are showing utter indifference to the crisis of Tripoli like the hornbill’s neighbors and that will be our greatest undoing. What this crisis might end up being is a gradual re-colonization of the motherland if left unchecked. They already own our economies and we are indebted to them to the bone. Now they are brazenly administering territory on the motherland? Now they brazenly control the Somali coast in our own interest? Now they have brought us military help against El Bashir and are at the heart of oil producing Abyiei. And we know that the whole of Africa is their dumb vassal and satellite states. Soon all the bullshit about sovereignty and democracy they have been tutoring ass will be shoved aside ‘in our own interest’. Their philosophies will be redefined and re-colonization will be dubbed our best solution from ourselves. As we continue to play indifferent the hunter is bombing down Libya and we are the neighbors that will go down with it.

Africa, your silence is deafening.

African solutions lie within.

One of the greatest threats to Africa presently is the threat of food insecurity. Largely accredited to worsening climatic situation and government impotence and which has turned the basket of the world into a beggar of aid.

In my take I consider the great inability of Africa to feed its populations to a great extent is because of the great shift to cash crop farming and neglect of food production to a few. Countries as fertile as Kenya have to import maze in excess to feed its population which should not be the case.

The food system is set out that there are a few designated maize farmers especially in the plush Kitale and Trans Nzoia district who virtually feed the whole nation. They are supposed to cultivate and deliver maize to the silos which are then stored too feed the nation annually. Then there are bulk grain dealers who import maize and store them and later sell to the government and companies for the nation to be fed.

This system has been largely accepted and unquestioned until recently with constant food shortages and skyrocketing inflation. Accusations of lack of capacity and hoarding have been changed and this only served to worsen the situation when the price practically skyrocketed to a record high of 0ver a hundred shillings for two kilograms of maize floor in the rural area.

Like I said at the start African solutions can only come from within. I think the food crisis gives a chance to review the food production process. Whereas we need the government to do its worked and feed its population we must start taking the true responsibility for feeding themselves. We cannot abandon the duty to feed ourselves to the government or private farmers and commercial grain handlers.

The most important step to ensure food security is thus the revitalization of subsistence farming! In as much as all we hear is that we need government intervention or aid, the truth is that to ensure food security we must be able to feed ourselves as individuals.

Subsistence farming which is dying to the more lucrative and attractive commercial farming is the key to feeding our population as all the proletariat wants is to eat and if he can feed himself then there is food security.

Most issues arising in the crisis can be solved by this imperatively easy way. The issue of storage for large grain handlers and the complaint that they lack the capacity will not be witnessed in small scale subsistence farming. The unscrupulous hoarding will neither be the case nor the transport cost passed on to the consumer.

All we need is for government to devolve mini silos to small villages and encourage the ancient art of building small scale storages. The government should cut cost and give incentives to small scale millers especially posho-millers or run posho mills in local centers or towns where they can be accessed easily and cheaply. The government should employ and deport extension officers and make agriculture more robust in villages and rural towns where the population can be encouraged to use every scrap of land at their disposal to grow food and feed Africa. Then most importantly the governments must cease leasing our land to other countries to grow their own subsistence food here we do not eat royalties or the tax they levy on the Global powers and multinational corporations!

The civil society and good will ambassadors should push for a national and continental drive to feed yourself which will encourage subsistence farming. The school curriculum must stop bedeviling small scale farming as insignificant economic activity that must be discarded for commercial farming for the right philosophy to be passed to the young generations

We do not disqualify the commercial dealers as they are an important chain in the food security complex. They will come in hand for the transfer of food to less fertile areas and town who cannot feed themselves. Areas that are agriculturally challenged will be serviced by these commercial entries and the government. And looking at the whole continent especially sub Sahara such areas are minimal. The continent then will be able to feed its people.

And the question arises, what if we all grow food? Then this underscores my lifelong theses that African solutions are within. We will have the greatest opportunity to rediscover barter, exchanging value for value and not value for paper!

The NATO well in the Arab Springs

It is deplorable for the global politics to take the turn it is taking and insulting to Africans who honor their freedom struggles from colonization. The NATO action in Libya is despicable colonist and bullish of the West. We have accepted their iron fist control on our economy and subliminal control of our polities but they are overdoing it and have taken enough for the owner t notice.

While the West media continues to sell the democratic process in Libya where NATO flies fighter jets over Tripoli in the daylight bombing Libya TV, the rest of us do not buy it. In as much as it is strategic to bomb propaganda cells like Libya TV to win a psychological war it is irresponsible and NATOs Achilles hill to destroy opinion of whoever voices it. The innocent journalists are not ruling so why bomb them when they are not holding any arms against you.

We are made to believe that the media in Libya is spreading bigotry but so are the West media. Libya is NATO drilled well in the Arab springs! It is a west aided takeover by the rebels and not a revolution as witnessed in other Arab neighbors.

We have seen great disparities in the revolutions and the CIA doctored pseudo revolution in Libya which stinks more of a western take over than freedom for Libyan free people.

NATO will win the war but it will lose the stupefaction it exercises over African people. They will expose their vested interest and attract more vengeance that it attracts in the Middle East

I call upon the African Union to stand up and be counted. They come to the war claiming Kaddafi is killing Libyans what about their own shelling of Tripoli.

Would we rather Americans, Britain and France kill Libyans?

The AU must refuse to recognize the West supported rebel government unless the legal and truly democratic diplomatic efforts are taken to solve the Libyan impasse.

Let change in Libya come from within! Let African voices rise against colonization!