When the Kenya Truth, Justice and Reconciliation (TJRC) released its reports in 2013, I was surprised that my country had committed atrocities to its own people at various times in our short history since independence. The worst was the Wagalla Massacre that claimed over 5,000 lives and wounded thousands. These blind spots in our history have been a major cause of agony among many marginalized people.
Stories of women and men who are unable to have children because of what the military did to them abound in our society. At the release of the reports, I was shocked that victims just wanted the Kenyan government to acknowledge wrongdoing and apologize. Having lived through a post-election violence in 2007, which claimed the lives of at least 1,500 people, I felt that an apology was insufficient. Reading Carolyn Yoder’s book on Trauma Healing has enabled me to understand that trauma healing is a unique process to every individual or community and that in order for healing to occur, other support systems, including government apology, are needed.
Yoder’s book has widened my understanding of the subject of trauma healing. I have learned about the close link between violence and trauma, and how it relates to some of the events I have experienced in Kenya. For instance, it was widely claimed that part of the reason Kenyans fought against each other in 2007 and 2008 was that of unaddressed injustices that have traumatized some communities since independence. Therefore, unresolved trauma is dangerous because at some point traumatized people can resort to revenge or to other violent means so as to give themselves a sense of ‘closure.’
Yoder’s discussion of the nexus between biology and trauma challenges my assumptions that trauma is just a social construct. Despite her explanation, I still grapple with questions such as whether trauma can be dealt with the same way people deal with depression or under what circumstances can a community builder recommend medical attention for trauma cases as opposed to a social process such a Transformative Community Conferencing or Restorative Justice.
Reading Yoder’s explanation about secondary trauma has enabled me to reflect on my experience as a teacher and education counselor in Nairobi. Most of my students and their parents had fled wars in their respective countries. Even though some of these children had not directly experienced the wars their parents fled from, their perspective about life was majorly shaped by their parents’ experience of war. The narratives parents passed down to children affected them immensely. Unfortunately, neither I nor any of my teachers really understood the concept of trauma especially, one associated with consequences of war. Such children need specially trained teachers to heal.
Traumatic events shatter the world as we know it and shape victims’ future world. For instance, with increased terrorist attacks and constant electoral violence, people in my community (and perhaps in all communities) constantly worry about their security. Every election year, people vote for leaders from their community because they assume that such leaders better understand people’s trauma, and therefore will help them heal. But the reality is that only one person can be a president. So, communities that do not get the presidency are always scared.
Tawia’s story captures the challenges young video games entrepreneurs face in Africa as they work with new technologies. Due to low access to broadband internet, lack of well-developed technology infrastructure, and uninformed market, the video games industry took a long time to develop. Often, pioneers like Wesley Kirinya and Tawia could not raise enough funding for their projects. Despite the abundance of talent and enthusiastic young people, governments did not prioritize this creative industry. Instead, countries like Kenya supported other crafts such as carpentry or masonry while ignoring the video industry.
The establishment of iHub in Nairobi and other hubs across Africa has allowed developers to collaborate and have access to human and financial capital needed in the development of video games. Kenya’s Vison 2030 includes the construction of Technology cities – Silicon Savannah, Tetu City, and Konza City – that will support young entrepreneurs. These cities will provide larger platforms for local and international developers to collaborate as video game development involves an amalgamation of specialties such as computer programming, design, and creative writing among others.
Broadband internet and wide access to smartphones has ignited an interest in video games and increased its demand in major cities in Africa. For instance, in Nairobi some cyber cafes specialize in video games playing. Furthermore, universities are running competitions that encourage students to develop video games, and the Kenyan government initiative to provide primary school pupils with iPad gives a platform for distributing educational video games. In short, this is a great industry with rising potential for both developers and entrepreneurs.
Tawia’s book reads like a motivational book and a guide post for those interested in developing video games in Africa. He has given a map of his journey from a boy reading comic books, creating them, and developing video games based on some of those books. Some of the challenges he faced such as lack of access to high performance computers can now be addressed in many ways. But the greater challenge – gaining funding – is still prevalent. Although this is not unique to Africa, it is well pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa where the idea of Venture Capitalism is in its infancy.
Another challenge Tawia has highlighted is the cultural orientation of most consumers in Africa. Most people are used to, and to some extent prefer western super heroes. So, young companies interested in African culture must go an extra mile to persuade consumers and investors on the significance of developing African heroes.
It seems that Tawia learned a lot from attending local and international video game developer’s conferences where he met experienced people in the industry who mentored him. But as he noted, most of these conferences are by invitation only, thus locking out many interested young people. Governments in Africa or institutions of higher learning can solve this challenge through organizing their own conferences to enable young entrepreneurs to meet investors, and learn new skills.
Tawia’s success story encourages young entrepreneurs to actionalize their ideas. Do not wait for a perfect time. Just go out and do it!
Peace means different things to different people, but most assume that preventing violence or escalation of a conflict leads to sustainable peace. They also assume that peacebuilding efforts will address the root causes of conflicts, build or rebuild social institutions and set up effective governance structures, and institute the rule of law. But what happens when various actors in a country are not willing to stop violence or resolve conflicts because war and violence serves their economic, political and psychological functions? Do we kowtow their line and join the plunder? Or do we heighten our calls for negative peace (absence of violence)?
David Keen’s 2012 book, Useful Enemies: When Waging War is more Important than Winning them, responds to these questions and offers a critique of liberal peace, which assumes that people in a country have an interest in peace since they can obtain material and non-material well-being only during peace. He shows that ‘winning hearts and minds’ approach to peacebuilding has not yielded considerable success. In fact, it is the very process of liberal peacebuilding – political and economic liberalization – that often generate destabilizing consequences in conflict torn countries, hindering the attainment of peace. Thus, prompting the question: How can we move beyond peacebuilding activities that exacerbate violence?
Keen challenges us to reconceptualize our approaches to peacebuilding to devote substantial time to conflict analysis. We should ask tough questions such as who has vested interests in the continuation of the conflict? Who is gaining politically or economically? Clearly, winning a war or reconciling a country may not be in the interest of some actors – they will try all means to block a sustainable solution. Keen challenges peacebuilders to reconsider their understanding of conflict and their current peacebuilding strategies. Often peacebuilders succumb to the “planning trap”. They base their activities on wrong assumptions, informed by poor analysis, and do not see the big picture that winning is not what war is always about. Most problems in peacebuilding are caused by this short-sightedness on the part of peacebuilders. For instance, peacebuilders have in the past blamed rebels for causing violence but ignored their grievances or the greed within the counter insurgence forces and the role of corrupt governments. History is replete with examples where government soldiers have forged a mutually beneficial system with the rebels making war a profitable venture.
Failures in societies and governments where corruption and greed sabotages peacebuilding efforts are not an accident, they are rather a reflection of powerful structural factors that are not easy to transform. You cannot transform these societies by winning their hearts and minds. Keen disagrees with peacebuilders who attribute modern conflicts to the breakdown of political, economic and social order. Sometimes the reverse is true, that is, governments, rebels, and peacebuilders have contributed to the breakdown of economic, political, and social institutions of a country. Hence, it is not enough for peacebuilders to have good intentions for rebuilding these ‘failed’ societies as good intentions alone cannot bring sustainable peace.
“Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.” Benazir Bhutto
Does listening to an audiobook give the same satisfaction or intellectual fulfillment as reading the book? I grappled with this question a couple of months ago when I bought my first audiobook. Having spent most of my life reading books as a student, teacher, and publishing editor, it never occurred to me that I can consume books in any other way other than reading. So, listening to my first audiobook, Einstein: His Life and Universe, felt like cheating. But given that I listened to most of these books while doing other things like working out at the gym or jogging, I cared less until last week when I listened to the South African comedian, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.
Trevor Noah’s story, narrated by himself, pierced my ears and went straight to my heart through my brain. It walked me down the memory lane to my boyhood when I could sit by my grandma, and drink from her cup of stories. I had an insatiable appetite for stories, and she had acres of them, and a knack for narration. I wallowed in these stories and developed a passion for literature. Unfortunately, going through a system of education that privileges written literature over oral literature compelled me to perfect the art of reading as a primary means of learning, and getting new information. In fact, apart from a few lessons in oral literature, most students in Kenyan schools have no access to forums or platforms for learning how to narrate stories.
Listening to Trevor Noah’s book reminded me of the importance of storytelling as a means of learning. Trevor gives an account of his life and his family during and after apartheid in South Africa in a way that only he could tell – he relives his life through the narration. A son of a Swiss-German father and an Xhosa mother, Trevor was born at a time interracial marriages were banned in South Africa. As a result, he was not allowed to meet his father in the open. He describes his life as a colored child in a country that considered his existence illegal.
As a polyglot, he can demonstrate how he navigated the racial and tribal conundrum in South Africa in a manner that connects you to the contexts he describes. His rhythm, pitch, intonation, and voice enriches the listeners experience without necessarily curbing your imagination. This type of narration is significant for the story as it captures aspects of a text that even a well-seasoned reader, unfamiliar with the context of the text will likely miss. For example, he mimics his bullies in their languages. Furthermore, his occasional adaption of South African English accent makes the narration lively and authentic.
Audiobooks make multitasking possible and straightforward. They allow people who are usually busy with activities that demand visual sense or those traveling – driving or riding in public transportation – to enjoy books. With noise-canceling headphones, one can listen to books even in public and noisy places. Those doing house chores or working out may find it convenient to listen to books, something that is nearly impossible with print books.
Audiobooks are also convenient for children and adults interested in learning how to pronounce words in English (or any other language). The fear that listening to books can lead to shallow understanding of a story are alleviated by an article by Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, who argues that listening to an audiobook is precisely like reading print, except that the latter requires decoding, which is basically figuring out words from print. Moreover, experiments by various scholars have shown high correlations of scores on listening and reading comprehension tests in adults.
Authors and publishers in Kenya should embrace audiobooks as it increases distribution of their works. With the continued advancement in technology and the increasing governmental interest in integrating technology in the school curriculum, authors and publishers who invest in audio books are bound to reap huge rewards. The truth is that the reading public is continuously changing with the advances in technology.
