Last week, over 600,000 Korean students sat an exam that seemingly determines their destiny in life. To most of them, the college entry exam is also a postern to their critical goal of entering Seoul National University, Korea University or Yonsei University commonly christened as SKY. And they know quite well, that credentials from the “sky” comfortably land graduates plum jobs with big companies or the government. The three institutions are considered the academic cream of Korea.

There is nothing wrong with education that assures one a stable, happy future; after all, it is every parent’s dream to see their children prosper in all aspects. However, observers have termed the College Scholastic Ability Test or CSAT in Korea as either a national obsession or radically esteemed.

On the day of the nine hour exam, the country literally changes. All flight landings and take-offs at the airports are put on hold while the arriving international aircrafts are ordered to circle at altitudes above 10,000 feet for some while. Motorists are also asked to lower their speed and to avoid honking near the test locations during the listening comprehension assessment. In fact, traffic is usually banned from within 200 meters of the test centers until the exam is over.

At the periphery, parents, friends and school juniors of test-takers gather to wish their loved ones success. Some parents would be praying outside the exam centers. In the recent past a mother reportedly vowed to bow 3,000 times, kneeling down with her forehead touching a red cushion perhaps to invoke luck to her beloved son. Most schools will also give a day off to students who are not sitting the exam.

But beyond the facade lies fundamental question that many parents and educationists raise regarding the education system in Korea. Those who are loud enough like a civic group that showed up last week at Seoul Finance Center, have displayed their dissatisfaction of the college admission exams by calling for its immediate ban. The activists argue that competition-oriented education system deny children apt life and dignity.

Early this week, in a discussion with a group of doctor course students from department of education, Korean parents among us were concerned, and seriously so. At the end of the weighty discourse there was a supposition that the problem with education in Korea could be what the society perceives as the goal of schooling. That unless the culture fundamentally defines: from whom, through whom, and to whom educational activities are carried out there will always be unmet desires.

If the beginning point is in the goal of education, then the fascination over the college entrance exam and its preferred goal could be guesstimated. There being no neutrality in education, the society has a way it perceives education and a graduate for that matter. If for instance, to the society or to the government, a university graduate is perceived as a cog in an economic structure, and that SKY institutions produces the best of cogs, then therein lays the misfortune. The sad reality is that to an individual, a family or to the nation, economic success has become the deity of the day.

Though there is nothing wrong with economic growth, commodification of students’ desires, future and dreams is tantamount to radical economic rationalism whose result is pressure, suicides, and an elongated dissatisfaction. On Friday last week, a local newspaper carried three articles regarding the college admission exam. Among the three, one was about a young student who took away his life just before the exam begun. Of course there are many other factors that make Korean education system pressurizing to students and addressing them is of paramount urgency.

To see the purpose of education solely as informing rather than forming, is a misplaced view as far as education continue to shape people’s desires and worldviews. This is why Korean society needs to rethink its educational structure and see education as a process of nurturing a holistic being that celebrates whole of life and human relationships with honor.

And long as education remains deeply revered in Korean ethos, only an authentic definition of educational goal is perhaps what will quench what C.S. Lewis called the inconsolable longing in human beings.

By Millicent Omollo and B. Kamary, Edited version Published in The Seoul Times – Nov. 3, 2011

Puffing off the smoke

Sitting at a roof balcony as I wait for my next lecture to begin, one by one they streamed in, each pulling out a cigarette. Before I knew it I was seated amongst teens – all puffing off streams of smoke into the otherwise blue skies. I have seen similar scenes before, but today’s scenario sends my mind into a wonderland; yes, I simply wondered why.

Don’t mistake me, I have nothing to do with smokers yet I am always irked by smoking itself. Would it be fair to say I detest smoking but not smokers? Yes, I love smokers but hate smoking and I am yet to know why smoking is such an attractive addiction particularly to teens. But as they say, opinion is free and facts sacred. My sentiments on the subjects are likewise freely given and freely to be taken.  Back home in Africa where I was born and raised, a cigarette advert comes along with quite a stern warning: “harmful to your health!” Who doesn’t know that? I have a friend, a medical doctor but a chain smoker, who spares no chance to warn his sons against smoking. “You better do as I say and not as I do,” he would often rumble.

Hey, did you know they now say cancer is a deadlier than HiV/Aids? I think this is where most of us would pause to care. Possibly pharmaceutical companies are better ready themselves to fund a scientist who will be genius enough to discover cure for cancer. And at rate we are going, we might not have to do a population count on.

Say you started puffing at 16. At 19, it should be dawning on you that a good early retirement plan with medical insurance is a near necessity. Well, before altering the topic, I’m told, and you can confirm this from the Smoking-Facts.Net, each day 3,000 children smoke their first cigarette so at least three million adolescents are smokers today. Again, almost all beginners try before high school graduation.

By the way, 20 percent of American teens smoke cigarettes with roughly six million of them doing it despite the knowledge that it is addictive and leads to ailment. Scary though, is that of 3,000 teens who start smoking today, nearly 1,000 will eventually die as a result from smoking. Oh, and the Surgeon’s General, says that teenagers who smoke were three times more likely to use alcohol, eight times are likely to smoke marijuana and 22 times more likely to use Cocaine. At that point I say, oops!

Cosmetics and the pursuit of satisfaction

The other afternoon, I meet this lady in the lecture room. For some reason, I was sure she had either sewn up her upper eyelids or put a stick to create some sort of illusion. To be fair, she looked beautiful. But again the thought of procedures involved in sewing up thrashed my imagination faculty into a spin.

Why would I have my eyelid sewn up? Never mind, but both the smoking and the eyelid enhancement has quite a big following in the contemporary cultures.

For a woman, beauty is somewhat a priority in many cultures.  In the days we live in, they would go extra mile to reach their satisfaction but like Dalai Lama, I wonder when human being will ever be satisfied. Asked what surprised him most about humanity, the Dalai Lama said, “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” Should this be true, then as King Solomon of the ancient Hebrew remarked, it could be all ‘useless… like chasing the wind.’

Well, I do know of friends who would stop at nothing for a better outlook. Hip replacement, breast enlargement, Botox, plastic surgery so far the trademark of “the way to beauty.”  It is believed that three quarters of these is practiced by women primarily for self-gratification or other reasons best known to them.

My coming to East Asia, Korea to be specific, cosmetics industry and demand for cosmetic surgery have never stopped startling. I bet for every five shops in a youth dominated street, two are cosmetic shops! Could this be telling about a culture’s perspective on beauty?

Cosmetic surgery in Africa is still very much minimum, in most parts, it is practically none existent. There are reasons for that. Surgery for aesthetic goal is pretty costly. In Africa too, there are more pressing challenges to focus on than things perceived as pursuit for leisure and pleasure.  But this doesn’t mean a Kenyan girl, for instance, cannot undergo the scalpel procedure. Some do, and no doubt the desire for it exist as well. A few are known to wanting a lighter skin pigment and would do some ‘bleaching’. The cases remain few and the demand is minimal compared to Korea where beautifying surgery is more of personal preference than medical.

One thing that seems sure is that demand for cosmetic surgery comes with economic development. It could be embedded on culture, but largely human beings seem to be driven up in a certain satisfaction ladder. You probably guessed right that Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” can be a reality.

Maslow developed a visual aid in form of a pyramid to explain his theory depicting the levels of human needs, psychological and physical. He argued that when a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid he reaches self-actualization but first he has to satisfy his basic needs or physiological needs; food, water and sex.

Did I mention that men too are joining in cosmetics arena like never before? I doubt whether this is solely an East Asian thing. I used to think men had nearly similar worries worldwide but, boy, I am wrong. I have seen on countless occasions Korean young men somewhat apprehended about their hair and face. Some carry hand bags not so different from ladies’ and in there are a pack of makeup and face powder. I see it so often right under my nose in lecture rooms.

Back home, African men would worry more about their dress code than their hair. One’s dressing code to an extent dictates one’s friends, who they date, and the kind of group they flock together. If you met a typical African man applying make-up on his face, you’ll probably have entered his hideout – possibly in the lavatory!

Millicent Omollo serves as Staff Writer for The Seoul Times. She majoredin Physical and Health Education at Kenyatta University, Kenya but currently undertaking studies at ChungAng University, Seoul. She can be contacted at milaey@yahoo.com

Benson Kamary is a freelance journalist and a Ph.D. candidate at Kosin University. He can be reached at bkamary@yahoo.com

Prior to the 2010 G20 Seoul Summit, I was privileged to be a delegate of the Y-20 Summit, a university students’ version of the larger G-20. In one of my submissions as a representative of Africa, I robustly raised the issue of security in the Horn of Africa. The submission was taken rather reluctantly by fellow ‘world leaders’ as many of them were acutely engrossed in the economic recovery strategies following a global economic crisis. In overall though, the young minds adequately deliberated terrorism as a key global concern.

The issue of insecurity and instability in the Horn of Africa, Somalia in particular, remains sensitive, complex and its impact real. It is a problem that can no longer be wished away neither can it be approached with panic. Kenya, arguably Somalia’s most significant neighbor, is currently in an offensive military action against Alshabaab, a militia group inside Somalia and often linked to al-Qaida. Apparently, a question of whether or not the Kenya’s military action within Somalia is justified has floated across local and international media channels. By all means, that is a genuine query to ask.

Some analysts have been quick to point out that Kenya has had interest, economic or political, to invade Somali with instances of her high alerts issued between 2006 and 2010. The recent incursion is seen, therefore, as an execution of the said interest rather than a response to the recent tourists’ abductions by what Kenya authorities believe was conducted by the Alshabaab. This school of thought however raises a question; as of what interest would Kenya invade Somalia except for when her sovereignty stand threatened?

Another view submits that the head of Alshabaab is right in Nairobi while its tail wagging in the shrubs of Somalia. They argue that Kenya’s internal security structures have been lax for too long and subsequently failing to intercept the movement of Alshabaab agents and their sympathizers into Eastleigh, Nairobi. Eastleigh is a suburb within the Kenyan capital often referred to as “Little Mogadishu” due to the fact that the area is largely populated by people of the Somali origin or immigrants from Somalia. According to some residents, security analysts, and diplomats, Eastleigh was initially a paradise that attracted small and middle size investments but now the sprawling neighborhood is described as a hub of financing and recruiting Somali fundamentalists. They have a point but there is so much a country can stomach in. This view however suggests that Kenya’s first grand military assault since independence may be misplaced.

Nevertheless, perhaps Kenyans and friends of Kenyans including the people of Somalia who have borne the brunt of Alshabaab militia will appreciate the ongoing “Defend the Nation” operation by the Kenya military. Not surprising, a recent statement by the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government President, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, opposing Kenya’s military action in Somalia was met with regional protests including in his own homeland. That was quite telling for a government leader whose operations across the country are hugely limited by the Alshabaab and similar armed rebels. It will be hard to predict how Kenya and allies will react to the Somali President’s pronouncement. What is obvious though, as many observers have commented, is that this development puts Kenya in an awkward position.

In her quest for stability in the region, Kenya has carried the heaviest consequential burden of the Somalia’s instability. A few months ago, a large exodus of Somali refugees fleeing hunger ended up in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya adding the numbers to over 380,000 exiles. Dadaab is the largest refugee camp in the world and the numbers therein must be swelling with the ongoing military offensive.

Further, the recent abductions of foreign tourists within the Kenyan soil and which became a trigger for the ongoing military incursion has had a damaging impact on Kenya’s most valued economic activity – tourism. Though the Alshabaab has since denied involvement, the militia’s numerous threats to carry out attacks in Nairobi have never been withdrawn.

Most Kenyan scholars of conflict and international relations quoted in Kenya’s local media suggest that the Kenyan government has the right to defend her land. Kenyans in the Diaspora too, at least in Asia, have had interest in the ongoing operation by Kenyan military. From their social networks discussions and weblogs, many have observed that Kenya has been aggrieved to a point warranting extra action beyond dialogues and warnings. They hope that the military action must also send a clear message that every act of aggression will be met with equal clout.

Somalia problem has had an impact in Asia as well. In January this year, a Korean court sentenced a Somali man to life in prison for attacking a Korean ship and holding it for six days. The Busan District Court handed the life sentence to Mahomed Araye, charged with attempted murder, robbery and for shooting and seriously injuring the ship’s captain. The sentence against Araye was later upheld but the three other pirates were given sentences of 13 to 15 years. The pirates seized the Korean ship, Samho Jewelry, on January 15 and held it for days before a Korean naval commando recaptured the vessel in a shootout.

In the same month of January, the Malaysian navy captured Somali pirates as they attempted to hijack a chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden. They were charged in February in Asia’s first case against the Somali pirates. Many Asians seemingly know more about Somalia for ship hijackings than any other aspect.

But Asia’s involvement with Somalia problem paints a picture that a lawless Somalia is a threat to international trade particularly the ones involving sea transportation. And with many East Asian nations like China and Korea gaining interest in investing in Africa, Somalia’s stability may as well be a priority.

Reassuringly, the AU now backs Kenya’s mission against the Alshabaab and hopefully the international community will join in more actively as a way of condemning any armed groups that infringe other people’s right to life, justice and peace. The importance of regional and international support to neutralize terror groups cannot be overemphasized.

God forbid, but a failure to Kenya’s military operation may also mean that Kenya, once seen as a haven of peace, could be embroiled in an endless regional conflict. And it may not be Kenya alone. The world would have failed too.  Well, this is neither a warning nor a prediction, but a call for the world to stand for a course of  justice.

I remember flinching for the dashboard as if that was going to help. The car was careening toward a snake-like elbow in the track. I glanced at the driver expecting him to slam on the brakes and save us from catastrophe. He looked almost bored; I think he may have even yawned. The car glided smoothly in and out of the turn as if it had prepared its whole life for that moment. As he accelerated out of the curve, the driver apologized for not going faster. Apparently, if you’re not wearing a helmet — and I wasn’t — drivers are only allowed to take the track at 70 percent speed. This was part of my “research” for the new account I had been assigned — Porsche Cars North America. At the time, I was working for an ad agency. The people at Porsche had taken us to a racetrack to develop an appreciation for their product. Apart from nearly soiling my drawers, it worked.

My role as an account planner in advertising was to serve as a kind of consumer anthropologist. Basically, I was to keep my finger on the pulse of what consumers influenced and what they were influenced by. There were no rules for this task, no formal training, no manual — just raw intuition, ingenuity, and a dose of insanity. As a result, I got to explore all kinds of strange things.

Much of what I did involved getting consumers from our target demographic to tell me things that they didn’t want me to know about intimate parts of their lives. My task was to unearth what we called “The Leverageable Insight.” Or put another way, the thing we could best exploit. Basically, the deeper we probed into people’s lives, the better. When you tap into the most intense or emotionally poignant experiences, you discover the trigger for all consumer impulses. The next task was for the creative team to find a way to associate that deep spiritual or emotional experience with our brand. If we were successful, the consumer soul would imprint to our brand the way a newborn babe imprints to a mother while nursing. In a very real sense, I spent seventy hours a week promoting a kind of counterfeit gospel. I wasn’t offering cheap grace mind you. Ours was an expensive gospel — somewhere between $80,000 and $120,000 depending on what level of salvation you could afford.

It was through a series of events and realizations that I came to terms with the fact that what I was really offering was antithetical to my most deeply held beliefs as a Christian. I was in the engine room of consumer culture — arguably the greatest threat to the gospel the world has ever known. It was a dangerous cocktail of this realization plus the experience of God’s call in my life that led me to leave my lucrative and enjoyable career in advertising to attend seminary and eventually accept my calling as a pastor. That shift felt like spiritual whiplash, but it was also like coming home.

DUSTING OFF MCLUHAN

In my pursuit of greater expertise while I was working in advertising, I inadvertently unearthed a thinker who had been considered irrelevant for decades. He was an obscure literary professor who applied his skills to the study of media and communication in contemporary culture. In unexpected fashion he exploded onto the scene and garnered national media attention. It seems he could predict the future and anticipate changes before they happened. In 1967 he decorated the cover of Newsweek and Life in the same week (Barbra Streisand was the only other person to do so).¹Newsweek said his “theory of communication offers nothing less than an explanation of all human culture, past, present, and future.”² The New York Herald Tribunedeclared that he was “the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov.”³ His name was Marshall McLuhan. And chances are he’s the most important thinker you’ve never heard of. 

McLuhan died in 1980 at the low point of his popularity. Oddly enough, the thing that made him so popular was the very thing that made him drift into obscurity. Shunned by academia as unconventional and increasingly opaque to the masses, he was relegated to the attic of pop culture history where his ideas began collecting dust. I stumbled into that attic in the late 90s, dusted off a book and began reading. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales suddenly fell from my eyes. I had an awakening. Suddenly, I saw two things very clearly: the glaring immorality of my profession and the profound implications of McLuhan’s thinking for people of faith.

He was able to see things about the nature of communication that no one else could see. Although frequently overlooked, few things are more important to a faith like ours. Remember, Christianity is fundamentally rooted in a communication event. The entire basis of our religion is predicated on God revealing himself to humanity — communicating to and with us. His self-revelation, or message, was delivered in a myriad of media including angels, burning bushes, stone tablets, and even a donkey. God is in the communication business. So in a sense, any serious study of communication is a study of God.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

Evangelicals seem to be aware of this relationship between communication and the gospel. You’ve probably heard the saying, “The methods change, but the message stays the same.” There it is — the rallying cry of the evangelical church. It is the North Star that guides the most forward-looking leaders of the church. It serves both as a shield defending against the flaming arrows of those who cry “heresy” and as a catalyst for creativity and innovation in ministry. As long as you don’t change the message, anything goes for the methods of communicating it.

This view is based on a simple metaphor of media. Media and methods are merely “tools” or “vehicles.” They serve as neutral conduits, or pipelines, useful for dispensing the gospel. It’s like the plumbing in a house that carries water from the water heater to the faucet. We don’t think much about the pipes until one springs a leak.

However, this metaphor is a major problem. It prevents us from seeing the truth. The truth, as McLuhan famously observed, is that in fact the medium is the message. It’s a cryptic little aphorism that stands in direct contradiction to the evangelical rallying cry. He meant that the forms of our media, regardless of their content, have the power to shape our minds and our messages. In other words, you can’t change the methods without changing the message. So in this view, the content of any medium is really the magician’s sleight-of-hand to distract us from the trick being played on our minds. We sit and gawk at the banality of a show like American Idol, appalled by the hideous vocal offering of the latest contestant. All the while we remain totally unaware that the flickering mosaic of pixels slips the watch from our wrists and re-patterns neural pathways in our brains. In reality, media are much more than neutral purveyors of information. They have the power to shape us, regardless of content, and thus cannot be evaluated solely on their usage.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

In ministry, it seems that we’re often in pursuit of answers to the most pressing questions. But McLuhan seemed far more interested in cultivating a capacity to question well, rather than answer rightly. In fact, if we know the right questions to ask of our ministry methods and media, we will be better equipped to anticipate their unintended consequences. McLuhan developed what he called The Laws of Media⁴ to help people do this. The laws are actually not statements, but questions that describe the four inevitable effects of all media. These are four questions we can ask of nearly any medium or method if we are going to deepen our understanding and gain clarity for the journey ahead.

1. What does the medium EXTEND? 
Every new medium enhances, amplifies, or extends some human capacity. This might be a body part (the camera is an extension of the eye), a previous medium (the telephone is an extension of the telegraph) or even an emotion (smoke detectors extend our sense of smell, but also our feeling of security). This is the most obvious question to answer as it is almost always the reason we decide to employ a medium.

2. What does the medium MAKE OBSOLETE? 
Every new medium makes an older technology obsolete. In this case, the term “obsolete” does not necessarily mean that the technology disappears, rather that the function of that previous medium changes. For example, the automobile made the horse and buggy obsolete. This means that the horse and buggy went from being used for transportation to being used for quaint entertainment and romance. We may also see the part of ourselves that is extended become obsolete. The wheel makes our feet obsolete; they are used less for transporting ourselves and more for operating levers that cause us to be transported.

3. What does the medium RETRIEVE? 
Every new medium retrieves some ancient experience or media from the past. In other words, there is no such thing as a completely new technology. When we discover which medium is retrieved we can study its effects in hindsight in an effort to anticipate the future of the new medium. For example, the medium of e-mail retrieves the telegraph. If we want to understand the future effects of e-mail, we would be wise to study the cultural effects of the telegraph in the 1800s. Answering this question helps us investigate the last question.

4. What does the medium REVERSE INTO? 
This is the law where we discover the dangers of media. When pushed to its extreme, every medium will reverse into its opposite intention. For example, when pushed to the extreme, the automobile — a medium intended to increase the speed of transportation — reverses into traffic jams and fatal accidents. This law of reversal can often be the most difficult to predict.

New questions serve to move our minds beyond traditional ways of thinking. This is why McLuhan framed his Laws of Media as questions rather than statements. This is not an analytic activity, but one that demands creativity, synthesis, and openness. Our media present us with an array of questions and no clear answers. McLuhan knew our cultural context was always changing, so the methods he used to investigate and analyze culture were quite unconventional. His last published words echo with prophetic truth:

In a global information environment, the old pattern of education in answer finding is one of no avail…Survival and control will depend on the ability to probe and to question in the proper way and place…The need is not for fixed concepts but rather for the ancient skill of navigating through an ever uncharted and unchartable milieu. Else we will have no more control of this technology and environment than we have of the wind and the tides.⁵

We are being invited to develop and hone the ancient skill of “navigating through an ever uncharted and unchartable” culture. This skill is not developed through finding the right answers and locking onto fixed ideas, but rather by having the courage and wisdom to ask the right questions at the right time and place.

A FISH OUT OF WATER

Our technological society has entered a stage unprecedented in human history. We are witnessing such rapid and overwhelming innovation that it’s dizzying. And with each new change, we see a shift in the way we relate to one another. If relationships are central to our faith, and if the medium is the message, then it’s incumbent on us to ask a very important question: how does our electronic culture shape our communities?

We can’t answer this question from our current vantage point. There is a Chinese parable that says, “If you want to learn what water is, don’t ask a fish.” The reason? Water is the natural environment of the fish; it is all the fish has ever known. In fact, the fish hardly knows that it exists. So too with us. We are so immersed in our technological society, we hardly notice it is there. Therefore, to understand what is happening in this day and age, we have to get out of the fish bowl and out of the water. The best way to do that is to travel back in time to witness the values of a culture prior to modern technology. “I” IS FOR INDIVIDUAL

I have a two-year-old daughter. These days I am spending a lot of time teaching her one of the most powerful technologies the world has ever known. It’s the one you are consuming right now: the technology of letters — the invention of reading and writing. This invention radically transformed the consciousness of an entire civilization.

Consider the experience of a woman living in a pre-literate, or oral, culture. There is no knowledge or means of writing. This person would have no ability to fix her ideas in space or time. Let’s say she has a very important thought, a thought so important that it could change the course of history. Without any ability to fix this thought in time and space, she must rely on her community for retention of ideas and stories. She shares her thought with the community and then they share it with each other. This is called oral tradition. The stories tend to be short, rhythmic blocks of teaching that make them easier to internalize and remember. The gospel accounts in your Bible are products of oral tradition.

One of the chief marks of all oral cultures is that they are very tribal in nature. They depend on the community to retain their most important ideas, traditions, and stories. In fact, a tribe member’s sense of identity is determined by the complex interrelationships of the tribe. The notion of the individual is almost nonexistent because tribe members are together all the time. And they tend to be very empathic. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. A modern Western psychologist would look at this culture and say its members are very enmeshed.

Now the question is: What happens when we introduce the technology of writing into our oral culture? First, the technology of reading and writing demands isolation. It serves to separate us from the tribe. Then, because we have the ability to fix our ideas in time and space, we no longer have the threat of losing those ideas. And so the tribe is no longer necessary for establishing and maintaining one’s cultural identity. As a consequence, literate societies tend to be very individualistic. Identities are determined by boundaries. My personal identity is determined not by the tribe, but by where I end and you begin. The concern is with who I am as an individual apart from the tribe. This leads to an emotional distancing.

Consider this. If you’re in a heated argument with your spouse, the technology of writing provides a cooling effect. It gives us, for the first time in the human history, the ability to act without reacting. If I sit and journal my thoughts and feelings, they reside outside me, independent of me. I’m able to look at them in time and space. I can analyze them and try to understand them. I’m then able to reenter the argument with new clarity and emotional distance. Thus, literate cultures show a preference for detached objectivity over subjective experience.

These are just a few examples of the shaping power of literacy. Two different cultures — two different value systems and cultural habits determined in large part by the media used to communicate. It has nothing to do with what you say, but rather with what you use to say it.

THE TRIBAL DRUM BEATS AGAIN

Literate culture in the West lasted from the invention of the printing press in the 15th century until 1850, about 400 years. But from 1850 to 1890, a slew of uninterrupted inventions completely dissolved and reconstituted the communication structure in the West. And what made them unique was their ability to harness the power of electricity. Every single modern day technology, from the Internet to iPhones to podcasting, can be traced back to a small handful of these original inventions. In my view, the three most important are the telegraph, the photograph, and the radio. For our purposes here, we’ll consider only one of these.

McLuhan called the radio the “Tribal Drum.” It returned humanity to the world of the voice and the ear. It immerses us in the boundless, horizonless experience of acoustic space. And every time it “beats,” we huddle around the fire, listening to shared tribal music and stories. This retribalizing tendency of the radio and newer technologies erodes the individual’s experience of a unique point of view. It returns us to simultaneous, surround-sound experience of acoustic and oral space on a mass scale. Take September 11. Unless you were at Ground Zero, you joined every other American in experiencing the exact same event, from the same set of camera angles, at the same time. That is a mass experience with no unique point of view. This is the retribalizing tendency of electronic culture.

THE PARADOX OF ELECTRONIC CULTURE

While it’s true that we in the West are being retribalized under the force of the digital age, we are not returning to the simplicity of an oral culture. We are still raised today as individuals. From the very earliest time, I am teaching my daughter the individualizing technology of reading and writing. Success in our culture depends on the mastery of that technology. Under these conditions, we experience the simultaneous experience of being thrown together from far-off places and being separated from those nearest to us.

The effect is a paradoxical one. Electronic culture does opposite things at the same time. If oral culture is tribal, and literate culture is individual, then the phenomenon of the electronic age is marked by what I call thetribe of individuals. We live in a confused state of being characterized by a deep and growing desire for connection and community and the ever-increasing experience of an electronic nomad. It’s the isolating and thin existence of electronically wandering the globe, glancing off one another, but never really connecting or encountering the other.

The paradoxes go on. If oral culture is empathic, and literate culture is distant, the electronic age is marked byempathy at a distance. This is a condition that emerges when our TVs and computer screens flood our living rooms with images of planetary suffering: from September 11 to the Tsunami to Darfur to all the other ongoing famine, genocide, wars, and starvation in the world. While this allows us the opportunity to extend compassion to these far-off places, it actually has the opposite affect. There is an immediate outpouring of support followed by a detached, clinical numbness.

The end result is apathy and inaction. This is not our fault; it’s not because we are bad people. The human psyche isn’t designed to withstand all the weight and trauma of global suffering without shutting down. Numbness and exhaustion are natural reactions. This experience of horror and empathy, followed by shutting down and feelings of helplessness, is the condition of empathy at a distance. And it didn’t exist prior to the electronic age. The reason this matters is that the spiritual habit of empathy at a distance also finds its way into our local communities. It becomes increasingly difficult to muster local activism and genuine concern for others when global suffering has already cauterized the nerves of compassion.
ELECTRONIC NOMADS

Our new electronic nomadic existence is a powerful one. We do not sojourn as a group — we drift and journey on our own. But we have radios, TVs, iPods, cell phones, and laptops. We are constantly participating in a network of other disembodied acquaintances. So we are hardly aware of our aloneness.

These virtual relationships have a strange effect. They provide just enough of a connection to paralyze our best efforts at unmediated community. In this kind of “community,” our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally. In this sense we experience another paradox: intimate anonymity. We have the illusion of being intimate with people while remaining totally anonymous if we desire — this is the draw and danger of so-called virtual community. There is no need to offer real vulnerability. Community that promises freedom from rejection and makes authentic emotional investment optional can be extremely appealing, remarkably efficient, and a lot more convenient.

In this way, virtual community functions a bit like cotton candy: it goes down easy and satiates our immediate hunger, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of sustainable nutrition. It spoils our appetites for the kind of authentic community that is essential to spiritual vitality.

Authentic community is an elusive and slippery term. Borrowing from sociologists and theologians, I share the assumption that authentic community involves high degrees of intimacy, permanence, and proximity. These practices foster shared memories as well as a shared imagination of the future, elements crucial to becoming the people of God.⁶ While relative intimacy can be gained in virtual settings, the experiences of permanence and proximity have all but vanished. Without these we lose our shared memories and imagination for where we are going, elements central to our identity as the Body of Christ.

If virtual community functions like cotton candy, then authentic community is more like broccoli. It may not always taste good, but it provides crucial nourishment for the formation of our identities. Authentic community will undoubtedly be marked by conflict, risk, and rejection. At the same time it offers the deepest levels of acceptance, intimacy, and support.

I’m not morally opposed to cotton candy. It serves a legitimate, albeit limited, function in one’s diet. In the same way I am not morally opposed to virtual community; it also serves an important and limited function in our electronic culture. The problem is that virtual community is slowly becoming the preferred means of relating.

I have two friends who live three blocks from one another. They talk several times a day on their cell phones. They consider themselves the closest of friends and were each other’s best man. When I last spoke with one of them, he said he hadn’t seen his friend in eight weeks. Both have lamented to me on separate occasions that they know very little about each other’s deepest struggles and desires; it remains a somewhat superficial relationship. They are quite unaware of the cell phone’s power to inoculate our need to connect in person, which is where true intimacy and depth are born.

THE BLOGGING MIND

Blogs, when taken to an extreme, present a related problem. They allow us to participate in organic dialogue. However, they also have a remarkably addictive tendency to tickle our intellects, seducing us into a Pandora’s box of perpetual links, people, and ideas. The result is that we are drawn wider, but rarely deeper. This is true both in terms of the ideas we explore and the relationships we build. The great wonder of blogging is found in its dynamic speed. We are exposed to many more ideas than previously possible, and we are given a chance to dialogue about them in near real-time settings. However, the medium of blogging, regardless of content, has a natural bias toward confusion rather than clarity. It prefers careless language patterns, slack logic, and superficial relationships. This is at the expense of intellectual precision, thoughtful language, and meaningful connection with those in close proximity.

Avid political blogger and Atlantic Monthly columnist Andrew Sullivan made this observation about himself in a March 3, 2008 post entitled “A Blog Sabbath?”

I’m all but surgically attached to the web. I’m working 24/7, and increasingly isolated from social interaction. Going to the Atlantic offices helps, but getting a grip on this thing is hard. The blogging mind does not easily adjust to reading a book or allowing an unformed thought to stay unformed. Even when you carve out time for more offline reading or living, it’s hard to switch gears. And the danger of burnout is serious.

Evidence of his addiction is found in the fact that his blog now serves as his confession booth. Only instead of a priest there to absolve him, there are a million disembodied, faceless, and anonymous souls who offer their well-intentioned, but helpless and hollow condolences.

It should haunt us that so many churches are in hot pursuit to make use of this growing Web 2.0 technology. It is one of the many thin “tools” employed in search of the holy grail of “building community.” However, they will encounter this new medium with the proverbial slip on the banana peel if they persist in thinking it is a neutral aid, completely unaware of its natural bias and overwhelming force to dismantle authentic community. Virtual community inadvertently inoculates people against the desire to physically be with other people. Being together is nice, but not necessary.
It sounds almost too obvious to say at this point, but personal, face-toface connections have an immeasurable impact on how we establish, build, and maintain relationships. While most of us know this already, it’s amazing how few of us practice it. The experience of virtual community can feel just as real as physical community, but the social, spiritual, and emotional realities do not provide the same kind of connections. This means that we must be discerning about the way we use information technologies to make decisions or build and maintain relationships in the church. We must ask how our media change personal interactions. We need to consider the message conveyed when we choose an e-mail or text message over a personal visit, phone call, or handwritten note. These may seem like mundane questions, but they help generate an awareness of the forces that unravel community.

Most importantly, we must recognize our unconscious tendency to be seduced by our virtual communities so that we can use them more intentionally rather than be used by them. Our subtle addiction to electronic community is not like an addiction to drugs, where the only solution is to stop using entirely. It is more like an addiction to food or money, where we must learn to regain power over something we cannot do without. On occasion, we may consider fasting from certain media or technologies as a spiritual discipline. This can be a very effective way to help us perceive media’s power and recalibrate our psyches. Ultimately, we must develop healthy relationships with our technologies. This means nurturing a conscious awareness of their power, our longings, and the way they both shape us, our faith, and our communities.

WHAT DOESN’T BEND, BREAKS

I was 10 years old when I met William Lo. He was a 60-year-old Chinese man and friend of my father. During his visits he would stay with us. I remember waking up every morning and looking out the window to see our Chinese friend in the backyard performing what looked like a slow-motion dance. He would sway and lean as though responding to the wind. His arms would trace controlled arcs in circular movements through the air. I later learned he was a master of an ancient martial art called tai chi and had been performing this two-hour ritual every morning for the last 40 years.

Every now and then, William would teach me a few simple techniques. The one I remember most vividly was how to respond if someone tried to push me. First he modeled the way by inviting me to push him as hard as I could. Eager to play and learn, I backed up and ran straight at him, throwing all my 10-year-old strength into his chest, only to find myself facedown on the ground behind him. It was as though I had traveled right through him.

As I got up, he said, “Now I’m going to push you lightly. Try to resist me with all your strength.” I stood my ground as he offered a gentle nudge. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground again. At this point he shared his secret knowledge: “When someone pushes you,” he said, “do not resist the force, or it will overtake you. Instead you must understand the force and cooperate with it. Only then will you disarm it.” That day William taught me how to relax my upper body in such a way as to absorb and deflect the momentum of an outside force. I learned that whatever doesn’t bend, breaks. It was a remarkably effective technique that even worked to disarm a schoolyard bully later that year.

William Lo’s wise counsel is also appropriate advice as we seek ways to respond to the forces of electronic culture. Instead of simply resisting, critiquing, or uncritically embracing cultural forces, we are first invited to study and understand them. Only then will we learn to use them, rather than be used by them. Only then will we regain our equilibrium and anticipate the powers that shape us.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Marshall McLuhan’s seminal idea was that the medium is the message. What are some common examples of media you use and how do they shape the messages that they communicate?

2. McLuhan’s Laws of Media are actually questions that help us evaluate the effects of a new medium or technology. Use these questions from pages 4-5 to evaluate a current technology, such as surveillance cameras or social networking websites.

3. Shane Hipps lists several paradoxical consequences of electronic culture: we become a tribe of individuals, we feel empathy at a distance, and we experience intimate anonymity. What are some ways you see these three phenomena in your church or neighborhood? What about in your own life?

4. How often do you participate in “virtual community” or write or read blogs on the Internet? How do you respond to the dangers presented here regarding the effects of these on genuine community?

5. What technologies or forms of media does your community of faith currently use that need to be evaluated?

6. Fasting from certain technologies or media for a time can help us “recalibrate our psyches.” What technology should you consider fasting from and why?

END NOTES

1 W. Terrence Gordon, Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding: A Biography (Toronto: Stoddart, 1997), 226.

2 W. Terrence Gordon, McLuhan for Beginners (New York: Writers and Readers, 1997), 2

3 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1st MIT Press ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), x.

4 Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 93.

5 Ibid., 239.

6 Mark Lau Branson, “Forming God’s People,” Congregations, Vol. 29 (Winter 2003): 22-27.

The current global economic turbulence offers Korea another opportunity to test its economic resilience in time of trouble. In 2008 the country’s quick recovery from a global financial crisis and robust reaction to the aftermath of the recent US credit rating downgrade has been extraordinary.  Historically, Korea has been termed as an economic and developmental model to many nations owing to the short span of time it overcame poverty and desolation of war to  emerge as one of the economic tigers in Asia.

But even with such a noteworthy report card, Korea’s real economic strength and potential still remain feebly known to the world. This can be attributed to the fact that Korea has been a closed society for decades compared to such countries as Japan or China. Though there have been significant effort to market Korea to the world market through such committees as the Presidential Council on National Competitiveness and Presidential Council on Nation Branding, more can be done to make Korea more attractive particularly to foreign investors.

Korea’s investment policy makers should consider a redesigned dogma from the traditionally highly regulated environment to a foreign friendly platform. This can be done by relaxing key restrictions in the principal factors defining external investment procedures.

Of vital necessity, is the revision of regulations and laws related to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and labor environment for foreign workforce. With generally stable fundamental economic structures, Korea’s potential to attract more foreign direct investment is substantial. This prospect has been portrayed by a 13.8 percent or $13.07 billion increase in FDI last year constituting the highest level in a decade even amid stagnation in the global FDI flows.

Consequently Korea can be an investment destination if it will significantly open up its economy to foreign investment with a goal of modernizing the economy and creating more opportunities for new products and services in the country. To increase cash flow as well as the flow of goods, the Free-Trade Agreements (FTAs) that Korea is currently entering or hopes to ratify, must represents fundamental change in Korea’s economic institutions making them inviting to FDIs. To do this however, Korea will have to face some short-term challenges in its domestic industries. Here, the temptation of protectionism must be overcome for the country to emerge as welcoming and buoyant toward foreign investments. This change should also carry the attributes of transparency and efficiency as prerequisites for attracting foreign investors.

More so, Korea should amicably address issues surrounding imbalanced business practices and eliminate regulations that are not of the global standards or do not accommodate foreign corporate needs. Specifically, Korea needs to lower corporate taxes and reduce unnecessary administrative restrictions on investment and business operations. The consequence of these radical revisions will not only increase external investments but also raise the country’s annual economic growth to its current 5-percent growth target for the year.

Following a strong rebound of key industry sectors like building and construction, and IT after the 2008 financial crisis, Korea economy asserted itself as having a stable and adaptable foundation leading to a positive nod by the IMF. The bank lately upgraded the Korea’s economy based on economic performance and forecast results for the economy. This is undoubtedly a boost to the nation branding effort.

Ultimately, the effort for attracting foreign investors must be a joint venture of all of Korean socio-economic-political and environmental aspects. The branding of Korea as an investment hotspot can be built on successes of in hosting such world events as world cup 2002, G-20 in 2011, Daegu IAAF and the upcoming PyeongChang 2018 winter Olympics among others.

As Ravi Zacharias, an India-born Christian apologist, like teaching in his program called, “Let My People Think,” and from whom I borrowed the title of this article, so I say to my fellow Kenyans. It has been a short journey of three years since I came to Korea. In 2009 Koreans looked very strange people and theirs was a very awkward language and a peculiar culture. Oh, and the food! It messed me up. That was three years ago. Now I can eat any Korea dish. Of course there are those which I like most. Now I look forward to quit and go back to Kenya by winter. I am quitting by I have gathered enough to take back home and I hope I am not alone. I just hope!

Besides the books that have helped raise my worldview to another level of global interaction with ideas from various minds, the people I met here have helped me shape my next phase of life. My leadership at KCK Busan County as the chairman since its inception in 2010, and, at Kosin University as the leader of the international community, has given me an international outlook of life. This will remain etched in my life; the Busan Global Gathering, Changwon Arirang Festival, Kosin University Food Festival and culture night, among others. And having handed-over the mantle recently I now ponder.

I appreciate the hardworking individuals like His Excellency the Ambassador Ngovi Kitau. He has a sharp mind and knows what he is doing. He is one person among few leaders of our land who have impressed my heart with understanding and vision. He challenged us at a Busan dinner and kindled the fire now ablaze among the Busan community. He is man of substance and his leadership should be emulated by all who know him. Thanks to him again for opening up the embassy to all Kenyans and making it our office of interaction with each other. I really respect this man.

No doubt the KCK national office has been working very hard lately. The shape this office has assumed is commendable and the spirit they cultivated for the entire community at Daegu is something to export to all Kenyan dispora communities. I was humbled when the journalists from Kenya who covered Daegu athletic meeting expressed their surprise at the unity they found with us here in Korea. What I am saying is that KCK guys deserve a big pat on the backs. This magazine which you guys have put in the net is a sign that we are already in the trend and up in tune with the times we are living in. Kudos to Patrick and Benson, and their KCK Jambo Magazine team, for the great effort that has ensured that we have a voice as a community through this magazine.

We may not celebrate as yet as we have a lot to do. This nation of Korea has taught me that to be orderly and to plan is a very essential ingredient to success. We must quit the haphazard mindset we have seen in the politics and our Kenyan society at large. We inherited some from our parents, teachers, and from previous regimes. The Korean society is very united and they value their nation more and above any other. They cheer their people and they buy their products. They watch football because their own is playing and they never look down on their own. In fact they hate to shame each other; shame culture, they say. Each works hard to please his people not to get money and political mileage. In Kenya we ask, “How much will I get after am finished with it?” And this has brought our nation where we are, a country that once helped Malaysia with a development blueprint and was at par with Korea in the 70s. Here lays the greatest problem beleaguering us Kenyans. Today the aforementioned nations can only laugh at us. And why not! We have not valued our own nation and we are ready to mortgage our national interests for the selfish individual financial, status, and political gains.  A development bill has to await political patch-ups to go through while innocent Kenyans are suffering as their well-fed leaders are consuming more tax payers money in hotels to patch-up. By the way Kenyans, all this is a matter of attitude. It can change if we are ready. Look at the Hague case. We cannot talk without mentioning it. And the shame it is to our nation! We need to quit this attitude too.

This society has given me a different mindset on dealing with societal problems and needs. How can such small nation as Korea feed more people than we have in Kenya? I leave this nation having known that the way you address needs is contingent to the value you place on the affected population. We have had Bundalangi floods since independence! We have people displaced and some die. The problem is not that we have unkind terrain or uncooperative weather patterns but that we have minds that are exactly like that – uncooperative and unkind. We must quit this too. Politicians stand and speak enough words worthy nothing but we applaud them as if they have delivered the latest oracle from above. This we must quit as well.

Now we are talking of food shortage in a country six times the size of Korea and having more natural resources that this society. But we have sacrificed water catchments and productive lands on the altar of political divides and tribal cultism. We have not equipped our people enough because if we equip them we will lack our daily bread which has been coming our way courtesy of the inadequacy of these helpless sheep. This we must quit. If what I have witnessed amongst some Diasporas is anything to go by we unfortunately have a long way to go.

A number of these young minds are leaning on and craving for hedonistic and utopic lifestyle which has reduced not a few to mere human shells and some are in the grave. A young mind that does not respect its own human person, not to mention applying some positive values for self-drive, is bound to fall headlong. Virtues can never be modified or improved but must be lived out and the outcome is obvious. This is why yesteryears young politicians are the ones now putting our nation into disgrace. They have neither honor nor respect to anything than their fame and money they have! They need to quit soonest. This we must quit as well!

The Korean society is selfless! A lesson I quit with. We can never reach where they are unless we are selfless as they are and seek the common benefit in all our services. Am I saying we become communists or socialists? God forbid. Lack of selflessness has taken our society to win unwelcome medals in areas of corruption; we rank good among those nations where the rich are too rich and the poor too poor. How can Kibera slums exist and there is not local attempt to solve the problem? You say it has been there? Show me its fruits! I wonder what our leaders think when they travel abroad and then return back home and remain the same? When they see a near-perfect order in cities, good transport systems, water and waste management, food security, and energy generation, consumption, and conservation? The truth is that there was a government that saw Kibera slum coming up and they did nothing. Another slum is now coming up very fast near Namanga Junction along the Mombasa Road and nothing is being done to avoid this new Kibera near Athi River. Somebody needs to leave the boardroom and roll-up sleeves and solve these problems. Let my people think! Things DO NOT JUST HAPPEN BUT THINGS ARE MADE TO HAPPEN by people who are responsible and willingly so. Think about high rise apartments like we have in Korea in Kibera and put those Kenyans in a descent life lane. But how will water reach the 20^th floor, elevator rise up and down, security maintained in such houses with the rationing of power?

You and I must think and work. If I was to change the slogan of Kenya’s coat of arm, I would coin it thus, “Fear God, Think, and Work.” Let my people think and we shall better our lives and those of generations to come. God bless Kenya!

The writer is a former chairman of Kenya Community in Busan, Korea.

Sometime in January, 1999, I came face to face with quite a frightening sight in Nairobi. I was just about to cross the road when a speeding anti-riot police truck swerved past followed by a jeep full of policemen with wooden clubs. Panic raged high prompting women to grab their children and flee. Some shops were shut instantaneously. Were it not for my school uniform, a distinctive red shirt and blue pair of shorts, I would not have been allowed into a matatu, public transport van, heading East. I was a high school sophomore.

Inside the van grape vine was churning from every other tongue but the theme was, “Wangari was in the forest planting trees”. You see, I knew Wangari Maathai from my Boy Scout training on environmental conservation, but it took me longer to comprehend why one can be clobbered for planting trees. The television’s chilling images later in the evening and newspaper pictures the following morning are still fresh in my memory – unsettling.

This woman never quit. Sooner than later Wangari Maathai was back in the forest or Uhuru park either attempting to plant trees or dodging tear gas from the authorities. Today Uhuru Park is scenic and Karura Forest where she was beaten by hired guards as the police watched is mostly saved from the hands of land grabbers.

The woman was also unbowed; a fitting title she gave to her biography published in 2006. To the young people, Wangari Maathai became a symbol of courage, endurance and change. Her love for trees went beyond international activism. She chose a path which many male with more resources and influence shied from. She was despised as a threat to the ruling elite. Others in the arena said she had worms in her brains. But the woman of action was in fact unbowed even amid arrests, beatings, and death threats. He kept planting thousands of trees and fighting for fellow women facing similar discrimination. She folded her sleeves, knelt on the grimy ground, soiled her hands and did what she believed sustained life and cultivated peace.

Wangari Maathai understood how the earth sustains life both as a biologist and from her experience in Kenya’s central highlands where she grew up on nourishing food from the rich soil. She once said how much she misses when Kenya was “lush, green, fertile” land of plenty. That was long before deforestation devourers came in.

In Politics Wangari Maathai spoke her mind even when she rubbed the political elite the wrong way. She pioneered the call for political freedom setting a stage for the Kenya’s second generation liberators. It mattered less that her path attracted more political maltreatment by the powers that were. Hers was a rare determination.

Upon founding Green Belt Movement in 1977, Wangari Maathai mobilized thousands of women to plant trees in an effort to restore the Kenya’s indigenous forests. Since the county’s environmental degradation was fundamentally due to the policies of corrupt individuals in the government, Wangari Maathai used Green Belt Movement as a vehicle to call for democratic space in Kenya. She once explained that, “As we progressively understood the causes of environmental degradation, we saw the need for good governance.”

Unlike many leaders of her time, majority of whom were avaricious for power or simply economic racialists who saw everything through the ‘money glasses’, Wangai Maathai tied political leadership and environmental protection to health, justice, and peace. With a broader worldview, she saw and responded to what many leaders gave a blind eye.

She was enthusiastically concerned of the women plight convincing them that their empowerment would awaken prosperity right from within their families. She said: “Through their involvement, women gain some degree of power over their lives, especially their social and economic position and relevance in the family.” While advocating for the release of women political prisoners, Wangari Maathai is said to have led her fellow women in stripping naked at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park as a show of disgust to the frustrating insatiable authorities. A woman stripping naked is an act of curse in the African tradition. Wangari Maathai did whatever she could to save the environment.

In her youth, she became a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift or Airlift Africa, a program spearheaded by politician Tom Mboya and Senator J. F. Kennedy in which hundreds of African students were taken to study in the US in 1960s. Notably she was the first woman in East and Central Africa to attained doctorate and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In her death, the world will miss a woman of who added color to the earth. Even her dressing was decently colorful. Hear what she said about her outfit: “When you are an African woman, a politician’s wife, there was a particular way you behaved in public. I learnt for example that during campaigns, a woman should not wear a miniskirt, or a dress that might get blown by wind.”

In a few decades, advised Wangari Maathai, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace. She the challenged us to plant trees take care of it because there are so many enemies of trees. It takes the courageous to do it, and this is why… “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other!”

The account of Wangari Maathai is too long to be narrated fully. May her legacy be celebrated by all who respect God given gift of life and nature. But lest we forget, we must condemn any actions around the world that mirrors the tribulations the Wangari Maathai underwent… hoping that the path of peace shall suffer no distress.

By Patriciah Njambi & Benson Kamary

A new political sunrise in sub-Saharan Africa is seemingly licking away outdated regimes and leaving an aroma of democracy. But this is not to say that democracy is the redeemer of Africa. Not yet. Like any other political system impacted by a corrupted world, democracy can be abused, and seriously so. Even in the West where democracy is hailed as an assuring pragmatic system, it has severally been turned into the ‘tyranny of the majority’ with persecuting claws on the minority and their feeble voice.

Well, at least in the savannah land, the ‘jasmine revolution’ of a kind has just arrived if the recent polls in Zambia are anything to count on.  But unlike the mass action and street battles witnessed in the Arabic Northern regions, sub-Saharan Africa is getting new governments with a reduced violence. Optimistically, minimal or no rigging allegations in the near future is a clear-cut future desire.

Michael Chilufya Sata, nicknamed “King Cobra” for his lethal words against political failures in Zambia, has just been sworn in as the country’s fifth President since independence. The country was colonized by the British until 1964. Interestingly, most Africans countries attained independence around the same period nonetheless a few of them have seen more than two transition of power Zambia being one of them. President Sata succeeds Rupiah Banda who gentlemanly conceded defeat – a rare gesture in some previous regimes. Zambia’s first democratic transition in 1991 saw the founding President Kenneth Kaunda hand over power to Fredrick Chiluba.

Will the sun of change keep shining across the savannah? Ask any African young man and woman and they will tell you how much they crave for political soberness in Africa.  Authentic change is what they dream of. They desire for leaders who will deliver justice, economic equity and liberty. Presidents who will turn their campaign promises into practice. For instance, young people from East Africa particularly Kenya are tired of tribal-based divisive politics. Other neighbouring nations are pissed off with suspicious electoral commissions. They long for the sunshine of change with abated breath; no wonder fear of rigging due to snail-speed vote counting caused a handful of violence in some parts of capital, Lusaka. Remember Kenya after vote counting in 2007? It may be an understatement to say that no man, woman and child would like to see a repeat tribal clashes that occurred in Kenya, previously one of the most stable nations in Africa. Not even a cow, a goat and chicken is spared. Violence respects no life. This is why the beautiful sunrise must keep on wiping the sediments of corrupt incumbents, their cronies and electoral bodies across the savannah land.

Mr. Sata’s election carry some significant symbolism vis-à-vis continuous ambition in Africa.  Like Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and his Narc party in 2002, the new Zambian leader has ended a domination of a political party that ruled since independence. Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) which ruled Zambia for 20 years finally bowed out of power. In the case of the two countries, and some of their neighbours, like Tanzania, independent parties were, or are still perceived as obsolete apparatus. They outlived their mandates. In fact, that is why second and third generation political parties were welcomed with unwavering hope. The new ones represented a refreshed mandate – others have called it second or third generation depending of their chronology and significance. By the way a few of the serious regimes are either amending or promulgating new constitutions – a sign that the continent’s political journey is getting a navigator, finally. Perhaps this is a route-finder that will beat new political trails away from coup-de-tats, genocides and bloody tribal clashes of the past.

Sata’s election also sends a message that though it may tarry, change will surely come.  That Mama Africa’s aspiration for change lives on with her spirit now rekindling. No mistake, her economic potential remains undisputed. President Lee Myung Bak of Korea, while on tour of Africa, predicted that, “Africa is the hope for the future of this planet”. The continent should no longer be tagged with labels of poverty and disease – her potential is just enormous. In fact, since 2000, six of the 10 nations with the highest economic growth are African nations. The IMF thinks that by 2015, Africa’s growth rate will supersede that of Asia. Did someone hear that?

But there is a long way to go if these predictions are to be realized. Political willpower is not an option for Africa regarding her socio-economic transformation. African Union must be challenged to rejuvenate itself and become uncompromising prefect on some political shame still lingering in the continent. For emphasis, such rebirth must begin within AU itself.

With a sign of democracy rising like a sunrise of change, will savannah land see lesser political tensions in election years?  From Nigeria to Ivory Coast, Kenya to Zimbabwe, Tanzania to Congo; may the sun of justice, impartiality and peace shine. Yes, may it shine across the rivers of Uganda, the hills or Burundi and the shrubs of Angola. Let it shine!

The images of raging fire from Nairobi a few days ago was shocking andthe pictures from its aftermath even more disturbing. But perhaps what might be disappointing is the pattern in which most African governments have provided in the past as a response to slums-related challenges. Will there be seriousness this time around?

The inferno at the Sinai slums near the Kenya Pipeline Company depot in Nairobi is said to have been triggered when a section of oilpipe succumbedto high pressure leading to a spillage. Explosion is claimed to have occurred at the Sinai village where the oil, running through a drainage system, met fire at a time when villagers were scooping oil for various reasons. The outcome of the outburstwascatastrophic with over 100 people dead andmany others still to nursingserious wounds in the hospital beds. The number of deaths could rise.

But such a tragedy in a slumcontext is not only a Kenyan problem. I have been in a number of cities in sub-Saharan Africa and the challenges mirror each other; slums in Kampala to Kigali, Dares-salam to Bujumbura all paint a picture of pending health hazard if not fire-relateddisasters. Slums or informal settlements by nature are hardly planned. They simply sprout like mushrooms. Here, passable roads, if any, are a nightmare. Fire-engines, ambulances and other quick response facilities can barely penetrate in case of emergencies.

Again the issue of hygiene arises owing to lack of clean water, sewage systems and proper garbage disposal remain real. Is there a solution? I trust yes. My five year interaction with Korean history, economy and culture tells me that it is possible to transform a slum into decent homes, improve people’s lives throughemployment and by providing basic amenities. About six decades ago, Korean economy is said to have been at par with that of Kenya. Today the gap between the two countries is appalling; Korea ranks 14th and Kenya 84thaccording to last year’s GDP World Bank ranking.

African governments ought to take the issue of slums seriously if they are to achieve their development vision. The Sinai village where the disaster occurred in Nairobi was a population waiting for a disaster. Kenya Pipeline knew it; the government understood that, yet someone somewhere did not take action.Like in many countries in sub-Sahara Africa, there have been pledges from new governments about slum upgrading projects. Unfortunately,that is the far they have gone – except in a few cities where the work begin only to stall when other ‘political interests’ show up.

No doubtmost of the architectural plans are getting dusty in the shelves waiting, perhaps, for the next would-be government to make a pledge. Thegovernment’s mandate of addressing unequal development, unemployment, the widening rich-poor divide, and corruption seems to be a snail-speedmission. Yet these are the root causes forslum mushrooming. And when slums arise, there are obviousattributes that follow suit includingconcerns over security, health and of course safety.

Africa’s failure in implementingworthydevelopment policies has seen the continent stagnate. There might be foreign factors that contribute to Africa’s slow development;butthere is something that a government must do for its population. Sometimes one wonders why little has been achieved even among countries with vast natural resources compared to some“AsianTigers” like Korea and Japan. What is more, African policy makers have been to these nations and havestudiedwhat a good town planning or rural economy design mean.

I love Africa. She is my home come rain come shine, but I wish to remind her, with love, that this time serious measuresshould be taken with no breath of compromise. The responsibility of protecting citizens lies in the hands of the government and those given the mandate to lead. Provision of safety, justice and safeguarding of basic human rights are just but fundamental elements for prosperity. For now, condolence to those affected.

IAAF false start rule rips athletes of their true being 

“An athlete, after assuming a full and final set position, shall not commence his start until after receiving the report of the gun. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it shall be deemed a false start. Except in combined events, any athlete responsible for a false start shall be disqualified”, thus says the IAAF rule number 162.7.

It is the above tenet that has seen big names on track including Christine Ohuruogu, Olympic champion, and Dwain Chambers, former European champion, bowing out of their races here in Daegu. Eight athletes were forced to eat a humble pie by the end of the second day of the world’s biggest athletics championships. But it was the expulsion of the 100 meter world record holder Usain Bolt that instigated a near uproar across the gigantic stadium. Where I was seated, few meters away from a group of Jamaican fans, I heard “tough words” of despondency. Some threw their hands up; others had their heads between their knees – dejected. I leave it to your guessing about what Bolt himself must have gone through. And of course you watched the slow-motions on TV.

Consequently many spectators, majority of whom had bought the evening ticket to watch the fastest man on earth displaying his prowess, were equally frustrated. My Korean friend Kim Sung-eun, had just yelled “unfair” two times before pondering about what the severe regulation really meant. You see, like Kim, most people cared less about the rule. In fact, I sat with Sung-eun Chambers shown a red card. He walked out slowly amid consolation cheering including my pal Kim. But thanks to Bolt, for after his incident many of us begun scrutinizing this “crazy” rule introduced in 2010.

Well, jumping the gun has existed in track and field sporting as long as the history of athletics goes back in time. Even in swimming “flying” as others prefer calling it, has been observed for years and rules to check it have been introduced or modified severally.

About four decades ago, technology assisting in major time and distance measurement in sports were heavily employed following complains and suspicions of jumping the guns. Back then, a number of athletes were known to deliberately taking advantage of few milliseconds prior to the gun blast in order to claim victory. Today, with high technological input, the smallest of units can be determined in almost all the sporting events.

Some analysts are reading pressure from economic rationalist broadcasting media as the prologue of the “one strike rule.” Big broadcasting firms and their barons who also happen to be indispensable clientele and or sponsors of major sporting events are said to abhor any delays that chock up into their viewer’s attention span. In short, appetite over economic gain in the side of broadcasters may have denied athletes a medal. Oh, and viewers their joy as well.

Though much of the scrutiny to the “one strike rule” followed Bolt’s failure to run his specialty, a rush to amend may send a wrong message to the athletes. In fact it will be the height of betrayal if the rule will be changed solely because it disqualified Bolt. Lest you mistake me, I am not for the rule either. I dare say it must be reviewed because it deprives sportsmen and women their humanity.

I know others have argued that rules are rules. Fine. I will add that rules in competitions are fundamental for their credibility and fairness. In Africa, we have a saying that, “law is like a saw, it cuts fore and back.” It emphasizes the notion that a rule is as fair as it is applicable everyone equally. Others have claimed that Bolt, a seasoned athlete, should have known better. A question begs; what happened to “man is to err?”

Humans beings are created with emotions, nervousness, muscle contractions and put all these together under pressure, you do not get a robot but still a human being – capable of making blunders and deserving a second chance. And even robots, a creation of man, made out of the best of technologies, are genuinely given a benefit of error margins.

Imposing a one chance rule is tantamount to wanting perfect humans. Is it possible?