Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Seablogger Alan Sullivan wonders about the forces behind the political violence in Kenya:
At least thirty people — mostly women and children — reportedly died in Kenya when a church full of refugees caught fire. Of course it could have been an accident — maybe refugees were trying to cook, and something went wrong. Or it could have been malice — religious war. If a Muslim mob torched the church, the BBC will be the last to report the truth. At some point it becomes a vice to see no evil. BBC crossed the line long ago.
The BBC crossed that line with reports like this one, celebrating the Islamist takeover of an Uzbek town with the headline "Uzbek border town celebrates freedom"
Is political Islam a factor in the Kenyan elections? This article in the New York Times suggests that it may be
Unfortunately, even that investigative report didn't investigate enough. At one point, the Times' reporter:
...asked Harugura whether it was true that he was accepting money from Somalis or from fundamentalist Islamic groups, including the Kuwaitis and Saudis, and he shook his head vigorously. "You know very well that no Muslim organization can give a shilling. Even children’s aid programs have been shut down by the Americans since 9/11. No shilling can come from the Arab world to Kenya. It’s so difficult to even have collected 500 shillings." Five hundred Kenyan shillings is about $8.
That's not exactly true. According to this report, millions of shillings are still flowing from the fundamentalists to Kenya.
In any case, the Times' most recent report, like most of the media, blames the troubles on 'tribalism'.
Are Islamists behid the violence in Kenya? Well, if you have a few hours or days to spare, a working knowledge of the histories of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, a fast computer and a series of links to Kenyan blogs, you may be able to figure it out.
But if you, like billions of people out there, don't have the time to do the research, you'll have to rely on the usual sources - our Saudi-supported State Department, Islamist funded MENA-region experts in academia and media outlets - like the BBC.
