The Weekly Sneak: Let the Games Begin.

Actually, the series about the next President of this our land was going to end at number three in The East African. But then Bernard Membe told the press to focus on "more important matters" than who might inherit the skin shield and elephant tusks in 2015. Folks, I am only human. I can resist anything but temptation. So number four duly came by :)

"Imagine, if you will, a young President in 2020 supported by a civil service made up of peers who are motivated to create a brand new Tanzania, unencumbered by the lethargy and pathologies of the ancient regime, and tell me that’s not a beautiful idea. All good things come, they do."

A note to all those who have been so kind as to share their opinions of my work lately: thank you. We shall disagree on certain things, and agree on others. My only hope is to provide you with a toothsome opponent where necessary, or a loyal ally in service to the polity when things swing that way. And hey, look: we're finally fucking talking about 2015. Who needs to be right when the point is to be effective? 

 

The Weekly Sneak: The Opposition Proposition

Onwards ho! with the discussion about President The Fifth. Two things I have always had beef with in our modern standardized practice of liberal electoral representative democracy. First: the power of presidency. Second: the opposition proposition.

Really, the power should lie in the Legislature. Of course as African countries we're all still trying to indigenize whichever form of copy-paste government system we adopted after independence, and that's alright except for the part where we transferred the village chief concept straight to the presidency. I don't care what anyone says, there is nothing intrinsic about people in Africa craving a Big Man. It's not a genetic predisposition. This is why we need to teach precolonial history in school... once we've mastered the art of actually teaching literacy and numeracy.

The legislature is where the real power should lie in a republic, and we particularly need it here so that we can put an end to this business of being so overwhelmingly vulnerable to the vagaries of one individual. But until that happens... Presidents are important, which is why we need to discuss this business of voting opposition.

Yeah, yeah- the opposition proposition. Listen: ideology is basically dead in East Africa, the only thing we all adhere to is Pragmatism. This fetish for the miraculous powers of voting in an opposition President is ridiculous. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes the last thing you need is opposition. Sometimes it's because the system isn't ready, sometimes it's because the devil you know is in fact far better than the howling nutjobs at the gates. Voting should be about the judicious selection of representatives based on self-interest and a view to the greater good. It should not be done out of some slavish devotion to an individual or an institution or- even- a narrow ideology that holds no water in your particular circumstances:

" When assessing a potential candidate for Presidency, I suspect most of us ask ourselves the same two questions.

First: could this person handle the beast that is our machine of state... or will it grind them down into an exhausted heap of failure and disengagement, unleashing mayhem and chaos upon us all? Second: will this person serve the interests of the Republic... or are they secretly a power-crazed sociopath who will make Iddi Amin look like a kindergarten teacher in comparison?

The first question is a very tough one for the opposition. The machine of state is hard enough to handle even if you come from within the bowels of the Establishment and were raised by the Green and Gold. An outside man would have to be exceptional to succeed at it in our current circumstances. When we reach a nice saturation point- lots more opposition in parliament, a professional civil service, an independent judiciary- then more voters are likely to gamble on a non-Establishment candidate."

The Weekly Sneak: In the Game of Urais, You Pick A Side or You get Herded

This week a 'fan' was kind enough to email and compliment me about the quality of my written English because- as he explained- I sure do write good for a Tanzanian. And then he appended his support for my 'campaign' to help the opposition win 2015 because that's what's going to save our English-mangling Tanzanians from ourselves.
Sigh. I know. He meant well. The road to hell... That said, it did tickle me darkly. Very darkly.

What I have to thank him for is the kick up the backside that motivated me to broach a subject dear to every Tanzaphile's heart: who is going to succeed Kikwete? Oh yeah, it's time to kick that door wide open:

"In the past, it is said that the Party used to have a healthy internal mechanism for the selection of candidates during elections. Perhaps. From the outside, it looks as though the Chairman always had far too much power to determine who his successor would be. In addition there was a shadow code of power-brokering that involved unwritten rules about who was viable, negotiating the management of religious and tribal and other considerations. Our Presidents have always been minority men, a subtle triumph of CCM statecraft that bears keeping in mind. But times have changed and our current political landscape is a little complicated."

Yeah. It's time. Let's play.

Certainty is Evil: A Musing.

I was preparing a presentation about social media when I came across this discussion of data by Al-Amin on VijanaFM. What a pleasure. Geek/nerds are the best. In years of trying to explain my uneasiness with statistics-worship I have had a hard time finding folks who can see both sides of the coin. 

Anyone who has taken statistics courses will tell you there is a lot more art to measuring things than is publicly admitted. Really good statisticians know it though- that's kind of the fun of the endeavor. There is this idea that numbers are 'hard' and they can define the world in dependable, absolute terms. Well...eh. They are just one of the forms of investigating or defining or 'knowing' what's up. Intuition is a form of intelligence, and there are others but I won't go there.

Today I was telling folks that we have a 73% adult literacy rate because I was using the figure offered by the World Bank in it's database. It is marked as a 2010 statistic, and was probably put together by the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania. I have severe, severe doubts about that figure. Not to blame the WB or anything, I just pick on them because they do try to uphold certain standards of rigor (bless) and carry a certain authoritative clout (blessing revoked). 

Is it accurate in 2013? Hard to believe, after the stunning failure rate of the past Form IV examinations. I know my government too: cutting corners and cooking data is not beyond them. Simple incompetence is not beyond them either. Between the donor-pleasing and face-saving tactics, the mendacity and general lassitude of my public servants* I am not inclined to treat GoT generated "data" with the respect it should command. 

That's story. Although Al Amin's essay focuses on metadata and the story of numbers, I wanted to introduce a further complication: that of positionality. Who is saying what, how did they generate the data, and why are they saying what they are saying? Of course, having studied sociology, I am comfortable with the idea that anything presented as Truth bears examination. Simply studying the history of science (okay, western science) will show you that it's nothing but a journey of discoveries that constantly get challenged and revised. My current delight is the Higgs-Boson affair. So the physics community is pretty sure they've discovered it... and there's already some who are pretty sure that's not the end of the line. 

Knowledge lives, uncertainty is life-affirming. Certainty, though, spells death. Discuss. ;)

*And that's what is horrible about public service. There are some incredibly good people in there. But they are overwhelmed by the awful, awful, awful rest of them. Paying taxes so that these creeps can keep not-showing-up at work is much of the reason we're furious. 

Neo-Tanzanian Screen Projects

Strictly speaking, there are many notably good depictions of Africans on the screen, many decent projects out there. But this material is in the minority, overwhelmed by the dross of really bad work being produced not just by non-Africans but Africans as well. It is also really hard to find, let me tell you. If you want to collect good African screen work, you have your work cut out for you.

So when I came across a couple of interesting projects on the net: Siri ya Mtungi, which I had heard about, and The Team- Tanzania Edition, I thought I would write about the catharsis that comes with being able to watch local work that is clearly trying to introduce something different, fun, better. Even if it is being funded by donor money.

Another piece on the Voices of Africa blog, making the choice between Nollywood and NeoTanzanian* work. 

Admittedly it is a matter of taste, but I do think that there is something not only artistically criminal, but socially damaging about producing bad cultural products.We need to support the arts, not just the business end of entertainment.

*Kind of like (good) Bongo music, but on screen.

The Weekly Sneak: Serukamba, The New Four-Letter Word.

I just couldn't let it go, you know. I mean, I know that Peter Serukamba made a very human mistake and he said he was sorry and this is going to follow him around like a horrible smell for a while and I'm just kicking him while he's down. Ouch. Sometimes you have to help people regret their actions, just a little bit, for the common good. It's part of my job as a columnist.

I do want to thank Serukamba for giving me a way to frame something I have wanted to say for a while. Though I suspect I am in repeating-myself-due-to-limited-ideas territory, this is important. A very wise friend helped me figure out why so many of us still harbor a great fondness for our President in spite of the horrible disappointment of his administration. It's because he is us. He is the quintessential Tanzanian in all the good ways... and all the bad ways too. And we love him for it because if there's one thing that unites Tanzanians it is our love of ourselves. Thanks, Mkuki, you nailed it. Jakaya Kikwete is the ultimate product of the Mwenzetu Principle. We need to run as far away as possible from this mode of thinking:

"The Mwenzetu Principle doesn't work anymore. We're a fast-growing multiparty democracy now, not a sleepy socialist experiment backwater. The last thing we should be doing is selecting public officials on the basis that they are 'just like us.' We've been doing that for a while and look what it has gotten us. We're hardly getting the public services that we need, we're riddled with corruption, we've got MPs casually swearing at each other on taxpayer time. We're due for an upgrade. We need public servants who embody our aspirations, not our limitations."

International Book Day 2013: romance.

Yes: romance. That most denigrated of genres. One can admit to dabbling with Jane Austen as part of ye old school curriculum. Or even a touch of Marquis de Sade if you want to present an esoteric facet to the world. But not Barbara Cartland or- heaven forbid- a 1980's Mills and Boon with the cover missing and horribly insensitive gender dynamics. Perhaps even worse: Sweet Valley High. I bet admitting to having read those on Facebook would tank your career quicker than a video of you repeatedly slapping a Gerber baby look-alike.

Which is a damn shame. As a writer, I should probably say something inane like "I appreciate all good literature" Well, I don't. Literature is a word that needs to be avoided by middle-brow folk like m'self. Culture should be approached organically, subjectively, idiosyncratically. Have a penchant for prize-winning works that no one else understands? Fine. Like children's books even though you are an adult? Great. Can't sleep unless you have read several chapters of horror to help you either have nightmares or avoid them? Rock on. Read whatever the hell strikes your fancy because you're awesome like that? Awesome.

I do two genres intensely. Speculative fiction, because it is deeply meditative material that teaches me  politics, history and science*. But my cornerstone has always been, and remains, romance. Long before the age of ten I stole my older sisters' poorly hidden stashes and discovered the fascinating world of social science.

A lot of people have been introduced to the saucier versions of romance by the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. Sigh. If you must. But please believe me when I tell you that you could do better, even if you want to read erotica- which, for the record, is not exactly romance. It's porn, but classier because you have to read the words and make the pictures in your head**.

But back to the topic. What's the attraction to romance novels? For me it's the micro-sociology, the psychology and the insanely good character studies. Oh, and the vocabulary, the social commentary, the travel aspect, the amazing research that goes into some of it. As a genre it has a pretty basic formula: girl meets boy. blah blah love blah blah complication blah blah happily married ever after. Act one. Act two. Act three.

It's what people can do within the confines of an artistic format that separates the goats from the leopards. There are people out there writing romance that is devastatingly good. Romance that makes you work at it, in the company of a good dictionary. Romance that is subtle and fine and deep and utterly satisfying. Romance that makes the world a darker place, or a lighter place. Romance that reorganizes everything you thought you knew about people. Romance you need to read twice, or once every two years because you have to grow into understanding it.

So I would like to direct your attentions to a few peeps you might want to sample if you've always suspected the genre of being beneath you. Try it when you're feeling open minded- you might be pleasantly surprised. Please understand that this is a rather slim sliver of a very large and diverse genre. Here goes.

The charmingly funny: Jennifer Crusie's earlier stuff, Susan Elisabeth Phillips

The group format: Susan Elisabeth Phillips, Suzanne Brockman, Julia Quinn

The pulp: Barbara Cartland, Nora Roberts

The compelling and unusual: Georgette Heyer, Susan Napier

The darker side: Lisa Kleypas, Judith Ivory

The caters for many tastes: Amanda Quick and all her other aliases.

The neo-historicals: Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran

The bent fairy tale: Teresa Medeiros, Meredith Duran

The no sex please: Mary Balogh, Georgette Heyer

The chicklit: sorry. hate it too much to even try. 

The 21st Century: vamps and wolves and honestly I am too old school to read this stuff and give you a perspective. 

A little comment on diversity: in romance, if it has an "ethnic" focus, you can pretty much guarantee that it's going to be awful. Want to see some color in unexpected and interesting (though admittedly American) ways? Suzanne Brockmann and Susan Elisabeth Phillips might put an unexpected smile on your face. 

Another note: yes, the genre has been accused of selling the marriage ideal for years. I suppose there are people who get conned into believing in the One Two Wuff fantasy through romance, but you have to have the IQ of a peanut for that to happen. It's fiction, get a grip.

Final note: romance has kept the publishing industry afloat for years. Betcha didn't think of that. 

Happy book day. Word is life.

* next year's book day theme? hm. 

** Seriously, the two should not be confused. There is overlap, but that's it.

This Writing Life: Love.

This month marks the fifth year of The Mikocheni Report. Happy birthday, blog. Happy birthday carrier of dreams, voice in the ether, child of ambition, comfort in the dark. Happy birthday teacher, nemesis, altar, cornerstone, constant challenge. Happy birthday, word. Happy birthday, love.