COMMUNIA Workshop, Vilnius, March 31, 2008: Debate of Questionable Practices
Towards an equal and just society
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Explore ways of achieving social justice in Kenya which can be see as "the state which occurs when all members of a society have the same basic rights, security, opportunities, obligations and benefits"
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Latest Activity: Mar. 27, 2008
Towards an equal and just society
Kenya has in the recent past been in the limelight for all the bad reasons, as a result of the post election violence that killed a reported 1,000 people. This was unfortunate. It emerged that the underlying causes of the conflicts were not the ballot, that ethnic animosity has been growing over the years and that the elections served to ignite the conflict.
Everything appears well now, a political solution has been reached but the core issues are yet to be addressed. Kenya is one of the most unequal societies in Africa so much so that a former President of Tanzania described it as "a man eat man society" and a famous politician,J. M Kariuki (assassinated in the 70's) described it as " a country of a few millionaires and million beggars". The dream of one Kenya where people live in harmony and devoid of mistrust will not be achieved sooner unless the inequalities are addressed.
The inequalities existing in the kenyan society has been blamed on colonialism and especially the divide and rule tactic employed by the British. Kenyan has been independent for four decades and yet the historical injustices continue to haunt its people.
What is the way forward for Kenya? How can these injustices be addressed? In a country with poor resources, how can the Government ensure equal access to jobs, education, security, water,electricity among other important services? Is regional governments the solution? Does the solution lie with affirmative action? Should the Government take away land from those owning thousands of acres and distribute it to those who are squatters? Should it employ some form of taxation?
Here, Your opinion counts!
Everything appears well now, a political solution has been reached but the core issues are yet to be addressed. Kenya is one of the most unequal societies in Africa so much so that a former President of Tanzania described it as "a man eat man society" and a famous politician,J. M Kariuki (assassinated in the 70's) described it as " a country of a few millionaires and million beggars". The dream of one Kenya where people live in harmony and devoid of mistrust will not be achieved sooner unless the inequalities are addressed.
The inequalities existing in the kenyan society has been blamed on colonialism and especially the divide and rule tactic employed by the British. Kenyan has been independent for four decades and yet the historical injustices continue to haunt its people.
What is the way forward for Kenya? How can these injustices be addressed? In a country with poor resources, how can the Government ensure equal access to jobs, education, security, water,electricity among other important services? Is regional governments the solution? Does the solution lie with affirmative action? Should the Government take away land from those owning thousands of acres and distribute it to those who are squatters? Should it employ some form of taxation?
Here, Your opinion counts!
Discussion Forum
Intellectual property and sustainable development
Started by Andrius Kulikauskas Mar. 18, 2008.
Is there a need for nation-states?
Started by Andrius Kulikauskas Mar. 16, 2008.
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Comment by Andrius Kulikauskas on March 27, 2008 at 10:27am - Surya, I think that is a good point to keep considering. My experience in the United States is that although there is a wide range of wealth, but people do believe that they belong to "the middle class". I suspect that many of the super-rich like Bill Gates consider themselves "middle class" just as many people in the inner-city ghettoes do. There is an amazing homogeneity in the universal acceptance of democratic values. There is a widespread feeling that independent wealth is good and that those who have it have earned it, and so money is accepted as a legitimate metric of social utility, and also the Republican party has such broad support from so many working class people. Indeed, most rich people are managing and applying their wealth rather than consuming it conspicuously. Certainly, there are some people who are especially able stewards of money. There is also an enormous sense in the United States that people can come and better their life without limit. Perhaps more than 50% of adults have leadership positions at work. The number of people who do volunteer work is high (about 60%) and I think accordingly the number of independent thinkers (I estimate about 20%). I think however that in the United States there are huge blind spots regarding the rest of the world. And there is a sense (perhaps less than the rest of the world) that there are huge systemic pressures not to care about others. Yet in the United States I think that morality is quite strong, people pay their taxes and are generally concerned to do the right thing. Eric, I wonder what you think of the situation in Sweden? But globalization is happening perhaps faster in terms of greed rather than our ability to care for others and include each other.
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Comment by Surya Prakash Vinjamuri on March 25, 2008 at 3:28pm - I had quick view on the text for discussion and I see the first knee jerk comment is - the same game of inequality is played everywhere and millions of lives are sacrificed for comfort of few. The pain is when it is visible and obvious at some places and it is not so in socalled "developed & developing" countries. With my little knowledge about the world, every country is built on ashes of simple and straight forward and meaningful people and still it is order of the day, tell me a country which is not run the way i quoted. just the beginning of this dialogue and I see lot's and lot's of space for dialogue,meanwhile a BIG HELLO to all brothers and sisters on this domain.
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