Filed under: Cartoons, Culture

Battle of the sexes – Kenyan edition

I usually tell my colleagues that I’m fed up with tagging over our opinions on gender, tribal politics and religion; because these arguments are always ill-fated. And my colleagues being too bunged with their opinions may not see why it is futile for me to engage in so. When FIDA announced its satirical mode of challenging the status quo in the name of ‘sex-boycott’ I knew that this would come up over our usual lunch hour chit chats. Well, just to make things easier and my lunch time worth-while we dismissed the notion in all sorts of yarns and invectives. And that was the order of the day on TV, radio talk shows, bar-talks, I’m sure a few lectures mentioned it to kick- off their classes with a light touch. Deep down I was careful not to mention to the ‘clever’ critics that FIDA cleverly won Kenya’s agenda.

Maendeleo Ya Wanaume (MYW) was next the thing trying to get Kenyan’s something to blurb about ‘the battered male statistics’. Shockingly, 1.5 million men in Kenya are said to be silently suffering domestic violence meted out by their wives.

Accepted by many women who rendered today’s Kenyan man as ineffectual and men who deemed it a way of undressing their egos, the topic won the hearts of the masses. I am still not sure what to make of the statistics but FIDA had its stand that it was an exaggeration of some sort.

With the realization that both genders are crying foul, I can’t help but conclude that Kenya is at a war of sexes. This warfare is becoming fruitless with time. If for sure this is an issue, then we need understand that there is a problem with the institution of marriage. Whichever the spouse who hits out the lash, at the end of it, I cannot ignore the plight of children who have had to witness this war newly  sponsored by FIDA and MYW.

Instead of this why can’t we have a situation where FIDA and MYW acknowledging the problem instead of its outcomes alone? Without rubbishing FIDA

and MYW efforts in voicing the voiceless; I hope that a day will come when the two forums can address this issue regardless to their gender respect.

Filed under: Culture

African Tsunami, they call it

This is a Ranan Lurie Award Award winning Editorial cartoon with the theme African Tsunami. The cartoonist’s name is Alberto Sabat, the carton was published in a daily in Argentina. These international awards are supported by the United Nations.

Now, as an African what do you make of this?

Filed under: Culture