Unbwogable - A report from Kenya - soc.culture.african

Message from discussion Unbwogable - A report from Kenya
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From: Gunnar =?iso-8859-1?q?R=F8nning?= <gunnarpub...@polygnosis.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Unbwogable - A report from Kenya
Date: 31 Jan 2003 16:46:05 +0100
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If you were in Kenya during the elections you would certainly have
discovered that Kenyan Swahili got a new word into the vocabulary :
"unbwogable".

The rap song "Can you bwogo me ?" by the Luo rappers Gidigidi-MajiMaji
was widely used in the NARC campaigns to get the message out. "bwogo"
is a Dohluo word that means "to scare", and hence "unbwogable"
translates to unscarable or unshakeable.

It really shows some hope for Kenya when you find Kikuyu singing and
dancing along to Luo rap like it should have been their own.

Kikuyus and Luos are traditional enemies in Kenya, and Mois past
success as very much been a political game on divide and conquer. I
heard a few years ago, from a Luo, that they would never vote in a
Kikuyu president. Railla Odinga, a Luo leader and the son of the late
Oginga Odinga, brought in all of Luo Nyanza in support for Kibaki.

Hopefully this is the start of a long term relationship between the
two tribes. Tribalism has definately not vanished from Kenyan politics
as this election demonstrated, but for the first time we can see
candidates from the major tribes working together.


-- 
Gunnar Rønning - gunnarpub...@polygnosis.com
Senior Consultant, Polygnosis AS, http://www.polygnosis.com/