Mpeketoni attacks: Four possibilities
By Dennis Okari BBC News, Nairobi
The style and scale of the attacks in and around the Kenyan town of Mpeketoni have left many questions unanswered. Who carried out the violence? Why kill only men? President Uhuru Kenyatta has blamed a "local political network", but Somali militant Islamist group al-Shabab says it was behind the killings. However, for the moment, most Kenyans remain unclear as to who the perpetrators are.
line
Possibility 1: Al-Shabab
Al-Shabab fighters (file photo)
Al-Shabab has said it carried out the attack in order to take revenge on Kenya for the presence of its troops in Somalia, where they are battling the militants, as well as for the killing of radical clerics linked to al-Shabab in the port city of Mombasa.
If the Somali group is to be believed, then it may have changed tactics for fear of losing support.
Many women and children, including Muslims, were among the 67 people killed during the siege of the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi last September.
The indiscriminate attack angered some al-Shabab sympathisers, and the Mpeketoni attack could have been a way of sanitising the group's image: kill the men, spare the women and children.
Sowing terror among ordinary Kenyans could be a strategy to increase pressure on the government to withdraw its forces from Somalia.
Possibility 2: Local dispute
Mpeketoni is a farming area, not a popular tourist resort like the nearby Lamu island, and the attack took the country and security agencies by surprise.
In the past, terror groups have concentrated on Kenya's major towns and cities, or targeted foreign tourists in order to gain maximum international publicity.
According to reliable accounts, the attackers were well organised, and as soon as they finished their mission, they disappeared, supporting the theory that they may be locals.
President Kenyatta blamed "local political networks" for the overnight raid
"This... was not an al-Shabab attack. Evidence indicates that local political networks were involved in the planning and execution of a heinous crime," said President Kenyatta.
"The attack in Lamu was well planned, orchestrated and politically motivated ethnic violence against a Kenyan community, with the intention of profiling and evicting them for political reasons," he said.
Many of those who died in the attack came from Mr Kenyatta's Kikuyu community.
There are long-standing political and ethnic divisions in this area.
It could be that local Somalis and Oromos who claim the area as their ancestral home are trying to drive out Kikuyus, who they see as interlopers.
The president's father, independent Kenya's founding President Jomo Kenyatta, gave the area to ethnic Kikuyus in the 1960s.
Such disputes over land ownership were behind much of the ethnic violence which broke out across Kenya after the disputed 2007 elections.
A group of Kenyan Somalis or Oromos could easily wave al-Shabab flags and shout slogans such as Allahu Akbar (God is great) in order to divert blame.
Possibility 3: Separatist rebels
President Kenyatta did not name the local political group he was accusing.
In recent years, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has been campaigning for autonomy for Kenya's largely Muslim coastal region, arguing that local people see little economic benefit from the region's trading ports and tourist industry.
It has been accused of carrying out small-scale attacks in and around Mombasa, which it has strongly denied.
But it might be that it has launched an armed insurrection.
Possibility 4: An alliance
Armed security forces walk past a barricade of burning tyres set up by residents to protest against the recent killings and what they claimed was the government"s failure to provide them with enough security, in the village of Kibaoni just outside the town of Mpeketoni, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Somali border on the coast of Kenya Tuesday, June 17, 2014. The attack has led to protests by local people who accuse the government of ignoring them
Of course, it could be that one of the Kenyan groups has decided to work with al-Shabab, which would explain some of the confusion.
President Kenyatta would want to downplay the al-Shabab angle in order to try and protect Kenya's embattled tourist industry, so if there were an alliance, he would focus on the local group.
This would also enable him to send Kenya's security services after some of his political enemies.
While if some al-Shabab fighters were involved, it would enable the group's spokesman to say they were behind the attack, even if it was not solely their idea.
They have never previously said they carried out an attack which later proved to be untrue.
And al-Shabab might like to target ethnic Kikuyus in order to take their battle right to the president's doorstep.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Wreckage of two burnt vehicles on a roadside in Mpeketoni, Lamu County, after some 50 heavily-armed gunmen attacked the town on June 16, 2014.
AFP PHOTO/STRINGER
IN SUMMARY
The reference to ethnic profiling and deliberate targeting of the Kikuyu stood out in the statements from both Present Kenyatta and Mr ole Lenku.
Not a single shred of proof was offered for the growing narrative linking Mr Odinga to terrorist attacks, an anti-Kikuyu offensive and western-backed push against the Uhuru-Ruto regime, but the Jubilee heartland eagerly lapped up the propaganda.
At the same time, government security operatives at the highest levels were keenly feeding the media with ‘leaks’ from classified Intelligence signals on threats off attacks against Kikuyu residents and businesses in Kisumu, Bungoma and other Cord strongholds.
By Macharia Gaitho
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014
The recorded television statement from President Uhuru Kenyatta broadcast on Tuesday on the Sunday night raid that killed nearly 50 people in Mpeketoni township in Lamu county added an alarming political dimension to Kenya’s recent security problems.
The President was pointing the finger directly, even without mentioning names, at opposition leader Raila Odinga, who since returning from a three month visit to the United States has led a series of high-profile political rallies to press demands for a national conference on problems afflicting Kenya.
It should be logical then that the President follow-up his startling accusations with action, that naturally should include arrest of Mr Odinga and others he accuses of such horrific crimes.
Although Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku had on Monday alluded to political incitement, his statement was largely received with skepticism, as a reckless attempt to divert attention to the political opposition when Kenya is facing serious security challenges.
The President echoing his Cabinet Secretary’s assertion added authority to what is now the official position; That the Mpeketoni attack was not the work of the Somalia-based Al Shabbab terrorist as initially believed, but the Cord leadership – “reckless leaders and hate-mongers, who … create hate, intolerance and fanaticism”.
The President referred more or less directly to the Cord rallies, the last in Mombasa on the afternoon prior to the Mpeketoni attack, as forums for “frenzied political rhetoric laced with ethnic profiling of some Kenyan communities and obvious acts of incitement to lawlessness and possible violence.”
An interesting gist of the president’s statement was that the Cord rallies set out to demonise certain communities and incite other Kenyans to violence against them.
This is a clear reference to the president’s own Kikuyu community, who have borne the brunt of attacks at the Cord rallies for allegedly monopolizing key positions in the public service, and to some extent also the Kalenjin community of Deputy President William Ruto.
The suggestion, then, was that the Mpeketoni attack was not just a random action, but one targeted directly at the Kikuyu, a unique majority population in the settlement scheme established in the 1960 in the Coast region by President Jomo Kenyatta.
The reference to ethnic profiling and deliberate targeting of the Kikuyu stood out in the statements from both Present Kenyatta and Mr ole Lenku.
The interesting thing is that the allusions to an ethnic angle predate the Mpeketoni attack.
In the run-up to Mr Odinga’s much-hyped return from the US at the end of May, Jubilee social media activists went into overdrive on Twitter and Facebook in what looked like a coordinated offensive to depict the Kikuyu under attack.
Early in May, four people died when a Chania Bus Services bus that had just arrived in Mombasa was hit in a grenade attack.
Soon after in Nairobi, four more people were killed in bomb attacks on two buses plying the busy Thika Highway that links the capital city and Central Kenya.
Then in the middle of May, the busy open-air Gikomba in Nairobi famous for imported second-hand clothes was hit in a deadly bomb attack that killed about a dozen people.
That seemed to serve as a signal for the social media offensive pushing the common thread that the three attacks, Chania Bus, Thika Road and Gikomba market targeted Kikuyu interests, and therefore could not have been perpetrated by Al Shabbab terrorists who have little interests in partisan Kenyan politics.
The near unanimous conclusion from the social media deluge seemed to be that the three attacks must have been the outcome of a domestic political agenda that seeks to undermine the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.
At about the same time as the Gikomba attack, some key western nations, notably the US and Britain, upgraded their travel advisories on Kenya, cautioning their citizens of the threat of terrorist attacks and specifically warning against travel to the popular tourist resorts at the Coast.
Economic sabotage
Images of British tour companies evacuating their clients from the Coast as a result of the warning were widely broadcast internationally, giving the impression of a country under the threat of imminent attack and facing complete security breakdown.
The government, understandably, was furious, insisting that it had not been not informed of any specific threat. It took the advisories, especially the evacuations, as deliberate sabotage of the lucrative tourism industry.
An angry President Kenyatta publicly denounced the travel warning and said that the western tourists were free to go as Kenya could source tourists elsewhere.
It happened that the bad blood between Kenya and Western governments over the travel advisories came in the wake of the highly successful state visit by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
Soon enough the blogosphere was abuzz with conspiracy theories suggesting that the travel advisories amounted to deliberate ‘economic sabotage’ as western retaliation for Kenya’s growing business links with China.
The spate of financing and infrastructure development agreements sealed by President Kenyatta and Premier Li were cited as evidence that the West had reason to punish Kenya after losing out on lucrative deals it previously monopolised.
At around the same time, Cord was beating the drums for Mr Odinga’s anticipated return from the US, which was to be marked by a major rally at Uhuru Park.
Also brought into the mix was the International Criminal Court indictments of President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, which their supporters fervently believe were engineered Mr Odinga and his western patrons in an abortive bid to block the Jubilee duo from ascending to power.
The confluence of events seemed tailor-made for the Jubilee social media brigades, and soon enough the ongoing blitz made an association between Mr Odinga and his American links, the bombing allegedly targeting Kikuyu interests, and the political drive he was set to launch on return.
By the time Mr Odinga came back to star at the huge Uhuru Park rally, Twitter and Facebook were aflame as supporters of the ruling Jubilee and the opposition Cord coalitions went for each other in vitriolic attacks laced with ethnic venom and threats to violence.
Out in the respective Jubilee and Cord strongholds across the country, the situation was equally poisonous; as propaganda and hate messages driven initially on social media seemed to have spread to ordinary people in villages and townships all over.
Mr Odinga’s main message at the Uhuru Park rally was the demand for a National Dialogue on critical national problems such as security and terrorism, youth unemployment, tribalism, corruption and the economy.
He however threatened to launch as series of public rallies to take discussion to the people if the government rejected dialogue.
Jubilee supporters were not amused by what they saw as threats to launch mass action, which to many was the sort of activities that preceded the post-election violence of 2007-2008.
Intemperate language
The intemperate language employed in Uhuru Park and subsequent rallies already staged ahead of Saba Saba, July 7, angered and alarmed Jubilee supporters who interpreted some of the messages as signalling an imminent push to oust the government through mass action.
Again, links were made to Mr Odinga’s fabled penchant for demonstrations, possibly violent, and the western-sponsored ‘Arab Spring’ that ousted governments across North Africa – Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.
Not a single shred of proof was offered for the growing narrative linking Mr Odinga to terrorist attacks, an anti-Kikuyu offensive and western-backed push against the Uhuru-Ruto regime, but the Jubilee heartland eagerly lapped up the propaganda.
In parts of central Kenya and the Rift Valley, the government looked on without intervening as Jubilee Governors, MPs and other political leaders launched vicious public attacks against Mr Odinga, purporting to ban Cord rallies in their jurisdictions and even priming the youth to violently repulse any supposedly anti-government activity.
By the time the Mpeketoni attack came about, it was almost as if to confirm the prevailing narrative about a domestic anti-Kikuyu plot. President Kenyatta’s statement now takes that out of the murky realm of Jubilee social media activism and soapbox political rhetoric and elevates it to the official government position on a key national security issue.
The president warned of strong action against the politicians who are allegedly behind terrorist attacks previously attributed to Al Shabbab and supposedly planning similar acts of destabilisation.
The warnings indicate that the government cannot sit on its hands and do nothing if it indeed knows those responsible for mass murder in the Mpeketoni attack.
The prevailing view in the Jubilee government, as seen when the Senate went into a special session on Tuesday to debate the Mpeketoni attack, is that Mr Odinga is responsible for serious crimes and must be arrested and punished.
Outside statements driven by political fever, however, the question must still be asked whether the government actually has any evidence on which to act against Mr Odinga and his Cord colleagues.
It will be noted that a government notoriously slow to investigate and take action on a long catalogue of very serious crimes moved at superfast speed to point the finger at Mr Odinga even before investigators had reached Mpeketoni.
Dangerous political situation
The emerging scenario points to a dangerous political situation that could easily escalate to violence if not well managed.
Politicians seem keen to goad their supporters into freelance counter-actions, as seen with the brief blockade on Nairobi’s Ngong Road by Jubilee supporters on Monday targeting Mr Odinga, and the purported bans on Cord rallies being pronounced by Jubilee political leaders.
The speeches in the Senate on Tuesday were strong with demands from Jubilee MPs that the planned Cord rallies be banned across the country, but experience shows that banning rallies for unclear security reasons is often what leads to violence.
At the same time, government security operatives at the highest levels were keenly feeding the media with ‘leaks’ from classified Intelligence signals on threats off attacks against Kikuyu residents and businesses in Kisumu, Bungoma and other Cord strongholds.
The purported signals reported that the two towns had been ‘flooded’ with troopers from the Kenya Police paramilitary General Service Unit to deter such attacks, but checks by reporters on the ground indicated the information was false.
However the same misinformation was on social media rapidly spread by Jubilee adherents to feed the growing paranoia and state of siege.
If the Mpeketoni massacre came to fit neatly into a scenario that was already developing, Cord leaders accused of bearing responsibility might well wonder if the stunning development bears any resemblance to President Moi’s warnings in 1990 that the multi-party campaign would result in violence.
It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as his regime plotted the infamous Rift Valley ethnic clashes that were a precursor to the last bout of post-election violence that has President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto in the dock at the International Criminal Court.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com
@MachariaGaitho on Twitter
AFP PHOTO/STRINGER
IN SUMMARY
The reference to ethnic profiling and deliberate targeting of the Kikuyu stood out in the statements from both Present Kenyatta and Mr ole Lenku.
Not a single shred of proof was offered for the growing narrative linking Mr Odinga to terrorist attacks, an anti-Kikuyu offensive and western-backed push against the Uhuru-Ruto regime, but the Jubilee heartland eagerly lapped up the propaganda.
At the same time, government security operatives at the highest levels were keenly feeding the media with ‘leaks’ from classified Intelligence signals on threats off attacks against Kikuyu residents and businesses in Kisumu, Bungoma and other Cord strongholds.
By Macharia Gaitho
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014
The recorded television statement from President Uhuru Kenyatta broadcast on Tuesday on the Sunday night raid that killed nearly 50 people in Mpeketoni township in Lamu county added an alarming political dimension to Kenya’s recent security problems.
The President was pointing the finger directly, even without mentioning names, at opposition leader Raila Odinga, who since returning from a three month visit to the United States has led a series of high-profile political rallies to press demands for a national conference on problems afflicting Kenya.
It should be logical then that the President follow-up his startling accusations with action, that naturally should include arrest of Mr Odinga and others he accuses of such horrific crimes.
Although Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku had on Monday alluded to political incitement, his statement was largely received with skepticism, as a reckless attempt to divert attention to the political opposition when Kenya is facing serious security challenges.
The President echoing his Cabinet Secretary’s assertion added authority to what is now the official position; That the Mpeketoni attack was not the work of the Somalia-based Al Shabbab terrorist as initially believed, but the Cord leadership – “reckless leaders and hate-mongers, who … create hate, intolerance and fanaticism”.
The President referred more or less directly to the Cord rallies, the last in Mombasa on the afternoon prior to the Mpeketoni attack, as forums for “frenzied political rhetoric laced with ethnic profiling of some Kenyan communities and obvious acts of incitement to lawlessness and possible violence.”
An interesting gist of the president’s statement was that the Cord rallies set out to demonise certain communities and incite other Kenyans to violence against them.
This is a clear reference to the president’s own Kikuyu community, who have borne the brunt of attacks at the Cord rallies for allegedly monopolizing key positions in the public service, and to some extent also the Kalenjin community of Deputy President William Ruto.
The suggestion, then, was that the Mpeketoni attack was not just a random action, but one targeted directly at the Kikuyu, a unique majority population in the settlement scheme established in the 1960 in the Coast region by President Jomo Kenyatta.
The reference to ethnic profiling and deliberate targeting of the Kikuyu stood out in the statements from both Present Kenyatta and Mr ole Lenku.
The interesting thing is that the allusions to an ethnic angle predate the Mpeketoni attack.
In the run-up to Mr Odinga’s much-hyped return from the US at the end of May, Jubilee social media activists went into overdrive on Twitter and Facebook in what looked like a coordinated offensive to depict the Kikuyu under attack.
Early in May, four people died when a Chania Bus Services bus that had just arrived in Mombasa was hit in a grenade attack.
Soon after in Nairobi, four more people were killed in bomb attacks on two buses plying the busy Thika Highway that links the capital city and Central Kenya.
Then in the middle of May, the busy open-air Gikomba in Nairobi famous for imported second-hand clothes was hit in a deadly bomb attack that killed about a dozen people.
That seemed to serve as a signal for the social media offensive pushing the common thread that the three attacks, Chania Bus, Thika Road and Gikomba market targeted Kikuyu interests, and therefore could not have been perpetrated by Al Shabbab terrorists who have little interests in partisan Kenyan politics.
The near unanimous conclusion from the social media deluge seemed to be that the three attacks must have been the outcome of a domestic political agenda that seeks to undermine the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.
At about the same time as the Gikomba attack, some key western nations, notably the US and Britain, upgraded their travel advisories on Kenya, cautioning their citizens of the threat of terrorist attacks and specifically warning against travel to the popular tourist resorts at the Coast.
Economic sabotage
Images of British tour companies evacuating their clients from the Coast as a result of the warning were widely broadcast internationally, giving the impression of a country under the threat of imminent attack and facing complete security breakdown.
The government, understandably, was furious, insisting that it had not been not informed of any specific threat. It took the advisories, especially the evacuations, as deliberate sabotage of the lucrative tourism industry.
An angry President Kenyatta publicly denounced the travel warning and said that the western tourists were free to go as Kenya could source tourists elsewhere.
It happened that the bad blood between Kenya and Western governments over the travel advisories came in the wake of the highly successful state visit by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
Soon enough the blogosphere was abuzz with conspiracy theories suggesting that the travel advisories amounted to deliberate ‘economic sabotage’ as western retaliation for Kenya’s growing business links with China.
The spate of financing and infrastructure development agreements sealed by President Kenyatta and Premier Li were cited as evidence that the West had reason to punish Kenya after losing out on lucrative deals it previously monopolised.
At around the same time, Cord was beating the drums for Mr Odinga’s anticipated return from the US, which was to be marked by a major rally at Uhuru Park.
Also brought into the mix was the International Criminal Court indictments of President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, which their supporters fervently believe were engineered Mr Odinga and his western patrons in an abortive bid to block the Jubilee duo from ascending to power.
The confluence of events seemed tailor-made for the Jubilee social media brigades, and soon enough the ongoing blitz made an association between Mr Odinga and his American links, the bombing allegedly targeting Kikuyu interests, and the political drive he was set to launch on return.
By the time Mr Odinga came back to star at the huge Uhuru Park rally, Twitter and Facebook were aflame as supporters of the ruling Jubilee and the opposition Cord coalitions went for each other in vitriolic attacks laced with ethnic venom and threats to violence.
Out in the respective Jubilee and Cord strongholds across the country, the situation was equally poisonous; as propaganda and hate messages driven initially on social media seemed to have spread to ordinary people in villages and townships all over.
Mr Odinga’s main message at the Uhuru Park rally was the demand for a National Dialogue on critical national problems such as security and terrorism, youth unemployment, tribalism, corruption and the economy.
He however threatened to launch as series of public rallies to take discussion to the people if the government rejected dialogue.
Jubilee supporters were not amused by what they saw as threats to launch mass action, which to many was the sort of activities that preceded the post-election violence of 2007-2008.
Intemperate language
The intemperate language employed in Uhuru Park and subsequent rallies already staged ahead of Saba Saba, July 7, angered and alarmed Jubilee supporters who interpreted some of the messages as signalling an imminent push to oust the government through mass action.
Again, links were made to Mr Odinga’s fabled penchant for demonstrations, possibly violent, and the western-sponsored ‘Arab Spring’ that ousted governments across North Africa – Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.
Not a single shred of proof was offered for the growing narrative linking Mr Odinga to terrorist attacks, an anti-Kikuyu offensive and western-backed push against the Uhuru-Ruto regime, but the Jubilee heartland eagerly lapped up the propaganda.
In parts of central Kenya and the Rift Valley, the government looked on without intervening as Jubilee Governors, MPs and other political leaders launched vicious public attacks against Mr Odinga, purporting to ban Cord rallies in their jurisdictions and even priming the youth to violently repulse any supposedly anti-government activity.
By the time the Mpeketoni attack came about, it was almost as if to confirm the prevailing narrative about a domestic anti-Kikuyu plot. President Kenyatta’s statement now takes that out of the murky realm of Jubilee social media activism and soapbox political rhetoric and elevates it to the official government position on a key national security issue.
The president warned of strong action against the politicians who are allegedly behind terrorist attacks previously attributed to Al Shabbab and supposedly planning similar acts of destabilisation.
The warnings indicate that the government cannot sit on its hands and do nothing if it indeed knows those responsible for mass murder in the Mpeketoni attack.
The prevailing view in the Jubilee government, as seen when the Senate went into a special session on Tuesday to debate the Mpeketoni attack, is that Mr Odinga is responsible for serious crimes and must be arrested and punished.
Outside statements driven by political fever, however, the question must still be asked whether the government actually has any evidence on which to act against Mr Odinga and his Cord colleagues.
It will be noted that a government notoriously slow to investigate and take action on a long catalogue of very serious crimes moved at superfast speed to point the finger at Mr Odinga even before investigators had reached Mpeketoni.
Dangerous political situation
The emerging scenario points to a dangerous political situation that could easily escalate to violence if not well managed.
Politicians seem keen to goad their supporters into freelance counter-actions, as seen with the brief blockade on Nairobi’s Ngong Road by Jubilee supporters on Monday targeting Mr Odinga, and the purported bans on Cord rallies being pronounced by Jubilee political leaders.
The speeches in the Senate on Tuesday were strong with demands from Jubilee MPs that the planned Cord rallies be banned across the country, but experience shows that banning rallies for unclear security reasons is often what leads to violence.
At the same time, government security operatives at the highest levels were keenly feeding the media with ‘leaks’ from classified Intelligence signals on threats off attacks against Kikuyu residents and businesses in Kisumu, Bungoma and other Cord strongholds.
The purported signals reported that the two towns had been ‘flooded’ with troopers from the Kenya Police paramilitary General Service Unit to deter such attacks, but checks by reporters on the ground indicated the information was false.
However the same misinformation was on social media rapidly spread by Jubilee adherents to feed the growing paranoia and state of siege.
If the Mpeketoni massacre came to fit neatly into a scenario that was already developing, Cord leaders accused of bearing responsibility might well wonder if the stunning development bears any resemblance to President Moi’s warnings in 1990 that the multi-party campaign would result in violence.
It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as his regime plotted the infamous Rift Valley ethnic clashes that were a precursor to the last bout of post-election violence that has President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto in the dock at the International Criminal Court.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com
@MachariaGaitho on Twitter
Friday, November 22, 2013
Glory of Nature....Desolation of Humanity!
All this beauty of the universe that we see about us came into being without human consultation ….
From here on the universe will never function that way again. Without the soaring birds, without the great forests, the free-flowing streams, the sight of the clouds by day, and the stars by night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human ….
The first thing to recognize in human-earth relationships is the Earth is primary and humans are derivative. Humans are for the perfection of the Earth rather than the Earth is here for the perfection of humans ….
The planet Earth or the universe is the ultimate and noblest perfection in things and everything in the universe is ultimately for the perfection of the universe. So humans give to the universe a consciousness of itself.
In fact, in a certain sense, humans are the way in which the universe creates itself, because the human can be defined as that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself in a special mode of conscious self-awareness.
So in this manner, the first thing to recognize is that humans must become integral with the Earth. This is a very new approach, to the Western world, who have been so transfixed with the glory of the human and with the rights of humans that they have missed the point as regards humans and their relationship with the Earth ….
We might summarize our present human situation by the simple statement: that … the glory of the human has become the desolation of the Earth and now the desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human.
From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually-enhancing human-Earth relationship.
Thomas Berry
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today
The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today
Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.
Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.
If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.
Everyone wants that. So what's the point?
What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.
Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence -- but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.
Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?
Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.
At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.
"Nothing good in life comes easy," we've been told that a hundred times before. The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.
People want an amazing physique. But you don't end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.
People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.
People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don't end up attracting amazing people without loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It's part of the game of love. You can't win if you don't play.
What determines your success is "What pain do you want to sustain?"
I wrote in an article last week that I've always loved the idea of being a surfer, yet I've never made consistent effort to surf regularly. Truth is: I don't enjoy the pain that comes with paddling until my arms go numb and having water shot up my nose repeatedly. It's not for me. The cost outweighs the benefit. And that's fine.
On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain.
There's a lot of self development advice out there that says, "You've just got to want it enough!"
That's only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren't being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad.
If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the six pack, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten.
If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe you don't actually want it at all.
So I ask you, "How are you willing to suffer?"
Because you have to choose something. You can't have a pain-free life. It can't all be roses and unicorns.
Choose how you are willing to suffer.
Because that's the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have the same answer.
The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?
Because that answer will actually get you somewhere. It's the question that can change your life. It's what makes me me and you you. It's what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.
So what's it going to be?
Mark Manson
Entrepreneur, author and world traveler
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Giving Birth and Spirituality
Childbearing is the ideal context within which to enrich spirituality. The purpose of this study was to generate themes regarding spirituality and religiosity among culturally diverse childbearing women….
The themes we identified in all of the reviewed data included childbirth as a time to grow closer to God, the use of religious beliefs and rituals as powerful coping mechanisms, and childbirth as a time to make religiosity more meaningful….
Several women were specific in their articulation that childbirth was a time of powerful connection to their God. For example, a Mormon woman described her birth experience in the following way:
The nurse had been so loud, like, “You can do it!”—cheering me on. And then right as she [the baby] was born, the nurse got quiet and the doctor got quiet and my husband got quiet. It felt honestly like a moment frozen, and the room was bright. It was one of those moments when the Spirit is there.
A Guatemalan mother shared a similar experience. She stated, “Giving birth I felt closer to God. I thank God for allowing me to have a baby. While the baby was in the womb, I realized how great God is”
Another Mormon woman expressed a heightened sense of holiness experienced during childbirth:
When the baby was born, I felt the Spirit of the Lord touch my heart, and I realized that this little innocent human soul came from my Heavenly Father. I felt so close to Him and thanked Him for the blessing I have of being a woman, of being able to assist in the creation of a child, and help him come from heaven to earth.
A Canadian Orthodox Jewish mother, for whom bearing a child was the highest mitzvah or good deed according to Rabbinical law, said, “You feel God’s presence most tangibly when you have gone through [childbirth]”. Similarly, according to the religion of Islam and its adherents (Muslims), life experiences prove the oneness (tawhid) of Allah, or God. The deep spirituality of women who espouse the Islamic faith make the birth experience sacred. For example, an Arabic Muslim woman expressed the sense that she was one with God during labor and birth:
During childbirth the woman is in the hands of God. Every night during my pregnancy I read from the Holy Qur’an to the child. When I was in labor I was reading a special paragraph from the Holy Qur’an about protection. The nurses were crying when they heard what I was reading. I felt like a miracle might happen—that there was something holy around me, protecting me, something beyond the ordinary, a feeling, a spirit about being part of God’s creation of a child.
A new Guatemalan mother also remarked on an almost tangible holiness:
[Giving birth] I felt closer to God. I thanked God for allowing me to have a baby. Well, I don’t say she [the baby] is mine but that He let me borrow her. While the baby was in my womb I realized how great God is. Only God watches over the children that are yet in the womb because only He could do that.
Although the sense of God’s presence and a feeling of closeness to God’s power was a reality for many women during childbirth, some of the women identified the spiritual dimensions of childbirth while not espousing a specific religious faith. While some of these women said birth was not spiritual per se, they associated their emotions with a sense of transcendence. For example, a Chinese woman said, “It really isn’t easy at all. Every mother experiences pain, but I do believe it is sacred”…
Childbirth and motherhood are ideal contexts in which to acknowledge the spiritual dimension of women’s lives. Birth narratives can provide insights into the connection between childbearing and spirituality….
The study’s results affirm … “Motherhood is a rich and widely ramified concept linked to biological birth, to culturally learned patterns of mothering and to expressions of … spiritual insights of human experience.” For many women who participated in our studies, childbirth was a sacred event.
Lynn Clark Callister and Inaam Khalaf
Friday, August 23, 2013
Enlarging our Hearts
Pope Francis travelled on Monday to the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa. He threw a wreath of flowers into the sea to remember the thousands of migrants who have died making the journey to Italy from Africa. He then met with several migrants, thanking them for their welcome. The highlight of the day was a Mass celebrated in the island’s sports stadium, which served as a reception centre for the thousands of people who fled the upheavals caused by the Arab Spring unrest in North Africa, as well as refugees from poverty and violence in other parts of Africa.
Pope Francis said he came to Lampedusa “today to pray, to make a gesture of closeness, but also to reawaken our consciences so that what happened would not be repeated.”
He began by greeting the islanders with the phrase “O’ scia’!” a word of greeting in their local dialect, and thanking them for the work they have done to provide assistance to the migrants who have found their way to Lampedusa, saying they offer “an example of solidarity.”
He also greeted Muslim migrants who are about to begin Ramadan.
“The Church is near to you in the search for a more dignified life for yourselves and for your families,” he said.
The Holy Father wore violet vestments during the Mass, calling it a “liturgy of repentance.”
“God asks each one of us: Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?,” Pope Francis said during his homily, quoting from the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. “Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility.”
“The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference,” he continued. “In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business.”…
“Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble,” said the Holy Father. “And this continues to repeat itself. Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this.”
Pope Francis then asked for forgiveness: for the “indifference towards so many brothers and sisters … for those who are pleased with themselves, who are closed in on their own well-being in a way that leads to the anaesthesia of the heart, … for those who with their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!”
Friday, August 9, 2013
It's time to start 'cleaning house' at the Vatican
Commentators, whether they be Catholic or not, have described Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil for World Youth Day as nothing less than a triumph.
But now back at the Vatican – where he has decided to spend the hot Roman summer without escaping to the hillside retreat of Castel Gandolfo as his predecessors did – the Argentine pontiff faces the real task that cardinals set before him when they elected him in the Sistine Chapel in March: reforming the Vatican, especially the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.
In some quarters of the Church, especially those who are less instinctively sympathetic to Francis' focus on mercy and poverty rather than on doctrine and orthodoxy, people are becoming impatient.
“We also wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills, and so far that hasn't been as obvious. It's a little bit of a surprise that he hasn't played his hand on that front yet,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter.
The date to look out for will come in early October, when the cardinals' commission for Curia reform he appointed one month into his papacy will meet for the first time after months of preparatory work and private audiences with Francis.
But in recent days the pontiff has already given an indication as to what his approach will be when he finally gets round to 'cleaning house' at the Vatican.
What he seems mostly adverse to is clerics who dabble too imprudently with money – not just those who try to enrich themselves or just give the impression of doing so.
On Wednesday, Francis accepted the resignation of Slovenia's top two churchmen, the archbishops of Ljubljana and Maribor.
Slovenia is a small East European country that has flourished enormously after the breakup of Yugoslavia and its entry into the European Union.
It is a traditionally Catholic country as is its larger neighbor, Croatia. But Slovenia's church has suffered from a scandal that broke in 2010: Maribor archdiocese ventured into a series of hazardous economic ventures, including investing in a national TV channel that was notorious for its porn output.
The business ran up a loss of €800 million (US$1.05 billion) and when the hole started becoming too big to fill the Holy See had to step in.
Benedict XVI ordered the resignation of the previous Archbishop of Maribor but his successor and other Church leaders in Slovenia were found during further investigations to be responsible as well.
Maybe in old times the fact that a culprit had been found out would have been deemed sufficient, and the desire not to rock the boat and confuse the flock would have prevailed. Not with Francis, it seems.
Then there is the case of Cameroon’s Simon-Victor Tonyé Bakot, Archbishop of Yaoundé, the country's capital. The Vatican, as usual, did not give specific reasons for his early resignation.
But Vatican Radio reported, in its French edition, that “according to the Cameroonian press, Monsignor Bakot had been involved in several real estate deals.”
That Francis doesn't like the pomp and the honors traditionally attached to successful careers in the Church is by now a surprise to no one.
It seems that the pope won't content himself with overturning the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank – which is involved in an all-out attempt to show its transparency efforts are genuine.
It has even set up a public website for the first time, but Francis, on the return flight from Brazil, made it clear that all options are still on the table for him, including shutting the bank down completely.
Those bishops and clerics who have secured a somewhat cushy position for themselves in past years, on the other hand, are probably feeling a bit more uncomfortable these days.
Alessandro, Speciale, Vatican City
Vatican City
Commentators, whether they be Catholic or not, have described Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil for World Youth Day as nothing less than a triumph.
But now back at the Vatican – where he has decided to spend the hot Roman summer without escaping to the hillside retreat of Castel Gandolfo as his predecessors did – the Argentine pontiff faces the real task that cardinals set before him when they elected him in the Sistine Chapel in March: reforming the Vatican, especially the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.
In some quarters of the Church, especially those who are less instinctively sympathetic to Francis' focus on mercy and poverty rather than on doctrine and orthodoxy, people are becoming impatient.
“We also wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills, and so far that hasn't been as obvious. It's a little bit of a surprise that he hasn't played his hand on that front yet,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter.
The date to look out for will come in early October, when the cardinals' commission for Curia reform he appointed one month into his papacy will meet for the first time after months of preparatory work and private audiences with Francis.
But in recent days the pontiff has already given an indication as to what his approach will be when he finally gets round to 'cleaning house' at the Vatican.
What he seems mostly adverse to is clerics who dabble too imprudently with money – not just those who try to enrich themselves or just give the impression of doing so.
On Wednesday, Francis accepted the resignation of Slovenia's top two churchmen, the archbishops of Ljubljana and Maribor.
Slovenia is a small East European country that has flourished enormously after the breakup of Yugoslavia and its entry into the European Union.
It is a traditionally Catholic country as is its larger neighbor, Croatia. But Slovenia's church has suffered from a scandal that broke in 2010: Maribor archdiocese ventured into a series of hazardous economic ventures, including investing in a national TV channel that was notorious for its porn output.
The business ran up a loss of €800 million (US$1.05 billion) and when the hole started becoming too big to fill the Holy See had to step in.
Benedict XVI ordered the resignation of the previous Archbishop of Maribor but his successor and other Church leaders in Slovenia were found during further investigations to be responsible as well.
Maybe in old times the fact that a culprit had been found out would have been deemed sufficient, and the desire not to rock the boat and confuse the flock would have prevailed. Not with Francis, it seems.
Then there is the case of Cameroon’s Simon-Victor Tonyé Bakot, Archbishop of Yaoundé, the country's capital. The Vatican, as usual, did not give specific reasons for his early resignation.
But Vatican Radio reported, in its French edition, that “according to the Cameroonian press, Monsignor Bakot had been involved in several real estate deals.”
That Francis doesn't like the pomp and the honors traditionally attached to successful careers in the Church is by now a surprise to no one.
It seems that the pope won't content himself with overturning the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank – which is involved in an all-out attempt to show its transparency efforts are genuine.
It has even set up a public website for the first time, but Francis, on the return flight from Brazil, made it clear that all options are still on the table for him, including shutting the bank down completely.
Those bishops and clerics who have secured a somewhat cushy position for themselves in past years, on the other hand, are probably feeling a bit more uncomfortable these days.
Alessandro, Speciale, Vatican City
Vatican City
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