Dear Mandela - 2010

12th January 2010

Dear Nelson Mandela,

I am writing to you to firstly thank you for having worked so hard for freedom. I always feel that I have you to hold up in many places when much of what comes from our different countries is not very good. I am a Kenyan recently moved to Oslo as a guest writer under ICORN ( International Cities of Refuge Network). I am a human rights activist and writer.

I grew up and went to school in the Rift Valley and not in Central Province where I was born in Kiambu and somehow, my identity in terms of pronunciation of words in my mother language was modified by exposure. Now I speak my mother spoken Gikuyu, English, Kiswahili, Spanish, a little Italian and French and now am learning Norsk. I studied Linguistics and I understand Latin as a root language. I long very much to learn Lingala and also Maasai and once am comfortable with Norsk these are the languages I want to learn this year.

Thank you again. When I, sometimes like today read about Mau Mau in Kenya and remember the stories my father used to tell us about his time in Manyani camp, I miss my father very much. He died in 1991 at a time when I had not analysed things enough for me to thank him for his part in the struggle which seems he passed on to me in a special way with his actions and words.

So, in this letter, I want to thank more than one hero through you. I thank my father, and so many people I have met who fought for freedom. I thank many women who suffered untold things and whose sufferings when told even by a third party leaves one shattered. I have been reading Britain’s Gulag ( the end of brutal empire in Kenya) by Caroline Elkins recently. I thank also the children of Mau Mau times. So brutally were many of them treated, dying on mothers’ back sick and without any form of relief.

The other day I watched Amandla. I thought so much about Vusifyile Mini, Thandi Modise ( the woman who got a baby in prison just before she killed herself), the children of Soweto, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and your letter to him outside prison..and the workers especially the free on Thursday nannies.. and I thought you too and this is partly why I have written. I thought about the long struggles of African people to be free. I thought how Kenya has never found the remains of Kimathi Wa Wachiuri and reburied them with dignity like South Africans did with Mini’s. I thank them for that. And I thank those who wove the struggle with song and brought it to us in Amandla. Thank you for song in the struggle South Africa. For perhaps only in her song and literature can Africa show its true brilliance to the world.. before it overtakes in other fields such as technology and on discovering the cure for many disease still incurable, Aids included.

I have been reading the memoirs of Ahmed Kathrada and see so many people of Asian origin in Africa struggle to help us weave like Gandhi did, a cloth of perhaps cobwebs which as the Ethiopians say, can tie down the marauding lions which I sometimes see as those leaders who refuse to behave like good lions.. simba and guard our homes..our countries. I therefore want with this background and a little more to ask you three questions. But before that, a little more.

When I arrived in Olso, I have been here only two months and one week, I hardly used to dream. Not even about my Mother whose last embrace as she sat on a couch in my flat which I was soon to vacate lingered on me like the 'physical' memory a mother has of the clinging of a child whom she had to abandon at a tender age to go to work or to a trip, did I dream. I still remember that feeling of something is missing from my chest, what one feels after putting a baby down particularly we in Africa who are so used to carrying babies strapped on our backs. But I did not dream of her. Instead, I regularly, when I remembered my dreams, they were of police attacking me or us in demonstrations. I do not think I dreamt out of fear as am very courageous and was often talking ot them to see why it was wrong to torture people or not to allow us to demosntrate and that it was a pity they went against us with such roughness when we were fighting for principles which if they disappear on a society- when no one is vigilant- irreparable damage is done, damage which haunts a society for generations as you well know.

Well, I had one more dream in those early days and I recorded it as I used to record my police nightmares. It was a dream which only had one word in my Mother tongue and you are the one who said it. The word is, ‘huranira’, which I would translate as ‘struggle for me’ although the root of the word, hura, mens beat..which also includes struggle as in many languages of the earth. This dream was short but so clear, I sent it to a friend. And it is this dream and the history of my mother language that has made me write to you. But still before my questions, let me share with you a little more.

I would like to write a happy letter to you. The kind of letter which you would celebrate, a letter which would leave you smiling and not recalling the pains you have had nor the pains of Africa. I always see in a bracket that a time of greater happiness for Africa was knocking at our doors when you were in prison and that we failed to seize it and keep it intact, for you and for our children, so that when you came out prison our celebrations would last. I refer to the time one breathed deeply hearing Nyerere speak, the time of Nkurumah, the time of Pan Africanism with all the names in it from Blyden to Marley and in between all those powerful people like Lumumba Patrice, Sankara, Seko Toure and our American and Latin American brothers and so on.. Azikiwe Nnamdi.. and so many others.. and yourself.

Today we also have voices we can glory in; the elders of Africa: Mandela, Koffi Annan, Graca Machel, Wangari Maathai, Desmond Tutu, Ellen Jonson and others I may not know and perhaps of some in the list we may not all agree.

Now, my three questions. Africa has disconnected itself from its ancestors as a continent.. what do we do when it is so obvious for instance that Kenya prefers to forget persons like Kimathi wa Wachiuri, Me katilili wa Menza, Somoei Arap Koitalel and then rush in to call for help when things go wrong because we have destroyed the silent place in every leader/politician that must be distilled to know that Africa cannot play around longer with issues of justice and freedom? Why should there be Africans in exile now, after your own imprisonment and the exile of many others in the past? Why so many refugees even? Why should Somali children be happy to fall and play in the snow.. if they cannot return home too to play in their little rivers and sunshine? I would not mind if they could play in both countries. Doesn't the blood of famous children such as the children of Soweto and other martyrs such as Biko and Chris Hani suffice?

Africa is so blessed. So full of resources, so full of human love.. ubuntu. .but what prevents us from spreading the power of liberation that vibrated with song from south to north and east to west?Who rules the world Mandela? Who makes DRC such a pittance to look at when it is so rich? Who makes Somalia fail when for 15 years she resisted the British attacks at Darvenish?

My other question how will we save our languages of ancestry if they are spoken by people who refuse to use even traditional democracy to help integrate us all? Why should we, women be proud of my ethnic group that first of all does not count on me and then when there is trouble am suddenly thrown into its brackets to be blamed for being this or that tribe and sometimes even killed? Yet,if I forego my mother language and links with culture, does that mean that my ancestors will abandon me? Who will help us make clear that ancestors like Shaka Zulu fought for justice for the people they belonged to as they knew them then but now will fight for all of Africa. Who is helping us define our identity in the struggle? Who can unite Africa?
Do we agree that our languages are weapons of war when they conserve so much wisdom in their proverbs? Who is stealing us?

Now, then, the last question refers to your message in the dream. Are you looking for young Africans, the other generation like Obama’s that is not showing up with enough strength in my country, to go and meet leadership at the grassroots and generate hope for a world in trouble? Are you truly saying to me and to many others, huranira.. struggle for me? I hope so. Your brave words encouraging new leadership even if few are badly needed and will always be remembered.

I urge you to stay with us Mandela. Do not go. The night and the day are both as long as the evening shadow, the sun has refused to stand still at midday so that we can show the brilliance of Africa with her skirt spread out proudly yet decently carrying her children on all her sides.. making strides. Do not go and if you must, as we all must, tell Dennis Brutus to make a team up there or down there with the ancestors because still the struggle is long. Still it has not started. Stay with us, Mandela, do not go the going of the gone. Stay in our dreams. Let me hold on to mine. And work to teach the children that all of you did not labour in vain. This then, is my message to you. I must give it in tears and in pain, but I am a word, a story and I was born to tell.

With all my affection and with my wounds open sincerely, to heal Africa, if you bless me now, because after, I may stagger with doubts. I ask for that blessing now, father of our people.

Your daughter,


Philo Ikonya

Seasons Greetings to Paul Biya and Pope Francis: Open Kondengui Prison and let out historian and writer Enoh Meyomesse!

The Nightbird told me that "Africa cannot afford brains behind bars, it sang me that Enoh is fixed! WHO will change the world of writers deprived of Freedom of Expression?

    Pope Francis and The President of Cameroon in October 2103

Enoh Meyomesse in prison for 7 years 

At first I did not believe this could happen in Cameroon a country whose civilisation I heard about many years ago.


          A place where our greetings were once long and loving, full of aaahs and eeehs and come and visit us again.

  Pope Francis loves to answer letters and he rings people, and I know now he can ring Enoh Meyomesse in prison in Cameroon because he had "Colloquial talks and has good bilateral relations with Cameroon's president, Paul Biya and his wife, Chantal Biya. http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-receives-president-of-cameroon

Thank you Reuters. Now we want Enoh and prisoners of Conscience free in Africa, all of them for Christmas!

"For I was in prison and you visited me!"


Release Enoh release, he does not belong to prison ....


I was wondering how this world is working and I looked everywhere for signs of change. I consider myself friend of all writers and I had written to Pope Francis about poets and freedom. And I asked him why he sits with dictators close and if he reminds them of certain things. Is their authority from above too?


I....I am just a poor woman who was once mesmerised by John Paul IIs poetry, life under Communism and lack of freedom. I have to say I still love the poetry he wrote and I wondered if Enoh and people who have seen prison walls in Afrika for reading and writing could stand up at the canonisation of the poet and read poetry? In Ethiopia and many places now they are calling them terrorists of the first order! Who brings sanity to this continent and the world? I am paining in the delivery, the rebirthing of Africa, anyone to help out there?


Are you mad oh? Some asked. So I, as I was myself in the snow, I looked for a neighbour as we do in Africa, A neiba of Enoh, I mean a country woman or man.


I went from city to city with a little lamp lit asking: Have you seen Enoh? Enoh Meyomesse? Do you know Enoh? Enoh Meyomesse: Historian, Writer, big brain, University, universitiiii I added as I do not speak French.


Are you pretending to be Socrates they asked?


Have you? Have you seen Enoh? I heard of his fame on my ancestors' lips, fame in a land they called Kameruni. Land, they said where both French and English are spoken. One man far, far away finally said, ' Yes we know Enoh!'


They added that my ancestors were right, that Enoh was not a push over, he kept his eye on history. I asked again, where he is and they hissed at me:


Kondengui! Kondengui! Kondengui! Kondengui! Kondengui! Prison, because he speaks like our original grandmothers in Afrika: Freely!
Prison I asked?
Prison! Prison! Prison!
This neiba told me Enoh is fixed. He told me in the snow. It cried the snow did, until it went red. Oh eh Enoh, No!

That prison of yours, I told them sounds familiar. I know Kondele in Kenya and Ngui... ngui... ngui... I will not even dare tell you the meaning of... But I should I tell you, No, I sing...

Freedom for all dear! First Lady of Cameroon, Chantal

I swear by Plato's aunt, the man should be out, we do not have enough brains to imprison inCameroon, we are already marooned. Oh Cameroon! who sings the big word there like the big chief, big word without the wind of freedom? Who sings! Qui?

Eee neee keeeh inyue?

Ask Aristotle whose uncle is not Kenyatta... he too needs to learn, I know that is East Africa. Kuuliza si ujinga. The land where our ancestors said one should not get imprisoned for a question. There they are making people pregnant with fear and death too, for asking questions? Hehhhehe? Guku ni kwau? Whose land is this? From East to West?

Now you know the man in power in Cameroon has a lovely kind wife. I dreamed that she kissed him dearly when he went to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican early this month. She told him:

"My Dear Paulo,

land is sad, Freedom of Expression is a must!

You know, you are almost named like a Pope. Paulo witu wa Afrika. Our own Afrikan Paulo. Now, Paulo I tell you, tell the Pope this new Francis to set us free in heaven for he was given key. 

Do you hear Paulo? Biya, do you hear? He was given key of heaven he tells us in this world". She was trembling as she said added:

"When we see him fall on our knees in case the locks the doors like we locked up.... and then she did not dare to tell the dream she had. Like we locked up Enoh Meyomesse, who is also president, the Nigerian neighbours heard and added Ooh... they said, 

"Enoh is also president Oh, President of The National Cameroonian Association of Writers. Who can breathe there in Cameroon as a writer oh?

To the lovely wife, Africa is tired oh! Get your sisters together for freedom oh!

Pope, our ancestors are questioning good bilateral relations with you oh, they love Meyomesse. You had colloquial talks and drinks without mentioning they languish in prison so many and you have the keys with you oh? And then you open for Paul Biya and we here on our knees oh, telling Mary Rosary on African beads oh? Make this easy prayer to Twitter oh@PONTIFEX because in days of today with Tweet all formality is going home ...getting lost. 

Nafissa Sadiki becomes Nina Simona and she gets to view a flat and some job interviews in Norway

She changed her name from Nafissa to Nina Simona and. This is DittOslo

Nightbird, when cometh the dawn? You don't know, so just sing on! Song of liberation is on. Switch on the light of the mind.

I feel like I enter into small veins and tunnels of life no matter how big the canvas. And search for light, not a flat. 

Who is there in the universe of which we say we are all children of to say some things? Is she also a child of the universe and does she have a right to be here? Where in the world can one not play free and black but just be?

And inside there, I see her seated. I imagine it is me. I imagine explaining to my children that am no longer officially called Nafissa say Sadik for a man? My friends now hesitate to call me Naf as they always have. Or Sad. My son looks angry. He is 17. He gets angrier every hour, every day.


But there is something to celebrate. I come home with a new name and more interviews each day but still no job. He gets furious. In the end he does not seem to see us. He is in a world of his own. I know I cannot excuse every crime, I am so deeply frustrated that a man should shoot people on a bus in Årendal and I cannot excuse him, for his misery. But was he looking of a different face to wear in this society? That is a question we must ask. Destruction and rage come because one wants to replace something they cannot name. Perhaps it leads to madness but that is not the point.  

It should never, ever be excused, please understand me when I say this for it was the same thing we said of Anders Breivik. But let me go back to the name thing and the loss of the self you need to be confident and to serve without fear, to belong.

I love Shakespeare but there is a lot in a name, and more than in a name as such, so much in people knowing who you are. Your identity. And that has nothing to do with what your skin looks like or name sounds like the advanced world wants to say with one mouth but then, there are contradictions.


I saw two photos of her sitting there in the local newspaper Ditt Oslo, which is also online http://dittoslo.no/and the first thing that came to mind was 'Ho! today someone of darker skin is in a long feature!' This is Norway. This is a small publication named Your Oslo. But you do not see all yours in Oslo often. And the media is the first place of the creation of that thing we call integrering http://snl.no/integrering here, Integration in English. This is not America ( by the way is one of the tunes you hear when you ring UDI that is the Immigration police here and that's funny. I wondered how an American takes that?

This is not another part of the world. It is Oslo, the capital city of Norway not Stockholm. This is not Sweden. It is Norway. Why repeat? Well, one reason is that a certain Minister for Culture and Entertaiment in Sweden found hideous cake good to cut and show how it gets cut, it was shape of woman.. that is another story if you missed it am sure this big Internet field for the world has it for you. Just tweak a little. 

So, Nafissa: She changed her name so that she could get positive replies to if she could view a flat and also get a job interview. It sounded too Muslim she said. But the paper affirmed something that the authorities of today in Norway call non-existent here. Racism. Don't talk about that. We are like stilled here. Likestilling. Social equality!

So did Nafissa remain who she was? Was she going to hit the headlines if she remained Nafissa? Some pilots hit the headlines on TV channels for changing their names too. They said that when some passengers heard soon after 9/11 words such as: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain Mohammed Nuru speaking..." Well, they did not hear the rest. I think if you change your name for the flight it is no problem but forever? To get a job? To get a house? Well some people argue it is fine. They will say to me. 

"Come on, Nafissa is clever, hun er så flink slik at...! Some Norwegians have said in this interview that this is the one thing that makes them totally ashamed to be Norwegian. Others say, well.There are many others who do it and then they get a job. Like Mr Terje Tordvel who was actually Singh Babaji who came from Stavanger to Oslo. At the aiport where his interview was, it was hard for the Norwegian man interviewing him ( it would also have been hard for me) to identify him and believe anything about him. 

Some people changed names and got the job and then they kept it only for a while because of likestilling, equality, social equality? Well, the employer will tell you that they were not up to the mark, not quality material. Likestilling tongue in cheek, a famous woman here.

Norwegians often tell the anecdote that some people remark, 'Oh, the capital of Sweden!' When they say the come from Norway. And that can't be fun. For many years precisely upto 1904 Sweden occupied Norway. 

Now one would like to say, especially if Norwegian that Norway is independent, and it is. That it is not a part of Sweden and will never be. You never know about that.  I suspect that some people in the world would more often think that Stockholm is the capital of Norway even when they live in Oslo.

Just imagine if Norway had to change her name to Sweden just to get a little more famous. Go on, let's try. Let us change all the letter heads tonight, stamps, constitution and all laws and wake up and say... hmmm, treat us like this because we are now Swedish. Extreme? Not at all. Black people were mainly colonised or slaved by Europeans and now they change their names. But she was clever.. .hahaha! Nina Simona music and background, not bad at all... but see Norway saying just call me Namibia today because I would like the world to know I can really tap sunshine from the highest mountains these days. I won't even move to the South of the Sahara, just call me Namibia and when you are tired, call me... South Africa.. Oh, no, don't, there is Jacob there and his ladder of women .. no and that thing we fought about so hard in Norway and sang it out and went to meet Mandela.. that thing, Apartheid.. racism. No, no, Oh No! Don't say that. But my angry boy was saying it so loudly last summer.

"Why do you keep us away from Norwegians in your classes?" Happens only in Oslo they say. He went on.. really so tired and sick of it.. "I did so well to learn your language, to get good marks but I cannot be with you!" Talk about welcome teenage rage. Teenagers want to, demand to belong. Say on there... go on! Teens make a different nation. 

Well, I love Oslo. I do in my own ways. But you see when there is even a Somali bus to go for food shopping in Sweden and others who drive there back and forth, well many peoples' capitals start in the stomach and for that you cannot blame me. It is so. 

I would like to say that racism is over. That is a wish. No such thing. What is also not heard enough is different approaches which this nation of Norway, by now you are confused which one am talking about surely or just maybe, needs to do a lot more. What I see is that people who talk about racism in Norway are often the ones who suffer it. 

And then, in a conference say, like one in which the Mayor of London came to hear and help Norway to deal with what they all called Multiculturalism, you begin to see that when these people speak they already show they have a chip on their shoulder. This should not be their battle. Or mine but we have to squeak when the shoe pinches because nobody else will know it does. That is folk wisdom and actually they say there is no racism here.  That is not just they but the State leaders of 2013. 

I just want to add if you are still reading that soon after Erna Solberg http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erna_Solberg and her team beat Jens Stoltenberg's. http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Stoltenberg 

That means a swing to the right, there was an ad at bus stops soon after. It was the first time almost in my life that I saw women in an ad that were not slightly nude. I don't know who they were. By the time I thought to take a photo it was gone. Two women tightly clad in a Norwegian flag and woven into one like a mermaid below. That might not have been the right way to say we are right now but freedom is here.

Racism equals the trashing of all search for equality. Don't tell stories of equality if ...
Sigrid Undset is saying in her time, there is no equality between men and women but she sympathises with all who search for it. 

But, just a thought. I have written elsewhere. Do not speak to me about the equality of women if you still entertain racism. Forget it. It cannot work and never will. Racism divides women and men to a level which makes all the fight for other rights just nonsensical. And young men dislike very much to see disempowered mothers and fathers. I cannot give you the root of radicalisation but I know it does not start too far from here. Adults, parents are people playing games with systems to survive, to make a point. Young people do the same. They want them to belong. Can they? Could they?

I am for non-violence and will never bless a radicalised person, but I will ask myself where they came especially if they are so near me. I will not ask what race they are, nor religion so fast. 

The inhumanity of impunity: Human rights belong to every race, like oxygen to life

The ogre strides continents goring out humanity. Have some drops of coffee fallen out of your cup and onto your newspaper? Wake up. Just that, the smell of the coffee is putrid. There is no aroma here...

Those who argue that just because the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was written in Europe the continent claims to always have upheld human rights and invented them are wrong. If they are Human rights, they make sense to everyone also in stories we tell in Afrika. 

The inhumanity of the ogre is a story we were told when stories were still told around a fire in the evening in my village. Stories were not only told. You sat.  You listened to them in order to tell them. You enjoyed, sang and told them again creatively. You could create your own and change them completely. Point. We could create our futures.

Stories told were sweet. You could chime in and sing. It was not a one way matter. Participation was important. Inclusivity. Stories were not sold in newspapers. 

I sat there. Heard about an ogre who changed in form. That night he was a handsome man who wanted to lead all girls to glory. I visualised this ogre. Cringed as he stepped out to dance and as he finally asked girls to escort him. And then ate them up. 

One escaped him as she hid high up in the rafts where wood was hanging to dry. Dark smoke covered her. I can create it afresh and even forget the original. See a politician luring you for votes. Creation. But suddenly King Solomon's Mines by Rider Haggard was dropped on my lap. Those old stories disappeared for a long time. The fire died down. I still blow in the embers. Did colonialism steal all creation from Afrika? But the human mind is still better than a computer. We saved some files. Free of charge. 

The story sank deep the idea that there is a big huge creature who is up to no good. One that could appear as a handsome young man at a dance. And then change into a monster when he escorted the girls home. Taking position of power. Power relations also between men and women. People have imperialist agendas.

Just like the Norwegian stories of trolls and specifically Huldra the attractive girl whose long hair could turn into a tail. The one who lured young men into a mountain and then showed her true colors after marrying them. Interesting gender dimensions there. In the cruel ogre in African stories I read- I dare not say all for Africa is full of an incredible variety of traditional stories like all other places- the inhuman ogre was male. 

You saw the secret mouth at the back of the head of the ogre. It opened only when he stepped higher and he swallowed helpless little things that are normally attracted by dirt. Flies. Eiish!

But flies and insects were not enough. In the inhumanity of the ogre! He is waiting for the birth of a baby by a lone woman in order to eat it up. Miraculously a bird, a dove is watching. Story of love in different dimensions. And off she flies to the smithy and sings to the man who is her husband and busy at work:

Oh man at the smithy
Work quickly now, work
Your wife is giving birth
and an ogre is helping her

Of course she is helpless, the ogre is just waiting to eat newborn human flesh. Today's human trafficker. Current dictators in Africa fit the role. Today's migrants getting thrown into the Mediterranean.  The impunity of inhumanity.

It shocks how we emphasize deaths in the Mediterranean all of a sudden when it has been going on for ages. Human parts have also been smuggled through the Sinai from Egypt. How that story died quickly. The asylum seekers who cross the Sahara or die there alone. Modern day slavery, total inhumanity. But the media is not always there. CNN tried. It is not there when without any boat capsizing people are tossed out of ships into the Mediterranean. 

And note that it is one of the smallest countries in the world and in Europe that is speaking. In unity of nations something is always lost? Thank you Prime Minister of Malta for saying it Mediterranean is becoming a grave, but sorry it has been so for long, they know but are silent. 

Ivincible Nubia by Philo Ikonya (Not yet published) a novel tells of bodies inside European high seas. At a time when Europe and America are already under the seas too. Only that in the graves there the people are alive and still speak. But honestly bodies washed off shores on resort islands of Europe long ago. We heard everything in Tribunal 12 in Stockholm 2012. Including how police brutally kill asylum seekers in the UK or people who have over stayed their unwelcome entry. Some of them like that girl, to see a mother she had not seen in years. She was killed. Ask Tribunal 12 for all data. 

Too much for my story here. In this story of migrants there are not even doves to send messages that a parent is choosing which child to let drown and which one to take home. What humanity is this? Did you see those caskets hanging in crane in numbers and numbered? And African elected presidents and leaders are sitting at home proclaiming how Africa is managing herself just fine. Visiting terror on voices of reason at home. I can tell you that story. Not so long time ago... I would begin.

And that Tribunal 12 meeting is not something vague.  Nurudin Farah was there. He told Europe that she is so ignorant. And he says it often. But he is invited back and nobody arrests him for speaking out. They may do whatever else but he is free. And Europe stood accused and judgment was passed that she was no longer the home of human rights. Who thinks that human rights are achieved once and for all and archived? It is a struggle every place I know including in homes.

But the world and its indifference: There is much to make you choke over your coffee as you read the newspapers as Juliette Binoche or Becca says in the reality check movie: A thousand times Goodnight produced Eirik Poppe and premiering this October 2013 in Oslo. Yes, Europe has stolen, is stealing in many ways from Africa and elsewhere. 

But today am mainly motivated to write by our own Afrika. We want to disown ourselves as humans and owners of human rights. As if we have not heard of how in Kenya, Mekatilili wa Menza for example knew her human rights and that of her nation at once. How not being able to write much, she showed people what the colonialist was coming to do in her Afrika using a mother hen who is snatched away with all her chicks as well. Can we spend some money in Afrika making our movies and recording our long defence of human rights defence? 

But my story...Of course the man at the smithy abandons his tools and runs home and saves his wife just in time. The gender that is always cast as the provider is redeemed there for he was not away wasting money or having fun but working. And he does get home. And so wonderful the message of Freedom of Expression there. It saves life. Freedom of movement. Rights: Food, security, choice all the basic freedoms and even second generation rights.

The tragedy of Africa today is that her information is spread mainly from European sources only. Not given home roots and it has them. So that it is possible to hear people telling human rights defenders they are puppets of Europe. Repeat the same argument. The missionary style.

In Afrika we have many languages that refer to humanity in their name for person. Utu, Ubuntu. And the other languages are also full of humane ways. We despise oppression like the oppression of the ogre. Someone needs to keep saying this love of humanity is ours not imported. We have our failures and they are gross but we look higher.

Journalist Philip Ochieng' whose column is a lifetime achievement in the Sunday Nation of Kenya. He needs to ask why we are so Eurocentric? We throw away our philosophies and Afrika of course has them, for rubbish. He has asked before and illustrated well what the place of Afrika is in the world. But a coffee cup and the other some things get dropped. Today I read the loss of the ownership of human rights in a sad light in Kenya. Are we doing enough?

Korea made sure all writers who visited her in the 78th PEN Congress saw and if possible took home with them a book in English titled: Overlooked Historical Records of the Three Korean Kingdoms by Samguk Yusa and translated by Kim Dal- Yong. That as many as possible went to see the roots of this nation and its struggle to become less corrupt and to instal integrity as their own value. And that was not enough. It was dramatised. 

Even being critical as we were. Many made the blunder of going to visit Nuclear Plants (Most people were unaware) but a nuclear company had supported the Congress. There was a cultural clash in reactions. But even in such cases, and us being hosted, the mantle of silence was not bearable. 

Right from among the group led by German PEN came heavy criticism and even walk outs. And many of us refused to go underground to see the real works even though we had some tea and goodies in the offices. We were first treated to a movie and that is when most of us realised where we were and German PEN led a walk out. The protest continued throughout that Congress. So the ogre and humanity. Well, has anyone really tamed the ogre of Nuclear power? Well, and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 is: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). 

"I am Malala" She said. And who are you in the world's struggles?

You bet if am around here still I will be waiting for that march and will carry my torch until the next year and relay it to my very favourite and beloved Malala. She fights another type of ogre and proves that human rights are innate. The world responded with great enthusiasm to a call for poems for Malala. Old and young from Brazil to Kenya, from Austria to Japan.
http://ttsn.penclub.at/i-am-malala/
The right to education, freedom is human. I love how candidly this 16 year- old asks "What is all this talk about East and West? We are talking about human beings..." I unashamedly hear her story as a traditional African one. Sit and listen. Watch her slay ogres and own what is human. Watch her call for the slaying of impunity. Almost from the mouth of babes? Create futures with our pens and mouths. Nobody can do that for you from the past. Now is the time.

So Ochieng' whose name means born in the light of the sun, argues today that because Europe has an atrocious record of human rights abuse- indeed that is why the Declaration of Human Rights- 1948 was written, then Euro-America should not pose as "a global apostle of democracy" And of course he is right. But is Europe even doing that or are a few people who are outspoken in her as well not in grave danger? Did the killing of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in Greece for singing against racism not signal anything just the other day? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424967/Pavlos-Fyssas-murder-Golden-Dawn-sparks-Greece-riots.html 

Oslo. plaque letter to the stars for Jewish family.

But even in the past Euro-America was writing about rights as its own mea culpa about its own. Europe is still writing letters to the stars on the streets for all the Jews whose previous habitation they can locate. Digging into her own wounds. Of course Europe went on colonising and brutalising in many forms even after 1948 and he lists the countries where this took place. 

Europe had already brutalised Africa with borders and languages and introduced hatred of our own cultures, religions and so on. But even though this was done we cannot sit there saying you did, you did, you did? What are we doing ourselves for our own? Are we reading our own books or others? How come it is always the argument from the 'West' that seems to weigh more in writings and books but not when it comes to a court of justice. I am referring to the International Criminal Court. 

No. We must be the first ones in Afrika running to build this court. That is why 34 African countries in the majority signed the Rome Statute creating the ICC. We need it. We are in the majority but we are suddenly surprised that we have many cases over at the Hague? Majority signing was not for a purpose? All that stuff about racism we cannot begin to entertain for the ICC is then pro the suffering majorities the maimed and has refused to hold as gods those who are accused. Those not used to being held accountable. And we are not saying those summoned are guilty. We are saying follow due process. The truth in as far as we can try to reach it is as necessary as oxygen, so it justice. 

I know Ochieng' advises those required before the court to humbly submit, and tells the Uhuru Kenyatta so, but he argues a court that is the only recognized as the instrument for the protection of our human rights today in the world is like aid to Africa. He says "Like "aid", the Rome Statute is one method by which the Gnomes of Zurich apply sop to our wounds so as - by silencing Nassers and Nkrumahs- to legally maintain their Third World holdings- wealth looted through vilently in colonial times (sic) for colonial looting is the taproot of all the yawning economic gaps and political hurlyburlies responsible for all of Africa's human rights problems." 
Are we that paralysed? Can Europe keep the sun from shining in Afrika? What are we doing to break this yoke?

The International Criminal Court and Africa's future, Not I Lord, Surely? It wasn't me!

Election time: The world should not butt in our business! We are so active in defending human rights. We have our own court!

When it comes to being African it seems the people who suffered post- election violence in Kenya and died or got maimed for life like the woman above - our prayer I call her- are not Africans. The International Criminal Court is trying to offend the dead Africans, to punish them. That is why it is putting on trial good people who were elected because of their great magnanimity. It included flying around and telling people that they are humble and if they won they would present themselves for hearings as bidden. It sounded like going to a party. These are now the poor, poor Africans who are being oppressed during this process.

The African Union under the chairmanship of Hailemariam Desalegn and with Dlamini-Zuma as the Chair of the Union's Commission does not need the International Court in Africa because it is offensive and unfair to the continent. So today there was a vote to pull out of the International Criminal Court. Only the best governed country in Africa Botswana did not vote in favour of this with 53% in favour of a resolution to pull out of the court.

Racism

One keeps on hearing that racism or the discrimination of Africa is what has led to politicians from Africa being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Forget tribalism or ethnic tensions. Racism is bigger isn't it? And that is what Africa is getting from Europe in the ICC. 

None other than a Human Rights Lawyer Barney Afako from Oxford University has just being saying so on BBC's Focus on Africa Program this evening. You see there are no other lawyers who understand the genesis of this issue so Focus On Africa used its best lenses, focused and got the best of the best! Oxford!

So he put it nicely. It was so tidy. Kenya as a country has been going through a very hard time because of ethnic tensions now the country needs time to develop itself politically. Develop its politics. I understand.  This Court hunts for Africans and keeps them down. Burns them maybe? Maims them? Displaces them? Kills them?

Imagine how mean this world is. It forms an International Court and then makes it a place to go and humiliate African presidents. This is such a shame and so terrible because it reminds us of how the West has always put Africans down. Down! The world is indeed not just mean, that is a light word. It is the ridden with deep seated injustice in the name of agendas of the rich versus the poor. 

On my imagination it is easier to look at the past and see strangers come to plunder our land and to sell our people, beat and kill them when they fought for freedom than to see out own people raising machetes up against each other so that some people might rule. To see ourselves killing ourselves. This is not fathomable. But who told you that kind of thing happens? Africans killing one another?

And Africa you see, is so poor. So everyone sits on her. Europe loves to crush her. America too sat on her for long with all that huge belly and enjoyed it. You see this is how and why Africa is so underdeveloped forever and ever. It was only under- developed once and for all by others because the Bible says so in the story of Egypt. 


The best way to proclaim Africa's freedom and independence, the perfect way to get everyone looking up and saying that this is a continent to be respected is to start by asking every African to donate all the blood they have and then sit and wait for the next voting round. Ask the children to sleep their hunger away. Many people can be treated for emergencies that might arise. Did I say sit and wait? I meant die waiting.

Sleep your hunger away, justice will be served in some years on an African plate!

Betraying our roots

The most interesting way to show that we have wonderful traditions that respected debate, freedom of expression and some bad ones that were used here and there is to keep only the bad ones alive. To forget that in arbitration we went for strangers to be the independent third party, respected strangers and just ones because nowadays we can tell ourselves what to do.

Oh yes! Those people who love Africa from afar are asking questions weighty, enormous questions: Why is Africa the only one that is being brought before the International Criminal Court? 

Tribalism is forgotten in Afrika. We are fair. Even the BBC knows that. We are so just. We should from now onwards in this great continent of famous and most wonderful African presidents only remember one thing: The world is racist and it hates Africa to be independent. Africa must be free!

Desmond Tutu, Botswana and Tunisia and others are saying yes we know there is racism but this Kenyan case and the ICC is not about race and how dare we use ethnic and race when it suits us for gain? We have a step by step way of showing you what really happened and why we are at the ICC but others are shouting back. No! Keep quiet you Western lover! Keep quiet! We are there because of the colour of our skins do you not know... No we are there because they do not like Africa and we love it!

Love at first sight

When it was time to vote, Tunisia abandoned. Our sister in Malawi who horned her leadership skills in Kenya is silent of late. There was a time she denied an AU meeting space in Malawi because Al Bashir of Sudan, who has a warrant of arrest by the ICC was planning to come. Now we are all in love.

In the end Everyone should look at the African Court of Human and People's Rights and just admire it. Love it!  It has been suing many powerful people who abuse human rights in Kenya, in Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda. It has been especially successful in Ethiopia where in 2005 over 75 000 people were in jail... Oh no, they were not in jail, they had opted to live on small dry islands surrounded by crocodiles that longed to swallow human flesh because these people were tired of living in Addis. They included then the founder of the Ethiopian Human Rights Network Professor Mesfin.

In fact those Ethiopians had so chosen to live like that they did not care about mobile phones and radios. Those left the city had decided to be quiet and not talk about something called Human Rights. They loved very slow Internet and speaking in whispers because they were so free. 

Now they have a new president Desalegn and he is the seat of the African Union. The whole sea of countries was at home at his for lunch today for an Extraordinary session on Africa to show that we have our own court and our own justice in Afrika. Everything is rosy. There is a bash. And... they have voted.  Only one country has opposed the move to withdraw from the ICC. Botswana. Thank goodness we can still hold on to Ubuntu. And so Viva Botswana... Abantu Abatwana! Human people even before rights. Now we have to love the African Court, the oppressive Western one is out.

And this Human Rights and Peoples Court was very old by the time people were in jail in Ethiopia. It had been formed just a year before in 2004. Heeeh it had big teeth and could bite the AU -it was no barking dog that does not bite -our favourite essay in school: "The (Oh!) AU is a barking dog that never bites." It has some big teeth some said - bigger than those of a crocodile- it knew territorial integrity and the principle of non- interference. 

Nowadays this African Court is already older and better experienced than the  International Criminal Court which was founded in 2002 with the signing of the Rome Statute. That thing was signed by 34 African leaders who were blindfolded to believe in the witchcraft of this Statute by their African legal advisors. Attorney Generals. The smiling Kenyan one for example, Amos Wako. And African nations led the pack in signing but doubted they should be prosecuted in the majority after their own countries made referrals to the ICC. Nobody is taken there by aliens. 

The ICC was meant to support existing courts but it found it could not support a crocodile such as the African Human and People's Rights court because it was bigger than Big Five add or minus the 54 Presidents.  I tell you suddenly things got elephant.. bigger than tusks... and you know nobody can help an elephant to carry its tusks. No one should be called to help even when ivory is stolen. No international trade bans should be issued. We never run out of humans, we can issue such trade bans only for animals and impress with a press conference to show who we protect our game.

In one local language they say that "An elephant is never unable to carry its own tusks" when referring to responsibility. This African Human and People's Right court was so successful because it refused to be eaten by the crocodile... so successful that for example in Kenya Human Rights Defenders (HRDs ) are worshipped. It begins with respect. When they speak people listen and say... "We are human... and they have spoken for us!" Makofi! Claps like thunder before equatorial rain fall in the forests go so loud that the President is always smiling. They are so welcome, they help the people. Whoever would dream of threatening or disappearing them in this world will be punished as soon as the trial begins. HRDs are loved. When people hear Human Rights Defenders they see just how noble their unpaid work is. 

In Africa nobody is scared of the West. Which West? Well for sure they know that some countries like Britain are deeply sorry to see the son of Kenyatta not getting all the salutes he should get in all courts national and international. To try a sitting president? It is unheard of. That is why he was promising to cooperate fully with the ICC and to bring laptops to all children. And he did bring the laptops.

And now the only missing thing and he is fixing it is to rule by Skype and without fear. Africans have really told the world off. The UN would not listen to them because they are not in the Security Council. African Union stood firm and told them off again and again. The UN. The UN is going to cry not crocodile tears but real ones. Who told them to send that European

Kofi Annan

gentleman called Kofi Annan with a team of Eminent African personalities such as: Benjamin Mkapa, Graca Machel, Kofour and to Kenya to help?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_Kenyan_crisis

The UN, it will cry real ones because sooner than later they will learn Who is Who in the World of real Africans who never loot their countries, kill or maim anybody. It is just those funny animals, those wise hares and gazelles who wanted to witness how other animals work have been too hungry to survive as witnesses of how it is to chew other humans. They are Human Rights Defenders. There is too much victimisation in the this world. 

There are no rich people in Africa. All the presidents and their families are very poor they are always dressed in rags as they have to share every morsel of food with so many poor people who do not have hands to work with because they donate their hands at election time for the votes. Oh, no I forgot, they donate their BLOOD too in every voting season. It is kept in banks. Bodies are hidden in other places when and if they are too weak after donating blood. Then the people pray. 

 Ahh, my goodness! African people are so generous. They do not like to see their people suffering ever since they realised that they sold their brothers and sisters to masters for slavery long time ago. Today they die for one another. They would rather take bullets and be cut with a machete in defence of the others. So they offer themselves in different ways for sacrifice. They learned from others to do this in silence. For their presidents and politicians especially. People can give anything for them. They love them and they sing them songs of praise. And these people never make mistakes because all authority comes from God. So the people give more than you ever thought in Africa.

They donate their fingers and even legs. Sometimes they donate their whole lives like it happened in Kenya in 2007 on 27th of December. The people started by donating their small little finger tainted with purple ink to show that they can vote early in the morning. Then they went home and donated everything else to the land. They donated many women to be raped. They donated children to be killed because they spoke funny tribal languages. They gave up their homes and shops. They offered themselves to be burnt alive and without any questions they just let it happen to them. 

At that time no politician feared anything because they own land. Power is theirs. They knew what is done in any corner of Kenya to get anything. Poor Africans they are so tribal now we have to rescue them from an animal called the ICC which has become like all the Big Five put together. No, like a python that is swallowing people whole. It is even so bad this animal that it is making those who witness it doing its work shiver. It wants to be seen and heard. But the African people who died in 2007/2008 are now gone and their bones are almost dry so why does this animal called ICC, all the big five put together want to eat them again? Heehee?

In the beginning it was about power. Tribe became useful for numbers and for showing anger and killing to hit back. Things went wrong. If you could not answer my question in my language. Well, you were sent to another world. Killed. And you know as you have heard it said 600 000 or so displaced Kenyans in such a beautiful country, a paradise is nothing. They were just sunbathing for five years and enjoying camping. They got lovely tans. Grandmothers could hear their children's love in the same tents on the grass. Heh! That was just pure fun. Camping sites galore. Britain and some American voices as well as those who want to pull massively out of the ICC wish to camp at ours. We shall get money from tourism... You see we even have the best place to view the eclipse of the moon. We are the owners of the original garden of paradise. It is in Kenya and the other part in Ethiopia and.... a bit in South Africa.  We can never go wrong! We can Zuuum together!

Two Unstoppable Syrian girls (read millions) are smart would like to be doctors and help you when you need it..

The news is that we have to be unstoppable in our search for humanity, in our love of peace and justice: Unstoppable. My favourite word. For so is every force and you are one. Counter then.

Malala returns to school after her attack by Taliban

Amidst all the pain in Syria, different points of view towards war or not war, one thing that will never change and is not changing is deaths, the constant change of peoples lives for the worse. Use of chemical weapons even if not nuclear points to a bleak place for the planet. Where is peace this so difficult thing we yearn for which often is dressed in justice?  

We have to have lines we never cross towards harm. Yet we have to undo the many borders of ignorance that have been put between us as humanity. So that someone is surprised that I know and care for Syria which is not my land. To see some women who were interviewed in Russia say that they did not know what was going on in Syria was for me almost as bad as hearing that people are dying in Syria. Where is the heart of humanity? Who stirs the news? What does this tell you about freedom of expression so depleted by hunger and power? 

Where is our education as global citizens in an era where technology is knocking even at our grandmothers' doors on all continents. I come from where I come from and it is not Syria but I know Syria. I have our own problems in my country and I have my own at home, but I want to feel Syria. I am in Europe for sometime and when I see what Europe knows or her youth want to know about Afrika and other lands, I shudder. I fear for ourselves. We can shout we are not at war with everyone and we do not want war indeed but we are human beings at 'war' as long as we are indifferent. We are at 'war' even should we think beyond Syria's borders. 

The diplomacy in Geneva, the words at the White House, the recent Russian solution for Assad are all going into history as part of these deaths and hopefully also in the saving of some people at least as this nightmare rages.

Two years ago I wrote that the sky was covered with blood in Syria. My concern was about many women and men who would not make it, children?

The World at School/Ken Bhogal

I saw a human touch yesterday amidst all these boulders of violence. I saw something and watched keenly. Two Syrian girls who are refugee in Lebanon were sat on stairs. They are working with Malala Yousafzai. http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-09-09/malala-and-gordon-brown-launch-syria-appeal/

They told the journalist interviewing them that they would like to be doctors. I could see why. Perhaps they always wanted to be doctors but for sure they have seen so many wounded around them and they are responding. They smiled with hope. They added that they wanted to be doctors so that if one day we should need them they would be able to help us. I watched other news. 

In the morning I woke up with a view of those two girls as two great songs of hope. They were more than flowers blooming with fresh news. They are what the world needs. This is a human story which is normally buried with many in their souls at difficult times. I am so proud of these two girls and the journalist who interviewed them. I feel that they spoke so much hope to the world. For really it is raining blood in Syria and here they are still carrying their beautiful dream in a world that can hardly hear. 

I am happy that they are working with Malala Yousafzai and everyone should be. This is important. They were also shown solving math problems on the board with ease. This sign for me remains deep in my heart and will last. I know that the Millennium Development Goals promised us that poverty would be done by 2015, that illiteracy would be a thing of the past, that girls would have equal chances. It was and is a noble goal but the walk is long. 

I wonder why it takes such atrocious conditions, wars and calamities for us to work with focus and determination. Why do people who have the mandate to lead nations make decisions that lead to so much suffering? Why is not their work as clear as a game with rules? What is it that steals from power the clarity that these little girls have now? What? Much is left for us to express. I  wrote this poem in July 2012.

For the love of Syria where women are giving wombs for tombs

Singing in every land

It will never be a strange land

When it is someone’s home it is mine too

You wonder where I come from this rhythmic dynamo

With drums beyond calling mourning no one fails to rise

How can we sleep when our land is fire?

Syria is not thousands of miles from home

In our palms we can see her map

In our lives her shape too

How shall it be possible that we are not dying in her?

I would my alarm wake me every hour of night

Women are giving their wombs for tombs.

I saw the same arrows hit my homeland once

Sitting on our own maps, home became exile

When a land is not free and is death trodden

Beyond the rivers of Babylon must strong song be heard.

You sing a song how you can for every home is a strange land

when violence is every padlock and every key broken

I will sing it with and without tuneful drums

In music I will dream beyond sand dunes

of horror

I will ask myself what my thoughts can do

I will answer to my own question with something I know

I have known too our nation held by a thread of life

Cobwebs of thoughtful prayer remained our all

I felt the winds dry our tears and saw dust turn into bread

When energies focus the world will makes itself anew

Who holds the Olympic of peace?

Maybe is not maybe in this unreasonable horror

Annan is not sleeping and us too make vigil

The hour of pain is shared by the chosen few

Easy to count on five fingers continents

We are going to rent the skies with our thoughts

It does not matter that no one cheers, this is not a match.

It must rain reason in Syria now, not tomorrow

Graves and broken bones also deserve peace

Justice must be written on every ruin of blood so sad

And we tell As sad on a sad day the truth

That the moon still rises and stalks the sun

No land remains parted the seas bind one and all

No land bleeds alone, blood oozes into the sea

The underworld is sighing and darkness maybe is dying

Who will return a happy dawn to Syria and Afghanistan?

My alarm clock brings no salaams

It rings Ssss for Syria and A for Afghanistan

These seas of violence must peace kiss

How for the mothers, children and even men

Can violence be sliced like daily bread?

I have seen Syria bleeding endlessly

We have voiced and called to the deaf

We sent our force of justice silently

News of relentless fighting has not ceased

Does power always equal the same?

I have set my clock to alarm me every hour

So that I remember my safety is not for granted

So that I jog our memory to the present

Sounds of bullet fire and screams and deaths

Can news be something else for a change?

Sad as Assad who nods not for the moment

Assenting to the people would have been easier

Assessing the day with clock wise move from Tunisia

They fear that we never learn what no one knows

Is knowing so unknown in faiths confessing knowledge?

The Kings´ madness: pædophile Daniel Vina (alias) and millions of other children

Mexican writer on child abuse

 "Hope has two beautiful daughters; 

their names are Anger and Courage. 

Anger at the way things are, 

and Courage to see they do not remain as they are."

St. Augustine of Hippo

We must rage if we have Courage. If we have a heart... corazon, cuore, cor, coeur, moyo we must speak in all tongues to  Juan Carlos rey, king of Spain and  King Mohammed the VI, of Morocco . To royalty everywhere.

Juan Carlos, King of Spain

Last week a horrific tragedy which Driss Ikse of Economia in an Al Jazeera interview called a 'mistake' was broadcast.  The King of Morocco had granted pardon to a pædophile. It was not the first time he was pardoning gross law breaking by a foreigner. This king and all kings need to learn that our children are our royalty and that they deserve all security. They do not speak out more and work for children and protect those who do that. Why would they have anything to do with the release of a pædophile to freedom even if for two minutes? 

This shocking case was treated quite casually by those who have access to royalty and on whose behalf they speak to us. They badly  need to hear of the daughters of Hope and try to look after them. Yes, Anger and Courage.

It was an error, a kind of typo, the kings' men and women declared.  A simple gesture or tone, maybe by the nod of the head of the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, Royal Public Relations told the world had caused the wrong impression releasing this man among 48 other Spanish prisoners and he was freed first. 

Between these two kings the news reported of how because of an insinuation, the King of Spain explained, the King of Morocco decided to release a man whose pseudonym is Daniel Vina... Mulan. He was among many others released but he was spirited out of jail as if he were a Snowden about to unleash intelligence. And then questions were raised about his name. But within royal circles, there was quick royal and diplomatic shuttling and silence.

Mohammed VI, King of Morocco

Miguel Anxo Murado a political commentator in Spain said this was `embarrassing` to the king of spain. Embarrassing? Abdication of the throne would be the only fitting gesture. Call royalty to account. Where are the angry voices of other kings? Am told royalty is never indignant? Knock on castle walls. Blare the trumpets. Let soldiers change guard and look to the children. Use new language for new exposures.

Pædophiles, and many are tourists in different parts of the world as Dorothy Rozga of Ecpat International speaking from Bangkok on an interview with Al Jazeera kept reminding us get away so easily. They buy police and other local authorities protection. They are in bed with power but they want to shred children into pieces. 

In The Demons of Eden, the power protecting child pornography  (Los demonios del Edèn, El poder que protege a la pornografia infantil) the author, Lydia Cacho from Mexico has a little girl telling the story of how she was abused. The absurd thing is that it is little girls like these who live in fear and writers such as herself. Threatened with death for telling it as it is. I have not heard any royalty sat up all night because of such things. I have seen beds they slept on preserved for many centuries instead. Where are their museums of the heart? Of valiant deeds today? When do they dress as paupers and walk our lives? Do they read what Lydia C and others write:

One time we were in his room after he had done things to me. I did not wish to go down to the kitchen and he came up for me. He carried with him a knife, one of those big kitchen knives in his hands and he told me he was going to chop me up completely, into pieces. He is a devil and I was petrified. I went down......he told me "If you obey me all will go well. You will go to school, I will buy you clothes and beautiful things but if you tell anybody that person will die. If you tell your mothershe dies. I told you even if you do not like it that this is what all fathers do with their children." And since I do not have a father...

... Yo no quise bajar a la cocina y èl subiò por mi. Traìa un cuchillo, de esos grandotes de la cocina, en la mano ye me dijo que me iba a cortar otoda, en pedacitos. Yo bajè. No queria que me cortaron en pedacitos. Èl es el diablo y me daba miedo. Me decìa "Mira, mi `jita, sit te portas bien y me obedeces todo va a estar bien, iràs a la escuela y te comprarè ropa y cosas bonitas; pero si le dices algo a alguien, esa persona se va a morir. Si le dices a tu mamà, ellas se muere. Ya te dije, esto, aunque no te guste, es lo que hacen todos los papàs con sus hijas". Y como yo no tengo papá....!

The story of Cintia is not unique painful as it is. It is multiplied by millions of instances. All we need to do is to remember the many unreported cases. The many abuses that are trashed and parents, media and others bribed to kill such reports. Intimidation is rampant by the same perpetuators. It does not shatter them to think what this means to the childrens`s lives, not to matter to them whether children survive or die. They could not care about the numbers. The many children who suffer this injustice without a glimpse of any hope. The silenced voices. 

And the perpetrators of this way are not sick. They have every word in order for to intimidate the little ones. Or just plainly to disappear them or kill them. No. What is even more disturbing is that they do not act alone. They are often backed by power. 

Moroccans stood up as daughters and sons of hope. Courage and ire, anger filled them.

"Morocco´s king has revoked his pardon of a Spanish pædophile after hundreds of people rioted in from of Parliament to protest against his decision. The pædophile, identified by the Spanish foreign ministry as 64-year-old Daniel Galvan Vina, has been serving a 30-year sentence for raping and filming at 11 children aged 4 to 15. On Friday, outraged protesters demanded the pardon be revoked and Galvan be brought back to the North African kingdom and imprisoned."

from abc.net.au

When he becomes king will he find you
 objected to this?

Perhaps we do not need royalty where there is people power? And which royalty has time for this issue? Did they all send a letter to the kings involved regardless of other differences for here it is about all children. Is it plain that the daughters of hope, Anger and Courage are not as celebrated in royal domains as Shakespeare made it seem? Except, and that is typical of ancient royalty, if and only if love is not directed to them. Yes indeed even if the topic was different nobody forgets how an angry King Lear behaved. The storm and the rage. Madness. King Lear went berserk and rolled in the mud because Gonril and Reagan would not declare their love for him as did Cordelia. When will the difference dawn? And when will one not sound foolish when they say that royalty needs to change or to disappear?

Pædophilia kings. Passports and visas. Intelligence. Prisons, castles and royalty.  Files again, broken bones and wailing mothers undoing Biblical Rachel. A blanket of sorrow covers the world. Children go missing. Others become silent shrouds of hopelessness. Kings, royalty. The King of Spain. The King of Morocco stand on guard for pædophiles
and there is not a church that rumbles...so that something can crumble and fall...  

And my anger rages here... 

For I can paddle my way

without your flotilla

without you who grants

paedophilia phallic passports

allow me to say in the crack 

of pæedophile files:

King and king are in madness

nakedness was not enough

For every child we bear

I dare your power wither

in Vina Daniel Mula

vigilante,

se marchite!