Hey, we’re Kenyan men so we don’t discuss the cost of food

Facebook is where every good argument goes to die.

There on the world’s largest social network, I have seen bigotry, ignorance, prejudice and foolishness of every kind. A fortnight ago, I stopped by my neighbourhood supermarket and found the sugar shelf empty.

“““1 Packet of sugar per person please!!!” the notice said, perhaps ironically. Nearby was  another handwritten sign: “Pembe Ugali @ Sh90: 2 packets per person please!!’ I snapped the two pictures and posted them on my Facebook page.

“Men discuss important issues, not food,” Morris Mwendia told me. “Vaa biker (wear a biker).” If you think that is ridiculous, you haven’t seen some of the other choice comments littering that post. “Quit journalism and join politics. Ujinga ya food achia wamama, fala hii (Leave the stupidity of food to women, idiot).” I’ve been a man all my life and I have never realised that men weren’t supposed to talk about food, so this blew my mind.

I kept reading for more tips on how I could  be a better Kenyan man. “Men are discussing important issues and not the price of onions etc; enda vaa kamisi (Wear a petticoat)” Kamau Mike said. No, that’s not everything because there were so many more gems in there. “Talk about men issues, not kitchen matters,” someone else advised me. And this on May 27 in the year of our Lord 2017.

I discovered that I had been doing this whole man thing all wrong. It took a bunch of silly strangers on the Internet to ram down their lopsided take on food prices to awaken me to the everyday sexism Kenyan males are so proud of.

Mercifully, redemption came in the form of another response from someone more enlightened than the testosterone-crazed buffoons on the loose there. “Reading some comments here, I realised we deserve to suffer. We deserve bad leadership,” wrote Jeane Makena. “How can people ask ‘So what?’ These leaders laugh at you as they dine aboard planes, just because of how your prejudice blinds you.”

DATED IDEAOF MANLINESS

Someone should give this lady a medal, a head of state commendation and a lifetime supply of sunny days.

These ignoramuses ignored the obvious on Facebook: May inflation hit a 58-month high of 11.48 per cent. Whether you are a Jubilee or Nasa follower, times are hard for everyone across the board. Unable to find a political or economic justification for their position, they are clutching at straws to protect the government of the day from any criticism.

In their alternate reality, their lives are without struggle because they voted for President Uhuru Kenyatta in the last election and they don’t want their delicate faux bubble to burst. They fear that even an innocuous post like mine is somehow a ploy by the Opposition to paint their precious godfathers in bad light. That people are willing to go as far as ignoring existing conditions for political loyalty is not only pathetic, but also displays the dearth of depth in our national discourse.

What is more problematic is the toxic masculinity that the food-is-a-woman’s-issue brigade exhibit. This is 2017, male chauvinism has no place in any argument, not least one about life and death matters. If you’re a man whose masculinity is based solely on what you refuse to engage with purely because of your reproductive anatomy, you’re a poor excuse of a man. If you’re a man who thinks bread and butter issues are beneath you, shame on you for your keeping misogyny alive and collectively taking us back a whole century.

These are the same neanderthals think think “umama” is an insult. Unless you were raised by savages, I don’t see how you can see any association with motherhood as offensive or demeaning. 

“The statement says that there is something wrong, inferior and sub-human about being a mother,” my friend, Kariuki Ngare, wrote on Mother’s Day. “By insulting other men using this phrase, they are not only insulting women, or mothers, or even their own mothers…they are, in essence, insulting themselves because they are the intimate product of hard labour (and labour pains) of a woman.” The joke is on you, my man.

For Kenyan men who think masculinity is all about an obsession with an English football team, drinking yourself silly or refusing to do household chores, you are a fossil in the wrong century. If your concept of manliness is based purely on what you should or should not do, how did you get this far in life without using any brain capacity?

These dated ideas of male heterosexuality do not belong in 2017 and the macho, alpha guy image is holding too many people back from free expression. Gentlemen, showing physical or emotional bonds to other men does not make you any less of man.

And you need to worry about the cost of groceries.

______

NEVER SURRENDER 

London must not allow terrorists to win

IN THE AFTERMATH of another terror attack in London on Saturday night in which at least seven people were killed and 48 injured, a most British thing happened.

A man was pictured running away from the scene at London Bridge with a pint of beer in his hand. A van had hit pedestrians on the bridge and then three men had stabbed people in the nearby Borough Market.

It was the third attack in the United Kingdom in less than three months, so people were, understandably, distraught. It is also why typical British humour helped them appreciate the uniqueness of the man with the beer.

“If beer is left behind, the terrorists win #NeverSurrender,” tweeted Blonde Badger. Some found it offensive to be making light of such a major tragedy but perspective was readily available.

“Nobody is ignoring the spilt blood but humour gives us the strength to fight for those who were hurt and killed. It’s just how we do it here,” explained Sarah Hallahan in a tweet. It is an appropriate response to a cowardly act of terror.

My friend Mariéme Jamme took me to the Borough Market in late 2015 and I fell in love with the mix of food and culture there. London must not allow the terrorists to win.

*****

MADARAKA EXPRESS 

Will SGR maintain high standards? 

ABOUT EIGHT YEARS AGO, I took a train from Nakuru to Kisumu and it remains the most unpleasant trip I have ever taken.

It was my first and last journey by train in Kenya, even though I’m an enthusiastic user of public transport in Europe and the United States. A week after the Standard Gauge Railway, aka Madaraka Express, was launched, early reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

I haven’t had a chance to be on the new track yet, but I believe all the positive feedback. The true test of the service will be how consistent it is a year from now or a decade from today.

Will it deteriorate to torn seats, smelly interiors, overcrowded coaches and a den of thieves like the Kenya Railways train I ended up on?

The Chinese might maintain the standards while they are still in charge but Kenyans have to keep them, or do even better, when they take over.