A GLIMPSE AT NEO-LIBERALISM AND ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT IN KENYA:why banks were against the capping of the interest rates by law in Kenya

Photo Courtesy of TheSpotlighNews.net

Recently,the President assented to the bill that entrenches into the law the capping of interests charged by the banks on loans and deposits at a rate not higher than 4% above the CBK's Benchmark rates.

This comes after other legislative attempts to liberate the exploited Kenyans from rogue banks which inhumanely have been charging exorbitant rates failed-twice.One of the overriding arguments from the banking sector and economic pundits has been that Kenya is a liberalized market economy and state interference in the hitherto well-established and mega-profit generating financial sector will be counterproductive in so far as economic gains which have been made in Kenya is concerned.

Economic gains.They said.

That seemed a valid counterargument to those of the proponents of the capping law till you looked at the impoverished social and economic state of the masses vis-a-vis the fat waist and cheeks of the banks and you realized that the banks and the so-called economists have been talking as if they live on Mars and not Kenya.

With interest rates banks have been charging being  as high as 24% in most banks and higher than this in other few,have only ensured that they make illicit profits at the expense of the ordinary people they have impoverished and rendered their helpless financial slaves yet every year we have celebrated Madaraka Day as if we are really free; amidst the glaring immoral inequalities in our so-called "liberalized" economy.

Recently ,Equity Bank announced its 10.1 billion net profit for just half of its financial year ended June 2016. 10.1BILLION!In just half a year!And we are supposed to applaud.Admire.Celebrate and condemn those that can't claim same fete.This is supposed to be efficiency and excellence at their best.But at whose expense?How does this translate to social and economic growth of this sector of the world called Kenya?You ask these questions and you realize we have been fooled.It is arrested development in a system where daylight robbery,neo-slavery,down-trodding of the people through exploitative monopolistic mechanisms have been accepted in the society that we don't realize anything is wrong with our space at all.

This has been NEO-LIBERALISM at work.

Through capitalism and the grave influence of international organizations such as IMF,WTO and World Bank which we have never been independent of as far as our need for partners in our development agenda is concerned,we have embraced them and their hard-to-notice neo-liberalism so much that it is a way of life in our new capitalist nation that is silently arresting our development through perpetual poverty,wide gaps between the rich and the poor,lack of state urgency in creation of jobs,dysfunctional education,health and security systems,corruption and glorification of the rich and wealth without questioning the origin of such wealth,exhibitionism by the rich,rampant individualism at the expense of working for the nation's well being,inefficiencies in public service...

According George Mobiot of The Gurdain newspaper,Neo-liberalism as coined by its proponents Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises in 1938 is an ideology that sees competition as the defining principle of human relations;where merit is rewarded and inefficiency punished.

"In its philosophy of competition those who win are the achievers-captains of industry-Forbes top 100 or something of that sort, but those who fail are "defined or self defined as losers",Third World economies-

The  freedom that neo-liberalism offers,the same that bankers in Kenyan wanted, " is freedom for the pike,not the minnows".As Mobiot further puts it, " Freedom from regulations...means freedom to charge iniquitous rates of interest"-at the expense of economic emancipation and empowerment of the Kenyan people our banks are legally and morally obligated to do.

So when the bankers went out of their way to pile pressure on the president not to sign the bill into law and came up with frivolous goodies to hoodwink Kenyans into supporting their position,it was the dark demon of paranormal neo-liberal competition and social and economic inequities doing what it does best-protecting its new world order of neo-liberalism that is choking the world by the rise of dichotomized arena of  the few  super-rich individuals,companies or corporations and nations who are admired and celebrated by the world and the poor and condemned who are told to blame themselves for their inability to be creative,aggressive, assertive and individualistic enough to be where the lucky few are.

Just as Naomi Klein in her book "The Shock Doctrine" states that neo-liberalism theorists advocated use of crises to impose unpopular policies" the pissed-off banks have been quick to prophesy that the signed amendment to the banking law will have dire consequences including locking out SMES and high risk Kenyans from accessing loans.This tells you  Crises Phase in Kenya's Financial sector is about to begin with the consequent decline in economic growth because bankers warned us of our reckless desire and demands.

So,here we are:the state at war with neo-liberalism.Will the state's bold move on neo-liberalism save us from the dark pit  of arrested  development? How much more do we need to do to liberate our existence from the yoke of this limiting ideology? At what point should we entertain neo-liberalism? What measures do we need to ensure this philosophy is applicable within checks?

I AM NOT A POET, NOT EVEN A WRITER

Have you ever wondered how life happens to us?How our failure to consistently abide by our prior plans for our lives ridiculously change everything?Complicate things?You glance over your past and consider the winding path you have come and you wonder if that has been really you.Countless decisions made along the way; some in haste,some well considered and others thought well considered till you really realize the fact basis wasn't right.Yet you are here.With consequences to live and tonnes of more decisions to make.It is life.

So,at some point I went to college.Well that is good.I studied English and Literature.Mmmh.OK.And then I wrote a poetry book.OK.Purple Bloom for that matter.Yees.

It has been...10years?Yeah,ten years of painstakingly learning to do what,if you were to ask me,I have had no business teaching my self to do best.I could have been a scientist-whichever discipline of science my head could have taken me to,an architect,a painter,an artist,a banker-These were my desires-but not writing.It has been a long tiring journey of learning to realize a thing that I can't explain why I so badly needed to be done but which impulsively and calculatively I have felt over the years must be done instead of the easy obvious choices I could have taken to just like fish takes to water.

So,have I been a victim of my own changed flow of life?Yes.One day in 2014, I woke up and I felt for once I needed to do something crazy.I needed to publish a book-hitherto not part of the script.The feeling was right.The holy spirit was at work-I think so.I went to the custodian of my paltry wealth and demanded to be given a good portion of what is mine; a portion of what I am supposed to live on, to publish a book.It didn't matter what I was going to survive on.No.Whether the book would sell-who cared?The moment was right.The feeling good.I was going to push 8years of writing to the edge of precipice.And it was done.It was so fulfilling.

The fact that I studied Literature and English didn't warrant the bold step out of a comfort zone to spend ones fortune on publishing a bunch of words in verse for reasons so twisted when sure investments opportunities were available.No,there are other flimsy reasons.It is the burden of the calling.

I don't think of myself as a poet.Or a writer.No. 'Am a man of few useful talents.I am still looking for my what my real talent is.I am just that guy who occasionally is visited by "lofty" ideas that in their powerful spell  make me do one of those few things I know just a little how to do-write.

When I did my book,it wasn't 'cause I am a good writer.Real writers know themselves.I know of many  writers out there.Very good writers.Very good Poets.And I bet you know them too.

For me,when under the control of the spell of strange muse I can't shake off,I write.Call it "juogi" .Ask Adipo Sidang,he will enlighten you about how this thing works.

I labour with words because it is my calling,not because I am good.No.I write,not thinking of money,because prior to today, I didn't have that money; many people have been here before me and some had lots of money yet some never had it yet they have all lived-the wheels of life never stopped turning because of such disparities-some happy,some sad-then they went on to death,each leaving their tales that defined what people thought of what their being here changed or meant.

I Write poems because that is who I am.It is what I must do.Bacause no matter how less poignant what I create is,how less aesthetic,less mature or very creative,well thought of...it matters not.What comes to me that has to be said must be said because it is one of the many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of the tale of our existence that I must provide to help complete the whole tale of what and who we are.

And so writing I must.Publishing I must.The calling has been,is and will always be right.The feeling is just awesome.

Ratatouille:Lessons for me

Movie poster for Ratatouille

Great stories are always woven in creative ways that sucks you into their fabric that you become every element of the stories lives.To deliver memorable moral lessons means breaking rules; venturing beyond the confines of the normal in order to deliver artistic masterpieces that conquers the imagination of the audiences who live cherishing an artistic piece for its many subtleties, the ferocity of its portrayals  and its lasting impact on those that consume its offers.

I love cartoons and animation movies.I love "Tom and Jerry". It isn't it just hilarious?Its ingenious way of characterizing relationships in the society is may make you lose yourself in laughter but its many lessons are always well served; always sticking out in the mind as if you were the very characters in the cartoon.It is awesome.When you look beyond what many would consider a thing for entertaining kids,there before us is the work of the greatest artistic mind that will ever walk this earth.Then there is The "Ice Age" Franchise.Samurai Jack.Detective Bogey...The list is endless.

I got a chance to indulge in such easy-to- condemn peculiarities by watching  the Jan Pinkava and Brad Bird's 2007 Walt Dysney and Pixar Animation Studio's computer animated  French-based cooking comedy "Ratatouille" and found the story really inspiring and entertaining but above all, the witty attack on the whole enterprise of CRITICISM.

Anyone that has ever created anything or ventured to do anything no one has ever done knows  the wrath of critics.The world can be unforgiving and many dreams and talents that would have been a wonder have been crushed to pieces beyond redemption by the vile and lethargic venom of the critics.Those that have survived to be something are the thick-skinned- big-hearted men and women who have refused to give in to the darkness that  critics vomit from their cowardly righteous sanctuaries.

Ratatouille gently and forgivingly turns the spotlight on the critics' hideous sanctuary of righteousness and know-it-all foul airs,educated them,but forgiven them.Yet "Ratattouille" is just an animation with the protagonist being a RAT!

This animation challenges the norm that greatness is a preserve of the few; the already established and known names.Chef Gusteau's,the celebrity chef in the fictional Paris, is destroyed by the work of the hard- to-please and sadistic fat-egoed critic,Ego,who discredits his work when he ventures beyond the normal to create new recipes for dishes that no had thought about before.His desire to create new becomes his doom because the critics don't see the good,the possible and the exciting in what he is trying to do.Gusteau believes that "any one can cook" which essentially translates to "any one can be what they want to be.There are no limits.You just need to want what you want to be and then become it.The limit is yourself."It's this ideology of possibilities and space for all that want to explore that inspires Remy,a rat,to break from the bondage of just being a rat and doing what rats are supposed to do-stealing food from humans-to do what no rat had ever thought of doing:becoming a super-chef,which he accomplishes against all odds and disapproval from his friends,family and the humans.

When Ego,the critic who crushed the old famous chef Gusteau  and his popular eating house hears that there is a new super-chef in town who has taken the dead one's place and that the hotel is back in business,he instinctively thinks of nothing other tearing it down again with his pen as he did previously.But he gets a rude shock.The super-chef,a rat,does him his favourite meal that only his mama used to prepare him when he was a little boy.He discovers that people,however new they might be new on the scene,can always surprise you in ways you can't imagine. He is forced to re-examine his principles.He confesses thus:

"In many ways,the work of a critic is easy.We risk very little,yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgment.We thrive on negative criticism,which is fun to write and to read.

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaning than our criticism designating it so.But there are times when a critic truly risks something and that is in the discovery and defense of the new.The WORLD is often UNKIND to NEW TALENT, NEW CREATIONS.The NEW need FRIENDS.

Last night,I experienced something new,an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source.To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement.They have rocked me to my core.In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto,"Anyone can cook".But I realize only now do I truly understand what he meant.

Not EVERYONE can become a GREAT ARTIST,but a great artist CAN COME from ANYWHERE.

It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's,who is, in this critic's opinion,nothing less than the finest chef in France.I will be returning to Gusteau's soon,hungry for more.The happiest of my life.But the ONLY THING PREDICTABLE about LIFE is its UNPREDICTABILITY."

For further reading,follow the links:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_(film)
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a2/ratatouille-script-transcript.html