They maybe a small fringe on any society but if their views get traction with the majority then we are in trouble. How will that happen? In these times of financial and economic troubles and with discredited politics from both the right and the left, a lunatic fringe can cause a lot of damage if their extremist views hold sway with the ignorant masses.

BY ANDREA BOHNSTEDT Having just finished the last of her course work for her MBA, Dayo resurfaced with impressive amounts of energy and dragged me away from my laptop to have lunch and to solve some of the world’s problems. We swiftly dealt with country perceptions even before food arrived. It was India that had got on her nerves, or rather India’s reputation: She thought that African countries really needed to take some PR inspiration from the sub continent: All you ever see are tales of outsourcing glory and other economic success stories, but she thought the country was no less messy than most of Africa. And Africa’s reputation still isn’t anything to write home about. So better PR for Africa? I couldn’t get very hopped up about this subject: I’m generally leaning towards a position encapsulated in this internet comment: ‘You do not have a perception problem. You have a reality problem’. I.e., I don’t subscribe to the Mutua School of Thought that all problems are made up by malicious journalists, and usually find that acknowledging and then, more importantly, addressing problems may be more productive. But in the end, of course perceptions are important: It doesn’t matter much that you could probably snooze through your holiday at the coast quite happily as long as there were images of burning slums on CNN. Thankfully the mental associations between Kenya and the horrors of the post-election violence faded. They were poison for both tourism and any other business. But is Kenya back to being seen as the land of lions, elephants and jumping skinny tribal people with good beadwork? I find even this image restrictive since there is so much more going on here in business, in art, well, in life. But as long as Kenya is at least perceived as safari country, things can’t be so bad, right? Even Brand Kenya has the Maasai Mara on its homepage as a welcome. But if you’re abroad, you might get a completely different impression. It took a friend in the UK to alert me to this: Comic Relief had sent a bunch of UK celebrities to live in Kibera. This is good practice: You’re gotta do Kibera. It will help you discover the unexpected fact that even in the slums, people care about their family, look after their accommodation, earn a living. This is your spiritual reward of socially responsible tourism: The moment of recognition that Africans are, astonishingly, really 'like us’ (except ‘happy with so little’). At the last book fair in Frankfurt, my friend Agatha spotted a woman wearing a tag ‘I have worked in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum’. The last census may have found a substantially smaller population than previously assumed, but that’s what Kibera is: Africa’s poverty in a button on a jacket. For your enlightenment. So this bunch of UK celebrities were made to live in Kibera for a week. I had no clue of this, and I hadn’t really seen anyone of my focus group (read: Facebook friends/Twitter followers) talk about it either. So I had to rely on my friend for a recap of what was titled ‘Slum Survivor’ (yes, really):‘They were all given slum families to live with and were suitably horrified and appalled. Breaking the rules of the game, the comic Lenny Henry - who did a whole lot of crying on the breast of the slum dweller he was shacked up with - spent GBP800 (about KES110,000) of his own money buying the chap a new shack which didn't have an open sewer running through the kids bedroom.’ Nice, no? My friend continued: ‘It was all pretty stereotypical stuff, with the celebrities serving the traditional role of deus ex machina and the role or helpfulness of aid never questioned. Nor did the programme-makers appear to touch on the fact that Kenya has a functioning government whose job is, notionally, to take on problems like Kibera. And a middle and upper class that happily ignores the Kibera on its doorstep and whose members would never dream of slumming it for so much as a week.’ I don’t know about the functioning government – right now it seems mostly busy blackmailing everyone and their pet fish into getting a handful ‘our sons’ out of their mass-murder court case because the timing would be ‘inconvenient’ for their political careers (this matters how?) and because it would ‘endanger stability’ (well, if you know that, do something already!). But it comes back to the discussion that Dayo and I had: If you sit in the UK and you’re wondering whether you should outsource some of your business to India or Kenya, then images of shacks with an open sewer in the kids’ bedroom won’t help Kenya’s case – and it’s certainly not a true representation of Kenya. But it’s undoubtedly there: ‘A pig shouldn't have to live in the conditions that half of Nairobi lives in’, my friend said. ‘Kenya isn't associated abroad with lions and elephants any more. Kibera has become as iconic as the leaping maasai warrior used to be.’ http://www.the-star.co.ke/business/andrea-bohnstedt/17935-kibera-slum-is-now-the-face-of-kenya-abroad-

Oday, that wasn't funny, these neo-Nazis are demonising us.

Women should use these when they go to the market to get groceries.

Dame Edna can't hate on this flag, it's her baby!!

Instead of plastic bags we should use these brown bags.

^^Thanks Mark for the Video, I didn't have time to watch it last time you posted in my other thread. That was inspiring, we should use brown bag like we used to.

Xaaji, I didn't give a pledge of allegiance to your Amir, so when the CIA come for you, they will be justified. Especially now you know where he is hiding.

Lol, so stop calling him, Amir Godane, you're giving the game away yourself.

Xaaji, I knew it was your idea! Funny advice nevertheless.

AFP , Saturday 9 Jun 2012 Somalia's Al-Qaeda-allied Shebab rebels Saturday mocked a US offer of up to $33 million for tip-offs enabling the arrest of its top leaders, saying they would give 10 camels to anyone who helped locate Barack Obama. The highest price put up by the US State Department on Thursday was for Shebab chief Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed -- more commonly known as Godane or Abu Zubayr -- with a $7 million bounty for information on where he is hiding. "I can assure you that these kind of things will never dissuade us from continuing the holy war against them," said another senior Shebab leader, Fuad Mohamed Khalaf, or "Shongole", in a message carried on several websites. "There is nothing new in the fact that infidels pay to have Muslim leaders killed. They already did that by offering camels for the head of Prophet Mohammed, and the dollar is the camel of today," he said. He was referring to an offer of 100 camels made for Prophet Mohammed when he was fleeing Mecca for Medina, according to the Koran. Khalaf added: "Whoever informs the mujahideen fighters of the place where Obama can be found will get 10 camels and for (US Secretary of State Hillary) Clinton, we will offer 10 roosters and 10 hens." The State Department said in a statement announcing the bounty for seven Shebab leaders that "the group is responsible for the killing of thousands of Somali civilians, Somali peace activists, international aid workers, journalists and African Union peacekeepers". The Shebab still control large parts of southern Somalia, but African Union troops, government forces and Ethiopian soldiers have clawed back several key bases from the insurgents in recent months.

^ I agree.

Lol, Aadan Jugle is the type who will fight his own shadow just for the sake of it.

MashaAllah, I hope they keep the good work and make you a proud dad in your old age.

No nation got rich through aid. Africa has 60% of world's arable land...it probably cultivates less than 10% of it. Africa shouldn't be starving, it should be feeding the world.

^^ com'on, how many Somalis have 26 kids, this type of anecdotal evidence means nothing. I have plenty of aunts in their 30's who haven't married, I can't use them as proof because they don't have children.

^^ No, they haven't changed their names, what you're mentioning is Kunya.....example a mother who is called Saida but has a first child Hanni, would prefer to be called Umm Hanni instead, [Mother of Hanni]...for respect reason. Abu Bakar, means the father of Bakar. [ I actually don't know his first name]

845

785.5 m

Burahadeer, the Daadab camp is there because of war and insecurity, once things settle, they can go back to all those empty towns in Bay, Bakool, The two Jubbas, Shebelle Provinces....etc. In the meantime lets show compassion to those brave mothers and kids.

^

Mario B;839989 wrote: That is still low population considering that total area [ 500,000 square miles] covers the areas of NFD, Somali region of Ethiopia and Somalia.[ the 2 Somalilands]. Our regions are one of the least populated in the World, comparing them to India and China is just a fallacy. Bless, as my above quote, we have no population issue!

burahadeer;840006 wrote: We can even farm more than 80% of the country using rigs but the question is how to stabilize family planning til we reach that point.It's ok to have as many children as you want so long you can afford but fact is you see starving women with dozen kids on evening news. Those children and women are starving because of our man made wars and famines. As I said previoulsy, if you want to cut population growth, all you need to do is educate women, improve antenatal care and post-natal care and watch the population growth plumment. P.s I our women are our heroes, not only have they suffered the most from our ****** wars, but they have also gotten pregnant in a poor country- a risk in itself.

faarah22;840001 wrote: soomaalida kuwooda educated ah xitaa waa iska badow wali. i leave in kenya and even the lowest kikuyu knows it's unsustainable to have more than 2-3 kid. Stop comparing apples and oranges, Kenya has 4 times the population of Somalia. Maybe with education and urbanisation they can reach the equillibrium of replacement levels. As I said previously most our kids die before they reach the age of 5 and if they pass that milestone then wont live to see 50. Its the poor infant mortality rate that is forcing our women to have a lot of children...solve the issue with better antenatal care and post-natal care and you will see women having no more than 3 kids.